This series of messages will address music in the worship of our Triune God. Session 1 lays the foundation for the sessions that follow and will attempt to answer questions such as, What is music? What does the Bible say about music? Does the Bible say anything about musical styles? How does music communicate to us? What are the power and influence of music? Is contemporary music or any other music style worldly?

The national center for family integrated churches welcomes Jeff Pollard with the following message entitled does music really affect us open your Bibles with me to John chapter 17. John chapter 17. And would you please stand with me as we read God's inspired and infallible Word. Thank you so much. Let's give our attention to God's holy word.

John 17, beginning in verse 14. Let us hear the word of God. I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Amen.

May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his good word. Let's unite our hearts in prayer now. Holy and righteous Father, how we praise and thank Thee for the mercy that Thou has showered upon us today in Jesus Christ, the crucified and resurrected Savior. We thank Thee for loving us before the foundation of the world. We thank Thee that Thy holy Son did come into this glorious, glorious purpose to save His people from their sins as our substitute we thank thee that he is our surety we thank thee that he is our prophet our priest and our king we thank thee that thou Oh Father and by holy son did send the Spirit to draw us unto thee and as thy people we are now gathered in his name.

Oh Lord Jesus we love thee. We pray with all of our hearts that thou wouldst come and minister to thy blessed sheep. Thou dost love them. Lord pour out thy Spirit. Move our hearts.

Help us. Preserve thy people here from my errors and Lord I pray that thou in thy great goodness would take thy truths the things that are true and thou which do thy people great good Now in all that we do here in this next hour I pray that thou wouldst be exalted. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated.

Shortly before his crucifixion, the Lord Jesus Christ prayed this extraordinary prayer for his disciples. He had come into this world as the word made flesh. The God-man, John chapter 1 verse 14. The apostle Paul wrote of Christ, For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God, The words of God. For God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.

Chapter 3, 34. That is, God the Father gave Christ the Son unlimited spiritual power to proclaim his word. Spirit and word unite in Jesus Christ now furthermore Jesus promised that he would send that same spirit to his disciples He will guide you into all the truth. John 16 verse 13. And with Calvary's cross looming before him, Jesus prayed, sanctify them through thy truth.

Thy word is truth." Chapter 17, verse 17. Christ desired every aspect of his disciples' lives to be set apart and transformed by spirit and truth, especially their worship. As Jesus told the Samaritan woman, the hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father seeketh such to worship him they that worship him must very strong verb in the Greek Worship Him in spirit and in truth. And that spirit-empowered, truth-informed worship includes music. And that raises an extremely difficult question.

What kind of music pleases God? In an attempt to answer that question biblically, I will deliver three messages. This first message, Does Music Really Affect Us?, is foundational and crucial to the following two messages. And my subject is music and worship, not music generally. Music and worship.

And I will stay primarily on that subject. And numerous questions will arise as we consider this subject. And to answer them all would be impossible. I'm still asking and answering them myself. Because to speak on this controversial subject is to face a thousand qualifications at every point.

Now since Christ prayed that God the Father would sanctify us by his truth, we must begin there. So the first thing here to say is that God commands us to worship Him with music. Of the numerous examples of the Old and New Testaments, consider Psalm 150 verses 1 and 3. Praise ye the Lord. Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet.

Praise him with the salt tree and harp consider Paul's command to the Ephesians speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord Ephesians 5 19 now we could add numerous Old and New Testament exhortations just like this God commands us to worship him with music And those who are born of God's Spirit love to obey him. Isn't that right? If you have a new heart, you want to do what Christ says. You want to do what the living God tells us to do. And it is exactly at this point that our first challenges arise.

Number one, the Bible does not specifically define music anywhere in the sacred text. Number two, the Bible does not promote or prohibit certain styles of music as such. So those are two extremely huge obstacles to deal with when we come to this subject. Now does this mean then that all music styles are acceptable to go And I believe the answer is no. So how does one draw that conclusion?

That's why I'm going to need three messages. At least you will understand how I come to that no you have to determine according to the Word of God whether that Word of God has been handled appropriately so let's begin to ask some questions number one what is our authority regarding music That's the first thing that has to be settled. Is it your preference or the Word of God? When Christians come to any moral or ethical issue, which the Bible does not speak directly to, we must submit ourselves to the biblical doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture. However, we must first understand what the sufficiency of Scripture means because there are two popular, or better perhaps to say, two current views of it.

