Music's Power in our Life

INTRODUCTION

This year, we have had the opportunity to be challenged by our Missions theme: In every House. Tonight, I want to take a moment and examine each of our homes to make sure that we are glorifying God to the utmost!

The topic tonight can be very divisive, and my intention tonight is not to divide; rather, I want to unify us around Christ. As we discuss this, know I am not doing so to be little, but to help each of us receive the blessings that God intends for our homes.

With that introduction, may I ask: “Does Music Matter?”

Today, a popular Christian position is thta “Music doesn’t matter.” As a result, it promotes the idea that anything goes mentality. The argument is “God created and likes all kinds of music.” This same logic, is often applied erroneously to other subjects like marajuana, or alcohol. Yet, we would strongly oppose these as well.

A few points to consider as we begin:

This is probably one of the most contentious topics in Christendom today. Music is a hot button. But I want you to remember:

Proverbs 13:10 KJV 1900

Only by pride cometh contention: But with the well advised is wisdom.

My goal is to set aside our pride, and to seek to be well advised on the subject knowing that perhaps we can learn something about music on this brief journey.

2. This is an intensely personal subject. Music is a “Personal god” in modern culture. We often see our musical tastes as a subject of personal preference with wich nobody (including God) has the right to meddle. I ask that you open your heart to what God has to say. I believe His Word and the principles contained therein are clear. And since, He owns us, let’s give Him entrance into this subject of our lives.

3. The way music exists and permeates our culture is a relatively new phenomenon. Over the last 100 years, technology has radically transformed the way our modern culture interacts with music. For thousands of years, music was primarily created through the human voice. If you wanted to hear music, it had to be played. In the last 100 years, it has taken a prominent position in American culture. In the recent decade, we have seen music become portable. I can literally listen to anything I want almost wherever I am. This is a significant change to man-kind and has had a very lasting impact on our social and spiritual condition.

Music is now pervasive in our culture, and we are a generation of experimentation when it comes to modern musical power. This phenomenon has not only produced new ways of listening to music, but has radically changed the styles of music and the life styles that accompany them as well.

4. This is an intensely Biblical Matter. The Bibel has much to say about Music - It’s purpose, it’s power, its priority in our lives. So many Christians are quick to assume the Bible is silent regarding musical styles, but this simply isn’t the case. The Bible is filled with principles, not specifics. But guidelines that should guide our decisions regarding music. God’s word cuts right to the heart of the topic on music with clear principles that guide us no matter where culture decides to drift.

5. This is a very broad topic to address in a short time. We could fill volumes with information, instruction, and documentation about music. This study is not exhaustive and will not address every question.

6. You must understand my heart. Though I lead the music in our church, and I enjoy playing music, it is not my god. These thoughts are not the overflow of a biased heart with an ax to grind. In reality, music is more of a hobby for me than a calling. It is merely one of the many methods of communication that is a part of my spiritual growth and ministry. There have been times that I have personally wrestled with the power of music and its influence upon my spirit. God first has had to grow me personally while I sought the heart of God and chose to put him on the throne of my heart regarding music.

During my time as the Youth Pastor, I saw daily the struggles of rebellion that came as a direct result of a student or parent who were deep into the god of music. As I have counseled and firmly believe, that Music does Matter. It matters what you listen to, and the style . It truly affects you whether you admit it or not.

I ask you to allow the Holy Spirit to have control tonight regarding this area of your life.

I. Music Matters.

Illustration: If I were to play a single note tonight on the piano, could you tell me if it was good or bad? Is it righteous or evil? Does that note intrinsically carry some moral value? NO! Random notes are no different than random colors, random threads, or random letters. They carry no messages by themselves - they are tools of communication.

A. Music in Context

The same is true of Music. A series of musical notes can be arranged to produce a melody that brings peace and happiness to the listener, or it can be arranged to create the emotion of anger and hostility toward those around them.

A. Music in Context

Yet, you can rearrange colors on a page and create a beautiful work of art, or a sick and evil picture. You can arrange letters on a page and produce a lovely poem that encourages, or a note that is designed to destroy another with hate. Obviously, we would agree that these can be good and bad.

The same is true of Music. A series of musical notes can be arranged to produce a melody that brings peace and happiness to the listener, or it can be arranged to create the emotion of anger and hostility toward those around them.

Saying that music is ‘amoral’ (Without moral value) is true only in its intrinsic raw form - before human creativity comes into the picture. Raw notes are but the tool box from which the artist creates his message. Once the human touch has created the message, it’s always either good or bad - ALWAYS.

“Just as art can be vulgar, clothing can be provocative, and words can be corrupt; even so music can communicate and facilitate messages that are wrong or harmful.” Carry Schmidt

B. Trouble with an evil Spirit

in , we see a vivid picture of the moral qualities of music at work. In this chapter, King Saul is having significant spiritual struggles. He’s dealing with anger, bitterness, envy, and rage toward God.

