Hymnesia

Good afternoon, brethren. Good to be with you here on this Sabbath day. And good afternoon to those who are not here in person but are online, a place that I think many of us have been over the last year or better more than once. I was reflecting on the last time that I had had the opportunity to speak to you in a sermon, and I think it's going on about a year and a half ago, if I remember correctly. Enjoyed the opportunity to give some of the Bible studies. Mr. Laux would come over to the house, set up the camera.

Well, that was one time. Then one time we went to his house, and then finally we went to the Ollie's, to the grand master cameraman, and had the opportunity to give some Bible studies. But it's been a long time since I've actually stood up here and spoken to you from the pulpit. During the early stages of the COVID pandemic, which has been the news, the source of news, the overall topic of news for a year and a half now, but during the early stages of the COVID pandemic, it was interesting watching the reaction of churches to government regulations.

And what was very interesting to me was the level of protest against wearing masks because it impeded singing in church. Next only to limiting church meetings, interfering with singing seemed to create the most protest. You know, I get it that people love to sing. I have sung in choral groups or mixed harmony groups since I was in junior high school. Started singing in choirs in the seventh grade.

Quartets in the freshman year in high school. The ambassador choral. So I have no trouble understanding people's desire to sing. But I didn't anticipate the level of passion that would be there in regards to the mask issue and singing. Now, I say that for one reason, because it leads to a curiosity of mine that goes back way, way before the pandemic, something that my mind has worked over and thought about and mulled over for, I can't tell you how many years.

So well before the pandemic came along, this was already something that was on my mind. And it was simply this. I wonder how much people really get out of singing in church. You know, the issue of masks are no masks. That's a side issue that's temporary. But the question that has been on my mind for a long time is how much do people really get out of singing in church? I've wondered for years how many churchgoers suffer from amnesia. Now, I realize there is no such word in the dictionary. 40 years or so ago, I read a book on critical reading, and it said one of the problems in critical reading is you have to understand that philosophers, especially, create their own vocabulary.

If you've ever read business self-help books, those who write business self-help books, they create their own vocabularies also. We will follow suit today. We've created our own vocabulary. I know there's no such word in the dictionary, but I think there should be, since it defines a real problem that has existed as far back in time as people singing. Amnesia, which we're all familiar with, which is really a parallel term, is understood as the loss of the word. But if you go to Webster's dictionary and you look up the definition of amnesia, the definition of amnesia is quite a bit broader than what we commonly think of as, oh, he has amnesia because he has forgotten something.

Webster's dictionary, among its definitions, cites the following as a definition for amnesia. The selective, overlooking, or ignoring of those events or acts that are not favorable or useful to one's purpose or position. Let me read that again. One of the definitions of amnesia is the selective, overlooking, or ignoring of those events or acts that are not favorable or useful to one's purpose or position. It is here that amnesia and himnesia parallel one another. The ability, and I think if I go back and look at my own hymn singing and others' hymn singing, this is something that's not thought through or deliberate or planned.

It is just simply the way things go. Selectively, overlooking. Selectively ignoring things that are either not favorable or useful. I could even ask that the mind would consider relevant.

Consider our relationship to popular music as an illustration of overall what I would call musical amnesia. From childhood into teens and beyond, it isn't unusual to forget and ignore the words of a song because the reason you're listening to the song is you like the song. The words just go along for the ride. You like the melody, you like the beat, you like the way the music impacts you. And as likely as not, in any case, and as likely as not, in some of the songs, you wouldn't have a clue what the words are all about, nor do you really care. I can look back at my teenage years and there were songs I really, really liked. I don't know that I really wanted to know what the words were saying because my gut told me that the words and I were not on the same page. That what the words were giving as a message was something that I didn't agree with, I didn't believe, and I wasn't going to practice, but I really liked the song.

If you go back into the 60s and the 70s and you Google and you look at how many popular songs were focused on drug usage, everything from marijuana to the psychedelic drugs to the hard drugs, and all sorts of favorite bands and songs and lyrics, it really did not represent what you believe, what I believe, or what either one of us would practice, but you really liked the music. In those particular cases with popular music, musical amnesia is simply saying, look, I like the music, I can tap my foot to it, I can hum along with it, I can sing with it, and I don't know that I really want to know what the words are saying.

