All right, here we go. Okay, so what I'd like to do first is we're going to be studying exclusive psalmody this week and then acapella singing next week. And what I'd like to do is sing Psalm 105 with you, verses one to seven. Or actually, let's just sing through verse five for sake of time. But what I want to highlight, I'm going to take my hat off here. Only men need to do that. I didn't want to make you ladies think you need to. Verses 1 to 5, we're going to sing, and what I want to highlight is verse 2. Notice that it says, sing psalms. Sing psalms to the Lord. Okay? Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Verse 1 to 5, note especially verse 2. Give thanks to God, call on His name, to men His deeds make known. Sing ye to Him, sing psalms proclaim, His wondrous works each one. See that ye in his holy name to glory do accord, and let the hearts of everyone rejoice that seeks the Lord. The Lord Almighty and His strength with steadfast heart seek ye. His blessed hand, His gracious face seek ye continually. Think on the works that he hath done, which admiration breed. His wonders and the judgments all, which from his mouth proceed. So we just sang Psalm 105 verses 1 to 5, verse 2, said to sing psalms unto the Lord. And we're going to look at Ephesians 5, 19 tonight, and that'll be one of our main reference scriptures. Tonight we are having a two-week study, as you know. I appreciate your patience as we had to postpone for a few weeks. This is a supplemental study to our chapter in the Confession on Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day. We're going to explain why do we only sing Psalms and why do we sing Psalms without musical accompaniment. And as I'll go through and remind you, This is nothing new and it used to be everybody, but because that's not the case now, we want to explain what is distinctive for us that didn't used to be distinctive for the church. But because it is now, we want to give a little extra attention to that. I will say we never have anybody really complaining about singing Psalms a cappella. That's not the reason people usually move on. It never really seems to be much of an issue. But I think because it is a minority practice now in the churches, I want to give a little extra attention to it for this study since we're recording it and making it available for others. So Ephesians 5.19, we sang Psalm 105.2, which reflects 1 Chronicles 16.9. 1 Chronicles 16.9 also says to sing psalms to the Lord. Psalm 105.2 is another place, but what I want to see in the New Testament is Ephesians 5.19. speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and in spiritual, sorry I lost my place there, speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. So the first section of this verse will be primarily what we look at this week, Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. We're gonna look at, he's just talking about the Psalter of the Old Testament, God's worship book that he wrote for himself, okay? I'll bear that out. Next week we'll talk about the second part where it says, making melody in your heart to the Lord. We're going to look at that and what it really means in the Greek. And we're going to look at it related to topology and a lot of things that are fulfilled in Christ and the Holy Spirit. And we'll look at that related to singing without instruments and worship, which is what acapella means. Singing like the church, like the church. Okay. So Ephesians 5.19 is a reference point. I'm going to move my Bible just to have a little space here. I may need to go back for it. Also, let me give you a quick heads up. I may do one more supplemental study on tithing, which I know I'm preaching to the choir, so to speak, and we've preached a lot on tithing through the years as it's come up in the scriptures. But we did have someone years ago considering here from a different country. that they met with us when they were here, and it's one of those things where, you know, it's the same person we were talking to before, what happened? But anyways, really, really aggressive against the idea of tithing, so we put together a little bit of an extra study that's on our website to demonstrate the truth of tithing in the New Testament. But I did have two required readings on that topic. I might decide to just go through our particular paper on it that wasn't assigned for one more kind of supplemental. I put it around worship because usually that's something that's done around the worship service, even if in our case it's in the boxes on the walls, we don't pass a plate. So just a heads up, I'm thinking about it. I might do that next week. It wouldn't require a lot of extra preparation. I'd go through our lesson on that. Okay, so I've given you a new handout because I had a slight update, just something I had read that I wanted to include in the notes. So this is something on our website if you ever want to point people to it, but it's called A Brief Explanation of Exclusive Psalmody Acapella Worship. And I'm going to skip over a few things because this is an expanded thing from what I taught to you when I went through chapter 21, I believe it was, on religious worship in the Sabbath day. But I do want to review a little bit of it because I think it's helpful to set up our study. Notice I have a little bit of a italicized disclaimer at the top of the page here. This document is not a polished or formatted work and simply reflects notes from an original lecture series for the church during Sabbath class. It is still mainly an outline form for you to use to study. You will need to look up most of the scriptures, for instance. It is meant to serve as a simpler study, collecting from much of what is provided on our website for free. Longer, detailed articles and lectures." So, for instance, that's what I want you to know. This is trying to bring a lot of the main stuff in one place, but we have, like anything that we try to stand for for doctrine and practice on our website, if you go to the About section of our website, you scroll down to the bottom of the drop-down list, there's something that says Doctrine and Practice, and then it splits the two options. what we're to believe of God, and then duty required by God, which is reflecting the larger catechism, the main thing scriptures teach us. And then each of those sections, there's just a boatload of articles and sermons and videos linked about a lot of different things. Some of it's our resources, most of it is other people's resources. So I didn't try to write a whole article on Psalmody Agapella, because that's been done, and it's been done very well. But I'm going to bring you what I think is helpful to have together in our study. But I want to remind you there's a whole lot more you can go read, and I strongly encourage that. And I hope for people that are excited about this, or for people who are not sure about it, I hope that it stimmies your interest to go and read more, okay? But I think this is thorough enough to make the point, but I want you to know it's not meant to be like those other much more involved resources, okay? So, next paragraph, as you read this overview explanation of singing only psalms without instruments as presented by the pastor, it may be helpful to know that he used to be a volunteer and paid worship leader for churches, retreats, and mission trips. So I've changed, and it was a sacrifice for me. Actually, it was no big deal. I only cared about what God wants, so I gave it all up, no problem. But, it's important to know, I used to be a paid worship leader. I used to be up here with my guitar. And I always tell people, I know how to fill these pews, I just get my guitar out. And we'll make up songs. I did it, including in Presbyterian churches, while I was even in seminary, while I was performing in concerts at coffee houses. I had a guy come up to me, ask me, hey, you want to lead worship for us in the Bahamas? So I was paid to fly down to the Bahamas and lead worship for youth groups during a week time, a couple of times in a row. So just all that to say, I come from the