Knowing When and How to Rejoice

As he talks to his disciples shortly before he was crucified, Jesus promised them. He said, in this world you'll have tribulation. And then he smiled and he said, and I just imagined only, you're going to have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. I suspect he smiled like that. Our way of life is tough enough that, if you want to turn to the book of James in chapter 1, James chapter 1 and verse 2, one of the prominent books of the Bible has the nerve to start off saying something like this. James 1 and verse 2, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials. It doesn't say if, but when you fall into trials. Try to count it joy. Of course he says, let patience have its perfect work. The trials are going to help you. And so that is what we do. Jesus suffered and died for us. And we strive to be living sacrifices. We serve. We build character through difficulties. Even the wisest man who ever lived, aside from Jesus Christ, who was God in the flesh, Solomon said this. Let's turn to the book of Ecclesiastes in chapter 7. I've been spending a lot of time in Ecclesiastes lately. It is one of my favorite books. It can seem somber, but there's a lot more happiness in there than some people realize. Ecclesiastes 7, and we're going to begin in verse 2. Solomon gave us this advice. I think it's wise advice, but we're going to be looking for some balance in this.

This is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men. And the living will take it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. So it's better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools.

For like the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is laughter of a fool, and this also is vanity. Now, this is the kind of thing... I had this on my mind when I started preparing this message. And, you know, I've been making it a point to go over some of our fundamental beliefs and basic doctrines. And so I was starting to work on a serious sermon and looking at all this. And then I thought, you know, this is a day that's set aside for something different. Our congregation has decided we're going to have basically a dance, somewhat of a party tonight. So I thought, let's talk about basic fundamental doctrines another time. Let's look at some of the other things that the Bible says about Christianity and life. And one thing I will mention, if you want to turn to the New Testament, we'll be going past the book of John. So let's go to John 10 and verse 10. Because the same God who inspired Solomon to say it's better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, said this in John 10 verse 10, and I'm just going to read the last part because that's the essence of what I wanted to get at. Jesus Christ said this. He said, I have come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. He came so we could have an abundant life. Let's turn to the book of Philippians. Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians 3 and verse 1.

The apostle Paul, who knew a little bit about that suffering and persecution that I was mentioning, even though he'd been shipwrecked, stoned, persecuted, he says, Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same thing to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. So he says, finally rejoice. And if we turn over a page or two in chapter 4, chapter 4 and verse 4, this is one of those fun verses because it says little but says a great deal at the same time.

He says, rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice.

So I thought we'll talk about fundamental doctrines another time. What I want to talk today about is rejoicing, about celebrating, about the fact that we need to remember that even with the time of mourning and sorrow, there is a time to dance. There is a time to dance.

Now, am I contradicting myself? You know, when talking about this tough way of life and the trials and then talking about rejoicing and dancing, I think you know better. Let's go back to Ecclesiastes. Sorry, I should have told you to put something, put a finger in there. Ecclesiastes chapter 3, a famous passage, but I think it's worth reading here. Ecclesiastes 3, and I'll begin in verse 1.

And emphasizing one of the things that brought me here was in verse 2, The first time it dawned on me that God has emotions, I hadn't thought of it that way. The reason we have them is because God made us in His image. He made us to be like Him. So we know that God has balanced emotions.

If we'll go a little further, or go ahead in the Old Testament to Isaiah chapter 13, let's see a little bit of a demonstration of some of the emotions that God feels. Isaiah 13 first. Yes, Isaiah 13 will read verse 9. This is something that a lot of people find it easy to believe, especially reading in the Old Testament. It's funny, with the smaller crowd, I don't hear as many pages turning, but I'll assume you're all there. Verse 9 says, Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, both with wrath and fierce anger. So God can have wrath, fierce anger. But let's not forget some other things.

If we turn back to Psalms chapter 2, and we'll read verse 4. There's an interesting thing that says, He who sits in the heaven shall laugh. This is the same God who sometimes has wrath and fierce anger, but He's sitting in heaven and He'll laugh. He'll hold some in derision. Turn a few pages over to chapter 37. Psalm 37 and verse 13 says, The Lord laughs at Him, for He sees His day coming. So God laughs. He doesn't only just laugh in derision, though, because it makes it sound like, oh, He's just laughing at people having problems.

But God can appreciate the silliness of what people do. And He appreciates irony. I have a feeling God is so intelligent that He appreciates puns in a way that I usually don't. I'm not always a fan of humor where I have to think very much, but there's never too much thinking for God.

And as I was writing this, I thought in my Ambassador College days, we had a class that was for seniors. I was taking it my junior year, but Dean Blackwell was teaching it. And if you remember Dean Blackwell, he was a large fella and he had this deep, rich voice.

And his way of teaching doctrines was, say, okay, we're going to discuss a certain doctrine, and we would look at every single scripture in the Bible that had anything to do with that doctrine. So the class could sometimes be kind of dry.

But we were going over the nature of God, and he came to a lot of scriptures that talked about God laughing and having fun. And he said, our God is a happy God! And all of us stops and, hmm, I'm not sure it doesn't say that exactly in the Bible, but it is implied you read enough about it and say, yeah, our God is a happy God. He enjoys fun. He shows a sense of humor. One of the best examples I know of is when he was dealing with his friend, Abraham.

Let's go back to Genesis 18 and pick up this story. We look at this a lot of times as an example of faith, and of course Abraham was the father of the faithful. But remember, he's one of the few people ever described in the Bible as being God's friend. And you sometimes will make jokes with your friends and have fun. So let's start in Genesis 18, verse 1. This is the time when God appeared and spoke to Abraham. So the first verse I just want to set the stage. It says, Then the Eternal appeared to him by the Terribence trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day.

Now let's skip down to verse 9. They have a meal. Of course Abraham rushes and fixes a meal for God and a couple of angels that are with him. And here he says, And then they said to him, Well, where's Sarah, your wife? And he said, Abraham said, Oh, she's here in the tent. And he, this is God speaking, says, I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah, your wife, shall have a son. Now Sarah was listening.

That's funny. She wasn't there at the table. She was in the tent, probably wanting to hear what's going on with the discussion. So he hears God say this, I'm going to come back within a year and your wife Sarah is going to have a son. And Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age, and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.

Therefore, Sarah laughed within herself and said, After I've grown old, shall I have pleasure, my Lord being old also? Now it's interesting. He said she laughed within herself. So she may be chuckling, but she's not laughing out loud. It might have just been in her head. You know how sometimes if you read something funny and you smile, you're not necessarily rolling on the floor laughing. And then the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh? Saying, Shall I surely have a child since I am old?

