The Power behind SONG
So much flooding through my head since yesterday, each message and word compiling on top of another one.
What started it was a message I heard before, then replayed it yesterday, From Dr. Laurence White. He spoke of visiting Germany and a concentration camp with his sons filming him speaking and walking through. “The Sin of Silence” is the theme.
He spoke about how his sons noticed so many of the old German churches were empty. How they are now museums and things like that, but not places with services in them. How it was said when the train cars were carrying off the Jews the people in the churches could hear them crying out, and the people just sang louder. As to drown out hearing them.
He had said “What if the people in those churches got up and walked out and all stood together blocking the tracks?”
Well of course my first thought is “They would have been killed!!”
His answer was “Yes, many of them would have been mowed down and died…. AND GOD WOULD HAVE BEEN GLORIFIED”
Wow, much to think and chew on. So, do we hide away in our churches and sing loud and ignore whats going? Or do we step out in front and stand up for whats right at the risk of losing our own life?
What does the Bible say about this?
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:3
Also the Bible says
“Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:25
So Id say God is glorified when we risk our lives for what is right and what is God and to defend others, even at the expense of our own lives. Thats what Christ did for us, Gave up HIS own LIFE, and we are to be like CHRIST.
Also they were speaking about how the Churches had swastikas on them, next to the pulpit. How most of the church pastors/leaders DID not believe in what Hitler was doing and teaching, some did, but many DID NOT. The swastika didnt necessarily mean that they were preaching Hitlers teaching in their churches, it meant “WE WONT SAY ANYTHING BAD ABOUT YOU OR MENTION IT” Once again much like today, we are afraid to speak the truth, churches are, because of fear for losing their Tax status, for pastors being labeled as intolerant, hate speech, prejudice, radicals, extremists, terrorists, etc
What was good is now called evil, and evil is now called good.
How the churches have turned into positive thought, feel good messages, how we are churches full of thumb sucking babies. Not moving beyond the bottle to the meat and food to chew on.
How many churches are preaching about Hell, the Devil, judgement, Revelation and end times?
I know back when I gave my life to Christ, it was the late 80s and I was in a Baptist Church. I was aware of ALL OF THIS and it was TAUGHT.
And I learned to dig in, I learned to study, I learned how to use a Concordance and study greek and hebrew words. Learned this when my ex was youth pastoring and preparing lessons. You can have a greek/hebrew bible, and look up a bible verse and with it, you can get the exact meaning and original word behind it, given you better explanation as to how the words were used. Such as many words used today can have multiple meanings or be used in diff tenses.
But are people learning that today? Is it being taught? I did learn to worship with just our voices or an acoustic guitar, I did learn hymns. Yes todays music is contemporary and I take no issue with that either personally, but I still love singing a great hymn also! I also love standing in an old historic church building, back when so much work and beauty was poured into a building, such a grand reverence. I love walking into old Missions in California and sitting in them.
Im not here to debate the beliefs etc, more just the aspect of reverence.
So the Christians singing louder while the Jews were carted off was stuck on my head, and how we as a church today are still singing loud or putting our head in the sand in regards to things happening now.
I had also watched John Paul Jacksons message this week on “Sacrifice and Obedience” and how Obedience is greater. That sacrifice was much easier for people to do, sacrifice a goat or sheep at an alter for their sin, but OBEDIENCE requires and effort on our part to follow, to do something regardless if we want to, and obedience with a cheerful heart. Not obedience groaning, like a teenager doing what you told them to do back talking and rolling their eyes.
Sacrifice means to give up or relieve yourself of something; be it money,
possessions, or maybe even a part of yourself.
o Sacrifices only represent that you acknowledge God, they do not
necessarily mean you are following what God is telling you to do.
⢠Obedience is different than sacrifice.
o Most sacrificial systems reduce serving God to a formula. This was
one of the weaknesses of the Old Covenant; you could sacrifice your
first-born lamb and your sin would be covered with no change of
heart.
– From the Study Guide on The Mystery of Sacrifice and Obedience found here
I went to an evening prayer service at our church last night, first time I had been to this.
The worship leader was sharing before a song how this song was sung in 2 Chronciles Chapter 20 Vs 21
âGive thanks to the Lord,
for his love endures forever.â
He said how these people were commanded to go into battle and were greatly out numbered and they were to Praise the Lord..
…. all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children.Then upon Jahaziel …. came the Spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation; And he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the Lord unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s. To morrow go ye down against them: behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz; and ye shall find them at the end of the brook, before the wilderness of Jeruel.You shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, take your positions and see the salvation of the Lord with you, fear not, nor be dismayed; to morrow go out against them: for the Lord will be with you.
Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground: and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshipping the Lord.
And the Levites, of the children of the Kohathites, and of the children of the Korhites, stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high.
Then it goes on to say
So the next day, when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord; for his mercy endureth for ever.
And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against t; and they were smitten. And when Judah came toward the watch tower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude, and, behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped.
Our worship leader was saying “This is the probably the greatest worship song ever to be sung.” And how it was used on many ocassions.
