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Let us continue in worship by giving attention to the reading of God's Word as it is recorded in the Psalm numbered 98. "Oh sing to the Lord a new song for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him victory. The Lord has made known his victory. He has revealed his vindication

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in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God. Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. Break forth into joyous song and sing praises. Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with

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the lyre and the sound of melody, with trumpets and the sound of the horn. Make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord. Let the sea roar and all that fills it, the world and those who dwell in it. Let the floods clap their hands. Let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord for he comes to judge the earth. He

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will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity." And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his Word. Pray with me. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Music has the power to lift heavy hearts. That's not just a theory. It has

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been established since Old Testament times and is being corroborated today in our most sophisticated and advanced laboratories. You remember, for example, the Old Testament story in which King Saul has an evil spirit come upon him and he is told in seeking release from this spirit to find someone who can play

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upon the harp and he is promised that as he listens to the music of the harp, he will be released from the spirit. And we read in 1 Samuel chapter 16, "David took a harp and played it with his hand and Saul was refreshed and was well and the evil spirit departed from him." At roughly the same time in another part of the

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world, Pythagoras of Samos, he of the Pythagorean theorem, was teaching his disciples that certain chords and melodies drew definite responses from those who heard them. So in the ancient world, both the Hebrew world and the Greek world, there was respect for the power of music. And our understanding of

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that power has grown in our own time. We know today, for example, that music can relieve the burdens of fatigue. It can calm the anxious. It can encourage those who are downhearted. It can assist in the clarification of goals. It promotes creativity. It bonds, unites friends. It inspires us in the things of the

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national patriotism and it lifts our hearts to God. Music, for example, is commonly being used today in hospital operating rooms. It brings ease not only to the patients but also to the doctors and the nurses who are laboring there. My surgeon said to me on one occasion when I asked him how it was that he kept from

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exhaustion and utter tiredness, he said, "Part of me is always in the mountains." He was a nationally known mountaineer. Well, the mountains are being brought to today into the operating room by lifting, exalting music. Many physicians today suggest to patients that they bring tapes of their favorite music to the

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hospital with them and listening to those tapes aids in the recuperative process. There's a funny story that happened because of that. A man who wakened after surgery to hear the music Amazing Grace and he didn't know whether he had died or was still here. And as a matter of fact, and this story is true, he

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got three nurses together and wouldn't really believe that he was still here on earth until he heard them sing "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling." Music is being used in ministry to geriatrics, people who have accumulated a great number of years and the tiredness, the exhaustion, the discouragement, the boredom that

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often goes with this. They have discovered that effervescent music, bubbling music, music that is played allegro, vivace, cumbrio, that kind of music lifts those spirits, fills them with new enthusiasm. Some nations are using music in the training of their athletes. The Soviet Union, for example,

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has developed techniques where it has its finest Olympic competitors lie down and listen to music. They usually use the Largo sections from Baroque music which has a very strong and definite bass line. And very quickly the heartbeat of the listener falls into the same rhythm as the bass line in the music. And this is

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tremendously relaxing. There are those who say, for example, that this kind of relaxation is better for an athlete than the physical practice that is necessary for the development of their skill. So there's no question about the fact, agreement comes from every hand, that music can loosen the serpents of care

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and fear which in coil themselves around the heart. Music enters the ear but it quickly moves into the mind and the soul. And there it brings soothing and lifting comfort. Music does have power to give wings to the heavy heart. And that's the key to the understanding of the 98 Psalm which I read to you just a moment ago.

