Within just a few decades after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, believers had searched the scriptures and distilled the truth of the Christian faith down to 12 sentences, 12 statements. And those statements are preserved for us in what we call the 12 Articles of the Christian Faith or the Apostles' Creed. And so, as we stand and sing a versification of the Apostles' Creed, number 560, we recognize that we're singing with the church for hundreds and hundreds of years, affirming these most core truths about who God is, what he has done for us, and who we are in him. And so let's do this with joy and confidence as we worship God and encourage one another, singing number 560, the Apostles' Creed. Redeemer, God of Father, Maker of the Heavens and Earth, and in Jesus Christ our Savior, God's own Son of We invoke our son. We invoke thy heavenly name, God Almighty, three in one. To another, not just pilot, crucified in love. so silent as the prophets did foretell. But a soul, still too much empty, on the third day he arose. Into heaven made his entry, rising up from the dead. and he is seated, till his coming as he said. I will judge and will be beaten, to the living and the dead. through Christ the Son. To our wise salvation's merit, God will steer with three in one. We believe the Church of Jesus, holy and obedient. of the living of the saints. I believe sin's unforgiving, that our bodies will be raised. I believe God is never-ending. Love him, let his name be praised. Our scripture lesson this evening is from Psalm 150. We'll be focusing on verses 3 through 5. I'll just read the six verses here. After months and months of studying the basics of the Christian faith using the Belgic Confession, we, a few weeks ago, said we wanted to focus for some weeks on a theme that is not absent in the Confession, but is also not focused on, perhaps in the way we would like to see it, which is the theme of worship. Certainly the reasons for worshiping God are run on through every article of the Belgic Confession, but We want to ask some important questions about worship, really focusing on it. Last time we asked the question, why should we worship? And we focused on verse two of Psalm 150. We praise him for, so the psalmist gives an answer, his mighty deeds and according to his excellent greatness. So for his works and for his being, for what he's done and who he is. And this evening and also, Lord willing, next week we want to work on the question, how should I worship? And so this week we'll focus on verses three through five, and then next week, Lord willing, verse six, and also we'll look at Psalm 148. So let's listen again to this psalm. Praise the Lord, praise God in His sanctuary, praise Him in His mighty heavens, praise Him for His mighty deeds, praise Him according to His excellent greatness, praise Him with trumpet sound, praise Him with lute and harp, praise Him with tambourine and dance, praise Him with strings and pipe, praise Him with sounding cymbals, praise Him with loud clashing cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. If you were following along with our reading there, or if you just know the book of Psalms, you'll notice that Psalm 150 is the last of the Psalms. It's the end of the Psalter. But it's more than that. It's certainly more than that if we were to suspect wrongly that this just happened to be the last one. Like there's a, you know, like you're looking through a box of pictures of your family and you get to the the bottom picture, the last picture in the box, and that's the last of the pictures. And there was no rhyme or reason for it, but that just happened to be on the bottom of the pile. But that's not how we should look at the Psalms. This isn't just the last of the Psalms. It isn't just the one that got put at the end. It is more than that. I see it more like the closing argument in a court case. It's brief, it's strong, it gives clear instructions regarding our most important calling in life, namely the worship of our triune God. Specifically, the list of instruments in verses 3 through 5 tells us how to worship. Now that's true, no matter how we would interpret them, which we hope to focus on this evening, but clearly there's an element of how here. Verse one says where we're to worship God. Verse two says why we're to worship him. Verse six speaks to who should worship him as well as how. And verses three through five are how. We do it with, in this certain way. They tell us how to worship. But like all scripture, we need to interpret these words with care. They do teach us how to worship, but their message may differ from what first meets the eye. And so this evening we want to apply three questions to verses three through five that can help us understand and apply this portion of God's word to our life of worship. And the first question that I propose we consider is this, should we take these verses literally? So worship him with trumpet sound, with lute, harp, tambourine, dance, strings, pipe, sounding cymbals, loud clashing cymbals. Should we take these verses literally? That's an important question. A casual read or I think a simplistic read of these verses seems to clinch the case for using all of these instruments and perhaps only all of these instruments in worship. And if that's what these verses do, If that's what scripture requires, I hope we would all say that's exactly what we would commit to, right? You would obey Psalm 150. You would obey every