Would you please open your Bibles to Colossians 3. For those of you who are visiting this morning, we're in the second part of a five-part series on the practice of worship in the Reformed Presbyterian Church. This is not something we dwell on constantly, but every once in a while we remind ourselves why we do what we do. We hope this is helpful for those who are unfamiliar with the practice. If you're interested in getting the complete series, there is a sign up sheet outside the secretary's door for that five part series. Now, let's turn our attention to the reading, the hearing of God's word, Colossians 316. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. How many Pentecostals does it take to change a lightbulb? Ten. One to change the bulb and nine others to pray against the spirit of darkness. How many Episcopalians does it take to change a lightbulb? Ten. One to actually change the bulb and nine to say how much they like the old one. How many Presbyterians does it take to change a lightbulb? Well, it should require about five committees of six members each, so you figure about 30. How about how many Reformed Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb? Change? The Reformed Presbyterian Church is not known for its flexibility and progressiveness, I'll admit that. And it's very easy when you come into our church and you see this practice of psalm singing to simply conclude that it's a result of an inflexible denomination clinging to a traditionalistic practice. This morning, it's my goal to show you and to demonstrate that the reason we do this is not mere tradition. It's not because we've always done it that way. There are sound and reasonable biblical arguments for this. Now, last week I gave you kind of an overview argument, kind of a flyover argument of why we should sing psalms and worship. And this week I want to get to the nitty-gritty. I want to give you four additional arguments of why we should sing psalms and worship. There are more arguments than these, but I don't have time to deal with them all. These, I believe, are the most significant and persuasive arguments. So let's dive in and see why it is that Reformed Presbyterians worship in this way. You have it on your outline, these four arguments. The first argument is the exegetical argument. The exegetical argument. We begin with Scripture itself. One of the most basic hermeneutical rules, or principles, if you will, is called the analogy of faith. And the analogy of faith is a very simple hermeneutical rule. It just simply states that when we interpret Scripture, we are to compare Scripture with Scripture. We are to use Scripture to interpret Scripture. And as part of that principle of the analogy of faith, it is an added principle that we must take the clearest passages of Scripture to interpret and to understand a doctrine, and use those to interpret the more obscure ones. We want to use Scripture to understand Scripture, we want to look at the most explicit and clear passages to interpret doctrines, and when we do that with regard to singing, The two most explicit and clear texts in the New Testament about what is to be sung in worship are Ephesians 519 and Colossians 316, the one I read this morning. They both have this triad referenced in them of Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Ephesians 519 says, Speak to one another with Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord. And of course, Colossians 316 says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. As you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. Now, as you first read those verses, you might have this initial response, you might say to me, well, there you go, Pastor, we're not just to sing psalms and worship. Here we have in this text the call to sing also hymns and spiritual songs. Now, I understand that kind of initial response, because that's the response I always had to this text. I was not raised in the Reformed Presbyterian Church. And when I would read these texts, I just assumed in my mind, here we go. We have three categories of music. We sing all of these in my church. We're fulfilling what the scripture calls for. But if you do this, you're making an error, which is known as the error of semantic anachronism. Semantic anachronism. I throw that in there just to show that I went to seminary. All that means, simply, as is defined by D.A. Carson, is that this fallacy occurs when a late use of a word, a later use of a word, is read back into earlier literature. You get the idea. Words change their meanings. You see, there were no Isaac Watts, there were no Wesley Brothers, there was no Fanny Crosby, there were no Bill Gaithers around in the first century. We must ask ourselves to rightly interpret Scripture. We must ask ourselves, what did these words mean to the Apostle Paul? What did it mean when Paul said, sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs in the first century context? And I submit to you that what that meant to Paul, what those three words meant, that triad, what it meant was to sing the psalms of the Old Testament. When Paul said, sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, what he was really saying is sing psalms. Let me prove that to you. How do I know this? Let me lay out briefly that exegetical argument. The first thing I know is that Paul wrote the New Testament in Greek. I know also, secondly, that Paul's Bible, the primary Bible used by Paul, was the Greek version of the Old Testament, what is referred to as the Septuagint. Therefore, what I can do as a biblical exegete is take those three Greek words which stand behind psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs and do a search on those in Paul's Bible, the Bible Paul was using, and try to understand what they