Music That Edifies the Christian

Good morning. I had orders from Caleb that it was time. Caleb Esch.

It's good to be here. Brother Victor, it helps when we have time. I think that makes a big difference in people feeling free to come up and share like they did.

And it was a blessing to hear all the things that each of you had to say. And maybe there would have been more, but we don't want to abuse our privileges and I don't either. I was conflicted this week.

Many of you already noted that this is Thanksgiving week. And I really could have so easily gone down that road and I wanted to. And I want to say this much.

When I grew up as a boy, and I don't remember when I first saw this, but my mother had a plaque on the wall. And I can still picture it. And it just said this, a contented man is one who enjoys the scenery along the detours.

And I was just a young lad when I first saw that. And that was hanging in our house for all my growing up years. And I thought about that.

And I thought about that. And if I was going to preach on Thanksgiving this week, that would have been where I wanted to go to consider contentment and how that plays into a thankful heart. Because contentment is choosing to find joy in what I have and not longing for what I don't have or wish could be different.

And if you're going to have a thankful heart, you're going to have to find contentment. And that plaque, considering the message of that, a detour is something that we don't plan. It's something that we usually don't like, especially if we didn't know it was coming.

It's usually something that messes our schedule up, because we had plans to get from point A to point B. And so usually, I'm going to say a typical human experience is going to be to be irritated when we find a detour. But a contented man is one who enjoys the scenery along the detour. Can we learn to, by the grace of God, find beauty in the course of our lives, whatever it might be, and choose to find joy in our present circumstances, and not long for the things we wish could be different.

Thankfulness. So think about that this week. But I felt God gave me a clearing to share, or to begin, I should say, a conversation here about something I wanted to do for a long time, and I just haven't found the opportunity to do it.

And of course, it's been a great week for me just pondering all of the overflow of Bible School. That was so much fun last week. And I enjoyed it tremendously.

All the teaching and the interactions with the young people. It was rich. So this week, you know, just pondering the overflow of all that.

It's been a good week. And some of the things that the various teachers shared, I think, flow into some of my thoughts here this morning. But I'd like to, like I say, begin a conversation.

And I say that because I'm very sure that I will not cover all the material that I have here today. And even though we're running a little earlier than some Sundays, I don't want to abuse that either. And I'd rather take time and go through it carefully than rush.

So we're just going to see where it goes this morning. But this is a subject that affects every single one of us in this room. And it's a subject that has been significant in my life since I was a young lad.

It's a subject that I know is the concern of every single church or Christian group that I'm aware of in some way and many different angles that that can take. It's a subject that has been a source of. It's going to say contention, but that's not the right word interest.

In Christians, since day one, you can go back to the early church and you can find things written on this subject. Anybody want to guess what it might be? I pretty much guarantee that it what's that the Trinity? Well, that'd be a good theological subject. It is.

This is practical, though it's not. I mean, certainly theology is going to come into it, but it's it's a practical subject and it's it's something that probably touches every one of your lives every single day in some way. It's something that we have enjoyed already in this service this morning.

That's getting very close. Music, singing is certainly part of that, but I'd like to take a look at music and I decided to give it this title. Music that edifies the Christian.

And I decided to look at it in the third party because I think that might be easier for us, even though it is personal. And I want to ask some questions this morning that I hope we can ask ourselves personally. But I'd like to look at it in that sense.

Music that edifies the Christian. And I think I'd like to take that title apart and just start backwards with it. So we have Christian and I'd like to think about what these mean.

And we have edifies and then we have music. So let's think about what does it mean to be a Christian? If you were going to throw out a quick definition or some quick words that would describe what it means to be a Christian Disciple. Thank you.

I was looking for that one. Disciple of who? Yes. Which means we're trying to learn from him and emulate him and all the things he taught us.

What else? A servant. Yes. And that's going to be a servant of humanity, right? And a servant of Christ.

A worshipper. Thank you. Anything else? This is some really good descriptions.

A believer. Believer in what? In Jesus. In God himself.

As the author of all truth. A believer. Yes.

His followers the same as his disciples. Very similar. They're related.

All right. There's probably more we could add to that. But that's good for now.

Let's think about the word edifies. What does edifies mean? If something is edifying. Okay.

Encouraged and build up. Yes. That's good.

Both of those. Anything else? Good challenge. Yes.

That's excellent. Anything else? Those are really good definitions. What is it? Fulfilling.

Sure. Education. Okay.

Sure. What's that? Or educate. Sure.

That's going to have a component of that. Promotes life and growth. Sure.

Okay. That's good. We could probably add more there too.

But I want you to think about if this is our identity. And I think all of us here would say we want to be Christians. We want to be in that first column.

We want to be disciples of Christ. We want to be followers of Christ. But then in this area of music.

Music edifying. All of this overlays this. How can we be encouraged to be a disciple? How can we be built up? How can we be challenged in a good way to be these things? How can we be fulfilled? You see how that works? So I want you to think about that.

Now music. Anybody but Yuri. Give me a definition of what music is to you.

A faith enhancer. Okay. Sure.

That's a spiritual definition of music. It will do that if it's edifying. What else? Y'all sang here this morning.

What did it sound like? Did you enjoy that? Why? Is it different than me preaching or the people that were sharing? There's beauty. Yes. Absolutely.

I should have excluded you too. But all right. We'll go with it.

What did you say? Organized sound. All right. Sound with power.

That's good. Harmony. Thank you.

Yes. Very well. All right.

Yuri. Anything to cap that off with? I figured. Tones ordered in time.

Sure. That's a very basic definition of music. All right.

So again, there's more we could add there, but I think that gives us a pretty good platform to work from. Am I right that music affects every one of our lives? Is there anybody here that just can't relate to music at all? I don't think so. And that's why I carry this burden on my heart.