scripture. If scripture says this is how you must do something, you would say, yes, I must do it. That's what God's word says. We would modify immediately our accompaniment and procure trumpets and lutes and harps and tambourines and so on. Our worship should fully submit to the truth of Scripture, including Psalm 150. And these verses will confront us in, I think, many ways, but before we assume a literal interpretation, or perhaps rather than assuming a literal interpretation, we should consider several factors. Here are four things that we should at least consider about these verses before we say, well, here is the exact way to worship, the list of instruments to use, and so on. First of all, we shouldn't forget that the Psalms are poetry. And if you've read poetry or been forced to read poetry at some point over the course of your life, if you don't love poems, you know that poems often use metaphorical language. Poems, every poem, be it a love poem or a biblical poem, ought to express the truth, ought to say what is real. But often poets say what is real using language that is not strictly literal. You know, literal like an instruction manual. Very literal, but not very beautiful, right? And so poets do it differently. They tell the truth in often metaphorical language. For example, there's millions of examples we could give, but Psalm 149 Verse three, so just a page back, if your Bible's still open, says this, let them praise his name with dancing. And so someone just reading that verse might say, well, there is a case for liturgical dance or dance in worship. But if you were to keep reading in Psalm 149, you'd get to verse six, which says this, let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands. I suppose there is some weird Christian church somewhere that says you need to worship God with two-edged swords in your hands, right? This is the Word of God, and we need to obey what the Word of God says. Well, of course we need to obey what the Word of God says, but not all Scripture is to be taken literally. In fact, it often ceases to be handled properly when you take it literally. We don't literally gouge out our eyes or cut off our hands, which is exactly what Jesus said in the Gospels, but he was making a strong point. Fight hard against sin, lest you enter into hell with a healthy body. Better to be vigorous against sin and go to heaven. That was the point, the real truth Jesus was making. So, I don't know of anyone who thinks that we should praise God with two-edged swords. Dancing with swords, or as the verse goes on to say, executing vengeance on the nations and punishments on the people. So the point simply is that biblical poetry tells the truth. And by saying that a verse isn't to be taken literally is not diminishing the power of scripture. It's not doing away with something that we don't like. It's handling scripture as it ought to be handled if it's not literal, not to be taken literally. So we have to remember at least that Psalms are poetry. This is a very poetic ending to the Psalter. A second consideration is that the list includes many unknown instruments. Now, that doesn't seem to be the case, does it? When you read the list, you read and you say, well, I'm not an expert on all these instruments, but I'm sure they're real instruments. But the reality is that many instrument names in our English Bibles are simply translators' best guesses. There's clearly a list of instruments here, but we don't know what many of them are. So for example, the word translated strings in verse four, praising with strings and pipe, that will get translated in different ways from one translation to the next, as most of these terms do, and often they're interchanged in different places, because translators are doing their best with strange words, but that particular word is found nowhere else in scripture. So you get to Psalm 150, and it says, worship him with, and then there's a Hebrew word there, and translators are supposed to translate that, but there's no other place in the Bible that word is found against which to understand what it means. And translators aren't given necessarily dictionaries from God to know how to translate one word to the next. So the point simply being is that we don't know what that is. It says strings, and so our minds might go to guitars or harps or something like that, but we actually don't know what that word what that word means. Even the most, probably one of the more familiar words in this list, trumpet, in verse three, when you read that verse or hear that verse read, you have some very definite picture in your mind, right? A trumpet. You think of a brass instrument with three, I don't know what those things are called, but, what are they called? Valves that you push down makes different sounds and and but that's not what it is, right? The Hebrew word here is shofar Maybe you've seen that before as simply any a hollow animal horn. There's no valves. There's no buttons to push down and A trumpet is, if we're honest, the way it functions in scripture, at least the shofar, is not a musical instrument. It's a tube that makes a sound, usually for alerting the city that the city is under attack or that generals might use or have their musicians use to sound the alarm for an army to move forward. It's more like a foghorn. sounding an alarm than a musical instrument supporting a melody. That's just what it is. So we can't think trumpet like in a brass band. And so the point here is that