In just a moment, Generations with Kevin Swanson. But first, this, The World View in 5 Minutes. It's Friday, January 29th, 2016 A.D. This is The World View in 5 Minutes. I'm Adam McManus. This year marks the 500th year since Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church. Pope Francis is asking for forgiveness from Protestants for un-gospel-like behavior on part of the Roman Catholic Church during those years. His comments came at the annual Vespers service in St. Paul's Basilica in Rome last year. Francis also asked for forgiveness from the Waldensian Christians who had suffered persecution from the 14th through the 17th centuries at the hands of the Catholics. The Worldview spoke to a former Roman Catholic priest, Richard Bennett, from Berean Beacon Ministries. Bennett says this ecumenical position dates back to Vatican II. It's not unusual for the Catholic Church. They have done things like this before. In 1999, they brought out the Lutheran-Catholic Accord, trying to make out that the Protestant Reformation was over, that the Reformation We really agree on faith and that we should all work together ecumenically. Militants in Nigeria have taken up kidnapping Christian pastors. Morning Star News reports on one pastor, Ayo Rafael, kidnapped while preaching on a Sunday morning and his ransom is set at $249,000. Open Doors USA has issued an urgent request for prayer for Christians in northern Iraq. Christians believe an ISIS attack on the city of Erbil may be in the works. Sweden is planning deportation of 80,000 immigrants this year. That's about 45% of the total number of applicants. While Germany and Sweden have taken the highest number of refugees from the Middle East, Sweden is absorbing the highest numbers per capita. Another high-profile scandal emerges in the American evangelical Christian world. According to a report in the Idaho Statesman, Nagmeh Abedini, whose husband Saeed was recently released from an Iranian prison after several years, filed for legal separation and sought a temporary restraining order concerning the couple's two young children and property. Last November, in an email to her supporters, Nagmeh claimed she had suffered physical, emotional and psychological abuse throughout her marriage to Saeed. She said she hoped that the horrible situation Saeed has had to go through would bring about a spiritual change in him to heal their marriage. Tragically, the opposite has occurred, she wrote on Facebook on Wednesday. Three months ago, Saeed told me things he demanded I must do to promote him in the eyes of the public that I simply could not do. He threatened that if I did not, the results would be the end of our marriage and the resulting pain this would bring to our children. Nagmeh added that more than anything, she wants a reconciliation for her family. She said she was open to counseling that could help her and Saeed make changes to restore their marriage. Keep the Abedinis in your prayers that God might bring reconciliation. While Donald Trump decided to boycott last night's Republican presidential debate in Iowa over disagreements with Megyn Kelly of Fox News, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio tangled over who would be the toughest fighting the Islamic State and other terror groups while both hammer the Obama administration for cuts to the military. According to Fox News, Rubio questioned Cruz's record on supporting the military moments after Cruz said he'd utterly and completely destroy ISIS. Jeb Bush joked about Trump's absence, saying, And Carly Fiorina had this to say about Hillary Clinton. I was pointing out the fact that Hillary Clinton will do anything to gain and hang on to power. Anything. Listen, if my husband did what Bill Clinton did, I would have left him long ago. So, here's the deal. Here's the deal. Hillary Clinton has been climbing the ladder to try and get power. And here now, she is trying for the White House. She's probably more qualified for the big house, honestly. She's escaped prosecution more times than El Chapo. Perhaps Sean Penn should interview her. The woman should be prosecuted. Seven top polling candidates faced off for their final debate before the Iowa caucuses. North Ireland courts are allowing for abortion for babies with what they will deem, quote, life-limiting conditions, unquote. The Attorney General of North Ireland is appealing this decision, according to the Irish Examiner. This nation represents the last pro-life holdout in Europe, Asia and North America. MarketWatch reports the most commonly assigned economics reading in American colleges is Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. Plato's Republic also scored high on the list of syllabi recommended in American universities. The Bible was not even mentioned. The president and CEO of Care Net, Roland Warren, told the Evangelicals for Life conference that Catholics and Christians are responsible for as many as 65% of all abortions in this country. He estimates that Christians contribute as much as $100 million in support of the