And Brother Ken talked about the song. I have two little hands. I have two little ears.

I have two little feet. All those things. But there's another children's song that says, Oh, be careful, little ears, what you hear.

How many of the children know that song? Yeah. And that's a good consideration. Also, as we think about that, there's a father up above, and he's looking down in love.

Oh, be careful, little ears, what you hear. The Apostle Paul said in First Corinthians 1031, Whatsoever, whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. So once again, if we have a desire to be in that first column as a Christian, then it becomes incumbent upon us to consider how does this music that's coming into my ears work in the second column, edifying me, building me up, encouraging me to be a Christian? That is a good question.

And I'd like to say this is a personal choice because this area has so much spiritual impact. And I think faith enhancer, Sister Susie said, is very true. This has so much impact.

And Brother Mark, he said sound with power. Your first part of that definition. You said something that that took it to a spiritual dynamic.

And it does. I want to look into Scripture this morning to see how music has spiritual power. And it does.

And because of that, Christians have been concerned about music since Christianity was formed, since it started. There's a tremendous amount of reference to music in the Old Testament as well. And throughout the centuries, there have been many different ways that Christians have approached the subject of music, trying to shape it into a way that that conforms to edification.

Some of that's been misguided. In fact, maybe I could say much of it has because of our human propensity to shape things into a way that as humans, we can get our hands around. There was great controversy during the Reformation period over harmony.

And I'll get into what the different components of music just a little bit. And I'm really priming the pump for Uri. I want him to come up here someday and help us understand from all his great wisdom and knowledge that he's learned in his education, how we can apply those principles to music in a good way.

So I'm going to be pretty basic. I have a basic understanding of music, but I think there's so much more that can go into this. But in the Reformation period, when harmony was first introduced, some saw that as a threat and they didn't like it.

And there was tremendous pushback against the hymns that we enjoy in our books today. And, you know, the power that we experience, the spiritual power, the faith enhancement that we get when we sit here and sing together like we did this morning, when your heart is engaged in the message of that song and the harmony flows together in a way that that opens your heart to that message, there's power there and it's good. But that wasn't always so.

Over the years, some have aimed at instruments as the problem in music. And I get it. I understand why.

But I think that's also probably misguided. Brother Carl Sensnick, right? Yes. Do you remember that day? And I think it was 1987 in Vineland, New Jersey, when I forget which bishop it was, came down to introduce the no guitar rule.

I don't. I remember that distinctly. And that was the church that we were part of at that time.

The answer to that issue. And as far as I know, they've still maintained it. Other churches, well, Pilgrim, which came out of Eastern, has recently just changed that.

And I'm not here to criticize any of those attempts. The interest in this area is a reasonable one. But I am going to tell you, before Eastern even passed that rule, country music was already banned.

And yet I had there was about six boys in my peer group there at the congregation where I grew up or where I my late teen years. And there was at least two of those boys that regularly listened to country music in spite of the fact that there was a rule against it. We weren't allowed to have radios.

And yet they had their radios disabled by the antenna being removed. But some of them had figured out how to make a coat hanger work in place of the antenna. And they literally would keep it under the seat of their car or somewhere where they could, at a time when they chose, put it in and listen to country music.

And then it became a cat and mouse game. Sometimes the bishops were out there going through cars during the or it was usually the bishops during a service while the boys were in here doing whatever they were going to do during the service. I don't think they always got much out of it because of where their hearts were.

And they were trying to catch them at what they were doing. I'm going to tell you this morning, that is not the answer. And I believe with all my heart that that these principles I want to look at here today are an area of personal choice that we have got to decide how we're going to approach this issue.

If we want to be a believer, then I have to make choices in how I'm going to approach this area of music. And I will say today, we're what 35 years heading on 40 past that point in time. And technology has changed so utterly much.

Our access to music has changed so utterly much. You know, back back then it was cassette tapes, and I had quite a collection of cassette tapes. How many of you still have cassette tapes? All right, more hands that I would have thought how many of you still actually have a machine that can play cassette tape? All right, some of you still do.

But they're definitely on their way out. And we had CDs come in. And now those are also on their way out.

Most new cars don't have a CD player anymore. And so you know, and everything is downloadable now. And I would suppose a great many of you have a streaming account of some sort, Spotify or something like that.

And it has opened up a world of opportunity in the area of music. And I'm going to say it's a world that cannot be controlled by preachers or churches, to a certain extent, even fathers. So does that mean we give up? We don't care.

No, more important than ever is that we understand and teach the principles that we can find in scripture to figure out how we should be making choices and decisions and young people. And I'm going to say not just young people, old people, too. We've got to get a hold of this for ourselves.

And we have to decide, do I want to be a disciple? Do I want to be a Christian? Do I want to be a follower of Jesus? Do I want to be one that has the convictions of my heart to honor him in the way I live? And if I do, what choices am I going to make in this area? And I'll probably repeat this a few times, but music is one of those things that both expresses our hearts, but also feeds us. It does both. And it does both on a continual basis.

You show me your music and I'll know what's in your heart. But you show me your music and I also know what's feeding you. And I do believe that there is a distinct relationship between so many of the struggles that we face in our Christian lives and the music that we engage in.

So think about all that. What is music? Well, as we looked at, and I think Yuri and Mark's definitions are pretty good. Webster's just says it's melody or harmony, any succession of sounds so modulated or put together as to please the ear.

It sounds pretty to us. It's there's beauty in it. Whoever gave that definition or any combination of simultaneous sounds in accordance or harmony.

Music is music is vocal or instrumental. Vocal music is the melody of a single voice or the harmony of two or more voices in concert. So we had harmony going on here today.

Instrumental music is that produced by one or more instruments. And that's just simply the Webster's definition. There's a bit more technical definition.