if these verses provide a technical code for worship, we don't know how to implement it. We wouldn't know how to implement this. A third thing that we ought to consider is this, the list in this portion of Scripture differs dramatically from temple worship protocol. And that is significant. You know how the Old Testament worship requirements are precise. I mean, when God lays out the blueprint for the tabernacles, he tells you what color fabric to use on the tent, and how long the tent peg should be, and the direction that it should face, and what kind of wood the Ark of the Covenant should be. I mean, it's very, very detailed. And of the instruments in our text, Only trumpets were authorized in the law for worship use. So when I say the law, I'm thinking specifically Exodus and Numbers and Leviticus and Deuteronomy were all the rules and regulations for the worship of God's people, the sacrifices and the buildings. All of this is laid out in detail. The only instrument that we find authorized for worship use in the law is the trumpet. And that is only utilized for calling worshipers to order. So in the old covenant, the shofar or the trumpet is really like the bells on the top of an old-fashioned church building. The bells aren't worship instruments, right? They don't make different notes. They sound an alarm, and when the person, before the service starts, gets up and rings the bell, he's saying, get to church, it's about to begin. That's what a shofar is used for in the law, in connection to worship. It's not a musical instrument. It's not a worship instrument. And so, what I'm suggesting here is that it is not reasonable to suppose that the Psalter's closing argument, literally the last few verses from the end of this worship book, introduces new evidence for worship and radically modifies the strict regimen of the law. So it'd be very, very surprising to think at the end of the Psalms, all of a sudden new instruments are introduced that the people of God had not been taught to use throughout the instruction in the scriptures. And then one more thing that I might mention is that Also, the New Testament has no parallel with this form of worship. We do see worshiping in the New Testament, but not like this. Trumpets are in the New Testament. But they are somewhat consistent with the Old Testament used for alerting or for enjoining action. We can think of, in fact, the most common way that a trumpet is used in the New Testament is to tell us about what will happen when the Lord Jesus comes again. The trumpet will sound. It's an alarm. It's a notice that the king has returned. The only other instrument in this list found in the New Testament is the harp. And it occurs in Revelation 5 verse 8 for heavenly worship and is a passage filled obviously with symbolic language. So this is all I hope you hear is not at all being critical of the instruments in Psalm 150 verses 3 through 5. It's trying to reckon with what their function is in this psalm. And what I'm suggesting is that it's not telling us this is your new way to worship for the reasons given. Psalm 150 does not seem to mandate a particular music style for New Testament worship. Okay, so I've handled it so far mostly in the negative, what these instruments aren't doing. But surely these verses are making a point. I mean, if they are functioning near the conclusion, very near to the end in the book of the Psalms, they must be doing something important, and they are. So what is it that these verses are doing, and what is the purpose then, secondly, of the list of instruments? Let me suggest that the Psalm, and particularly these verses, identifies instruments in order to prescribe the attitude and actions that we should bring to worship. Think about it this way, the psalm, this particular psalm is the crescendo of the Psalter. It is the point where the worship of God has reached its highest point. And so there's really, we shouldn't really expect here to be any new information. This is bringing everything that has been drummed into the worshipers from this point till now to a point. And the point is very simply, three words in English, praise the Lord. We said last time there's only one verb in the entire psalm, and it's repeated 12 or 13 times. It's praise the Lord. That's the point of this psalm. So this is the crescendo of the psalter, and so the instruments, I'm convinced, serve a literary function similar to a grand finale in a firework display. There's really nothing new in a grand finale. It's just, they're all brought together. It's like, I don't know music very well, or classical music, but there's a point in which the instruments' sounds get loud and come together, and it's letting you know that we've come to the climax of this performance. John Calvin, thinking about these verses, says this, the psalmist, in exhorting believers to pour forth all their joy in the praises of God, enumerates, one upon the other, all the musical instruments which were then in use, just generally speaking, and reminds the people that everyone ought to be consecrated to the worship of God. It's like he's banging on the drum and saying, worship God. And he bangs on the cymbal and he says, worship God. And then he blasts the shofar and he says, worship God. He's arousing the people to worship the Lord using the list of these instruments, which would bring attention to the people that a call for action is warranted. And surely, We need to be stirred up to worship. We need to be