abortion industry. Warren told the Worldview that the root problem is rampant sexual sin. Obviously, God has designed for sex to be within the context of marriage. and you know it's interesting to me look at that you know nearly eighty five percent of the women who have abortions are unmarried so definitely issue is linked to picked up by of merit The Arizona rancher, a father of 11 children and foster parent for 50 kids, was shot down by the feds on a deserted Oregon highway. Now it looks like he may be a martyr for the cause. Victoria Sharp was an eyewitness who was in the car when LaVoy Finicum was killed, and her testimony has appeared in most national news sources. The FBI is arguing that Finnecum was reaching for his sidearm at the time of the shooting. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton testified to her Christian faith on a campaign trail in Knoxville, Iowa. As reported on Time.com, she said, quote, I am a Christian. I am Methodist. My study of the Bible and my many conversations with people of faith has led me to believe that the most important commandment is to love the Lord with all your might and to love your neighbor as yourself. That is what I think we are commanded by Christ to do, unquote. Donald Trump, on the other hand, does not seem to want God's forgiveness, and he does not want to forgive others either. When Fox News' Bill O'Reilly suggested that he forgive Megyn Kelly, drop the grudge, and participate in the debate, he reverted to the biblical law given to the civil magistrate, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But Jesus says, if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. A principal of an elementary school in Indianapolis gave her life for her students on Tuesday. When a stationary school bus began to roll toward a group of students, she pushed them aside before she was struck and killed herself. Greater love has no man than this in the words of our Lord. And that's The World View in five minutes on this Friday, January 29th, in the year of our Lord 2016. Invite your friends to listen to this unique Christian newscast at theworldview.com. I'm Adam McManus. Seize the day for Jesus Christ. Welcome my friends to the Generations Broadcast, Kevin Swanson with you today, Steve Vaughn also here in studio with us, as we once again lay down a vision for the next generation, which includes culture. We want to get back to culture again and again, which ultimately is the worldview as it manifests itself, as it incarnates itself into our lives. That's why we want to talk about culture. If you just talk about worldviews all the time, but never talk about how it incarnates itself into the way that we live our lives, the kind of music we listen to and the way we do our family life, we're not really talking about the true belief and the true implementation of those beliefs in our lives. And that's why it's important to talk about culture because in some senses, culture is a more honest reflection of what you really believe and who you really are. And that's why we want to talk about these sorts of things, and of course culture is an important part of family life as well, because the sorts of habits, the sorts of entertainment that we involve ourselves in, our family economies, the times in which we get together and do family worship, all of that constitutes a family life and a family culture. And we'd like to be upfront and straightforward with you as to how that's done in our lives. When it comes to our life, we spend a little time in entertainment, maybe twice, three times per week. We get together as a family, we might watch a video. We haven't had television or cable television probably for a long time. 10, 15, 20 years. I can't remember the last time we watched much in terms of television, but much of our life is involved with gathering around the piano and singing together and listening to sermons and reading the word of God and interacting as a family. And of course the family economy. We're so busy with all of the product sales and all of the radio broadcasts and three or four of our daughters are involved every single day in the various aspects of the ministry. Yeah, and we like to read from the Bible every morning, and there are times when we gather around the piano. We've got several students, kids, that are taking different types of lessons, and my son Zach actually teaches woodwinds for Colorado Honor Band. Abigail's helping out with that. She plays trumpet. She played trumpet at the Christmas Eve celebration at your church. My youngest daughter is taking up violin, and Allie sings. She actually sang the solo for some of the times that we sang for the Christmas music. So we have a very musical family as well. Yeah, we've got a couple of daughters that play the piano. I play the piano, and we all sing, and one of my daughters is working the guitar these days. Well, you can see on my wall here, I've got musical instruments. Yeah, I've got a piano, I've got my electric acoustic bass, and I've got an electric guitar and an acoustic