would have meant to him using his Bible. Well, what do I find when I do that analysis? Where do I find the greatest frequency of these words? Well, there are three places these are found in greatest frequency. The first place we find those words, psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, the most frequent place is in the formal titles of the psalms themselves. Those superscriptions above the psalms, you'll notice it in your Bible. That Greek word that's used by Paul for psalms appears 67 times in the titles of the psalms. The word hymn appears six times in the titles of the psalms. The word songs appears 35 times. The words also appear together. Sometimes you have psalm and song appearing in the title of twelve psalms. And psalm and hymn are joined together twice in the titles of the psalms, and all three of them, the whole triad, appear in the title of Psalm 67, the one we sung this morning. There we have the title psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. The greatest place of frequency is in the title of the psalms themselves. The second largest area of frequency of occurrence of these words is in the body of the psalms themselves. They occur 16 times. For instance, the word psalm occurs in Psalm 95, verse 2. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to him with psalms. The word hymn appears, for example, in Psalm 40, verse 3. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise. And then the word song appears, for example, in Psalm 137, verse 3. For there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy. They said, sing us one of the songs of Zion. And the third most frequent place of occurrence of these words is in the historical books of the Old Testament, referring to the song. So you take all of that together, you have the formal titles of the Psalms, you have the body of the Psalms, you have the historical books referring to the Psalms, given all of this evidence that this is where these words occur in Paul's Bible with most frequency, I think it's clear. When Paul said Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Psalms, he was referring to the Psalms of the Old Testament. But you don't have to trust my feeble and humble exegetical opinion. You can take the opinion of one of the greatest reformed systematic theologians of the 20th century, John Murray. John Murray, that professor from Westminster, in a report that he wrote to the OPC, says there are three conclusions that can come from a careful exegesis of Ephesians 5.19 and Colossians 3.16. And these are the conclusions that Murray listed. First, there is no warrant for thinking that the psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs can refer to uninspired human compositions. These texts provide us with no authorization whatsoever for the singing of uninspired songs in the worship of God. Second, Murray writes, there is warrant for concluding that psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs refer to inspired compositions. These texts provide us, therefore, with warrant for singing of inspired songs in the worship of God. Thirdly, Murray writes, the Book of Psalms provides us with psalms, hymns, and songs that are inspired, and therefore with the kind of composition referred to in Ephesians 5.19 and Colossians 3.16. And it's not just John Murray who came to that exegetical conclusion. You can find that conclusion throughout the centuries of church history. Clement of Alexandria came to that conclusion. Jerome came to that conclusion. Theodore Beza came to that conclusion. The Westminster Assembly came to that conclusion. John Owen came to that conclusion. Jonathan Edwards came to that conclusion. John Gill and others came to that conclusion. Therefore, the first reason we should sing Psalms is because the Scriptures tell us to. It's right there. Sing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing the Psalms, Paul says. Now, perhaps at this point, you're saying to yourself, well, so what? So what if Paul said, sing the Psalms? Yeah, he tells us to sing the Psalms, but he doesn't say, don't sing anything else. He doesn't forbid us from singing other stuff. This brings me to my second argument on your outline. Argument number two, the regulative. The regulative principle of worship, or the RPW. The regulative principle of worship. So one of the areas of disagreement in the Reformation was over what was permissible in worship and how to determine that. Martin Luther, for example, held to the position that we were allowed to do things in worship, that what was permissible in worship was anything which God had not forbidden. But the Reformed took a very different tack on that, a very different understanding. They approached that question differently. They contended that whatever was not expressly commanded was forbidden in worship. You see the difference. Luther said to himself, whatever is not expressly forbidden is allowed. The Reformed said, whatever is expressly commanded is not allowed. And that latter principle of the Reformed is what is known as a regular principle of worship. It's expressed in many of the Reformed confessions. It's stated in the Westminster Confession this way in chapter 21, section one. But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself and is so limited by his own revealed will that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men or the suggestions of Satan under any visible representation or any other way not prescribed in holy scriptures. The regular principle requires a prescription, a regulation, a command to do something, otherwise it's forbidden. And that's not just some creative thinking of some theologian. It was based on scripture itself. It's based on the substance of the second commandment, where God says to his