Hello, this is Brother Denny.
Welcome to Charity Ministries.
Our desire is that your life would be
blessed and changed by this message.
This message is not copyrighted and is not
to be bought or sold.
You are welcome to make copies for your
friends and neighbors.
If you would like additional messages, please go
to our website for a complete listing at
www.charityministries.org.
If you would like a catalog of other
sermons, please call 1-800-227-7902 or
write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street,
Suite 1, AFPA, 17522.
These messages are offered to all without charge
by the freewill offerings of God's people.
A special thank you to all who support
this ministry.
We want to greet each one in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I think we'll begin by kneeling for prayer
together.
Shall we kneel right here in our seats?
Our Heavenly Father, we do come to bless
your holy name tonight.
We do lift our hands up to thee,
dear God, as a sign of our consecration,
Lord, to thee, that we have given you
everything, Lord.
All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him
I freely give.
I will ever love and trust Him in
His presence daily live.
Lord, this is the cry of a heart
tonight.
Dear Lord, we just ask you to minister
to us tonight.
As we study some more about music, Father,
we want to be right.
We want to learn.
We want to grow.
We want to be sound, Father, in our
music.
For we learned already that music will change
us.
O Father God, we do not want to
change in the wrong way.
Give us wisdom tonight, Lord.
I ask you for the anointing of your
Spirit to be upon the hearers and on
the speaker, Lord, that we might all learn
together from thee.
We ask it all in the name of
Jesus with thanksgiving.
Amen.
We want to have another lesson this evening
on right principles of music.
I entitled my lesson this evening, Discerning Right
Music.
I'd like for us to read verses I
believe that have already been read, but I'd
like to read them again in Ephesians chapter
5 and Colossians chapter 3.
Discerning Right Music.
We'll read Ephesians first.
Ephesians 5, 18 and 19.
And then Colossians 3 and verse 16.
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.
And over in chapter 3 of Colossians verse
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.
Here, I believe, is God's clearest revelation in
the New Testament that He gives us to
guide us to have right principles and right
music in our lives.
These two verses that we've read.
First of all, I'd like for us to
look at the source of our right music.
I'd like us to look at two different
sources.
The first one is found in Ephesians 5,
18.
It says, be not drunk with wine wherein
is excess, but be filled with the Spirit.
That's the first source by which our music
should come forth from.
A heart that is full of the Holy
Ghost.
That is not an accident that the verse
right there comes right ahead of the verse
about speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs.
It's not an accident.
The one is the fruit of the other.
The songs, the hymns, the spiritual songs, the
singing with grace in our hearts, it comes
out of a heart that's full of the
Holy Ghost.
And then also, we see more of the
source of this singing.
And it's found in the first part of
Colossians 3, verse 16, where it says, let
the word of Christ dwell in you richly
in all wisdom.
And that word richly there means a whole
lot of it.
Let your heart be full of the words
of Christ.
So if we can just get the picture.
Look up here, young men, look up here.
If we could just get the picture.
I've got a burden on my heart tonight.
I'm sorry, but I've got a burden on
my heart.
And I would have to admit that the
young people is part of the burden on
my heart.
So I'm pleading with you.
I'm pulling your eyes up this way.
If you see something that distracts you, I'll
help you come back up this way.
God's Word says two things should be filled
full in our heart in order for the
right kind of music to come forth.
In order for us to have the right
kind of discernment of music.
And that is a heart that is full
of the Holy Ghost and a heart that
is full of God's Word.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly.
And then we find the verses again.
Teaching and admonishing one another in songs and
hymns and spiritual songs.
And over here in Colossians it says, singing
with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
So the first thing we notice in these
two verses is the source of our discernment
of music.
The second thing is the purpose or one
of the purposes of music.
But we see one of the purposes of
music right here in these two verses.
And it's in both of them.
And that is Ephesians 5, verse 19, speaking
to yourselves in songs and hymns and spiritual
songs.
So in Ephesians it talks about speaking to
yourself.
That's the purpose for right music.
It should be speaking to us constantly.
And over in Colossians it says, teaching and
admonishing one another.
Now here it has the effect more of
a corporate thing.
Whereas back and forth, we're teaching and admonishing
one another.
The word teaching, I think that's self-explanatory.
But the word admonishing, it means warning one
another.
Teaching one another and warning one another with
songs and hymns and spiritual songs.
So you see, one of the main purposes
for spiritual music is for the purpose of
instructing our own hearts and instructing each other
and warning each other.
And let us just go back to the
context of these verses.
Here we have hearts that are full of
the Holy Ghost and full of the Word
of God, richly full of the Word of
God.
And then with that kind of heart, we're
going to be teaching and admonishing one another.