If you haven't been there, then it's probably because you're not musically oriented, but I would say that every one of you who has some desire, passion, or interest in music has been at the address that I've just mentioned.

Hemnesia is a variant, a term that's become very popular in the last year or so, hemnesia is a variant of amnesia, which relates to singing hymns. So let me give you the symptoms. Let me give you the symptoms.

One of the symptoms of hemnesia is singing hymns solely for the enjoyment of the music.

You'll like the tune. You'll like the way it sounds. You'll like the way it feels. So you sing the hymn purely for the enjoyment of the music.

Many of you have been in the church for so many years that you can easily suffer the second symptom, which is singing hymns on mental autopilot.

You know the hymn so well, you've heard it, and this is without exaggeration, you have heard it so many hundred times that you can sing it on mental autopilot. As long as it stands up, turn to page, so and so, start singing, and you begin singing. Your mind may be on what happened yesterday. Your mind may be on what you're going to be doing tomorrow. Your mind may be on a half a dozen different things. You got all the words right. You got all the melody right, and you never heard a word because you can sing it on autopilot. Third symptom. Ignoring the words of a hymn which make you feel uncomfortable, or even worse, judged by the lyrics. Now, that one is a more serious symptom of hymnnesia. The other two are casual. That one's a more serious one. But nonetheless, have you never felt uneasy internally at the words you're singing?

Have you ever felt judged by the words you're singing? A fourth symptom of hymnnesia is singing to perform rather than singing to praise God. I love four-part harmony. While Diane and I were on vacation, while all of you were suffering the horrendous temperatures, we were down on the part of the country that was supposed to have horrendous temperatures, and we were having your temperatures, and you got our temperatures. There was one hymn as all of us were standing up and watching the video of Sabbath services that all six of us knew well enough that we were singing four-part harmony. And it was very easy to get lost in the beauty of the four-part harmony and completely lose the song. So much so that right now I can't even tell you what the hymn was that we were singing. All I can remember was it sounded so good to hear all four parts being sung well.

The last of the symptoms, and I'm sure there are other symptoms, but these are the primary symptoms, the last of the symptoms, and one that will serve as the segue as we move forward, is singing without learning from the lyrics.

Singing without learning from the lyrics.

These would be the primary symptoms of himnesia.

Now, what about applicability? You know, it's nice to academically describe these things. With all the defining of terms and describing of symptoms, obviously it makes the greater question, what relevance does this have to Christian living, and what relevance does it have to Scripture? If you got out one of the reference sources that allows you to track the numbers, you would see the word sing in 137 different verses in the Bible. Come as no surprise to any of us that the majority of those would be in the book of Psalms, not rocket science. Out of that 137, only five of them are in the New Testament. But as we transition from the Old Testament into the New Testament, the instruction embedded in the New Testament that is aimed at the church, because the church did not exist in the Old Testament. You had the congregation of Israel, you had the temple, you had those things. But church, as we attend church, as we are members of the church, that's New Testament. And though there are only five Scriptures in the New Testament, they are jam-packed with valuable instruction. I'd like you to turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 14.

Now, those of you that are good at Bible memory, you already know the common name that is applied to this chapter. This is often called the tongues chapter.

Inside Paul's discussion with the church in Corinth over the issue of speaking in tongues, resident and embedded in the middle of all of that discussion is an absolute gem of understanding and wisdom that has to do with hymns.

Easily at my fingertips with the electronic Bible search tools that I have, I was able to find eight different translations that translated the verse we're about to read differently than the King James and the New King James. So it's not just a one-off. And I know if I had had access to more translations, I would have found more translations that were all walking in sync as to how the verse we're about to read should read.

So I'm going to read this to you out of one of those eight translations. In this particular case, it's the Williams New Testament.

