Yeah. do do So, so Well, good morning. It's good to see you all. I know there are a number of you who are just getting back in the school swing of things this morning after a glorious break, I'm sure. So I wouldn't blame you if you were a little bit grumpy at having to get back into school today. I know what that felt like. I went to college for quite a few years. I guess the high school students have already been going for yesterday and today. What I want to do this morning is talk about music, as you might expect, as you've heard. And I want to try to do it in a way that's as practical as possible. I've noticed that in our present day culture, there are a lot of things that could be said about it. And there are so many things that could be said about it that it would actually take us all day to try to completely cover it. And we probably still wouldn't completely cover it. Some might come into this session hoping that, for instance, I'll spend the time giving you a complete list of all the things that you should listen to, or all the things that you shouldn't listen to, or the things that you might play or not play. And that would be impossible for me to do, not only because we don't have enough time to do that, but because I'm actually not wise enough in and of my own reasoning to try to put all that together for you. So it's not going to be super duper comprehensive in that way, as if we're going to try to cover everything that's ever been done musically. And actually, even if we could do that, it could be said that that's not the most helpful thing. Have you ever heard the saying, it goes something like this, you could catch a man a fish and feed him for a day. Or you could teach a man to fish and feed him for Lifetime. You've heard that before. And of course, the idea is that you can give someone everything they might know for today and just sort of hand it to them and say, here you go. Here's everything you need. And that might seem really helpful, but what do they do tomorrow? You know, if you can't be there to give it to them tomorrow and every day after that, what's going to happen after you're not there anymore to give them all this, you know, whether it's food or information or whatever it is you're giving them? And so what I'm going to try to do today is give you a set of principles that will help guide you as they've helped me through my experience, not only in my education, but just living life, living life in the culture. There are things that God has taught me and things I've read and learned from others. that I hope will be helpful to you as well. So let's begin with a word of prayer and then we'll dive in. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for the opportunity to be here at Fairhaven and for the folks that are here, for their faithfulness to you, for their desire to know more about your word. And I pray that you'd help me today as I teach, that I'd be able to give some practical principles and scripture and things pertaining to music that would help guide the way we live and the culture that we're presently in. And I pray that you'd help me to speak clearly now and bless all that I say and use it for your honor and glory. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. So today, I will have to watch the clock because there's a lot I could say and a lot that could take us beyond noon, but I don't plan to keep you long. I know what the school schedule is like, and you'll probably start throwing hymnals at me or something if I start going into your lunch hour. So I will watch the clock very closely. And I work with college students every day of my life, actually, almost. Not quite every day of my life, but most days. And I work with high school students a lot, too, and I know kind of the way you guys think, and I know how things are in the culture that you live in. It's a really confusing culture. And it's actually even a lot more confusing for folks your age than it was 10 or 15 or 20 years ago when some of us older folks were at the place that you're at now. And so I want to try to give you some principles that will help you navigate this confusing culture that we're in. So today I want to talk about primarily the power and purpose of music. we're gonna look at the power of music, the things that music can do, the things that music does in the hearts and minds of those that participate and listen, and the power that it has in the culture, the power it has even to influence your thoughts, the way you view the world, and also the purpose, what should be the purpose of music, and how can we keep the purpose of music in balance so that we don't fall prey to the pitfalls that exist in this world. So as you probably know, we live in a culture. I think I can range a little bit with this mic turned on. In the culture that we live in, as you know, people react really strongly to anyone that says something could be wrong. Like if you or me or someone we know If they get up and they get quoted in the newspaper as saying, such and such a thing is wrong, immorality is wrong, or such and such a thing that this politician, or this pop star, or this sports star, such and such a thing is wrong, this lifestyle, this sin, our culture doesn't respond well to that. We live in a place that everyone wants to feel like they're right. And almost you could say the only thing you could do that's wrong is to say that someone else is wrong. If you call someone else wrong, then you're wrong. But pretty much everything else you could do is accepted by someone in the culture. There's going to be someone that says, you just do what you do, be yourself, just be true to yourself, and that's good. Even if being true to yourself means doing something really ungodly. So the culture does not respond well to anyone that suggests that something could be wrong. So we have to guard against that. And in this realm of music, we actually, it's really frequent for someone like me or