We're going to be speaking to our own
hearts with songs and hymns and spiritual songs.
Alright, the third thing we want to notice
in these verses is the type of music
that God wants us to use.
He even gives us some insight there.
He uses three different words.
And I studied these in detail today.
Songs, hymns and spiritual songs.
The word songs means the psalms.
The New Testament Christians, they sang the psalms.
The Old Testament Christians, they sang out of
the book of Psalms.
It was their songbook.
And for the early church, it was still
their songbook.
It wasn't the only thing they used.
But the psalms was their songbook.
So God inspired that to be reaffirmed in
the New Testament.
I want you to sing out of My
songbook that I gave you using My words
that I breathed out into holy men of
old by the Holy Ghost.
That's the first thing God says.
Number two, then it says hymns.
Now, I studied hymns.
Now, when it says hymns there, it means
songs of praise other than the book of
Psalms.
We sang number 19 tonight.
Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of
His holiness.
That is a hymn.
It's a song that gives us an opportunity
to give praise unto our God.
And then third of all, it says spiritual
songs.
And spiritual songs are any songs that are
packed full and past the requirement of being
a spiritual song.
They are full of the Word of Christ.
They are full of the Spirit of God.
Some of the songs that were given, that
it was mentioned in the books as I
studied, some of the songs that were sang
in the early church would have been 1
Corinthians 13.
They sang that.
That was a spiritual psalm.
It wasn't a psalm.
It wasn't an Old Testament psalm.
It was not a hymn, a song of
praise other than what's in the book of
Psalms.
It was a spiritual psalm.
Another that they sang was the song of
Moses, which would have been in the Old
Testament, but not in the book of Psalms.
Another one they sang is in Timothy.
And I don't know, let's see how it
goes.
Now, unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the
only wise God, the honor and glory forever
and ever.
Amen.
They sang that verse.
New Testament Christian.
I don't know if you know the tune
to that, but there's a tune to that.
To those very words.
So, third of all, we notice the types
of music that God gives.
Another illustration of a spiritual psalm would have
been number 777.
A mighty fortress is our God.
That's an illustration of a spiritual psalm.
It's not a hymn of praise.
It's not out of the book of Psalms,
but it is full of spiritual truth and
it passes the test that it's full of
the Holy Ghost and it's full of the
Word of God.
It's a spiritual psalm.
And then fourth of all, in these verses,
we notice the posture of the singing.
And here is the true posture for all
singing, and that is worship.
Notice it in both of these.
Making melody in your heart to the Lord,
it says in Ephesians, and in Colossians it
says, singing with grace in your hearts to
the Lord.
That's the posture of spiritual music.
It comes out of a heart of worship.
It should be done as an avenue of
worship to God.
Can we see the purity of the principles
that God is giving to us here in
the New Testament?
Purity of principles.
Now, the lesson this evening, it came out
of a burden of my own heart to
make the lessons that we've already had more
practical.
It's good for us to look at the
principles, but we need to take a look
at the application to the principles or many
of us here won't know what some of
those principles mean.
I have two things in mind.
Number one, I do have in mind some
correction of some of the music that we
use, listen to, or sing.
And number two, it's motivational.
My heart's desire is to motivate all of
us to want the music that truly passes
this pure test of Ephesians 5 and Colossians
3.
That's my heart.
To motivate us to say, that's the kind
of music I want.
Now, music affects the spirit, the soul, and
the body.
Music affects all three.
That's one of the principles that Bill brought
out.
It has an effect upon us.
I believe that Christian music that passes the
test that was just given affects, first of
all, the spirit.
And we can tell that by just looking
at the criteria that was given.
The purity of the music.
The purity of the doctrine of the music.
Done in worship.
We can see that Christian music should first
of all minister to our spirit.
That's where it should be directed.
Then, after it has ministered to our spirit,
it's going to affect our soul.
That's our mind, our will, and emotions.
We're going to understand something from it.
We may be taught something by it.
There's our mind, our emotions.
We might be moved to rejoice.
We might be moved to sorrow at heart
as we're singing a song.
There's our emotions.
It will affect our emotions.
And then also, our will.
We may be moved to a decision.
And in fact, if we're truly singing or
listening to right music, it ought to affect
our soul in such a way that it
changes our actions.
That is the way that music is supposed
to have an effect upon us.
It ought to bring our spirit up to
God.
It ought to make our spirit soar heavenward.
And it ought to change our thinking, motivate
our emotions, maybe to tears, maybe to joy,
maybe to sorrow, or whatever.
And it ought to motivate our actions or
change our will and redirect our lives.
And then last of all, music affects the
body.
It moves us to do things.
And I might say, a lot of music
affects the body more than anything else.