other position. I grew up with the other position. I never even knew about this. But my seminary and the sponsoring denomination holds to this strongly. And I took the worship class, but frankly, the professor was a real sweet guy kind of at the end of his career. He never really pushed this topic at all. And I'd been around it so much for 10 years as a student, and I had been working with my president for the seminary, traveling the country. And I said, you know, I have to admit, I've never studied this. And if I'm going to say I don't believe it, I'm going to have to study what they say and make sure I have an answer for it. Well, as I studied it, I realized I was ignorant, and I changed. And, therefore, I had to leave the church in the denomination I was hoping to be a pastor in, because they said, you can't believe this. I said, what if I just submit? I'll just let you know about it. So, I just want you to know, this has been a big deal for me to make these changes. But I don't care, because if it's what I believe God really wants, then that's what I'm gonna do, okay? Back to the notes. He grew up in churches both with traditional hymns and contemporary praise tunes, both with instruments. He came to agree with the same position that our church holds to in worship. Now the church would not have presented the call to me otherwise, nor would I have accepted it. If this church didn't do Psalms acapella, I would not have come here. And if I didn't believe in singing Psalms a cappella, you would not have called me. Okay. It's not the only issue, but it's one of them. I was studying the topic in scriptures and with resources mentioned in this booklet as well. I was a, I am a trained musician and singer songwriter, and I still enjoy such things in their proper context. You can go to dumb sheep.org. If you see my personal email, it's grant at dumb sheep.org. And the family all reflects that. Because the website is dumbsheep.org and you can see all why it says that and there's music you listen to for free I've made my own CD years ago used to perform about three four times a month different concerts. And I would like to do that. In fact, the coffee shop, the Christian coffee shop in Chula Vista has welcomed me to do it. I just haven't had the ability of time to do that, but we're still hoping to do that. And Fernanda and I are hoping to work on harmonies together and go perform. So this is simply volunteer to say we understand this all may seem very foreign at first, and I can relate with you. But I do want to recognize there's still a place for playing instruments and enjoying music and doesn't have to all just be worship music. And I particularly, so like at our Puritan Feast and our Harvest Feast, we always enjoy playing music and performing and entertaining, okay? So it's an issue of worship. Okay? As pastors served in various church worship environments, he noticed that the worship wars, quote unquote, of debate, always focused on personal preference and not God's prescription. Nobody was saying, well, I think God wants this. Everybody was just saying, I want this. That was always the focus. Or the older people want this, and the younger people want this. No one was asking, what does God want? But that has to be the question. Because worship is for God, it is not for us. If God wanted us to stand on our left foot, with our right hand raised, and hum, that's what we would do. It isn't about us, it's about Him. Okay? Exaggerating to make the point. This leads to what should be our primary consideration with what and how we worship. What does God want as determined from his word with considerations of the transition from the Old Testament types to the New Testament realities? This focus of the discussion is what is referred to as the regulative principle of worship. That's something you want to underline again. Now, this is review from our study, but the regulative principle of worship. Why do we do what we do in worship and why do we not do other things in worship? Because it is regulated by God. We do not make up ideas. Now, that includes when we get to the Lord's Supper later, we're not gonna start having Kool-Aid and cookies or whatever, you know, because that's not what God wants us to do. There's symbolism in these things. A lot of different examples I could give you that we've touched on. The regulative principle of worship. Now, what is significant about this, it's not only we do what God wants us to do, we don't do anything God has not told us to do. So my son was asking me why we're driving today. Help me remember, you know, why we don't do Good Friday, those kinds of things. I says, the regulative principle of worship. Because God has not told us to have worship services like this. What he has told us is to do the Lord's Day every week. And we celebrate the resurrection every week on the first day of the week, the Lord's Day, the Christian Sabbath, because he rose from the dead, right? And incidentally, on Easter a few weeks ago, Yeah, we had a hard time getting through all the traffic, had to have a police officer. The next week, no problem. But people should be coming to worship God every single Lord's Day, okay? So why do we do what we do and we don't do what we do? Because of the regulative principle of worship. We don't do the liturgical calendar because we are not told to do that. We only offer God what he asks of us in worship, okay? That includes the calendar and what we do. So I did point out to him that the Dutch Reformed Churches usually do follow more, the Continental Reformed Churches usually do follow more of these ecclesiastical holidays with worship. So this is particularly a Presbyterian and a Puritan reflection of, we go back to the scriptures, we only do what's called of us to do. One more thing at the bottom of page one here. We pray that you will consider the following scriptures to guide you in our study. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Matthew 6.33. These Bereans were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily whether those things were so. Acts 17 verse 11. For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because when ye received the word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectively worketh also in you that believe." 1 Thessalonians 2.13. Ask that you have these scriptures in view, and particularly as this goes up on sermon audio for others to hear, ask that they would particularly have these scriptures in view, especially about being Berean spirits, right? Consider, this is a good chance this is true, and I'm going to study this scripture to see if it's true. And as Carl Truman pointed out, where would they have been studying the scriptures to see if it was true at that time? In the church. Under the guidance of the leaders, they wouldn't have had their own Bibles and things like that. They would have been entrusting themselves to those who already know the scriptures well to be guiding and teaching these things. So I'm going to skip over the bottom there. I'm going to skip over some of this introductory stuff because it overlaps with when I taught you from the lesson on religious worship in the Sabbath and the official part going through the Confession. So I'm going to flip over to page 2. I do want to highlight a little bit more about the regulative principle. This is review. Second bullet. Worship must be done in the way God expressly said He wants to be worshipped in the Bible. not according to men's, quote, imaginations and devices. That's quoting the Confession Chapter 21 on worship, okay? Worship is not a free-for-all. It has to be for Him, okay? I think I'm going to skip that quote by John Lafayette Gerodeau, but he has a classic book on why we would sing without instruments. And by the way, his book, Instrumental Music in the Church, a lady in the church paid for him to write it because she was concerned that these Presbyterian churches were changing and all starting to use instruments now. And he was a professor of Columbia Seminary, I think it was, in Georgia. He's an outstanding theologian. He