anyone that teaches on it to have a lot of strong reactions to the notion that something could be wrong. And so we have to be aware of that. And when we call something wrong, we have to say this is wrong because of X, Y, Z biblical principles. We have to have a reason for why we're saying it's wrong. And if the Bible says it's wrong, we have to be willing to say it's wrong as well. Now, how can music be wrong? You think about music, like when somebody gets up and plays the piano or plays the brass instruments like some of these young folks did so well a few minutes ago. Sounded really nice, nice special. Or I play the saxophone or somebody plays a different instrument. How can that be wrong? Well, there are a few obvious ways that that's true. Have you ever heard what's called programmatic music? Have you ever heard that term before? It's a little bit more of something that music majors might encounter in their studies. Other folks might not come across that term too often. The idea of programmatic music is that it tells a specific story. So you could look even in classical music that's been written for the last several hundred years, and you could find composers that wrote a piece of music that's describing a certain scene. And it could be any scene. It could be a dramatic scene like you might find in an opera or something like that, or a play that's being accompanied by music. It could be some other sort of storyline. Of course, music has a particular meaning that's ascribed to it if someone has lyrics. Right? And we have lots of people in our culture, pop stars, that you guys could even think of that sing lyrics all the time. And some of those lyrics are really ungodly. Have you ever noticed like you're in a store or in your car, something's on the radio or something comes on, it's like, I can't believe they're singing about that. It could be something really angry or hateful or sensual. There are lots of ways that somebody could sing a lyric or write a piece of music about a particular topic that is really ungodly. And I think, unfortunately, there are a lot of Christians that are totally fine listening to music that's being expressed by someone in a way that's completely ungodly because of the lyrics. And now some people might say, I'm not actually doing that myself. It's OK if I listen to music that's all about an immoral relationship. It's not like I'm going to myself go out today or tomorrow and be in a relationship like that myself. What's the big deal listening to someone else sing about it? What are some principles that might apply to that? Now, I actually don't know if in chapel you normally, people ask for your response or ask you to pipe up with comments, but I'm going to do that today. What are some principles that you might think of as it pertains to sinful lyrics or a sinful like program or storyline that could go along with music? Why is that okay or not okay for a Christian? Yes. Okay, so thinking on things that are pure and godly and lovely and of good report, that's important. What else? Yes. as a man thinketh in his heart. When we go out of our way to entertain our minds with something that has a strong sinful element to it, in the long run that's not going to be helpful. It's not as if we have to go act on that today, but the idea is if we channel that into our minds long term, that's going to be a problem and we could say God's not pleased with that. it actually would extend to other forms of media, right? Movies, even video games now. There are lots of things that people do to entertain themselves. But if you look at it and compare what's going on with scripture, you wouldn't get very far before you say, you know what? God probably doesn't want me to be filling my mind with that. And so hopefully we apply principles like that. And we should be very free and quick to evaluate the influences around us and say, is this actually a scriptural influence? Is this something that I can support biblically or am I just doing it for fun? And I'm going to say a little bit more about that later. However, when it comes to music, I think a bigger question and maybe a more confusing thing is how to figure out what do we say about the music itself. Let's say that there's not a program or a storyline that's been ascribed to the piece of music. And let's say there's not even lyrics. Or maybe lyrics, as often is the case in our culture, lyrics that are being sung but you can't really understand, right? How many pop songs are there where they're singing something or other? It's like, I have no idea what they're singing. It could be good lyrics. It could be bad. It could be saying something nice about, you know, your family member, or your country, or even singing about God, or it could be really bad and nasty, and we wouldn't know, because you can't understand it anyway. What do we say about the music itself, apart from the lyrics? Isn't that kind of a, it's a little bit more confusing. Like how do you work through that? How do you say that note that they played right there or that measure, those rhythms, that little thing they did musically right there, that's wrong, we shouldn't do that. That's unbiblical. That's pretty difficult. And don't worry, I'm not gonna get that specific with it today. I'm not gonna say you shouldn't play an E flat anymore or something on your instrument. That would be taking it a bit too far. But the question is, is it possible for us to evaluate music from a biblical perspective? And I would say that it is. And here's how I would do it. I would look at the power of music to communicate. Music is communication. That's the first thing we notice about it. And if we evaluate music as communication, we can actually do pretty well moving from there into other ways that we can apply scripture to the music that we sing, that we listen to, even the music we do in church, the music that we support. We can evaluate music as communication. Now, what kind