But I don't believe that Christian music ought
to have much effect on the body at
all.
I don't believe it ought to.
If it's truly spirit-centered, it's going to
have its strongest effect on our spirit.
And second of all, it's going to affect
our soul.
And last of all, it's going to affect
our body.
We had a very revealing thing the other
evening.
We had a meeting up there at...
Where is that church building at?
Millbox.
We had a meeting up at Millbox.
And we sang in a building where the
floor is wooden for a while.
And all of a sudden, I realized, hey,
this whole place is just rocking with these
songs.
And all the feet were going and you
could hear it hitting the floor all over
the place.
You don't notice it here.
We have cement floor and carpet on it.
But I was realizing, hey, this music is
really affecting our bodies.
I wonder if it's supposed to be affecting
our bodies that much.
I wondered that.
Now, music has three functions.
And some of this is already a repeat.
Number one, it should edify our spirit.
Number two, it should instruct and convert our
soul.
And number three, it should allow us to
worship God.
It is an avenue by which we can
worship our God.
If music is aimed at the soul or
aimed at the body, it is not going
to have the same effect as music that
is aimed at the spirit of man.
I think we can all agree with that.
It's not going to.
An emotional song that has an effect upon
our emotions and that's all, is not going
to change us.
In fact, some people have spirit and emotions
all mixed up.
I've heard people say when they heard an
emotional song and I could tell so clearly
that's all it was, was a song to
stir the emotions.
I've heard people say, praise God, there's an
anointing on that song.
And I think to myself, do we understand
the difference between spirit and soul?
If we hear a song that moves the
emotions, it's a song of emotion and it
chugs that old heart because we hear it.
And then when we finish hearing that and
wipe the tears away from our eyes, we
say, boy, that song really had an anointing
upon it.
I wonder if we understand what the anointing
of God's spirit is when we do that.
I've heard that said many times.
So how do we discern right music?
Five ways this evening.
Five ways to discern right music and I'll
give the five and then we're going to
go down through them and I'm going to
use some practical illustrations this evening.
First of all, we need to discern the
spirit of the music.
Second of all, we need to discern the
message of the words in the music.
Third of all, we need to discern the
fruit that this music produces in the lives
of those who listen to it.
Fourth of all, we need to discern the
lives of the musicians who produce the music.
And fifth of all, which I know very
little about, we need to discern the music
based on sound musical principles.
And when I say that, I mean just
a sound musician.
You know, when you go to school somewhere
and you study music, they teach you sound
musical principles.
In any school, you'll learn the sound musical
principles.
Now, after they learn them, nowadays, they muddle
them all up, twist them all up, turn
them all upside down, but a musician has
to first learn the right and sound principles
of right music in order to be able
to produce any kind of music.
They have to learn those.
So I'm saying this evening, while we're discerning
right music, we do need to consider, does
this music fall along the lines of sound
musical principles?
Can I have something to drink?
A little bit of water?
Alright, number one.
We need to discern the spirit of the
music.
What do I mean by the spirit of
the music?
The spirit of the music has just as
much message as the words of the music
do.
In fact, sometimes, I think the spirit of
the music has more message than the words.
I'd like to give you an example of
a song that does not line up to
the spirit of the music, of the words.
There's a song, and you may never have
heard it, but from where I come from,
we used to sing a song out of
Galatians 5.
Be not deceived.
God is not mocked.
Whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Now, we all know as we sit here
in this room tonight, there's nothing silly about
that verse.
That is an awesome verse.
If we're going to sing that verse, we
better have the spirit that goes along with
those words or we're not singing right music.
Here's how we used to sing it.
Be not deceived.
God is not mocked.
For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap.
Does that line up to the spirit of
those words?
Do you see what I'm saying?
We need to discern not only the words,
but also the spirit of the music.
Here's another one.
And I'd like for us to ponder singing
this song on Communion Sunday because it does
talk about Jesus dying on the cross and
saving us from our sins.
Imagine singing this song on Communion Sunday.
Who Jesus is.
He died on the cross to save us
from sins.
Everybody ought to love Jesus.
Jesus.
He died on the cross to save us
from sins.
Everybody ought to love Jesus.
Do you notice the spirit of that song?
Does it line up to the words of
the song?
And could we sing it on Communion Sunday?
I don't think I could.
That's not the spirit that I'm in when
it's time to think about the shed blood
in the broken body of our Lord Jesus.
I'm just pulling some illustrations out here to
help us to see there's more to music
than what maybe we realize there is.
And music will change us.
Can you imagine being changed into the direction
of the spirit of that first song that
I sang?
Thinking of God's judgment in a lighthearted way.
Can you imagine being changed like that?
And this often comes into our lives when
we're looking at children's songs.