Number one, view Number one is what we might call the encyclopedic view of Scripture. And this is essentially the majority report. Some argue this way, and some of you may argue this way. Since the Bible says nothing about styles of music, God must not think the subject is important. We are therefore at liberty to use any style we like.

I've heard that many times. I'm sure you have heard it or have said it. Those who think in this way sometimes view the Bible as a checklist. If they are doing the things on the list, then they must not, excuse me, if they do the things that are on the list, they believe that their lives are in harmony with the Word of God. And if music styles are not on the list, then they must not matter.

They assume that absence from the list indicates moral neutrality. They will then conclude that music styles are part of Christian liberty and they appeal to Romans chapter 14, 1 Corinthians 8 through 10. And those who hold this view almost always want a verse of scripture that says, Thou shalt not rock. Thou shalt not hip-hop. I mean, I had it put to me just about that way.

But there is a problem with this view, I believe. Take for example the issue of pornography. We know, all of us here know, the plague that that is in our culture and in our churches. The word pornography appears nowhere in the sacred text. Furthermore, the Bible nowhere explicitly says, Thou shalt not look at pornography.

It doesn't exist. It's nowhere in the Bible. But with the careful study of the laws and principles in Scripture, we can conclude that looking at pornography is indeed adultery and or fornication. No one would say, well, pornography is not in the list. It's okay.

We can look at pornography. Now, let me say very quickly that many who hold this encyclopedic view believe that they are being faithful to the sufficiency of Scripture. And I'm not questioning that. I just believe it's a wrong perspective on the doctrine. Out of this way of looking at Scripture comes what we refer to as the normative view of worship.

So let's look at view number two, which we would call perhaps an encompassing view of Scripture. Christ said that we must worship God in spirit and in truth. And he prayed that God the Father would sanctify us with the Scriptures of truth. Now that was his prayer for us, and we should take it very seriously Paul later wrote to Timothy all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness this is important that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all, all good works. 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17.

Now, profitable here means useful, beneficial, advantageous. This means that the God-breathed Word is useful for teaching, exposing error, correcting error, and for giving positive instruction to God's people regarding all the good works he has ordained for them to do. And I encourage you to reference Ephesians 2, verses 8 through 10 there. We won't go there now. Now among all the good works, God calls us to what is greater than worship.

What is greater than the worship of Almighty God? And worship includes music. It's commanded by Almighty God. So for the proper understanding of the worship of God and the music we use, we must rely solely upon the inspired, infallible Word of God. Now the doctrine of sufficiency is beautifully laid out in the Second London Baptist Confession, the opening sentence of chapter 1, paragraph 1 says, The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience.

Our obedience here would include worship in song, which by the way is the name of Scott Annual's book. If you don't have that, you should put it in your library as soon as possible. Then paragraph 6 says, the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life is either expressly set down or, listen carefully, necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture. Now that's the doctrine of sufficiency. Unto which nothing at any time should be added, whether by new revelation of the Spirit or traditions of men.

All things necessary for His own glory includes the worship of God in song." So, the infallible Scripture is the sufficient authority for evaluating the music we use in the worship of God. Now what does the Bible then say about music? That's the next question. What does the Bible say? Well, of course, that's an immense subject.

We can't cover that all. We can only give the very briefest survey here. I'm sure I will not say enough to satisfy everyone that wants to hear a comprehensive survey, but I can at least say these things to you and they are relevant to our study. I have already mentioned that the Bible does not define music anywhere in the sacred text. Cantor and Jewish scholar Jonathan Friedman says, It seems that the people of the biblical period, the original audience, were so familiar with what they understood music to be that no details or descriptions were needed.

He shared that with me after I began reading several of his books. He shared that with me in personal correspondence. Now an earlier writer, Alfred Sindri, who wrote a classical work on Jewish music, says very much the same. The biblical authors took it for granted that the people were thoroughly familiar with musical matters. So they considered it unnecessary to indulge in long descriptions and minute details.

