Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri
## 2 Samuel 6

Sermon text today is the sixth chapter of 2 Samuel. 2 Samuel chapter 6. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Stand as the army, the host of God. 2 Samuel chapter 6. Hear the word of the Lord.

Again, David gathered all the choice men of Israel, 30,000. David arose and went with all the people who were with him from Baal Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, whose name is called by the name the Lord of Hosts, who dwells between the cherubim.

So they set the ark of God on a new cart, brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. And Oza and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drove the new cart. And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill, accompanying the ark of God. And Ahio went before the ark. And then David and all the house of Israel played music before the Lord and all kinds of instruments of fir wood, on harps, on string instruments, on tambourines, on cymbals, and on symbols.

And when they came into Nacon’s threshing floor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error, and he died there by the ark of God. David became angry because of the Lord’s outbreak against Uzzah. And he called the name of that place Perez Uzzah to this day. David was afraid of the Lord that day, and he said, “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?” So David would not move the ark of the Lord with him into the city of David.

But David took it aside into the house of Obed Edom the Gittite. The ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed Edom the Gittite three months. And the Lord blessed Obed Edom and all his household. Now it was told King David saying, “The Lord has 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 Lord had gone six paces, that he sacrificed oxen and fatted sheep. Then David danced before the Lord with all his might and David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet. Now as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal Saul’s daughter looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord.

And she despised him in her heart. So they brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place in the midst of the tabernacle that David had erected for it. Then David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. And when David had finished offering burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of Hosts. Then he distributed among all the people among the whole multitude of Israel, both the women and the men to everyone a loaf of bread, a piece of meat, and a cake of raisins.

So all the people departed, everyone to his house. Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet David and said, “How glorious was the king of Israel today uncovering himself today in the eyes of the maids of his servants as one of the base fellows shamelessly uncovers himself.” So David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord who chose me instead of your father and all his house to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord over Israel.

Therefore, I will play music before the Lord, and I will be even more undignified than this, and will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, by them I will be held in honor.” Therefore, Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no children to the day of her death.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Lord God, for this particular text in scripture. We thank you for the Holy Spirit who takes this word, writes it upon our hearts and causes us to sing with joy to you on the basis of its instruction. Help us, Father, now to understand this word that we might open our mouths in praise to you in the balance of this service and in our lives. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

We are talking about the tabernacle of David, the tent pitched for the ark on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, a different mount than the Temple Mount. We’re preparing for our Festus day a week from this coming Friday, helping us to understand how the worship service should be informed by these texts that tell us the great importance of Zion worship to the church in the book of Hebrews chapter 12 and in Acts 15.

By summary, we’ve said that the tabernacle of David worship was a transition step between tabernacle and temple worship. It began with the advent of the ark to Mount Zion, which we read of today in Jerusalem and was distinct from tabernacle sacrifices at Gibeon and later temple worship at Mount Moriah also in Jerusalem.

David finished these initial sacrifices on Mount Zion in our text. He put an end to the sacrifices at that place from then on for the next I don’t know 40 years or more. Sacrifices go on at Gibeon but not on Mount Zion. It was integrated into later temple worship in a very significant way. So when Solomon brings the ark into the temple after its construction on Mount Moriah, Mount Moriah in Jerusalem comes from Mount Zion Moriah. It’s as if all of that tabernacle of David worship centered around the ark in Mount Zion is also incorporated into then the temple worship after its initiation.

Zion worship was bloodless. It involved music and song occurred in the direct presence of the ark. No veil of separation in an undivided worship environment where Jews and Gentile God-fearers were brought together. Zion worship involved commemoration, thanksgiving and praise.

We looked last week at the Psalm of Zion. We could refer to it as given in 1 Chronicles 16 and initiated this joyous music of sacrifice of praise and music and singing with the content of those. We saw that it told us at the beginning of the text that David appointed these Levitical ministers to commemorate, to remember, to give thanks and then to praise. And so Zion worship involved commemoration, thanksgiving, and praise.

Thanksgiving being the sum of all three. When he delivers the psalm, this is given to thank God. So thanksgiving is at the heart of these things. We give thanks in the present, remembering God’s actions in the past, looking forward to what he will do in the future and praising him because of the future. On the basis of that, we memorialize the past. We look forward to the future with great hope. And thus this produces thanksgiving in the present.

Looking forward in the present, we see that the second half on your outlines—the next two pages of the outlines—I’ve given this the Psalm of Zion or that psalm that was recorded in 1 Chronicles 16 and I’ve done it in two sections because the first section of that psalm tracks almost verbatim Psalm 105. The second section of that psalm given in 1 Chronicles 16 tracks nearly identically to Psalm 96 and then the doxology is from Psalm 106.

Psalms 105, 96, and 106 are all in the fourth book of the psalter—the fourth book of the psalter about the advent of the coming king Jesus. The ultimate advent of the ark—music written for that advent. Now the good news, the rejoicing, the gospel that tabernacle of David music celebrated was in Psalm 96, verse 3, as we talked about this last week. But the whole point of the structure of that psalm is God is bringing Jew and Gentile together.

All the world will be incorporated in the direct worship of God as one people. That is the gospel. That is what will happen when Jesus comes. And so Paul identifies himself in the book of Galatians as a proclaimer of the gospel. And he is the apostle to the Gentiles. Those things are linked in the writings of Paul.

All the good news is that Jesus has ascended to the throne. He is now reigning. The reigning Savior is the good news. And specifically its application is that all the world now will be filled with the glory of God. I think that there’s a sense in which that is the good news or gospel that’s prefigured in Zion worship with these quotations that’ll later become Psalm 96.

Now, looking at the first half again—the part one of this—I wanted just to point out one thing to you. Look at verse 15. So I’m at the Psalm of Zion part one, left hand column from 1 Chronicles 16:15. “Remember his covenant forever.” Now I talked about this last week, but I want to point it out again. And you go over to the right hand column. This is the page. It should look like part one: 1 Chronicles 16, Psalm 105. And you can see it’s almost identical. And I’ve given you formatting changes to show the differences. And the only real significant difference are: One of them is verse 15 says “remember his covenant” and verse 8 of Psalm 105 says “he has remembered his covenant.”