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The 98 Psalm begins with a song sung by God. The Jewish people have been the captives of the Babylonians for decades and they have prayed for release. And God hears their prayer and he raises up the Persian Empire under Cyrus to defeat the Babylonians and to free the children of Israel. And the Jewish people are thrilled

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with this, at the knowledge that God is ready to upset empires and take kings from their thrones in order to fulfill his faithful promises to his people. So the psalm begins with these words, "The Lord has made known his victory. He has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his

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steadfast love and faithfulness." Now the two things you should notice about this are first of all it's a solo. God is singing alone. Notice the words, "The Lord has made known his victory. He has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations." This is something not done by humankind. This is something done by

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God as an act of love for his people. And the other thing to notice about this song of God's, this solo of God's if you will, is that it contains reference to what is called a royal grant covenant. I have reference to the phrase now, "He has remembered his steadfast love." You know what a covenant is. A covenant is an

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agreement entered into by equal parties. Each one makes commitments or promises to the other. There are a lot of covenants in the scriptures, but there are also royal grant covenants. And this phrase, "He has remembered his steadfast love," is a code phrase which points to such a royal grant covenant. Now a royal

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grant covenant is not an agreement between equals. It's an agreement between the king and his people, and they are not understood to be equal. And only the king can initiate such a covenant. The people cannot demand it of the king. The king must do it as an act of loving concern on his own part. Not only that, but the

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king takes upon himself in this covenant whatever obligations he chooses. No one can insist upon this obligation or that. Because he has initiated the agreement, he spells out the terms. And finally, in a royal grant covenant, the people do not have the right to enforce it upon the king. Since the king has initiated it in

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the first place, and since the king has determined the terms of the agreement, the king and the king only can enforce the agreement if he chooses to do so. And what's being said in the early part of the psalm is that God, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, has initiated a royal grant covenant with his people. He

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has obligated himself willingly to them in his love, and further, he keeps his promises. He keeps them absolutely. He is steadfast and he is faithful. And when you think of that, that the great and the Almighty God makes promises he doesn't have to make, and then keeps them when he doesn't have to keep them, and does it

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all for love's sake, that's a tremendous thought. That's a thought it's almost impossible to articulate with words. I'm inclined to say we ought to hum about it together or sing about it together. It's beyond mere speech. I was at a wedding rehearsal dinner a few weeks ago and the restaurant personnel were very slow, and

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the youngsters who were there at the table got bored and I was trying to entertain some of them and we started to do these knock-knock jokes. And finally the little boy sitting across from me said, "Will you remember me three minutes from now?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Will you remember me an hour from now?" I said, "Yes."

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He said, "Will you remember me next week?" I said, "Yes." He said, "All right, knock-knock." I said, "Who's there?" He said, "You see you forgot me already." Well, a royal grant covenant says that when we go up to God's door and knock, he never says, "Who's there?" He knows us from the start. He does not say to us, "What

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has your behavior been like?" He does not say to us, "Give me the measure of your obedience." He does not ask us if we brush after every meal or if we are ready to help the handicapped across the street. You see, he answers the door not because of our faithfulness, but because of his. That's what makes it so absolutely

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remarkable. The scriptures at one point say it's quite unspeakable. And there are times, you know, when words fail us. It's an interesting thing that many people who stutter, have great difficulty speaking, can sing with no difficulties whatever. And that's the reason here in the song. When this faithfulness of God

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is sung about in God's solo, the people respond not with speech, but with song. Notice the second part of the song. It says this, "Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. Make a joyful noise to the Lord. Use the lyre and the trumpet and the horn to make a joyful noise." That's the reason we use

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organs in churches, because they can imitate the sounds of all of these instruments. The arts, you see, are the way in which we praise God. We've learned in the last years that the brain is divided into two parts, the left lobe and the right lobe. And the left lobe is given more to things mathematical, to

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things that have to do with logic, formal expression, and the like. But the right lobe of the brain, it's the creative part. It's the part that sings and dances and gives color to life. And it's a very sad thing that in our society we have become so left-brained and have forgotten the right brain. Have you noticed in a school

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system, for example, whenever they run short of money, what's the first thing they cut out? They cut out the band. They cut out the arts projects. They cut out the things which develop the right brain, and that's so sad. I remember once in a college campus standing in an art studio, and the chairman of the board of that

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college came walking through the studio. Now this is the most boring man I have ever known in my life. Absolutely. This man is tedium personified. It's sad, but it's true. And as he came down the hall in this art studio, some of the football players were there taking a class in pottery. They were learning to make pots.