stirred up to worship. You can, of course, worship alone. You should worship alone. You have that wonderful opportunity to do it. You've sang alone, right? You've sang and you're sort of glad you're alone when you sing alone because you don't know if you want other people to hear you. It's hard singing alone. You can sing as a family. You should sing as a family. It's wonderful to sing as a family, but even that is difficult. A lot of times I'll tell my family when we're singing a psalm that we're gonna sing this coming Sunday, I'm like, listen, hold out just a few more days, and this is gonna sound a lot better. We're struggling through this now, but we're gonna have the whole congregation with all of these voices, and maybe the piano or the organ or both, and we're all gonna be singing, it's gonna be that much better. So the idea of instruments is it's encouraging us, it's urging us to worship as part of an orchestra. Instruments, as you know, I think we'd all agree, one of the main reasons that we use instruments is to make us bolder in expressing our own voices. I'm sure there are other reasons as well. They are beautiful, played by the skillful musicians that we have, been blessed by the Lord in this congregation. But one of the things instruments surely do is they provide cover. for the voices that aren't always on track, right? And that's a wonderful encouragement. It allows you to sing louder because you've got a little support. And that's the point, whether you have an organ or a piano or just other two or three or four or a hundred believers around you. You're singing like part of an orchestra. You have some support. It's not a solo. As in a skilled orchestra where every instrument plays a part, we are the orchestra. The people of God, the congregation of God is the orchestra. You are the trumpets, the lutes, harps, tambourines, and so on. Each of us should make a noise. The people in front of you should hear you. Even if you sing off key, they should hear you. You're part of an instrument, right? Imagine if everyone in an orchestra was so timid to play their part that they didn't play. They assume they're gonna get covered by the people around them. But what if everybody felt that way? There'd be no music, everybody'd be faking it, no sound would be coming out. And we don't want that in a congregation either. We sing with all our heart as if it was just us and God. But thankfully we've got people around us to help us sing like an orchestra. So musical instruments and the notes they play can assist us, but they should never eclipse the importance of the human worshiper offering his or her wholehearted praise. The closing verse of Psalm 150 demands that everything that has breath should praise the Lord. Everyone should worship. And in worship, everyone should be like the musical instruments cited, using their breath in their different musical accents. Each of these instruments, I assume, whatever they are, does something a little bit different. It's a little bit like you and me in a congregation. We do something a little bit different with our voices, but we do it together, and we're praising the Lord like a choir. We use our breath. to make a sound, to join the heavenly choir that worships God continually. The instruments in Psalm 150 also add a note of urgency to our worship. The first instrument in the list, also the most easily identifiable, not a trumpet but a shofar, calls God's people to action by reminding us that one day the last trumpet will sound. to summon the world to judgment and the church to salvation, as one commentator put it. And so what Psalm 150 is doing is saying, praise him with the trumpet sound while there still is a trumpet sound. Because one day, listen, the last trumpet will have sounded. And there will be no more on this earth. There will be no more opportunity for someone who has refused to worship God and bend the knee to Christ to say, wait, now I want to join the choir. No, the trumpet is sounded and you weren't part of the choir. And so there's a note of urgency. If you're here, if you're listening, if you're hearing the word of God and the message about Jesus Christ, you commit your heart and your whole life to the Lord, saying, Lord, I want to worship you. I want to be part of your choir. I want to be part of your orchestra. I want to praise your great and glorious name. And so the instruments in this Psalm convey an overwhelming sense of urgent, wholehearted, and robust praise from the redeemed. Now, just one last thought on this before I move to some application. I don't want to suggest that the ancient people, like the author of Psalm 150, writing 3,000 years ago, like they were somehow uncivilized and didn't know about things the way we do today. But ask yourself this, apart from machines and speakers and, you know, we think of high-powered, you know, instruments of war that make loud noises. How would you make a loud noise 3,000 years ago? I don't know, you could clap your hand or you could shout real loud. But people in that day never heard a sound like you've heard when you heard a jet engine fly over your head, for example, or you go to a racetrack and you hear a car race past you, that's a loud noise. How do you talk about a loud noise if you're writing 3,000 years ago? Well, you bring all the instruments that you can think of and just start listing them off and saying, this is the loud noise that I can think of. It's the trumpet, the lute, the harp, and the cymbals, and