Now those are two sides of the same coin and we’ll talk about that again as we come to the memorial of the Lord at the Lord’s supper. But see that’s kind of how you can see what changes.

Now look at the next one: part two. And I want to point out something interesting here. See this—you know you might want to tear this out of your orders of worship, take it home and put it in your Bible or put it in your notes that you keep for the different books of the Bible. We so clearly hear the three sections of Psalm 105 or Psalm 96 rather—I’m sorry—on this side. But I want you to look at a couple of verses that I think are sort of interesting.

In verse 29 in the left hand column: “Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name. Bring an offering and come before him.” Remember we said that Mount Zion worship the direct presence of God. Come before him. Come into his presence. If you look at the parallel column, verse 8 of Psalm 96, I’m hearing a lot of rustling. Are we not there? Part two. It’s part two page.

So in Psalm 96 in the right hand column, see in verse 8, “Ascribe to the Lord’s glory due his name, bring an offering and come into his courts.” An architectural term—go from “come before him” to “come into his courts.” Now look at another use of this. Before this actually in verse 27—another instance of this verse 27 on the left hand column: “Splendor and majesty are before him, strength and joy are in his place.” General specification—not specified, generalized place. But look over at verse 6—it parallels it: “Splendor and majesty are before him, strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.” Architectural term—can be translated temple in some translations.

Now okay, so what’s the point of pointing out? Well, it seems that David wrote this psalm to start Zion worship and then later the psalm was broken into two—maybe by David or other editors—and changed a little bit in preparation for or for use in temple worship. You see, we have generalized references to location here in Zion worship and now architectural references to where we’re going to do this stuff as we move toward temple worship.

The next week, what we’ve done is we’ve sketched what Zion worship was. Last week we looked at the content of the specific psalm given to us that kind of embodies temple or Zion worship. Next week we’re going to talk about some generalized references to Zion throughout the psalter and in other places of scripture. The point is that Zion worship becomes temple worship. So sometimes—and we have psalms that are Zion songs—it appears that they’ve been modified for later use in the temple.

You see? So it’s a picture of this bringing of what was accomplished in Zion worship and then developed that into use in the temple with architectural languages embodied. So that’s why it can be a little confusing sometimes to read about Zion worship with architectural terms because some of these psalms have been edited apparently. This gives us the key here. This is careful analysis of the text of scripture. They’ve been edited. So we’ll talk more about some of the implications for that next week.

All right, that by way of review of what we spoke about last—because we addressed the content of what happens in Zion worship. And today we want to talk about the breath that is applied to those words. You know if Jesus is the word of God, the spirit comes to bring us the words of Jesus. But the spirit—spirit means pneuma, right? Something is inspiring because it gives us respiration. It gives us breath. The spirit breathes upon the word and brings the word to life as we sing in a song.

So the spirit, if you take words and the spirit breathes them to us, it’s spoken now and becomes musical either in the speaking of how we speak or in actually more formalized musical structures. So what we want to do now is think about the content of what we talked about last week. But now we want to think about how it is, how it happens in worship. We want to talk about singing music and what this worship that happens at Mount Zion looks like as we apply it to the worship of the church today.

And I’ve got seven very simple points. Children, sorry—you know another week, two in a row now with no children’s outline—but you know if you just, there’s seven points here. I’ll try, as we go through this, to remind you to write seven things here very specific words. And the first word that you children want to focus on here—either circle it on the outline on the order of worship or just write it yourself—is “army.”

The first thing we want to say about Zion worship is that it is an equipping of the army of God as a joyful community. We’re going to see that the singing and celebration happens here, but we’re going to see that this text tells us in verse two that as David prepares to bring the ark up and to initiate worship in the context of Zion, this happens in the context of having the name of God specifically designated for us: the Lord of Hosts.

Verse two: “David arose, met with all the people who are with him from Baal Judah to bring up from there the ark of God whose name is called by the name the Lord of Hosts.” Remember the ark went into captivity because God is the Lord of Hosts. They figured even though they were sitting, they’d send the ark out there and they’d win. But the ark got taken into captivity. Ark wars against the Philistines, etc. But the ark is associated with the name of God, meaning the Lord of Hosts.

Zion worship forms up the people of God as an army, as a community. But we’re not like other armies. We’re an army that’s going to have victory through the joy of singing, commemorating, thanksgiving, and praise—is the essence of the soul—the soldiers’ armaments for the war that we carry on into the rest of our lives. This is the equipping for the victory to be worked out in Oregon City, Oregon, United States, all the world.

Old reggae guy Bob Marley—long since dead—chant down Babylon. You know, we’re going to chant down Babylon. He said, “Well, the Rastafarian thing was whole kind of blend of biblical and real weird other things. We don’t want to follow that.” But boy, that’s a good phrase. We will with our singing bring down the walls of this culture. Now, not just because it’s miraculous. Sometimes that’ll happen, right? That happened, you know, in Jericho. But that’s how it works.

Our singing, you being equipped as a soldier of God in the context of formal worship—you’re incorporated into the host of God that is glorious because you remember and are, and what is modeled here becomes what we do as we go into the community. We do not leave in isolation as an example. Temple, wherever we’re at, we’re bound together in the spirit still that binds us together in a visible pictured way here. But as we go forth, we’re bound by that same spirit.

And the spirit of God is moving miraculously and mysteriously using every one of you as you go to your workplaces and homes and places of education, places of recreation. God is using you as his army to go into the world to declare the works of God, to give him thanks in the present, to give him praise for the future, and to call the world to do that very thing.

This is a very important aspect of what Zion worship is particularly in this country because we like to think of ourselves as rugged individualists. But we come together and the word of God is proclaimed and you’re all listening to me and we have a song and we don’t ask you now. We don’t say now, “You know, if you feel like singing this song of victory you can sing it and if you don’t, well just sit and meditate about your sorrows.”

