W E HAVE LOOKED at some of the messages that stream daily from the media. I think the arena of music is significant enough to warrant a focus of its own.
The abundance of television channels now available include myriad music and dance stations that drip-feed a frenetic diet of bass, beats, and sexual booty. Let’s not forget radio, of course, perhaps considered by some as the poor relation of the media but hugely active in sending music’s messages around the airwaves.
It wasn’t too long ago that you had to simply listen to your favorite songs and then buy a few albums. Now the extra-visual dimensions have changed the dynamic. Most songs are released with an accompanying video or short film. Even our tiny children are learning some of the moves long before they understand any of the lyrics being sung. I wouldn’t want to be so harsh as to suggest that there is no original, musical talent out there; you know the rather cynical joke that “I used to remember when musicians could actually play their instruments and sing without the need for digital tuning.” Nevertheless, the product is considered today very much as a saleable product, and sex sells. Tie that in to certain artists who have bound themselves into an occult agenda as well, and we have quite a potent mix.
Our eye and ear stations are almost bombarded with images, lyrics, and commentary that center around sex. You would almost think that sex was the only thing worthy of any attention in life.
Popular magazines driven by the fashion and music industries make demands upon their readers and hearers: “This is what you need to be. This is what people want. Men want this, and women like it like that. This is how you will please others, gain popularity, and be loved.”
Of course, not all the content of advertising is unworthy of praise. Encouraging you to look your best, to try a new look or hairstyle, to dare to express yourself more confidently—these things are not unhelpful in themselves. Some of the dance choreography in the pop industry is excellent too. But it’s the motive that underlies many articles and songs that carries an agenda, one which confronts us with who we are and believe we are and suggests that we are just not good enough.
Most people enjoy some genre of music or another. There is much within the physics of sound and rhythm that calls to something very deep within us. Melody touches us very deeply in personal ways, and there is a power and energy about corporate enjoyment of music. Just look at a football crowd singing at the tops of their voices, arms raised, anthems joined alongside synchronized clapping of hands. The same can be witnessed at rock and pop concerts, perhaps even more so since there is no division of support at such venues.
The innate desire to worship is evident, to share in glory, to belong, to experience an intimacy and security within a common love. And so, with the music industry, perhaps it is no surprise that the usurper attempts to distort the messages of love and inhabit them with lust, perversion, and a rallying call to push the boundaries of decency ever further. To those who would resist, the message is clear: “You are bound up in your repression. You would limit our freedom. How could you do such a thing in a painful world? What is the harm in spreading the love and allowing people to give and take pleasure as they so wish?”
It’s a very one-dimensional mantra, but with money, glitz, a celebrity culture, and a whole load of repetition, our youth sing along; and some of these empty but shrill messages stick.
For our Christian youth, doubts can surface. Perhaps society has moved on. Perhaps a relevant church, once modernized, will become more tolerant in the twenty-first century. Fashions change, after all.
The Bible comments:
That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.
—ECCLESIASTES 1:9
The world has seen it all before. Perhaps the taste and character of it have been different, but in essence, as Ecclesiastes quotes, there is nothing new under the sun.
The fallen nature of man is unchanged since Eden, and it is only in Jesus Christ that one can leave that behind and become a new creation, where old things pass away and all things become new.
Music has been an instrumental part of worship for hundreds of years. Jeremiah saw dance in the celebrations of the people of Israel:
Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel! Again you will take up your tambourines, And go forth to the dances of the merrymakers.
—JEREMIAH 31:4
David danced as an act of worship:
And David was dancing before the LORD with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod.
—2 SAMUEL 6:14
We are encouraged to join in and celebrate our God!
Let them praise His name with dancing; Let them sing praises to Him with timbrel and lyre.
—PSALM 149:3
Dance is His, and music is His. When the Holy Spirit births new music and dance in the church, there is a powerful, prophetic release. A dance with no words at all can speak so powerfully. I believe the days are coming and are upon us where the power of the Spirit is going to set people free as they simply witness a dance or participate in a time of worship; He does not need our formulas to work His works!
As with all spiritual shifts, the primary dynamic is vertical, not horizontal. Prophetic dance and worship change the spiritual atmosphere. Angels war and win, displacing darkness and releasing even the unwitting into new freedoms. I love the prophetic ministry and operate in it, but I would prefer more of us to hear Him directly and be released and healed by Him as we simply seek Him in His presence. “Clunk!” Something falls off your or my life because we are wrapped in the manifest presence of God.
I have been leading worship for many years, for over twenty years at least. I have learned that what matters is what He does. We are to make a space for Him, for Him to be comfortable. We are not going to try and push and pull Him this way and that way. We are not going to settle for asking Him to bless what we are doing. We want to partner with Him in what He would do. His yoke, as we have discussed, is easy. It is efficient; it works. I love a tight, meaty band, and I love a solo, acoustic guitar. He will inhabit both. He will inhabit what we bring to Him to fill.
Lust cannot operate in a holy atmosphere. Watch a beautiful woman dance to Jesus, and lust will fall off your life. The fake cannot abide in the presence of the real.
I remember many years ago visiting a messianic church in London. The occasion was the Feast of Tabernacles. Among the guests that evening was Helen Shapiro, a messianic Jew who had released a song with Sir Cliff Richard entitled “We Being Many.” The words describe how the church has been grafted into the vine of Israel through Jesus. She did not perform the song that evening, but it was played, accompanied by a choreographed dance group. I tell you, something was released as they did that! It was awesome—magnificent! At the end we were all cheering, up on our feet, just like a football crowd. You see, it spoke.
There are places for us to go in the Spirit in dance and worship.
In the nineties, at a MorningStar Worship and Warfare conference in Florida, the worship just went on and on one night. They worshipped for hours, literally. Near the end of this time, the worship band started to play The Beatles’ “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” as a prophetic word from Jesus. I mean, could the title be more apt? As the people worshiped and finished the song—and continued to cry out to the Lord in worship and praise—a cloud appeared on the stage. Hello? Excuse me? A real cloud. If you listen to the Glory CD from MorningStar you will hear what happened for yourself. As the cloud appears, there are gasps, and the noise stills to a near silence. Some begin to weep. After a while, someone speaks into the microphone: “We’re taking something back.”
This was a truly a prophetic event. So much of the music released in the sixties arrived with a mantra of fake, sexual freedom wrapped in the message, “Do what you like.” Here, the Holy Spirit was inhabiting one of those songs and bringing His love, truth, and real freedom.
Last Sunday a couple who have been married a number of years renewed their marriage vows during our morning worship. This brief ceremony took place immediately before we shared bread and wine together. The literal picture amongst the church gathering was hugely powerful. As our pastors prayed before serving us with the communion emblems, this couple stood together before them and us, a prophetic picture of marriage representing the union of Jesus and His church.
As the Holy Spirit moves in our gatherings we can expect Him to speak through the unexpected. I want to encourage us to keep our spiritual eyes open. Watch for the moving of God’s Spirit, maybe revealed through children dancing spontaneously or through a shared picture or vision, a Bible verse, a testimony of encouragement, or the words of a song.
You may get more than you bargained for! For an increasing number of churches, angelic visitation is not unusual. The presence of angels is nothing to be afraid of.
Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?
—HEBREWS 1:14
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.
—HEBREWS 13:2
To songwriters I want to say, expect new sounds and new songs! The Lord wants to give the church new songs. Some of these may become established congregational songs of praise and worship that can bless many hundreds of thousands of believers across the globe.
But there are other songs coming that few may hear, but they will be no less significant and no less powerful. Your musicians may begin to play a refrain or a tune or linger over some words of a song, and the Holy Spirit may move into that opportunity to bless with His presence. Let us not leave Him at the side in our worship. Let us invite Him to take center stage. The desire to perform is not one that ushers the presence of God. He alone deserves our attention so that He may be free to move amongst His people, to speak and embrace, to heal and to break yokes.
Music belongs to our God.