And you won't need to turn there. It would probably be more confusing for you to turn there than to listen to me read it to you. So let me read it to you first, and then I'll give you the verse second. That way you're not tempted to turn there while I'm going through it. So I'm going to read one of the verses in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 from the Williams translation. It says, What is my conclusion then? I will certainly pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind in action too. I will certainly sing with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind in action too.

That's the Williams translation of 1 Corinthians 14 verse 15.

In the New Testament church, singing was a part of learning. Singing was part of the instruction on the Sabbath. In this case, self-instruction, or in some cases, group instruction.

My mind immediately comes to an illustration that I'll bring up later on in the sermon of a case of very strong and passionate group instruction that hymn singing provided for us.

So the Sabbath service isn't about hymns, then instruction in the sermonette, and then an intermediate hymn, and then more instruction in the sermon, and then a closing hymn. The Sabbath service is instruction in the opening hymns, instruction in the sermonette, instruction in the intermediate hymn, instruction in the sermon, and finally, a little more self-instruction before the closing prayer. This is how the New Testament church saw hymns.

It's not inconsistent with the Old Testament, though. So as I've contrasted Old Testament with New Testament, I wouldn't want you to park at a place mentally of saying, well, one standard here and one standard there. Turn with me to the 47th psalm.

Psalm 47. A hymn that has been put to music. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help and trouble. We have our version. Some of the older psalters of the Church of England and others have other versions of it, but it is a psalm of David that has been put to modern music. But within this particular psalm is the following. Psalm chapter 40—oh, I'm sorry. I'm sitting here telling you what it's about, and I'm one psalm. Too early, aren't I? Psalm 46. Psalm chapter 47. This one was a psalm of the sons of Korah. And in Psalm 47 and verse 7, it makes the following comment.

For God is the king of all the earth, sing praises with understanding.

God is the king of all the earth, sing praises with understanding. Barnes notes—a common biblical reference term for those who have any one of the electronic mediums for Bible research—has the following to say about that phrase within Psalm 47.7, to quote, sing with understanding. Barnes makes the following statement, "'Neither the text here, however, nor the margin expresses the true idea of the original.' The Hebrew is sing a maskel, a proper name, a proper designation. Sing a maskel. That is, sing or play a didactic psalm. I hate it when they put big words in there because we don't use them. Didactic means go to school, take a class, sit down with your notes and your pencil, and write down what the instructor is saying. Didactic means to be taught. It's instructional. The Hebrew is sing a maskel, which is sing or play a didactic psalm or tune. That is, a song or ode adapted to convey valuable lessons of instruction." So what we said in 1 Corinthians 14 and 15 is really no different than what we said in Psalm 47.7. And that is, there's teaching, learning, education, instruction, embedded in singing. And as we sing, the truly important question is, how much instruction are we giving ourselves as we sing? Singing in church is intended to be an integral part of the learning experience as I said, just like the sermonette and the sermon. It's not different from, it's just different in the delivery. You may have one individual up here giving a sermonette and another giving the sermon, and all the rest of you singing, but they're all instructional.

You know the ability to learn, because I think the scripture in Corinthians, I will sing with my mind in action. I've got it in gear. It's actually moving. I put my foot on the accelerator and my mind is moving through the music. Sure, I like the sound. You know, if I got a good voice, I like the sound of my voice singing a good tune. No problem there, but I'm also learning as I go. The ability to learn the most possible from singing hymns is supplemented by understanding what you're singing. Now, I don't mean just the words. This is a layer cake, okay? Understanding the words isn't obvious, but there's a layer underneath that that the frosting covers over that you can't see that I'm talking about right now. And that is knowing what kind of song you're singing, because knowing the kind of song you're singing then points you to what instruction you're supposed to be getting from the song.

If you're in school and you go to the math class with your biology book, something's not working. You're not prepared to learn what the teacher is trying to teach, because you've got the wrong book.

In Ephesians chapter 5, the Apostle Paul makes the following comment.

Ephesians chapter 5.