Is anything too hard for the eternal? At the appointed time I will return to you according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. Now later we'll see, Sarah was a little bit afraid. And so it's funny, remember she was listening out of sight. Maybe she stepped forward at this point when she realized, Oh no, he can read minds. How did he know what she was thinking?

But he did know. And so she comes out and says, No, I didn't laugh because she was afraid. And he said, No, you did laugh. Now at this point you might say, Well, where's the joke? She's laughing and God is reprimanding her.

But I think we start to understand if we move forward a little bit. Let's turn towards the front to Genesis 17 to see that God was making more of a joke than we realized, and he was trying to bring Sarah into it, I believe. Genesis 17 will begin in verse 15. Because that wasn't the first time God had brought up the idea of them having a son. So this is another occasion. God is speaking to Abraham. And he says, As for Sarai, your wife, you will not call her named Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name, and I'll bless her, and also give you a son by her, and I'll bless her and she shall be a mother of nations.

Kings of peoples will come from her. And then Abraham fell on his face and laughed. Abraham is laughing out loud, and maybe rolling on the floor he actually falls down laughing. And he says, Shall a child be born to a man who is 100 years old, and shall Sarah, who is 90, bear a child? And God says, You're going to have a son with Sarah, and Abraham just bursts out laughing. He says, I'm 100 years old! Sarah is 90!

We're going to have a kid? And Abraham said, Oh God, how about Ishmael? I've got a son. You know, Ishmael at this time I think was 11 or 12 years old. He only said, How about Ishmael? Let him live before you. And God said, No, Sarah, your wife shall bear you a son, and you'll call his name Isaac, and I'll establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant. What's interesting, and I've read over this a lot of times without bothering to look up the definition of the word Isaac, but God I think is starting a joke. I can imagine God laughing with Abraham.

Abraham starts laughing. And God's saying, Yeah, yeah, isn't that funny? A 100 year old man having a baby. What a laugh! Matter of fact, let's name him laughter, because that's what Isaac means. The Hebrew word Isaac means laugh or laughter. So God was, Yeah, that is pretty funny. Let's name him laughter, because we're all laughing about it. I'm not sure if it went exactly like that. I'm sort of speculating a little. We do know God named you that. We do know there was laughter involved. And I'm pretty certain God can make a joke, and he can take a joke. How many jokes has God played on us?

Now we can look at our life, I don't know. But I thought, starting off, I was trying to figure out what's a good evidence of God's sense of humor. And one thing came to my mind. Have you ever watched puppies play? Or kittens? How can God not laugh and have a sense of humor? And then I thought, have you ever looked at a giraffe? God's got to have a sense of humor. And then you look at, as I said, I think he likes ironic humor.

Now you've all experienced this. How many of you have grown up and become very much like your parents were, when as a kid you were thinking, I'm not going to be like that? You know, I've caught myself. Now that I've got a child and I'm old enough to realize the difference, telling Connor, if you don't stop crying, I'm going to give you a reason to cry.

My mom used to say that to me, and I hated it, because I was so sure that I had a good reason. And so God was probably laughing because he said, yeah, I'm going to give you a kid later on and we'll see. And there's the same thing. Now Connor is starting to climb. He'll come up to something impossibly high and he starts lifting his leg. He's going to go mountain climbing. And I think, yeah, yeah, I did that.

I climbed everything in sight when I was a kid. And God must be laughing as he sees me be so afraid that Connor's going to fall and hurt himself. And my mom is going to laugh at me, too, when she finds out. So I could go on, you know, as I said. But I think it's important to realize, if God can have a good time and laugh, it makes sense that he wants us to do so at certain occasions. As I said, he's the one who put in Scripture that there's a time to mourn and a time to dance.

Let's read, go back to Ecclesiastes. I should have just told you to put a marker there because we've come a number of times. We're going to go back to Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Maybe I'll remember that for this afternoon. Ecclesiastes 3 and verse 22. And because God reminds us of the need for balance, he doesn't want us to laugh all the time, but he doesn't want us to be down all the time. Ecclesiastes 3 and verse 22. So I perceived that nothing is better than that a man should rejoice in his works, in his own works. For that's his heritage. Who can bring him to see what will happen after him?

So he said, one of the best things is for a man to rejoice in his work. Now let's go to Ecclesiastes chapter 11 and see what else Solomon added later. Ecclesiastes 11 and verse 8. But if a man lives many years and rejoicing them all, and yet, oh, yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many, and all that is coming is vanity. So God is saying, live many years and rejoice, but do remember that they're times of darkness, and you've got troubled times ahead. And of course we know that living in what we believe will be the last days, you know, that the time of Jacob's trouble is coming.

But there's nothing wrong with us rejoicing at the time we have now. God appreciates both. He wants us to remember the days of darkness, but also rejoice. One of the chapters I came to recently, and I hadn't thought of this before, is in Psalm 51. If we'll go there, we're familiar. Psalm 51, of course, is the Psalm that David wrote after he had the affair with Bathsheba, had a son born, and then get sick and die.

And David wrote the Psalm in deep repentance. It's a very sober Psalm. It starts off in verse 1, where he says, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies blot out my transgression.

And he continues, basically pouring his heart out, saying to God that he's so sorry and asking to be forgiven. But we also see in verse 8, where David understands the balance involved. He says, Make me hear joy and gladness. Make me hear joy and gladness. I can't be down like this all the time. I want to repent and then have this joy and gladness that the bones you have broken may rejoice.

And that's something broken bones don't rejoice, but broken bones do heal. And I think that's what it's getting here. This works together. Learn your lesson, repent, and then you can be glad and rejoice. There's the balance there. Matter of fact, we're in Psalms. Let's go look at a couple of others. Psalm 68 and verse 3. Psalm 68.3. There it is. But let the righteous be glad. Let them rejoice before God. Yes, let them rejoice exceedingly. Remember, our God is a happy God. Let's go to Psalm 118, verse 24.

Psalm 118, verse 24. A fellow I went to school with actually wrote a song based on this. And it was a happy song. And it says something very simple that's worth us remembering because it says, this day, but this day can be any day or every day. Psalm 118.24 says, this is the day that the Lord has made. We will be glad or we will rejoice and be glad in it. In some ways it's saying, well, today is today. Let's rejoice and be glad in it. This is the day God has given us. No matter what it brings, it might be some good, might be some bad, but attempt to find some joy and rejoice in it and be glad because this is the day God has given us.