As I was looking up this scripture to read and googling, wanting to know more examples of SONG as a defense, found this on Paul and Silas also…
Paul and Silas in the Philippian Prison
There is a similar story in the New Testament that confirms this lesson, I think. In Acts 16 Paul and Silas are not protected by God from the attack of their enemies. But they are spared from death. In verses 22â24 it says that they were stripped and beaten with rods and then put in stocks in the inner chamber of the prison.
Now picture this. You are walking down Nicollet Mall and suddenly a gang of vicious men surround you. They strip off your clothes and pull out their smooth wooden billy clubs and for 15 or 20 minutes smash you back and forth between them while the police stand back and watch. Then with open wounds and concussions and broken ribs and internal injuries, they drag you over, put irons around your feet, and let you down a manhole for the night. If you thought of our nice antiseptic prisons, you wouldn’t have any idea of what Paul and Silas endured.
There you are in the middle of the night, having no idea whether you will be hanged or beheaded or flogged again, and what do you do? Pray! That’s right we would all pray. We would cry out for help. So did Paul. But that’s not all he did. Verse 25 says, “But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”
Now why were they singing? It was midnight. They were in pain. They were weary. They were cut off from their traveling partners. They were at the hands of unscrupulous men. Sleep from exhaustion, crying, pleading with God for helpâthese things we could understand. But singing hymns! If anybody were to say to us today, “When you hit bottom, sing hymns to God,” we would probably say to them, “Lay off with simplistic solutions. You’ve obviously never been on the bottom.”
But Paul and Silas were at the bottom. And they sang hymns to God. Sometimes the only solutions left in life are simple ones.
Why were they singing? I think they were singing because they needed a display of God’s power. They had learned that singing to God is not merely a response to his grace but also a weapon of spiritual warfare. They had learned like Jehoshaphat and like many of us that the enemies of God are thrown into confusion by the songs of God’s people.
And in his great mercy God did for Paul and Silas what he did for Jehoshaphat. Verse 26: “And suddenly there was a great earthquake . . . and immediately all the doors were opened and every one’s fetters were unfastened.” So we see again that God accepts the offering of praise and makes it an occasion for his power. And we see the truth confirmed, that God has appointed the use of spiritual songs as an effective weapon against his archenemy Satan.
The Holy Spirit is our great hope against Satan. But how does the Holy Spirit fill and empower us? Ephesians 5:18â19 says, “Be filled with the Holy Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody to the Lord with all your heart.” The fullness of the Holy Spirit is experienced as a heart filled with singing. So if we fight Satan by the fullness of the Spirit, we fight him with song.
From
http://www.desiringgod.org/sermons/ambushing-satan-with-song
How powerful is SONG???????????????
I mean I know its to prepare our hearts for the message when we are in church and important, but I guess I didnt fully realize the POWER in SONG.
And then during the prayer times others were coming forward to share, and discussing how other believers around the world are dying for their faith. And how it grieves us, when one hurts, we all hurt. And we say “Why God?” and we dont understand. I keep thing of the Egyptian Christians with Jesus names on their lips on the ISIS video before they are beheaded.
How they were praising the Lord at that moment.How the brother of two of the men cam forward on a call in show and said how they are thankful to see their brothers testimony, to see that the name of Jesus was on their lips, how it strengthened their faith….
And our pastor shared about a young man who was his next door neighbor who was a believer and off for a church camp and was killed horribly in a car accident on the trip. He said it really shook him up, he had a break down, he wasnt able to sleep. He was grieved over it. And last night we had prayer for the leader of the Mexico trip on Sat. And this trip is in honor of that young man and named after him and he said “Now i know why” and how this young man blessed so many and his legacy lives on. Even in his death with this trip.
We see evil, we see painful outcomes, we see things that seem so wrong, but we only see a chapter in the story, its not the end.
And suffering is what gives us great faith. No great faith and strength comes without it! Think about it! Anything we gain strength in comes via exercise, perseverance, study, life experiences, sorrow, loss, pain, they make us!!!
Now back to the issue of SONG and PRAISE. Praise him at all times, Praise him in the hard times, Praise him when things dont make sense. Thats what we are called to do. I know it sounds bizarre and foreign to many, but I get it. And Im trying to put that into practice, often times when we are in the midst we forget, which is why we learn scriptures and recite and read daily so we DONT FORGET
The Bible says “Thy word have I hid in my heart so that I might not sin against you” Psalm 119:11
I know many scriptures but not he verse numbers and book name, and that song is just one. I bought a cassette tape back around 1991 or so to play for the kids I was babysitting in the car when we drove places. And that was one of the songs, it was just a woman singing “Thy word have I hid in my heart, so that I might not sin against thee, thy word have I hid, they word have I hid, thy word have I hid in my heart”
Song does stay with us. And I bought it for the kids, but Ive retained it from that very album I got for them.
I had a dream, actually I think I have had two occassions of this, of being attacked by a man, intending to rape me. I had one while living here in my current house as I woke up. I started to sing Praise songs in the dream as he was ready to attack me, I just began to sing in tears, I woke up singing and with the tears. So there is Power, I cannot explain it or the dream, but I just know I knew to praise HIM in that moment and I was brought out.
I am just starting to study this topic and was told there are many other examples of Song used, so feel free to comment with any you have!