In other words, music is just a given in scripture. It appears. It's there. It is unmistakably a part of the life of human beings. Now keeping this in mind, the Bible mentions music from Genesis to Revelation, And from its pages we may learn much about it.

Genesis 4 21 tells us, first of Jubal, he was the father of all such as Handel, the harp and organ. Organ is an older word for wind instrument. So harp and organ mean lyre and pipe, L-Y-R-E, lyre and pipe, or a stringed instrument and a wind instrument. We often forget that the original organs were wind instruments, pipe organs. Jubal, along with his brother Jebal and Tubal-kane, brothers, were descendants of Cain, who murdered his brother Abel.

Now the God of all grace, among all the things he may have been teaching us in this passage, was apparently showing us that even though these three brothers were the seed of the serpent, they still reflected the image of God. They reflected the image of their Creator, even though they were fallen into the dark night of sin. Jubal's appearance as early as Genesis 4 shows that making instruments for making music is ancient. These three professions, music, animal breeding, and metal work were important cultural and technological developments. They were a part of life.

Clearly, making music was part of ancient life for both the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. The Anchor Bible Dictionary says, Mesopotamia and Egypt have long histories of both popular and religious music which must have been known to the Israelites. So as we survey the Holy Scriptures, we simply find ancient people, including God's people, making music. So we should not be surprised when we discover people using music to praise God. With my song will I praise Him.

Psalm 28.7 To express joy. With trumpets and sound of cornet, make a joyful noise before the Lord, the King. Psalm 98 6, to give thanks, it is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto thy name O Lord most high." Psalm 92 1. And to express sorrow, mine heart shall sound from Moab like pipes, that is like a flute playing a funeral song. And there we get a touch of music and emotion.

More on that later. Now Moses and the Israelites sang the first song written down in Scripture, and it was praise to God. Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake saying, I will sing unto the Lord for he hath triumphed gloriously." Exodus 15, 1. Deborah sang a song of triumph. David was the sweet psalmist of Israel.

2 Samuel 23, 1. Solomon wrote the song of songs. We could go on. Of course, the longest book in the Bible is the Psalms the book of Psalms 150 of them The Psalms reveal that virtually every human emotion is captured in words and put to melody. Scripture reveals that music was a vital part of Israel's daily life.

Music appears at family feasts and in occasions of joy such as the return of the ark. David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be singers with instruments of music, saltaries and harps and cymbals sounding. It's all good stuff. And they lift up their voice in joy. Once again, we see emotion and music tied together and praise, worship to God.

Scripture tells us of a professional and tells us of professional and non-professional music makers as well as directors. There's even instructions to the directors. Read the headings to the Psalms. Music could be a means of prophesying. It's often involved with the prophets.

It's a means of teaching, means of exhorting, a means of speaking to one another. Colossians chapter 3 verse 16, Ephesians 5, 19. Now throughout the Bible we find all kinds of instruments used in worship. Stringed instruments, wind instruments, percussion. David even created musical instruments for praise.

Four thousand praise the Lord with the instruments which I made, said David, to praise therewith." First Chronicles 23, 5. While much more, my dear brethren, could be said, the Bible primarily focus on music for worship. Again, our subject. Therefore the Word of God makes clear that music can be a part of our daily lives and should be a part of our corporate worship. Music is a great blessing from God.

The ability to make and to process music is a great mercy of our God to us. Now that being said, two more questions arise. What then is worship? A subject that will be mentioned a great deal this entire weekend And I'm simply going to give a very brief mention of that here. And then what is music?

What is worship and what is music? Because that's our subject. And we now see that the scripture has given us a very solid foundation upon which to stand to take up this subject. It is the inspired, infallible text by which we may consider this subject. So what is worship?

The words most often translated worship in the Old and New Testament mean essentially the same thing. Two words, one in the old, one in the new. And they essentially mean to bow down, to prostrate one's self. This refers to someone's response to a human or divine being that is in a position of honor or authority. It is a humbling, it is a reverencing, it is a lowering of ourself and esteeming someone or something else.

Now this response should arise from an inner attitude of submission and reverence. And this comes the closest to the Old English word, worth-ship, from which we get our worship. Worship means honoring the worth of another. Another person or another object or some object I should say. So all these all of this points to one thing, and that is human response.