Now, this can bring up... I've been making a point that there's a time to rejoice, that it's okay to be happy and have fun, but it might bring up the question of when do we do this rejoicing? Is there a set time? Now, we don't have to wonder about some days of celebration because God has set aside some and commands us to keep them and rejoice. And of course, the Sabbath is the one that comes up most often.

We'll go to Isaiah 58 and review this. We read this a couple weeks ago when I was speaking on the Sabbath. Isaiah 58 and verse 13. I'm going to draw a different point out of this. After he'd been speaking of fasting, then he turns to talking about the Sabbath and he says, If you turn your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor him in all your ways, not finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you'll delight yourself in the eternal.

So God wants us to have delight in the Sabbath, but in a particular way. On that day, he says, not seeking your own pleasure, doing your own thing. Now, but the Sabbath is supposed to be a day of delight. What struck me, though, is if the Sabbath is set aside as a time to not seek your own pleasure, then the other days must be times that it is okay to seek your own pleasure.

Certainly there are times when we should. Let's go back to the book of Leviticus. I want to see one more time of commanded celebration, because I noticed something in the wording that I thought was interesting. Leviticus 23, of course, is the chapter that lists the Sabbath and all the holy days. And of course, there are often comments about celebrating and rejoicing.

Now, if we pick up in verse 39, he's speaking of the Feast of Tabernacles. And interestingly enough, in the Church, you don't have to work very hard to convince people that the Feast is a time to rejoice, and we can be glad in that.

So let's read some of the instruction. Also, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you've gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the Feast of the Eternal for seven days. On the first day there shall be a Sabbath rest, and on the eighth day a Sabbath rest.

And you will take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees and branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees and willows of the broken, and you will rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. So he said, Rejoice seven days. You shall keep it a feast to the Eternal for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for you forever.

You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. And I wanted to read all of it because of the talk of rejoicing, but I wanted to come down to that word celebrate. You don't find that in the Bible very often. He says, Celebrate this feast. And because it doesn't show up in the Bible very often, I've checked on the Hebrew. The Hebrew word there is shagog, if I'm pronouncing it properly, shagog, C-H-A-G-A-G, and I don't mean to give a vocabulary word.

The literal translation of it is to move in procession, as in a group dance.

A move in procession, like if you've ever done the Virginia Reel or some of these other dances, that's what it means. When it says celebrate, the word for that is move in procession. So everybody together, and I envision this large group and having this type of thing. Now, we'll look into dancing more a bit later because I do want to get into that since I'm speaking on this being a time to dance. But, well, before I do that, I wanted to turn to the fact that although God set certain days where He tells us to celebrate and rejoice, obviously He wants us to delight in the Sabbath, and most of the other holy days are days we rejoice, and specifically, we're to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, but He doesn't forbid us from setting aside some of our own days for special occasions. And that's the reason most of the congregation will be meeting elsewhere this evening and having a dance and having fun. It's common for people to celebrate when they finished a long or difficult task. I mean, a lot of you have done that, right? And of course, most human cultures have what they call a fall festival. Even if they don't understand the Feast of Tabernacles, there's some feast or celebration after the harvest. In North America, well, in the United States of America, we celebrate Thanksgiving, which we just did just over a week ago. And how many people here love Thanksgiving? You don't have to do a show of hands, but I'm hoping most of you love it as much as I do. I've always loved Thanksgiving. Of course, you know, there are other times that we would celebrate. We celebrate accomplishments, graduations. A graduation is a great time to call your friends together and have a little bit of a party, have gifts. We celebrate anniversaries. I just listed off anniversaries of people's baptism, wedding anniversaries, other significant events. It's a time to get together and celebrate. And, of course, one occasion that seems to be celebrated in almost every culture is weddings. We celebrate the anniversary of weddings. Boy, how much do we celebrate the actual day? And we know that that's a particular type of occasion that God must approve of, because if we turn to John 2, we'll find Jesus and his apostles attending a wedding.

We don't know a whole lot about their conduct, but there's one thing that stands out that we know Jesus did. I thought it might be worth reading this account.

And it occurs to me, I'm giving the sermon as though you guys are dead set against celebrating, and I've got to talk you into it. That's probably not the case, but we want to be well grounded in the Scriptures and what it says. So let's begin here in John chapter 2 and verse 1. On the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. This is the family occasion. Now Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding, and when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to him, well, they have no wine. She probably came over and quite said, hey, they're out of wine. And he said, woman, what does your concern have to do with me? My hour has not come yet. Jesus is saying, hey, it's not time for me to go public yet. And like a typical mom, probably a typical Jewish mom, she ignores him and goes to the next guy to the servant and says, whatever he says, do you do it? Now there were six water pots of stone, according to the matter of purification of the Jews, containing 20 or 30 gallons of peace. So Jesus was going to make, well, we'll continue, but these water pots would hold well over 100 gallons.

So Jesus said, okay, fill the water pots with water. They haul in water, they fill them up, and I, well, he works the miracle. He probably said a prayer to the father. I don't know, I don't, I doubt that he waved his hands or anything, but he just simply says, now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast. That's the person that's running the food. And the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made into wine, and he didn't know where it came from, but the servants who drew the water knew. The master of the feast called the bridegroom over, you know, the fellow getting married said, huh, you did something backwards. Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests are well drunk, then he puts out the inferior. But you've kept the good wine until now. This shows, we can take a lot of lessons from this. One is that Jesus, when he makes something, he makes it good. He didn't make, you know, Reuniti or Boone's Farm, or, and I don't mean to insult anybody if you like some of those, but some of those, like, I buy my wine in a box, typically. And I don't mean that to be a great confession. I know it's not the best wine in the world, but I'm not much of a connoisseur, so, but Jesus made the kind of wine that you can't get in a box, you know, and you probably got to go to a specialty shop. It was really good, and he made plenty of it. So, basically, we can take from this, it's okay to have wine at a wedding, and for people to use alcohol as part of a celebration. Now, I want to point out that that does not mean that God condones drunkenness, ever. And I don't think I have to work very hard to make that point, and that's not where I'm going on this. We'll come back to that issue a little bit later. But we know that using the alcohol as part of a celebration is something that Jesus was okay with. As a matter of fact, we've done some studies into the translation here. When this, the master of the ceremony came, he said, talked about how they usually set out the good wine first, and when people have well drunk, then they bring out the worst wine. That word for well drunk means they're moving towards intoxication. I've heard say that one of the best translations would be softened with drink. You know, they've got just a little bit of a dulling of the senses, so they don't notice so much that, you know, they've already had the best wine. And what I'm saying is, it wasn't just grape juice. It was alcohol used in proper moderation. So let's come back to talking about alcohol later. Let's talk about some other occasions to celebrate. We've got weddings illustrated in the Bible. Another cause for celebration is victory in battle. Victory in battle is one that comes up fairly often. This happened early in King David's career, even before he became king. If we go to 1 Samuel chapter 18, we'll flip back towards the front of the book.