For some reason, we have swallowed the world's
idea that you relate to children with silly
songs about God.
Is God a silly God when you're little?
And an awesome God when you're big?
Is God any different?
Now, I recognize we don't want to hit
the little children with all the songs of
judgment.
But is God a silly God that the
songs that our little children learn have to
have a silly flavor to them rather than
to have some meat to them?
Ephesians 5 says that the spirit of our
music ought to line up with the Holy
Spirit because we're supposed to be singing with
our hearts full of the Holy Ghost.
What is the Holy Ghost like?
Well, He is joy.
Granted, but He's more than just joy.
He's love for life.
He's awe.
He's majesty.
He's depth.
He's all of that.
Number two, we discern right music by the
message in the words.
And here I'd like to bring out some
illustrations again.
And I'm not totally against some of these
little songs I'm singing, but I am saying,
where is our heart?
And what do we like the most?
And what are we feeding on the most?
That is where we're going to end up.
That's where we're going to end up.
The message in the words.
It should be rich in the truths of
God's Word.
Not just a little truth over in the
corner.
Rich in the truths of God's Word.
Here's a little song.
Jesus is the rock of my salvation.
His banner over me is love.
Jesus is the rock of my salvation.
His banner over me is love.
And the song goes on saying the same
thing over and over again.
It's bringing out the truth that Jesus is
our rock.
And amen!
He is.
But let's compare that with a mighty fortress
is our God, a bulwark never faileth.
In the one song, there's only two truths.
In the other song, there's 42 truths.
In that song that we sang tonight, number
777, there's 42 different truths out of the
Word of God packed in that hymn that
we sang.
And God said, let the Word of Christ,
let your hearts be full of the Word
of Christ.
And then, teach and admonish one another with
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
So, Jesus is the rock of our salvation
and His banner over me is love.
But a mighty fortress is our God is
so packed full of divine truth and has
such an awe about it while you sing
it.
I mean, there's quite a bit of difference
between Jesus is the rock of my salvation
and a mighty fortress is our God.
Quite a bit of difference in those two
songs.
Quite a bit of difference.
Here's another one.
And I think, I think this is a
Bill Gaither song, but I'm not sure.
And these songs, I've sung them too, so
I'm not just picking on everybody tonight.
Jesus is alive and well.
Tell everyone you see, go tell them for
me.
Jesus is alive and well.
There's a song that talks about the resurrection
of Jesus Christ.
And it has about five truths in it.
If I would have sung the whole song,
it has about five in it.
We sang, lift your glad voices, it has
40 truths in it.
We sang 40 different truths out of the
Bible while we were singing that song tonight.
And then last of all, well, let me
say this too, just to show you a
little bit the way the children's songs used
to be.
Jesus loves me, this I know, for the
Bible tells me so.
That was written in 1859.
And it is a children's song.
But it has 33 truths from the Word
of God in it if you sing the
five verses that are written.
The children, a hundred years ago, did not
grow up on what many children in America
are growing up on and calling it spiritual
songs.
They didn't grow up on those songs.
They grew up on the hymns.
They learned the hymns.
They memorized the hymns.
So one more song to illustrate it.
And this one I bring back from Africa.
And just to show you my heart, I
sang this song so many times while I
was in Africa the two weeks that I
was there.
I'm not against this little song, but it
just doesn't have a lot of meat on
it.
A little song that they taught us and
we enjoyed singing it while we were there.
Take glory Father.
Take glory Son.
Take glory Holy Ghost.
I am born again.
That's it.
We would usually sing it about ten times
when we sang it.
Over and over and over and over.
And hey, I get a blessing out of
that.
I want God to get glory.
I want the Son to get glory.
I want the Holy Ghost to get glory.
And I'm rejoicing that I've been born again.
But that's how they sing over there in
Africa.
Little bitty choruses with a little bit of
truth in it said over and over and
over again.
Compared, and I didn't want to sing this
one because I didn't want to take a
whole lot of time singing, but compare that
to Blessed Savior, we adore Thee.
We Thy love and grace proclaim.
Thou art mighty, Thou art holy.
Glorious is Thy matchless name.
Great Redeemer, Lord and Master, Light of all
eternal days.
Let the saints of every nation sing Thy
just and endless praise.
Both songs sing about the glory that's due
unto His name.
When somebody calls that song on Sunday morning,
my spirit leaps within me before we even
start singing it because I know what song
it is.
It makes my spirit soar heavenward.
It's a song that genders to worship in
my own heart.
So, we need to discern the music by
the message that is in the words.
Thirdly, we need to discern the music by
the fruit that it produces.
Since music, one of the main purposes for
music is to teach and admonish us, that
means it's for teaching.