The element that I want you to focus on in Ephesians chapter 5 is the element that tells you that there are hymns, and then there are hymns, and then there are hymns. See, you and I have a hymnal. Big print on the front of it. Hymnal. You know that they're not all hymns.

You know there's a lot of stuff in here that's not a hymn. So the title is conventional. The church is going to have a songbook. Sounds more religious to say hymnal than songbook. And as I said, I think the Church of England may have a Psalter. P-S-A-L-T-E-R. It simply means a book full of the Psalms. We sing the Psalms.

But there's an awful lot in here that has nothing to do with hymns. So understanding what you're singing helps focus your mind on what instruction should come from it. In Ephesians chapter 5, it will give us a flag. Ephesians chapter 5 says in verse 19, speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

And notice the differentiation?

Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. Paul's comment to the Ephesians is not a one-off.

You'll turn to the book of Colossians.

Colossians chapter 3.

So I spoke to the Church at Ephesus, probably the mother church in one sense of Paul's missionary work. And now on to Colossae. And to the Colossians, he said in Colossians chapter 3 and verse 16, 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 heart to the Lord.

Did you realize between these green covers are a whole collection of Psalms and a whole collection of hymns and a whole collection of spiritual songs? Do you know when you open up, when the songmaster says, the song leader says turn to page so-and-so, do you know what you're singing?

And do you know where it's pointed?

Let's understand the difference between the three, because it requires you to think differently as you self-instruct Psalms.

I'll give you the reference works that you can go to. Cambridge Bible for schools and colleges, John Gill's exposition of the Bible, and the pulpit commentary all make the same statement. Psalms simply means the songs taken from the book of Psalms. So when you sing a Psalms, you sing a song taken from the book of Psalms. So category number one is songs whose lyrics are taken from the book of Psalms. We just looked up, for instance, in Psalm 47.7, a song written by the sons of Cora. The choir master appointed by David was Asaph. And so when you look in the Psalms, you think, well, they're the Psalms of David. Well, most of them are. But some of the Psalms are the songs of Asaph, the choir master, and some of the songs are the songs of the sons of Cora. And one of the Psalms that we know extremely well was written by Moses. It was really an old tune.

We have Psalms in our hymnal that were written by David, by Cora, by Asaph, by Mark Graham, by Ann Tanert, by Dwight Armstrong. And I could go on down the list to name other contributors who have written Psalms. Mark Graham and Tanert, Dwight Armstrong, to name the three most prolific, simply took the Psalms of David, in many cases, and set them to more, I won't say more modern music. I don't know that anyone knows what the music was that accompanied David's Psalms in the temple period. So they created the tune structure to go along with the words that came out of the book of Psalms. So you can sing a psalm, and at the bottom it says, Dwight Armstrong. And you can sing a psalm, at the bottom it says Mark Graham. And you can sing a psalm, and it says David. But they all came, all the instruction and all the words came out of the book of Psalms.

You know what the difference is between a psalm and a hymn? Or, I put it more narrowly, do you know what a hymn is?

Now, many psalms—let me confuse you a little before I clarify things—many psalms are hymns.

But not all psalms are hymns. Albert Barnes' notes on the Bible, the Adam-Clarke commentary, Jameson-Foset and Brown, and the pulpit commentary all give a definition of a hymn.

A hymn is an ode in honor of God, and its focus is to praise God. A hymn is properly any song dedicated to the praise of God.

Now, not all of the psalms are dedicated in that direction. But to be a hymn, it must focus on the praise of God. And the praise of God is what makes it a hymn. You notice that Paul said to both the Ephesians and the Colossians that you can sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

I have to say, honestly, with all the years I've been in the church, I don't know that my mind ever focused in all the years I've been in the church on the fine distinction and the use of the term spiritual song. You know what you take for granted as your Bible study? Your mind just floats right over the top and says, okay, nothing strange there, nothing unusual there. Yeah, I get it, even though you may not get it.

This cattiori is broader, and therefore the commentary comments are also broader. So here's what the commentators have to say. Barns.

Odes or songs relating to spiritual things encounter a distinction from those which were sung in places of festivity and revelry.