1 Samuel 18, and we'll begin in verse 5.

Now this is actually, if you're following your chronology in the Bible, it's not all that long after David had defeated Goliath, and then King Saul gives him a position in the army, and David rises in power and influence, largely because God is blessing him. But David must have known what he was doing and been a good commander. And then we see celebration when they were victorious.

In chapter 18 verse 5, David went out, wheresoever Saul sent him and behaved wisely. And Saul set him over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people, also in the sight of Saul's servants. Now what happened is they were coming home when David was returning from the slaughter of the Philistines, that the women had come out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy and musical instruments. And it goes on to say how the women sang and danced. Now there's a little problem with what they were singing, because it annoyed Saul, that they were noting that David was responsible for killing more Philistines.

But that's not the point. The point is, at a time of something worth celebrating, they celebrated with music and dancing. Now we'll start to note a trend here. As I said, it's not wrong to include alcohol in a celebration, but you don't see alcohol involved in all of them. But music and dancing are involved in a great many celebrations. Let's go to the book of Judges, a little closer to the front. Judges 11 and verse 32.

Judges 11, I'm starting in verse 32. This is the case. There's a longer story involved here, where I believe it was the Ammonites were imposing on the eastern lands of Israel, known as Gilead, and they were looking for a champion to lead their armies. And they sort of drafted Jepthah. And went through a little rigmarole before they convinced him. And then he said, okay, I'll lead the armies. And they go off, and he'll have victory. And so we pick up in verse 32.

So Jepthah advanced towards the people of Ammon to fight against them, and the Lord delivered them into his hands. And he defeated them from Aror, as far as Minas, twenty cities, and to Abel and Karamim, and a very great slaughter. Thus the people of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel. And when Jepthah came to his house at Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and dancing. And she was his only child. So he came out, and it's time to celebrate. Dad's not only victorious, but he's home safe and well, so she comes out playing music and dancing.

Now, if you're familiar with the story, you know that there's a downside to this story, because Jepthah had made it an unwise vow. But that's getting into a different lesson that I didn't want to go to today. I wanted to focus on the fact that music and dancing are often part of a celebration. And we'll see that in one of the biggest celebrations of all time. If we go further to the front of the book, we'll go to Exodus 14. Exodus 14 will begin in verse 27.

We're going to pick up at the time when God had brought the Israelites out of Egypt by a strong hand as he made clear after arranging all those plagues on them, but he led them down next to the Red Sea. And of course, the people were very frightened, and they cried out saying, you know, God save us. And they cried out to Moses. And of course, God said, stand still, you're going to see the salvation of the Lord. And we'll see it here. If we pick up, we know that God opened the Red Sea in Exodus 14 in verse 27. And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. And when, oh, of course, I'm picking up at the end. The children of Israel went through the sea. They got on the other side, the Egyptians decided, well, if they can do it, we can do it too. But it doesn't turn out that way. Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and when warning appeared, the sun returned, or the sea returned to its full depth while the Egyptians were fleeing into it. So the eternal overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the army of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them. Not so much as one of them remained.

Okay. So I'm looking my notes. I've got something confused here. But let's read then what happens in verse 15, or chapter 15 in verse 1. And Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the Lord and spoke. And so Moses goes on to this long song, and we've got a version of it in our hymnal. You know, I will sing to the eternal. He is triumph gloriously. It's such a good song, I'm not sure.

Sometimes I wonder if God inspired Dwight Armstrong with the same tune that Moses had. We won't know until the resurrection, but it is a pretty nifty song. And let's skip ahead to verse 20. So I imagine Moses is teaching this song and thousands of people, perhaps millions, are singing it. And then in verse 20, then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, also the sister of Moses, took the timbrel in her hand and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. So Miriam answered them, Sing to the Lord for his triumph gloriously. The horse and rider is thrown into the sea. So Miriam takes the lead. She's like the first lady of this new nation. And they went out singing and dancing. What I should point out, Miriam at this time was in her mid to late 80s. But she was setting the example, and I say sometimes it shows you're not too old to go to a dance. But music and dancing are part of celebrating. It's something God built into us. Now, I'm not an expert in human physiology, but studies have shown, and it's pretty obvious, that all human beings have some type of rhythm. Even if we think we don't, we can't keep a beat, we have some rhythm. We've got a heartbeat that keeps a normal rhythm, and we enjoy listening to music. And God made us so that we enjoy moving to the music. Now, there's a lot of different ways to move to music.

I discovered that in my in-laws. I just love it that Connor has started doing this. He's got a little toy that he pushes a button, and it'll play a song like, you know, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, or, you know, um, now I can't think of any, um, Rock-a-Bye Baby, and then he'll start doing this.

So, Connor, he's starting to move to the music, and the funny thing is, he dances almost as well as his dad. But that's built into us. I read something by a scholar, and this was by a historian, but he's got a theory that, you know, dancing is something that brings people together, but he believes it's that rhythmic movement together forms a bond that's psychological. He says it happens with soldiers. One of the reasons when they drill, he said they're moving in time, swinging their arms and legs at the same time, it builds a certain camaraderie in them that they wouldn't have otherwise. And, um, now what was the name for this? Like, Kinetico Physiology Something is a complex name for kinesiology. Yeah. But that moving together to the rhythm, it bonds people together. It works with soldiers, and soldiers will put their lives on the line for each other.

It's probably the same effect we have when a lot of us get out on the dance floor all together doing line dances. And nowadays, they have, well, I shouldn't say nowadays, I think the electric slide is pretty old, and the hustle, that was common in the 70s.

I want to say, when I went to summer camp, you know, as a kid, we learned the crocodile rock and something called the Bugaboo Boogie. I don't know if any of you have heard those names.

Well, the lounge up at SCP was called the Bugaboo. And then this last summer at camp, we learned a dance called the Camp Dance. Jonathan McGee, you know, wrote it, and it, well, I'm not going to dance it for you, because it has this sort of hip-hop music. But there's something about having 100 people out there all doing the same thing. It's bonding.