It's for doctrine.
It's one of God's methods to fill the
church full of the doctrines of His Word.
Right doctrine brings right lives.
And wrong doctrine brings wrong lives.
So we need to examine also the fruit
that the music we listen to produces in
the lives of others.
And I'll use this as an example of
the one, John and Charles Wesley started the
Methodist movement back in 1740, somewhere around there.
1740, the Methodist movement started.
Those two men were powerful men.
They were men of holiness.
They were men of power.
They were men of God.
And the music that they wrote produced powerful
people.
The Methodist movement is not as old as
the Mennonite movement, but the Methodist movement was
a powerful movement for God.
And for a hundred years, more than a
hundred years, a hundred and fifty years, the
Methodist church was known by everybody around to
be a holy people.
Sound in doctrine.
Full of God's Word.
Sound in lives.
Full of the Holy Ghost.
That is the fruit of the music in
the lives of the people.
And may I say, a lot of the
music that Christians are swallowing today, if you'll
go trace it out and see what kind
of people, what the people live like that
feed on that stuff all the time, you'd
be shocked.
I told one young man who listens to
Moody Station all the time, and I guess
there's some Moody programming on the local Christian
radio station around this area too.
You'd be shocked if you went to Moody
Bible Institute and saw the way the young
people live there who are feeding off of
that kind of music.
You would be shocked.
Loose, free lives, shallow, they don't know their
Bibles.
Another illustration of that would be the charismatic
movement.
If I can use that as an illustration,
most of the time, charismatic people do not
know the Word.
They know a few texts here and there,
the ones that are very important to them.
Acts 2, 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Corinthians 14,
and a few others.
They know a few of those texts.
But as far as being full and sound
in God's Word, they aren't.
They are not.
And much of the music and much of
the choruses that is floating around now, it
came out of that.
That's where it came from.
Let us be wise.
Let us also look and see what kind
of fruit the music is producing in other
people's lives.
Because you see, the music will change us.
And if we are not sound in our
music, we won't know what it's going to
do for ten years if we don't open
our eyes a little bit, get some discernment,
look around and realize, hey, look what it's
doing, and look what it's doing over there.
And I'd like to say this by way
of a little bit of qualifying.
In the charismatic movement, they are at the
height of their spiritual power.
That's what they would say.
They are at the height of their spiritual
power.
And this is the music that is coming
forth.
And look at the lives that it produces.
Then go back to the Methodist church back
in 1740 when it was at the height
of its spiritual power.
And look at the lives that it produced
for 150 years.
Granted, some of these hymns we sang tonight,
they sing them in a dead Mennonite church
right across the road over there.
Granted, but it's not in the height of
its spiritual power.
They're singing songs without the power of the
Holy Ghost.
It's not going to have the same effect.
We have to go back and look at
it when it was produced in the height
of its spiritual power in order to have
right discernment.
Number four, discerning right music.
We need to discern the lives of the
musicians.
And this is a big one.
And I plead with some of you young
people on this one.
To discern the lives of the musicians.
And I cite again the Westleys as a
good example for us.
I don't know how many hymns John and
Charles Wesley wrote, but I know what kind
of lives they lived.
Fanny Crosby wrote 8,000 hymns.
And I know what kind of life she
lived.
That woman was an anointed woman of God.
When she walked into the back of a
church, people knew she was there.
Without even turning around to look, they could
sense the power of God's Spirit upon her.
And look at the hymns she wrote.
I'm just pleading.
I'm pleading for that truth right there.
What about the lives of the musicians?
The hymns that are in this book, they
were all burst during revival.
True Holy Ghost revival.
Different ones.
Some of them, 1,700.
Some of them, 1,500.
Anabaptist revival.
Some of the hymns are out of the
Anabaptist movement in this book.
Some of them are out of the Moravian
movement, early 1,700's.
Some of them are out of the Westlean
movement in the later 1,700's and early
1,800's.
Many of them come out of the revival
movement of 1859 that shook almost the whole
world.
The hymns that are in this book, they
came out of that.
Hymns by P.P. Bliss and different men
like this.
Those songs were written in the heat and
depth of revival.
And they're packed full of doctrine.
Do you see that those songs that came
out of those revival movements, they measure up
to God's criteria here in Colossians and Ephesians.
It meets all of that.
It came out of a heart that was
full of the Holy Ghost and it came
out of a heart that was full of
the Word of God.
Brothers and sisters, Fanny Crosby did not sit
down with her mind and say, okay, I'm
going to write another song.
Let's see now.
It's got a rhyme.
I want this in it and I want
that in it.
She did not write her songs that way.
She wrote her songs on her knees.
They flowed out of her spirit and her
spirit was full of God's Word and her
songs are full of God's Word.
