Devotional Exposition of Psalm 27, Part V: I Will Sing & Make Melody to the Lord

I am sure that any of you who are reading this essay will remember when, during your school years, the teacher would ask a question, and you would hang your head low, hoping against hope that the teacher wouldn’t see you.  How trite!

More soberly; my now-departed, deceased friend John would have to find differing routes home from school on a daily basis, out of fear that the neighborhood bullies would find and beat him up.  It was a daily regimen of fear and flight.

Well over 200 million Christians live within domains of fear and danger, as the prevailing cultures throughout the so-called “10-40 Window” are antithetical in mindset to Christianity and, therefore, antagonistic to Christians.  Neighbors, co-workers and supervisors, governing authorities and police (as in Saudi Arabia, a country that actually has a religious police force), ideological gangs (often roving about India at the behest of Hindu radicalism) and monsters who prey on young Christian women to kidnap them and force them into Muslim marriages (as in Pakistan) are all part of the adversarial mix.

Today; even within the historically safe haven of the United States, God’s people have begin to be targeted by the ideological Left, portions of the LGBTQ community and state authority in such places as Colorado and Washington.  Christian baker Jack Phillips of Colorado can tell you all about it, as state administrators have come against him in waves due to his refusal to prepare cakes that request or require his endorsement of values or life-styles that as a Christian he cannot endorse or condone. 

And don’t for one moment believe that the Church of Jesus Christ has any confluence of interest with Black Lives Matter, as the organization (as distinct from the sentiment; laudable unto itself within the broader framework within which all lives matter) itself, murky in many of its ways, is directly and philosophically opposed to biblical truth concerning life’s structures and purpose.  Its founding document makes such opposition crystal clear.

We have reason to be fearful, at least on one level; yet, and in another, more meaningfully way, we have reason to be confident, as the Apostle Paul soundly concluded in verse three when he said, “Yet I will be confident.”

Our confidence is not to be found in ourselves.  It is to be appreciated and appropriated in Jesus Christ.  It is He who will take care of business when we are least able. 

It must be understood, for anyone who has come to Christ, that we are powerless over our own sin-nature.  Our sinful condition has a firm and grim grip upon our lives that can’t be dislodged by human enterprise or self-effort.  It is simply impossible.  So we understand that our salvation comes by way of God’s grace, through the shed blood of Christ, as the Apostle Paul has so splendidly summated:  “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8, 9).

He speaks in a complementary vein when he writes elsewhere:  “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone may possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8).

The British well understood the reality of existential helplessness.  They had done much; to be sure.  One commentator observed that our valiant cousins across the “Pond” had stood firm against and defeated the tyranny of Philip II of Spain, Louis XIV of France, Napoleon Bonaparte of France, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and the demonic overlord of Nazism, who was Adolf Hitler.  But the rising shadow of Fascism in Germany played out before the receding power and confidence of Great Britain.  Providentially; Winston Churchill came to power and, almost single-handedly, kept British resolve steady for two very lonesome years, all-the-while realizing that the United States categorically had to enter the war against the menace of a rapidly-conquering-of-all-before-it Germany if British life – indeed; if western civilization – were to survive.  The Brits could no longer go it alone.

None of us have to.  We have the privilege of looking to God, who beckons us in His direction.  Every Christian should know the truth of this, as no one is unscathed in this world, and Jesus has taught us that, if the world hated Him without a cause, it will hate His people; too.

King David often brought trouble upon himself and the people of Israel.  Most of us have done similarly, causing unintentional but very meaningful damage upon our loves ones.  Often; it is a fall-out that spirals through the generations.  Just as often; it is the insidious result of human avarice or lust or the lack of forgiveness that opens the box of Pandora, thereby releasing untold trauma and grief upon humankind.