so on. That's what scripture, I think, is doing here, drawing attention to the importance of worship so that we might join in and worship the Lord. Third question I want to consider this evening is what is God saying to me because of this list or through this list? And one of the ways that we should apply this psalm may be surprising. Ironically, I think, though Psalm 150 names numerous musical instruments in a way that no other psalm does, in terms of bringing them all together in one tight place, its focus, clearly, in the psalm as a whole, is not on worship music. The focus is not on worship music. As I mentioned, we can't identify the instruments, most of them at least. And none of the tunes that the Israelites used have been preserved. So this isn't a lecture, Psalm 150 isn't a lecture on an appropriate tune for worship or the way to play an instrument or how to be an orchestra musically. The focus is not on worship music. The focus is on praising the Lord. And the way that we do that is, as I mentioned, with the assistance of music. You don't need music, of course, to praise the Lord, but music can assist us in praising the Lord. We don't have the tunes. You couldn't sing this psalm, even if you wanted to, the way that the Israelites did. You don't know the instruments, you don't know the music. But the words and the theological ideas remain with us today. That is the essence of worship. We praise the Lord not by singing a kind of tune that we happen to like with the kinds of instruments that we appreciate. We worship God for his beauty and his glory. We sing, as Paul says in the New Testament, because the word of Christ dwells in us richly. It lives in us and it wants to come out in the worship of our Creator and our Redeemer. We worship because the Spirit has made us thankful to God for so great a salvation in Christ. That's what worship is all about. Now, of course, we all have preferences about musical style. And perhaps you could feel that you could make a strong argument for certain tunes in church or certain instrumentation. I'm sure we could all do that. But that's not the point of Psalm 150. It's not arguing for a particular style of worship, particular form of instrumentation. Because while church music is not inconsequential, church music is simply a vehicle. Think about this, this evening, We all got to church using, I think, a vehicle. I don't think anyone walked here today. And the vehicles that we took to church vary significantly in style, in age, in color, in dependability. Some of us were praying that we'd get to church today with our vehicles. But it doesn't matter, right? The vehicle that you use to get to church tonight is largely irrelevant. The point is you're here. The vehicle got you into God's presence and that's what matters. Likewise, Congregations use a variety of vehicles to get worshipers praise into God's sanctuary, into his mighty heavens. He says in verse one, praise the Lord in his sanctuary, in his mighty heavens. How do we get there? Well, we use the vehicle of music and there's a variety of vehicles that could get us there. In this church, just to speak of our own situation as a small segment of the Church of Jesus Christ, we use music based on medieval chants. You may not know that because you don't always notice from the bottom of your song, but we use a number of songs based on medieval chants. Genevan tunes, emotionally expressive and harmoniously dramatic 19th century melodies, as well as modern hands and many other forms of music as well as those mentioned. We sometimes sing with just our voices. Sometimes we have a piano. Sometimes we have an organ. Sometimes we have both. Using those instruments, we'd be hard-pressed to argue consistently against additional instruments. But again, I don't think that's the point of Psalm 150. Right, it would be unwise to say we can't use these instruments, we can only use this instrument and that instrument, not the ones mentioned in the Bible. That would be unwise. But that's not the point of Psalm 150. The point of Psalm 150 is that instruments are vehicles to help carry us, like our voices help carry us into the presence of God. And the instruments and the tunes that we use as vehicles, of course, are profoundly subject to our opinions and our cultural influences. And so surely there are people here, as in any congregation, who would say, well, the 19th century romantic tunes, of which there are many in the Trinity Psalter Hymnal, are surely the best. Or, no, it's the Genevans, or it's the medieval chants, or it's... you know, newer, modern praise worship. We have opinions, we've been shaped by cultural influences, but our opinions aren't really the point. I wonder if you've ever thought this, maybe, especially if you're newer to worship, maybe you didn't grow up in the church, you think, why does church music sound different than everything else I hear? Why doesn't it sound like the music I hear on the radio or stream on my platform? Well, in part because it's the outgrowth of a long tradition. I mean, this is a distinct community that's been worshiping God generationally, and so our music ought to have some historical continuity from one generation to the next. It shouldn't change wildly because the preferences of music listeners changed. in this generation or as they got older or as more young people came into the church or whatever, there's a continuity. But the style that's used in a congregation, if it's reverent and singable