of communication is it? Who in here knows what I mean when I refer to nonverbal communication? Have you heard that term before? There's a lot of good study that's been done in the realm of nonverbal communication. And of course, if you go up to your friend and you use our language that we sort of agree on, sort of, in English or some other language, if you use that language to communicate something, that's pretty specific. But what about all the other factors in your communication? in your spoken communication or sung, musical or non-musical, what about all the other factors besides just what's literally said? And I like to use examples, I think, that demonstrate that. But before we get to that, I wanna have you open your Bible, and we're gonna look at some examples in Proverbs of non-verbal communication. And I think, for me, when I was studying this, And what could be a common question for all of us is, does God actually have something to say about nonverbal communication? That's kind of, it seems a little bit more vague, I would say, to most of us than an obvious exhortation to not say mean, hateful things. I think we kind of know we shouldn't do that. But what about what's implied by our body language that goes beyond the literal thing that we're actually saying? So if you look in Proverbs 6, We're gonna start, we're gonna look at a few examples just in this proverb, actually, for sake of time, but there are a few things here that get us started in this thought process. So in Proverbs 6, verse 12, we see, a naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth. He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers. And it's interesting that, yes, he has a forward mouth. We assume that he's using language that is not biblical, that's not godly, but he's doing all of these other things. What he does with his eyes, what he does with his fingers, the way he lives with his feet, where he goes, all these other physical things that go beyond what's the literal thing coming out of his mouth, all of that means something. Let's go down a little bit further. Verse 16 says, these six things doth the Lord hate. Yea, seven are an abomination unto him. And what's number one on the list? A proud look. Isn't that interesting? Like you would think a proud heart or proud actions. There are all sorts of things we can physically do like to act as though we're better than other people. Or maybe even a proud thought. If I go around thinking, yeah, I'm better than all these people, look at what I've done, or look at my past, or these things I've accomplished, a proud thought, a proud word, that's actually not the first thing that's mentioned, a proud look. Now, what is a proud look? It doesn't tell us exactly what a proud look is, but you could imagine, right? The Bible does talk about how lofty are the eyes of the wicked, how people can sort of hold themselves above others. And there's a way we could communicate with other people that could very easily lead them to believe that we think we're better than them. And that's number one. on the list of things that God hates. That tells me that God does care about nonverbal communication. And number two is a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood. So of course, hopefully we know that it's wrong, it's a sin to lie. And of course, most people would agree that violence, shedding blood with your hands, that's wrong, hurting someone or killing someone. But before those things, God mentions through The writer of the proverb, God mentions a proud look. Now let's go down a little bit further. Verse 25 says, and maybe we should start in 24. The context is the commandment as a lamp and the law as light. And verse 24 says, to keep thee from the evil woman from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. Lest not after her beauty in thine heart, neither let her take thee with her eyelids. And so you have the communication of someone who is immoral and the way they communicate physically that goes beyond just what they say or even what they do in a literal sense. So the Bible actually has a lot of other things to say about nonverbals, but let's think of this just logically for a minute. Think back to when you were, say, five years old. Everybody rewind in your brain to when you were five. Did you ever get in trouble at home? Many of us grew up in a home probably where we got spanked if we did the wrong thing. How many people got spanked as a little kid? Almost everyone, yep. And now, if you say you didn't deserve to get spanked, I'd call you a liar. But every one of us deserved to get spanked at some point. So think back to being five years old. Do you think there was a way that you could respond to something your parents told you to do? And never say one thing, or maybe even actually do one thing, like physically with your hands. Not actually say or do anything literally, to be disobedient or disrespectful, but still get punished because of how you responded. Right? What could you do? Let's say my mom says, Seth, you go take out the trash, clean your room. And I go, OK. Now. I'd probably be getting paddled within about 10 seconds of that. And the whole time, knowing the way I was as a five-year-old, I'd probably be like, what? What did I do? I said, OK. I was planning to do it. I was being disobedient. Why would you spank me for how I responded? And the obvious response to that is, you said, Seth, you said about 100 things with all of your physical reaction, even the tone of voice. You can say, OK, Mom, that's fine. I'll go do that for you. Or you can say, OK. Right? And there's a world of communication that happens in all of that. There's studies and statistics that have been done, and they estimate that approximately 80% of what we communicate, give or take, is through all the other literal, I should say physical characteristics going on, besides just the words. So the words obviously mean something. It's better to say okay