I have learned to literally run to God.  I literally ran when a particular temptation arose before me one day in my distant past – I mean; ran!  I can and do turn to Him for my daily provision and for whatever is required along the way to do His will.  And I can flee to Him when others would come against me.  I’m no king, but King David did the same thing, and always to beneficent effect. 

For He will hide me in His shelter in the day of trouble; He will conceal me under the cover of His tent (v 5a). 

It was a statement of faith.  It was a statement of experience.  It was a statement of conviction and assurance.  Great warrior that David was; he entrusted his life completely and wholly over to God.

It is suggestive of the possibility, one born out by the biblical data, that David, for all of his masculine prowess and persona, was also, not simply a man of aesthetic taste and sensitivities to the divine Person, but also a man who was confronted by fear, a fear that he needed to confront, if only because it was a fear that confronted him.

David was fearful of his enemies, but he was also fixed on his God, knowing the fear of the Lord (at least in the main, if not when fixated upon Bathsheba’s body or the full might of his nation).  He knew God, not simply about God.  He firmly believed in God, loving His character, longing for His Presence, trusting in His covenantal promises.

He had no doubt, though he had many fears, that God would take care of Him.  He would draw David into His protective fold, delivering him his adversaries.  They wanted David dead, but God wanted David alive. 

“The day of trouble” will always be a time that should motivate God’s children to look more meaningfully and trustingly to God, as it can be moment when anyone should avail himself or herself to cry out to Him.  We know on faith the authority of God’s Word, the nature of God’s character, our God-given faith and the testament of Christian history that if we shall find Him if we seek Him, that He will answer us if we call out to Him and that He will open the door to His throne of mercy and grace if we knock.

He knows our hearts.  He is well aware of what besets us.  He will always apply His power in love to help us. 

In that day of trouble “he will hide us in His shelter” and “conceal me under the cover of His tent.”  Almighty God makes for the best security!  He has His own security firm and is His own personnel, though He will parcel out some of the work to angels or to His servants on earth.  He may also readily apply what I call “providential orchestrations” to keep us safe.  An instance of this was when Martin Luther went up against the spiritual and temporal powers of medieval Europe.  God raised up Prince Frederick of Saxony to “kidnap” Luther in order to safely bring him behind the walls of his protectorate.

A lovely friend of mine came out of Communist Romania.  She was arrested by the authorities for her faith but, while in prison, she was, unlike all of the other women, never taken into the bowels of the prison for reasons that you would rather not imagine.  She had a Bible on her person and they, notwithstanding the requisite body-search, never found God’s Word. 

The legendary Holocaust survivor, Corrie Ten Boom, tells a similar story.  I happily quote her:  “I’ve experienced His Presence in the deepest darkest hell that man can create … I have tested the promises of the Bible, and believe me, you can count on them.”

Praise God, for He takes us under His wing, cloaks us within His bosom, and sustains us amidst and through all manner of grief and trial, attack and affliction.  He can be likened to the personification of our own underground railroad, transporting us to safety, though not to a sequestered room along the path to freedom – Rather; into the full light of day in the Presence of our loving and heavenly Father, where we know the security of true freedom and the freedom of being truly safe and secure.

He will lift me high upon a rock.  And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me (vv 5b, 6a).

We are hid from our enemy, as we have been elevated to the heavenly places (Ephesians 2).  Our earthly existence may be powerfully and vindictively assailed, but where He has taken us through Christ and by His Holy Spirit not merely hides but elevates us.  We shall not only be lifted above the fray, but we will have the capacity to see our circumstances through the lens of faith, knowing that by the faith that has been given to us by God, we have victory, being more than conquerors through Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:37).

We will even have the capacity to view our detractors with compassion.  We will be afforded the privilege of blessing those who curse or persecute us.  We can bring them before God’s throne of grace, pleading the blood of Jesus on behalf of our enemies.  We have eyes to discern their sinful plight, and to hear of their afflicted condition as they speak their stories or live their lives.  Our head will be lifted up, so we can take an honest lay of the land, as well see down the corridor of history, knowing that Jesus is coming back and will declare victory and establish His authority – We win; praise God!