Worship involves human response. Now, when we study the rites, the ceremonies, the sacrifices of the Old Testament, we naturally associate them with worship. But these external practices were not the essence of worship. Just to go through the motions did not honor God as his stern condemnations through the prophets later proved he even told Israel that he hated their feast and hated their sacrifices. Well he'd instituted them What was the problem?

They were not engaged from the heart. Just doing the religious ceremony is not worship. It is engaging the whole person. We actually enter into the worship of our God and that's important because music engages our person as well. Now The essence of worship was always revealed in the Shema.

Thou shalt love, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Deuteronomy 6. Again, what do we see? Human response. And here's the engaging of what we are emotionally.

Our affections. Human response. Human response. The engagement of the mind. The engagement of our affections to the God who has revealed himself.

Worship and obedience were always, Always to be the heartfelt response of God's people to the revelation of God. Especially the revelation of God's will, God's character, and God's gracious work among them. We were to praise Him for who He is. We are to praise Him for what He wants, and we should praise Him for the great things He hath done. In the New Testament, Jesus gave a greater explanation of this essence of worship while talking with a Samaritan woman.

She had it wrong on worship and he corrected her. He told her of a great and glorious age dawning. God is a spirit, he said to her, and they that worship him must, which we've already said, but we must repeat, must worship him in spirit and in truth. Now in order for us to do this, we cannot go through motions. In order to worship God in spirit and in truth, we must first be born of God's spirit.

You cannot worship Except you be born again. You must have a new heart and be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. And we must then worship according to the infallible, sufficient Word of God. It's not something we make up. It's something that we mine from God's holy scriptures.

We are sinful. Our minds, everything about us is stained with sin. The Lord didn't say, here, here's my worship. Take it and do with it what you'd like. We are to come to him on his terms.

And Christ puts it this way, Spirit and in truth. So we may define, then, worship as our spiritual response to God, arising from the power of the Holy Spirit, informed by the Word of God. It is our spiritual response to God arising from the power of the Holy Spirit informed by God's Word. And that worship includes music. Music.

Worship with music is part of God-ordained, God-commanded worship. So we must then have music that appropriately exalts the holy character of God. That brings up the next question. What is music? Music is everywhere in our culture.

Everywhere. Yet for something as fundamental to our lives and essential to our worship, few of us can define it. On one hand, music is as familiar to us as breathing. Yet some musicologists argue that it cannot be defined, at least with any accuracy. Science writer Philip Ball spends two pages in his book, the music instinct, explaining the difficulty.

He concludes there is no meaningful definition of music that doesn't exclude some or other aspect of it. Now, there are a number of reasons for that. He's coming from an entirely different perspective on music than we would be. He's coming from an evolutionary perspective and we are coming from a biblical one. And for virtually every definition that someone offers, objectors and some of them with PhDs, line up to challenge it.

This is a really contentious issue. Yet, to have an intelligent discussion about its power and effect on us, we must have some fundamental working definition. And I would like to offer a definition, give you a few explanations, and then some qualifications. We may define music as sound ordered in time. Sound ordered in time.

Now this definition should generally work for musicians, for musicologists, and theologians. I've tried to verify that with all three. It appears to be in harmony. Now this is a bottom line. This is a bottom line definition.

Far more to be said, but this is a workable definition and we will work with it. So, this definition, sound, ordered in time, appears to be in harmony with the apostle Paul's understanding of music. He said in 1 Corinthians 14 verse 7, and even things without life, giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? Now the context here, of course, is speaking in tongues. He was not giving a musical discourse.

I don't want to give anyone that impression. But he makes an important point using a musical reference, and he uses it in a very wise way. By distinction in the sounds, Paul means an identifiable pattern of tones, which of course points to melody, rhythm, time, timbre, sound ordered in time. Those who believe in biblical creation and those who believe in evolution have strong disagreements about music at certain points especially its origin I don't have time to follow that out. It's an interesting study.

But many agree with this minimalist definition. So bear that in mind, sound ordered in time. Now let me give a few explanations regarding the words I've chosen. By the word sound, we mean tones, not random sounds, although some composers incorporate non-musical and or random sounds into their compositions. That happens.

