Voices (2)
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Turn to and read Romans 12:1-2
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
In these verses, particularly vs. 2, Paul warns us of a battle. It is a battle of conformity. The world, under the control of Satan, desires to conform you into a particular image. That is exactly the battle that Daniel and the three Hebrew children faced in Babylon.
Children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king’s palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans.
Those in charge in Babylon even went so far as to give them new names, names designed to help them begin to accept the religion of the Babylonians.
We face the same battle - the battle of conformity - today, in 2019!
Digital screens, and the algorithms that orchestrate their flickering pixels, know you better than you know yourself. Actually, the marketers behind the algorithms know who they would like you to be so they can sell you things.
Almost everything we buy carries a latent message: the people who purchase such-and-such are [fill in the blank].
The next time you pick up a consumer catalog or watch a YouTube before-the-video ad, pause to think, What is the identity being sold here?
Kinnaman, David. Faith for Exiles (p. 46). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Satan knows us better than we know ourselves. Satan knows what he would like us to be. He uses objects in the physical world to feed our hearts with the spirit of error. So, the next time you watch a movie, or begin listening to that music, or reading that book, ask yourself, “What is the identity being sold here?”
Last week we began looking at the powerful voice of Music as a tool that our enemy successfully uses to corrupt hearts with the spirit of error. Again, we must remember that ultimately, Satan’s desire is to completely destroy our spiritual purpose and significance.
What Music Produces in the Heart
What Music Produces in the Heart
I feel reluctant to give into the seduction of music created by so disturbed a mind and so dangerous (or impenetrably hard) a heart as his, for fear that I might develop some of the same ugly thoughts. When I listen to the music of a great composer I feel that I am, in some sense, becoming one with him, or letting a part of him inside me. I also find this disturbing with popular music, because surely some of the purveyors of pop are crude, sexist, racist, or all three.
Levitin, Daniel J.. This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession (p. 243). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Turn to and read Exodus 19:7-8. Notice the decision that the Israelites made:
And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord.
Turn to and read Exodus 32:1-2, 7-8, 17-19, 25.
In these passages of Scripture we see the “moral slide” that Israel experienced. They went from being a people who said, “All that the Lord hat spoken we will do,” in Exodus 19:8 to being a people described in Exodus 32:25
And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)
And right along with it, you could say, was the Israelites choice in music.
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.
Now, you might argue that the music was a product, not the cause of Israel’s problems. But I will contend, as I did last week, that the music was a type of fuel that further inflamed the spiritual mess that the Israelites found themselves in.
Consider...
A person’s lifestyle will always in part be the product of their music.
A person’s lifestyle will always in part be the product of their music.
You cannot immerse yourself into a musical style without being shaped by that style.
You cannot immerse yourself into a musical style without being shaped by that style.
Carnal music enlarges and feeds the problems of the flesh until they are consuming.
Carnal music enlarges and feeds the problems of the flesh until they are consuming.
So, as Christians, what must we do?
Submitting Our Heart to God’s Voice
Submitting Our Heart to God’s Voice
We live in a society that sees very few connections in many areas. The Bible contradicts the way most people, even Christians, live by proclaiming connections between our view of God and every other area of life. Music is included in the connections, but it may very well be the least examined area of a Christian’s life. Believers desperately need to realize that God’s Word demands us to make wise choices even in our entertainment. How dare we think music is exempt from examination?
Everson, Dana. Sound Roots: Steps to Building a Biblical Philosophy of Music (Kindle Locations 215-218). . Kindle Edition.
God’s Word is relatively silent on musical styles - especially those that exist today. Therefore, we must rely on biblical principles to guide us.
Godly music assists the work of the Holy Spirit.
Godly music assists the work of the Holy Spirit.
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;
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.
Our music should reflect a new song after salvation.
Our music should reflect a new song after salvation.
He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
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.
O sing unto the Lord a new song; For he hath done marvellous things: His right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.
When you came to Christ, He made you a new creature. Old things are passed away! You are no longer your own - you belong to God and everything in your life should be at God’s discretion and for His glory.
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Our music should be different from the world’s music.
Our music should be different from the world’s music.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Most contemporary “Christian” musicians are following, conforming in close step with the world when it come to musical style and delivery.
“...With “This Is The Kingdom,” Skillet (a “Christian” rock band) pounds out the beatitudes with a heavy, Imagine Dragons-esque percussive groove.” (Imagine Dragons is the name of a alternate rock band.)
https://www.ccmmagazine.com/reviews/skillet-victorious-review/
Rather than being a “peculiar people” who are different from the world, we appear to actually envy the world - so much so that we are working overtime to make our Christianity just like it.
Our music should be songs, hymns, and spiritual songs.
Our music should be songs, hymns, and spiritual songs.
Again, I point back to Ephesians 5:19
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
and Colossians 3:16
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.
Spiritual songs speak to the heart about God, both in words and in styles.
Every son without words has three distinct parts: melody, harmony, and rhythm. Most of the world’s music speaks to the flesh with rhythms that vulgarize our human existence with sensuality.
Hal Zeiger, one of the first promoters of rock entertainment in the 1950’s, was quoted in 1968 in Life magazine:
“I knew that there was a big thing here that was basic, that was big, that had to get bigger. I realized that this [rock] music got through to the youngsters because the big beat matched the great rhythms of the human body. I understood that. I knew it and I knew there was nothing that anyone could do to knock that out of them. And I further knew that they would carry this with them the rest of their lives."
Putting Christian words to these rhythms doesn’t change the spiritually carnal message of the rhythms themselves. These rhythms stir up anger, bitterness, hatred, despair, depression, sensuality, or lust.
The spiritual songs that the Scriptures speak of would never take your heart or your body in such a direction. yet, most of our popular music today - even that which claims to be Christian - does exactly that.
Our music should be joyful.
Our music should be joyful.
O come, let us sing unto the Lord: Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, And make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: Make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
We must die to self and submit to God in our musical choices.
We must die to self and submit to God in our musical choices.
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Many people think that music is a personal choice based upon what the individual likes or dislikes. As one preacher said, “Since when did what we like become our method of determining what is right?!”
Some are unwilling to submit to God’s Word, considering it too restrictive on their lifestyle. They essentially live for self during the week, doing what pleases them even if that means disobeying the Lord.
Gary Reimers, “The Glory Due His Name: What God Says about Worship”
So, I end this message in the same way as I did last week; by asking you this question:
Do you value the spiritual condition of your heart more than you value the entertainment of the world’s voices?
Submit to God and apply Biblical principles to your music choices.
Purify your heart by getting rid of wrong music.
Ask God for discernment to listen to His voice; to listen to the spirit of truth