Always Abounding - Fall 2016_3

MUSIC
Who Rules My Music?
Dr. Jeremiah Mitchell
In the first couple of verses in Proverbs
23 the Bible says, “When thou sittest
to eat with a ruler, consider diligently
what is before thee: And put a knife to thy
throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.”
This is just simple advice about human
interaction: in the presence of a ruler,
you must curb your appetite–control it!
Don’t be consumed with what you crave.
Be alert to what the ruler wants and to
what is going on in his court. Don’t be so
concerned with what you want that you
forget what the ruler wants. This reminds
us of what we tell our children when we
go to someone’s house, “Don’t you dare
eat like you’ve never seen food before!
Remember, tonight is not about you! We
are going to be gracious to our hosts! Pay
attention to what interests them!”
So, how can this be applied to music?
I believe there is a helpful principle here
that can be applied in many areas, music
included. It is human nature to defend
what we like. The underlying reason
people defend improper music is because
they like it. They excuse it by thinking that
God can enjoy the words while I enjoy the
beat–we can both be happy! As we know
from the Bible, we will either please God
or self, not both. There must be a decision!
Whom will I please? Revelation 4:11
makes it clear that I exist for His pleasure,
not He for mine.
Recently a fellow church member
and I were doing a Bible study with some
men at a correctional facility. Since there
is no piano in the room where we meet,
we often begin with a God-honoring
chorus, sung without accompaniment,
and then we spend time in the Scriptures.
Other church groups also meet with the
men. Some of these will bring quite an
assortment of electronic musical gear
in order to crank out some “Christian”
rock. I knew the topic of Christian music
needed addressing, so one night we began
teaching on the “new song” that God gives
believers and how it is set apart from the
world. Since the men really liked the way
the rock beat made them feel, we knew
they wouldn’t like this topic, but we were
still surprised by the amount of resistance
we received. These men, with whom
we had enjoyed fellowship around the
Scriptures, turned on us in defense of the
beat they craved. We couldn’t believe the
Bible verses they had ready to defend their
desires. One man said, “In John 4, Jesus
said that God wants to be worshipped in
truth, and this means that we must be
true to ourselves as we come before Him
in worship.” We explained to him that
the Bible was saying nothing of the sort–
that there is desperate wickedness in the
heart of man (Jeremiah 17:9). From the
Bible we learn that what God wants will be
very different than what man wants and
that the truth of God’s Word is the basis
of proper worship. Another man assured
us that in his studies he hadn’t found
one place where the Bible prohibited the
“rock” beat. We explained that since the
Bible doesn’t expressly prohibit a number
of things (such as heroin), we must learn
to apply Bible principles to these areas.
They were stunned for a moment as they
thought this through. For a moment we
thought we were getting somewhere,
but in the end they decided that feeding
fleshly cravings with drugs was nothing like
feeding fleshly cravings with sound. They
appeared desperate not to be reasonable,
and it was this desperation that caught
my attention. They were ready to rush
headlong down any line of thought that
12 ‌‌‌‌│ ALWAYS ABOUNDING