It's an art form. And that's where the beauty comes in, because music is a form of human expression that is taking things that I don't believe any human created. When did music originate? And again, I'd love to hear Yuri's thoughts on this.

He's probably studied it more deeply than I. But I think that there's a possibility that music was preexisted creation. There's a reference to that in Job 38, verse seven, it says, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. And Lucifer was referred to as a a I think a son of God when he before his fallen state.

And so I think there's a possibility that there was music in eternity past before creation. I don't know how far back that goes or when. But it's interesting to me.

When was sound created? I couldn't find any indication in Genesis one, that sound was created as part of the creation of all the things that we know on earth. And music just simply being the organization of sound in a pleasing way, leverages sound. So all that to say this, as we consider all that music is, its elements are clearly not created by any human.

And sometimes we talk about, you before us. However, our humanity influences how that is expressed. And our humanity is influenced by our choices to be a believer or not be a believer.

And everything that flows out of that, it's an expression of the human heart, not a creation. So here's a here's a consideration. And I know, maybe some of you would feel this way.

I kind of hope not. But I'd like you to reconsider if you do. Does music really matter? Is it really that big of a deal? Or is it just some little thing over here that I wish everybody let me alone on? It's just my taste.

And I really don't think God cares. So here's a question. Does music have a moral component to it? Is music moral? Meaning does it affect our lives for good or for bad? In some way? Just think about that.

And I'm not going to say that every piece of music is necessarily directly moral. But I do believe as I've studied the subject that music as a whole has a moral component in the way it affects our lives. So I just would like you to give that consideration.

And in human experience, music communicates. We communicate tremendously through music. And thus it has a powerful effect on us.

The Bible is full of music. Nearly all worship in the Old Testament includes and references music. You can find it prolifically there.

Psalms reveals David's love of music and how it expressed his heart. And we all know David played harp and apparently played harp quite well. Where did David learn to play harp? I don't know.

Did they have music teachers back then? I don't know. But I know David spent a great amount of time out in the sheep pastures taking care of the flocks. And I guess I'd like to believe that he might have doodled on his harp to pass time.

And frankly, learning to make music that way is a very enjoyable thing for most humans that I know. Once they learn to make music in some way, and it can be vocal or it can be instrumental, but it's just fun. They enjoy it.

So I tend to think that's probably what happened to David. He learned how to play in a rudimentary way. And he just spent hours out there with his harp.

And I think he got pretty good. So we'll look at some of that. There is a spiritual expression and connection in music.

If you have your Bibles, please open them. We'll start in First Samuel, Chapter 16. And this is David with his harp.

But I want you to consider here, what is the spiritual connection of music to the human experience? And the context of this is Saul being rejected as king by God because of the disobedience that he had portrayed. David had just been anointed as king secretly. The first part of this chapter, David was brought in from the fields after Samuel had been through all the rest of Jesse's sons.

But God had chosen David. But I'd like to start in verse 14 for the context of what I want to look at here today. But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.

Now, that is intriguing on its own surface. You know that an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. I believe that you could certainly go back and look at the sequence of events in Saul's life and understand how his own choices and his own disobedience, his own pride led to this condition, because God makes the rules.

We choose whether we're going to follow them. Saul chose not to. And so an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him while the spirit of the Lord had departed from him.

And that was the condition. I guess I'll read on. And Saul's servant said unto him, Behold, now an evil spirit from God troubled thee.

Let our Lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man who is a cunning player on an heart. 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. So clearly there was some knowledge there, even among Saul's counselors, that music would have an effect on this evil spirit that he was experiencing.

So then Saul agreed, thought this is a good idea. Verse 17, Provide me now a man that can play well and bring him to me. Verse 18, I've seen the son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, that is cunning and playing and a mighty and mighty, valiant man and a man of war and prudent in manners and a comely person.

Is that a is that a quite a description, a positive description of a person? But I think the last phrase is very significant. And the Lord is with him. Young men, you want to have that kind of a testimony in your life? Find yourself in that first column.

Cunning and playing, a mighty, valiant man, a man of war and prudent in matters and a comely person. The Lord is with him. So Saul sent messengers to Jesse and he said, Send David thy son.

And Jesse gave him provisions and sent him to Saul. Verse 21, David came to Saul and stood before him and he loved him greatly and became his armor bearer. So all those positive attributes that were in David were attractive to Saul.

He loved this young man. Obviously, he was blind to the fact of what God was doing in the background. David had been anointed king to replace him.

Had he known that? I don't think it would have been quite this way. But nevertheless, because David was all of these things and a comely person, Saul found him pleasing. So they got close.

And Jesse, I mean, Saul wanted David to stay with him and he requested David's father for that. And it came to pass in verse twenty three when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul. And I don't know what that all looked like, but I do know that when an evil spirit torments a person, it's usually not pretty.

It's not fun. And it has effects on people around him. So I'm guessing that there was things going on with Saul like that.

So when this evil spirit from God was upon Saul, then David took a harp and he played and Saul was refreshed and was well and the evil spirit departed from him. I'm not going to go into all of the nuances of that, except to say that there is a very clear connection between the music that David was expressing and the evil spirit that was upon Saul. Clear spiritual connection.

Now, let's go to second Kings and chapter three. And we find here another situation that demonstrates a clear connection of spirit to music. And this is actually the prophet Elisha.

And the context of this was the king of Israel, who was Jehoram now, and he was the son of Ahab. And he was a moderately, how should I say, moderately wicked king. Is that the right way to say it? It says he wrought evil in the sight of the Lord, but not like his father.

So Ahab was like radically wicked. Jehoram was a little bit wicked. And he did do some things in Israel that were good.

He put away the image of Baal. But nevertheless, he and Elisha were not friends. He was not a godly man.