guitar right here. A couple more guitars behind you. Yeah. Music's a huge, huge part of our life and has been in my family for a very long time. My mother was a, I believe, a choir major and she she's taught piano for 60 years. Wow. Still teaches my youngest daughter, Abigail, every week on Fridays at 930 via telephone. So she's been doing that with our daughters for maybe 15 years. Yeah, my mom was a piano major in college. Oh, really? OK. Got married and so left and had a family. OK. But she could never teach me. She couldn't teach her kids very well. I never listened to her. And music has been an evolving thing in your life, too, Steve. I know it is, and so on this edition of the program I want you to draw on some of your experience as we analyze and encourage others to be more discerning in the area of music. Of course, one of the most controversial areas of discussion for Christians, but I think very important because it's an honest reflection of who we are and it's an honest reflection of the things we believe most deeply and the worldviews that we propound. Now, my book, The Tattoo of Jesus, was my very best shot at trying to bring a Christian viewpoint to bear on music. There are some relativistic aspects of music, but there are also some very absolutistic aspects of it, which include ten rules, ten commandments, and those go way, way, way back. So you can find them in Exodus 20 if you'd like. But before we take a break, just a comment on popular music. It's been a bad scene for about 40-50 years. There's no question about it, we as Christians need to be discerning. We need to take a hard look at what the world is doing with music and we need to say, wow, things really went off the deep end in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s. The 27 Club. Yeah. Talk about the 27 Club. Well, the 27 Club is a group of musicians who died at the age of 27. Yeah. Yeah. It's uncanny. It's it really is. And it almost got to be like a cult following of these people. There's the most famous are probably Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. Rolling Stones. Yeah, Jones, I think. Brian Jones of Rolling Stones. Yeah. And so. And Amy Winehouse more recently. Yeah. All 27. All 27 years old. And a lot of them, you go back and you look at, well, they died of asphyxiation, drug overdose, drowning. I think that the Grateful Dead. what was his name, Pigpen, McLaren, McKernan, something like that, died of internal hemorrhage because he drank so much. And so these, you know, it was the whole live fast, die young culture. And that was sort of what they were wanting, you know, live fast, die young, and that's what they did. And many of them were the cultural leaders of the day, something I deal with in my book Apostate, and the tattoo Jesus as well. Because these guys were the leaders. They were at the very front, leading tens of millions of youth in a certain direction. If it had not been for the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and others, I don't think you would have seen the tens of millions of young people involved in the sexual revolution as enthusiastically, as quickly as they did. The metastasis of the entire sexual revolution blew out largely because of these incredibly powerful influential leaders of the 1960s, 1970s. We called them the cultural Nephilim in my book Apostate. But why do they die young? And I did a search in the book of Proverbs for dying young and living long. So I just did a search just now, just before we went on the air. And I found that the book of Proverbs, God's book on wisdom has something to say. It's amazing how much wisdom is crammed into that little tiny book and how much it applies every single day to just about every aspect of your life. And here are two verses, very key. Proverbs 10, 27, the fear of the Lord prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short. And Proverbs 3, 2, let your heart keep my commandments for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. That's the father's admonition to his son in some of the most important wisdom you're ever going to find anywhere in life. God's book of wisdom, the book of Proverbs probably has something to say for the 27 club. Yeah. You know, when you're, you're singing things about wicked things and you're doing wicked things and, you know, taking drugs and drinking, uh, you're, you're bound to die young. That's just, that's just how it is. I mean, God did not design our bodies to take this. It's the general rule. Now some will ask, well, why did David Bowie and Glenn Fry live as long as they did? Well, they died in their sixties. Which is still fairly young. It is still pretty young, yes. My answer would simply be, it's obvious, the average is going to shift to a very young age if you've got a population that is living in youthful rebellion against God and against their parents. Because that's another important promise you'll find with the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother, that it may be well with you and that you may live long upon the