and generally amenable to the people in the congregation is a fine vehicle if God's people are using that vehicle to come into his holy presence. And so people who complain, I suppose that's all of us, about new worship songs, or old worship songs, or who will only praise with an organ, or will only praise with an orchestra, or with a band, or whatever else we might be complaining about, no matter on which end of the spectrum you might find yourself. And I try to put myself in that spectrum as well, as one who has opinions about music, as I know you all do as well. But if we bring complaints to this style or that style, we're all guilty of the same fault, no matter which end of the spectrum we might be on. And the fault is allowing our preferences to distract us from the worship of the triune God. Worship isn't, first of all, an emotional experience. And so I know this may seem like we're moving away from Psalm 150, but you can easily imagine people saying, well, I would never worship in a church where there was trumpets and lutes and harps and trambolines or whatever. And other people here might be saying, if only, if only we used trumpets and harps and dance and whatever else. But we all have to be careful of saying, this is what I want. This is what I want worship to be. And I would worship with all my heart if I only got what I want. You begin to wonder, who's the one being worshiped with that kind of thinking? And so, to put it differently, to put it in a much more constructive and positive way, what if we thanked God? when we knew that we were singing a tune, for example. that we didn't really care for, but we knew that other people do. I'm not a big fan of 19th century romantic music. It's all over the Trinity Psalter hymnal. That's fine, but I know some people love it. They feel this is what worship music is. This is when the height of worship music was written. Or maybe you're not a big fan of newer songs, but you say, praise God we're singing this song, because I know there's people in this church who love, who are, being stirred to worship through this mode, using this vehicle. And so we're looking out for the interests of others more than our own interests. And we say, that is what I want. And so don't worry if worship music doesn't fit your preference, if it doesn't sound like the sort of music that you stream or that you listen to on the radio. Don't allow your preferences to distract you from the worship of the Triune God. Resist prioritizing your musical preferences. If you bring, and we all do, I suppose, from time to time, if you bring a bad attitude to the psalms, oh, we gotta sing another psalm, or to the romantic hymns, or to modern praise songs, repent. Repent of not using a vehicle that God has given to you to sing his praise, to focus on the work that Christ has done. Maybe using a style that isn't your favorite or instruments that you don't, maybe you don't love a piano or don't love an organ, you'd rather have this or that. Use that vehicle that God has given to you. Ask God to help you use every sound means to praise his great name. And in line with Psalm 150, you commit to praising him the best you can. Like one piece of an orchestra. An orchestra which here is small, but in heaven will be so great that no person can number, John says. But no person will be insignificant, no voice, no life will be insignificant. So pray to the Lord, say, Lord, help me to praise you like Psalm 150, three through five. Like a loud, diverse, passionate, skillful orchestra. I'm just one part, but help me to play my part because you're worthy of the full expression of my heart and my soul and my mind. And so God help us to do that, to Respond to the summons of this psalm and to praise him with our heart and soul and mind and strength and intensity to his great glory. Let's pray for God's help in this. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are worthy of our worship, our praise, our adoration, our thanks, our joy, our trust. We were made to praise you, and as we are renewed in Christ by the Holy Spirit, we become willing able and even eager to praise you. Help us to respond to the summons of this psalm and the whole scripture to praise you with trumpet sound, with lute and harp, with tambourine and dance, with strings and pipe, with sounding cymbals, with loud clashing cymbals. That is to say, to praise you with everything. with all that we are, all that you've given to us, all the opportunities that we have. We thank you so much for the privilege of worshiping in this place with this congregation from week to week. We thank you for the wonderfully skilled musicians that you have given to us and their dedication and the way they help us to carry tunes that we would have difficulty carrying otherwise. and perhaps even to feel things that we might not have felt otherwise. We pray that you would sustain them in their practice and give them joy in their service. And we pray that you would help us, especially if we may struggle with certain forms of worship that have the approval of the church, not only in this place, but in approval of the church throughout the ages. Pray that you would help us to humble ourselves, and to take our place, knowing that we are not worshiping you simply as individuals, but as a congregation. Help us to focus our attention not on what we want, but what you are worth. And so we ask with grateful hearts that you would receive our thanks. and our praise for Jesus' sake, amen.