He was not somebody that would have normally sought out Elisha's counsel. And then I think it was Jehoram that wanted to go out and fight against the king of Moab. Yes.

And so he wanted allies. So he sent for Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, in verse seven. And as they passed through Edom, the king of Edom joined them.

And he had three kings going after the king of Moab. And but they went out there and they ran into a problem. And the problem was that they ran out of water.

In verse nine, it says they comp a seven days journey and there was no water for the hosts. We had three kings and all their armies and all of their cattle that they were bringing along for food for the armies and no water, no water. And that quick, they were in a fix.

And it's very interesting how this works, because, you know, even people who are moderately wicked, when they get themselves into a human fix, they want to reach out to God for answers. We saw that 9-11 country doesn't want to pray, but all of a sudden then they prayed. Well, same thing happened here.

They got in this fix. And all of a sudden, the king of Israel, Jehoram, he says, Alas, Lord has called these three kings together. Well, was this really God's fault? I don't think he had asked God before this whether they should go.

And so but he said, the Lord has called these three kings and he's going to deliver them into the hand of Moab, because here we are with no water. We're all weak. We've got a problem.

We can't do anything. Jehoshaphat, who was much more of a godly person, he said, is there not a prophet that we can inquire by? Well, of course, Elisha. So they call for Elisha and bring him in.

And Elisha says to Jehoram, what do I have to do with you? You do not love my God. I don't know what all the conversation was, but this was in verse 13. And he says, I would not come for your sake, but because I have respect to Jehoshaphat, I'll come.

So he came and they wanted to know what what God was going to do in this situation. But the interesting thing, and this is what I want to bring out after Elisha agreed to try and seek the face of God, what his will was for them in this situation in verse 15. But now bring me a minstrel and a minstrel was a I think a young woman who played a musical instrument of some sort and bring me a minstrel.

And it came to pass when the minstrel played that the hand of the Lord came upon him. This is Elisha. He's prophet of God.

He knew God. But in this situation where he needed a word from the Lord about this, he called for a minstrel and she played and the hand of the Lord came upon him. He gave the prophecy, told them what to do, make this valley full of ditches and the rest of the story played on and it actually went well for them.

But my point is that he called for a minstrel and music was used there to invoke the presence of the Spirit of God. I just want you to think about the power, like when we have our 20 minutes of singing here before a service and our hearts are engaged. Do you think that that has anything to do with what happens the rest of the service? Am I the only one that sometimes notices how the Holy Spirit lines the songs up, even when we're all choosing them at random and one builds upon another? There's power in music.

There's power in music and it didn't start in Second Kings. Now, here's another one back to Exodus and both of those that we looked at so far are good. This one's not good, but it still demonstrates the power of music and how it comes into play.

And this is a very sad story in Exodus 32, and I'm not going to read it all, but this is the story of where Moses had gone up to the mountain to hear from God and get the commandments that we know as the Ten Commandments. But he was gone for a long time. In verse one, it says the people saw that he was delayed to come down out of the mount.

They gathered themselves together under Aaron and they said unto him, up, make us gods which shall go before us. As for this, Moses, we don't know what is happening. What happened to him? Whole message in that, too, how we as humans are so unwilling to let God do things on his time.

And we think it has to be our time. So we have humanity here dissatisfied with something that God was doing, not willing to wait, wanted to take matters in their own hands and create a God that they could worship, that they could control, that they could do something about and do something with. And it's very sad.

Aaron played ball with them and he told them, break off your earrings. And he made them a molten calf in verse four and set it up before them and said, tomorrow we're going to have a feast and we're going to rejoice in this God. Well, it was.

Yeah, pure sacrilege in terms of the God that Moses had gone up to hear from and hear these people were doing this, going to fast forward through the story when Moses comes down. And and I think God had told him to come down and Moses came down in verse 18, and these are the words he said, it is not the voice of them that shout for the mastery. Neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome.

He wasn't hearing a battle cry. He wasn't hearing a wailing of sorrow. But he said, the noise of them that sing, do I hear? And you remember, Aaron had made them naked, it said, and maybe that was later on in this chapter.

But they had they went to serve this idol. They went to worship this idol in all the debauchery of humanity. Verse 25.

Thank you. Yes, Moses saw that the people were naked for Aaron had made them naked under their shame among the enemies. They were worshiping this idol, this God of their creation.

In all the debauchery of humanity, but singing was part of it. I just want you to think about the connection there in the spiritual experience. Now, back to the book of Daniel.

And this is one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament. For many reasons, Daniel is an inspiration as a young man to any Christian young man who wants to be in that first column. But this was an interesting test.

And this wasn't Daniel. This was his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. And this was when Nebuchadnezzar had decided that he was going to be God unto all of the people of Babylon.

And he was going to create this image, this image with a golden head. And he was going to make it be something that everybody was to fall down and worship. It sounded like great unification for the people of Babylon.

But there was one problem. There were these Hebrews who had been taken captive out of out of Israel and come from Jerusalem. And these young men were still committed to follow their God.

In fact, if you back up to to Daniel, chapter one, you will have the words of Daniel when he said that he purposed in his heart, verse eight, Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself. And how all that worked out. I don't know.

We have to put some imagination into it. But I can imagine that their experience there was a challenging one, as they desired and purposed in their heart to be faithful to this God that they served, this God that they knew, this God that they had been taught about, this God that they believed in. And yet they were here in this heathen land that there was no fear of God, no respect for God and no willingness to even acknowledge his presence.

And now they were put in this position where this tremendous statue was raised and everyone was ordered at the sound of the music to fall down and worship. Music was part of this experience. In verse five of chapter three, at the time that you hear the sound of the cornet, the flute, the harp, the sackbut, the psaltery, the dulcimer and all kinds of music.

And I wish I could know what that music sounded like. I don't know. Again, maybe Yuri can put something together out of all those instruments.