1 Samuel 16:14–16 KJV 1900

But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul’s servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man, who is a cunning player on an harp: and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well.

God is clear that this was not merely a suface emotional struggle in Saul’s life. It was a spiritual struggle in the heart, and music played a massive role in resolving it.

1 Samuel 16:23 KJV 1900

And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.

God, in His own Word, shows us an ‘evil spirit’ - a heart-level spiritual battle against the ‘principalities and powers’ of , literally chased away, scared off, departed when the right music was played.

C. Trouble with a Golden Calf ()

Now, Let’s contrast this with another Biblical illustration:

Rewind the story back several hundred years to Exodus. The children of Israel have been released from bondage in Egypt and miraculously rescued and preserved by God. For many years they have been enslaved by a pagan nation with pagan rituals and corrupt practices of worship. Yet, God is calling them unto Himself. He desires that they separate from the paganism of their past and become fully His.

Moses has gone to Mount Sinai to be with God; Joshua is with him on the journey, and Aaron has been left back at camp to ‘hold down the fort.’ When Moses didn’t return soon enough, the people of Israel became restless and began to pressure Aaron to fashion some new gods.

The people wanted to party in the paganism of their past rather than wait on the Lord.

They fashioned a golden calf, held a feast, and corrupted themselves before God. These people were being truly godless as they engaged in pagan wickedness form a defiled past. This was farm more than an innocent feast, and God was very angry with this behaviour.

Exodus 32:17–18 KJV 1900

And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear.

In their music, the sounded like a war cry! Why didn’t the “evil Spirits” of paganism flee this scene as they did in Saul’s story? Why did David’s Harp playing facilitate the departure of Evil, but he Children of Israel’s ‘war-like’ music facilitated an increase in evil? If music is morally neutral, how could it have any impact for good or evil at all?

Ultimately, sin was the cause, but music was a direct contributor tot he moral circumstances of both stories - a facilitator for both good and evil. In neither story is music ‘neutral.’

C. When God shows up ()

Several hundred years latter, Isreal is once again gathered together to worship. This time, Solomon is king and he now has completed the construction of the temple. This has been God’s work, and the people have labored, sacrificed, and honored the Lord in it.

In , we are reading about the ‘grand opening’ of the temple.

2 Chronicles 5:12–14 KJV 1900

Also the Levites which were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets:) It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God.

In this case, when the music was played, it wasn’t evil or evil spirits that showed up - but rather God himself! This music distinctly sounded like worship, “To make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord.”

Three distinct styles of Music, three distinct sounds, and three distinct Spiritual outcomes!

How can we ignore clear evidence that different kinds of music send different kinds of messages?

Music Communicates spiritually. Which means, music always has a spiritual (moral or immoral) message. It cannot be neutral or amoral unless it remains uncreated in its most basic and raw form (i.e. a single note).

In the history of humanity and Christendom, the argument that Music is amoral has never been an argument until the 1960s with the development of Christian Contemporary Music. Modern Christianity is the only group on the planet that even espouses that music is ‘amoral.’ Nobody but CCM Christians actually believe this.

D. What the World knows

I want to share a few quotes from unregenerate people about music:

Pietro Mascagni, Italian composer (1863-1945), “Modern music is as dangerous as narcotics.”

Aristotle said, “Music has a power of forming the character, and should therefore be introduced into the education of the young.”

Plato taught, “In order to take the spiritual temperature of an individual or a society, one must mark the music.”

Paul Kantner of the “Jefferson Airplane,” “The new rock music is intended to broaden the generation gap, alienate parents from their children, and prepare young people for revolution.”

Dr. Howard Hanson, an authority on Music, stated in The American Journal of Psychiatry, “Music is a curiously subtle art with innumerable, varying emotional connotations. It is made up of many ingredients and according to the proportions of those components, it can be soothing or invigorating, ennobling or vulgarizing…It has powers for evil as well as for good.”

Henry David Thoreau said, “Music…has helped cause the destruction of the Greek and Roman empires and it will sooner or later destroy America and England.”

Cheetah (Magazine) quoted a musician saying, “If the establishment knew what today’s popular music is saying, not what the words are saying, but what the music itself is saying, they would just turn their thumb down on it. They’d ban it. They’d smash all the records and arrest anyone who tried to play it.”

The late Neil Postman stated in his book, Amusing ourselves to death, “To maintain that technology (music) is neutral…is…stupidity plain and simple.”

Dr. Max Schoen Wrote in The Psychology of Music, “The medical, psychiatric an d other evidence for the non-neutrality of music is so overwhelming that it frankly amazes me that anyone should seriously say otherwise.”

Frank Zappa said, “The loud sounds and bright lights are tremendous indoctrination tools; It is possible to modify the human chemical structure with the right combination of frequencies. If the right kind of beat makes you tap your foot, what kind of beat makes you curl your fist and strike?”

