We've been talking about singing this week on the podcast and about singing hymns, not any particular hymns, but hymns in general.

But I wonder, do you ever have the experience I've had when, out of nowhere

it seems, the question comes into your mind, does God actually like this? Here we are in church

singing something like, How Great Thou Art, or a mighty fortress is our God, or perhaps

something more modern, and the question pops into

our minds, does this please God? Or are those people right, after all, whose only question

about the praises we sing is not whether God wants it, but whether we like it, whether we enjoy

it? After all, we may not be very good singers and does

that mean God doesn't like it? On the other hand, He is the great God of eternity, the one

without beginning or end or cause. So why should we think that our singing praise to him

would give him any pleasure?

Scripture gives us some interesting reasons for believing that God loves it when His people

praise Him.

One reason is that Scripture itself, God's Word, urges us to do it.

And when words breathed out by God and written down by men tell us to

praise him, then we can safely assume he wants us to do it, and that it gives him a kind

of pleasure, the kind of pleasure a father has when his, let's say, three-year-old daughter

starts singing to him and tells him,

I love you, Daddy.

Another reason is that the Bible contains an entire book, actually its longest book, that's

composed of songs of praises, requests, and laments.

I mean the book of Psalms. That would hardly be the case unless God

...