Charles Wesley wrote songs the same way.
They flowed out of a heart that was
full of the Holy Spirit and they flowed
out of a heart that was full of
God's Word.
And Charles Wesley's songs, they have more doctrine
in them than the ones we just sang
and read.
More doctrine yet.
Powerful songs full of God's Word.
These meet the criterion of what we were
just reading here.
So we need to examine the lives of
the musicians.
Birthed in revival?
Or birthed in a charismatic movement?
What kind of songs are we singing?
And where were they birthed?
Birthed in revival?
Birthed in a charismatic movement?
Or birthed just sitting at home by somebody
who decided to write a new song with
a different flavor to it?
That is not the way that God wants
us to follow.
He doesn't want us to just pick up
any old song that somebody wrote out.
That thing has got to pass some very
important tests if we're going to feed on
it all the time.
Or we're going to be wrong.
And last of all, birthed out of a
worldly wicked heart.
You say, well, we've got Christian country songs
at home sang by Johnny Cash and I
don't know all the names of those fellas
that sing the songs and sell them, but
I have one thing to say about that.
The spirit of Johnny Cash comes out of
that man when he sings his songs.
I don't care what kind of words he
uses.
The spirit of Johnny Cash comes out and
he's a whoremonger and he's a drunkard and
he's a filthy, defiled man and he's got
a filthy and a defiled spirit.
Why do we want to subject our spirit
to that kind of defilement?
I say, that kind of music does not
pass the test.
The musician is way off.
It's way off.
And all his music does is feed the
soul.
It does not feed the spirit.
It feeds the soul.
Danger.
That kind of music is danger.
Danger.
To give you another quote, I'll quote Bill
Gothard just a little bit here this evening.
A testimony that he gave in his seminar
while he was teaching a little pleading with
people to use right wisdom in choosing their
music.
He said these words, many of the contemporary
musicians come to his seminars and they seek
his counsel during the intermission times and tell
him what their lives are like.
They're filled with corruption.
They're living in spiritual defeat.
They have immorality.
Their minds are filled with immoral thoughts and
the struggles of immorality are going on inside
of them and they're getting up on stage
singing songs, writing new songs, publishing songs, sending
them out, making tapes, and they're going out
in all the quote-unquote Christian bookstores and
people are buying them and taking them home
and listening to them and saying, hey, that
sounds pretty good.
It's a little bit less than what I
like, but the words are good, so we'll
keep listening to it.
And those men's lives are corrupted.
And their spirits are corrupted.
And we need to turn that stuff off
and get back to some purity in our
music.
The spirit of the musician will affect us.
Oh, not right away.
You won't listen to one like that and
then go out and have evil thoughts the
next day.
It won't happen right away.
But the spirit of an evil musician is
going to have its continued effect upon us.
It'll have a defiling effect upon us over
and over and over again.
And if I could just say a little
bit about classical music here.
Let's have a little bit of wisdom there
too.
Some of those classical musicians were filthy men.
Homosexuals to the deepest degree.
Vile, filthy men.
And they wrote their classical music.
And the spirit of that man comes out
of that music.
It may not have any words to it
at all.
And it may make you feel good while
you listen to it, but the spirit of
that defiled man is coming out of whatever
he's writing and whatever he's playing.
It comes out.
And this may all sound like, whoa, what
is this?
This is completely new.
And it may be bad medicine tonight, but
I'm just pleading with some of you.
Consider what I say concerning right music.
And I think just about every father in
this room is saying, praise God, praise God.
And I'm just pleading with all of us,
especially our young people.
Let's get some wisdom.
And if we don't have it, let's go
to somebody who does and say, here's my
tapes.
Take care of them.
I'll keep whatever's left when you're done.
Some of you would be real smart to
do that.
And then last of all, our music must
pass the test of sound musical principles.
And Bill brought some of this out, so
I'll just go over it a little bit
again.
The melody should lead.
In all spiritual music, the melody should be
out front.
The harmony should be following along after it.
And the rhythm should be in the background.
That is sound musical principles.
Every good musician knows that.
Every bad musician knows it also.
the harmony is in the middle, and twists
it and distorts it to come up with
a new creation of music.
Melody is in the lead, harmony is following,
and rhythm in the background.
Now, Bill made mention about sliding notes.
And I thought while he was saying it,
I wonder if anybody in here knows what
sliding notes is.
How many of you know what sliding notes
is?
Alright, more than I expected.
I'm going to give you an illustration for
those of you that don't know.
I'll give you a little song here that
has sliding notes all over it.
And by the way, right musical principles would
say that is garbage.
Music with sliding notes all over it, anybody
who knows anything about music will say, that's
garbage.
