70. The Masculinity Of Corporate Singing

Welcome back to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 70, the masculinity of corporate singing. It was once common knowledge that the burliest and manliest chaps among us were the ones who were the most interested in song.

For instance, when soldiers marched into battle or were training for it, they would often march in rhythm to a rousing tune. When rowers on old ships would drop their oars into the frigid waters below, they kept time with sea shanties and other manly melodies.

When those same men gathered together for a pint at the local pub, they often sang folk songs and bar tunes. When tradesmen went to work, they were whistling while they worked. When music was being composed at the height of the classical era, it was predominantly done by men for a masculine audience.

Essentially, wherever you find the strongest, hardest working men, the most aggressive soldiers, and the saltiest sea dogs, you could guarantee that they loved singing. Now, one of the things I find so peculiar, especially in the modern era, is how effective Satan has been at convincing men to remain quiet during public worship.

For too many men believe that singing is a feminine action that grades against their masculinity. Even fewer men have found the joy and the utter manliness of participating in public worship at a rip-roaring level.

While this does not apply to all men, many no longer feel like loud, thunderous song singing is a masculine endeavor. In fact, who can actually blame them? When the church for the last decade or 12 has adopted an overly emotive, self-focused song singing by attractive, hip-swaying women on stage with eyes closed, lights turned down, maybe a few lit candles to accompany the emergent pop vibe, is it any wonder that testosterone-rich men are not clamoring and lining up to participate in these shenanigans?

Instead of a biblically-qualified elder who's leading the saints in public worship of their triune God from the book of Psalms or a biblically-faithful hymnal, far too many churches have adopted the shallow style of the entertainment complex, catering to consumer-driven churchgoers who are looking to be entertained rather than to worship God.

The few men who do end up on these stages are usually dressed like overly-estrogenated metrosexuals, droning through their seventh emo-Christian chorus, nasally singing all of the latest Jesus Is My Boyfriend ballads, while touching their chest and pointing to the ceiling a few dozen times for no apparent reason.

We wonder why godly, masculine men have checked out of Christianity and no longer participate in that sort of thing. Perhaps it is because corporate worship no longer looks like it did in Scripture. Instead of the hyper-emotive light show where a 100-pound valley boy is leading churchgoers into a tear-filled experience of self-absorbed, self-soothing religious feelings rubber-stamped with a veneer of Christianese, well, the Scriptures actually describe men, muscular and masculine military warriors, generals, kings, and courageous chieftains who are leading God's people with loud and boisterous worship.

The dichotomy could not be more severe. The Scripture, unlike modern culture, details men with blood still wet on their swords, penning songs to the glory of God and directing the people to celebrate the power and the might of Yahweh who triumphs over his enemies.

Moses and Israel Sing After the Red Sea Deliverance

In what follows, I'd like to sketch out briefly a masculine theology of corporate singing. And we'll begin with Moses in Egypt. The first example of corporate singing found anywhere in the Bible is when Moses leads the people of Israel to praise God over the defeat of the mighty Egyptians.

Furthermore, by defeat, God had just rained 10 paralyzing plagues down onto the nation, killing countless Egyptians in the process and flaming the prideful heart of Pharaoh who lost his firstborn son in the battle with God.

Even further than that, God provoked the Egyptians to lick their wounds long enough to chase the Israelites to the very banks of the Red Sea and then to come in after them to try to kill them only for God, to completely and utterly decimate them by drowning them under a torrent of crashing watery fury.

The dead bodies of those soldiers were presumably washing up on shore as Moses grabbed his conductor stick and began leading the people in a ballad of victory. Exodus 15. Imagine, they sang songs of triumph and songs of worship as the dead bodies lie there on the shore.

What could be more masculine than that? Number two, Joshua and Jericho. Under the leadership of Joshua, 12 men were sent into the land of Canaan in order to spy it out. And then the nation was to follow the Lord's prescription and how to make war with the very first city on the list, which was called Jericho.

That war would not be waged with siege ramps, chariots, or even newly gilded short swords. Instead, God assembled the soldiers into a male-only choir, commissioning them to march around the city, howl and blast their trumpets to the glory of God, which on the seventh day caused the pagan city to be reduced to absolute dust and rubble.

There was no hip swing. There was no emotionally latent evangelical anthems. There was no Bethel music there. There were hordes of men singing at the top of their lungs and an entire city fell down at their feet because of it.