Musicologists generally make a distinction between notes and tones and between noise and tones. They often use the word note for the black dots on a piece of sheet music, and they use the word tone for the actual vibration made by a voice or musical instrument or something else. For example, when someone slams a door, we hear noise, but we do not hear tones if we were to graph the ripple pattern of the door making contact with the the doorframe and the wall latch springing into the latch plate and perhaps the sound of squeaking hinges, you would see a very spiky graphic pattern. When the pressure and the vibrations of that sound reaches your ear, the ear drum and brain must process a complicated pattern of ripples that have no relation to each other. This is noise.

Musical tones are different from non-musical noises because musical tones make ripple patterns that repeat now almost from the beginning of my starting to speak today there would be people that would be arguing with me at virtually every point so you're gonna have to be good students the pitch loudness and duration help to distinguish the difference between tones and noise Most of us know the difference between a door slamming and a beautiful piece on the piano. There is something obviously different. They're both sounds. But one is tones and the other is noise. Now, these things, pitch, loudness, duration, also help to express emotion.

This is probably the part you've been waiting to get to. We're just about to wait in. Now, what we need to get ahold of is that this is a vital thing. Our interaction with music is a real experience in time, in history, and it affects us. Sometimes forever.

So we want to understand a little bit about that as we are searching out the best way to honor our God in music. So The sound of music is generally made up of tones working together. That brings us to order. Music has a pattern, a human-generated conscious organization of a musical piece, excuse me, a musical organization of tones that we can recognize and process. It is ordered into a piece, and musical pieces often have variations of patterns within them.

This is ultimately what Paul is pointing to. Rhythm, melody, harmony helps our brains process and identify the order. Most people usually can tell when something begins to sound off key Or when there are rhythms that are beginning to clash within the piece, they understand that there's a certain order in music. And your brain is telling you this. It's actively processing what's happening.

You are having a genuine experience. Now, there is order and you perceive it. And time is the last thought. Sound ordered in time, music as a beginning and an end. We can measure the movement of a musical piece from beginning to end with a watch.

If you have a CD, you can look and see how long the tracks are. And we write music notes in time signatures with time values, full note, half note, quarter note, etc., that move the music along, and the time affects us as well. We understand the difference between a march and a lullaby. Music, then, is sound, human-generated sound, order, and time. So with this in mind, I want to make a few qualifications.

Here we go. The Origin of music. Music is the product of creative intelligence. I'll say that one more time. Music is the product of creative intelligence.

It doesn't just happen. The origin of music, as I've just said, is God Himself. It is the sovereign creator, God-created man in His own image. Genesis 1-27. And as the image of God, men and women are able to use their minds to reason and to create.

And human minds construct musical instruments and make music. Philip Ball says music is not a natural phenomenon but a human construct. Despite claims to the contrary, no other species is known to create or respond to music as such. For instance, some birds are said to sing, in which there is pattern and there is some order. But this is instinctive, not creative.

The wind blowing through the leaves, the rustling. The babbling brook, rain falling on a tin roof. They may be musical to us, but they are not music. Something may be musical, remind us. Mimic something that is music, but they are musical, not music.

The ball goes on to say, We know of societies without writing and even without visual art, but none, it seems, lack some form of music. And it is almost always utilitarian. They use it for something, and that something is most often music, though it is used for many things. Now music is aesthetic. It's not only the product of creative intelligence.

It is aesthetic. What do we mean by that? It's beautiful. Beauty is that quality or combination of qualities which delights the senses or mental faculties. Scripture reveals that God is beautiful and the source of beauty.

King David, as we so wonderfully heard last night, his desire was to live in the temple all the days of his life to behold the beauty of the Lord. This beauty is the sum, the sum of God's perfections. And this beautiful sum of perfections is His holiness. That is why the heavenly citizens cry, holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty. It draws out of them his glorious native beauty, his holiness strikes the heart of created beings and draws out of them the obvious response, holy!

And that's what we should be thinking when we're worshiping. The Bible expresses this in the phrase, the beauty of holiness, the splendor of holiness. The Puritan Stephen Charnock put it this way, as God's holiness is the glory of the Godhead. So it is the glory of every perfection in the Godhead. His holiness is the beauty of them.