But I think there's a lot of different ways that those instruments could be played. So I have no idea what that music sounded like. But whatever it was, it was supposed to help motivate the people and bring them together to fall down and kneel and worship to this image of Nebuchadnezzar.

So these young men could not do it. And they refused. And the king said, Why won't you? And they said, We don't fear you, O king.

It is God that we will serve. And he got extremely angry. And it says his visage was changed and he ordered that furnace to be heated seven times hotter.

And you know the rest of the story. There was a fourth man that came into that fire and walked with them. Because these young men were firmly in that first column and they didn't know God was going to do that.

In fact, they had told the king, We're not careful to answer you. If so, be God is able to deliver us and he will deliver us out of your hand. But if he doesn't deliver us from the fire, be it known, we will not serve thy God.

That resolution of heart. So we had a fierce conflict here. We had music that was triggering this obeisance to this idol.

And we had young men who had a different loyalty who could not go along with that plan. That story, again, is a whole message in itself. But I want you to know the end of that story.

It's extremely powerful because of those three young men in the stand that they took and the deliverance that God brought. Nebuchadnezzar, this king who had made this image, who had given this decree, who had ordered all of this, who was so angry, he made that furnace hot. This was the decree he made at the end of that experience.

Therefore, I make a decree that every people, every nation and language which shall speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego shall be cut in pieces and their houses shall be made a dunghill because there is no other God that can deliver after the sword. All right. So my message this morning is not about standing alone, but it's here in this story tremendously.

But it is about how music ties together in a spiritual sense. So I want you to think about that. There's more we could look at, but music can have a good or a bad effect on a person.

It's as simple as that. And it's not just the reason. It's not just the lyrics.

It's not just the words, but it's actually the emotions and spirit that get affected by the music. And I believe all of those were in play in these stories. So will they be in our lives.

So I want to ask you, what is the spirit of music that you listen to? And I'm going to say this now, and I'm pretty much out of space on this board. Maybe I can put it over here. But in our definition of music there in the beginning.

There's a lot of technical technicalities that come into music. Music is an extremely intricate form of art. And so there's a lot about it that that even I am still learning at my age.

But there's a few basic elements that I think we can all understand. There is pitch, which is the variation of tone. And if you sing in a monotone all one way, well, that's one tone.

But when we sing our hymns like we do and our voices blend together and go up and down, there's variations in pitch. And there's also rhythm. Rhythm is the speed and the beat with which we sing or the tempo with which we sing or play music.

And all music has those elements. Yuri, is it safe to say, or Brother Mark, that all music has melody? Is that too black and white? All right. So it's a little more nuanced than that, he says.

And I will say music is nuanced. And that's partly what makes this issue so challenging for us. Music is nuanced.

And it's difficult to make a black and white line about anything. But yet there are some general principles that we need to understand that help us figure out what is edifying and what is not edifying. What will build us up in a good way and what will take us in a wrong direction? What will cause us to want to get naked and worship an idol? And what will cause us to want to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the one that has created each one of us? What are those things? So we have at least melody and harmony.

And in all of our music making, and I'm going to call that pitch, but it has both elements. And then we have the rhythm or the tempo. I'll just call it rhythm.

And just so those of you who are not too musical, and I know that many of you here are, so you understand these things. But when we sing a song of the month, many times our song leaders will tell us to let's all sing the melody in unison. All right, that is what can be sung in any song that will carry that song all by itself.

And there's a certain beauty in the melody. You can sing the melody. You can go out in the back of your yard and sing the melody as loud as you want.

And it will be a blessing to you because it makes sense. It works all by itself. But then we can add our four parts in and we sing alto and tenor and bass and add them in and we get harmony.

It all builds into the melody. Now, if you tried to sing alto, tenor and bass without the melody, it would sound a little funky. You can do that.

And some songs, some music leverages harmony more than melody. But as a general rule, if you don't have the melody, the harmony is not going to work very well. So harmony builds on the melody in almost all of our songs that are going to be good.

And of course, all of that is put together with rhythm. And I'm just going to say this, not black and white, but this is Carl's experience after having lived 54 years. If you're going to really have music that is edifying, the message of the song should be carried by the melody.

And the melody should be accentuated. The harmony should build on that. And the rhythm puts it all together.

You really aren't going to think much about the rhythm. And none of us here as we sing these songs are thinking much about the rhythm. But some of you, especially those of you who know music and know the importance of it, I watch your feet move in time with the music sometimes.

Not bad at all. You're keeping time because those eighth notes and those quarter notes and those 16th notes, they mean something. Now, some of you don't have a clue what that is.

You don't know the difference. I get that. I personally wish that we could have rudiments of music for our entire congregation.

So we all understood because I will tell you. All right. Excellence is a beautiful thing.

And for me, the beauty of music is what makes it such a wonderful art expression. And I actually believe that's rooted in creation. When God created human beings and he created after he created everything else, created all the animals, all the birds, all the fish, he said it was good.

But then he created humans and he said, it is very good. And this is not my message this morning, but there are so many things that set humans apart from all the rest of the created kingdom, the world, so many things. But do you know that the ability to express music is one of them? And I know animals make their own music.

Birds each have their own chorus. But largely, each species of bird has one chorus. Mockingbird is the exception.

They mock them all and they're fun to listen to, except that two in the morning. I don't always like them. But nevertheless, animals are limited to whatever sound range and sound arrangement they've been given.

They don't really have the ability to vary that very much. They don't really have the ability to learn. Humans have a unique ability to take sound and arrange it in such a way and express it in such a way that it creates an amazing effect.

And I believe that God wants the beauty of that to reflect him. Remember, God said, I created humans, male and female, in the image of God created he them. And I just believe that there is beauty in all of these things that God wants to reflect his very nature.