Now, more intimately, of course, dancing can be a wonderful bonding experience between a man and a woman. And I think God intended that. Now, it can be in love as between a husband and a wife, but it's also a great way for strangers to meet and share an experience. And, of course, if you're not doing some kind of very vigorous dance, if you're doing a waltz or a slow dance, then you can talk and get to know each other. But you're moving together. It's, you're starting to get in sync. Not that it makes you fall in love head over heels, but there's something about that. I think God created it to help us to bring something together. And, of course, then the next step is a couple can dance together with other couples, as in square dancing. Or, I mentioned the Virginia Reel, and there are some others that I'm not well acquainted with them, but I know I'm going to learn some of them this winter, because Mr. Stiver decided that we're going to have dance class at winter camp, and we're going to do group dances, not just individuals. So I'm looking forward to learning the Reel, and I think the Hava Nagita, and several of those. But, as I said, it can be a couple, and then the couple dancing with others. It brings us all, as I said, together. That's one of the reasons churches or groups and church congregations have dances. We do it because it has that effect.

Now, I would be remiss if I presented dancing as if it were only a bonding activity. You know, there are sometimes we dance just to celebrate. We might do it only for ourselves, or just for yourself and God. And there's a great example of that in the Bible. I wanted to make sure I included this. If we'll go to 2 Samuel chapter 6.

2 Samuel chapter 6 will begin in verse 12.

But this is an example, once again, of King David. Now, as you read through the Bible, you get the impression that King David was musical. He liked playing music. Of course, he wrote all those psalms. He played the harp and who knows how many other instruments. And he danced. And this is the case where, after they worked out how to properly move the Ark of the Covenant, David determined he wanted to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem so that he could have this symbol of God near him. And, of course, he was already making plans to build a temple. And they celebrated in a special way. Of course, they had sacrifices. But let's read what else. 2 Samuel 6 beginning in verse 12.

Now it was told King David, saying, The Eternal was blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that belongs to him because of the Ark of God. So David went and brought up the Ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with gladness. And so it was, when those bearing the Ark of the Eternal had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatted sheep. And then David danced before the Eternal with all his might. And he was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the Ark of the Eternal was shouting with the sound of a trumpet. And as the Ark of the Eternal came into the city of David, Michael Saul's daughter, which was David's first wife, looked through the window and she saw King David leaping and whirling before the Eternal. Now she despised him in his heart. And the story goes on to show that they had a disagreement, and she would suffer because she was in a wrong attitude. But I wanted to focus on the fact that David was leaping and whirling. He was dancing very vigorously. And it was one of those cases where he didn't care who saw. Later on, matter of fact, it's in verse 21, after he has words with Michael, David says, "...it was before the Eternal who chose me instead of your father in all his house to appoint me ruler over this people of the Eternal over Israel. Therefore I'll play music before the Eternal." Or I know that's the new King James. The old King James, I think, just says, "...I'll play before the Eternal." David was devoted. He was so happy because of the blessings that he just wanted to get out and play music and jump and dance. There's something therapeutic in doing that, sometimes not worrying about what other people think and just showing that happiness.

I was thinking, I knew there was a poem by that name, and I found, I looked online, there was a poem by someone by the name of Mario Frangoulis called, Dance. And it's a long poem, but I wanted to read just the reframe. It says, "...dance like there's nobody watching. Sing as if no one is listening to what you've been hearing.

Love like you've never been hurt before. Just try to forget if you can and just dance." Now, you've probably heard that phrase, dance as though no one's watching. Now, you don't do that always. If you're doing a square dance, you've got to open your eyes and make sure you're moving the right moves. Or if you're on Dancing with the Stars or one of these shows, I guess, then you've got to... But if you're just dancing to show your happiness and to honor God, you go like that.

Now, I had a personal example of doing that. I thought I would share because, well, I can't match King David, and why would I try? He's King David. But I do remember I had a particular event, and it was back in 1996, the first year that I went and served at United Church of God summer camps.

And it was sort of a cross or a threshold for me. You know, I'd been serving at SCP for several years, and then the heresy came in the church, old friends left, things were broken up, and it was really disheartening. And then in 1996, the United Church Youth Camp Program was finally on its feet. They'd done some tentative ones in 1995 that I didn't participate in. But in 1996, I said, I'm going to go do camp and do it right. And I served at four different camps, you know, traveled across the country. I went out west, and then I ended up at Camp Heritage in Pennsylvania.

And we were coming down to the last night. We were going to have a dance. And I thought, I've been traveling all across the country. I've met people. And to be honest, I felt like I'd found a home, spiritually. You know, I'd been attending the United Church of God, but I hadn't been around to see what it was really like. I'd just seen my own congregation in Texas. But now I knew we were on track. And I'd been working hard. You know, being a camp counselor is tough work. And now it was the final night, you know. And I'd been on it, sort of on edge, trying to make sure I did everything just right. And I said, it's time to celebrate. So I said, I'm going to go to this dance. And I slicked back my hair. I had a lot of hair gel. And I got my old what I called party shirt that I pulled out of the closet. My party shirt was this very, very garish orange Hawaiian shirt.

I've still got it. It's a little too tight for me to wear. But I said, I'm going to wear my party shirt and I'm going to dance as though nobody's watching. And it sort of became a tradition, because I just let loose. You know, not doing anything vulgar or anything, just like David, leaping and whirling. And it's funny, later on I found out that the kids had noticed.

You know, we had a dorm meeting and the people would say, hey, you've got to give it up for Mr. Dunkle. What? You see him go. So it sort of became a tradition for me. I said, I'm going to let loose on the last... And I say let loose. I'm going to give that effort. I'm going to go out there and show the teenagers that us older guys can really enjoy it and put ourselves out there. And I started wearing the Hawaiian shirt every year. And I don't know, most of you hadn't been there. It became a tradition. You know how fashion trends come and then go? For a while it was cool. Matter of fact, one year almost all the campers brought Hawaiian shirts for the dance. So it was really cool there. And then it petered off and now, you know, the last couple years I've been the only one. So I started off the only one. A lot of people followed. I ended up the only one.

But the important thing was, you know, I was just celebrating. I was doing... I thought, like David, celebrating and dancing as though no one else were there, but I was rejoicing in the blessing God had given me. And that could be really something. Now let's turn to Psalm 149. Say, read a little bit more about what David says on the subject. He seemed to be a bit of an expert.

Psalm 149, some of these short Psalms near the end, we'll read the first five verses. It says, Praise the Eternal! Sing to the Eternal a new song, and his praise in the assembly of the saints. Let Israel rejoice in their Maker! Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King! Let them praise his name with the dance! Let them sing praises to him with the timbrel and the heart!