Early in my ministry a storm erupted within my church.  It had been brewing for some time, but had reached the boiling point and all hell broke loose.  We were all “making mistakes,” but one group made a decided move against me.  I received communications giving me material cause to confront them with very real malfeasance before they confronted me with false charges.  I was vindicated before my enemies.  I was affirmed by the preponderance of my congregation.  A few years later, I was even reconciled to the leaders of the rebellious faction.  I love to report that! 

God had lifted me above the fray, above my enemies – even above my own failings and foibles.  Like I said:  We win; praise God!

And I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord (v 6b).

It’s always to His glory.  He blesses us; we glorify Him. 

We are entrusted with His praise.  We know of the tabernacle ministers who ministered throughout the night – They worshiped Him while others slept.  We know; too, of the so-called “praise warriors” – They led the army of the Israelites into battle, in response to which the enemy fell into confusion and was defeated.  Many a Christian who has known the pall of depression has begun to sing God’s praise, only to find the lifting of the pall.

A woman named Valerie was in our church.  She was Romanian, a petite woman with a simple heart and love for sharing Jesus with others.  She always told us that she had a mental illness, but none of us were able to identify her problem; we simply saw the sweetness of Christ in her. 

I visited with Valerie on one occasion and gave her a hymnbook, thinking that she be happy with one in her possession.  Happy?  Joyful was for like it, as she told me that, whenever she got depressed (which was often), she would sing hymns, and the depression would lift from her.

King David actually speaks of “sacrifices with shouts of joy,” drawing upon the sacrificial system at the center of religious life.  But the sacrifices emanating from David were not the blood of animals but David’s response to God’s protection and vindication.  He was so joyful that he would literally shout.  We shout and even jump up-and-down when our favorite team wins a game.  Christians may shout and dance for joy when God intervenes to save and deliver us from all our troubles, all our fears and all our enemies!

Our expression of worship and joy also comes in the form of musicality – I will sing and make melody to the Lord.

I am currently reading a book by famed New York writer Pete Hamill entitled Why Sinatra Matters.  It’s a very engaging, thoughtfully-written little volume that effectively connects the entire ethos of the Chairman of the Board (as Sinatra was wont to be called) to the pulse of American, especially New York, life. 

I would suggest something similar regarding our worship.  God’s Word encourages us to sing for a reason.  When we sing hymns and spiritual songs we are giving pleasure to Him.  We are binding together in common cause, given that we share common life and destiny.  We sing because we are happy and free, with God’s love having been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, a love that literally compelled the early Christians to share the Gospel, the result of which was that “there was joy in the city” (Acts 8:8).

How is happiness or (better) joy expressed?  It’s a very visceral commodity, mandating a very visceral response.  The history of revivals feature crying and weeping over sin, joyful commotion through laughter, song and dance, as well as worship and witness.

My wife Peggy and colleague Pastor Saa always preface their prayer with song.  I now do the same, and I must say that it makes a qualitative difference in the depth of my prayer.

Spiritually youthful but immature disputation raises the query as to which is more important – the preaching of the Word or the act of worship through song and prayer?  The truth is that one can’t be adequately done without the other.  We need the period of worship and prayer before receiving the Word if the Word is to have vitality and penetration; otherwise, it’s simply a dry intellectual and futile exercise that reduces God to an object and the congregation to an audience.

Comparably; worship must always share stage with the Word, as the one leads into the other, as the other feeds off of the one.  Worship is, insofar as the Word is concerned, always preparatory, while the Word, insofar as worship is concerned, is a word of life that is nurtured in worship and gives meaning and direction to worship.

It’s a beautiful and edifying thing when a confluence is experienced by an individual or congregation.  A dear congregant speaks of her “Pentecostal experience” as she goes deeper into her 90s in age!  I have found that her new-found explosion of growth in Christ finds natural, earnest and joyful expression in singing, praying, and testifying as she embodies the Word that she receives and studies.