earth. Right, so that's a significant promise. And when young people violate that principle, they will not live as long as they would ordinarily live if they had lived according to the commandments of God. You've got to go with it. Now, what I'm saying is that Glenn Frey would live longer if he had honored his parents. Now, again, I don't know if he did or not, but I'm just saying that if they had honored their parents, if they had feared God, if they had kept the commandments, they would have lived longer than they would have ordinarily lived. And that's the principle brought out by Proverbs chapter 3 and verse 2 and Proverbs 10, 27. Let's get back to this music thing in just a moment. Article from Desiree News, very interesting, on country music's evolving relationship with religion. Be back in just a moment. This is Kevin Swanson. Have you ever found yourself asking questions like, what am I supposed to do with my life? How do I know what God's will is for me? How will I find good opportunities and be successful in life? And what is success anyway? My name is Daniel Craig. I'm a homeschool graduate, and I've asked all those same questions myself. As I was transitioning into life beyond homeschooling, I didn't fully understand God's calling on my life or how to prepare for that calling. I wasn't opposed to going to college, But I knew I also needed broadly mentorship and real-life application to prepare for life ahead. And that's why I helped create the Kickstart program, an in-depth training program designed to help other students launch into life now with clear vision through one-on-one mentoring relationships and real-life application. With a clear, step-by-step approach, the 29 Kickstart video training sessions and companion guide walk students through the process of first defining vision and goals for their lives, then finding and engaging with mentors in the community who can help them move toward those goals. So if you're not sure how to prepare for life, you can either spend $72,000 on a college education, or you can first spend $129 on a program which provides cutting-edge guidance through a proven process of life preparation that works. Now, if that sounds like a deal to you, I encourage you, get Kickstart today at generations.org. Welcome back to the Generations Podcast, Kevin Swatson with you today as we talk about something very important near and dear to everybody, pretty much anybody out there listening to music. And that is, how do we look at music from a distinctively biblical perspective of things? Here's an article from the Desiree News involving country music's evolving relationship with religion. Very interesting article here. What they're saying is that country music has always tipped a hat to Christianity, to the Christian faith. They always recognized church and the faith to have some part that it plays in our lives. But here in this article, they say it's less and less. Really, recently, there's less and less than whatever mention is made of religion, quote unquote, is a fairly shallow reference. And here's a couple of quotes from the article. Lately, mainstream country music's treatment of faith ignores any of the interesting tension of religious angst, replaces it with a bland, self-assured, vaguely spiritual tokenism. That's a pretty good way to put it. Yeah, and I think a lot of that comes from churches as well. Well, yeah. Because they're getting pretty shallow. That's for sure. It has something to do with, now they say that country music has its base in the South, in the Southern states, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia. And in the South, you see a fairly high church attendance still at 40 to 50 percent. It's pretty high. Yeah, but you also see a pretty high pornography rate. Sure, sure. Porn download rates are the highest in the nation in some of these country music states. And I think it's because what you get down in the South and what you get in American religion tends to be an antinomian gospel. Now, when we use the word antinomian, what do we mean? Nomean meaning law, so no law, and so anti or against the law. Churches that are really against speaking of the law of God. They're very uncomfortable drawing the law of God in. Now, of course, we're not saved by keeping the law. We're not justified by keeping the law. We know that. We read that in Romans chapter 3. But the law of God does have a purpose in the church, in the ministry of the church. It has at least a three-fold purpose. And we can go over that sometime, but certainly to convict us of our sins. You know, it's interesting, Ray Comfort has brought the Ten Commandments back in, in his evangelism. And we've interviewed Ray a couple of times on this radio program, because he saw it to be so very, very vital to the American mind today, because Americans aren't convicted of their sins. They don't fear God. They have forgotten that they sinned against God, and they need to be reminded that they've sinned against God, because you got to be saved from something. In the antinomian