Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

We sing a song every Christmas, that wasn’t intended to be a Christmas song.

Although this doesn’t really cause too much controversy, the song cased much controversy when it was written.

The song is Joy to the World by a man named Isaac Watts.

Isaac Watts was a man from the late 1600’s and early 1700’s that was a prolific hymn writer.

In fact many of the songs that our church sings are from him.

Mainly because we sing a Psalm every week and he is the author of many of the songs we sing for the Psalms.

He was a very controversial person of his time.

He would be called a non-conformist, someone who goes against the teaching of the Church of England.

At the time, many would only allow the Psalms to be sung at church, and the Psalms had to be as close to the words as possible to the scripture.

In other words, they did their best to not change the words, but put the words to some kind of meter, or timing, that would make it possible to sing.

This may have worked if we spoke Hebrew, but maybe you’ve noticed that the translation of the Hebrew into English takes some of the poetic value out of them, at least the type of poetry that we use in singing.

They called what Wats did to the Psalms, as he did with Joy to the World from Psalm 98, metrical paraphrasing.

In other words, he changed the words trying to retain the meaning of the Psalm but making it easier to sing and understand for the congregation.

I know, unbelievable.

He did this because even as a teen he saw that no one seemed to be understanding or expressing their faith through the wooden interpretations of the Psalms they used for singing.

This Psalm is a call for real emotion.

There is a proper way to understand the meaning of this Psalm and when you do, as a believer, this stirs up praise.

And although the language he uses in many of his hymns may need to be updated for us, at the time there was a huge difference for the people.

Compare the first lines of Joy to The World with its metrical version of the time.

Joy to the World, the Lord is come!

All earthly creatures, praise the Lord God, And sing for joy at His behest.

We have received much from Isaac Watts and he has been a blessing to the church.

I wanted to look at the Psalm he used as the basis for this hymn and see if we can understand what brought him so much joy.

Psalm 98 teaches us we should rejoice...

Because He Saves His People v. 1-3

This Psalm is one of six that encourage worshipers to sing a new song to God.

Each time we are told to sing a new song, it is a response to the salvation that God has provided and victory over an enemy.

For example

Many preachers have used this to help them sell new types of music to their congregations or to encourage their congregation to get out of “ruts” in their lives, spiritual or otherwise.

But this is not the intention of the author.

There is a call here to contemplate the truth about how God works in the lives of His people, and to let that understanding influence our emotions to the point where we are deeply moved.

Moved to the point of song!

We are to understand what God has done, and respond with great, spiritual emotion!

That emotion is then supposed to cause action.

The author of this psalm wants us to think about the things God has done and respond with whole hearted worship.

He says that God has done marvelous things.

The NASB says they are wonderful things and they can also be translated as amazing things.

Scott Harris said that according to this psalm marvelous things are things that:

God intervened in a situation where it was obvious that God had done it by His power.

The way in which He intervened showed His righteousness to every nation.

He did it because He remembered His faithfulness and love.

These are very particular circumstances and it would be possible to think that maybe the Psalmist was thinking of one particular situation.

But the Old Testament is filled with examples of marvelous things that God has done in saving His people.

Maybe the first example you can think of is the Exodus.

In saving the Hebrews from bondage in Egypt.

God remembered them in their oppression

It was done in a way where their was no mistaking who was doing the saving, like when the Lord brought a plague of hail

All the nations heard about what God had done

And you can just keep going through the Old Testament and finding examples of things that God has done for His people that are worthy of these new songs.

The book of Judges where God’s people would cry out, God would bring a miraculous victory, and the story would spread to other nations.

Into the later history of the divided kingdom, Hezekiah prayed and God sent angels to defeat Sennacherib’s army.

This is why this psalm is so general, it’s not talking about a single event that brings God such praise, but it is how we are to respond when God works in the lives of His people, every time.

Because this is how he works throughout all of history.

And in no clearer example than in the incarnation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, do we see a reason to sing a new song.

The culmination of centuries of prophecies and promises finally kept, when God remembers His steadfast love and faithfulness by miraculously reaching into our world and giving us a savior, to which all the ends of the earth have seen.

And we have the privilege to see all these things unfold in history, but also to trust in that faithfulness for the future.

Knowing that the God who is able and faithful to keep His word, will certainly keep it when it comes to the prophecies and promises that are to be in our future.

And certainly we will be singing new songs in the future when we see all that God has done.

We should rejoice because He saves His people

Because He Reigns Over the Nations v. 4-6

This invitation to praise isn’t just for His people, but for the whole earth.

The NASB translates this to shout joyfully to the Lord.

In this part of the psalm the whole earth is joining Israel to praise God for His mighty victory.

And all sorts of instruments are used with the shouting to magnify his praise.

Music has been an important part of praise to God since the foundation of God’s creation.

According to Job

Genesis chapter 4 tells us that instruments were created after only the 5th generation of man.

Like the pattern of God’s marvelous works in the first part of this psalm, the pattern of worshipping God with songs and music go from the beginning of the Word, throughout its history and into the future.

We are commanded as God’s church to sing together in worship to our Lord.

And when we are done here on earth we will continue into eternity.

Notice it’s the same topic we will be singing about, Our God reigns over all of the earth!

Christians have a unique form of worship.

When we get together we hear preaching from God’s word and we sing together.

We learn about God’s works in the past, we see these promises and how they apply to ourselves and to our lives and we look forward to the fulfilment of God’s promises in the future.

In response to this understanding of the word, we break forth in praise.

This means our singing should never be for the sake of singing alone.

This is not just a thing we do.

If we truly understand who God is and what He has done, our response will always be praise.

And those who understand the reality of how singing and music are integrated into the being of man, understand why we sing.

There is something unique about the way God made us in contrast to the rest of Creation.

There isn’t another being that can appreciate the beauty of music, like man.

We recognize the noise produced by birds to be beautiful, but the birds themselves can’t comprehend their own song past an instinctual level.

It is a gift to be able to appreciate beauty.

And when the culture of man degrades, as it inevitably does, so goes the value of the music that culture produces.

So it is with us, God gave us this ability in order that we would be able to worship Him in a unique way.

A way that helps us express the truth that we understand and the emotion that comes from the understanding of a God who does marvelous things.

So let us make a joyful noise before the King, let all the earth shout joyfully because the Lord reigns over all the nations!

He is in control and He is good.

He deserves our praise!

He saves His people and He reigns over all of the nations and

Joy Because He Judges Over the Earth v. 7-9

Now the whole earth is instructed to join in praise to God, not just Israel and not just the nations.

The sea and everything in it is to roar in praise.

The rivers are to clap their hands in joy while the hills sing.

All of the cosmos is singing in anticipation that the Lord will come and judge the earth.

We again have the ability, as limited as it is now, to see the beauty of the metaphors here.

We can take in a landscape and ascribe its beauty to its maker.

We can enjoy the sights and sounds and smells of the ocean or the mountain range.

We can be moved to true joy by a hike in nature.