people, you shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the waters below. God said to his people, you can't worship me in the way that you prescribe, but in the way I prescribe, I will tell you how to do this. And that principle carries throughout scripture. Think about Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus chapter 10. Here are these two guys, these two priests, and there they are worshiping in the temple and they bring this fire before God and they're blown away. God destroys them, and exegetes go over, why did God do this? Maybe they were drunk. Maybe they were doing this. Maybe they were doing that. The Scripture says why. In Leviticus 10.1, Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, took their censers, put fire in them, and added incense, and they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to His command. They did something against the prescription of the Lord. That principle is embodied in Deuteronomy 12, 32. See that you do all I command you to do. Do not add to it or take away from it. Jesus himself echoes this regulative principle in Matthew 15, 7-9. When he encounters the Pharisees, he says to them, you hypocrites, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain. Their teachings are but rules taught by men. They worship me according to the rules of men, not according to the prescribed rules of God. Beloved, the regular principle of worship is nothing more than the faithful application of the principle of sola scriptura to worship. It is simply the idea that God is sovereign. He dictates how we are to approach Him. Now, with that in mind, let's go back to that exegetical argument. Let's answer that so what question. We have already determined here. The Colossians 3.16, Ephesians 5.19 call us to sing the Psalms of the Old Testament, that Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs are a reference to the Psalter itself. We also recognize that we find no command, no command in the New Testament to sing anything else. Therefore, beloved, according to the regulative principle of worship, we should sing only Psalms because we have no scriptural warrant, no command from God to sing anything else. We have no command. You see, everyone has a regulative principle of worship. Whether they articulate it formally or not, they will determine how to worship God. We have to make a choice, and really the choice is, is it going to be you? Is it going to be me? Is it going to be Him? The Reformed have always said consistently, God and God alone determines how we are to worship. The second reason we should sing Psalms and worship is because there is no scriptural warrant to sing anything else. It's what God commands us to do. The third argument for why we should sing Psalms is the sufficiency of Scripture. The sufficiency of Scripture. The modern evangelical church is suffering from what I refer to as practical Marcionism. Marcion was this early church heretic, a second century heretic, who viewed the Old Testament as inferior revelation. He basically gutted it from the Christian scriptures and the Christian canon. And unfortunately, many modern Christians have adopted Marcion's viewpoint, whether they articulate it that way or not. They treat the Old Testament as inferior revelation, subpar revelation. They gut their Bibles of it. In his essay, his insightful and humorous essay, The Marcians Have Landed, Carl Truman, a professor, historical theology professor at Westminster Seminary, someone we know well here, writes the following about this dynamic in the evangelical church. Truman writes, when one asks who is one of the most influential thinkers in the modern evangelical church, one might think of names such as Jim Packer, John Stott, and Don Carson. I would like to suggest, however, that there is one whose influence is perhaps much greater than we are aware of, yet whose thinking all but pervades the modern evangelical church, Marcion. He's the man who gets my vote for the most profound influence on evangelicalism, from canon to theology to worship practices. You never see his books on the shelves in your high street Christian bookshop. You never see him advertise his preaching in your local church. But rest assured, his spirit stalks those bookshops and pulpits. You see, it is this practical Marcionism that has led many Christians to reject the use of psalms in worship, and ultimately to reject the core principle of evangelical theology. The sufficiency of Scripture. And what do I mean by the sufficiency of Scripture? I mean the Bible is sufficient for matters of faith and life. It contains all that we need. The Westminster Confession of Faith, again, defines this well in Chapter 1 and Section 6. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down in Scripture or, by good and necessary consequence, may be deduced from Scripture, under which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelation to the Spirit or traditions of men. Scripture is sufficient. Paul tells us the same thing in 2 Timothy 3, 16, and 17. All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Let me ask you, what was Paul referring to in 2 Timothy? Was it the Old Testament or the New Testament? Seeing that he didn't have a complete New Testament at the time, we can assume his primary reference was to the Old Testament. Paul said, this is God-breathed revelation. It's not subpar. So what's my point? My point is this. The Old Testament contains an inspired book, a God-breathed book of praises. It is, of course, the psalm. Think about it. God gave us a book of praises. He didn't give us a book of prayers. He didn't give us a book of sermons, but He did give us an inspired book of praises. They were meant to be sung. They weren't given so that we could have something in the back of