We do not say that. We are formed up as the army of God. I hope every one of you said “Praise God” when we entered joyfully into this knowledge that God has brought back our dear sister to us in repentance. Praise God. And we do it corporately together. You see, right? So God breaks down this rugged individual. He forms us up into a unit. He sees us as what we are. And he declares to us, “This is who you are. Don’t look at the mirror of God’s word that calls you his hosts, his army—Lord God of Sabaoth.”

When we do that great reformation, it’s a reminder. Sabaoth is this thing that’s translated Lord of Hosts or armies. And that’s who we proclaim. Reformation is all about that. God has brought forth an army of people not to go out with the physical sword but to go out with the spirit of God with us and his scriptures and joy to do our task that God has called us to do, and in that way we conquer.

This is important. We don’t say, “When you feel like it, come to church.” We don’t say, “When you feel like it, sing a song.” You’re formed up from the outside in as the army of God. We didn’t ask, you know, as boy he wanted to be baptized. God applies that to him from the outside of him and that’s what changes the internal. It’s how we’re worked upon from the outside by God.

I know we’ve talked a lot and there’s a truth to which, you know, interior work into exterior—but God says just the opposite is true as well in a very real sense. Zion worship is an acknowledgment that the way we get better is by incorporating together and coming together as the army of God. And that’s the way we’ll move into the future as an army who is joyous.

Like I said before, we’re not marching to New Jerusalem. We are waltzing to Jerusalem. Waltzing is stylized marching. It’s marching with joy. And if joy and praise is at the middle of our thanksgiving in the Lord’s day in Zion worship, then that tells us that we’re not marching into the week as much as we are waltzing.

There is order and progression, but there is joy in what we do. And that’s what people see. That’s why people are going to be motivated to ask for a reason for the hope that’s within you. As this culture gets worse and worse and worse, moving away from Christ, you live out lives of hope and joy and thanksgiving and song. That’s how we woo the underworld. Doug H.’s review of Moulin Rouge, right? It’s our song. It’s the gospel put into the pattern of our lives that produces joy. That’s the army that is formed up by God to move into this world and be conquering for him.

Secondly, Zion worship is the result of the ascension of the king and the advent of the spirit of skillfulness. I’m going to spend a little more time on this point than any other, so don’t get worried. We’ll get to the rest of the outline, Lord willing. But there is a little more time to be said on this.

We’ve kind of talked about this—that it initiates with the advent of the ark. But we see here again in verse five, as we’re tracking through this text: “So it’s the Lord of Hosts. And then in verse five, as the ark begins its ascent into Jerusalem, we read that David and all the house of Israel play music before the Lord and all kinds of instruments of fir wood, harps, and etc.” They’re doing this as the ark is ascending up to Jerusalem.

So we see here both the ascent of the king—it’s a relationship to the king—and also we would say the advent or coming of the spirit. First of all let’s talk a little bit about the king in 1 Samuel 10:5. I’m going to talk a little about some verses about Saul. Saul is the first king, right? So his life is important to think about in terms of the relationship of Zion worship music specifically and the king.

And in 1 Samuel 10:5-12, this chapter is about the anointing of Saul, the first king of Israel. And he is told this: He says, “You will come to the hill of God where the Philistine garrison is. It shall be as soon as you have come there to the city that you will hear, you will meet rather a group of prophets coming down from the high places with harp, tambourine, flute, and a lyre before them, and they will be prophesying. Then the spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily, and you shall prophesy with them.”

What’s happening, Saul? Soon as you’re anointed king, you’re going to join that the heavenly host, the prophets of God who prophesy with music and singing and song, musical instruments. They’re going to be coming prophesying, playing these instruments and singing words. And Saul, you’re going to become part of them. You see, so the king is a picture of eventually the Lord Jesus who’s coming produces all this. But here, the king enters into the worship and praise of the prophets.

And this is why Saul is called a prophet. Saul also one of the prophets because he sang. He, you know, rocked out. He had a good time. He had a joyous celebration of God in song with the prophets. You see, that’s what he did. Now, later, we know that Saul has big problems in terms of this. We know later that Saul is turned against David.

God rejects Saul. God anoints David. And in verse 9 of 1 Samuel 18, we read that “from this day on, Saul looked at David with suspicion.” From that day on—why did Saul look at David with suspicion? What happened? What was the pivotal event that changes Saul’s spirit toward David? It was a song.

It was after David and Saul killed the Philistines beginning with the death of Goliath and all that stuff. They kill him and then these women make up a song in verse 7 of 1 Samuel 18. The women sang as they played and said, “Saul is slain as thousands and David is ten thousands.” Very important scripture to remember as we raise children. Comparison is a difficult thing but usually avoided. The comparison sets Saul off.

But it’s a comparison that’s put in the context of music. You see, music has power. Music has the ability to really affect things in a fairly strong way. And here Saul’s becoming a new man is linked with him singing the songs of the prophets. And Saul’s becoming now forsaken by God and the spirit leaving him occurs in the context of a psalm of the church or a song of the church. So Saul’s downfall—really is tied here—is destructive attitude toward David to a song.

You think it’s important what songs we listen to, what songs we sing, how we think about those things affecting other people? Very important. Now then we know in 1 Samuel 16 that the spirit of the Lord came upon David. In 1 Samuel 16:13, Samuel anoints David. Spirit of God comes upon David. “From that day forward, Samuel arose, went to Rama, but the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him.”

So when David is anointed, the spirit leaves Saul and a bad spirit comes to Saul from God. David has the spirit, but Saul has a bad spirit now. Saul’s servant said to him, “Surely a distressing spirit from God is troubling you. Let our master now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the harp. And it shall be that he will play it with his hand and when he does, the distressing spirit from God that is upon you, and you shall be well.”

So the point is let’s find a skillful player of music and that music will drive the distressing spirit away from you. And of course they get David to do this. So the text is tying together the spirit coming upon David, David’s ability and skillfulness in playing, Saul’s departure of the spirit from him and his loss of the spirit—which needs music from externally to himself to drive out the other spirit.