Christian author, Tim fisher wrote in The Battle for Christian Music, “It is almost impossible to overstate the absurdity of the claim that music is neutral, amoral, or void of communication by itself…Those who have looked beyond the current music publications know that no one has ever take the position that music is neutral except for Christians int he last 25 years...”

In his Book The Marketing of Evil, David Kupelian quotes a communication profession at NYU, “It’s part of the official rock video world view…that your parents are creeps, teachers are nerds and idiots, authority figures are laughable, nobody can really understand kids except the corporate sponsor.”

Have you considered that every Hollywood composer intimately knows and understands the communicative power of music? They know what tones, what instruments, and what harmonies to use to make you feel scared, sad, happy, silly, or nostalgic! They are masters at communicating with music alone!

Ephesians 5:15 KJV 1900

See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

Ephesians 5:17–19 KJV 1900

Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

God warns us to be wise and walk circumspectly (Looking in every direction). We are to see the dangers the world does not see. So don’t let yourself be blinded by your personal tastes. The truth that music has moral value is a blessing! May we have a heart to care and a conscience to sense the obvious truth.

Music never has been and never will be morally neutral because it always carries a message from the heart of the messenger.

II. My Music

Music is constantly evolving and changing. It is not always easy to determine if the music we hear is pleasing to the Lord. Nevertheless, the Bible gives us five foundational principles every Christian should follow in order to make the right decisions about music.

A. Have a Desire to Please God

Romans 14:8 KJV 1900

For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.

Romans 14:12 KJV 1900

So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

In , God requires every Christian to have discernment, and each Christian is responsible to Christ for his actions. Some Christians make decisions based on what they like or prefer without ever asking the simple question, “What would please the Lord?”

Matthew 22:37 KJV 1900

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

If we are to love the Lord like this, we must make a conscious decision to seek to please God even in this area of music.

Before you make any decision about music, be sure to check your motives and decide that you are willing to obey God, even if that means giving up the music you like or prefer.

B. Give Deference to Others

Matthew 22:39 KJV 1900

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

When Christ shared the greatest commandment, he saw fit to not separate it from the second, by including we should love others as well.

Romans 14:19 KJV 1900

Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.

Romans 14:9 KJV 1900

For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.

Consider these questions: How will my music help my fellow Christians in their walk with God? Will my music cause people to notice a difference in my life? Would my music offend anyone close to me?

Psalm 40:3 KJV 1900

And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.

We don’t live to please men, but to please God. However, in being deferential toward our fellow believers, we are in fact obeying and pleasing the Lord.

As a parent, I must recognize that my music choices will influence the level of rebellion in our home. I must choose to center our home around godly music.

C. Be humble towards the Subject of Music

As you research the topic of Music, one interesting fact emerges: godly and well-meaning music experts (as well as theologians) do not agree amongst themselves about all the meanings and effects of music. But one thing is clear, music does affect us. Therefore, we should be careful in how we allow it to do so.

Illustration: I recently had the opportunity to Speak at a couples’ retreat. After the retreat, a young man who had been married within the last year came to me and wanted to chat about somethings he was going through at home. Among a myriad of issues that he related, the one that he was most perplexed about was his anger and short temper with his wife. I listened to him bemoan this and that about what made him angry, and finally I interrupted him and asked, “What type of music do you listen to?” Immediately he got his dander up, and said, Others had talked to him about his music, but he only listened to the beat, and not the words. Again, I asked him until he told me some form of Rock. I gently encouraged him, that the reason he was growing angry was because of the music’s effect in his life. He was absolutely sure that couldn’t be it, because he was caught up in the lies that he had heard from the world.

Realize that some people will agree and some people will disagree with you. But as you read the Bible and consider music’s effects, make the best decision you can with the information you have. As the Lord gives further guidance or as you discover new information, be willing to adapt accordingly.

D. Have Faith in the Holy Spirit’s Leading

In order to make the right decisions about music, we must believe that God will guide us and give us peace when we are making the right choices.

John 16:13 KJV 1900

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

Proverbs 3:5–6 KJV 1900

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; And lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he shall direct thy paths.

God desires that you would do right, but in order to please God we must exercise faith

Hebrews 11:6 KJV 1900

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

E. Request Wisdom from God

God promises to give wisdom freely to anyone who sincerely asks

James 1:4 KJV 1900

But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

I urge you tonight, as you consider your choice of music to consider asking God for wisdom. God will help you make right decisions regarding your choices if you will simply ask.

CONCLUSION

Tonight, as we have seen the truth that music truly affects us, we must come to the conclusion that God wants us to be affected in a godly way.

Philippians 4:8 KJV 1900

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

God’s desire for each of us is to submit to His will. That includes this area of music. Will you tonight give him this piece of your heart? Will you allow God to have control of his area of your life. Perhaps at one point you were diligent, but have lacked the discipline to remove it from your life? God is calling you to a heart that can walk with Him, even in your music.

Colossians 3:16 KJV 1900

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.