Oh, that the glory and The majesty of God will restore to us. My brethren, I could stop here. You said we need to pray. We as a people, our churches, pastors, we need to instill in God's people God isn't just our buddy. He is the holy sovereign Creator of heaven and earth.

And His perfections are astonishing. When men see Him, they fall and His feet is dead. This glorious, beautiful, holy God made men and women in His image. Human beauty and human capacity for creating and responding to beauty arises from and reflects its Creator. Music with which to worship this God must reflect his beauty and not our lower passions.

Number three, music is expressive. Music is expressive. It's a product of creative intelligence. It is aesthetic, and it is expressive. Because we are created in the image of God and have creative intelligence, one human being can express himself or herself in musical form to another human being that has the same capacities.

One can create and another can behold, can appreciate, can evaluate. And because music is the product of fallen creative intelligence, it can express fallen emotions and stir up sinful passions. Music indeed is a powerful means of expressing feelings and moods. While music itself presents no images, it has the power to arouse the intellect, stimulate the emotions, and touch one's memories in such a way that it often evokes images in the human mind. Everybody here has probably had that experience.

And that is why there is so much mystery about this thing. You should see all the books. You probably wouldn't find it interesting. Some of his bookworms do. But if you would see all of the books written just on the scientific study of music, chapter after chapter, Why does it move us?

Why does it move us? How can it touch us? Why do we go to a movie and start crying at a corny place when the music starts, when we know we're being tampered with? It works! It's powerful!

It moves us! And it is undeniable. And it can move us to heights! And it can stir up filthy passion. Well, for these reasons and more, music affects us.

Now let me begin by making something very, very clear. You know, It's always a tough place to bring a message after lunch. Your body is busy trying to digest food, not listen to more words. Well, I am trusting the Lord that you will get some of this. And it's warm.

We're getting a little warm here. It could just be that I'm trying to hold back from preaching. So music affects us. Music affects us. Now, most of us would acknowledge this.

There are some people that want to say no, but most of us would acknowledge this and let me begin then by making this very very clear if you're drifting if you're in that that food mode and you're you need some oxygen to your mind pinch yourself and make sure you get this Music does not control us like drugs or alcohol. It does not. Philip Ball says, music is not a pill that when swallowed inevitably produces a prescribed state of mind. John MacEjena, by the way, if you do not have John MacEjena's book Measuring the Music, You must add that one to your library as well. His book and Scott's book are books to study.

You don't just sit down and read them. They're good reads, but you study these works. They will help your thinking. Whether you agree with them or not, your mind will be pressed to high thoughts of scripture and to proper thoughts about music. I encourage you to get their books.

John Maccagina says, in fact he views this particular notion about music as the hypodermic view of music. The hypodermic view. It gets under your skin and you fall helplessly under its spell. That is not how music influences us. Now, it may even feel like that with some people, but it can be resisted.

And the Word of God makes this abundantly clear. Music does not make us do things. All right? Music itself, now I'm going to say something that I will explain more tomorrow, so hold your question about what I'm about to say until tomorrow. It doesn't make us do things against our will, even though some conservatives basically think it does.

That's the way they preach it. Music does not force you to do something the problem is in your heart music itself music is it's moving through the air is not an evil force the evil is in your heart we get that Music may be used to stir up filthy things in you, but it's because the filthy things were in the cup of your heart. Those that are big proponents of CCM are constantly arguing that music is neutral. Well, that's a vague way of putting it. It's not a good way of putting it.

The experience of music is anything but neutral. Whatever you say about the drumbeat, whatever you say about the note, whatever you say about the melody, whatever you say about these things, Things are not evil. Human beings are. Okay, vital. This is important stuff, brethren.

So, We don't believe in the hypodermic view of music. Say that before you go to bed tonight. So David and Saul proved to us that we can resist music's effect upon us. The evil spirit from God came upon Saul, says the word of God, and he prophesied in the midst of the house. And David played with his hand as at other times.

And there was a javelin in Saul's hand, and Saul cast the javelin, for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it now Saul resisted the calming effects of the music you can resist what music is doing to you the problem is that we The problem is that we don't usually. So, though music does not control us, Music powerfully influences us. We have that? Do you see the distinction? Very, very crucial to this entire argument.