When you listen to popular music, popular music is more about revelry.

Most of the songs that make it onto the hit parade have something to do, and I'm going to use the word in the absolute least proper, least definitive, and least distinct sense, which is how society uses it. Most of the songs that are popular are in one way or another about quote-unquote love. That would be over in the revelry category.

Jamison, Fawcett, and Brown. The general term for lyric pieces, spiritual, is added to mark their being here, restricted to sacred subjects, though not merely to direct praise of God, but also containing exhortation, prophecies, etc. And he said contrast these with the drunken songs referred to in Amos 8 verse 10. You know, popular music has been popular music as long as there have been people to listen to music. Some of the prophets spoke of the popular music of their day and time. It's not a whole lot different than where the popular music of our day and time goes. Jamison, Fawcett, and Brown says the general term for lyric pieces — no, I'm sorry, I just read that one — Cambridge, quote, spiritual songs, not necessarily inspired, but charged with spiritual truth.

So you can't say, okay, well now what book, chapter, and verse did you take those lyrics from? The author says I didn't take it from any book, chapter, and verse. But every single word of what I wrote, I can go to a book, chapter, and verse, and show you that it's embedded there as biblical instruction.

So Cambridge simply said that the lyrics to these songs are not necessarily inspired, meaning they didn't come verbatim out of some book of the Bible, but they are charged with spiritual truth. And finally, the pulpit commentary said spiritual songs are odes or of a more general cast. They are meditative.

You ever find your mind floating way, way away while you're singing a powerful hymn?

That's meditative. That's meditative. Historical. Some of the hymns will walk you right through history. When we go to the hymns we sing during the Days of Unleavened Bread, when Israel out of Egypt went, what are you doing? I'm getting a rehearsal and a history lesson. I'm rehearsing a history lesson relevant to the Days of Unleavened Bread. Spiritual songs are odes of a more general cast. Meditative. Historical. As I said, pardon the big words, hortatory, which simply means exhortational. You should oughta, okay? This is telling yourself, hey, Joe, Bill, Bob, Lou, you should oughta do these things. Hortatory, exhortive, or didactic. We used that word earlier, meaning it's teaching. I'm learning something. But these must be spiritual. So to be a spiritual song, it may provoke you to meditation, it may walk you through history, it may exhort you to get your life more in line with where it ought to be, and it may just simply be instructing you to be a spiritual song. But all of it must be in line with what the Bible teaches.

So I said I pondered at the very beginning, and I have pondered for many years. What do people get out of singing hymns? And I pose the question, do you suffer from haemnesia? A cure to haemnesia is found in using this understanding that I've given you from 1 Corinthians 14, Ephesians 5, Colossians 3.

A cure to haemnesia is found using the understanding to aid us. If I can go back to 1 Corinthians 14, while we sing with our minds in action.

That's the cure.

You know, all of us can sing with our minds in action, and I think all of us have experienced it sometimes. I'd like to illustrate how to do this most effectively by something that I think most of us have been through at some time or another.

The area where I would just use my personal experience, the area where it is most graphic to me is in the split seconds before an accident. Automobile in this particular case, but sometimes the accident is otherwise. But let's say it's the split seconds before an auto accident. All of you who have been there have experienced the same thing, and I can't explain it. I cannot explain why it works, how it works, and I don't think you can either. But you notice the split seconds before an accident, time literally goes into the slowest form of slow motion.

Your mind is capable of walking through a phenomenal number of things as you see an accident coming, and it's almost as if somebody pushed a slow motion button, and your mind goes from this to this to this to this to this to this. In that much time. You know, how does it do that? I don't know. It's a marvel. I look back at a couple of automobile accidents that I have had, and how much thought went through my mind in less time than it took the second hand on my wristwatch to go tick, tick.

You know your mind can do exactly the same thing while you're singing hymns? Your mind can do exactly the same thing while you're singing hymns. And if your mind is a little slower, and you miss a phrase mentally, then you enter that mode that the pulpit commentary referred to as meditative, and you parked on a particular, truly valuable, powerful point within the hymn. And while your mouth was still singing the words and staying in tempo with the song leader, your mind meditated on an element within one of the verses. It was very important to you, something you needed to reflect on.