To him with the timbrel and the heart! For the Eternal takes pleasure in his people! He will beautify the humble with salvation! Let the saints be joyful in glory! Let them sing aloud on their beds! Now I'm going to stop there because I want to move ahead to Psalm 150. But notice, not only is he saying we should rejoice, but it says the Lord takes pleasure in his people. God takes pleasure in when we rejoice. Psalm 150. Praise the Eternal! Praise God in his sanctuary! Praise him in the mighty firmament! Praise him for his mighty axe! Praise him according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with the sound of trumpet! Praise him with the lute and harp! Praise him with the timbrel and dance! Praise him with stringed instruments and flutes! Praise him with loud cymbals! Praise him with clashing cymbals! Let everything that has breath praise the Eternal! And he ends one more time with praise the Eternal, or praise the Lord. I like to use the Eternal for the YHWH. But that's something, and it makes me wonder. God must like a variety of different music. You know, the loud crashing music, the trumpets and the horns. So I don't think God is opposed to music with a good beat that you can dance to. I've wondered, I'm guessing there's probably a lot of stuff on the radio that God doesn't like that I don't like and a lot of you don't like. But you know, when I was a teenager, though, some people say God, you know, they condemned rock and roll as the most evil thing. I thought, well, you know, I'll bet you there's some that God would like. You know, some of it's okay, a lot of it's not okay. And the same for classical music. You know, God probably likes a lot of that, probably some of it he doesn't like.

And I don't even want to get into talking about country music and hip-hop or folk.

But you know, I suppose with dancing and music, in any genre you take, some can be done well and be pleasing to God, and some probably not done well and might be displeasing to Him.

That comes back to the point of balance. Now, time to mourn and the time to dance. We want to make sure that our music is balanced and that our dancing is balanced. You know, sometimes we dance like no one is watching, but I do have a note here. We want to make sure that we remember that God is watching. God is always watching. You know, times of celebration for some people are sometimes when they let go of standards, and that's not what I'm up here to talk about. You know, music and dancing and drinking aren't necessarily the cause, but they can be misused in times of celebration, not the cause of problems. So we, you know, I've been setting, talking about the positive things, and I wanted to do that first, you know, to show that our God is a happy God, that He approves of celebration, music, and dance. But I think it is worth taking a note, time to note that He does does not approve of excess in celebration. And when we talk about the possibility of getting carried away, well, actually, I wanted to look at an example that could be a little humorous first, because I still want to be happy about it. Let's go to the book of Judges. But book of Judges, chapters 20 and 21 have an interesting story about how you can get carried away in a celebration.

We'll look at this because there's some valuable lessons, and then we'll look at some some less humorous, I shouldn't say less humorous, ones that don't have the light side to them quite as much. Now, I'm going to set the stage, rather than reading all of this, actually, we'll pick up in Judges, chapter 21. The story begins in chapter 20. And if you're, I don't know, maybe because I studied military history, I've spent more time reading Judges than some of the other books. So you may or may not be that familiar with the story, but this is the case where there's actually a civil war in Israel. There is an offense where some one of the cities that belong to Benjamin did an outrage, and the other people from all the tribes come together, and they select troops to go fight against the tribe of Benjamin. So there's a civil war, and at first Benjamin's doing pretty well, but it's only one tribe against all the others. And then they eventually set an ambush, and they go on... basically, there's a great slaughter among the children of Benjamin. And they kill most of their soldiers, and they go into the villages, they kill their women and children. It's a terrible thing. And when it's all done, there's only 600 men left. They actually flee and go to a stronghold in the wilderness. There's 600 men of Benjamin. And by the time they reach that point, the others say, what have we done? You know, we're going to have a whole tribe missing. You know, we've always been the 12 tribes of Israel. 13, if you count it, you're from Manasseh. We don't want there to be no Benjamin. So we've got to provide... you know, we've got to save these men alive, and we want them to have children. So they say, we've killed all their all their women and children, so we've got to have wives for them. Now, the problem is, and if you're familiar with the story, before they went into battle, they made everyone swear that we're so mad at Benjamin, none of us will ever let any of our daughters marry someone from Benjamin. So they said, we can't break our oath. I always stop and say, well, is breaking your oath that was a bad oath in the first place worse than killing all those people was? But either way, they didn't want to break their oath, so they said, we've got to find wives for these 600 men. Now, they find most of... wives for most of them by finding a town that didn't participate in the battle. They didn't take the oath, you know, and plus were mad at them because they didn't go with us. So they attack that town and they get all the young virgins who are women, you know, that are available, and they find 400 of them to give to these 600 men. Now, what about the last 200?

Here's where we go to a special occasion. We're going to find wives for these 200 men in the book of Judges, chapter 21, we'll begin in verse 16. I'm sure most of you've read this story before, but you might have overlooked some of it or not seen the significance. So we're picking up about where I'd said, then the elders of the congregation said, what shall we do for wives for those who remain since the women of Benjamin have been destroyed? They said, there must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin that a tribe may not be destroyed from Israel. However, we can't give them our wives or give them wives from our daughters, for the children of Israel had sworn an oath saying cursed be the one who gives a wife to Benjamin. So they said, in fact, there's a yearly feast to the eternal in Shiloh, which is north of Bethel on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem in the town of Lebanon. Now, remember Shiloh was where the tabernacle was before the temple was built, so there's an annual feast there. So therefore, they instructed the children of Benjamin saying, go lie and wait in the vineyards, you know, go hide among the grapevines and watch just when the daughters of Shiloh come out. So the young girls that live in this area are going to come out and perform their dances. When they come out, then, said that when the women come out to perform their dances, said, then come out from the vineyards and every man catch a wife for himself from the daughters of Shiloh, then go back to the land of Benjamin. And so we skip down to verse 23. It says, the children of Benjamin did so. They took enough wives for their number from those who danced, whom they caught. Then they went off and returned to their inheritance. And I'm sure if you've got a vivid imagination, can you just imagine the young ladies come out and they're doing this dance, and then suddenly a bunch of men come running out and grab one and haul her away and say, you're going to be my wife now. When we studied this in college, a professor called this the Benjamite Singles activity, and it stuck with me a long time. Now, it's not likely that something like this is going to happen in our day and age, but I thought there's some lessons for us, especially we're about to have a dance that is church social. So let's look at some lessons I draw out of this. One, is this is an example of how not to conduct a singles or a social activity in the church. In essence, I mean, we don't set them up to be meat markets. They are opportunities to meet people. And when I said meet, I mean MEAT, like go grab it. But it is a chance to go meet others and know who's available. Singles activities can be great things. But single men need to not think of single women as something that you go and catch and grab. Dances are a good place to go be introduced to someone to begin to get to know them, not necessarily catch a wife.