was a real good, solid, conservative fellow. And he did this, he was commissioned by her to do this. And what he was doing was teaching, look, we're changing. This has never been what we do, the church or Presbyterians. We never used instruments. Things are changing. And so the book was actually to teach why, because it was starting to become lost, okay? So I highly encourage that book. But I'm gonna, you can read his quote about that for an expanded idea of what religious worship is. But I'm gonna go down to the pastor's experience. Again, the bullet there, it has to be not what I want, not what you want, what does God want, okay? Now, what's my favorite illustration? Just yell it at me quickly, for the regular principle. Yeah, my birthday cake. What do I want for my birthday cake, mom? Lemon cake. With what? Do I like anything else in it? No! Even though I might like them on something else, right? Just a fun example, it's my birthday, so if my wife or family comes to me with some other kind of cake, even if I like it, but it's my birthday, it's a special day, this is what I want. I don't know how it started, but that's it now, right? And that's the thing, it's the Lord's day. It's not our day, it's His day. It's about Him honoring Him. What does He want? This is not the question most Christians, even Reformed Christians, I think, are actually asking and approaching worship with, but it has to be where we're coming from. So, we're gonna give the Lord what He wants. Now I'm gonna go down to the bottom of the page, Examples of the Regulative Principle in Scripture, bottom of page two, and then I move on to Exclusive Psalmody tonight. I mentioned the Ten Commandments. The first four really talk about all this. No, God does not want images. Well, we like the images, they help us think about these truths. No, God does not want images, okay? As one example, no idols, right, okay? But we talked about Samuel told Saul about his good intentions, but he didn't do everything God wanted, and so God was very strict with him about that. But Uzzah, Mr. Renner, do you remember, you brought this up, and I couldn't think of the guy's name, and as I thought I would, might have been in the shower the next day, something like, Uzzah, of course it was Uzzah, you know? And Uzzah is killed because he was not authorized to handle the Ark, nor did he handle it in the way God prescribed. 1 Corinthians 13, 6-14, with 1 Corinthians 15, 1-15, 25-26, Numbers 4, 1-15. Okay, so Uzzah touched the Ark in a way he was not allowed to. One, it was not to be touched. Two, he was not to be someone to ever even touch the handles. Okay? This is all teaching us to reverence God, by the way. Right? Okay. Last bullet in regular principles here. To objectively consider all this with an open heart, this needs to be our attitude. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. Psalm 115 verse 1. So we're going to get into exclusive psalmody now, but before we do, I thought I also wanted to give an explanation. I'm sorry I'm wearing a hat tonight. I thought I'd have a little more time to get ready with all the challenges we had today. You'll notice I take it off if we sing and if we pray, but I'm not considering this a worship service like on the Lord's day. First Corinthians 11, I would not be able to wear this and I wouldn't, but my hair is pretty messy. I'm in need of a haircut. And if I've been wearing a hair all day, it probably would be distracting for you if I took my head off. So sorry about that, but that's, that's why I'm handling it that way. So, okay. Everything okay with Gideon by the way, or not necessarily. Okay. Is mommy going to come back pretty soon? Okay. Okay. So we're going to get into exclusive psalmody now, and I'm first going to ask you to consider these scriptures for our study. And that carries on to the top of page three in our notes. Okay. Psalm 95 verse two, let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. Psalm 95 verse 2. Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of his wondrous works. Psalm 105 verse 2. Notice a lot of these are psalms, all talking about singing, right? And worship, because that's what they are written by God for. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4, 23 to 24. So, God wants to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. We just don't do whatever we want. It has to be truly by the Holy Spirit guiding us, and the Holy Spirit's going to guide us according to the scriptures. Right? Okay. Jesus says in Luke 24 verse 44, all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms. concerning me. Jesus is saying the whole Bible is about me, but what does he highlight? The law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Now a lot of people say, well, you know, I don't want to sing the Psalms because I want to sing about Jesus. Jesus says in John 4, 23 and 24 that the Psalms are about him. They're all about him. But can you think of some Psalms that are especially messianic? 110. Thank you. The most quoted Psalm in the New Testament. The most quoted Old Testament scripture in the New Testament. Especially verse 4. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. reporting back to Genesis 14, and the author of Hebrews quotes that constantly, right? In the letters of Hebrews. Okay, good. Psalm 2, Psalm 40, Psalm 45, Psalm 16. Peter gives this long sermon in Acts chapter two, that David in Psalm 16 knows he's a prophet, and he knows he's preaching about Jesus, and he knows he's preaching about the resurrection of Jesus in Psalm 16. that has not left my body, right, to rot in hell. But you have raised me from the dead to bring me into your presence where there is fullness of joy. I'm obviously not speaking it to exactly, but the Psalms are absolutely about Jesus. We just have to be taught how they are about Jesus. Because the New Testament quotes the Psalms more than anything else in the Old Testament to prove what? Jesus is the Messiah. Constantly, the Psalms are being quoted about Jesus in the New Testament, again, more than anything else in the Old Testament. The Psalms are absolutely about Jesus. He says so himself. All right, I'm starting to preach. I better just reserve that for a sermon another time. Next scripture. Jesus says in Luke 24, 44, all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the, oh, I think I have a repeat here. Didn't I just read that? Okay, where did I have that the first time? Oh, did I? Oh, I did already read that, excuse me, okay. John 539, search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. The Psalms speak of Christ, okay? Anyone that wants to make the argument, I wanna sing these other songs that talk about Jesus, don't know their Bibles, and don't know the Psalms, okay? or need to know them better. And I was one of them. I didn't know. I didn't know my Bible well. I wasn't in the kind of churches that would teach me to see and recognize these things clearly there, but I didn't grow up with it. The church's history in singing Psalms. This is important. People try to act as if we are unique, that this is a new thing that we've come up with. Are you kidding me? If I was doing what, you know, we would do, that's what's easier and would fill the pews, I'd be pulling out my guitar and getting you all helping with drums. And we'd be singing all kinds of songs that basically have three lines and we'll sing them 20 times in a row. Right? You know, and we'll just get ourselves hypnotized, maybe even some smoke. I was at a big church recently that had an event. It was not on the Lord's day. Don't worry, Mrs. Ragland, she looked like she was going to get me. No, but it was a Wednesday, but they started worship. Remember that, Fernando? We were there. We couldn't even get into the sanctuary at first. It was like smoke machine. I'm like, what is this? This is not worship. This is a concert. By the way, I love concerts. And when I'm at a concert, I don't mind a smoke machine and lights and all this stuff, but entertain me when I'm here to worship, right? Alright, I'm getting off my notes here. But the thing