Music is presented as a vital element in the worship and thanksgiving of God's people, drawing parallels between historical accounts and contemporary Christian life. The sermon highlights the importance of music in the Old Testament, particularly in David's time when the Ark of God was brought back to Jerusalem, leading to the composition of psalms of thanksgiving. It emphasizes that true worship involves sincere gratitude, appreciation, and clear testimony, contrasting this with modern secular music. The message concludes by stressing that a grateful heart is foundational to genuine worship, urging listeners to focus on God and His wondrous works rather than their own blessings or salvation.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 2.43 → restored 4.07
Blessed if thou, O Lord, we pray, Make it safe by night and day. Blessed if thou so firm and stout, keeping want and trouble out. Let the roof and chimneys fall. Let thy peace lie over all. Let this door that it may prove, ever open to joy and love.
Let this window shining bright, letting in God's heavenly light bless this heart, a blessing there with love and blessings everywhere bless the folk who dwell within Keep them pure and free from sin.
Bless us all that we may be. Sit, O Lord, to dwell with thee. Bless us all that one day we. May dwell, O Lord, with me. How Can I say thanks for the things you have done for me, things so undeserved, yet you give to prove your love for me, the voices of a million angels.
could not express my gratitude of that I am and ever hoped to be. I owe it all to thee. To God be the glory, to God be the glory, to God be the glory, for the things he has done.
With his blood he has saved me, with his power he has raised me. To God be the glory for the things he has done. Just let me live my life. Let it be pleasing, Lord, to thee.
And should I gain any praise? Let it go to Calvary. With his blood he has saved me, with his power he has raised me. To God be the glory for the things he has done.
Just let me live my life. Let it be pleasing, Lord, to be. And should I gain any praise? Let it go to come. With his blood he has saved me, with his power he has raised me.
To God be the glory for the things Breaketh thy faithfulness, O God, my Father, There is no shadow of turning with thee.
Thou change let not thy compassion, they fail not. thou forever wilt be. Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I had needed thy hand had provided, Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.
Pardon for sin, and a peace that entereth, thy own dear presence to cheer, and to guide, strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow. Blessings of mine, with ten thousand beside. Great is thy faithfulness.
Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, the mercies I see. All I have made at thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness.
Lord unto thee. I'd like to say on behalf of my wife and I, we're thankful to be here. Thank you for inviting us. and we trust our shorts stay together. We'll be that, we'll be a blessing as we fellowship together in word and song and as we enjoy our meals together. We almost didn't make it. I won't take up a lot of time but I'm in the process of building a house and there's a floor choice that was supposed to have been nailed, it was not nailed, and I stepped on it and down through the floor I went and cracked about three ribs in the back here.
and I thought I was going to have to call our brother Woodhouse and tell him I'd have to get someone else because I couldn't do any breathing, any deep breathing at all. So if you see me in the next two or three sessions kind of gasping for a little extra air, you'll know that that little injury there is saying no, no, and I'm saying yes, yes, and so we're having a little conflict, kind of like the Christian life. Now there's a little chorus. And I say if you want to learn a new course, go back thirty years and you can learn a new course. Here are the words. Thank you, Jesus, for all you've done. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus, for victories won. Oh, thank you, Lord.
For thy love and tender care. For thy word and answered prayer. Thank you, Jesus. for all you've done. Thank you, Lord. I hope that's a familiar course to you. If not, you'll learn it during this Thanksgiving conference and you'll be able to take it back home with you. We're going to try it together. Thank you, Jesus, for all you've done. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus, for victories won. Oh, thank you, Lord.
For thy love and tender care, for thy word and answer prayer. Thank you, Jesus, for all you've done. Thank you, Lord. And you know, when we're thankful, we won't be grumbling. Now, four seventy-one, our Thanksgiving song this morning, four seventy-one. Come, you thankful people come. And you won't mind rising, will you? Just in case you're getting a nod, maybe trying to drift off to sleep.
We're going to have some preaching in just a minute. Let us rise. Four seventy-one. Let's sing it heartily. Come, be thankful, people, come. Praise the song of our best hope. All is safely gathered is, ere the winter storm begins. God, I may The third stanza For the Lord our God shall come and shall take his place.
From his will shall in that day fall off and send word away. Give his angels charge at last, in the pirate's big hat. But the fruitball is restored, in his garden evermore. Even so long, briefly come to thy final harvest.
Gather thou thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin, Then forever purified, In thy presence do abide, Come with all my name, we'll come. Praise the glorious harvest home. Thank you, may be seated. And now our speaker, Mr. Ernest Woodhouse. I'm not going to speak yet, except to say that for those of you who were interested in the book that was mentioned recently in one of the meetings, my big father, the story of Tinin Aras.
You remember the Turk? We heard about him, and this is his story. Some of you were anxious to get it, and so Mrs. Good, always on the ball, made it her business to get into touch with England or wherever it came from. I think it's published in England and in India, and she got some copies. And so they are there in the book room, and there is a little appendix at the end here about believers in Turkey. Just one or two cases here is an epilogue. Young men and women who were saved by the grace of God, but who very shortly afterward had to pay for their trusting Christ with their lives.
So remember this book is now in the bookstore. I'm not sure how many we have. Please don't trample each other trying to get to them. Now we're going to sing again in just a moment or two, but I would like to say that I have taken a liberty during this conference, the focus of which is to be on music and the ministry of music. and so we shall be hearing a mini concert such as we had to open this service at every one of the sessions. And I'm hoping we shall be able to get some instrumental music too, because this is the ministry of music.
And the Word of God has a lot to say about instrumental as well as vocal music. And so we're going to concentrate on music during the sessions, and I'm going to bring a little word that has to do with music and the people of God from session to session. But now the liberty that I'm taking is this. We at Park of the Ponds have a heart that takes in all the people of God. We love all the people of God. We don't worry what their labels are. They are part of God's family and so they are part of ours. But the other day I was in the hospital.
waiting for one of our folk to come through surgery. And there was a family came in with a gentleman whose face seemed to be familiar to me. And I was just pouring myself a cup of coffee in the surgical waiting room when they came in and I said, can I pour anyone coffee? Two ladies said, we would like to have coffee. And then this gentleman came for a cup, and I offered to pour his, and he said, I like my goodies in first. And so he put in his cream and he put in his sugar and then he poured his coffee. Then he said to me, are you still at the park? I said, I knew I had to know you. Your face is so familiar, but I don't know who you are.
Yes is the answer to your question, but please tell me who you are. And he looked at me and smiled and said, I'm the pastor from the First Baptist Church here in town. And so we sat down in that waiting room, both of us there for hours. And he said to me, Please tell me something about the brethren. I suppose that we are just a puzzle to a lot of people, but we are only brethren with a very small b. And I reminded him of that right away. But he said, I know that there was a movement that had an impact on the Church of God, and I'd like to know a little more about it.
So I told him, a little about things, and I answered his questions, but I reminded him that we have lots of folk here in the Park of the Palms Assembly that never knew what an assembly a brethren was until they came here, and it's a little word that we always emphasize only with a small b, and we add to it sisters, because we... positively refuse a denominational name, because that would shut us off from some of the people of God.
But I haven't come to the liberty yet. I sometimes think that perhaps the Church of God at large has lost sight of at least a little indebtedness in one direction and another that they may well owe to this movement, of which I spoke a few moments ago. and in one area particularly and that's the area of music. Now we are going to sing a hymn that has an author who was saved among the assemblies of brethren and has written many hymns and I have an idea that you'll know this one and that you will have sung it a long time.
It's number four hundred and sixty in our hymn book. I'm going to feature one of these hymns in each of the sessions, and it may surprise you to know from whence they sprang. Four hundred and sixty, what a friend we have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear, what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Now Joseph Scriven was, and this may interest some Canadians that may be here, he was an American. Rather, he was... I beg your pardon there.
He was not an American. He was educated in Dublin and Ireland, but when he was twenty-five, he came to Canada, and he lived here the rest of his life on this continent. The eve before their wedding, his fiancée was killed, and he wrote this hymn in his sorrow. What a friend we have in Jesus. Let's sing it, shall we? This is a hymn that's so familiar you don't really need your books to sing.
What a friend we have in Jesus. All our friends and friends who've been is to carry everything to God is ready. Oh, what did we ask for this? Oh, what needless faith we bear? All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.
Have we filed when temptation comes? Is there trouble anywhere? We could never be discouraged. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Can't we find a friend so brave? Jesus knows our every weakness.
Take it to the Lord in prayer. All these weak and heavy names, covered with a load of care. Gracious, sweet and spirit, our refuge. Thank you to the Lord in prayer. Do thy friends, if I will take thee. In the Lord his prayer.
In his uncle's sake and shield thee, thou will find a door and pray. You sang that so nice. Let's turn together to First Chronicles Chapter fifteen. First Chronicles chapter fifteen. And what I want to talk about this morning is the history of music among the people of God.
Tonight I want to talk about the importance of music to the people of God. We'll read from this fifteenth chapter, and we shall read beginning at verse eleven. And David called for Zadok and Abiah for the priests, and for the Levites, for Uriel, Aiziah and Joel, Shemiah and Eliel, and Aminadab, and said unto them, Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites, Sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it.
But because ye did it not at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due or proper order. So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel. and the children of the Levites bear the Ark of God upon their shoulders with the slaves thereon, as Moses commanded, according to the word of the Lord. And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers, with instruments of music, sultaries, and hearts, and symbols, sounding by lifting up the voice with joy look at verse twenty one where we have some of these other men named and it says with azaziah with hearts and azaziah with hearts on the shamanet to excel i want you to notice that word and then let's go to the next chapter shall we verse sixteen i
mean verse one of chapter sixteen So they brought the ark of God and set it in the midst of the tent that David had pitched for it. And they offered burnt sacrifices and peace offerings before the Lord. Verse seven. Then on that day David delivered first this psalm to thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph and his brethren. give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people, sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works, glory in his holy name, let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord.
Look at verse twenty-five. For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, He is also to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the people are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Look at verse nine again. Will you please? Sing unto him. Sing sounds unto him. Talk ye of all his wondrous works. Now there is a... a quotation that we all of us use from time to time.
And I've used it lots and lots of times. Music hath charms to soothe the troubled. If you said beast, you didn't quote it correctly, it is breast. Music hath charms to soothe the troubled breast. Now the poet who wrote it was named Congrave, not a very well known name well known name to us, but he didn't stop there. He said, Music hath chance to soothe the savage breast to soothe rocks and bend the knotted oak.
The Ministry of Music. It's very wonderful how God has used music in the past. Do you know that word, music, is only used once in our King James Version in the New Testament? Only used once. And it's used in the story which begins, A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said unto his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me, and he divided unto them his living. And not many days after... the youngest son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance in riotous living. Now, you know that story. That's the story of the prodigal son.
But do you remember, as we come to the end, after the fatted calf has been killed, and the father has received the prodigal son, we read, but the eldest son was in the field. And as he drew nigh unto the house, He heard music. That's the only place in our King James Version in the New Testament where you'll find the word music. So it's obvious that music certainly draws attention. It attracts attention. And I think that's one of the functions of music in and for the Church of God.
I well remember I, for many years, worked in open air work with a man, a group of men, one of whom was named Bill Gamble. Now, isn't that a strange name? It really wasn't his name, but they didn't know his name. He was found on the doorstep of an orphanage in Bethnal Green in London. Very unkindly, they called his name Gamble, and they gave him his birthday on Christmas Day. Now, that was adding insult to injury, wasn't it? But, however, that man... was a man whose life became very profligate. And he got to the point where he joined the army, and one night was out gambling and gambled away everything that he had.
He put his service revolver into his pocket and crossed the barracks square to shoot himself. And as he crossed the square, coming out of the YMCA, where they were having special meetings was the sound of music. And in the darkness it pulled him up short, and he listened. And then he changed his direction, and he went into that little army hut, and God saved him. He was a man who appreciated what music could do. Now here we have five things, and I have twenty minutes, because I'm going to stop on time in each of these sessions, and most of the sessions are going to be musical.
It's a change of pace. Wasn't it nice of the editors of our magazine Interest the last four months to publish articles on music? I'm glad it was after we had announced our topic, and it's been very helpful to me, incidentally. four different articles each month for the last four months about music. Music has had a very big place in the life of the people of God. I want to talk briefly about the occasion of Thanksgiving in our story.
I want to talk about the importance of it, the elements of it, the outcome of it, and the appropriateness of it. thanksgiving music. You see, music was what God used at this time to give thanks. Listen to what I read to you. Then on that day David delivered first this psalm to Asaph and his brethren. This psalm to thank the Lord. Now Asaph and his brethren, were the musicians among the Levites.
They were the musicians of Israel. We'll talk about them in a later session, just briefly. But here is a special song on a special day given to the musicians in order that God might be adequately and efficiently thanked. It appeals to me that God loves to be thanked with music. I was standing with you there singing, Come ye thankful people, come. Join the song of harvest home. I was born again in a little gospel hall in the city of Birmingham in England, and at harvest time, all the way round the walls we would have sheaves of wheat, and we would have all sorts of harvest goodies spread out on tables right across the chapel, and behind the preacher were things to remind us of the harvest, and we would sing that hymn.
It brought back some real memories to me. The song of harvest home. Now it wasn't the reaping of the harvest that raised the song of Thanksgiving here. It says, On that day. Now what day? You have to go back to the first verse. So they brought the ark of God and set it in the midst. Now that was the day. And by what a preface there was to that day. I wonder if you recall the story of the capture by the Philistines of the ark of God, and they captured it of all places at a place called Ebenezer, called Ebenezer.
meaning, hitherto hath the Lord helped us. There they seized the ark of God, and they carried it to Ashdod, one of their cities. And they put it into their house of gods with their main god, Degen. And when they came back to look, Degen had fallen flat on his face. So they picked him up, and they set him back again, and they went on their way. The next time they came in, he had not only fallen flat on his face, but his head had broken off and both his hands. And then trouble came upon the people of Ashdod. That was not the place for the Ark of God.
And because the suffering was so great at Ashdod, they decided they had to get rid of the Ark of God, and they took it to Gath. And in the Philistine city of Gath, there was such destruction that they removed it again and they took it to Eshcolon. And there it was, or rather it was Eshcolon where they had the people screaming out. They said, they want to kill us. They want to slay us. They want to take our lives. They called the lords of the Philistines and they said, Why don't you take this thing back where it belongs?
We're all going to die." And so the lords of the Philistines arranged for a new cart, and they had it carried after they'd had it seven months with trouble every day of every week of those seven months. They made a new cart, and they put offerings of gold into it, and then they carried it to Beth Shemish. And they beat in in a hurry. No sooner had they delivered it than that same day they made their way back again into their own country. Now the men of Beth Shemish rejoiced when they saw the Ark of God.
But they presumed to look into it. And so God brought trouble down on them. And so they called to the men of Kerjaf Jerem and said, Would you come and fetch it? And so they went and they fetched it, and they put it into the house of a man named Abinadab. And there the Ark of God lay for twenty years, and the people of God suffered the loss of it all that time. Now the day has come when the Ark has been brought in proper fashion. I won't go into details, but they made a mistake in the first place.
They tried what the Philistines tried. They made a new cart, and they put it on a new cart, and when it seemed to rock, they would have steadied it, and God struck them down. That was not how the ark of God was meant to be transported. When the Levites put their slaves through the ark, and they carried it according to the word of God, they brought it to the place that David had prepared for it, and it says on that day. Now that was the occasion of Thanksgiving. The people of God at last had the Ark of God in their midst after twenty long years of its being in the house of Aminadab.
Now that was the day, on that day. Then it says God delivered a Psalm. If you will take the time to look at this Psalm, you will find it has a number of different elements. By means of their music, Asaph and his brethren were to enable the people to worship God, and these were to be the elements of the worship in their song. They were first of all to give thanks to God, and then they were to invoke the power of the name of God, and then they were to make known his deeds.
Now I'm not going to take time to go into detail there, but let me just point out the thought here is, as we think about the elements of thanksgiving, there was to be gratitude in their voices. They were to raise their voices in thanks to God. How different that is from us sometimes when it seems as though we do nothing but complain. There's an old song which used to go, Oh, they grumble on Monday, grumble on Tuesday, grumble on Wednesday too. They grumble on Thursday, grumble on Friday, they grumble the whole week through. Do you know that one, Hurley? Oh, he's Hurley.
Do you think he could sing it for us? I don't. They grumble when it's raining, and they grumble when it's dry, and so on. You know, many of us get into that habit. We don't realize it. It may be all very subtle. It may be that we don't even realize that we are doing it. But God says that we are by means of music to give thanks to God. To raise our voice, voice is in sincere gratitude to Him. There has to be gratitude in their voices. And then, as they sing... The Scripture says they are to invoke the power of the name of God.
There was to be an appreciation in their hearts. It wasn't enough to have gratitude in their voices. They had to have sincere appreciation in their hearts so that they could invoke the name of God and do it with the utmost of sincerity. And then they were to make known His deeds. There was to be clarity in their testimony. The people were to be able to hear the words that they were singing. The people had to get the message that they were bringing in their music. How different from the music of today? Worldly music. I can never understand it. They have to scream up high or they have to, well, never mind.
Let me not go into details. You suffer the same as I do sometimes when unwittingly we turn on the boot tube. and that awful screeching sound, which is today called music, comes over. I can never understand, maybe it's as well I don't understand the words. From what I hear about some of the lyrics, I'm very glad I don't understand them. But the fact is, the music of the people of God in its history had to be a music of testimony. So those were the elements of Thanksgiving that we find here. But I want you to notice the importance of Thanksgiving. On that day, that was the occasion, David delivered a psalm with these elements.
But it says here, David first delivered a psalm of thanks to God to Asaph and his bread first. Number one on the priority list was the psalm of thanks unto the Lord. It wasn't to be an afterthought. It wasn't to be something that came to them in a roundabout way. The people of God were to realize that everything that came to them came from the hand of God and they were to accept it with thanksgiving and rejoice with gratitude in the presence of God.
You know what the trouble with man is today? And when I say man, I include us too. Man has a way of looking upon good things as his inalienable right. I deserve these things. Why shouldn't I have these things? And if he doesn't have them, he thinks that's a just cause for complaint. He forgets. God says, the word of God says, God hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
If we had gotten what we deserved, if we had gotten what we have already earned, we should be lost in hell already this morning. That's why God says, first of all, a psalm of thanksgiving to God. That's the importance of it. David delivered a psalm to thank God. David delivered first a psalm to thank God. And David delivered first a psalm to thank God to the musicians. So you see, God had and David had a great appreciation for music.
I was looking into your faces as Brother Dixon was singing, and you were just sitting there transfixed. The first number was beautiful. The second number was just as beautiful. And the third, that old, old hymn we know so well, was rendered so beautiful. I know you were thrilled. I don't know whether the tears came into your eyes. They did into mine. Music has a real ministry. We're really privileged this conference to have Brother Dixon with us. And we're going to make plenty of use of it. Crack ribs or no.
We'll have him strapped up if necessary, but we're so grateful to the gift God has given to him and for his willingness to share it with us. When I called him, he said, we'll come. No question. We're so delighted. Music. and Thanksgiving go together. And this scripture proves it. Now what's the outcome of Thanksgiving? Sing unto him. That's worship, you know. If we come and our hearts are singing with Thanksgiving, we shall automatically find ourselves forgetting everything around and singing unto him.
That's worship. In the portion here it says, sing Psalms unto him. That's not only worship, that's informed worship. Worship that is based upon the word of God. And it also says, talk to him of his wondrous works. There he doesn't say, we are to deliver the message to the people. He doesn't say, among the heathen. Later on it does, but not here. We're to talk to him. about his wondrous works. It just says to talk about his wondrous works, but it means to him. Our hearts have been drawn to him, been drawn to him in an informed fashion, and it's to him, it's with him in our worship.
We discuss his wondrous works. So many things pass for worship these days. In many, many instances, every service in the church is called a worship service. But a worship service really is a worship service. It's a service that is devoted totally and wholly to the purpose of worship. Where men have been so blessed are not occupied with their blessings, but with the blessing. Where men who have received so much are not occupied with their gifts. Men who have been saved are not occupied with their salvation. They're occupied with him. Now that's worship.
That's informed worship. That's the kind of worship that really honors God when we talk to him about what he is and about all his wondrous works. That's the outcome of Thanksgiving. If you don't have a grateful heart, if you're not a Thanksgiving person, it's very, very doubtful whether you can ever really and truly become, in a scriptural way, a worshiper. Think about that. And let me... The next time I'm tempted to complain, be immediately rebuked by the Spirit of God because there is no fruit in complaint. And I've got so very, very much to be grateful for.
The portion also speaks of the appropriateness of this Thanksgiving, the occasion of it, the importance of it, the elements of it, the outcome of it and now it's appropriateness here's what the scripture says verse twenty nine says give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name