Your mind can slow down time, as it were, as you sing, pondering, and examining phrases and words, applying them to yourself, applying them to situations in your life where it's relevant.

This is what Williams referred to when he said, singing with your mind in action.

Let's use the rest of our time to actually walk through it. Let's take a psalm, a hymn, and a spiritual song from our hymnal to demonstrate what can constructively and productively be happening when we sing in church. But I'd like to prime the pump, first of all, so you have a, for instance, before I take all of you into a hymn and say, let's all go there. Let me share one that has been in my head every time a particular hymn is sung.

We sing a hymn, for even from my youth, O God, by thee have I been taught, and hitherto I have declared the wonders thou have wrought. And now, O Lord, forget me not when I am old and gray, and on it goes from there. That isn't where my mind goes. My mind starts out with a hymn, for even from my youth, O Lord, by thee have I been taught. I think my family started listening to the World Tomorrow broadcast on the Mexican stations of XEOLO and XEG when I was probably 10 years old. I sat with my grandfather and my father sometimes in my grandfather's old Chevy in the farmyard in Idaho with the antennae jacked up listening to Herbert Armstrong. So as I sing for even from my youth, O Lord, by thee have I been taught, my mind can go back to sitting in the back seat of the Chevy with Dad and Grandpa in the front seat listening to Mr. Armstrong speak. It can go back to the first decisions I had to make when it was time to play a Little League Championship and the championship was played on the Sabbath day and our team had an undefeated season. And the decision had to be made, play the game on the Sabbath, or keep the Sabbath. So my mind can go back to from even from my youth, O Lord, by thee have I been taught. But you know when we get to the last part of what I quoted to you, and now, O Lord, forget me not when I am old and gray? You know where my mind goes? My mind goes to that long string in the book of I and II Kings, I and II Chronicles, and even back into Samuel. And it looks at men like Solomon, who uttered one of the most awesome prayers in all of the Bible as a young man when God said, You are going to replace your father David.

And then he departed from God in his old age.

In my mind, I don't sing what my mouth is singing. In my mind, I sing, And O Lord, help me not forget you when I am old and gray.

Because now that I am old and gray, I take a lesson from those men who were faithful in their youth and abandoned God in their old age. And so my mind goes into some very personal instruction and exhortation to myself as I sing a hymn that has an aim and a different direction, but it has a counterpoint that is very important. I wanted to give you that as an illustration of, as you sing, instructing yourself, singing with a mind that is active.

Let's take a psalm. Page 10. What goes through your mind when you sing the lyrics?

This is Psalm 15.

So this is one of David's psalms.

Who shall dwell on thy holy hill? Do you take metal inventory when you sing this psalm?

Do you, when you sing the psalm, say, you know what's going on here? Is God giving a checklist that he could post on the front door to the kingdom of God? And he said, notice, here are the qualifications for application to the kingdom of God. Please, please note these are prerequisite.

That's a beautiful inventory.

Do you measure up to the inventory? Probably not. I don't. I don't take the inventory to pat my back. I take the inventory as a reality check. And I take the inventory to say, there are things here that could be better. There are things here that God expects and requires, and I need to treat them seriously because they are important to salvation and to eternal life.

This is a psalm where you take metal inventory, and you ask yourself as you're singing, how am I doing? If you're singing with your mind in action, you take metal inventory, and you mark the areas mentally which need improvement.

You remind yourself of areas where I need to pray and need to talk to God about these. O eternal, who shall dwell in the temple of thy grace? Who shall on thy holy hill find a permanent residence, a fixed, abiding place? So it's a question. Who is going to be there? He who walks in righteousness, all his actions just and clear. No scheming, no conniving, no ulterior motives, no saying one thing but meaning something different. And always asking, is this fair? Is this just? Is this, as I am about to act, how I would like to be acted upon?

He whose words the truth express, spoken from a sincere heart. No duplicity. He who never with slandering tongue utters malice or deceit.