is, is people think that we've come up with something novel and new. No, it's the opposite. This is what the church has always done. Things have changed. Okay? And again, we have to be careful not to be anachronistic. What is it to be anachronistic? It means to look into something and assume my experience or history is what that's about, and it's not what it's about. I'm reading into it what they are not talking about, okay? Paul is not talking about amazing grace. We'll get to that, okay? Or he's also not talking about, throw out some praise tune, you know, okay. Matthew 2630, so I'm going over the Church's history in singing Psalms. Okay, first of all, the Old Testament Church sang the Psalms only. I mean, it really cannot be denied. That's what this altar was, okay? The New Testament Church sang the Psalms only. And we'll demonstrate that from these scriptures. You never see, and there are times where people in the modern and sometimes liberal lexigy commentaries that try to point out, oh, I think this might be a hymn here. This might be a hymn in Philippians. I don't bother you with that in the commentaries, because even those who think it's okay to sing hymns say that's clearly not a hymn. You know, like, it's just people read into things what they want to be there, okay? They always just sang the Psalms. Matthew 26, 30, Jesus and his disciples at the last Passover sang from what was the Hallel section of the Psalms. Psalm 113 to 118, Jesus sang the Psalms right at the Passover. Paul and Silas sang Psalms in prison, Acts 16, 25. What were they singing at midnight? Psalms. James 5, 13 instructs singing the Psalms. During the post-apostolic period, there were no hymns in the church. There were only psalms. After the scriptures, the church, after the New Testament church, there's no evidence of them singing anything but the psalms. They were not singing anything else. There's no evidence otherwise. Now I have some, a bunch of really good notes here from Bushel, from his, what he wrote called the Songs of Zion. If you want to follow me, the middle of the page on page three. Tertullian, do you know who Tertullian is? Early church father in the 100s. He's the one that gave us the term for the Trinity. He was a lawyer. He was smart. He did a lot of great stuff for us. One thing I appreciate is, I haven't read this yet, but he wrote a book on patience, and the reason he wrote it is he needed to be more patient. Ah, that's helpful. Yeah, I'm gonna write on what I need to work on. Tertullian in the second century, this is Bushell, and Jerome in the fourth both testify that, quote, reading the scriptures and singing the Psalms were essential features of religious worship. One can read of the Scottish farmers in previous centuries singing the psalms while working in the fields, the martyrs singing the psalms as they faced their deaths, and Dutch prisoners singing the psalms in exhausted gratitude when freed from Spanish slave ships. I wish I had the particular story, but there's this beautiful story of some of the Dutch slaves, because the Spanish had conquered them, and when they got off the ship, the first thing they did is, I think they kneeled on the pier, and they just started singing. I can't remember what psalm it was, but it just makes you cry when you hear about it. Why would they have done that? Because that's what they sang in worship. All right? By the way, why would they quote the Psalms more than anything else in the New Testament? because that's what they sing in worship, which means that's what's most likely most familiar and memorized. Right? Okay. Heretics, like the Gnostics, the Arians, and the Donatists, the latter, if not heretics, certainly not orthodox, began to introduce songs other than the Psalms. Okay, so where did the church first start to get hymns in worship in the early church history? Heretics. Why? Because just like we're careful with what our children listen to today for songs, Songs can significantly affect what you believe and think, which is why advertisers love to use songs. It's funny today, I mean it's powerful how much a song works in your head. I'll give you a funny example today. Abraham and I were driving at Costco, and we saw this, or maybe it was Walmart, and this guy passed by. He had a hat that looked like the cat in the hat, big top hat it looked like, but it was Rastafarian. It was knit, and it was the green, yellow, and red. And it was like, wow, that guy's got a whole bunch of hair on his head, you know? And I said, and you know what? The craziest thing happened to me hours later. I don't even remember thinking about this. But do you know what happened to me when we were driving to, yeah, to Costco later, it was Walmart, hours later, do you know what started to happen to me? Woman, don't cry. That woman don't cry, don't you worry about a thing, every little thing. I said, Abraham, this is crazy. I didn't even listen to Bob Marley that much. But just seeing that. brought those songs out of me. I'm just saying, you see how powerful songs and the identity with them. And heretics brought the hymns into the church. It used to just be Psalms, God's word. But when we want to mess with theology and mess with people's beliefs, start to introduce man-made songs. Get them to sing things that are heretical, and they won't even necessarily know they're doing it. You know, I have some CDs of, I got off from Goodwill years ago, they just run in the van when I leave it on sometimes. I've told the kids this. I really enjoy a lot of the music, but a few of the songs that I grew up with in high school, I never thought about it, I have to fast forward, because I notice if I don't, you know what happens? I start singing along with them without even hardly thinking. But then when I realize what they're singing about, that's not necessarily bad words, but the topic, I'm like, I can't be singing that. I fast forward. This is how the world gets us. This is how heretics get us. Get us to sing their songs. Okay? Whatever you want to think about it, that's the reality. The first songs that were not Psalms sung in Christian churches were written by heretics. They were not given to us by God. And the Orthodox Christians were not writing hymns. They were singing the Psalms, okay? The introduction of uninspired hymns, this is the middle bullet from Bushnell's Songs of Zion. Introduction of uninspired hymns was a slow process and was not widespread until the fourth century. It wasn't until the fourth century that it was even very common that churches sang things other than the Psalms. The Synod of Laodicea, A.D. 343, and the Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451, excuse me, opposed uninspired hymns. Notice that word uninspired. If they're not written by the Spirit, then they're not inspired. We should only be singing the word of God. What's one of the solas of the Reformation? Sola Scriptura, and that applies to worship. And that's what really convicted me about this. I was, I think I told you, I was down in Savannah, Georgia, Terry Johnson in the PCA, who's created a Psalter for the PCA with the RPCA. And he was just teaching on the solos of the Reformation. I was in his Sabbath class. It's a huge church, just a little class. I was there on business for the seminary and sitting in on the class. I presented later about the seminary, not in worship. And he was just teaching, yeah, the reformers, the sola scriptura. Oh yeah, we have to read the scripture, preach the scripture, not preach poems, not read other people's thoughts as the main idea, which is what a lot of liberal churches, you know, do today. That's not the scripture, that's the basis of their sermon. It's a book by someone. Oh yeah, sola scriptura, what should we sing? Oh yeah, sola scriptura, the Bible. Oh look, there is a songbook in the Bible. And that's why all the reformers went back to the Psalms. That is, getting away from the Catholic Church. But notice the Synod at Laodicea, the Council of Chalcedon, they oppose, they formally forbid singing anything that wasn't the Psalms. The Council of Braga, 561 