So the spirit of God musically proclaimed name has great power in relationship to our lives. And the kings here—the first two kings of God’s people—are pictures of the relationship of the spirit and the king and music wrapping these things all up.

Okay. So Saul and then David and the psalter. The whole purpose of David’s being equipped by God with the anointing of the spirit—one of the things that happens is he produces this psalter and then the psalter becomes now singing and worship in the context of Zion worship.

So with the advent of the king—okay—we move from judge worship, which was silent, tabernacle worship, no singing, very few words, if any, prescribed in Leviticus for tabernacle worship. The kings come and now we have music. You see, now we have song. Now we have instruments because when Lord Jesus comes, he comes to produce songs, singing joy in the ascension of Christ. Okay?

And then the gift of the spirit is poured out upon the church to cause us to rejoice and to sing songs with the king’s presence mediated to us by the spirit. Revelation 4, verse 8. Now you know in Revelation chapters 4 and 5, heaven is up there. John is there. Nobody can open the book. Jesus isn’t there yet. And then Jesus is going to arrive in heaven.

Before Jesus arrives in heaven in Revelation 4, there is words but there is no music. Verse eight: “The four living creatures each having six wings are full of eyes around and within and they do not rest day or night saying, ‘Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty who was and who is and is to come.’” And then verse 10 of chapter 4: “The 24 elders fell down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever and cast their crowns before the throne saying whatever they’re going to say.”

Okay. Now move ahead to chapter five. And Jesus now enters into heaven and takes the book—the Lamb that was slain. Is it a lamb? Is it a lion? It’s both. Chapter 5, Jesus enters heaven. And now verse 8: “After this, now when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures, 24 elders fell down before the Lord, each having a harp. So now they have a harp with them before the throne. And golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints, and they sang a new song saying, ‘You are worthy to take the scroll.’”

So a movement in the description of what’s happening in heaven from verbal worship without song to now music and song with the advent of Jesus in heaven. The ascension of Christ is tied in the book of Revelation to the breaking forth of music and singing. The worship of God becomes glorified, matured, and transformed just as it did from the tabernacle to Zion, just as it does from the Old Testament to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is what Zion worship pictured—the coming of the Savior.

And so it is of the essence of worship now that we sing and praise God in the context.

Now do you understand that? See, we, you know, most worship services—everything is the sermon, right? You get to the sermon and that’s the real deal right there. But you see we talked a couple years ago about it’s a house of prayer—the intercessory prayer is a very important part. It’s one of the main reasons, maybe the main reason God has brought us together. And here we’re saying that a very, it’s not just a tacked on thing that we want to do, is praise God. It is of the essence of Zion worship to break forth in song and singing and musical instruments.

If we understand that the new creation really is here, that you are part of that new creation, and as you go forth from this place, you bring the new creation in the midst of a world that is dying off to supplant it with the church of Jesus Christ. Well, praise God, huh? Do you understand that you really are today gathered together as the Zion of God, the navel, and center of the world? And you’re going to flow out from Eden.

You being the waters of God that flow forth from this place, changing and transforming it. This is a day of joy and thanksgiving in musical instruments and great singing and delight. The spirit brings music. In 2 Chronicles 5, we read that when God fills the temple, it’s at the same time as music occurs in the context of the temple.

For 2 Chronicles 5:13: “It came to pass when the trumpeters and the singers were as one to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord. When they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music and praise the Lord saying, ‘For he is good, for his mercy endures forever.’ Then the house, the house of the Lord was filled with a cloud.”

Cloud is the picture of the advent of the Holy Spirit who brings the ascended king into our presence and that is tied to the breaking forth and the singing and musical instruments that go on. They’re tied together. The spirit’s advent and music and singing.

Again, in Ephesians 5:18-19, we’re supposed to be filled with the spirit. How do we know if we’re filled with the spirit? Does it mean we do silly things that, you know, we can’t understand? No. Being filled with the spirit means to be speaking to one another in psalms and hymns, spiritual songs, singing and making melody from your hearts or in your heart. That’s what being filled with the spirit is. Taking the word of God, having it inform our songs, and speaking to one another in song. See, the spirit causes us to sing.

Colossians 3:16-17: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” Did it with my kids this morning. “Let’s all sing. Be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted.”

Now, maybe it wasn’t the right use, but this is what we’re supposed to do. You know, when you’re grumpy and you’re feeling all by yourself, you know, all isolated, you don’t want to sing songs with the rest of the group, whether it’s the church or the family. But you enter into that song and it breaks down those lousy attitudes that we have or it can at least. It’s efficacious of the spirit. The spirit moves when God’s people sing together.

That’s all established here and it flows into family worship. This is why family worship ideally has a component of song—at least some little chorus that we all sing together, you know. And teenage boys don’t want to do that stuff. They’re embarrassed. Older men don’t want to sing here at church. They’re embarrassed. We’ll get to that, too. Point is, we should be singing together. And when we have each other, you know, needing encouragement and admonition, what does the specific text of scripture tell us in the New Testament?

Do what Zion worship was. Let the spirit move in the context of song—to one another—and encouragement in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. My wife, you know, she hums little ditties all day long. And, you know, it’s a joy to me. It’s a great joy. It wasn’t when I was younger.

You ever saw Trip to Bountiful? Excellent movie. And you know, there’s an older woman there and she sings hymns around the apartment of her son and his wife. But his wife doesn’t like the hymns and has forbidden her to sing the songs. You see, it’s a big thing in the movie. You know, she can sing her songs again at the end. We should be singing songs in the context of our home. Our home should be musical just like the worship of Zion is musical.

Our home should be spirit—comes to bring music. The spirit loosens up the tongue, right? You men who goof around with alcohol—and don’t understand it at first, you know what that’s like. Shouldn’t get drunk. But there’s this relationship to spirits. That’s why we call them spirits. They have a counterfeit effect of the Holy Spirit, right? They loosen tongues. But the spirit of God moving in music should loosen your tongue as well.

