A pastor friend of mine once said, “God must love music.”

The sound of music is all around in God’s creation — birds’ calls, the thunder of a waterfall, the rustling of leaves in the trees, the rhythmic pounding of the waves on a shore.

The old hymn says it so well: “This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ear, all nature sings and round me rings, the music of the spheres.”

God must love music because it’s everywhere in the Bible. The first thing the Israelites did after they crossed through the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s men had been crushed was to sing and dance. 

The trumpet blared on Mt. Sinai when God spoke to Moses. Songs were important to the Israelites, it was a part of their worship as the Psalms, songs of David, songs of Asaph and others, to be sung and played on instruments. The angels sang at Jesus’ birth. Paul said we were to worship God with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. 

In Isaiah and Daniel and Revelation we get the impression of heaven as being filled with song and singing eternal songs, holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts.

God must love music.

So, we worship God with music. Our services start with music as we gather and as we begin to center our thoughts on God, on Jesus. Hymns are interspersed through the worship.

There are the interludes as we give our offering, as we take communion, and we have music. We end with music as we sing our benediction, and the pianist plays as we leave.

Down deep we realize, God must love music. Some of our hymns come from the great classical composers — “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” uses Beethoven’s great Ode to Joy. “Be Still My Soul” is from Sibelius’ Finlandia. 

Some of our best music is based on our faith: Handel’s “Messiah,” Mozart’s “Requiem,” Bach’s “Oratoria.”

On the radio, you can hear that great gospel music, and composers are still pumping out new stirring Christian music. God must love music.

In Psalm 96, we are urged to sing a new song. The psalmist says “let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice, let the sea roar and all that fills it, let the field exult and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord for he is coming, he is coming to judge the earth, with righteousness and the peoples with his truth.”

So, let’s sing a new song to our Lord!

REV. DALE BROWN is the pastor of Cumberland and Guinea Presbyterian churches. His email address is dalembesq@aol.com.