The Hymn Book--“Banished and Vanished”-part 5

The Hymn Book--“Banished and Vanished”-part 5

          Another type of music found in the forgotten, misunderstood, unappreciated, book that has been jettisoned is Psalms set to music.  Surely, I do not have to rant and rave about why Christians should sing psalms.  1Chronicles 16:9 tells us very clearly, “Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works.”  Psalm 105:2 repeats the admonition, “Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him: talk ye of all his wondrous works.”  Some hymn books do not have very many psalm settings or songs paraphrased from the Sepher Tehillim i.e. the Book of Psalms or more accurately the Scroll of Praises, but that is no reason to send all hymn books to the city dump.  If your church does not have a good hymn book get a new one!  Get a better one.  If your church does not have the money to purchase a better hymn book, I am sure that one of the thousands of churches who have carefully placed their collection of hymnals in the janitor’s closet will be more than willing to clean out that much needed space.  It amazes me that we are smart enough to go to the moon, but the lack of a good hymnal has stymied us completely.  It has caused us to not sing any songs that are time honored and has caused a dreadful musical anemia as a result of our incomplete and impoverished musical diet.

            God has commanded His people to sing unto Him and even more specifically He has commanded us to sing psalms unto Him.  We read this command in the Holy Writ and yet we fail to sing even one solitary psalm in an entire church year.  I am sure if God has a sense of humor we must tickle Him at times.  We cry and we beg God to presence Himself in our time of singing unto Him in the context of Sunday morning worship, but we are too dense mentally to understand that it might help if we would do what He tells us to do when we music unto Him.  I want to make it very clear that I am not in favor of only singing psalms in worship, but one or two now and then will shake things up musically, will doubtlessly please God; and will possibly get us out of a horrible rut musically.  Singing psalms will also add a new dimension to our musical praise and will teach us more about God, who He is and what He has done for those who have loved and served him over the centuries since He created mankind.