gospel, you get saved In fact, the country stars will tell you, you get laid and saved in the same song, sometimes the same album, but sometimes the same song. That is, you fornicate and you get saved in the same song in American country music. Well, that's because in American religiosity, you get saved, but you're really not sure what you got saved from. You're not even sure you want to get saved. Yeah. You know, I guess you kind of want to get saved when Jesus take the wheel, you're running off the road and you got a baby in the back. Yeah. That's Carrie Underwood. She wants to get saved from an auto accident. OK, so we understand that. But what happens with the Carrie Underwood's of the world, who, by the way, have endorsed homosexual marriage and all the rest, is that they forget what they want to be saved from. And they're not even sure they want to be saved from what they want to be saved from. Yeah, it's almost as if you name the name of God so that you can sin like you want to, but at least you'll go to heaven when you die. That's sort of the shallow gospel. As long as you name the name of Jesus, you'll go to heaven when you die. You might end up with just a small shack. You're not going to get the mansion that everybody else is going to get like you, Kevin. I mean, you should be you're building a huge mansion there. And I'm saying that very tongue in cheek. Right. But we're all we're all hell deserving sinners. Yes. And grace means that we get a gift we did not deserve. That's what grace means. Right. Amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Well, here's the article again from Desiree News, getting back to it. Just a comment on what's happening with country music, and because country music is pretty much the demonstration of the heartland of this country. That's why it's so important, I think, to get back to country music, because it defines what's happening to this country. Historically, country music expressed its relationship with Christianity, either with reverence or with angst. according to some of these experts quoted in this article. However, the evolution away from the themes of repentance or gratitude to God makes more sense when you recognize that country music's core audience has also changed. Listeners are found across the country and likely relate to the more casual religious practices described in modern songs. We cuss on them Mondays and pray on them Sundays, sings the Florida Georgia line in their 2012 single, This Is How We Roll. So those are some of the comments made in this article. And as I said, representative of the nation, they may go to church to pacify their conscience. But meantime, the couples are shacking up, living in fornication on Saturday, going to church on Sunday. I just heard an anecdote of this from somebody who had relatives who live just like this. They live the country song. They literally live the country song. They shack up and then they go to church on Sunday. I couldn't believe it. Actually, I thought it was just sort of a myth that people were that way. But a fairly high percentage of Americans are just that way. They'll still say, God bless you, God bless America, while they carefully avoid messages concerning sin, repentance. and the atonement of Jesus. Jesus came to cleanse us from our sins, to save us from our sins. The article presents Sunday Morning Coming Down as something of a good song. Now, here's my comment on that. I treat Sunday Morning Coming Down in my book, The Tattooed Jesus, because I think it's a good example of a bad song. Ultimately a bad song. Now, why do they like it? And why do some Christians like the song? Because it is real. It presents a reality. There is something of an angst in the song. No question. Chris Christopherson has brought something of an angst. Here's a drunk that wakes up on a Sunday morning, walks by a Sunday school, hears people singing, but he's going for a second beer. Okay, and it's Sunday morning coming down. There's gravitas, there's angst, perhaps a hair of conviction of sin, but in the end, and this is the important thing, in the end, Christofferson capitulates to his sinful condition. There isn't any hope. There isn't any redemption. There's something in a Sunday that makes a body feel alone, and there's nothing short of dying that's half as lonesome as the sound of Sunday morning coming down. You get it? Wow. We're not we're not getting saved here. Right. We're not getting redeemed. There is no redemption. It's just telling us the story of the 1970s apostate who grew up after five, six, seven, eight, 10, 12 generations of Christians in the past, but now taking a trajectory in the wrong direction. That's the story of Sunday Morning Coming Down written by Chris Christopherson and sung by Johnny Cash back in the 1960s. But these are songs that speak of drunkenness, fornication, the life of debauchery with a glimmer of angst. And somehow I think we're supposed to believe that just because it reflects reality, it's truthful. But we've got to be careful because when somebody is