Why Sing? | Page 11 of 11

Be Thou my Vision
Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night, Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word; I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son; Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise, Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart, High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won, May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

...

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah
Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty; Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven, Feed me till I want no more;
Feed me till I want no more.

Open now the crystal fountain, Whence the healing stream doth flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer, strong Deliverer,Be Thou still my Strength and Shield;
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.

Lord, I trust Thy mighty power, Wondrous are Thy works of old;
Thou deliver’st Thine from thralldom, Who for naught themselves had sold:
Thou didst conquer, Thou didst conquer, Sin, and Satan and the grave,
Sin, and Satan and the grave.

When I tread the verge of Jordan, Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of deaths, and hell’s destruction, Land me safe on Canaan’s side.
Songs of praises, songs of praises,I will ever give to Thee;
I will ever give to Thee.

Musing on my habitation, Musing on my heav’nly home,
Fills my soul with holy longings: Come, my Jesus, quickly come;
Vanity is all I see; Lord, I long to be with Thee!
Lord, I long to be with Thee!

Jonathan Edwards warns us not to neglect the singing of God’s praises:

Certainly, such a neglect is not consonant to the hope and expectation of spending an eternity in that work. It is an appointment of God, that we should not only praise in our prayers, but that we should sing his praises… so also the saints in heaven are represented as singing God’s praises.

And is that their happy and glorious employment; and yet shall it be so neglected by us, who hope for heaven? If there be any of the godly that do neglect this duty, I would desire them to consider how discordant such a neglect is with their profession, with their state, and with the mercies which God has bestowed. How much cause has God given you to sing his praise!

You have received more to prompt you to praise God than all the natural men in the world. And can you content yourself to live in the world without singing the praises of your heavenly Father, and your glorious Redeemer?

In a sermon on Singing and Making Melody to the Lord, John Piper commented:

“Music and singing are necessary to Christian faith and worship for the simple reason that the realities of God and Christ, creation and salvation, heaven and hell are so great that when they are known truly and felt duly, they demand more than discussion and analysis and description; they demand poetry and song and music. Singing is the Christian's way of saying: God is so great that thinking will not suffice, there must be deep feeling; and talking will not suffice, there must be singing.”

I’ve known people who have been taught to repress their emotions as they sing. They fear feeling anything too strongly, and believe that maturity is evidenced in restraint. But that seems to fly in the face of why God gave us the gift of singing in the first place. Jonathan Edwards responded to similar concerns in his own day with these words:

"The duty of singing praises to God seems to be given wholly to excite and express religious affections. There is no other reason why we should express ourselves to God in verse rather than in prose and with music, except that these things have a tendency to move our affections." (Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections p. 44)

“I should think myself in the way of my duty, to raise the affections of my hearers as high as I possibly can, provided they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with.” (John Piper, quoting Jonathan Edwards in Desiring God, pg. 91)

That is to say, singing is an ideal way, a God-ordained way of combining objective truth with thankfulness, theology with doxology, intellect with emotion.