And if you’re here today and kind of grumpy and you don’t want to sing, hey, you get into the groove of the spirit, the wave of the spirit in worship. And that tongue gets loosened. And as the tongue becomes loosened, your heart starts to change. You see? Spirit works through music and affects and transforms people and moves them ahead.

Now, the spirit works skillfully. Boy, this is such an important point. Praise God that in our generation, there’s a renewed emphasis on the Holy Spirit. R.J. Rushdoony, he told me 15 years ago, whatever it was, that he thinks that the charismatic movement has been raised up by God to get us to focus on the work of the spirit in our lives. He thinks they got most of it wrong. But God has raised them up, see, to tell us, what’s your doctrine of the spirit? If it is a negation of the work of the spirit, that’s not too good.

You know, why do people sing choruses and stuff in charismatic churches? Because they want joy. They want praise. They want their life. They want to feel different as a result of the worship of God. And you know what? So do I. And so should you. That’s what Zion worship does. It changes us by causing us to remember in song and to give thanks in song and to praise God in song and equip us as the army of God that takes this joy into the world. Praise God for all that stuff. Huh?

We got the real deal here, folks. We know what the scriptures say. A lot of these churches don’t, but they tell us engage in worship in a joyful, exuberant way, but engage in it skillfully.

You know, it says here that they played skillfully. And this is in many places. I’ve got references on your script on your outline. First, say that the spirit produces skillfulness in general.

Before we get to application of music, 2 Chronicles 2, he says, “I’ve sent a skillful man in wisdom and understanding, Hiram, my master craftsman, the son of the woman of the daughter of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre, skilled to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, wood, purple, and blue, linen, and crimson to make any engraving, etc., etc., etc.” God sends a man skilled to produce works in the context of the temple. They’re going to build the temple.

Now, Exodus 31 says this was going to happen with the tabernacle as well. “Well, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘See, I have called my by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur of the tribe of Judah.’ So, I got a guy here. He says, ‘I have filled him with the spirit of God.’”

Okay, so here’s what a spirit-filled man looks like: in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, in all manner of workmanship to design artistic works. To work in gold, in silver, in bronze, in cutting jewels for settings, in carving wood, to work in all manner of workmanship—with him another man that he names. And I put wisdom in the hearts of all who are gifted artisans that all they make—might they might make all the things that I’ve commanded you to make.

God says that the filling of the spirit is the filling of the spirit of skillfulness in what we do. Okay? The spirit doesn’t come to produce chaos, disorder, loss of control. No, the spirit comes to increase our self-control. That is a fruit of the spirit. It’s an aspect of what it takes to be a successful skilled artisan or a successful spirit-filled businessman.

The spirit of skillfulness is what God’s spirit is. He comes to produce skill, artisan, artistic abilities to his people. I’ve given you other references on there as well.

In Exodus 35, this that was promised was actually produced. Exodus 35:26 says, “The women whose hearts were stirred with wisdom spun yarn of goat’s hair.” Doesn’t mean the women that were ecstatically saying things that nobody understood—meant the women that the spirit of God had come upon to make them to knit well. See, sit there long hours using their hands for the glory of God. That’s the result of the filling of the spirit and empowerment for work. Is that great. In addition to this, in Exodus 35, the guy that he said was going to have this skill—also the filling of the spirit enabled him. Says that he has put in his heart the ability to teach these skills of artisanship, to teach the skillfulness in working with wood and metal and crafty sort of work and stones, fiery stones.

The spirit of God is a skillful spirit that teaches other men. It can be transmitted—the skill that’s produced by the filling of the spirit. So the spirit will fill another person through you teaching that person the skill that God has given to you. You see, the spirit produces that kind of work. The spirit doesn’t work apart from, you know, instruction. He works through that to create spirit-empowered men who have skillfulness and craft to do what he’s going to do.

Other references here: First Kings 7 again, a man filled with the wisdom and understanding to do the work in the temple. And then in Ezekiel 28, the same word of skillfulness is used in verse 5 to talk about businessmen. “By your great wisdom, by your trade, by your skillfulness, you have increased your riches. Your heart is lifted up because of your riches.”

Your heart is lifted up because of your riches. So there’s a judgment passage. But see, the important thing to note from this passage is that commerce, trading, business affairs—you can be skilled and skillful and have a heart full of wisdom to do that as well. And if we combine that with these other texts, then clearly the spirit of God fills or empowers businessmen to do their work skillfully.

So you see, you’re filled with the spirit tomorrow, businessmen, as you go to work and have skill and craft at your trade and do things in relationship to the power of the spirit. The world has changed as a result of that. You see, we shouldn’t—it shouldn’t be suspect to us. Things that happen in the business world. That’s not some sort of, you know, non-spiritual realm. That is the realm where God’s spirit is filling and empowering men more often than any other thing.

That’s what most of you are called to do: to engage in vocational skill and craftsmanship. You’re being filled with the spirit not just to sing songs with your family at worship. But more importantly in terms of time priorities, you’re going to spend the day tomorrow being skilled in trading. And it’s the spirit of God that skill—that fills you, empowers you for that particular calling and craft. You see, the spirit—we get so wrong today. The spirit is the spirit of skillfulness and empowerment.

And the same thing is true in music. First Chronicles 15:22 says he puts this man in charge of the singing. He gave instruction in singing because he was skillful. He’s skilled by God—by the spirit giving him skill so that he can lead in singing and instruct others in singing as well. John, pray for God’s empowerment and filling of the spirit upon him so he can lead us skillfully. He can teach you as well skillfully.

First Chronicles 25:7 says, “There number who were trained in singing to the Lord with their relatives all who were skillful.” See, Zion worship is not just some sort of exotic, you know, some kind of wild emanations of music and weird singing or even mindless chants over and over and over. Zion worship—we see in the psalter—is music that is intricate and complex, some simple, some complex, a beautiful blend of the two. And it’s skillful music.

