Psalm 149:3 Let them praise His name with the dance; Let them sing praises to Him with the timbrel and harp. Psalm 150:3
Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet; Praise Him with the lute and harp!
Psalm 100:1 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
2. Sound penetrates deeply into our bodies. There are ‘good vibrations’ and there are bad ones, there is ugly irritating noise, and there is beautiful soothing harmony. For example, imagine right now someone scratching their fingernails on a chalkboard; now consider this, no one ever made a song using that sound! Two seconds of that and you want it to stop!
God’s sound creates! John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was with God 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. Sound, vibration, and the Word is God’s essence and from Him spawns all creation. Contemplate on all the waves of “the Word” we know, they create light, sound, material matter, and all micro and macro forces and orders are maintained and established by God’s eternal vibrations.
Sounds produced by beats (timbrels & drums), wind instruments (trumpets & others), strings (lute, guitar, & harp), and by the amazing human voice in song (may) make harmonious music! A captivating activity! According to the verses in Psalms 100, these noises (noises, LOL!) are made by God and are to be produced by us making praise and joy in reverence to His majesty.
3. Why is music considered to be a part of the ‘sacred sciences? Because of how deeply it affects our spirits, music is spiritual! Music is either positive of God, negative from Satan, or a neutral wave with no effect on our being. What we tune into, and most everyone listens to music, wires our brains to be ‘one’ with the composer. That can be a very good thing or a very bad one!
You have heard ‘you are what you eat’, well it is the same with the consumption of music, ‘you are what you tune in to’. If you are praising God all day in song, it is for sure you are giving no time to Satan to come in with evil temptations and thoughts. In today’s world, you can choose amongst a million songs and genres that appeal to your tastes and preferences of instruments and voices and we should tune in to God’s music in moderation.
All music should glorify God because if not, it is glorifying some person making a name for themselves. There are too many famous people who love to be praised for their musical productions, and they do not glorify God nor thank Him for their talent as they want to be ‘rock god’! What a waste, what a disillusion! They live in luxury, debauchery, and then pass away forgotten.
4. Have you heard it said that ‘if you will not learn an instrument on earth, how do you expect to play a harp in heaven’? That position is harsh because not everyone has a musical ability. What we do have is a voice that should always praise God for His mercy and goodness to all generations.
No matter how your voice sounds, it was created by God to praise Him! Psalm 100 ‘Make a joyful noise unto the lord’! Psalm 150:6
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
God doesn’t care if you sound pleasant or not, he cares about you participating in His joy! When people gather to make music, the atmosphere is charged with joy and good vibrations. When you hear a band of 3 or a band of 30 (like in the Salvation Army bands) you get an uplifting effect. A connection and a unity for everyone in the meeting place!
5. We know that some people get to hear music all day while others only a little. In King David’s time and until the recent past, music was special as you heard it only in gatherings and festivals by live performers. When something is rare it is valued. Saul got to hear a lot of David’s music, and in heaven I want to hear him play! And you? The music of angels must be overwhelming!
1 Samuel 16:23 And so it was, whenever the spirit from God was upon Saul, that David would take a harp and play it with his hand. Then Saul would become refreshed and well, and the distressing spirit would depart from him.
I know there are people out there similar to Saul. They are not fully in tune with God’s will, and they often feel down, discouraged, and condemned so music is a great thing for their broken spirit. Church is important as we get to praise and unite in song there. Very few families sit in a circle and sing together anymore. I did with my kids though, and I took them performing in hospitals, orphanages, and rest homes. We can share music even though we are not perfect as most people don’t require perfection.
6. Today however, music is often too prevalent being on our car radios, in stores, and playing in people’s earbuds from their iphones. Many people have the radio on for 12 hours a day so they are getting an overload of sound, music, and news chatter. Commercials in particular irritate the psyche! Remember Jesus often went to pray where He was alone in silence.
