Louder still

I'm doing, sort of in fits and starts, a Bible read-through with Amy. It's a chronological one, so the layout is different and it's really interesting. Here is what I read the other day that blew me away (no, this wasn't all that I read that day :-)...

1 Chronicles 23:1-5
When David was old and full of days, he made Solomon his son king over Israel. David assembled all the leaders of Israel and the priests and the Levites. The Levites, thirty years old and upward, were numbered, and the total was 38,000 men. "Twenty-four thousand of these," David said, "shall have charge of the work in the house of the LORD, 6,000 shall be officers and judges, 4,000 gatekeepers, and 4,000 shall offer praises to the LORD with the instruments that I have made for praise."

Notice the number of musicians. So I thought about what that would look like, how it would sound. You know what they did to make music big and loud before they had amplification? They added people with instruments. How loud is one lyre? Not too loud. One cymbal? Approaching loud. Harps? I don't know, depends on the size, but not too loud. What about two? five? ten? Then imagine 4,000. Imagine the amount of air being moved, in time, in harmony, for the express purpose of the praise of the greatness of the God of Israel.

In David's day they didn't turn it up, they simply got lots and lots of trained musicians to make the music loud. Hundreds of musicians can be loud. Thousands of instruments would be incredibly loud.

Do you think that God was trying to make a statement to Israel about Who He is?

A number of years ago I attended an airshow. At one point in the show they had a Hawker Harrier, one of those Vertical Takeoff and Landing jets. Just before the jet took off, they cleared everyone far, far away and told people it would be really loud. I was not prepared for how incredibly loud that thing would be.

As the engine started pushing down air the sound became unbelievably loud. People who already had earplugs were covering their ears. What was incredible is that the thing hadn't even taken off yet. It just got louder and immeasurably louder. Funny, I haven't seen the Harrier there since. I think it overwhelmed everyone.

There is a sense of awe and fear when something is that loud. In our churches today, what are we saying about God with our volume? Is it "shock and awe" or "stealth"?

In the Psalms we are encouraged to shout God's praise and to shout for joy (20:5; 32:11; 33:1; 35:27; 47:1; 65:8; 66:1; 71:23; 81:1; 132:9, 16). Why is that? Is it so God can hear it way up there? I don't think so. I think we say something awesome about God in a shout that can't be said the same way with a normal volume.

Do we have a time to shout the praise of God in our churches? Does our volume ever get loud enough that we're shaking the building, making people outside wonder, "what are they doing in there?"

Or do we always keep our volume at a comfortable level, making great statements about God in not-so-great a way? Who is determining volume level- Biblical examples or guardians of the ear?

Of course, not every time is a time to crank up the volume. There are many times for weeping, repentance, silence. But we need to expand the dynamics of our worship to include the whole range. Do we range from pianissimo to fortissimo or just live in the middle of mezzo forte?

I think Matt Redman captures the heart of this in the title track of his album, Beautiful News.

Shout it out, let the people sing
something so powerful should shake the whole wide world
Make it loud, make it louder still
Savior, we're singing now
to celebrate Your beautiful news