All right then. Sound ordered in time is an auditory experience that engages our senses, emotions and mind. Musical therapist Gene Maas said, music is the greatest power I have ever experienced. I doubt if anything else equals its power to act upon the human organism. Scientific research has proven that music involves movement, vibration, collision of atoms, pressure on the eardrums.

Not only that, it causes the brain to release powerful drugs that affect us emotionally okay again it's not making us do something but it touches us in a way our body responds So we need to be wise about its effect, because it does affect you. Music involves all of these things that we've mentioned and certainly far more. But when we compose music, when we hear music, when we listen to music, it requires a coordination of many different areas of our brain, and activates centers all over it. Music stimulates the system of the brain that makes us experience pleasure, that makes us feel good. When we listen to music, our brain increases its release of dopamine and endorphins.

It stimulates the same parts of the brain that responds when a gambler wins a bet, when a drug addict gets cocaine, And when a person reaches the peak of sexual excitement, that's pretty powerful. Edward Podolsky in Music for Your Health claimed that his investigations prove that music affects digestion, internal secretions, circulation, and can produce a profound effect on pulse and respiration. And you can go read all the articles about that stuff that you want, but the fact is you can hook people up, and when they're listening to music, lots of things happen. Lots of things happen. As a matter of fact, Podolsky said that music affects the body directly as the effect of sound upon cells and organs and indirectly by affecting the emotions, this is the big one, which in turn influence numerous bodily functions.

If a musician is playing his instrument, then he and his instrument can be said to be playing the bodies and minds of the audience. Brain specialist Richard Pellegrino said that music can trigger endorphin highs, trigger a flood of emotions and images that have the ability to instantaneously produce very powerful changes in emotional states. Again, this can be resisted. Many of us who perhaps used to be in the rock and roll world and family on here was but the I go into places and I can't go into a restaurant without being assaulted with my past you know what I mean stuff comes into my brain I hear one note I can sing the song 30 years ago but I can tune it out I can resisted You don't run me, you don't own me. I belong to Christ.

Now with that in mind, remember we're talking about influence, powerful influence, but not control. So Dr. Pellegrino finishes his article by saying take it from a brain guy. In 25 years of working with the brain, I still cannot affect a person's state of mind the way that one simple song can. One simple song.

Some of you can remember the first time of hearing a particular song. Maybe it was a hymn or maybe it was something secular. And years later, you've been working on Bible verses and trying to remember you can't remember but you can walk into Walmart and hear that ridiculous song and start singing it instantly that's pretty powerful it affects us I want you to understand and I believe that you know if you're being honest with your own heart that it does. Remember we can resist. So our problem is that we usually don't evaluate.

We usually don't sit down and think what kind of experience should I be having when it comes to music according to God's word, something that would be honoring to him. And more important than that, what kind of music then should be ushering me into the presence of God? What should I be singing to his praise, this holy and righteous God? What should I be honoring, adoring, and magnifying him with? It makes a difference because it touches you in ways that science is still attempting to figure out, but that we intrinsically know when we're being honest with ourselves.

So God commands us to worship Him with music. He wants us to worship Him in the beauty of holiness. The music we use to worship Him must therefore reflect that beauty. And music powerfully affects us and therefore our worship, the worship of a holy God. May the Lord Jesus Christ grant us grace then as we think about this mass of information we've worked through right now.

Two more to go. But with all of this in mind as our foundation, we can then go to the next message, which is, can I use anything to worship, any kind of music to worship God? That will be our next message. Let's pray. Holy Lord Jesus, we praise and thank Thee for Thy wonderful glory and grace.

I praise and thank Thee for the mercy that Thou hast shown us in giving us music by which we may worship Thee. And Father, we may not all understand or see or agree at every point, but I pray that by the time we are finished we have a better notion of what indeed brings Thee glory and what does not. May we think on these things, may we pray about them. Lord Jesus, thou art the head of thy church. Thou art the one that we have come to exalt.

We pray that thou wouldst help us to think about these things as we think about thy worship. Thou didst love us, thou didst die upon Calvary's cross, thou didst rise again in glory, thou didst ascend up into heaven and thou art ruling and reigning, until thy glorious return for us. Until that time, may we worship thee in spirit and truth. In Jesus' name, Amen. In your area, log on to our website, ncfic.org