If you have any doubt about God's appreciation for beauty. Just take a moment to step around, step back and look at the world around you. There is so much in nature that is ridiculously beautiful.

Why? And it could be argued that most of it doesn't serve any practical purpose. It's just beautiful. And humans enjoy those things, regardless whether you're a believer or not.

I'm amazed how many atheists and profess nonbelievers will go out and enjoy the beautiful things of nature. There's no evolutionary reason why they should be the way they are, but they love them. I'll tell you, I'm a believer, but I think it all reflects God and his love for things beautiful.

So I believe as humans, we have a mandate from creation to express that beauty in a way that honors him, in a way that pleases him, in a way that reflects who he is and all his goodness. And so I think it is a very godly thing for us to learn to sing well. And I'm going to say this, and I'm not, I love my background.

In fact, after Stanley Sensenick's sessions this last week, I love it more than I ever did, because there's a mandate for us to be obedient in the things, in the way we live. And Anabaptism is a set of, it's a lifestyle that flows out of practical obedience to Scripture. It's not a box that we've created.

The box happened because people desired to be obedient. So when I say things that might be critical of our Anabaptist heritage, take it with a grain of salt. I am not against our Anabaptist heritage, but we have some weaknesses.

And I'm going to say, at least in my lifetime, here's one that I've seen. We are very good at pursuing excellence in anything that has practical benefit to us. So if I'm a farmer, the latest and greatest technology is good.

Making my rows straight as an arrow is a point of pride, so that you can drive down the road, you can look down my corn rows, and they are even, they are straight, there is no variation, and I'm a good farmer. I control my weeds, I do all those things. If we're a builder, we take pride in doing good work.

Our framing will be square. It will be tight. We will deliver to our customers a product that will last them for life.

And on and on we could go. In our houses, we want everything neat and pretty and clean and attractive. And it's good stewardship.

We wash our cars every week. On and on I could go. When it comes to practical things, we are really, really good at doing things in an excellent way.

But then we come to church and we sit down to sing and we mumble. And I don't understand. Why don't we put the same effort into pursuing excellence in this expression of beauty as we do in all these other areas of life? And I know I'm not critical.

I know Scripture says, make a joyful noise unto the Lord. And many times we console ourselves with that. Well, I make a joyful noise.

I agree. If a joyful noise is all we know how to make, then praise the Lord. It is a beautiful thing.

And we have some among us here. I'm not going to say names because I don't want to embarrass. But we have some among us who don't have the ability to do anything but that.

And it is a glorious thing for them to sing their hearts to the Lord. We had it going on during Bible school, sitting along the back wall and just full throated. It was a blessing to hear.

And I think God gets some glory from that, even if there's no harmony to it and maybe not much melody, a little bit. But there is expression beauty. But I do know that many of us are capable of so much more.

My question is, how much am I willing? How much effort am I willing to put into the expression of excellence in these things? It expresses the soul and the spirit within a man. And thus, it's a window into it. Now, when we come down to our music, which is much more than just the songs that we sing here on a Sunday morning.

That's part of it. But we consider the totality of the music that we engage in in our lives. I think for the bulk of us, it's going to be recorded music of some sort.

And some churches have actually gone to the point of saying, of banning recorded music. And probably for this reason. It makes it easier to control or try to control what is out there and could potentially influence us in a negative way.

But I'm going to say that is only going to work if you decide as a believer, I'm just going to not have any recorded music in my life because I don't want to deal with sorting it out. Now, I believe that's not where most of us are. I think most of us here listen to recorded music probably almost every day in our lives.

And I'm going to say, I think it's likely that we all should take a look at what is in our Spotify feed. What is in our streaming music? What is in the collection of music that we play in our cars when nobody else is with us? And what is that music doing to us? And how is that expressing the image of God? What is it? How is it feeding us? Or how is it tearing us down? Is it an encouragement? Is it edifying? Or is it the opposite? Music expresses our heart's desires, our intentions and our longings. And it feeds us in a spiritual way.

It has a powerful effect on us. So, what is the spirit of your music? Paul says in Galatians 5, Walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.

And these are contrary one to another. So, you cannot do the things that you would. And I will tell you, music powerfully plays into that interface.

There is a tension between the flesh and the spirit. The flesh being represented by all things that come from the enemy of our souls. In 1 John 2.15, The world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.

These things are not of the Father, but they're of the world. There's a tremendous tension with the motivations for music that come from that perspective. Versus the expression of music that comes from God and his spirit and brings edification to us.

Can you appreciate that? Brother Dean Taylor said, one of his quotes, You worship the way you think God is. That's pretty profound and it has an application on a great many levels. But you worship the way you think God is.

So, if God is distant, if he's far off, if he's somebody I really can't connect with. And I'm just, I'm not sure I want to believe. But God's out there somewhere.

I can tell you our worship in music is going to reflect that. You're going to find music that is pretty emotional, pretty soulish. And feeds that narrative that God is far away.

And because music both expresses and feeds, you're creating a problem for yourself. Because you're building a wall around yourself with the idea that God is far away. And not somebody that I can closely connect with.

I think Jesus' words in John 4 to the woman at the well could fit this area. When he told her, he said, you worship you know not what. Do you know what you worship? Especially in this area of music.

I do believe that there is a lot of Christians today that have good hearts and real desires to live for God. But are not reckoning with the weakening effect that music brings into their lives. And they're worshiping.

They know not what. And I do believe that this has a strong bearing on the struggles that we face in our spiritual lives. What drives your music tastes? What has formed them? What has programmed them? And I would like us to all consider we are programmed by something.

We're programmed by the Spirit of God or the lusts and desires of our flesh. And those things are going to determine how we make choices in music. I have just a few minutes yet.

