A U G U S T R A D IO MESSAGE
by Dr. John Hunter, Torchbearers> Fellowship, England
I T i s A JO Y and privilege to be working with our friends at Biola for this series of messages. It is our prayer that these discussions will honor the Lord Jesus Christ and up lift His precious Word. Infrequently do we think of the Lord Jesus as singing. While we know He taught, healed, and did ma ny wonderful things, we seldom con sider this aspect of His ministry. The Saviour throughout His life oft en taught from the Psalms. An ex ample of this is Luke 20:41. It has always blessed my heart to read that at the Last Supper the Lord and His disciples sang a hymn before they went out (Matt. 26:30). In Christ’s last hours on the cross He quoted from the 22nd Psalm. Going back even further, as a Jewish boy, Christ was brought up with the Psalms. Then, when the Lord ap peared before the disciples after the resurrection, before He ascended to Heaven, He Reminded them that He was the fulfillment of that which had been prophesied in “the law of Moses, and in the prophets and in the Psalms.” It is further interesting to note that just before this, while on the Emmaus road, He spoke to the dis ciples. As they traveled along, He
comforted them in the same man ner (v. 27). By His own testimony, we find the Lord Jesus Christ in the Psalms. The Saviour, however, was not the only one in the New Testament era who referred to the Psalms. In Acts we see that both Peter and Paul preached from the Psalms (Acts 1: 20, 13:32). In I Cor. 14:26, Paul says, “Every one of you has a Psalm”. In the worship of the early church, Psalms played a very significant role in the ministry. Eph. 5:19 admonishes us, “Speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs.” Col. 3:16 further enjoins, “Teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs.” The Christians were directed to speak to one another from the book of Psalms. It is so seldom that we hear messages on the Psalms. I feel God’s people are missing special blessings thereby. While we may be familiar with a few of them, such as the 23rd, there is a veritable spir itual gold mine throughout the en tire book. In Jas. 5:13 we are asked, “Is any merry? Let him sing Psalms”. The purpose of this precious portion is not only for music but more speci- 3
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