reflecting reality, their novel or in their song, their poem, the reality they reflect is not a redemptive reality, and the singer becomes content in that reality, and that's the problem. Something similar happens with Margaritaville, where Jimmy Buffett's wasting away in Margaritaville, he damns himself, which isn't a good thing to do, by the way. No. Please do not damn yourself. Don't ever sing Margaritaville. If you're a Christian, you should never sing Margaritaville. Jimmy Buffett damns himself by saying it's his own fault, but he's just going to waste away in Margaritaville. And see again, this is the man in the iron cage. He's in despair. He's capitulating to despair. And if the listener is left without the hope of redemption, then we wind up just soaking in it. And that's the problem. Now some say, is it a sin? Some ask the question, is it a sin to listen to Margaritaville or Sunday Morning Coming Down or Margie's at the Lincoln Park Inn, a song by Bobby Bear who capitulates to adultery at the end. He's a Sunday school teacher who capitulates to adultery. It's a terrible, terrible song. Huge song in the 1970s, of course. very radical, but no hope for redemption because he capitulates to adultery with Margie at the Lincoln Park Inn. So is it a sin to listen to Margaritaville and some of these other songs? If you identify with the Man in the Iron Cage, if you have fellowship with the Man in the Iron Cage, you become the Man in the Iron Cage and that's the problem. So there. So as you listen to this music, if you ever listen to them, by the way, the No-No song is almost similar to this, too. I don't know if you remember that song, but just some of these songs are coming back to me. I was a disc jockey back in the 1980s, so I'm still somewhat aware of some of this music. And these were some of the songs that I was skipping in the rotation. I worked on a country music station for about three months and I wound up playing like 10 songs over and over. So I quit the station not too long after I began. But this was the music that really represented spiritual apostasy away from Jesus in the 60s and 70s. And I caution people about listening to the music, getting to like the music, and then becoming just like the people who write the music. Yeah, and I know what you're talking about. I was never much of a country person. I was more of the 80s big hair, 70s and 80s, speed metal, heavy metal, things like that. That was what I used to listen to in high school and college. And I still remember, I can't name you the day, but I was listening to, I don't know if you've heard a guy named Ronnie James Dio. He used to sing for Black Sabbath. And I was listening to his music, and all of a sudden, just something slapped me upside the head and said, what are you doing? And I got rid of my records. And it took a while. But God changed my heart. I listen to just Christian for the most part, unless I'm... you know, in the store. And as Christians, we just have to be discerning. Yeah. We have to discern the sorts of lyrics that and the sort of songs that are coming into our minds, whether it be on a shopping trip down to the grocery store or whether it be at a friend's house or whether it be in the car listening to the radio. I think we as Christians need to be able to discern that there are songs that speak of despair. Yeah. They don't speak to redemption. There are angry bitter songs speaking of the adultery of others. Your cheating heart will tell on you, you'll walk the floor the way I do. Now there's thousands of others. That's just Hank Williams in 1953. There's just been, you know, a hundred thousand cheating songs since then. And a lot of anger and a lot of bitterness and a lot of revenge. Carrie Underwood did a recent revenge song as well. Idolatrous love songs. A lot of love songs tend to be idolatrous, and I think people need to come to grips with this. I looked at the number one song in the nation right now, Thomas Rhett's Die a Happy Man. This is on the country charts. Thomas Rhett's Die a Happy Man, because all I have is you, that all I need in this life is your crazy love. Now, that's not true. All we need in this life is not the crazy love of my lover. What I need in this life is Jesus Christ. Amen. See, that's an idolatrous lyric. And my guess is a fair number of Christians listen to it. No, outside of that, it's a pretty good song. outside of the fact that it's idolatrous. It's a good song. You know, it's about a man's appreciation for his wife, we assume. I don't know if it's his wife or not, but it's hard to tell these days. Yeah. But Thomas Rhett is dying a happy man, but he's got an idolatrous problem in his life. And then there's the, I want to commit suicide since you left me sort of song. And there's, you know, tens of thousands of those out there. So again, these are the sorts of songs. Identify the problem with the song. If they're saying, I'm so depressed, I want to die because you've left me. If that's the kind of music you listen to, friends, that's idolatry. That's idolatry. And of