than to say no, I'm not going to do that and say something super disrespectful, but that's only a part of it. There's all these other factors and we would call those nonverbal communication. what you have going on in your eyes. Rolling your eyes, that's a pretty strong thing, I would say for any of us. It could be done in a playful way, we agree with that. You might roll your eyes at your friends sometimes in a playful way. But when you're told to do something by an authority and you have this put out look and you roll your eyes, or you shrug your shoulders, or you do something, you make a heavy breathing sound. Like all of that says something, right? And one of you, we could go on and on about that. I could ask for questions from you guys, and one of you could ask a question, and I could do like, well, and I could make you feel like a total idiot for the question that you asked. Not because of anything I say, but because of my non-verbals. There are lots of other applications. Do you think if someone said hello to you and you respond back hello, could you do that in a way that is mean? Absolutely. If you have this kind of sideways glance at them and you gruffly say hello and sort of walk directly away from them, That's a lot different than, well, hello. It's nice to see you. How are you today? There's all these other factors in our communication. Now let's take it one step further. You guys are probably all at an age where you either are or maybe are getting ready to possibly start noticing members of the opposite gender. That's something that you folks think about a lot in the age bracket you're in. Could somebody say hello to you in a way that might make you think they were a little bit interested in you, maybe as more than just a normal friendship? Absolutely. That's not far-fetched at all. There are ways, for instance, me, as a person teaching here at your school, there are ways that I could greet you that would be very nice and normal and professional, but I could also greet one of the young gals in a way that would be a little bit creepy. I mean, you can say, hello, or you can say, hello, you know, possibly get some eyebrow action going, right? I mean, there are a lot of different ways to say hello. And obviously, I'm not going to do that. One of your dads would probably come and punch me in the face if I did that, and rightfully so. But there are all these different signals that we send with how we greet each other. Those are the factors of nonverbal communication. And I know we could go on and on about that. That's just common sense, right? If someone is using really negative non-verbals like that, we wouldn't say that we're jumping to conclusions in interpreting the messages they're sending. We might actually, on the opposite, we'd say we're probably a little bit dull or slow if we don't pick up those non-verbals. If someone is coming on to you in a suggestive way or a flirtatious way, if you don't pick that up, especially if it's happening repeatedly, if that's just going over your head, You're a little bit slow, honestly, because that stuff is usually pretty obvious. Now, sometimes it's less obvious. I'm just saying we can make it obvious if we want to. If you're being gruff or mean to someone around you with the kind of nonverbals, the way you communicate with them, we would say that they're being a little bit dull if they don't pick up on that. Because we're really quick, we're really sensitive with that. Sometimes, have you ever noticed, maybe even recently, maybe in the last few days, you ask your friend how they're doing, and there's just like a little twinge of a tone in their voice. that makes you think they said fine, but maybe they're not quite doing fine. Maybe there's a little something that's bothering them that day. We're so perceptive of those really subtle forms of communication, and yet there are some people that say that musically, it's impossible for us to know anything about the nonverbal part of musical communication. And that's my point, is that if we're being logical, We know that we pick up those nonverbals all the time, every day, all day, every day, when we talk to the people around us. And if we're going to be consistent, we would say that that's possible to do musically as well. So here's the question. If you say something that's not helpful or not kind, and you're nonverbals and that's communicated, would we say that, OK, what you did with your eyebrow right there, That was wrong. That was a sinful use of your eyebrow. When your voice went down at the end of your hello, that was wrong. You shouldn't do that with your vocal cords. That was sin that you committed with your vocal cords. That would be a little bit weird, right? To take it to that level. And I certainly wouldn't do that. We're not necessarily trying to break down every single aspect of everything that just happened. We're just saying that if we're going to be logical when you take it all together, you know it was communicated, especially in the more extreme forms. Now, sometimes you don't. Sometimes it's ambiguous. But I'm saying that it's possible to know just because of nonverbals when we take them all together. Now, you probably know where I'm going with this. Let's switch the conversation over to music. And the question is, is it possible for someone to get up and perform something musically, even with instruments where they're not singing at all? Is it possible to get up and perform in a way that collectively communicates a set of non-verbals that are unbiblical? Is that possible? And I would argue all day long, yes, absolutely, it's possible. Have you ever seen or heard, maybe even just briefly, music that would fall into the genre of, say, heavy metal? Some of it's even called death metal. And essentially, you have guys up on stage with a whole bunch of drums of various sorts, and super duper huge amps, and electric guitars, and microphones. And they're just raging on