But another lesson I thought out of this is for single women. And this is verging on to more serious. I think it's good, and we don't have very many young ladies here, but pass this on to your nieces and nephews. Well, anyways, always young women need to be careful of how they dance.

A lot of times in our society, young girls aren't aware of how their appearance and the way they move can affect young men, sometimes making them want to come running up and grab them.

So this gets into a serious discussion. Girls need to be aware of how men's minds work, how they present themselves. And that's why I don't want to discuss the particulars. And I know this afternoon I give this, there will be some young ladies in the audience. So I don't want to talk about particular parts of the body to move and things like that, but it's worth young women and young men keeping in mind that if they're moving in a way that makes a member of the opposite sex think of intercourse, maybe that's not what they should be doing. You don't want someone to look at you and be looking at you while they're thinking of that. The thing is, remember the Benjaminite Singles activity. Wrong things can come out of this type of thing. And of course, it's easy to address that to the ladies, but it doesn't absolve young men of responsibility.

Young men, it can be a challenge to control your thoughts. Not you. Sorry, Kurt, I know you're the only young man here, but I wrote this not knowing who I would be here. But it's our responsibility. I should say all men. It's our responsibility to control what goes on in our head. And I thought, before we leave this, let's look at one other example of how dancing can get out of control. In Mark 6, some of you might have already thought of this example. Mark 6, and we'll begin in verse 21.

This is an example of, once again, a young woman's dancing had an effect on a man. This is, obviously, in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but it's a side story. Mark 6, verse 21. Then an opportune day came when Herod, on his birthday, gave a feast for his nobles, the high officers and the chief men of Galilee. And when Herodias's daughter, herself, came in and danced and pleased Herod and those who sat with him. Now, it just says it pleased him. I have a feeling it had some type of an emotional effect, because then the king said to the girl, ask me whatever you want, I'll give it to you. So basically, he got out of the other case and says, yeah, ask me whatever you ask, I'll give you up to half of my kingdom. So, was she dancing in a way that she knew was going to, you know, get his motor running, so to speak, or something? I don't know, but boy, this dancing had some kind of an effect. Now, when, you know, she wasn't sure, she might not have expected him to say, I'll give you anything up to half the kingdom. So, she went to her mother and, of course, her mother was upset at John the Baptist and said, ask for John the Baptist's head on a platter. Now, I don't, as I said, I don't know that this kind of thing is going to happen at any church, dance, or social, but it does go to show people dance in the wrong way and people let their thoughts get out of hand. Bad things can happen. You know, there's a potential for harm that this is less common, but there's dangers there. Oh, and I've got another weight that we need to think about, and this isn't limited to just young men and women. Another harm that can come, it's not common, but it can be very dangerous. And I wanted to point this out while I'm covering the subject, because there are cultures, especially primitive cultures, you know, some of the cultures in South, you know, like in Australia, New Zealand, a lot of the American Indian cultures, and some in Africa, where dancing would be used to achieve an altered state of conscience. You know, emptying the mind, so to speak. And there is particular in the American Indians, we're familiar with the term the rain dance, but they also did something sometimes called a sun dance or moon dance, where they were trying to empty their minds or prepare to battle, get into a frenzied state. And it might be coupled with the use of, you know, of drugs of some type. You know, in the Western Indians, there were types of mushrooms, which I can't remember the name of, that they would use these with a certain music and the dance, trying to get in contact with the spirit world. And they were often successful. I mean, it's hard to know for sure, but it is a way if you can use dance and rhythm and music to clear your mind, trying to reach out to something. And if you're letting go of control of your mind, there are forces out there that are willing to take control for you. And that's where it's very dangerous. Let's look to Matthew chapter 12.

I wanted to point this out. Not that I think it's something common. It's more common with our young people in how they listen to music than dances in particular. But in any case, we want to see the danger of a vacant mind. Matthew 12, and we'll begin in verse 43. Now, you might think this is not applying here, but I'm going to show you how it does. This is Jesus Christ's teaching about casting out of evil spirits. He says, When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. So say a person has an exorcism. They cast out this demon. The demon goes around looking for some place. And then in verse 44, he says, Well, I'll return to my house, meaning the person I was cast out of. And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order, but empty, nothing else there. And then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits, more wicked than himself. And they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. And so it'll be with this wicked generation. And that's what I'm playing into. If your mind is empty, you've given up control. You know, we pray that God will protect us. But, you know, anytime you're purposely opening your mind, either through the way you're dancing, the music you're listening to, or use of drugs, there is a danger there. There are spirits that are willing to take control. As I said, I don't think that's anything that's really a danger for us at one of our church dances. But while we're covering the subject, it's good to be thorough.

And of course, yeah, that's a... Well, that brings along the lines I mentioned drugs. Of course, illegal drugs are something we don't want to take part of. We touched on the use of alcohol celebration earlier.

Nothing wrong with having alcohol and music and dancing together can be wrong if any of them go too far. So what is the proper role of alcohol? When we're celebrating, does it have a place at all? Let's look at some scriptures to see where... Well, obviously, I've already made a case that I think it can. Let's go to Judges chapter 9. The Bible doesn't say a lot about good uses of alcohol, so I thought I'd go look at almost all of them that there are. Then we'll look at some of the warnings. Judges 9 and verse 13. We're going to pluck a scripture out of context because basically this is someone who was being persecuted and he was giving a parable of the trees, but he says something that's just taken... it slipped in there and it's taken as fact because it's in the Bible. We believe it's true. But here in this parable, a vine is being...

a vine is able to talk like a man, anthropomorphized. I knew I could say it if I thought about it. But here the vine is saying, should I cease my new wine which cheers both God and man to go sway over the trees. So what I want to take out of there is this wine can cheer both God and man. Now I'm not sure how wine cheers God unless it's... he's cheered up by seeing us use it properly.

But there's a role for alcohol, for bringing cheer in the proper, you know, proper proportion. Let's also go to Proverbs chapter 31.

I think I surprised someone once. They were... we've got a nickname for Proverbs, right? We talk about the Proverbs 31 woman. So Proverbs 31 is the good wife chapter, and I said, yeah, but it's also the drinking chapter. They looked at me and said, what are you talking about? And I said, no, that's one of the few places where the Bible says much about what to do with alcohol.

Proverbs 31 and verse 6, it says, give strong drink to him who is perishing.