And I'd like to talk about the relationship between the harmony, the melody and the rhythm. One of the things that is interesting to me is that just about all of the recorded music. Well, I shouldn't say all.

There's actually you can build out on Spotify a very edifying list of music. I have one. It's many, many hours long and there's good, good music there.

There's good songs. There's good. But it's probably I'm probably working in one or two percent of what is out there.

The vast majority of music that you'll find is not music that is going to be edifying in some way. And this area of beat is one of them. And again, this is very nuanced.

And this is one of the reasons that I feel like we should have some people who have the knowledge and education about these things to help us sort through it. It's not there's not black and white lines you can draw. But how many of you know what the term syncopation means? All right, about half, maybe two thirds of you.

And but in short, music tempo. And I don't know the reasons for this. I'd like to understand this, too.

Why do the rules of music make tempo be what they are? But you can look in your songbooks and you'll find a timing given at the beginning of most of the songs that will be three, four or four, four. And there's a specific tempo that's expected with that with that timing. So a three, four is going to have the emphasis on the first beat and the next two will be lesser.

So you'll have a boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That will be the tempo of four, four will be first and third. And so, again, somebody smarter than I have to say how those rules got made or what drives them.

But that is the way they are. Syncopation messes that up. Syncopation either sticks another beat in there somewhere or messes up the expected, what our ears are expecting to hear from that music.

And it adds all kinds of effects. And some of our hymns have some syncopation, but it's very light. You really will have to know what it is to be able to go find it.

But here's something to consider. And this was interesting to me to consider. When people who are not motivated by this first column of a desire to be a Christian are creating music and taking these sounds and arranging them for specific purposes, they leverage these things to accomplish specific ends.

And one of the places where they use syncopation heavily and teach it and leverage it is creation of dance music. What is dance music supposed to do? It's supposed to make you move. It wants to make your body go.

And they know how to do it. And they will create music that you just about cannot stand still to. And I have on my computer the dance music manual.

I have no interest in creating dance music. But I did have great interest in understanding what goes into the creation of music and of such music. And there is a whole section on there dedicated to this concept of syncopation and how you insert syncopation into music, how you take an otherwise ordinary piece of music and you create some syncopation in it and you will produce this effect in the body.

Now, many of us are just oblivious to these realities. But just like the fashion designers out there are creating clothes with a specific desire to achieve a certain end, and most of it is not godly, not Christian, so are music creators creating music content to achieve a certain end. And this thing of manipulating the beat is very much part of it.

Most Christian contemporary music that we listen to today has a heavy beat component to it that actually flows out of the rock and roll genre of music. And rock and roll as a genre largely started in the 60s. It's not that old.

The very first parts of it, I think maybe the 50s, but the 60s during the hippie movement was when it got really strong. I was born in 1970, so I remember rock music being around my entire life. But you can back up before that and it wasn't here.

Country music only originated a few decades before that in this country. And before that, none of that was here. I didn't spend enough time to go back and find out what music they were listening to prior to 1900.

But I have a feeling classical was a significant part of it. That's been around a long, long, long time. And so regardless what all that is, I'm saying that our music today, if you listen, flip on any Christian radio station, about two in the afternoon, most of them, BBN network still has a lot of much better music.

But you flip on WDAC, two in the afternoon, you will get CCM music that is very beat oriented and pretty heavily syncopated. And that's what we're listening to as Christians. I frankly think it's also what we're listening to as Mennonites.

I believe that. And our church rules really don't matter because, again, the bishop simply can't control what's in your car and what's in your pocket. And some young people are, I'm going to say a minority of young people, are being maybe circumspect about it.

But I think most are listening to some form of these things in a pretty regular basis. There's a whole lot you could get into in this area of beat. But I'm going to say that I think this heavily rhythm oriented music that puts the rhythm ahead of the harmony and the melody, that the rhythm component becomes the driver of the music and the other stuff follows along.

I'm going to say I do not think that that is largely reflective of how God wants music to be. Now, you can say that's Carl's crazy idea, but all I'm going to say is please think about it. So, there's tons of studies out there that document the effect of music on animals.

And I'm not just making a pitch for classical music this morning, but classical music has been proven to make cows give more milk. Rock music does not. And the same thing is true for the effect on dogs and many other things.

I think there's physical effects that happen to us. And I will tell you, I'm not used to it at all. I was in Mexico two weeks ago for that business trip that I have to take twice a year.

And the dinner that they had on Friday evening, they had hired a local Mexican DJ. And I had the misfortune of being sitting right smack in front of the speakers. I will not make that mistake again.

And it was because there was a friend of mine who had gotten a table and I don't think he realized either what was going on, but he had saved me a seat. So, there I was. I couldn't, I didn't get through the whole dinner.

I left early. My head literally ached because, and it was rock music. I didn't know the pieces, but it was extremely heavy beat.

And it was just pounding so much that, you know, literally could feel myself vibrate every time those speakers went. I don't know how people get used to that and physically can live with it. But I'm not used to it.

And it hurt after about an hour and 15 minutes. I just couldn't take it. So, I made an excuse and I left.

But the fact of the matter is we get conditioned for these things. And I know most of our CCM music is not that heavily, not that heavy of a beat, but you analyze it and you see if that beat component is not a strong one. I'm going to go five more minutes, then I'll quit.

I know I'm running over time, but there's two testimonies that I would like to read to you. One of these is a testimony of a converted satanic high priest. So, he was a man who was a priest of Satan.

And they're around, believe it or not, probably in greater numbers today than they've been any time before. They're around. But this man was converted from that.

So, here's this testimony. My background is not a good one, but I give thanks and praise to God for saving me from it. I was a Satanist high priest for nine years.

And I'm writing today in regard to Christian music or what is called Christian rock and roll and contemporary Christian music and their counterparts, secular rock and roll, heavy metal, black metal, country music, and of course, rap and punk. And all of those genres will leverage tempo to a great extent in driving the music. I understand that I cannot judge groups as to whether or not they are genuine believers.