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Now these were fine athletes and very good students. They couldn't have been in that college unless they were. And they were seeking to develop the right brain as well as the left. They were learning how to express themselves artistically. And as this man went by them, he said, "I should think you boys would be beyond

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the sandbox stage by this time." And after he passed through the room, one of the boys said, "I'd stay in a sandbox the rest of my life if I had to, to avoid being like him." And the words that went through my mind were a bit more sophisticated, but the same thought was being expressed. I remember those words

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in The Merchant of Venice when it says, "The man who hath no art or music in himself, nor is not moved and carried with sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. Let no such man be trusted." And it's true. Art expresses freely what comes up out of our hearts. Luther says, "People who have no love of

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art and music are sticks and stones." Music is the way in which we express ourselves. You know, the greatest art is art which is technically well done, which has a message, and the message is true. And when we sing to the praise of God, when we remember, for example, that matchless music with which God filled

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the Bethlehem skies on that first Christmas Eve, when we think about that and allow that music to settle down in our hearts, reminding us of his faithfulness and of his love, letting the song of the angels become part of us, letting it haunt our lives, there arises within us naturally a desire to respond

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and reply, to sing and to dance and to paint and to sculpt and to do those things which enable us to express the joy that is in us. When I was a very little boy and couldn't sleep, my father would carry me and he would hum. And one of the things that he hummed most often, because it was his favorite piece of

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music, was the meditation from Masnay's opera "Thais." That piece of music has become so much a part of me, going back to those childhood days, that even now, when I am troubled and anxious, that's the first piece of music that I listen to. On the Sunday evening before the Wednesday on which I had my heart

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surgery, it was a Christmas candlelight service, and all of the music in the service which I had planned was Christmas music, except for the meditation from "Thais" by Masnay, which was played in order to calm my spirit and it did. All right. When we are born again, when we are spiritual infants, the

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melody of God's love begins to flow into our lives. It begins to hum in our hearts. It should echo in our spirits. And as we live on that and grow in that and echo that, we find it lifts even the heaviest of hearts. Francis Havergill put it this way, "Our harp notes shall be sweeter, our trumpet songs more clear, our anthems

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ring so grandly that all the world must hear. O royal be our music, for who has caused to sing like the chorus of redeemed ones? The children of the King." But the psalm continues. It says, "Not only do the people of God echo his song, but the whole creation echoes his song." Listen to the words, "Let the sea roar

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and all that fills it, the world and those who dwell in it. Let the floods clap their hands. Let the hills sing with joy together before the Lord." Nature does sing, you know. You ever gone out and just stretched out in some field, far from all the signs of mechanization and civilization, all the sounds of our

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crowded ways, have you ever gone out and just stretched out and listened to the rhythm and the music of this sphere? I worked for ten years in a small town before I came here, and I used to walk three miles every day, and I would often do this, get out into a quiet place in the woods and just stretch out. I

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remember one day seeing a fence which was made out of rails, and a morning glory had grown up on the fence like a like a G clef, and then spaced along the wooden rails were robins and wrens, like the notes on a staff. They were even divided into bars, and it was as if I was seeing the music of the world as well as

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listening to it, because there were bird songs on every hand. Now we all know about bird songs, and we understand a bit about them. Some of them are warning calls, some of them are territorial calls, some of them are symbols of dispersal, but some of them also are expressions of joy. You only have to listen to a thrush

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to know that. You only have to listen to a robin to understand that. The meadow lark has 24 different songs and can sing an endless series of variations on those songs. The nightingale has hundreds of notes at his disposal. Termites beat out a rhythm as they're about their work, and sometimes when they're particularly

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happy, they snap back so hard they actually leap several centimeters into the air. Bats, we all know about bats, how they have their sonar sounding out, but sometimes late at night if you go into the deep woods, you can hear the bats still in the trees humming. It's a sound like great bells tolling from far away.