course, idolatrous relationships is a big problem, a huge problem in all of our families and churches. We got to be on the lookout for these sorts of things. And then there are philosophical songs about life. Imagine there is no heaven, no hell below. Everybody's living for today. That's sort of a blend of existentialism and atheism. By the way, I go through a lot of these lyrics of these big songs in our new curriculum, Worldviews of Conflict. And it's a senior level literature class that not only moves through philosophy and literature, but moves into pop culture and enables and prepares our young people to be able to analyze these lyrics. I don't play the songs because you don't play them out of a textbook, but I do have some of the lyrics in the textbook so that our students can analyze them from a distinctively biblical perspective and contrast them with the great philosophers of the day. And then identify the philosophy that is corrupting the minds of, well, billions of people in the world, if you talk about the influence the Beatles have had over these many years. But we're trying to put a curriculum together that will prepare our young people to be able to discern these gigantic pop culture machines that have been so effective in moving an entire society in certain directions. Alright, there are songs also that long for the days that are past, old relationships that we are consigned to in hopelessness in the future. Those were the days, my friends, we thought they'd never end. There was a real existentialism about that, living for the moment, experiencing the moment because the moment is gone and that's the best life will ever be. That is a philosophy that is very popular. in popular music today. In fact, the very top musician right now in the country, her name escapes me, but most of her numbers are about the past and about living in the past and about living in the existential moment, but no hope whatsoever for the future. Absolutely no hope, nothing but despair for the future. Casey Musgrove's song, Follow Your Arrow, Be a Homosexual If You Want to Be, it's sort of a gross autonomy song, make up your own ethics as you go, certainly an example of autonomy. And then there's the dime a dozen songs that celebrate meaninglessness from Kurt Cobain to Lady Gaga, and you've got all that. So these are the sorts of songs that we ought to be able to discern as Christians and easily mark as music that is opposed to the knowledge of God in Christ, music that is meant to tear down a biblical way of thinking about reality and about ethics. But then there are songs that are much more healthy. Gospel songs, songs that speak of Christ, His life, His death, His resurrection, praise, worship, salvation, missions, the Sermon on the Mount themes, heaven, trials, faith, you know, these sorts of songs are great. We listen to gospel music quite a bit in our home and we enjoy it. It's fantastic. It gets our minds thinking in terms of truth, not in terms of error. Now you've got to be careful, many of the references to the Lord in gospel music and country music can be irreverent, where they're taking God's name in vain. It can be too casual and irreverent. So you've got to be careful. And I believe some forms of folk can maintain a humility, a reverence that is actually rather humble, but not casual, humble. So again, be cautious. Reverence is important, especially as we talk about Christ. The song Drop, Kick Me Jesus over the goalposts of life, not exactly the most reverent song. Yeah. It was a Bobby Bear song that was not all that reverent and I'm hesitant to play it for my kids. Yeah. Or Charlie Rich, Jesus loves me this I know, so I'll keep on rolling with the flow. While other guys are raising kids, I'm raising H just like I did. Wow. Okay, that's not reverent. No. Then there are songs that speak of resurrection. And this is where Johnny Cash shifts. He shifts from Sunday morning coming down to in his dying breath singing, I'll meet you further on up the road, on one sunny morning will rise I know and I'll meet you further up the road. See that's, it was done to a little bit of a bluesy tune. Yeah. But wow, way better than sunny morning coming down. You see the difference there? Oh yeah. Now he talks about the fact that there's trials on up this road. We're moving through tunnels. We're going to be subjected to violence and difficulty along the way. But here's where the song goes. One sunny morning will rise I know and I'll meet you further on up the road. What does that mean? That's resurrection. We're going to heaven. See, that's redemption. Huge difference between that song and Sunday Morning Coming Down, something he would sing in the early 1970s. Yeah. Charlie Daniels became a Christian as well. He's got a song called The Martyr, and he's saying, you know, this is, you know, don't weep for me. This is my finest hour. We're going to meet again around the shiny throne. And remember this, I was never alone, even in the midst of all of this. I mean, that's what the whole song's about. You know, quite a