January 29, 2009
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Music by John MacArthur
Be Filled with the Spirit, Part 3
Ephesians 5:19
When you become a Christian and the Spirit of God comes and lives in you, you become joyous on the inside. A Spirit‑filled Christian is going to be happy it doesn't matter what is going on. Circumstances are not the issue, the filling of the Spirit is the issue that brings the song.
In Ephesians 5:18 it says if you are filled with the Spirit, you sing. In Colossians 3:16 it says if the word of Christ dwells in you richly you'll sing. In James 5:13 it says if your heart is filled with joy you'll sing. God has given us song as an expression of joy.
Among whom do we sing? It simply says in verse 19; "Speaking among yourselves." It's our songs and I realize that people have insisted on the use of music as an evangelistic tool. I've spoken in different places and certain music groups are there and they'll perform a certain kind of music and I'll say, "You know, why do you do that kind of music?" They'll say, if you're going to reach the world for Christ through music you've got to do the kind of music the world is listening to. And my question is always the same, well where in the Bible does it say you are supposed to reach the world through music? No place in the Bible does it ever say "Sing the gospel of Christ." It says preach it. Music was never intended by God to be an evangelistic tool. Music has been around a long time and I'm sure that there are times when songs and hymns and spiritual songs have pricked the heart and the conscious of an unbeliever and maybe because the gospel truth is already known they can kind of get them over the edge and come to Christ but that is like a residual benefit, much as you living the Christian life becomes a testimony to somebody.
But the heart of the matter of evangelism is to preach the gospel and to live the gospel and to teach the gospel. We are not told that the world is to be won by music groups. We were never told to reach the world by singing at them. The gospel is to be preached as the power of God unto salvation. The power of music acts upon the emotions. We cannot confuse the issue in the presentation of the gospel by playing to the emotions rather than to the decision-making faculties.
It is wonderful for unsaved people to come and hear the music and I hope, they love the music but they won't understand it the way we understand it and they need the gospel of Jesus Christ to be brought to Christ. They need more than just the songs. And I really fear that today music with its emotional power and impact is used as a device. And if you make the music so much like the music of the world then the world thinks becoming a Christian isn't so different than being in the world anyway. That's why it's very difficult to get any kind of commitment out of them.
Secondly, from where does it originate? Where is our music to come from? Verse 19 says, it says at the end of the verse; "In your heart." It literally means from your heart, from out of an internal source, the point of origination is the heart and last week I told you that in Amos chapter 5 the prophet Amos as the voice of God said to the people of God - Stop singing because your hearts are not right, I do not want to hear your songs. And in the sixth chapter he says; you people are acting foolishly, you lie upon your couches of ivory, you lie upon your fancy beds, you drink your wine out of bowls because cups are to small, you are drunken, you are indulgent, you are covered with sweet-smelling ointment, you've got jewelry hanging over you, and you're playing all these songs and you're chanting all this music and you're inventing new and sophisticated instruments and I don't want to hear any of it, he says. Stop it all. And then in chapter 8 he says in verse 3, "Your singing shall turn to wailing when I'm through with you." In other words, music in and of itself is not the issue; it is the heart of the one singing that is the issue. That's the issue before God. And you can sing the beautiful song in the world, you cansing the most God glorifying words in the world but if your heart is not right before God whether you are singing it up here or singing it there or singing it at your house that is the issue with God. If your heart isn't right the song doesn't please Him no matter how well you sing it. On the other hand, no matter how lousy you are, no matter how bad you are keeping the tune if your heart is right the song is sweet music to the ears of God. It's the heart that is the issue.
The music of the world is going to stop someday. In Revelation 18:20-22 God has brought judgment on the world's system and here the world's system is called Mystery Babylon. Babylon was the origination of the evil world system and it will be the consummation of it. And so this final form of the anti-Christ's world's system is called by the term Babylon. And he tells here how Babylon in chapter 18 is going to be wiped out at the end of the tribulation. And when it is wiped out then Christ will return and set up His kingdom. And one of the things that's going to take place is this; verse 21, it says; "An angel takes like a stone, a great millstone, casts it into the sea and says with that kind of violence shall the great city Babylon be thrown down." And when the whole system goes look what goes first. Verse 22, "And the voice of harpers and minstrels and flute players and trumpeters shall be heard no more at all in thee." That is the end of the world's music. That's the end of it. It's over. God says - That is enough, it is gone. All non-spirit-filled music will halt immediately.
It's almost as if God has given music to mankind. It's a wonderful blessing but man has corrupted that gift of God like he corrupts every other gift of God and so the day is coming when God will remove it. Can you imagine a world without music? People in our society can't make it from their house to their car to get the radio on. And from their car back to their house to get the stereo on. The music plays at work, the music plays at the factory, it plays at the shop, it plays at the half time of the football game, music plays constantly. People don't want to face life without the music because the music plants the thought$ in their minds, the words in their minds to keep them from thinking about the stuff that matters. The world without music will be a very frustrated place. But that's what God says. Ezekiel 26:13, God says, "I will cause the noise of your songs to cease and the sound of your harps shall be heard no more." He said that to Tyre and then they came in and they wiped that city out, and that was a little microcosm of what's going to happen when God comes in judgment against the world, there will never be a song in hell. People will live forever in hell without a note of music, without a song to sing, without any thing to relieve the unmitigated judgment that they will endure. And the only songs that will ever be sung after God stops the music of the world will be the song of the hearts of the Spirit filled saints of God that fill the kingdom and go on into eternity, the eternal song of the redeemed. Listen, our song is to come from our hearts and to be distinct and unique.
Thirdly, to whom is our song sung? That's clear, isn't it, chapter 5 verse 19, the end of the verse says; "To the Lord." If anybody should clap it should be the Lord. When we offer something to the Lord we don't treat it as entertainment. if the choir sings or someone plays, they are endeavoring not to perform for you but to have your thoughts lifted up as praise to the Lord.: That it is not an entertainment response. We are all together in one united way being led by the singers and led by the players to praise the Lord Himself. That's where the praise is to go. It is unto the Lord. All music is to be offered to Him. You ought to have a checkpoint on your singing at that point. All of us have to be aware that if we are truly singing from a Spirit‑filled heart it is offered to the Lord, not for everyone around to say, "How wonderful your voice is."
II Chronicles 5, is a fantastic Scripture. The great temple has been built. What a glorious day in Israel. The Levites who were the singers all gathered around for the dedication of the temple and they got there and they were arrayed with the white linen they had cymbals and psalteries and harps and there were 120 priests playing the trumpet. Can you imagine a 4,000 voice choir with 120 trumpets? Man, what a tremendous experience. There was music glorifying God and God responding by His presence appearing so that they couldn't even minister because His glory blinded them and filled the whole place.
In Revelation when you hear the great choir sing in the future, they sing unto the Lord; Worthy is the Lamb, praise to God. All music was offered to God. Johann Sebastian Bach really the father in many sense of modern music, said, "The aim of all music is the glory of God." When we sing we must keep in mind that it is a gift of praise to the Lord. hat means that the words that we sing, whatever words of whatever song should be biblical. They should rightly reflect God's thoughts and God's attitudes and God's revelation. There is a lot of music that just misses it all together. It's theological mish-mash. It's doctrinally wrong. Our words need to be right. Not only that but the tune should be honoring, but also the vehicle, and the method with which we sing. Sometimes songs are offered to God in a vernacular that is so much of the world that God wouldn't particularly want to be identified with that style. There ought to be a beauty and distinctiveness, so that it is clear that his is offered to God.
Now you say - John, are you saying that it shouldn't have any effect on us? And it is just an offering to God and we don't think about us? As you are filled with the Spirit and you offer that music to God it has a fantastic effect on you, doesn't it? I'll tell you, for me when I sit and listen to m sic and my heart is Spirit filled and I sing and I praise the Lord and I hear singers and players doing that I just ... I go everywhere from goose bumps to tears. It has a fantastic effect on me. If I have come home sometimes and I'm feeling a little depressed or saddened and there is certain music that I want to place on the record player and listen to that it can have a quieting effect and change my spirit. I think there is that residual part of music and I think God intended it to be that way.
I Samuel 16:23, and here you meet David, a tremendous musician. Among everything else lie did so well he was a great musician, he was a skillful player, a skillful singer and a great writer of hymns as the Psalms would witness. But in I Samuel 16 verse 23 we find David called on by Saul. Whenever Saul got troubled, he would call David to come and play for him. "David took a harp and he played with his hands." David was playing his harp to the Lord. But there was a residual benefit to Saul. Look at this, three things happen; Saul was refreshed, he was made well and the evil spirit departed from him. You see three things there? Mental, physical, spiritual. Music affected him, first of all, mentally. He was refreshed. He was apparently in a time of tremendous anxiety, his mind was distressed, his mind was distraught and yet there was in the music, even though David offered it to God, a refreshment to his troubled mind.
Secondly, it has a physical effect. In the seventeenth century is a very famous German scientist and doctor by the name of Anastasias Kercher who studied how music effects us physically and he was the one who discovered if you put water on the rim of a glass and run your finger around you can make different sounds. He did further study to find out that music causes a reverberation of the air around the body and can cause a variation in the flow of the body fluids whether blood, saliva, lymph fluid, or whatever. You can actually affect with consonance, dissonance, he said, tempo and pitch. You can affect nerves‑muscles‑and so forth as well as the pulse, heart beat, the whole thing. Music affects the physical body.
And then they could have a spiritual effect. Saul was not only refreshed arid made well, but it says that the evil spirit departed from him. I'm not saying that if you've got evil spirits, play the right tune and they'll leave. I believe music can have a spiritual ministry in healing somebody's spiritual hurt. I may be down in the dumps about something and I'll sit down and listen to some beautiful rendition of "I'd Rather Have Jesus Than Anything,'' and it has a tremendous effect upon my spiritual thoughts. So, though music is offered to God it has a tremendous residual effect to us. God has given it as a wonderful gift. And when it is used properly it can be refreshment to the mind and healing to the body and restoration to the spirit.
Let's go back to Ephesians. Now we got a fourth question to ask, if we are to make this kind of music and if it is so wonderful as it is offered to God and has a wonderful effect to us with what do we do it? What is acceptable? I remember when somebody wrote an article about our church and criticized us because we had a guitar played in the church. We actually went that far to have a guitar played in the church. Somebody plucked a string. And I remember that this was a big article and everybody was upset about it saying we were definitely a liberal church because we had a guitar. Well who says what we can do? Who says what are the acceptable things? First there's a general statement in verse 19. The first word is what? Speaking, in Greek, Laleo. It's an onomatopoetic word that sounds like what it means, la‑la‑la‑la, just sound that's all. It's just the movement of the tongue. It is any sound. Originally the earliest meaning we can find for it is to chirp. And it is used frequently in classical Greek to speak of the chatter of birds. It is also used of the babble of small children. It is even used of the sounds of animals, the grunts and the groans of the animals and the little noises they make. It is used of the noise of the grasshopper and a cricket in classical Greek. In other words, it means sounds.
Paul describes two kinds of sounds, singing, and making melody. Singing is from the word ado in Greek. It means to sing with a voice. There were choirs all through the Bible. For those people who sing skillfully to sing unto the Lord is a wonderful thing. He says we are to sing with our voice. You may have a very good one; you are still to sing with your voice as unto the Lord. God has given us an incredible tool for praising Him.
If you glorify God with your talent then just glorify God all you want, sing till your heart's content. And let God be praised. You don't have to do it here anymore than all of you that are good carpenters have to bring across a bench and say, "Look what I do," and walk down the other side. You don't have to do that. See. Some of you make great pie, we don't have eighteen mothers up here showing off pies saying, "Look what I can do." You don't have to do that. Just make your pie, let your family enjoy it and thank the Lord for the talent. If you have ability to sing, get in your shower and sing till your heart's content.Sing to the group of people in a Bible study. Sing with your family, just sing unto the Lord.
Second is making melody, and the word for making melody is psallo, psallo or p‑sallo from which we get psalm, it's here‑‑psallentees. But what it means is to pluck. The root meaning is to pluck and it was oven used of plucking a bow string when you shot an arrow, you know, you take it with two fingers and pluck it, fire it. It's to pluck. Later it came to pluck a harp. Psallo meant to pluck a harp. There are two ways to make sounds with the voice and with instruments. God can be glorified if the heart is right even though there are no words, even though there is no particular message, as we call it in the song. Just the melody in its beauty in its magnificence, in its harmony and its meter and its rhythm and all of the wonder of how God has created music can be to Him a great praise.
How are we to frame our music? Three ways, he says; psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Psalms, simply from psalmos, refers mainly to the Old Testament Psalms. The word is used of other things. It's sometimes used of anthems to God, it uses itself in broad categories but it is interesting to me that Luke uses it exclusively to refer to the Psalms. So whenever you run across it in Luke's writings he has in mind the Psalms which tend s to indicate to me that that was its predominant significance. The idea of psalming, singing the Old Testament songs. The psalms basically spoke of the nature and the work of God. We have many hymns that do that. We have sort of new psalms, they're not the inspired psalms of the Hebrew text but those that lift up and glorify God. The psalms were those things that praised the nature and the work of God.
Then there were hymns, humnos. It literally means a song of praise. But if we are to make a distinction it seems to me that this concept of hymn is frequently connected with the work of Jesus Christ. In Colossians 1 we have a great hymn. I believe that that whole section of Colossians 1 is a hymn. Where it says, "giving thanks unto the Father whose made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints and light who has delivered us from the power of darkness, translated us to the kingdom of His dear Son in whom we have redemption even the forgiveness of sin who is the image of the invisible God the first‑born of all creation for by Him were all things created that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible and invisible." There are many scholars that believe that's an early church hymn. And it is a hymn raised to Jesus Christ. There are others who believe that Philippians also in chapter 2 is a hymn to Christ. Hymns were then especially it seems, suited to be directed at the redemptive work of Christ. So, Psalms‑‑to the character and work of God; hymns‑‑to the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Spiritual songs were like testimonies. Songs, simply a broad term, songs, but songs spiritual about spiritual things. Let me show you what I mean. A psalm, that would be to hear a great rendition of the twenty‑third Psalm, "The Lord is my Shepherd." That would be a Psalm. Or maybe even a modern day hymn like, "A Mighty Fortress is our God," would be a more modern kind of song. And then there would be hymns. Hymns such as, "The Old Rugged Cross," which speaks of the redemptive work of Christ. And then there would be spiritual songs such as "O How He Loves You and Me." Or, "I'd Rather Have Jesus Than Anything," something that speaks of a personal response of testimony.
As we sing the real music out of really Spirit‑filled hearts, you know what we are doing?, Hebrews 2:12 says this; and this is Jesus talking; this is Jesus talking to the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to the Father, listen to what He says; absolutely incredible; He says, "I (He's talking to the Father now) I will declare thine name unto My brethren (and there He refers to the church, the believers) in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee." Do you know who the greatest solo singer in the universe is Jesus? He says in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto Thee. When my heart is filled with the Spirit and I am singing with a Spirit-filled heart, Jesus says, it will really be Me singing My praise to the Father through you. Isn't that tremendous?
That's just another way that God has chosen to use us as channels for Christ to do His work. I know Christ loves the Father and I know Christ would sing the Father's praises from the beginning of, eternity throughout eternity. I know Christ would praise the Father at all times and here He says, And Father, I will sing that praise through Your people. And so as my heart is filled with the Spirit, as the joy of the Spirit wells up within me and I offer my songs of praise and thanks to God as I sing out of the joy of my heart it is Jesus Christ the living reality of Christ singing through me. What a thought and a responsibility. For when I quench the Spirit, I quench the song of Christ to the Father in my life.