AD, decreed hymns not to be used in worship, which the Council of Toledo, 589, repeated and endorsed. In the 9th century, Agobard of Lyon reminded readers in his letter of this important history. Don't forget, church history has forbid us to sing anything but the Psalms. That is the history. And why am I emphasizing this? Because everybody thinks we're just like some crazy cult. But no, actually this is what the church only did in its early history. They did not tolerate, they would not allow anything but the Psalms. Okay. Psalm singing deteriorated in the middle ages, but was preserved in monasteries. Wycliffe and Huss, morning stars of the Reformation, reintroduced singing the Psalms into the churches. It was completely lost. I thought about that, a church I went to years ago, they had a, it was a Dutch Reformed church, they had a one hymnal, they called it, maybe it said Psalter II, a whole bunch of man-written hymns, but also the entire Psalter. They never chose to sing the Psalms. I don't remember ever singing the Psalms. But after I started going to seminary, I said, why don't we sing some of these Psalms? We have them. It's because man always wants to make man-made things in place of God and what he has written. You know, the Psalms aren't going to make us sing about things that we wouldn't sing about otherwise, okay? But notice these Reformers, they brought singing Psalms back into the Church. Now these are the same Reformers the Catholic Church killed for teaching the truth against the Catholic Church. And they said, Psalms, where are the Psalms for worship? The Protestant, last bullet by Bushell, the Protestant Reformation brought back psalm singing. Calvin insisted on them for his return to Geneva. He said, I'm not coming back to Geneva if there's not psalms for worship. Psalm singing was known as the signature of Puritanism. I'll have more on that in a moment. Puritans sang the psalms. And by the way, even if we just talk about the Reformation, they're changing all of these things about the Catholic Church. All of these things the Catholic Church has introduced, and basically looks like the Old Testament temple, right? The priests and incense and all these things, and bringing in man-made hymns, and the Reformation is we're getting away from those things and back to the Bible to regulate how we worship, what we do, and all the Reformation brought the Psalms back. That was a long time ago. 1500s, 1600s, that's not something recent. And they didn't create it, they just brought it back, okay? Well, I'm done with the notes from Bushell with his book, Songs of Zion. Next bullet point under church history, singing Psalms. And I'm belaboring this point because people often think that this is something new. Instead of recognizing this is ancient, this is what they only did. Singing something different than the Psalms, that is what is new. That is the change. That's recent history. It's not ancient, continual church history, okay? So I really wanna bring that point through. Introduction of singing hymns in the Western church, rather than just Psalms from the Bible, happened with Ambrosia writing hymns to counteract Arianism in their hymns, showing that it was clearly understood as something new and added to church worship. Now, I give you a link from a Catholic website making that point. Ambrosia, one of the early church fathers, He started writing hymns to try to counteract the Aryans writing their hymns to bring in bad theology and heretical theology into the church. He started writing hymns to try to counteract that. But it was recognized this is something new to write hymns. The church always sang the Psalms. And that's a Catholic website that's recognizing that's true. And they don't just sing the Psalms. G.I. Williamson writes, quote, it will be, by the way, he's a heavy hitter. and reformed in evangelical circles, okay? And look what he says in his commentary. It will be observed that the confession, that is our Westminster Confession, this is from his commentary, does not acknowledge the legitimacy of the use of modern hymns in the worship of God. Look at chapter 21 of the Confession, section five, but rather only the Psalms of the Old Testament. He's saying what we and others would argue. There's a lot of Presbyterians that say they commit to the Westminster Confession, but they think that it allows to sing anything. No! Williamson points out, it very clearly says, sing only the Psalms, and again, that was written a long time ago, folks. That's not something new, and that was a Puritan work. People who were saying, we need to be more godly and biblical in our worship, and we need to get the Catholic stuff out of our church in the British, not the colonies, England, Scotland, Ireland. Horton Davies. Now this is something I just gave you as a new note from a book in our library. I'm reading it slowly for some work with meetthepuritans.org, but also it's a required reading for our, to be a voting elder in the RPCGA among like 20 or 30 other books. And so he writes this. It's from his book called The Worship of the English Puritans. In Switzerland and France during the Reformation, under the influence of John Calvin, there was an outburst of metrical psalmity. In this, the followers of Calvin remained true to their criterion of Reformation, quote, according to the word of God, sola scriptura. The Puritans just followed Calvin and sola scriptura. The Puritans, therefore, confined themselves to psalmody until the 18th century. This is not new, folks. That's the point I'm really trying to drive here. This is old. This is the old paths. You know, we quote Jeremiah. These are the old paths we're supposed to walk in and have God's rest. And we don't want to answer like he says they did in Jeremiah. We would not. We will not. Okay, modern hymns began to compete in Presbyterian and other churches in the 1700s and 1800s. Writing hymns became this big thing, let alone a lot of women writing them, not just men, but it became this big thing in the 1700s and 1800s, okay? There's a lot of church history before this happens as a big, regular thing. But if you start to grow up in a church in modern times and that's all you see and that's all you know, like my experience, just like all I knew was Christmas and Easter, and a lot of other things, and I never knew anything about the Sabbath or worrying about that. If that's all you know as a reference point, you know, we don't know. But we're being educated now, we're not gonna be ignorant, right? Okay. Sometimes people say ignorance is bliss. But it's not before God. And it's not if it's for God, right? Okay, next bullet point. That was all about church history to help us see this is not new, this is old. Singing something other than the Psalms, that is new. We sing Psalms because that is the hymnal God gave us in the Bible to sing to Him. It was the commitment of sola scriptura that led the Reformers to return to the reading, preaching, praying, and singing of God's Word. We sing Holy Spirit-inspired songs, not man-made songs. We do not sing songs written by man. They are not inspired. They are not infallible. They are not inerrant. Only the Word of God can that be said of. Christ is everywhere in the Psalms, which are the most quoted Old Testament references in the New Testament to prove Jesus is the Messiah, onto page four. And this is the last page for our study tonight. Why do they quote the Psalms about Jesus as the Messiah more than anything else in the Old Testament and the New? They speak of Christ, and it is what they worshiped with, so they would be particularly familiar with them and have many memorized. Singing memorizes. Such Psalms are Psalm 2. Okay, singing memorizes. Can I give you another funny example today? I don't know if I can remember the song. We were waiting in the line. I think I went back to the Walmart customer service three or four times because I was getting educated about these SD cards and, man, did I have a lot to learn. Anyways, while we're waiting in line, this one lady, she's so funny. She's a little older and clearly