song. It's really good. Yeah. Okay. There are also ballads that tell stories about saving people's lives, perhaps losing your own life in the process. Ballads that tell of people repenting of their sins and coming to faith in Christ. I think of Marty Robbins, The Master's Call, and songs that express gratefulness. And this, I want to end on this, because gratefulness is key. for us enjoying that various aspects of life. Now, I'm not saying on this radio program that all Christians must listen to our songs specifically about Jesus Christ. I think we can talk about the other blessings of life. I think we can enjoy the blessings of life, but we need to do it in the context of gratefulness, that we be grateful for our spouses, grateful for our wives, grateful for mothers and fathers, grateful for children. A lot of the early country music would talk about fathers and mothers, that silver haired daddy of mine, or the mommy and daddy waltz. Some of those songs now, some perceive them to be somewhat hokey, certainly came before the sixties and seventies, the revolution against parents. and the hatred of parents that was expressed so much during those decades. But a gratefulness for the various elements of life, gratefulness for our wives, Paul Overstreet, Call the Preacher, all the fun that man can have is waiting for me at home. Songs about work, about farm life, gratefulness over good crops. There's an unusual song from Johnny Cash called Look at Them Beans. It's a very strange song, very creative song. Very wild song. It's very interesting, but it's all about this great crop. Look at this great crop we got. Look at them beans. Look at them beans. It's just a very thankful song about a tremendous harvest they enjoyed one year. Wow. Or The Lord Awake Till Pickin' Time was another song that expressed a lot of gratefulness. So what we want to listen to are songs that express gratefulness. Here's Ephesians 5, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always in all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. I was asked about this by a young man in our church. We were in a coffee shop and he asked me about music and we were listening to a folk singer in the coffee shop singing one of the love songs from the 60s or 70s, a fairly decent song. I said, there's nothing wrong with that song. As long as you express gratefulness to God, that's so important. Now, you gotta be grateful for your future wife or your present wife. If you're single, your future wife. If you're married, your present wife. There is something about singing a love song and then looking into the eyes of your wife and expressing gratefulness for her and for the love and the comfort that God has given to you in that relationship. You see, The point is, are you grateful? And that applies to any form of entertainment whatsoever. It doesn't matter if you're having some wine, having a cup of coffee, having some breakfast or a wonderful feast, or you're listening to music or watching a movie. If you're incapable of thanking God for these things, then you're in sin. Romans 14 speaks of this when it says, one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives God thanks, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God. So whether you eat or whether you don't eat, in either case, give thanks. And if you are incapable of giving thanks, you're in sin. We live lives of gratitude, especially as we receive the good gifts that God has given to us. Yeah, that's one of the verses. Give thanks in all things for this is the will of God. So we need to give thanks in all things. That's I think the most important test. You're sitting listening to some grungy rock. It's breaking God's commandments at every point, or you're watching a movie in which every one of God's commandments is broken with impunity. You ask yourself, can I stand up, raise my hands in the air and praise Jesus right now? If you can't, Then get out, get out of the theater, go do something else. In everything, give thanks. That, my friends, is the principle. And we gotta get back to these principles. It's the principles that drive the application, that drive the culture. We will make the right choices when it comes to music and culture if we're living a life of gratefulness before God. All right, my friends, we're going to wrap up this program right here and right now. But if you'd like some training on discernment when it comes to culture, music and movies, grab a copy of this new curriculum we've just produced called Worldviews in Conflict. where we will show your students, we'll show your family how to discern modern culture according to the principles of God's word and according to the descriptions we have put together on modern philosophies that have infiltrated much of our society today. Well, my friends, you can get these resources, The Tattooed Jesus on Culture, or the larger curriculum, Worldviews and Conflict, at our website kevinswanson.com or generations.org. This is Kevin Swanson inviting you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation.