The ever-repeated call for a new song.
"A new song (as in Psalms 33:3; Psalms 96:1; Psalms 144:9) is the old song of praise, made new by newness of heart and newness of air." "New as expressive of all the new hopes and joys of a new era; a new spring of the nation; a new youth of the Church, bursting forth into a new life."
I. A NEW SONG IS WANTED BECAUSE THERE ARE ALWAYS NEW OCCASIONS. A song was sung by Israel, under the lead of Moses and Miriam, when the people were safely on the further shore of the Red Sea. It was well to keep that song in remembrance, and it was wisely repeated when the great deliverance was recalled. But there came occasions in the national history when that song was unsuitable, and a new song on the old lines had to be made. Illustrate by the song of Deborah; the songs of David on bringing up the ark; of Solomon on dedicating the temple; of the exiles on return from captivity; of the Maccabees on recovering the holy city; of Mary on receiving the visit of the angel. So in a single life there are recurring occasions when the heart is inspired to make a new song.
II. A NEW SONG MAY BE THE OLD SONG PUT IN A NEW FORM. Perhaps it would be true to say that there really is no new song; for man there can never be anything more than the oh! song put into a new form. For man's song is always a loving and grateful recognition of God's goodness. And yet how much importance attaches to the fact that the old song does get set in ever-varying forms! The old song would lose interest, would become formal; its old form would become too strait, unsuitable, repressive of feeling. The song of Moses will not always satisfy. It will need to have much more put into it, and then it will appear as the "song of Moses and the Lamb."
III. AN OLD SONG IS NEW WHEN A NEW SPIRIT IS PUT INTO IT. And that is the spirit of a man's individuality. Everything is new to me that is actually mine—a genuine expression of myself. It may be as old as the hills; it is new to me; it is the output of my feeling, the creation of my experience. It is like nothing else, for on it rests the stamp of my individuality.—R.T.