very comfortable with herself. She's clocking in, I thought she was, I said, you must be going home. No, I'm just starting. But she started singing, what was it? I forget what the song was, but it was some kind of old song. And I started singing along, the lady at the counter did, and I'm in the back, and I start, we all started singing around all the people, you know? And I just kind of had fun with it, you know? I wish I could remember what the song was, but it was pretty funny. No, it wasn't that, it was more like a crooner, song, or almost like a Karen Carpenter kind of thing. I can't remember what it was. It was a bit of a melancholy song, actually. I wish I could remember, but we all started singing along. But my point is, it was even a song before my time, and I knew it, and I immediately started singing with her. That's the thing about why would they quote all of these psalms in the New Testament, because that's what they sang about Jesus, and they're proving this is Jesus. Peter in Acts chapter two, he is raised from the dead. You all see this. So you have to know he is the Messiah because you all know what Psalm 16 says. The Messiah would be risen from the dead. Why is he appealing? Because they all know it. So they all sing it. Okay. Psalm 2, 8, 16, 22, 40, 45, Psalm 110 are just a few that specifically are quoted in the New Testament to prove Jesus is the Christ. Again, look at what Peter, he just goes through, he preaches most of Psalm 16 about Christ in Acts chapter two. I have preached on that also for a class in seminary, Old Testament quoted in the New, and I preach that here for you. It's on our sermon audio if you wanna hear it. Look also again at John 5.39 and Luke 24.44 as quoted above. All right, now, Colossians 3.16, if you turn there with me and keep Ephesians 5.19 marked, we're gonna particularly focus on these. Colossians 3.16 says this, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Now Ephesians 5.19 is similar, but notice psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. So that means, oh, amazing grace, and these are the days of Elijah, right? No. We're gonna explain what that means, because they are not writing in our times. He specifically has what he is thinking of, and we're gonna look at that, okay? Now look with me at Ephesians 5.19. We looked at it already this evening, but we'll read it again. Ephesians 5.19. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Notice that in both those scriptures, it talks about doing this in your heart to the Lord. But especially there in Ephesians, we're gonna look at that next week related to instruments, okay? So I wanna explain these because this is where people might point, often do point to, to suggest that we don't have to just sing the Psalms. It also talks about hymns and spiritual songs. And they immediately think of, you know, what they'd hear growing up with grandma on the organ, and what they're really insisting should be in here on the guitar with my cousin now, right? That's not what Paul's talking about. Let's educate ourselves, beloved. Let's not excuse ourselves in ignorance. Paul never had amazing grace or God of wonders in mind. By the way, I love those songs. I'm happy to sing them as long as I make sure they're appropriate in other contexts, especially for entertainment or just for hanging around. But he's not thinking about hymns that we think of. He's not thinking about contemporary praise songs. He's not thinking about that. That is not his experience. That is not any of his biblical understanding. What's he talking about? Well, once again, avoid anachronism. You might underline that in your notes. Avoid anachronism. In thinking this through, that is, your experience should not be read back into what wasn't in existence. Okay? Say we do Christmas or Easter, for instance, because everybody does it all the time and the Bible talks about the birth and the death and resurrection of Christ, right? Yeah. But you don't read anything telling us we're supposed to have a worship calendar around that or worship services around that. We are told to worship every Lord's Day, right? So we don't just read into it, well, that's my experience. Folks, I grew up with that. I never once questioned having Christmas. I never once questioned having Easter. Especially because I like to get presents and candy. That's the other thing to consider, how much gets tied into secular stuff. If it's easy to do with the world, that's another thing to consider. But I never even thought about it because I always did it. So for me to have to think about, maybe this isn't what God says in his Bible to do, was a big change for me. I had to really think about it and study. I want to encourage us, we have to have the same attitude coming into this study, okay? In the Jewish mind, second bullet point under Colossians and Ephesians. In the Jewish mind, Paul was paraphrastically saying to sing the Psalter. Paraphrastically means, it's kind of like when we're told, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. Or as Jesus adds the word heart in the New Testament, because it's not as, or mind, excuse me, in the New Testament, because that's not as obvious in the Greek as it would have been in the Hebrew, especially levav, means everything in you. So, that just means, love God with everything in you. Okay, it's not really separating, it's just, it's paraphrastically using synonyms, different parts of who you are, saying, worship God with everything in you. Not that you have three people in you, okay? So similarly, the Jewish mind, when Paul is talking, he's referring to what they all know. Sing the Psalms. Sing the Psalter of the Old Testament. Let me explain further. Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs were all titles of psalm sections found in the Old Testament Psalter, as well as each being a designation in the Psalter, okay? So sections of the Old Testament Psalms were called the Psalms. Other sections of the Old Testament Psalms were called the hymns. Other sections of the Old Testament Psalms were called spiritual songs. And you see each of those phrases in the Old Testament Psalms. The point being, that's what he's referring to. That's what they sing. That's what they quote in the New Testament to prove Jesus. He's not talking about anything else but the Psalms in the Old Testament. They have those titles and they have words, those sections in them. You can go study it. Go look at the original words. You'll see them reflected in the English. It's all in the Psalms. They had God's worship work, which we call the Psalter. We have it separated with metrical verse to aid us in singing it, but you're singing the Bible. what God wrote to worship him. He wrote the Psalms, the hymns, the spiritual songs. What is known as the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, has each of these Greek words from Colossians and Ephesians. So there's what scholars especially refer to as the Septuagint. It's often referenced in quick brevity, LXX, if you ever see it, okay? And it's referring, it has all of those terms, these Greek terms that you see in Ephesians and Colossians, talking about Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. If you look at the Psalter, the collected Psalms in the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, those same words, Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs are found within them. So you really have a hard case making that it's talking about something else. No, it's talking about that section of the Bible. They are called psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. within the Old Testament Psalms, a collection of scriptures written to sing in corporate worship. Now, next bullet point, look at the context. Paul was not introducing a new concept or idea of what to sing, but reminding them to sing what they sang, the Psalms God wrote to sing to him. He's not telling them to write new songs, he's not telling them, he's telling them to sing what they already sing. He's reminding them, as he always does, to keep doing what they're already