Why are you feeding on that when you
can eat steak?
That's what they would say.
Alright, here's a little bit of a song
that has sliding notes all over it.
And I realize you can sing it without,
but it's a song that leans toward it
and most people sing it this way.
Had it not been for a man called
Jesus, then forever my soul would be lost.
Did you see the sliding notes?
All over through the song were sliding notes.
And those come from the soul.
They do not come from the spirit.
And they feed the soul.
They do not feed the spirit.
Maybe I overemphasized it a little bit, but
now you know what they are.
Much of what is called country gospel music
is nothing but a bunch of sliding notes.
Because that's what country music is.
The twang in country music is sliding notes.
They just slide the notes all the way
through it and then that's called country music.
So, country gospel music is gospel music with
all the slides in it also.
Other things.
Staying too high or too low for too
long or staying the same for too long
is not right music principle.
And by that I'll just use the example
of the hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our
God.
And notice in the melody of this song,
it goes up and down and up and
down and up and down.
And that's right music.
It takes discipline to sing a good hymn.
It takes some discipline.
We need to put our mind on it
to sing it because it goes up and
down and up and down.
A mighty fortress is our God A bulwark
never failing Up, down.
Up, down.
All the way through the song.
That's right music.
If it stays all down, you have melancholy
music.
Somebody gave me a tape.
I don't know where it came from, but
somebody gave a tape to us.
And the whole tape has songs where it
stays down too much.
And that thing is so melancholy.
You sit and listen to that thing and
when you get done you just think, oh,
I just feel sad and I just want
to mope around.
Because it's defying music principle and it keeps
down all the time.
Music that is up all the time, it'll
have you high strung.
If you listen to a whole tape of
music that stays on the high notes, high
notes, high notes all the time, it'll have
you high strung.
And adding beats where they don't belong.
This is all part of right music principle
that any worldly musician who studied music could
tell you.
He could get up here and teach you
the same thing.
In fact, he could do it.
I can't.
I don't understand enough of it.
But adding beats to the music.
Here's a song that we sing all the
time that has an extra beat in it.
And if you could look at the notes
of the music, you'd spot it just like
that.
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved
a wretch like me.
There's an extra beat in that song.
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.
It's right there.
There's an extra beat in there in that
song.
And it changes the spirit of the song
quite a bit, doesn't it?
It makes you want to start clicking.
Doesn't it?
We need some wisdom about these things.
Now, I want to say a little bit
more about country gospel music and get into
some of the other principles that we've spoken
about here.
Much of country gospel music is nothing but
a bunch of storytelling.
That's what country music is.
That's what has made country music sell all
over this country because country music is sad
stories put to music.
That's what it is.
In the world, it's a guy who lost
his gal.
It's a man who lost his wife and
he's sitting there alone all by himself cooking
his own breakfast.
And, oh, it's a sad, tear-jerking story
and they've got the music playing along with
it.
And if you listen to the thing, you'll
cry because it's directly aimed at emotions and
it's aimed at emotions because that's what sells
it out in the world.
Now, let's just jump over on the other
side to the sanctified side, if you can
call it that, and call it country gospel.
Now, we're going to tell stories.
We're going to tell gospel stories and put
it to music.
And all it does is aim again at
the emotion.
And when you hear them, they make you
cry.
Right?
The story about, Daddy, please find a reason
to stay with my mama.
That's just a story.
Now, maybe it's effective in a prison where
there's a bunch of men who left their
wives at home.
Where there's a bunch of men who were
living in adultery and living in alcohol and
all those things and they hear a story
like that, it might make them cry.
But do we want to feed on that?
And besides, it's full of sliding too, isn't
it?
Daddy, please find a reason to stay with
my mama.
Please don't go, Daddy.
Please don't go.
See all the sliding in there?
That's emotion.
That's coming out of my soul.
That's not spirit.
That's soul.
That's country gospel.
Where is the meat?
That's my plea.
Here's another one.
I was just listening to a tape this
evening so I could keep some of these
in my mind.
Daddy, I'm lonesome since you went away.
It's a story about a girl whose daddy
died.
And it's a very sad story.
And it touches my heart too.
And it makes me cry when I listen
to it.
But where's the doctrine?
Where's the doctrine?
That's my question.
Sure, there's a little truth in it.
Yes, the song does say that he's in
a better place.
That's good.
Where the flowers grow.
Amen.
That's fine.
But most of the song is just an
emotional story.
That's all it is.
No meat.
No meat in it.
How many of you ever heard of Steve
and Annie Chapman?
Let me see your hands.
Oh, more than I expected again.
Steve and Annie Chapman, they sing songs about
the home.
They travel all over the country singing.
