IT C tS W M M ty
by Dr. Vance Havner I J J i-033- H ^ y - M I J*l J
T h e p s a l m is t declared: “ Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage” (Ps. 119:54). Christians are strangers and pilgrims, exiles and aliens, passing the time of their sojourning in an unfriendly world. Matthew Henry said, “ This world is our passage and not our portion.” This world is not our rest. We have here no continuing city. This is the house of our pil grimage. While we make our way through these lowlands we have a song. Some saints do more sighing than singing, but God has put a new song in our mouths and we ought to speak in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord. SONGS IN THE HEART What is our song? The Psalmist said, “ Thy statutes have been my songs.” God’s Word was his song. He did not just memorize it or quote it, he sang it. We do not ordinarily associate statutes with songs but God’s lawbook is a songbook. His mandates are melodies, both words and music, both theology and doxology, duty and delight. The tragedy in the church today is that so often we try to have the music without the words or the words without the music, the songs without the statutes or the statutes without the songs. When the Prodigal Son re turned home there was music and dancing, which speaks of joy over one sinner that repents. There is music and dancing in the church today but not much of that kind. We are trying to produce an equiv alent of Christian joy, the effect without the cause, spirit ual delight not based on Scriptural doctrine. Some of the music and dancing emanates from church recreational buildings where millions are spent trying to make Chris tians happy. More than one church-related educational institution has been described as a football stadium with a university built on the side. By the same rule, many a church has become a playhouse with a prayer-house built on the side. One thing is certain: such a combination will never be a powerhouse! If we had less of the music and dancing we have now we might have more of the kind the Elder Brother heard when the Prodigal came home. THE JOY OF THE LORD The joy of the Lord is not mere natural enthusiasm such as any cheerleader can whip up before a ball game, a stirring of animal spirits under religious auspices. Have you listened to a frantic song leader doing a St. Vitus in
evangelistic epilepsy, leading the congregation while they sing “ There is Power in the Blood” with four “ powers,” then eight, then sixteen, until it sounds like four Wild West TV shows going at the same time? Surely that was not the kind the Psalmist was doing in the house of his pilgrimage! Nor was it one of the religious jingles you hear on radio when at the end of a program of tom-tom beating they throw in an imitation of a hymn that would slap God on the back and make the Almighty just the Big Buddy Upstairs. Away with such cheap familarity with the Eternal as though unwashed pagans could be chummy with the great I AM! “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn d e c e it fu lly ,” (Psalm 24:3, 4). When the men of the Bible came into his Presence, they came in deepest awe and profound humility. Isaiah cried, “Woe is me!” Habakkuk said that his body trembled and rottenness entered his bones. Job ab horred himself and repented in dust and ashes. Daniel found that his comeliness was turned to corruption. John fell at his feet as one dead. We come to him by the blood of his Son and there is no place for frivolous approach by which unrepentant sinners can jauntily saunter and swagger into the courts of God. God has no favorites but he does have intimates. Reverent intimacy, however, is a far cry from the coarse familiarity of a generation that is pure in its own eyes but not washed from its filthiness. You cannot have the song of communion without the statute of conversion. LIFE’S DISCORDS In Psalm 137 God’s people are pictured as captives in Babylon, exiles in a foreign land. Their conquerors taunt ingly asked, “ Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” The Psalmist replies: “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” Some Christians cannot sing in the house of their pil grimage because they have disobeyed the statutes of the Lord. Captured by the devil, enslaved by the flesh, they are exiles from the promised land of a victorious life, liv ing in the Babylon of this age. A girl who insisted that she could give a Christian testimony at a dance said to her partner as they swayed across the floor, “ I am a Christian.” He stopped abruptly and with an oath demanded, “Then what are you doing
THE KING 'S BUSINESS
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