doing. He's not giving them a new idea. He's reminding them to do what they always have done, Old and New Testament. Now, next line, this is important, spiritual songs. When Paul says in Colossians and Ephesians, spiritual songs, it literally means in the Greek, songs that are written by the Holy Spirit. That's why we emphasize we're going to sing inspired songs, the Psalms, not songs that are written by men. that are not written by the Holy Spirit. And we ought not dare try to suggest that just because somebody says I felt inspired, that's not the same thing as being inspired by the Holy Spirit to make what is divine scripture that is closed in Revelation, okay? It literally means songs written by the Holy Spirit. Only the Psalms fit that criterion, sola scriptura. You can only say that about God's songs. Those songs are written by the Holy Spirit and they're put together for corporate worship. He put them together in a songbook. Where does God give us a songbook in the Bible to worship him? The Psalms. When folks speak of being, quote, inspired, we must not confuse that to be on the par of infallible, inerrant canon, especially when they inadvertently or deliberately espouse heresy. By the way, I think I might have it in here, but if I don't, I remember an elder in an older church loved the song. He would emphasize the song, And Can It Be. And I heard another fellow who's a deacon in a similar church around here, and I didn't correct him at the time. He thought a lady was humming that tune, she was humming something else. And that tune came up, they were talking about it, and they said, oh yeah, you guys just sing the Psalms, yeah. And he started saying how much he loves the song, And Can It Be. It has a heretical statement in it. It says, and Jesus, what? Emptied himself of all but love. He didn't empty himself of anything, especially his divinity. They're misrepresenting something Paul says. You might remember when I went through why we use the King James much earlier in this lesson as another supplement to chapter one of the Holy Scriptures. They actually translate it not as literally, in this case, as other books, other translations do, to give the wrong impression of a heretical idea that Jesus gave up anything of his divinity. But Anne, can it be, he says, Anne gave up all but love of himself. No, he did not. Okay, but you keep singing that man-made song. Somebody who probably wasn't trained in seminary, by the way, some of them were theologians, a lot of them weren't. And they're not necessarily discerning, you just sang heresy. It's not going to happen when we sing God's Word. That's a practical argument, but it's still relevant. Okay, now let's look at the Reformers example. Last main black bullet point on page 4. Calvin produced the Geneva Psalter. Now, remember, he also refused to come back to Geneva unless they agreed to sing only the Psalms. By the way, Psalm 100? All, can you sing with me? All people that on earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. Him serve with mirth, his praise forth tell. Come ye before him and rejoice. You notice in your Psalter, what is the name of that tune? The Old 100th. Why? Because it's original to the Geneva Psalter with Calvin. It's original to a psalm. Now, people like to sing it today, they don't realize they're borrowing a tune from the psalms, in terms of the metrical psalms of Geneva. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. They call it the doxology. But it's the tune for Psalm 100 they're using, okay? We just want people to recognize this is the old ancient paths, right, that we're supposed to stay on. Notice from the earlier notes, he refused. I'm not going back to Geneva if you don't agree to write the Psalms. By the way, he didn't get everything he wanted, such as things related to communion, but he wasn't doing that. You might remember he never wanted to go to Geneva. William Farrell threatened him with God's curse if he didn't, so he took that very seriously. It scared him. And then they all hated him for all the work of reform. They would shoot their guns outside his house and stick their dogs on him. So he said, finally, I'm gone. He went and studied under Bulliger, loved it, never wanted to come back, never wanted to be a pastor, wanted to be a theologian scholar only. And William Farrell, again, threatened him with curses and persuaded him to come back to Geneva. He didn't wanna come back, but if he's gonna come back, we're singing the Psalms, baby. I'm sure he didn't say it like that, so crass is your crazy pastor. But that's important to recognize. He required it to return to Geneva. He learned of the scriptural singing of Psalms and worship by the example of Martin Bützer. I might've said Bollinger. Martin Bützer, during his happy stay in Strasbourg, a haven of the early Reformation. So early with Martin Busser in Strasbourg, people would flock there for the Reformation against the Catholic Church. And guess what they did? It was not only justified by faith alone. It was sola scriptura in everything, including worship. So they brought back the Psalms and the Reformers were bringing that everywhere. Okay. Now, last bullet under Reformer's example, the Westminster Assembly produced a metrical psalter only with the 150 psalms, and it was later revised in Scotland and became the Scottish Psalter of 1650. Our comprehensive psalter is that psalter with various new tunes. See also the previous footnote on the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 21 by Matthew Windsor, proving that the Westminster Confession of Faith singing of psalms intended only psalm singing for worship for such confessional churches. They made a Psalter. It's now our comprehensive Psalter. We have a couple of different tunes. Some of the psalters, they have a split-leaf psalter. You can just flip your tunes back and forth, pick whatever you want. If you have the application on your phone, the 1650 psalter, it's kind of like that. There's benefits to that. But the point is, the beautiful thing is we're singing the same psalms and using a lot of the same tunes, but the same laying out of the metrical psalms with the saints from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. And when you think about singing the Psalms from the church of all its history and scriptures, right? And all the ancient church, but it's bringing us back to sing with them again and with the reformers and the red Psalters, you have the comprehensive Psalters. I want you to know it's, it's the old Scottish Psalter. People ask you, do you sing the old Scottish Psalter? Yes, we do. And what they want to know is, you know, maybe not as musical sometimes, but it's closer to the scriptures with translation. Some have argued it's closer to the translation of the original languages than some new translations are for the Bible. But I want you to know that the Comprehensive Psalter, these red psalters, Dr. Richard Bacon put together, and I don't know if he sold them exactly, but now Pastor Todd Riddell and Christ's Covenant Church in Texas, in Wiley, Texas, in our denomination, I think they own the rights to them, and they have them if you try to get more of them. So when you go to the Texas church, they have the same psalms. Now here's what's so cool. And I saw a video of this, Fernanda took one. We were in Texas last week for Presbytery, and the kids were just hanging out in the pews in between things. Gabriel was with Tim Alley's niece, Michelle. I think she's 10 years old. Real sweetheart. Man, did she know how to charm our little guys. We said, you have to come home with us, please. Because they are really being nice and good for you. She just had a way with them. Anyhow, Gabriel was looking at the Psalter with her, and they were going to sing a psalm, and she says, yeah, this is the Bible. He says, well, yes, but this is what we sing. This is the Psalter where we sing about God. And then the whole Bible tells us about God. He said something like that. But this three-and-a-half-year-old is saying, yes, this is the Psalter. This is what we sing about