They go to churches and sing songs about
the home.
I never cried more in my life than
I did when I listened to a couple
of those songs.
Oh, they are tearjerkers.
But it's all emotion.
It's just a bunch of stories put to
music, sung with an emotional appeal to it.
And I listened to it a couple of
times.
And even the words ahead of the songs
are emotional.
They get down on the emotional level and
they start pleading with you.
Do you remember back when you had a
little girl?
And they start preparing you emotionally and then
sing a little song about how the little
girl grew up and she's gone and she
got married.
I heard that song and I just cried
like a baby and in the middle of
it I thought, wait a minute, what am
I crying for?
What moved me to cry?
The emotion of the song.
It went into my soul and made me
cry.
But where was the doctrine?
There was no doctrine in that song.
None.
Here's my plea.
And I realize some of this is probably
castor oil tonight.
But castor oil is good for you.
Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3.
If we take those two verses in the
depth of what God is saying, I believe
that God will help us to discern our
music some.
What kind of music we are using.
What kind of music we're listening to.
What it's really doing to us.
Where is it going to lead our lives
in five or ten years.
And parents, we need to be wise here.
The ones that are at home that are
six and seven years old, you are training
their music appreciation right now.
And if they grow up and can't appreciate
those solid hymns, but want to always be
listening to the other tear-jerking stuff, hey,
it's just going to have a weakening effect
upon the church and upon the coming generations
that come forth from you.
It will have a weakening effect upon them.
It won't come out right.
Hymns, the hymns that are in this book
are disciplined music.
It takes discipline to sing them.
A lot of little choruses, they don't take
much discipline to sing them.
That's why we like to sing them.
That's why we'll favor them over a good
solid hymn.
Because it doesn't take a lot of discipline
to sing them.
But the Christian life is a life of
discipline, not a life of ease.
And you say, and I say some too,
but the hymns, they can have a drying
effect in the congregation.
Well, why is that?
Is it because the hymns are more in
tune with the powerful spiritual life and our
spiritual lives don't line up with the spirit
of the hymns?
Therefore, we don't sing them with our heart.
And then they have a deadening effect.
I noticed this, and I'm not picking on
Crossroads at all, but I noticed this at
Crossroads when I was out there for a
week of meetings.
We sang hymns and choruses and hymns and
choruses, you know, some or both, and that's
fine.
I have no problem with that.
We sang hymns and choruses through the week,
and mostly choruses through the week.
And then on Sunday morning, after a whole
week of preaching, getting right with God, and
you know how it is, the spiritual temperature
rises in a congregation as meetings go on
and people pray more and they seek the
face of God more.
And by Sunday morning, I mean the temperature
was way up.
And the song leader felt led that morning
just to call, just to let everybody choose
what they wanted to sing.
And everybody chose hymns.
And we must have sang ten hymns that
morning.
It was powerful.
Everybody's spirits were in tune.
They were feasting off the words of the
hymns while they were singing them.
People were worshiping God.
People had their eyes shut.
Hands were in the air.
And there was an awesome majesty of God
that settled over us that morning.
I think we need to discipline ourselves in
our spiritual lives so we can enjoy singing
the hymns like we did tonight.
Tonight, we sang hymns and they were a
blessing.
They were a strength.
They were a joy.
And I'd like to say one last thing
in closing.
I feel as we discern the truth in
Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5 that God had
in mind singing, not listening.
Now, I'm not saying we should never listen.
But I think what God's heart was there
was singing, not sitting around listening.
I don't feel that we're fulfilling Ephesians 5
and Colossians 3 when we pop a music
tape on and go on down the road.
I don't believe we're fulfilling the spirit of
those verses.
Now, you may put a tape on that
has hymns on and sing along with it.
Then I feel like you're fulfilling that.
But if you just flip the old music
in so you've got noise while you're driving
in your car, put a music tape on
while you're in your house so you've got
a little noise going on while you're there
to keep you company, that is not fulfilling
Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5.
May God give us the wisdom to be
motivated after the right kind of music to
want it.
Now, I realize everybody's not going to be
able to swallow this pill overnight.
But my only heart's desire is that we
would be motivated tonight to say, that is
sound.
What He's saying is sound.
I may not understand it all and my
heart may not want to do it tonight,
but it is sound.
My heart's desire is that we would be
motivated in the direction of the kind of
music that purely and completely lines up with
Ephesians and Colossians.
And may I say this also, we do
sing a lot of the psalms here and
I'm all for that.
That's in accordance with those two Scriptures that
we read.
When we sang the song this evening, Come
bless the Lord, all ye servants of the
Lord.
That's word for word right out of the
Bible.
I'm all for doing that.
As long as the spirit of the song
lines up with the Word.