all these instruments, right? just beating the tar out of these instruments, and somebody's singing into a mic, something that is growling and snarling and things that you probably couldn't even understand, and you're probably thankful you can't understand. Now, when we take a set of non-verbals like that, obviously a pretty extreme set of non-verbals, right? The question is, how would we logically interpret that? Another question. You guys are pretty young. Do any of you know the name Marilyn Monroe? Or a name like, say, Madonna? A slightly more modern context. And there are lots of other singers. There are lots of male singers. People that sing very, very, very sensually. And you could imagine, you've probably heard teaching on Proverbs 7 before, just across the page from where we were a minute ago. kind of ways that immoral people communicate when they're trying to seduce other people. And there are lots of examples in music of people communicating very, very, very sensually and even sexually. If somebody came up and started speaking that way to you on the street, the way these singers sing, it'd be like, whoa, what's going on here? You would think you were being approached by a prostitute or somebody that's super duper immoral. But people sing that way all the time. It's actually quite prevalent in our culture. Maybe not quite to the degree that Marilyn Monroe or Madonna or one of these people are known for, but that sort of singing, that kind of tone. Again, if you approach someone of the opposite gender that way, they would think you were a weirdo. That's really common. in the popular music of our culture. And I would argue that in the same way that the non-verbals of musical communication could communicate rage, and anger, and aggression, and even hatred, the same thing can happen when it comes to sensuality. Those are extreme and rather obvious elements of communication. And I would suggest, you know, if someone is, for instance, choosing music that you're going to drive around in your car and listen to, or music that you're gonna have in your home, It would be really wise to be aware of the sort of non-verbals that exist in music like that, even apart from the actual lyric that's being sung. Those are things that we should be able to evaluate objectively. Let's turn over to Galatians 5 and look at some principles that could help us sort out some questions that we might have about some of these things. And I always take my students through these It provides a lot of clarity, more clarity than I could ever give you just talking about it during an hour of chapel. Let's start in verse 19. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, of the which I tell you before, and have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But, and that's an important word in verse 22, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law. And actually I'm gonna keep reading. All these verses are very pertinent. And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. So we have a rather comprehensive list of the things that the flesh does, manifestations of the flesh. And then we have a contrasting list of the fruit of the spirit. And I think it's always helpful for me when I'm evaluating actions that I'm going to take, or media that I'm going to allow into my home, music that I'm going to listen to. If I think about the fact that, okay, if God's spirit is present in something, here's the list of things that will be present in that because his spirit is there. And if it's the spirit of the world that's driving a particular style or trend or media or atmosphere, here's the list of things that the world does. There's a lot of clarity there for me when I think of it in those terms. I had a friend in college once who was a very nice, very nice fellow, and I think very sincere. He came from an evangelical background. And his argument in the realm of music, and he and I had a lot of good discussions about it. We'll call them discussions, never arguments. His point that he would always make was that music is from God, and so all music is good. All music is good, all of it's spiritual, all of it could be okay for a Christian because it's a gift from God. And I do believe that music is a gift from God. The question is, how many of God's gifts has Satan not reached in and grabbed and twisted and maybe taken to a weird extreme or changed in some way to turn into something that could be evil or sinful? How many of God's gifts? Can you think of any? Name a single one of God's gifts to us that Satan hasn't taken and twisted. You could look at God's gifts of just companionship and friendship. And Satan, as well as our sinful fleshly nature, we find ways to twist those things and turn it into something that's terrible and toxic. You think about God's gift of human sexuality. And that is a gift from God. That is such a blessing. It is such a powerful thing in marriage. And yet, think of all the perversion that goes along with sexuality in this world. the gift of enjoyment and entertainment even, what we call entertainment. I think it's a gift from God that we can go out and do an activity together as believers and enjoy each other's fellowship and encourage each other and come away energized and have a way to sort of relieve some of the tension or the busyness of the day. Yet when taken to an extreme, even enjoyment or entertainment turns into this crazy addiction. Think about music. I would strongly suggest, well not suggest, I would strongly declare that for all the wonderful parts of music that God has gifted to us, Satan takes them to extremes so that they're not helpful, that they could even be a curse. You think about something, and my students know that when I teach about these things, I like to make a lot of food analogies. Food is a great analogy for almost everything in life, right? Think about the gift that God has given us in the whole realm of food. Now, he could have just given