God. This is the part of the Bible we sing about God. And isn't that beautiful that they're having that conversation, not led by the adults? You know what I mean? It's really encouraging. Out of the mouth of babes and infants thou hast ordained strength, or as Christ says, perfected praise. Matthew 21, quoting Psalm 8. Okay, a few closing comments and we'll call it a night. How can we not want to sing what God himself wrote to be sung to him? If we are unfamiliar, this is not God's fault. It is our duty to get familiar and learn to love singing his word and learn to know it by singing it. And by the way, practice does make perfect. I mean, I had to get used to this and now I can't imagine doing anything else. If you have contempt for singing the Psalms, consider what you are saying about what God himself wrote to worship him with. I don't wanna sing the Psalms. Are you gonna say that to God? And consider your lack of familiarity with the Psalms and how it would be aided, not only in knowing God better, but Christ in the New Testament better. You know, all the time when we're singing the Psalms, even just in worship, and we're going through the Psalms that have been selected, I'm like, oh yeah, boy, I really love that. I forgot about that doctrine or that phrase. I need to remember that's the Psalm. I mean, it just reminds us what God says and where it is. Okay, may this motivate us, this next thing I have to share with you. The early church father, Athanasius, 296-298, born, died around 373. In his letter to Marcellinus concerning the Psalms, he wrote, Let whoever reads this book of Psalms take the things in it quite simply, as God inspired, and let each select from it as from the fruits of a garden, those things of which he sees himself in need. For I think that in the words of this book all human life is covered with all its states and thoughts. and that nothing further can be found in man. For no matter what you seek, whether it be repentance and confession, or help and trouble, and temptation or under-persecution, whether you have been set free from plots and snares, or, on the contrary, are sad for any reason, or whether seeing yourself progressing and your enemy cast down, you want to praise and thank and bless the Lord. Each of these things, the divine Psalms show you how to do. And in every case, the words you want are written down for you and you can say them as your own. And I'd like to say this. Not entirely to critique modern songs, and I think hymns are probably a little better about this, but how many of the Psalms start with heartbreak and brokenness? Not pretending I'm so great and everything's great, but rather I'm coming to the Lord lamenting, I need help, and then they end coming to God and finding rest in Him. Rather than pretending from beginning and end, it's just one big concert all the time. That's not my life. I don't think that's most people's truth. By the way, if we sang Psalms, you'd have more men in church. You really would. They talk about war. They talk about all kinds of issues. They're not effeminate, like so many things today. A lot of people say, you listen to modern songs on the radio, Christian songs, it's like, basically, it's all about God is my girlfriend. And a lot of them are like that. They are not reverent, but most importantly, they're not what God wrote for himself. I wanna, well, let me get to the last quote and then I'd like to sing one Psalm with you to close, if you don't mind. May we also appreciate the words of Horatius Bonar, to teach away the Psalms from us as obsolete and to deny them to be the proper utterance of Christian worship. is to deprive us of the means of identifying ourselves with Old Testament saints, and to shut us out from the use of language which best embodies the feelings of one wrestling, not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers. Those who know something of the spiritual warfare will welcome them as suitable and precious above measure. The breathings, not of the spirit of bondage, but of liberty, and adoption. He wrote that in God's way of holiness and notice he said, don't take the Psalms from us in worship. I'd like to ask you to open your Psalter with me if you need it. I know many of you don't. Can I borrow this? So one of the things, this is not a theological argument, but it was a beautiful reference point for me. When I would travel with my boss for the seminary, Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, because I worked for the seminary while also a student, about the last five or six years of my 10-year saga, part-time. And I would be around different homes, I'd experience it in the pastor's homes with their family, and church worship, so it was warming me up. Again, Dr. Terry Johnson convinced me of it in a Sabbath class, he doesn't know this, in Savannah, Georgia, many years ago. But you know something that really jumped out to me? I'm like, I wanna take this to my family with worship. I wanna be able to minister like this. When I was with my boss in Kansas, his mother in another state fell and broke her hip. And we got there I think a day later and visited her in the hospital with family of the church and church family. And they sang this psalm in four-part harmony by memory. And I could not participate, and I regretted that I could not. But I know a number of us can experience this now, even singing people into heaven. And I know Mrs. Ragland said this was their experience recently. And I think I'd like, if you don't mind, before we pray, to close singing Psalm 23 together. And what I'd like to do is if we can, those who know the harmonies, I think the mic will pick it up. I'm gonna step back and after the first verse, I'm gonna start singing bass. And if those who sing the melody wouldn't mind singing a bit loudly to cover for the fact that I won't be singing the melody, okay? Da da da da dum. The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want. He makes me down to lie in pasture's green. He leadeth me the quiet waters by. My soul he doth restore again. Can he to walk the page? Within the paths of righteousness, He bore his own namesake. Though I walk in death's dark vale, yet will I hear none hail. For thou art with me as I run, and sat become for still. My table thou hast furnished in presence of my foes. my head thou dost with oil anoint and my cup overflows. Goodness and mercy all mine, Amen. Thank you. So lovely to hear the children singing too. Let's pray. Lord God, we do thank you for singing. Christianity is particularly a religion of singing and worshiping you. And we thank you that you did not leave us to ourselves to try to know what to say, but that you wrote the words to sing to you and so many of them covering everything about you and us, so much of them singing directly about Christ. Lord, help us to sing indeed together into one another Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, that is, all the parts of the Old Testament Psalter, as you wrote them and collected them for us, as the church in the Old Testament and the New Testament, and most all of church history from its earliest times, and then recovered with the Reformation and the Puritans. That is, sola scriptura, sing to you your word alone as you wrote it to worship you in song. And we pray as we do that indeed what Paul says, that you would make us to know Jesus very deeply, that the word of Christ would dwell in us richly, the Psalms say, excuse me, Ephesians and Colossians says. The word of Christ would dwell in us richly, and he tells us to sing the Psalms for that to happen. So Lord, let us sing your Psalms regularly, privately, in family worship, and in your church for worship, that the word of Christ would dwell in us richly, and that Christ would dwell in us richly, and that we would recognize him in the New Testament as he presents himself to us, more than anything else, as fulfilling the prophecies of the Psalms. We pray this in Jesus Christ, our high priest after the order of Melchizedek. And all your willing people said, amen. Amen. You are dismissed. Have a wonderful evening.