You see, the spirit of God brings skillfulness to musicians. Skillfulness here means to have wisdom and understanding. John has to understand. He has to know. He has to be more than just technically proficient. He has to understand the relationship of harmonies and the effects they have on us. You see, and what, how that works, how you work, how best to instruct you in singing these four-part harmonies that we said. How can I do that? He thinks to himself. And the spirit of God empowers him and skills him to instruct you in the context of worship by him being wise and understanding.

Psalm 137 says, “We had harps and we hang on our harps. We go to Babylon. We hung up our harps. Verse 5: ‘If I forget you, oh Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her skillfulness.’” Now by extension or whatever—our right hand to do—but here immediately it’s that harp that’s been hung up. He’s not using the right hand. You know, all of God’s people have a harp in the left hand and a right hand strumming it. That’s kind of the picture in that text of Revelation. We’re all making music together. You see?

Well, here that hand is supposed to be a hand that’s skillful. So the playing of music is skillful music. The spirit brings skillfulness. Zion worship is about skillful worship.

First Chronicles 28: “Behold, there are other divisions of the priests of the Levites. All the servants house God. Every willing man of any skill will be with you in all the work for all kinds of service.”

Psalm 33: “Sing a new song to the Lord. Sing to him a new song. Play skillfully with a shout of joy.” The word “play skillfully” here talks about now technical proficiency in the instrument itself. So the skillfulness of music in the Old Testament has wisdom and understanding and technical proficiency.

It’s interesting to me that in 2 Chronicles 34, it talks about the men, the carpenters, the builders who are going to build the temple and the quarried stone and all that stuff. And then verse 12 says, “The men did the work faithfully with foremen over them to supervise them.” So now we’re going to have foremen to supervise these master craftsmen who are filled with the spirit.

And then it names these foremen. And it says that these were sons of the Kohathites and the Levites, all who were skilled full with musical instruments. These were also over the burden-bearers and supervised all the workmen from job to job. The supervisors of what we would think of as vocational skills, right? Working in metal, trading to get the stones, all that stuff, right? So the vocational tradesmen are overseen and supervised by Levites.

And their specific ability to supervise is linked in this text to their skillfulness in music. Not what we would think of. So what it says, I think it’s a picture again: most of you are going into the work world tomorrow. The men of course, vocations—and your supervisors are these Levitical elders who bring together songs of Zion and musical worship here in Zion. And this somehow enables you to be overseen in your work so that you’re filled with the spirit tomorrow. You’re filled with musical instruction and joy so that you can take the joy and in some cases that very songs that we sing as you go about your work—singing those songs. But it provides the whole environment for which you’re filled with the spirit tomorrow to go into your respective callings.

I’ll talk more next week. Well, I’ll just mention here the next thing I have on your outline is 2 Samuel 23:1 and Psalm 133:1.

2 Samuel 23:1 refers to David as the sweet psalmist of Israel. And this word “sweet” psalmist has some connotations. It’s used in different ways in the Hebrew. It has connotations of power, strength. It has a relationship to symmetry and proportion. It’s the sweetness of the fellowship together in the context of our homes.

We had Jonathan over Friday night and we had the Selmers over Friday. All of our family was together. Those of you with teenagers know how difficult that is as you go on in life. But everybody, a whole family was together Friday night and a couple of, you know, Jonathan was visiting and Mike and Lana and Levi were there. It was just a sweet night. It was a night of blending together.

Psalm 133 talks about the goodness, the sweetness of the fellowship of God’s people. Other times at our home, it’s not sweet. It’s complaining, grumbling, disputing, just like at your house. And that’s not sweet. So the sweet psalmist of David produces, you know, unity in the context of the church, beauty and proportion in the context of the music, strength and power to cast out unholy spirits in the context of the ministry—in terms of Saul. And this particular word that David is the sweet psalmist of Israel has all those connotations in it.

So this music—the spirit produces this environment of music and it is a skillfulness in song. It’s related to the ascension of Christ. The advent of the spirit produces joy and singing in the context of our worship.

Third then: Zion worship involves diverse instruments—all extensions of the human body. And here this is rather obvious, but these texts clearly talk about three basic groups of instruments.

We have those instruments that are strummed—string instruments, the harp, the lyre. We have other instruments that are percussion instruments that are hit—tambourines, rattles, cymbals. The piano is, it’s hitting things. So it’s more of a percussion instrument.

Interestingly, in 1 Chronicles 16:5, it’s the cymbals. Asaph is in control of the cymbals. And Asaph is the guy that starts worship in the context of Zion worship and he’s a cymbal player and the idea seems to be maybe that he’s keeping beat with the percussion of the cymbals. So by extension, drums are percussion instruments that should be part of worship. The cymbals perhaps start the worship as well.

So you know, we start a little drum roll at family camp sometimes to lead up some clashing cymbal and then praise God. See, so the piano—Jordan showed us this last year when he was here in October. And the piano sounds like a big cymbal ringing and it starts us in our worship in some songs. And he has a version of what should happen after the absolution of sins where this cymbal hits at the beginning of the formal worship that starts after the absolution of sins. We’ll talk more about that next week—the relationship to the actual progression—but the cymbals start things off and the piano can start things off in particular and it keeps tone.

You know, we clap, right? And then we blow. So the body makes music by itself and it seems like physical instruments are an extension of the body itself—technological advances on the body, so to speak. The third classification are instruments that are blown: trumpets.

And in the scriptures, we’ll talk more next week. Different, the priests blew the trumpets and the Levites did the other stuff. And the trumpets really are like the first instrument. They’re given earlier in the book of Numbers to call people to get together at the tabernacle—not for use in the tabernacle but to call them. And so the trumpet has some degree of preeminence here.

And we’ll talk more next week in relationship to that. But there are these musical instruments that are clearly given in the context of the scriptures that is to be part of Zion worship. So we’ve got percussion instruments, wind instruments, and then stringed instruments all coming together and being incorporated in the context of the worship of God. And so Zion worship involves unity and diversity of musical instrumentation.

Okay. So you know I’ve said army was the first one. And then secondly, skillfulness is how that army does its work. For you children, army—you’re in the army. You’re, you should be try to be skillful in music as a result of being in this army.