us little pills that we eat that nourish us, that you can get done with a meal in five seconds, and you're nourished, and away you go. But he gave us the ability to really enjoy food. to appreciate the different flavors, and of course, it turns into a social event. There's a lot of bonding, even in the scripture. There's a lot of bonding, and fellowship, and teaching, and exhortation that happens around a meal. God gives us the ability to enjoy that, but think about how how food even can turn into an addiction. It can turn into this thing that actually hurts you physically and cuts off your life prematurely because it's used the wrong way. Of course, I would say music is the same thing. The question that I always come back to is, if in music, if someone is going to say that God's spirit is present in something, If they're going to say that a certain kind of music is truly good, then we should be able to find those fruits of God's spirit. And if we're evaluating our communication, like think back to some of those musical forms I described a little bit ago. Somebody is super aggressive, raging on their guitar or their drums or screaming into a microphone. And I'm sitting here thinking, okay, love? No, joy? Maybe a sort of perverse joy, I'm not sure what I would call that. Peace, definitely not. Long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness. I'm not seeing anything here. There's nothing there that's making me think of the fruits of God's spirit. How about the other list? Fornication, uncleanness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, wrath, strife, seditions. Yeah, I'm hearing a lot of that. You're gonna get a strong sense of those fruits of the flesh, as it were, when that's what produces what we're talking about, whether it's music or media or something else. And so evaluating the fruits is a very important way of knowing how we should think about these things. So we've been talking about the power of music, and for all these reasons that I've described, I think music is very powerful. It has a way of communicating non-verbally, even apart from lyrics, communicating morals, communicating a spirit. an attitude, you could say. All of these things can be present and it makes music very powerful. You should think very seriously about music that you go into your room at night, whether it's here or at home or wherever. If you go in your room and put on your earbuds or headphones, and listen, and it's usually pretty loud when you do that, right? Listen to music and have that pumping into your brain for hours on end, that's a powerful influence. And if it's music that's not helpful to you, that's not encouraging to you spiritually, it's not making you think about God, but think about something else, maybe even fleshly or sinful elements, that's a strong, strong influence. I was talking with Pastor yesterday about how so many people will go out of their way to go to church They'll even read their Bible in the morning or they'll have good people that they talk with from time to time. But think about how if they did all of that yet still pumped fleshly music into their mind for hours a day, it's like that pop star or that singer has two or three hours of their time. They get to talk to them, they get to whisper into their brain for that chunk of time every day. That's a powerful influence. And we have to evaluate the kind of influences we're allowing through this power of music. So now let's move on to the purpose of music. And here's where I would like some more interaction from you guys. So if we had to list the purposes of music, there are lots of things we could say. What would be a purpose of music? Some very obvious, some maybe slightly less obvious. Yes? Praise God. OK, to praise God. Good. What's another purpose of music? Yes? To edify others. OK, to edify others. That's very good as well. Yes? Entertainment. OK, entertainment. Music can certainly be entertaining. And I would not say that that's necessarily a problem. I think going to a really well-performed concert, for instance, is a wonderful activity. What are other purposes of music? Yes. Kind of control the large group setting to control the mood of the group. OK. Like in a junior church class, you would sing quieter songs before the lesson to kind of calm the kids down. OK. Very good. It can strongly control people's emotions. That goes back to the power of music, and that's definitely one of the purposes as well. Others? Can you think of any other purposes? Yes. Evangelism, okay, probably through certain lyrics as well as anything, but yes, it can be used in evangelism. What else? Yes. Encouragement, okay, good, to make you feel better. We see that in the Psalms, don't we? And we see that actually throughout the Old Testament. There's the accounts of David coming and playing for Saul and calming his spirit and encouraging him. So those are all things that music can do. Do you know anything about the whole realm of music therapy? Have you ever heard of music therapy? is becoming more prevalent in hospitals now, where musicians come in and they use music to stimulate someone's mind or to help them through, it could be psychological issues, but it's actually physical issues as well. You can use music for a lot of different purposes. How about music to generate money? Music, as pure and simple as sales, That's a very strong force in our culture. There's a student that I used to teach at a summer camp, and he lives out in California now, and he's surrounded by a lot of people that do music commercially. And he told me that he knows many, many, many, many people that do popular music, and that the driving force behind what they do, for the most part, is money. That's pretty much it. Have you ever heard the term called earworm? Have you ever heard that before? It sounds gross. It's not an actual worm that goes in your ear, don't worry. Earworm is a term that's used in the music industry, and the