So give strong drink to someone who's perishing. You're really hurt, maybe about to die. Strong drink can be used as a medicine, basically is what it's saying. They didn't have a lot of the drugs we have today, so there's a role for it. And the second part, it says, and wine to those who are bitter of heart. Someone who's really down, having a rough time, have a little wine. It says, let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more. Interesting.

So God is saying, when you're miserable, have some drink. Now, he doesn't say drink yourself stupid so you don't remember anymore. He means it can lighten the spirit a little bit.

It can be a little bit of an easing. But let's quickly read what comes before that, because there are warnings. And verse 4, it says, it's not for kings, O Lemuel, it's not for kings to drink wine, nor for priests in toxicating drink, lest they drink and forget the law and pervert the justice of all the afflicted. So drinking wine, drinking while on the job, if you've got a responsibility, that's out. And I make a point, as a church pastor, that's one of the things I said, drinking's fine on a lot of social occasions, but more often than not, I say no thank you. Not because it would be wrong, but I want to make sure I keep my head clear as much as possible. I don't always absolutely in every case, because I know I like beer and I like wine. Having one could sometimes lead to another, and if I might have to be thinking, I need, you know, say, time not to do that. And let's also read Proverbs chapter 20 in verse 1.

As I said, the Bible has more places where it shows bad things coming from drinking than good, so there's where that balance comes in, making sure we're using it in the proper balance. Proverbs 20 in verse 1. Wine is a mocker. Wine's gonna make fun of you. It's gonna make you act silly. Strong drink is a brawler. Whoever is led astray by it is not wise. I like this. Stronger use a brawler. It's like you're gonna be like you're beat up, you know, and it could have that effect. I've heard people with bad hangovers say, I feel like I've been put through the ringer or whatever. Too much of that, you know, it's tough. Let's, while we're here, go to chapter 23. Proverbs 23, there's a long, no, relatively long description of what it can do to you. Proverbs 23, beginning in verse 29, says, who has woe, who has sorrow, who has contention, who has complaints, has wounds without cause, has redness of eyes? It's those who linger long at the wine, those who go in search of mixed wine. It says, don't look on the wine when it's red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it swirls around smoothly. Basically saying, don't think of it just then when it's tasting good and looking good. Also, think about in the end. It says, at the last it bites like a serpent, it stings like a viper, and your eyes will see strange things, your heart will utter perverse things. And it's amazing, people looking like, I said that. You'll be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, or like one who lies at the top of a mast. Now there, I suppose it's referring to getting sick. You know, like sea sickness is going to make you lose your lunch. Obviously, too much alcohol can do that. And he says, they've struck me, but I wasn't hurt. You know, I got numb, I didn't even feel it. They've beaten me, but I didn't feel it. And when I, when shall I awake, that I may seek another, or the New King James, seek another drink, because it's addicting.

And that's where people have this, like, they've gone through all that. They've gotten sick, they've got bruises and beat up, but go back to it. And I don't mean to make light of that, because fighting, you know, an addiction or a problem is very serious. You know, a lot of times you need help with that kind of thing. But there's the balance. God is a God of balance. He doesn't say, no alcohol, it's terrible, you should never have it. He says, you've got to use it in control. He made alcohol. God made music. He made us so that we would want to dance. And all three of those things are very good. Used the proper way in moderation. Unfortunately, the three can be combined to bring bad things. You know, a person that uses a celebration just to completely let go has, is probably misusing that opportunity. You know, it's worth noting, though, well, matter of fact, yeah, I had this, you know, it's, it's okay. A person might say, well, you know, alcohol gives me trouble, so I'm just not going to have any. There's nothing requiring you to have alcohol except at Passover, and that's a pretty small amount. But I'd like to make a recommendation.

And that says, you can go without alcohol, but I say, it's never good to go too long without music, without some happy music. You know, happy music, you know, it doesn't have all those ill effects that we're reading about alcohol. And it can just change things. This came to my mind, and actually, while I was working on this sermon, I got a call from a friend of mine. Actually, it was Mr. Hanley, who visited here with us. He'd been, he'd heard a song on the radio, and he couldn't remember the title. And he'd been, I mean, this has gone on for months. He said, I heard that song again, and I didn't get the title. And so he called me up, said, they played it on the radio last night. I got the title. It was a Gordon Lightfoot song, and I've loved Gordon Lightfoot. I think that's why he knew I'd be interested. So I wrote down the title, and since I was sitting at my desk, I got on on the internet, and I was able to find the song. It's amazing on YouTube. It's all about videos, but you can find music. So I played the song. He said, wow, that makes me feel, you know, we're, you know, doing the intellectual, you know, work, it might not seem like much work to throw a bunch of scriptures together, but it could be tiring, writing a sermon. So I played that, and then I saw a link to some other similar songs, and I played this, some happy music, and it just lifted my mood. It made me think, wow, this is good for me. It's good to have this now and then. I don't know if you've ever had that. I do, it's happened to me sometimes in the car, where I don't listen to music when I'm driving that often. I think that's one of the things when I grew up. I listen to music all the time as a kid, and somehow on the way to adulthood, I switched to listening to talk.

More often than not, it's ESPN radio, which drives Sue crazy. You know, I want to hear him talking about breaking down a football game or something. She'd rather listen to anything than that.

But every now and then, I said, it's time to stop listening to talk. No Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or any of these other guys, and play some happy music. Lift your spirits. You know, it can be similar, I imagine, as I said, talk about that moderation. If you've been out working hard all day, sometimes to come in and sit down and have a cold beer just revives you in a certain way, and a happy tune can do the same thing. And I've done that, and probably sometimes it's good to turn on that music and let yourself get up and dance a little bit. Just for yourself. Nobody watching. That's the part of dancing that nobody's there or dance like nobody's watching.

Because we want to keep in mind, and coming back to where we started, there is a time for every purpose. You know, to everything there's a season, and there are those times to dance like no one's watching, as long as you remember that God is watching. There are those times, though, there's times coming when God is going to provide what we need. Let's look at a couple more scriptures to finish up. Go to Jeremiah chapter 31. Jeremiah 31 will begin in verse 4.

Because this is a prophecy of the millennium and of good things ahead. Jeremiah 31 verse 4. I suppose the old women would be invited to this. It says young men and old men and young women, but I think everyone can join in this. He says, So young and old together, joining in the dance and God providing the music.

That's because, as I said, God provides that time for every purpose. He's going to bring the time of Jacob's trouble, and Jeremiah says plenty about that, but after that, a time of peace and happiness. In our life, we have good times and hard times. Times to work and times to play. Time to grieve and times to rejoice. And there are times to celebrate, and there are times to dance.