Third, great thing if all God’s people here are raised up—many as possible playing musical instruments. We can get a Levitical orchestra at some point in the context of Oregon City and all of us should be able to have at least a harper, strum on to do things with. Okay.

So the third point you children is “musical instruments.” Learn an instrument. Try to figure out some way to learn a simple instrument. Okay.

Fourth: Zion worship was careful worship regulated by God. As this worship starts up to bring the ark up, they’re not careful enough with what they’re doing. The guy touches the ark illicitly and God kills him and the whole thing stops for three months. See, we want to be exuberant. We want to bring the spirit and understanding how the spirit brings music into our services. But we must do it regulated by God’s word.

It’s important to study the Psalms so that we know what worship music should be like. We don’t want to make it up. We don’t want to go by what feels good or feels bad, right? We want to be careful. It’s biblically regulated praise and worship. We have a king, right? So, you know, we’re part of the army. We’re to be skillful as the spirit speaks musically in our midst. We’re supposed to want more instruments in our worship. And we’re supposed to look to the king of the army, right?

We don’t make up our own marching orders. He gives us marching orders for the carefulness of our worship. And our music and praise should be regulated by God’s word. Great warnings. You see, it’s more important not messing up in worship because worship is the model from which the rest of life flows. And if we mess up in worship, big consequences. Why are there later the judgments of God, north and south, kingdoms divided? Because of bad worship. That’s why reformed people have insisted that we use a regulative principle. We agree with that. We agree with some of the application, disagree with some of the application. But see, they’re right. We should be very careful what we do in worship. People can die. Church can be judged.

So carefulness following the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan will attack. Satan does. If this is important—is what we see it being here in Zion worship—then Satan wants no singing. Satan wants no instruments, or Satan, if you’re going to have instruments and singing, he wants them not to be centered on the content of scripture. He wants them changed. See, this is where Satan attacks. He attacks at the table. The church cannot get it together—the extended body of Christ—to do weekly communion with wine and bread and kids. And it’s so simple. But for 2,000 years, Satan has attacked us because he knows the power of this.

And believe me, he knows the power of music. And he will attack us here. Men, when you hold back from singing this, I believe it’s proper to think that there’s a lion who is attacking you and wants you to be cowed. He wants you not to sing out. Children, he wants you to be embarrassed about singing. Elders of our church, he wants us to use the wrong songs if we’re going to use songs. And he doesn’t want more instruments. Less instruments the better. Best if we have no instruments.

And there’s major portions of the reformed church—good, godly people—that never let an instrument in the worship service. You see, this is a very important truth. It’s very important that we dedicate ourselves to following the king. But the king says, “Play musical instruments skillfully and be my army in that way.”

Five: Zion worship was courageous, enthusiastic, loud worship. I got lots of scriptures here.

First Chronicles 13—well, David dances and plays in our text from 2 Samuel 6 with all his might before the Lord. You see, when they bring it up now, he’s going to dance and whirl and they’re going to play instruments with all their might and strength. That’s what it says in our text here. And so Zion worship is courageous, bold, strong worship. It’s why I like electric instruments. They have strength and power, right? And they can have dissonance and all kinds of things we don’t want. You see, that’s why I think electric instruments are a positive development and technological advance in music because you can sound some bass notes and stuff.

Well, you know, in this organ that we don’t need to have huge pipes for or in a guitar that does things—it has power and strength to it. That’s why young men are attracted to rock music. It has power. And as Christians, they know intuitively that the music of Zion should have power to it. And they don’t see the power being demonstrated. Now, part of that, they got to mature in their understanding what biblical power is. You know, power isn’t shattering windows necessarily, but it does say, as we sang earlier, “shake the ground.”

Can you imagine 15,000 people gathered in Oregon City at some point in the future here, churches come together and celebrate as a group and shout praises to God? Do you know how loud that would be? It would exceed the decibel ordinance, I’m sure. And it may well literally shake things in the context of the physical environment.

First Chronicles 13:8: “David and all of Israel were celebrating before God with all their might, even with songs and with lyres.” They put strength into their songs and the musical instruments.

2 Chronicles 15:14: “Then they took an oath before the Lord of the loud voice was shouting trumpets, ram’s horns.” You see, courageous, bold, enthusiastic worship.

2 Chronicles 20: “The Levites, children of the Kohathites, all the children of the Korites stood up, Korites rather, to praise the Lord God of Israel with voices loud and high.” Okay, here we have specifically the singing of praises by the Levites. They’re empowered and filled with the spirit to sing skillfully loud and high, shouting forth their praises to God in music.

Oh, may God give us this perspective on our music. Psalm 98:4: “Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Break forth in song.” Break forth in song. If we understand the significance of our, the absolute assurance of Christ’s forgiveness of our sins, the depth of our wickedness against him, and yet his mercy toward us, and we understand that is applied to us in the absolution, will we not break forth in song? “Praise God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” Absolutely.

What a strong, powerful music being played in the context of the church. Spirit moves in terms of worship. The spirit gives assurance as we worship in the context. If we’re going to have some instruments and singing and the right words, then Satan’s going to attack by wanting us to sing them in kind of a wimpy sort of, “We don’t know. Well, who knows what might happen today.” No, we sing with loudness, exuberance, courageously. Spirit of God moves to assure you of your forgiveness.

And if we don’t sing songs of assurance and strength and power, then we’re not going to be assured of our forgiveness by the Holy Spirit. We’ll be as doubting as the volume of our songs is doubting. We’ll be as doubting as the plainness of our singing is. You see, because the spirit of God moves in a way to empower you as the army of God to assure you you’re his people, that you’re going to go forth conquering, remembering what he’s done, giving thanks in the present, praising God for the future and moving into it as his army with skillfulness and song.

And he’s going to do that in the context of the worship service with loud enthusiastic worship. Pray that we might continue to grow and develop. We’re moving well. We’re learning skillfulness and singing four-part harmony. We’re learning how to sing the Psalms better with not just rhymed metrical versions, but metrical versions that don’t have to rhyme. And now with some psalms that are through-composed, right? The Psalm 95—it’s not a series of verses. That’s okay. Psalm 96 is written that way. Psalm 95 isn’t.