I have the privilege of being married to a woman who revels in singing and making melody to the Lord.  I have found myself growing in my personal worship and in my appreciation for and participation in corporate worship as I learn to value singing to God. And my lovely daughter listens to Christian music as she works in front of her computer all day.  It is very evident that God’s worship is ministering to her, which is the direct result of the people of God ministering to Him through worship.

I was struck by something that Brooklyn Tabernacle Pastor Jim Cymbala once shared.  He came under conviction that the Spirit of God had rebuked him for not singing worshipfully when in the privacy of his home.  His growth in private singing has made all of the difference in his spiritual life and in his spiritual leadership.  And let it be said that it is not for nothing that, in such places as the “Tab” or Times Square Church across the river that the love of Christ is to be palpable found amidst spiritual environments in which singing and prayer are at the very core of their existence.

The following extract from a fine novel by a lesser-known but first-rate American novelist provides a beautiful way of bringing this train of thought to a head.  Jack Althouse has exquisitely captured the essence of what such melody to the Lord means in his first novel entitled Second Sight:

“Tonight was my first encounter with Nom-kapell, and I will never forget it.

“It started as a faint melody, so far away I only heard snatches of it when the breeze shifted my way.  I craved to hear more.  The others reacted the same way.  Levi took us in that direction.  A half mile later, we drew near a moon-lit meadow.  Birds sang high in the trees surrounded the perimeter.  Their song was more beautiful and more complex than any I’d heard before.  Meadowlarks and nightingales, like the loons of Canada, had always sounded lonely to me.  Hearing this ensemble, I knew why that was.  The birds of my time sang fragments of a much larger melody, a few surviving notes of a perfect symphony lost long before the dawn of my Age.

“The melody shifted and grew in complexity as we approached.  It was as if the birds knew we were coming and delighted in that knowledge.  When we emerged from the forest and stepped into the dew-glistened meadow, their song rose in a joyous crescendo of greeting.  Other birds flew into the clearing, alighted on every available branch, and joined in, reaching out to us in a musical welcome fit for royalty.  There must have been hundreds of species singing together by the time we reached the center of the clearing.

“High above us, the stars shined in full force, slowly pin-wheeling overhead, lending their dance to what became a rhapsody so beautiful, so complex, so perfect, no composer on earth could ever have come close to duplicating it.  It was absolutely breathtaking.

I stood there transfixed, feeling as if God had chosen that moment to sing to us; as if He’d chosen that moment to sing to me.  And the song, for all its glorious complexity, carries a simple message:  I am here, my children.  All will be well.

“The possibility of that truth, illuminated by what my ears and eyes experienced firsthand, eliminated any notion of absurdity.  Perfection such as this didn’t happen by accident.  I could have stayed all night, blissfully surrounded by that chorus, the fragrant forest, and those majestic stars.”

What we offer to God may not be perfect; we live, after all in a fallen world and are ourselves fallen men and women.  It may not rival the choral magnificence of uncorrupted Nature, as we are in process of transformation, a process that moves in fits and starts, with extensive periods of growth offset by exacting stages of inertia, with flesh and spirit bucking against one another at almost every turn, so abrasiveness and stubbornness will intermingle with harmony and melody. 

But it will be sincere.  It will be expressive of gratitude and joy and reverence.  It will be for God.  It will be from our hearts, in unison, whether de facto or de jure, with the vast communion of saints who share this world with us, wherever on the planet they may be, as well as with those who have gone before us, already having passed into the bright and everlasting dawn of eternity, along with those who have yet to make the immediate journey, let alone the passage via the great divide betwixt earth and heaven.

Brothers and sisters in Christ; let’s get cracking.  Let us sing and make melody to the Lord!   

Bradley E. Lacey

May 9, 2021