our New Testament. They weren't given so we could have something on a hallmark card. They weren't given so we have a cute little quote on our calendar. God gave them to us to sing. He gave us a God inspired book of praise. That's the case. If God gave us this God-read book, and if the Old Testament is not inferior revelation, then it's reasonable to assume that this book is sufficient for the worship of the church and needs no human supplementation. It is sufficient for the worship of the church. You see, the question here is not whether man-made hymns are bad or good or whatever. The question really is, which is better? Which is better God's praise book, breathed by Him, or that which is inspired by men, and men alone? Which is better? And you see, many churches have answered this question, that the God-breathed book of praises is insufficient for Christian worship. They have taken this practical Marcionism to such an extent, in fact, that they have totally gutted the Psalms from worship. They practice exclusive hymnody. The psalms are nowhere to be found. There's almost this anger, if you will, anticipated singing the psalms. It's kind of insane if you think about it. It's irrational. Carl Truman, again in that same essay, notes this troubling trend. It really helps us to think about it, I think. Listen to what he says. Nothing seems to earn the scorn and derision of others more than the suggestion that more psalms should be sung in worship. Indeed, the last few years have seen a number of writers strike out against exclusive psalm reading. Given that life is too short to engage in pointless polemics, I am left wondering which parallel universe these guys come from, where the most pressing and dangerous worship issue is clearly that people sing too much of the Bible in their services. How terrifying a prospect that would be! Imagine people actually singing songs that express the full range of human emotion in their worship, using words of which God has explicitly said, these are mine. Back here on planet Earth, however, there is generally precious little chance of overloading on sound theology and song in most evangelical churches, as the Marcion invasion is pretty much total and unopposed in the sphere of worship. Where had the Psalms gone? Beloved, the psalms are sufficient for the worship of God. Think about how they fit into every category of our worship, every element. There are psalms of praise for our invocation, psalms of penitence for our confession of sin and pardon, psalms of lament for times of prayer and supplication, psalms of thanksgiving for our time of offering, psalms of benediction and doxology for the doxology and conclusion of our services. You think as if God designed it for the purpose of worship. He did. It's sufficient. That's why Calvin said, although we look far and wide and search on every hand, we shall not find better songs, nor songs better suited to the end of worship than the Psalms of David, which the Holy Spirit made and uttered through him. You won't find anything better because these are the God-breathed songs of the Bible, meant to be sung. The third reason why we should sing Psalms in worship is because Psalms are God-breathed and they are sufficient for the worship of the church. The fourth and final argument is the historical argument. The historical argument. I realize when people first come into an RP church and hear us singing the Psalms, they likely think it's pretty weird. I understand it. That's how I felt initially coming in. Some people have even told me, when I joined the RP Church, that I was joining a cult. And it wasn't because of infant baptism, or Calvinism, or because we were small. It was because we sang songs. It was so odd to them, so unusual, they thought we were joining a cult. They were concerned for us. I want to assure you, the RP Church is not a cult because we sing songs. There might be other reasons why we could be considered a cult. high odds that you might inadvertently marry your cousin in the church, or the odd fact that we have more 15-passenger vans per capita than any other denomination in the United States. Sorry, Ken. But it's not because we sing psalms. That doesn't make us weird. At least it didn't make us weird historically. I want to show you that this was not so uncommon a practice as it is today. In fact, R. Scott Clark, a professor at Westminster Seminary in California, writes this, not long ago, a reformed congregation which did not sing psalms would have been considered liberal. Today, a congregation which sings mostly psalms on the premise that it's the only revealed songbook is regarded as radical. It wasn't always weird. Let me give you a brief summary, a kind of swift historical survey here. First, look at the early church, the first four centuries there. At that time, the great church historian Philip Schaaf writes about that period of church history. He says so far as we are able to gather from our sources, nothing except the Psalms and New Testament hymns such as the Gloria and Excelsis, the Magnificat, the Nunc Diminis was a rule sung in the church before the fourth century. Chaffetz reviews history in the first four centuries. It was the Psalms that were sung in worship with a few of these New Testament scriptural songs. In fact, history actually reveals that it was heretics who really were first involved in introducing non-inspired church music. Augustine, writing in the fifth century, writes this, the Donatists, the heretics, the Donatists, make it a matter of reproach against us that in the church we sing with sobriety the divine songs. whereas they inflame the intoxication of their minds by singing psalms of human composition." It was a tactic of promoting Harris. The Council of Laodicea, one of the early ecumenical church councils, expressly prohibited, quote, the singing of uninspired hymns in church. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD reaffirmed that testimony of the Council of Laodicea. And if you hop forward to the time of the Reformation in the modern period, psalm singing was the practice of John Calvin, not exclusively. So he also sang some of those New Testament songs, but primarily and predominantly psalm singing. It was a practice of John Knox. It was a practice of the English and Dutch Puritans. It was a practice of the Westminster Assembly. It's right in the confession. It calls us to sing psalms with grace in our heart and refers to Colossians 316 and Ephesians 519. It was the practice of the American Puritans. The first book published in English America was the Bay Psalm Book, 1640. The PCUSA, the mainline Presbyterian Church, sang psalms exclusively until the latter part of the 18th century. It was really only not until the mid-18th century that psalm singing began to decline, and most Reformed churches sang psalms well into the 20th century, at least the early part of the 20th century. As you can see, historically speaking, this is not a weird thing. It is now, but it wasn't so historically. What changed that? What led to the demise of psalm singing? Well, I think if you look historically, and some historians have noted this point, The decline of psalm singing occurs with the rise of revivalism. Revivalism with its new measures, its new techniques. It was then thought that the psalms were not conducive to the new measures of the great awakenings. They really abandoned for pragmatic reasons. Never a good reason to change your theology. I realize history is never a clinching argument, but there's considerable weight in the fact that for eighteen hundred years, we can serve a church history and say this is how the church predominantly worship God with exclusive or near exclusive practice of singing the songs. We should sing songs in worship, fourthly, because it was a historical practice of this church. We sing psalms because the scripture calls us to, because there's no express warrant to do anything else, because God breathed these psalms and they are sufficient for us, and because it was the historical practice of the church. I realize many of you may disagree with this position this morning. I understand that good, sound, believing Christians can disagree. But I ask you to think about it. Think about it. Consider and think about it through this allegory given by TM Moore. I think it's helpful. And I'll close with this. Imagine that you and I have been appointed as ambassadors to a foreign country. We are preparing to arrive and to have our first audience with the king and his court. We have been given a manual by our government advising us of the protocols, procedures, and code of dress, order of proceedings, proper subjects for discussion, and so forth that our new nation has observed for countless generations. whenever people assemble in the presence of the king. I suppose that for whatever reason, the ways seem too archaic and outmoded. We find the dress code disagreeable. We're not all interested in what the king wants to discuss, or we simply prefer our own way of speaking and our own order of doing things to what the manual prescribes. We decide to set aside the manual and just do whatever we think is best for us. How successful do you think we will be as ambassadors in this country and with this king? And more concludes, it is no different in our worship of the living God, given the biblical and historical precedent, the clear testimony of the practice of the saints from the old and the New Testament and the long history of the church, of using Psalms as a primary program of prayer and worship. How have we in our generation decided to simply set aside that venerable program and do whatever we think best in approaching the God of heaven and earth? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us this book of praises. And, Lord, may we use it to exalt our Lord Jesus Christ, not to crush others. Help us to humbly, joyfully sing the Psalms with gratitude in our hearts. And may we be an encouragement to the Church at large to join the voice with the history of the saints in singing these great Psalms to you. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Could you please open with me to one of those psalms in which we find a command to sing them? Psalm 95, Selection A. Let's stand and sing that psalm. Afterwards, we'll have the commission, the benediction, and we'll close with the doxology, 100 C. Please rise. Mm-hmm. O come, all ye faithful, and sing. Let us our voices raise in joyful song. Let us the rock of our salvation raise. Before His presence ever come, With praise and thankful voice, Let us rejoice in His great name, With doubt let us rejoice. Thou art a mighty God and King, above all Gods He is. The heavens, the earth are His and the mountain peaks are His. To Him the praise just seemingly was, was made by His command. And by the working of His hand, He formed the rising sun. Beloved people of God, receive now the commission that comes to you from James 5, verse 13. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Receive now the blessing of God. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you His peace. Amen. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with glad records. Come before His presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, He is God. It is He that hath made us, not we ourselves. We are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His face with thanksgiving. Come into His courts with His praise. Be thankful unto Him that's His name. For the Lord is good, His mercy everlasting, His truth enduring through all generations.