But the Bible does say that we are to judge their fruit. The Bible says we are to be Christlike. So, first column.

Some groups who play this kind of Christian, quote, music say that they do so because it's the only way they can reach the young people of today. And incidentally, I personally engage that. There's a church that I have done a fair amount of interaction with in New York City that probably 10 years ago developed a worship band and they were very much playing and they were good at it, playing this type of music.

Their band had a name. They've actually come to Lancaster County to show off their skills and they're good at it. But when I engaged some of the preachers there on this, this was exactly what they said.

Well, we're in New York City and we're trying to win city youth. And so we think this is the way to do it. We're this many years out and to my eyes, it hasn't worked out very well.

But he's not wrong about this. They do so because it's the only way they can reach the young people of today. They claim that we must look like the world and use the world's music in order to reach the young people with the word of God.

How long will Christians allow themselves to be deceived and lied to by Satan, the father of lies? The Bible says we are to be in the world, but not of it. Not a part of it. It also says to be a friend with the world is to be an enemy of God.

As ambassadors for Christ, we should represent him the best we can. Christ never changed his appearance, whether he talked with kings or the poor. When I first became involved in the occult, music, listen to this.

Music had a big influence on my life. It was not just the words, not just the lyrics, but the music itself. Its effect on me spiritually was to bring me into another state of consciousness.

The beat and the style of the music used in the occult rituals is the same that I now hear in Christian rock and roll, Christian rap, and in much of what is called Christian contemporary music. People who were saved from the youth culture of today say, I cannot listen to this Christian music when I hear it. It takes me back to my past when I was lost, and it brings all that back to me.

Lustful desires, love of money, sex, suicide, and rebellion against authority. Normally, a Christian will only take only what is good and leave the bad. But this discernment does not always work with music, because if the music is bad and the words are good, many Christians are not able to separate them, and both are swallowed together.

Satan tried a mixed message tactic on Jesus in the desert when he misquoted scripture by mixing it with half-truths, and Jesus rebuked him. That's from David Pratt. And then this is a testimony from an immigrant from Zimbabwe.

He was a Christian, grew up in Zimbabwe, and came to America. And when he arrived for his first visit to the United States, he turned on a Christian radio station, listened to the music, and he was shocked. And here's what he said.

I am very sensitive to the beat in music, because when I was a boy, I played the drums in our village, worship rituals. The beat that I played on the drum was to get the demon spirits out of me. And I was shocked.

I was shocked to hear the beat that I used to get the demon spirits into the people. When I became a Christian, I rejected this kind of beat, because I realized how damaging it was. And when I turned on the Christian radio station in the United States, I was shocked.

The same beat that I used to play to call up the evil spirits is in the music that I heard on the Christian radio station. Now, and I will tell you, when I read that, that one, and it's Steve Mafosa is his name, but that one struck home, because I've lived in Ghana. I spent a lot of time there at that mission house in Elmina.

And we had a witch doctor live right next door. In fact, she tried to get rid of us. And I think it was during the time we lived there, there had been conflict because, you know, she was of this kingdom.

We were of this kingdom. And we had a cordial relationship, but a very tense one all the time that we lived there. And there was many a Friday and Saturday night that we would try to sleep while this music was going on out there.

And for her, just like it was for this man, it was a medium for calling in those demon spirits. And there was one time she made a concerted effort to make us move out, because and that was what she was trying to call the demons for. And she finally gave up.

And her testimony was that their God is more powerful. And today she's not there. But that thing of the music being used for demonic worship is a very real thing.

What about country music? We can talk a while about this one. Country music is a slippery slope. You know, it can seem kind of harmless in some ways.

And frankly, there's some country songs that are just kind of fun. But I'm going to tell you, if you make a diet of country music for any length of time, you're going to be affected by the sensuality that is there. And I don't think there's any other way to describe it.

And I think you would agree with me. Even if you like it, I think you would have to agree with me that it's largely sensual in nature. There's no way that we can give ourselves to that as believers who want to be in this first column and not have the works of the flesh impacted by those things.

So I'm going to end there. Again, I have a lot more, but maybe I'll organize it into a continuation at some point. But Psalm 40 in verse 3, it says, He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God.

Many shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord. Do you have a new song this morning in your heart? Steps to victory. Repent.

Remove. Replace. And resist.

Four R's. If you have a struggle with music in your life this morning, remember those four steps. Just repent.

Say, God, I'm sorry. I've been allowing music that's not good. Repent of it.

Remove it. They did that in the book of Acts. But it's pretty easy on your music feeds.

Just delete. The stuff that's not good. Replace.

Search out stuff that you know answers your spirit before God. And then resist the temptation to go back. And I believe it's possible to walk in victory in these things.

Your choice of music will shape you and it will express your heart. The music we choose is an externalization of our religion. Are we musically influencing our culture for the glory of God? Or are we being influenced musically by the world's idea of culture? That is a quote from Kimberly Smith in the book Music and Morals.

All things are lawful, Paul says, but all things are not expedient. Can we stop using that verse as an excuse for carnal loves? And realize even if it's not black and white, maybe I need to make better choices. Instead of focusing on what's wrong with your music and just how close you can get to the evil before being touched by it, maybe we should ask what's right about it and how right can I get in my music? How much does this honor God? How much does this edify me as a Christian? And here's another one that I think is a good principle.

At least I follow it in my life in many areas. But if in doubt, don't. If it's questionable, just don't go there.

You don't have to. And again, it's about choices. There's plenty of safe territory to explore in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord.

So let's honor God with our music and let's seek music that edifies the Christian. God bless you and thank you for your attention. Thank you for listening to this message.

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