Real Men Sing Real Loud

Real Men Sing Real Loud

Most of you know that this has been one of my mottos or “mini-creeds” as I seek to promote hearty, genuine worship in the church. Scripture is replete with calls for God’s people (and God’s men) to come before God with a joyful shout:

Psalm 98:4-6
4 Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth; Break forth and sing for joy and sing praises. 5 Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre, With the lyre and the sound of melody. 6 With trumpets and the sound of the horn Shout joyfully before the King, the LORD.

There is nothing “quiet” about worship in these verses. In fact, the next verses make it clear what our competition is in worship:

Psalm 98:7-8
7 Let the sea roar and all it contains, The world and those who dwell in it. 8 Let the rivers clap their hands, Let the mountains sing together for joy…

We will have to sing real loud to make a more joyful noise than the seas, rivers and mountains. But the passage I wish to draw your attention to is found in Acts 16. The setting is this, Paul and Silas had traveled into the area of Macedonia (northern Greece) after Paul had a vision calling him there. They had come to the city of Philippi and on the Sabbath went to the river supposing that there would be gathered there some for prayer.

It was at this site that the first convert to Christianity in Europe made a profession of faith. You know her as Lydia, the seller of purple, from Thyatira. Not long after this Paul and Silas, who could not be silent concerning the Gospel, made some of the locals mad with their preaching and most specifically with casting out the spirit of divination from a slave girl and were subsequently cast into prison, lock, stock and barrel. Here is the text:

Acts 16:22-25
22 The crowd rose up together against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods. 23 When they had struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely; 24 and he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

For all intents and purposes, Paul and Silas were in for it. With hands and feet bound in that inner prison, Paul and Silas might well have thought that their lives were about to be given for the cause of Christ. What a difficult situation. All they did was preach the Gospel and deliver a little girl from demon possession and now they were facing the possibility of death. What would you do? Perhaps cry? Feel remorse? Try to figure a way out of the predicament? Notice what Paul and Silas do in the next verse:

Acts 16:25
25 But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them;

In the dead of night, which is one of the most ominous times there are when you are in dire circumstances, Paul and Silas, after some praying, broke out into the singing of hymns of praise to God, evidently in two-part harmony. But now notice what Acts 16:25 says, the other prisoners “were listening to them.” The word used here for “listening” does not mean simply “to hear,” as if these prisoners were being subject to something they did not care about. The word means "to listen intently." It appears that these prisoners were not only "hearing" the hymns of praise (real men sing real loud), but that they were also paying attention to the faith and hope of Paul and Silas. How could these men praise God when in such dire circumstances? Because they knew that ultimately God was in control and that God would use it for His own good will and pleasure to the praise and glory of His name (Romans 8:28; Ephesians 1:11). Oh that we might have such a faith! A faith that does not recoil in light of difficult times; a faith that does not give in to the temptation to shrink back and grumble at our situations. Rather, may our faith be one that not only trusts that God is our light and salvation, but also one that declares:

Psalm 40:3
He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear and will trust in the LORD.

I don’t know how many of these prisoners came to a saving knowledge of Christ because of the singing of Paul and Silas; perhaps several, perhaps none; but evidently their singing was loud enough and the content of their songs God-centered enough that many “listened intently.” We do know that this episode eventually led to the conversion of the Philippian jailer and his household (Acts 16:27-35). Let us be a people, who even in the darkest hour (midnight) will lift up our voices in praise of a good and awesome God and may God then use our faith in Him to bring others to the light and knowledge of Christ!

Soli Deo Gloria,

Pastor Ed