My Testimony Pt. 10 Songs In The Night When I Needed Them!

As we settled into our new church, the Lord was showing us how a New Testament church should function. The Word was carefully and thoroughly preached, and the Holy Spirit used it to continue re-shaping my mind. 

New songs and fresh joy flood my heart!

Psalm 33:1-4  Rejoice in the LORD, O ye righteous: for praise is comely for the upright. 2)  Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings. 3)  Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise. 4)  For the word of the LORD is right; and all his works are done in truth. 

The Psalmist often used words like this text, to describe what Biblical worship is like. Our worship should be from hearts that are full of joy, for all that God has done for us through Jesus Christ our savior. 

Rejoicing is when we are worshipping with our whole hearts and having our minds fully engaged in offering praise to our All Worthy God.

Praise is from a word that means action and energy, like shooting an arrow up into the sky. It reminds us that our Father in heaven is our audience. 

Praise is something that highlights the beauty of God's holiness in our hearts. Our singing becomes a profound expression of love and adoration for the Godhead.

All praise, rejoicing, and worship should be done well, or skillfully, as the Psalmist put it. It should be done with love and enthusiasm from our hearts, given with our best attention and energy to our All Glorious God. 

Thus, Godly, sacred music is a vital element of each service. We learn many choir songs with words sourced from scripture, and music that effectively conveys the message of each song.  

 There is usually a special sung by either the men's quartet, duets, the young adults, the children's choir, the ladies ensemble or some of our families before the preaching. About once a quarter, an all men's choir sings.

Congregational singing  is heart felt, robust, and my wife and I have learned so many hymns, both old and new. 

In short, my love for sacred music found wonderful fulfillment within our church family. I praise God that this remains a strength of the church today. 

Ministry of the Spirit of God with the Word of God in the hearts of the people of God!

Colossians 3:16,17  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 17) And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

This text tells us how the Word of God impacts our worship and the spiritual condition of our inner man in Christ. When it dwells in us richly, by reading it, studying it and thinking about it, even as we hear it preached and taught, it changes us.

We become a people who sing with grace in our hearts, abundant thanksgiving because of Jesus Christ and His mighty redemptive work to rescue us from sin, death and hell. 

Our hearts become filled with scripturally informed music, even when we do chores, or are working, or engaged in any of life's necessary but mundane details. The Word of God begins to shape what we think about, talk about and do. 

The result of hearing our Pastor faithfully preach God's Word, stirs my soul, and turns my focus to the things of God above, where Christ is seated at the Father's right hand. This is the driving force behind all true worship in Spirit and in truth. 

Pastor Alvis' faithful communication of God's truth was used by the Spirit of God to show me the error of dispensational thinking that I had been taught. 

I found new, fresh joy in studying all of the Bible, without that man-made grid superimposed upon the text of scripture. 

I cannot adequately express how freeing this change had been to my soul. I rejoice in the whole of scripture as well as the individual parts of it. 

My mind has been renewed each time that we meet with our church family, to worship God and hear from Him through the preaching and teaching we receive. 

My dad died in 1992 at age 68. He died from prostate cancer, so I knew that made my chances of getting it higher than other men. Right before Thanksgiving in 2008, I had a biopsy because my numbers were high. My urologist told me I had prostate cancer. I had surgery scheduled in January 2009. 

The surgery was a long one, and I was in the hospital 6 days instead of three. After surgery, I had non stop hiccups, related to anesthesia. You can imagine how uncomfortable that was since I had a large incision in my abdomen.

They gave me a drug called Halcion, to quell the hiccups. It did stop them, although it had a major side effect. It caused my to hallucinate. 

I never felt like this before in my life. I was filled with fear and each time I drifted off to sleep, I had horrible dreams. I thought the hospital aides were planning on throw me out the third floor window of my room! 

I somehow got myself out of bed, with many tubes and a catheter, and made my way down to the end of my bed, before the staff rushed in to stop me. They got me back into my bed, reattached any tubes that came off.

God can give us songs in the darkest nights.

Job 35:10  But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night; 

Fear fell on me, and I cried out to the Lord for help. I pleaded with Him to stop the bad dreams because I was so afraid from them. I fell asleep praying and what happened after that was a remarkable event.

For the rest of the night, I had choir and congregational songs going through my mind, with all four parts, and all the verses and choruses. They did not stop until I woke up next morning. 

Our gracious Lord heard and answered my prayers, by sending me glorious songs in the night, that sustained me, that reminded me that I am in the Father's hand, safe and secure. After that night I never had any more terrible dreams like those.

Jehovah will go with us through troubles and trials. 

Isaiah 43:2  When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

When I got home to recover, I began praising God. I had some heart work that He needed to do in me. I did not know that it needed to be done, but our Lord did. 

I still praise Him for doing this work, and even though I had a cancer diagnosis, I would not change it, because God tenderized my heart that night!

Jesus Christ, our High Priest, opened heaven's doors for us. 

Hebrews 4:14-16  Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. 15)  For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. 16)  Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. 

Our Great God was teaching me that He will not leave nor forsake His children. He promised to go through the hard times of life with us, and He did! 

He promised to provide help when we call upon Him, and He did.  

Because of my being born again into the family of God, I can call out to Him in all of my times of need, for mercy, grace and help. And He does provide what we need, when we need it!

Bob