Deborah, Barak, and the Song of Victory

Number three, Barak and Deborah. After the Israelites got themselves into a whole heap of trouble worshiping the demonic gods of Canaan, the Lord sold them into subjection to Jabin, who was the king of one of the greatest Canaanite cities.

Between him and his military commander, Sisera, this gaggle of Canaanite armies possessed a military force that consisted of so many chariots and horses that it was unrivaled in Bronze Age Levant. Nevertheless, when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, God raised up a woman named Deborah to judge the nation of impotent men, which should let men know that God will even raise up a woman if they are impotent, cowardly, and fearful, and that sometimes when God raises up women, it's because men have failed and that's a sign of curse upon men, but we'll move on from that.

God raised up Deborah, but also raised up a military commander named Barak, who would lead the people to throw off their bonds and who would kill every single one of the soldiers by the sword in Sisera's army.

While the blood was still wet on their swords, 10 ,000 Israelite men broke out into a song of victory to the Lord. In their mind, the most manly action that they could possibly do after slaughtering thousands of God's enemies was to sing as loudly and as boisterously in worship to Yahweh that they could.

Amen. Number four, Samson. If you were to imagine the biblical picture of a testosterone junkie, Samson might be your guy. He was a risk taker, he was strong, he loved attractive, exotic, and somewhat dangerous women, and he did things like killing a lion with his bare hands and then ate the honey from the carcass.

By all accounts, this man was a dude. However, he was not too masculine to sing. In fact, he prioritized it. For instance, after killing 1 ,000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, which if you're thinking about masculine action, that's it.

After he does that, Samson broke out in a song praising God for how many enemy bodies that he had just piled up in a pile, Judges 15. Before Samson even took a sip of water, and he was dehydrated, by the way, the text tells us, he determined that singing to God was the most important action that he could do.

The manliest, strongest, most aggressive man in the scriptures prioritized singing. It's very interesting. Number five, Gideon, which on the opposite end of the courage spectrum, there was the weak-kneed Gideon, who needed a few signs and a bit of encouragement to take on the behemoth Midianite army that was accosting the northern tribes of Israel.

Nevertheless, when Gideon was finally strengthened in mind and heart for battle, he did not find himself the commander of a million-man army or of Abram's tanks or a platoon of special forces soldiers, not at all.

Instead, God tasked him with commanding 300 water-lapping, pot-touting worship singers, whose ear-splitting harmony set the Midianite army to such chaos that they hacked each other apart through the night while Gideon and his friends watched.

When the sun's light arose, the valley was filled with the dead bodies, the circling vultures, and pools of iron-rich blood. While God could have used various different means to accomplish his victory, he used confident, jubilant, victorious male voices, which should teach us something indeed.

David, Solomon, and the Temple Choir

David. One of the earliest scenes in the life of David, while all of Israel's men were cowering in the presence of a mighty giant, David, who was a small boy at the time, was filled with the spirit of God and bested the giant.

After David's victory, he chopped off Goliath's head and then grabbed the decapitated mass and held it up aloft in the air by the hair and then participated in a national worship service where all the men sang out praises to God.

You can imagine promise keepers breaking out with David raising the severed head. Instead of light shows, skinny jeans, and a get-in-touch-with-your-feelings song, David set down the severed head and sang a manly hymn to the glory of God.

David to David. Singing was the epitome of masculinity. Now, later on in his life, and that's after, he killed 200 Philistines and brought 200 foreskins of their dead bodies to pay for his first bride, 1 Samuel 18, 25.

And after killing more than 10 ,000 enemy soldiers in battle, David not only became one of the most prolific warriors in Israelite history, but he also became the most prolific songwriter in biblical canon.

This man, who was perhaps the most significant and incredible military general warrior king in all of scripture, is a man who would rip you apart with his bare hands and also sing to you about the glory of God.

He apparently had no problem maintaining his masculinity while belting out boisterous praise. Solomon in the temple. Now, when Solomon came to power, war making was virtually over. He didn't have to deal with the sort of things that David dealt with.

David had delivered the entire kingdom into his son Solomon's hands, which were not stained with blood in the same way that his fathers were. But because of this, God called Solomon to construct the temple, to dedicate it, to set it apart for the worship of Yahweh among the Israelite people.