Who will nare his neighbor wrong, nor a slanderous tale repeat. We have a biblical admonition against gossip. Here it's not gossip, it's simply slander. A slanderous tale, something that diminishes somebody else's reputation. Never stop when somebody asks you about someone and the power that you have to form and shape their opinion of someone. I once had a very powerful conversation with someone and I told them my greatest dislike of how our relationship has been is that you have had the capacity to turn my opinion against people that I have never interacted with by your opinion of them. And I said, that's not fair. I said, if I dislike somebody, it should be because of our personal interaction, not because I have been poisoned by your dislike for them and passing that on to me and creating a resonant opinion in my mind that if I can stand back at arm's length and say, I don't even own.

Who will claim no usury? Go with bribes, pollute his hands. You know, it's nice as we go through some of these things, you can find one and say, I got that one. We're not a nation where common to the fabric of the working man's life, the common to the fabric of the working man's life, is the need for bribery. You know, there are some parts of the world where nothing works without a bribe. When you go to certain countries in the world and you've not been there and you talk with somebody who lives there and will educate you on life in that area, you will find out there are parts of the world where nothing happens without greasing the poem. So you can say, as an American, you know, that's not resident in my mind when I get up Monday morning to go to work. It's not resident in my mind when I go to sell something.

It's nice to have some things that you can sing about and say, God, I'm grateful. I'm grateful that that one doesn't plague me. But after giving this very, very short list, because obviously what's listed here are just a few. It says, the person who can tick off the boxes on all of these as a positive, he who thus shall frame his life shall unmoved forever stand.

Tremendous amount of instruction.

I don't have time within the sermon to go back, but you know what? The very first song that Joe Lehman had us sing today had a powerful amount of instruction within it. It was a meaty one.

Let's go to a hymn. Remember, as I said, that a hymn, a true hymn, is a song or even better, an ode praising God. Now, when I use the word ode, how many of you have a definition that comes to mind?

I can't put my hand up. It's an old word that doesn't mean a whole lot to me. So, I don't know about you. Any of you have a good picture in your mind? I saw Tammy put her hand up about halfway. Okay, some of you. An ode is a much higher art form than a song.

For those of us that are not into that term, odes are like Shakespeare compared to a common narrator. It's up here.

Ode is not a word we commonly use, as I said, but it's a higher art form. It's a lyric poem. And the beauty of those, of a good ode, it's like a good poem. You know, a good writer, a good writer of poetry, leaves an awful lot of room to interject thought, an awful lot of room to ponder, an awful lot of room to meditate.

I don't know if you've ever considered the comparison. But you know radio is a far more graphic medium than television, because the mind is far more graphic than video. The mind can paint an infinite range of pictures. It can color, it can add, it can adapt, it can flourish in a way that those who capture a picture have one image. The mind can go far, far beyond that. An ode allows the mind, all the elbow room, to ponder. Probably the greatest writer of lyric, of an ode, caliber, or quality in our hymnal is Isaac Watt. You sing our hymns and you think in terms of lyric poetry. I don't think there's another writer of songs on a hymnal that can match Isaac Watt. Let's look at one of his. Page 145.

I wrote a poem one time about myself. I was reflecting and pondering on the fact that I have an education in journalism. I majored in journalism in college. And I always enjoyed journalism. And it wasn't until I became an older man that I realized that journalism is very stale and very narrow compared to poetry. It is very restricted to very limited by comparison. So Isaac Watt wrote, I sing the mighty power of God that made the mountains rise. You know what? He doesn't try to describe to you how the mountains rose. He doesn't try to give you a narrative history of when they rose. He just simply said, I sing. Now, this is a hymn because this entire song is praising God. Every single thing in page 145 is praising God. I sing the mighty power of God that made the mountains rise. What does your mind go?

You know, my mind goes sideways because I've sat in a full choir singing the entire Messiah. And when you come to every valley, must be exalted, every mountain shall be made low.

The crooked strait.