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Rabbits and mice and prairie hens, they all beat out rhythm patterns. Fish click their teeth, and they also press against air bladders to keep in the rhythm of the universe. The hawk moth has developed the skill of blowing air through its nostrils so it sounds something like a tiny, tiny flute. Gorillas beat upon their

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chest. You've heard the songs of toads and of frogs at night. Leeches actually beat out little rhythms on the leaves which are answered in synchrony by other leeches. And have you ever heard a whale song? Tensions, resolutions, all beauty. One composer, Hovhannes, has taken the songs of whales and put them into a composition

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for symphony orchestra. And sometimes when the whales get to the end of a song, they hurl themselves up out of the water, falling on their backs back into the sea, themselves caught up in a turbulence of water. It's almost as if they're saying, "Oh, I like that song. I liked it." I'm convinced that if we had the ears to

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hear, we could hear fandangos by fireflies and scartse by gnats and cadenzas by caterpillars. And what we can't hear, God can. He must listen to the whole symphony of creation. You know, Carlyle says that all deep things are sung. The central essence, he says, of everything is song. The soul of nature's voice is music. And

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if we could see and hear deeply enough, he said, we would discover that the heart of the world is music. Have you ever listened to the sound in the tops of the wind-smitten trees or the deep diapason of the ocean? Heard while God played a forest like a harp and wrote choruses of thunder and tiny bells with the sound of

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waters running over smooth stones? My friends, long after we are gone from this planet, when we have gone to that place which is eternal, the sea will still roar and the floods will still clap and the hills will still sing. They'll be echoing the glory of the God who made them and the wonder of his love. So what

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is the sum of all of this? How can we turn Psalm 98 to our advantage today? How can it lift our heavenly hearts? Well, here are some suggestions very quickly. One, stay away from bad music. If good music builds your health, bad music tears it down. Studies have shown that bad music confuses and disorients. Some

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music has been played over plants and killed them. If it'll do that to plants, it'll also do it to people. Paul says, "Whatever things are honorable and just and pure and beautiful and lovely and gracious, think on these things and the God of peace will bless you." Throw away your alarm clock. Get a clock radio.

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They're not that expensive. And set it so that when you wake up in the morning, you wake up to the sound of good music. Always have music in your daily devotions, even if it's just to hum a hymn or to read the words of one of the great hymns of the faith. Learn how to sing your prayers. You don't have to be musical to

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do it because only God is listening. And let your prayer come out in song, and you'd be amazed how your emotions will express themselves in the singing. I find this especially helpful to do when driving. Memorize some of the Psalms, the great hymn book of the Old Testament. And oh yes, sing with your children at night

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when you're beside them and you're tucking them into their beds and having your prayer with them. Say then, "Let's sing one of your Sunday school songs together." They'll remember your songs long after they've forgotten your sermons. And sing in church. Don't be sissified about your voice. In Ephesians

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5, it says we're supposed to address one another with songs and hymns and spiritual songs. Do that. If you're talented, become a part of the choir by yourself. A book that tells about the great hymns of the faith. Many of the hymns have marvelous stories behind them, and if you read those stories and learn

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them, then when you sing the hymns, they mean all the more. And collect good music. It's not expensive anymore to do that. You can buy 12-inch long play phonograph records for $1.98 or $2.98, reissued ones, and that's all you need. And listen to those musics. Allow yourself to be carried away by the dreaminess of

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Debussy. Or if you're confused, listen to the Order of Bach. Or if you need some passion in your life, put on a little Tchaikovsky. And if you want something to calm you, then listen to Pachelbel's Canon. It's worth the effort to learn something about great music, because you see, it develops that right

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lobe. It opens up your life so that your expression of joy to God can be all the more full. And there's tremendous lifting power in that, for even the heaviest heart. And when you come to the end of your life, and your stumbling fingers now move very haltingly over the keys, when that moment comes when you can make no

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more melody to the Lord, don't be afraid. He will love the tune that you've tried to play. That melody, though only half expressed, he will blend with his perfect song and sing you to your rest. Let us pray.

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O God, we thank thee that thou hast made us as thou hast made us. That we can know the music of the spheres in our hearts. That the song sung so long ago by your Spirit finds echo in people and in all creation. Let it find its echo in us. Grant that we might make a joyful noise to the Lord. Our Father, hear our song, and

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as it moves through our beings, may it soothe us, calm us, strengthen us, encourage us, uplift us, do within us what most needs to be done. We thank thee in Jesus name, Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]