Call To Worship – September 24, 2006

“But the LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him." (Habakkuk 2:20)

One of the assumptions often made about worship is that God’s people must have always done it like we do. In fact, that is not the case. If you had been alive in the days of Moses, when our forefathers brought their animals to Aaron and his sons to be sacrificed, you would have noticed that worship in the tabernacle was very different from what we do now. Aside from the obvious differences of killing animals and draining their blood, you would have noticed a strange silence. There is no indication that there was any singing during worship at the tabernacle, nor any speaking either. The people worshiped in silence.

This was true until the time of King David as he was making preparations for his son, Solomon, to build the temple. We all know that David wrote songs, but I Chronicles 25 tells us that David also arranged certain families of priest to sing the songs and to play instruments. This was new, something not heard before. Singing was brought into the corporate worship of God’s people. In addition, I Chronicles 25:1 tells us that these singers and musicians were under the leadership of the captains of David’s army, which seems to be a very strange arrangement. But not so strange to David, who knew that the songs he was writing in the Spirit, to be sung by the priests, were combat songs, battle songs; the weapons of warfare for the people of God.

Again, God’s people have not always worshipped as we do now. During the late middle ages, the congregations were silent. The priest would sing the mass, and possibly there would be choirs of monks in the larger churches. But God’s people were silent. The reformers, Luther, Calvin, Knox, and others, restored the work of singing to the people. But why did they do so? Because they understood that all believers in the New Covenant are priests. And since the days of David, priests are called to sing.

The priests under David “were instructed in the songs of the LORD, all who were skillful" (I Chronicles 25:7), and we have tried to incorporate this into the life of our own church, as each Sunday after our service, we learn to sing more Psalms and hymns, and to grow more skillful as we do.

Our call to worship tells us that there are times when it is appropriate to be silent before the Lord. But it does not specifically say that the church or Israel is to be silent -- but the earth, the world is to be silent. Perhaps that is so the world can hear us sing.