Magnify the Lord

Magnify the Lord  

Psalm 34:1-10

“O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together,” Psalm 34:3.

I love Sundays. One of my favorite things about Sundays is the singing. There is something reenergizing about joining together with the people of our church and praising God. When a group of people who really love the Lord lift up their voices in song together it is a beautiful sound. It is the sound of children, adults, men, women . . . everyone with one purpose glorifying God. It is not just the music I love. I love the praise. The actual purpose of the singing is what gets me going. To share in the worship of God with people of like faith is something we should never take for granted.

Today’s passage is an invitation for all people to join together in praise. King David invites us to “magnify the Lord” along with him. To magnify the Lord is to tell of His greatness. It is the act of giving glory to the One who deserves glory. To magnify God is to bring Him into full focus and make Him the center of attention.

In this psalm, David asked us to join in with him in magnifying the Lord. He said, “Magnify the Lord with me.” We can clearly see David’s desire to bring glory to God when reading this passage, but do we accept his invitation to join in on the worship? Even though David penned this psalm many years ago, can we actually join in with him in the praise he is giving to God with this song? Absolutely, we can. Even though David is not around on this earth anymore, the God for whom this psalm was written is alive and well.

Read Psalm 34:1-10 again, but this time read it for more than just information. Read it as praise to God. Accept David’s invitation. Join in on the magnifying of God by speaking this song directly to the Lord.

 

 

JUST ASKING

Will you join David in magnifying the Lord?

 

Nathan Rogers

109 — April 19 – This Day in Baptist History Past

He opposed all infidelity
1836 – Dr. A. J. Gordon, named for Adoniram Judson,was born in New Hampshire on this day in 1836 to godly parents.  At the age of 15 he came to a vital knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Upon completing his education including his theological training, he was ordained and became the pastor at Jamaica Plain, MA.  From 1867 until 1869, he was sought as the pastor of the Clarendon Street Baptist Church of Boston, but did not accept it until they agreed to eliminate the paid choir and replace it with congregational singing.  He was a composer of hymns and hymn tunes himself.  His most influential work was related to world evangelism and missions in which he served for over twenty years as a member of the board, or as executive chairman of the American Baptist Missionary Union.  He strongly emphasized the faith element in missions.  He believed that the new birth by the Holy Spirit was essential for the believer.  He participated in Dwight L. Moody’s evangelistic meetings and was a consistent soul winner and evangelistic preacher himself.  He knew that all preaching and ministering of the Word was futile apart from the power of the Holy Spirit.  He was an apologist for biblical Christianity against Darwinism, agnosticism, Unitarianism, transcendentalism, Christian Science, baptismal regeneration, and the influence of materialism in the evangelical churches of his day. Dr. Gordon was a fundamentalist before fundamentalism.  He held that the Bible was inerrant and infallible.  He died in 1895 and on his gravestone reflects that Blessed Hope – Pastor A.J. Gordon “Until He Come.”
Dr. Greg J. Dixon, from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. I: Cummins/Thompson /, p. 159.
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60 – March – 01 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

 

 

 

Congregational singing began

 

1640 — In that we have no leap year in 2014 we are going to use the entry of Feb. 29 on this date because of its importance to our Baptist churches.  This was the day that Benjamin Keach was born into the home of John Keach of Buckinghamsire, England.  By the age of 15 Benjamin became convinced of believers baptism and submitted himself to the ordinance upon his profession of faith in Christ.  By the age of 18, the society of believers that he fellowshipped with saw fit to set him apart for the gospel ministry.  At age twenty-eight he became pastor of the Baptist church in Horsleydown, London.  In the beginning they met in homes because of the persecution but finally built a meeting house which was enlarged several times up to nearly a thousand.  He wrote many treatises and apologies on the issues of his day which found him in court on many occasions.  He not only differed with the state church officials but with some of his Baptist brethren relating to doctrine and practice.  Baptists have always differed on non- cardinal issues.  One such controversy involved congregational singing.  Because of persecution, it had been necessary to avoid singing in worship until around 1680.  The whole issue turned on one point, whether there was precept or example of the converted and unconverted, to join in the singing as a part of divine worship.  Also they believed that those whom God gifted could sing as the heart dictated the melody but not by rhyme or written note.  First they only sang at the Lord’s Supper and then later after the sermon and prayer.  Some of the dissenters would leave the building and stand in the yard.  Later they withdrew and started their own non-singing church, but then started singing around 1793.  Thanks to Benjamin Keach and others we have congregational singing in our churches today.
Dr. Greg J. Dixon, from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. I: Cummins Thompson /, pp. 83.

 

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155 — June 04 This Day in Baptist History Past

 

“Would the Nightingale care if the toad despised her singing?”

 

It all began in a meetinghouse yard June 4, 1768, when the sheriff of Spotsylvania County, Virginia seized John Waller, Lewis Craig, James Childs, James Reed and William Mash. Three magistrates were standing in that yard and bound them under penalty of one thousand pounds apiece to appear in court two days later. The prosecutor charged them with being disturbers of the peace, alleging, “They cannot meet a man upon the road, but they must ram a text of Scripture down his throat.”

 

As they passed through the streets of Fredericksburg toward the old stone gaol, locked arm in arm, they sang the old hymn:

 

Broad is the road that leads to death,

 

And thousands walk together there;

 

But wisdom shows a narrow path,

 

With here and there a traveler.

 

Deny thyself and take thy cross,

 

Is the Redeemer’s great command;

 

Nature must count her gold but dross

 

If she would gain this heavenly land.

 

These men could sing, like the apostles in the jail at Philippi, under the most trying circumstances, because there was joy in their souls. If there were those who ridiculed them as they went through the streets singing that resounding song, what did they care?  What would the nightingale care if the toad despised her singing? She would sing on and leave the cold toad to his grouchy thoughts and shadows. And what cared these preachers for the sneers and scoffs of men who grovel upon the earth? They sang on in the ear and the bosom of God.

 

They were kept in prison in Fredericksburg forty three days for quoting the Word of God.

 

Other counties continued for some time imprisoning Baptist preachers, Spotsylvania never dared to repeat the experiment.

 

 

 

Dr. Dale R. Hart: Adapted from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. I. ( Thompson/Cummins)pp. 230 -231.

 

 

Young Man with a Speech Disability Gives an Amazing Audition

Young Man with a Speech Disability Gives an Amazing Audition.

A problem? Not really when he sings. Handicap? No!!! An overcomer.