At the temple dedication, it says that all the sons of Israel came, 2 Chronicles 7, one through three. That means that all the men in Israel came to the temple and they beheld the all powerful God who rained down a massive wall of fire from heaven, consuming the offerings that Solomon had assembled and dedicating the house of the Lord with holy panache.

They saw God do this incredible and amazing thing. And when the men of Israel saw this, they intuitively broke out in song. They demonstrated that men who have seen God do great and mighty things respond by singing great and mighty songs.

Again, the theme should be very obvious at this point. Now let's look at some other Old Testament examples and we'll go through these rather quickly. Before concluding our little tour de force of the biblical Old Testament examples, a few more instances deserve our attention.

First, when the men of Israel returned from a paralyzing exile, they led their families in song as they marched back home to rebuild their city and temple. That's Psalm 126. Next, when Ezra and the men of Israel had finished rebuilding the second temple, the men in proper masculine form broke out in the heartiest harmonic hymn singing that had been heard this side of Babylon, Nehemiah 8.

Third, once the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt and the whole city was coming into completion, the men joined together in a song, again, Nehemiah 12. And who could forget the fact that our God, known as Holy Father, cast almost universally with the masculine pronouns, is the one who is joyfully singing over us, Zephaniah 3 .17, and receives our joyful singing back to him, Psalm 95, one through two.

Apparently, God and his Old Covenant men found singing both wholly natural and wholly necessary. Now let's look at a couple New Testament examples. In case you're wondering, singing by masculine men is not limited to the Old Testament.

It's not an Old Covenant phenomenon. When Jesus was born, the sky exploded to the glory of God, and legions and legions of angels sang out before a group of terrified herdsmen, Luke 2, 13 through 14. On the night Jesus was going to be arrested, falsely convicted, and murdered the next day, instead of giving into fear, instead of playing cards or drinking, Jesus led his disciples, which was all men, in joyful singing to Yahweh, Mark 14, 26.

After being beaten within an inch of their lives and arrested on trumped-up charges, Paul and Silas sang in prison, which, by the way, almost like Jericho, caused the entire prison to collapse and their bonds to be released, Acts 16.

Male singing has power. Paul also explicitly addresses the church, filled with men and women, and commanded them to joyfully, exuberantly, sing the Psalms, the hymns, and the spiritual songs, Ephesians 5, 19, and Colossians 3, 16.

Men Must Sing Boldly in Corporate Worship

Now, as we end, I want to just call all my brothers who are in Christian churches, whether it's the Shepherd's Church, where I am currently a pastor, or whether it's churches all over the country from listeners who are listening in various different places, even international listeners that we have, I want to encourage you men to sing the most masculine, powerful, and godly thing that you can do is bellow out your praises to God.

If you fancy yourself a warrior, then sing boldly to God in the basiest, most baritone and tenor voice you've got. If you're like Gideon, and you tend a little bit more towards cowardice, then muster the strength that you have and bellow out God's praises with vigor.

Fill the room that the gathered saints are gathering in with the thunderings of your lower register. Demonstrate to the women and to the children who are there, how happy you are to be in the house of God, that Yahweh reigns over the earth, and that our songs hail his mighty victory.

Do not allow woke churches and effeminate modern worship to sideline you from one of the most godly and manly activities that you can ever do. Join a church where the psalms are sung, where the hymns are proclaimed, where monumental victories of the great king are sang out, cried out, loudly like David and Solomon, and belted out like Barak and Moses, and let the rafters, my brothers, fear your rumblings.

Men, the church needs your voice now more than ever. The city gates once collapsed when men took the singing seriously. Prisons have fallen down when men took the singing to God seriously, and I believe that the gates of hell will also fall down in our day when men recover the biblical discipline of godly masculine singing.

To God be the glory, my brothers. Do not whisper in worship services, but sing to the glory of God. Amen. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the podcast. This week, I would like to offer a bit of a challenge.

Our audience and our reach are currently growing, and praise God for that, and the messages that we are uploading here are so necessary for the health of the church and for the revival of the pagan world.

If you like these shows, and if you appreciate the work that I'm putting into them, then I would ask you to share these episodes with at least one other person. Maybe you could even share today's episode with two or three people, maybe 10 or 15.

Whatever it is. My challenge is that everyone who is listening would share this with just one other person at a minimum so that we can get this content out to more people. I love you all. Hope you labor well this week in Jesus' kingdom, and I'll see you again next time on the podcast.