The negative factor of the world’s worldly music is it can be replayed in the brain at random and it can become a huge distraction and background annoyance, almost like a torture. As in the movie, ‘Ghost’ you do not want to hear, “I Henry the 8th I am…Henry the 8th I am, I am…” all day long, over and over! Each one of us must strive to tune in or tune out what penetrates our ears, hearts, and minds. At random music resurfaces from our memories. Notice how powerful a grip music has on the brain! Music often in our memory is playing in the background, and are you aware of the message in the song?
Here is God’s standard…Psalm 19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. I repeated and memorized scripture all day when I was younger to overcome the background music in my head from my childhood and teenage years. Playing guitar as I did, or any instrument, causes music to more engrained in the mind. Musicians are often ‘special’ not tuning into reality and the world around you as most people do!
7. Reminded of our upbringing, who grew up with a record player or a tape recorder? As a 4 year kid I was changing out 45 vinyls for hours all day long! Tennessee Ernie Ford and many artists got played so much that I never want to hear them ever again, ha! After all the music industry being exposed like it has this year, I hope every music fan will agree, “We’re not gonna take it” and reject, despise, and delete from devices all the billionaire producers productions who worship Satan, traffic and abuse aspiring young artists, and participate in demonic possession through music.
It has been said that to be a professional at something you need 10,000 hours of experience. You could say I was a professional music listener with my 10,000 hours in by age 12! Today the kids are getting in 10,000 hours of screentime getting programed by the world and by age 12 or earlier and they are like wet cement that has dried hard as a rock molded by the world’s misguided, ungodly messages creating ungodly annoying behavior.
We can be thankful that today there are many hymns we know and cherish, and we know they were for the most part written by men and women of a pure heart serving God. There is a lot of modern praise music as well that is catchy and uplifting. Since the ‘80s, I think it is good that most churches have accepted modern praise, but some do not sing any hymns at all anymore! They are losing some great timeless creations by doing that!
8. Let’s look at Christian music deeper taking note that not all of it is good as the singers or composers may be (or became) prideful and corrupted. I read articles that it came to light with some ‘Hillsong’ groups that their worshippers (?) do not even believe in God! It seems in today’s world we must research everything to know from what source it has come, a good one or a bad one.
Music, used as God intended, was made to comfort the soul. Recalling that King David played his harp for King Saul, and it eased his troubled spirit, it would be nice if music today were applied like this! Considering this, you should only select music to listen to that brings you peace, joy, and love!
The interaction of sound waves also are mathematically perfect as seen in sea shells.
For a few hundred years certain ‘blue’ flat notes were considered to be of the devil. I personally don’t think we should let the devil own anything! God should and can be praised in all kinds of music. Focus on the words, are they true to the Word of God with good theology? Are they glorifying God? The world’s music, in general, boasts about sinful activities, heartbreak, and tragedy!
9. One of the grandsons of Adam, Jubal, created some of the first musical instruments and compositions over 6,000 years ago! God gave music to us as a gift as we learn that it has been around since the beginning. The group Kiss sings, “God gave Rock ‘n Roll to you” but recall not everyone using God’s name is referring to our Father God of Jesus, “by their fruits, you will know them”! I do pray for this world’s musicians to turn to Jesus, but few have!
As we learn in the Psalms, God wants us to praise Him in song! I think everyone should sing when we praise, no matter how you think you sound! It is not about you; it is about God’s exaltation! About how you love Him and want to praise Him! And those that can keep a beat, will always note that we have tambourines available.
Conclusively music is therapeutic. It is an emotion enhancer. It can also be used to arouse violence! But music correctly used produces a calming effect and it works good on all of us as we are not always joyful, but sometimes sad or disturbed. Observing this power, we understand why music falls within the category of science and is in the spiritual realm making it sacred as well. So, “I’m gonna sing, sing, sing, I’m gonna shout, shout, shout, I’m gonna sing, I’m gonna shout and praise the Lord, For when those gates are opened wide
I’m gonna sit by Jesus’ side,I’m gonna sing, I’m gonna shout, and Praise the Lord!!”