I sing the mighty power of God that made the mountains rise. And I ponder the time of the seven last plagues when God says, I will simply take mountains and I'll remove them. I can make them rise, and I can also make them disappear. That spread the flowing seas abroad.

You see how much elbow room there is for thinking? Let's tell you how, God. I think of the scripture that says, I set the boundaries on the sea and it can't go any further. It laps on the shore and it waves and it has all the action, but it can't go any further. I said its boundaries. I said its limits.

I sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day. Science stands in absolute total awe of the distance from the sun to the earth, the size of the sun relative to the size of the earth, and that it is so totally finely tuned that beings like us that can stand a horribly narrow temperature range can not only live but thrive. Sir Isaac Watt simply said, I sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day.

Walk through this hymn, brethren. It is an absolutely awesome hymn that is written as an ode. It is written in high poetry that allows the mind to take a simple base for starting and then expand from there as far as the mind wishes to go.

That leaves us with spiritual songs. I said at the beginning of the sermon there are some that instruct and move the entire congregation. You know, if the United Church of God had a national anthem, it would be God will see us through. It was written at a time of uncertainty, very much like when Francis Scott Key, watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry from a ship, wondered when dawn came whether or not the fort would still be there and with it the nationhood would be intact.

If we have a national anthem, it would be God will see us through. Spiritual songs such as this give us an anchor, a place to go back to, a start point, gives us courage for the future.

Ross Judson wrote several songs in our hymnal.

Many of them are spiritual songs.

Ross never claimed to be a writer of hymns. But Mr. Armstrong enjoyed some of his songs, and he had sort of a shrug that I write the kind of songs I write, and I'm not writing the same kind of music as Dwight Armstrong. He did write some hymns, but he wrote primarily spiritual songs. The lyrics of those are instructional.

Psalm page 105.

Isaac Watt, as I mentioned earlier in the writing of something that would qualify more as an ode, wrote lyric phrases. And as I walked you through those, those were lyrical in nature. They were general, they were colorful, they were expressive, and they allowed the mind to expand. Most of the spiritual songs are narrative.

They go in a linear fashion. They tell a story in a linear manner. They don't leave a lot of room to put something in between, but they give you something to take, and then let your mind go back to the Bible to verify.

Page 105.106, Ambassadors for Christ, it's a narrative. It's told in a story fashion, in a linear fashion, in a progressive fashion. But everything that is said here, as the definitions from everyone from Adam Clark to Jameson Fawcett and Brown to Pulpit Commentary said, they have spiritual truths embedded in them, and they are instructional.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

All of us reflect back upon the day and time in our life when God tapped on the side of our head and said, hello, is anybody home? And I'm looking at a room full of people that said yes. What do you want to tell me? And then began a spiritual relationship of learning, of coming to understand, and awe at what there was in the Bible that you'd never seen, and a hunger to eat and devour more and more and more and more.

We came out of the waters of baptism, and whether we stopped to think about it or not, and I think most of us stopped to think about it very deeply, stood there and said, I'm brand new. I'm brand new. Every single solitary thing I have ever done in my life is buried. And it's buried so deep that nobody can ever dig it back up and call it to my account. We were a new creation. The old had passed away. All things were made new.

The ministry of our Christ is one of reconciliation. That's what He did with us. We were strangers. And He said, stranger, I would like you to be my Son. And when we said, tell me more, and He told us more, the gap lessened and lessened and lessened until there was no gap at all.

Walk through the words of ambassadors for Christ, and it's a narrative of our relation. How we were called. How it progressed. Where we came to. How we transitioned from one life into another life. Where we're headed. The vision that we have. Where we are going to end up.

That's a psalm. That's a hymn. That's a spiritual psalm. Each of these provides us a wealth, but a wealth of different kinds of instruction that we can give to ourselves as we stand open to hymnal and sing its words.

As we reflect back a year or so in the tension over singing, with or without a mask, that debate serves as a classical example of spiritual misdirection. The far, far deeper issue was whether we were suffering from the spiritual disease of amnesia.

We've given you all the tools, brethren, to do a full checkup. Take the cure.