Psalm 95 starts with poetry and moves to prose at the last half of it. So a through-composed where the notes are different as we flow through the whole song makes sense for Psalm 95 because there’s a drastic change in the middle of that psalm in terms of the literary structure of the psalm.

When Jordan was here last October, we did a chant version of Psalm 150. Then we did the Genevan version. Genevan version we did today is good. Chant version tells us exactly what this moves right in turn. It’s like Psalm 19. We’re learning uses the very words itself. Is it wrong to sing a metrical version? No. What am I doing? I’m not reading scripture after scripture after scripture. I’m talking. I’m taking the text and I’m applying it to us. That’s good. But we start with the text being read. Then we adorn it, apply it to our lives.

And so we can start with the plain reading of a psalm, better—the chanting of a psalm, move to a metrical version of the psalm. Nothing wrong with that. No compromise. That’s kind of the model it seems that we want to take in this idea of skillfulness and then courageousness and singing forth.

You know, as an old fellow, I’ll get to that later. So, courageousness and boldness and loudness in the context of our worship.

Six—almost done.

Zion worship involves self-humiliation, being more concerned with God than men. And you know the story. You know, so David enters into the worship the way I’ve told you to courageously, boldly, praising God, spirit-empowered for this very purpose, yet with skillfulness—not, you know, ecstatically in the sense of being disordered or not having beauty and symmetry. No, he’s got all that going on, but he’s got enthusiasm.

And his wife says, “My, look at you. Look at the way you’re acting there.” You know, women, the worst thing you can do for your husband today is to tell him how bad he sings. Don’t ever tell him that. Even if it’s true, you don’t, you know, can’t say something nice. Don’t say anything at all, or you say maybe you could go to psalm practice before church. Might be able to say that. You see, men of the church, you know, you don’t sing as loud as your wife, most of you, because we’re more prideful. We don’t want people to think, “Oh he doesn’t know how to sing,” or worse yet, “Oh he’s just one of those, you know, holy Joes, pious Joes,” or something. “Well, oh yeah, we are, and that’s what we want.”

To remind ourselves that we’re that—by singing, entering into the psalms of God and the songs of God loudly—we want to be focused on God and more fearful of him than what our wife or our child or the other guy in the pew or the guy walking by in the street or whatever else it is. Whatever Michals of the world might surround us—who we know will disdain us.

And David probably knew it well that she was going to do that. We don’t want to worry about all that stuff. We want to do what God calls us to do. We want to be his army by entering into worship skillfully, loudly, courageously, singing these psalms and playing these instruments.

Zion worship involves self-humiliation be at the heart of it. We’re teaching ourselves to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ. Better if you can’t sing that good. I love it when I make mistakes now. Well, I don’t love it, but I’m getting to love it when I, you know, seriously, early years I felt so bad when I make a mistake in the liturgy, make a mistake in the public reading of the word. But, you know, every time that it happens now, it’s just another reminder, you know, to be humble before God. I can’t do anything right without him. And I’m glad he’s teaching me that. I’m glad he has me do that in the context of the service.

So we got to be more concerned about God than we do about one another ultimately.

And then seven: Zion worship concluded with a blessing to the people. At the end of the text, what does David do? He blesses them and he takes a picture of that blessing and gives it to them. You know, they get wine, they get bread, cake of raisins, whatever it is. They get sent forth with the blessings of God upon their household.

Who didn’t get blessed? The woman who is more concerned about appearances to men, more afraid of men than God. The woman who despised David. What does the text tell us? How does the whole thing end? The ungodly who are more concerned about how we look to one another or look to the world and about how we praise God—that’s Michal. She is bearing the rest of her life no fruit. The future belongs to those that have kids ultimately. Now, God in his grace doesn’t give all people kids. That’s fine. But I’m saying they’re the future, you see.

And the future belongs to those who engage themselves in self-humiliation so that they might exalt the Lord Jesus Christ in the context of worship forming up on the Lord’s day—reminding us of all these lessons of courage and power and the law of God. The commander’s words, the king’s words—these are his army. We’re not a bunch of individuals. We do things together. We’re formed of community. We’re formed up in the context of praise and worship, musical instruments. Beautifying the word of God, we will take the preached word of God into our lives and beautify it this week.

And we go forward fearing God enough to enter into his worship on the Lord’s day. And that determines who we’ll be in the rest of the week, and we won’t be shy about our testimonies before men when asked to account for the joy that’s within us. No, we’ll enter into that stuff joyously and we will control the future.

The future belongs to those who enter into the worship of Zion. David had other girls looking at him. They’re going to be happy with me. The church of Jesus Christ looks to Jesus himself as our model for all these things who based himself for our sake, who humbled himself to the point of death for us. And we look to him as his glad handmaidens.

The church is the handmaiden of the Savior and we say that’s the way we want to be too. We want to engage in self-humiliation, enter into the worship and praise of God. May God grant that we be joined with the spirit of David. We have the same spirit, yes, beloved. The spirit of David in dedicating ourselves to energetic, engaged, forceful worship in music and song, Zion worship that results in favor with God and men.

One of the early church fathers came up with a Latin phrase: “lex orandi lex credendi”—how a man worships so he believes. How we worship will determine to a large extent what we believe. How we worship will hear will determine how we live out our confession of faith in the context of the world.

God says that he calls us to enter into joyous Zion worship today and every other Lord’s day with grateful thankful heart, song of joy and exuberance before him with skillfulness and raising up a generation raised in Zion who know music and wish to see it at the center of their worship before the king—recognizing that is the filling of the spirit, that’s what empowers the army of God to go into the world and chant down Babylon.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for your text. As we come forward, may each of us, Lord God, and those who don’t come forward, may we each dedicate ourselves anew to entering into energetic, joyous worship and music of Zion and seeing its relationship to the rest of our lives. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.