idea of it is that people try to figure out the kind of music that will be the most memorable. It often revolves around little phrases or sections of music that are repeated a whole bunch of times so that you remember it. And it's something that's often kind of snappy and catchy. And the whole point is they're trying to figure out what it is that will stick in your mind or my mind long enough for us to click purchase on iTunes or wherever we're acquiring our music. So it's a sales tool, essentially. It would be sort of like going in the gas station to the junk food aisle, or to the snack aisle, and seeing all the different kinds of chips they have lined up with all sorts of chemicals in them. Not just preservatives, but they're full of sugar. Sugar is a huge element. They're full of things like MSG, which is a chemical, of course, that tells your brain that something is good, even if it's not good for you. Now, the question is, when people are selling snacks or they're selling pop music, do they care at all about what's actually good for your body or your brain? They don't care. They don't care one little bit. If you eat so many Doritos that you turn into a big fat blob and die when you're 28, do they care? Probably not. They probably will never know. They just know that you probably gave them thousands of your dollars, right, in Doritos. That would be a terrible way to die. And I like Doritos sometimes. But think about it from the music realm. Are they trying to give you something that helps you with an active, productive thought process? I mean, to say nothing about spiritual things. Do they care about music that's actually of good quality, that produces a desirous response in you? No, they don't care. They're just selling. And I think we need to be very skeptical of the media, and probably the food, lots of elements in our culture. The things that our culture is trying to feed us, literally or figuratively, we need to be very skeptical of that, folks. Don't ever assume that every musician's goal is to produce great art that will help you. Most pop stars are not in it for that. And that's not just hypothesis. There's a lot of statistics that show the money that drives music and the money that goes into trying to load up your iTunes playlist. And it's not based on quality. It's based on money, more often than not. There are all these purposes of music. I think we could agree. that God honoring music and music that's done to worship God is probably music, well not probably, it's definitely music's highest calling. That's the best thing that music can do. We want to worship God, we want to honor God, we want to glorify God, we want to reflect God. He's created us to be musical beings. He's created us to be creative beings. He made each one of us with the purpose to show his glory, and part of that is through music. Now, people obviously have different levels or gifts or interests when it comes to music, But I think it's a good thing for everyone to participate on some level or another. Whether you do it as a major, maybe that's not going to work out for everyone, probably not. You may not do it as a career, we don't need that. But for everyone to participate in some way, God has created us to do that and that's music's highest calling. I think it is appropriate for music to be entertainment. I think it's perfectly fine. When I get the chance, I love hearing the Chicago Symphony. They're an incredible ensemble, and what they play is very wonderful and excellent, and I'm entertained by that. But even when we have entertainment, what should be the response of our entertainment? What should it produce in our hearts? What do you think? This is actually something that that I think eludes a lot of us, especially when we're younger. I know I didn't even think about this for a long time. It was just like, it was fun. Who cares? It was fun. We do things that are fun, right? When you have free time, have fun. That's the way we think a lot of times when we're younger. What should be the result of things even that we do for entertainment? Yes. Praise to God. That should be the result. Even when you go out to do an activity with your friends, it should not just be, oh, that was fun, cool, let's do it again, and that's it. It should be, God, thank you for the friends you've given me. Thank you for the godly activities that you've given us, the godly, wholesome activities we can participate in. Thank you for the gift of music that we got to hear. That was such a blessing, such an encouragement, such an enjoying, I should say, enjoyable experience to hear that. There's always a result from the entertainment that he gives us. And that's what makes me pretty skeptical about a lot of the world's entertainment choices. You think about something like like playing video games for four or five hours. You get done and you're, I say that because I've done it before. I'm not proud necessarily that I've done it before, but when I was younger I would do stuff like that. I'm not saying all video games are necessarily evil or something, but you get done and your eyes hurt because you've been staring at a screen, and you're about ready for a nap, And your brain is just sort of put to sleep because you've been staring at the screen. It's not really interactive with people around you. It's not really relationship building. I'm not saying somebody couldn't possibly thank God for their Xbox. But that's not typically the kind of activity that it is. it tends to sort of depress thought process rather than enliven it. Does that make sense? And of course, there's lots of research that shows that kids that play outside with their friends and read books are far better off than the kids that sat in front of TV and video games for hours a day. There are things that cause us, even in the entertainment realm, to glorify God and thank Him and appreciate His creation, and there are things that more or less put our brain to sleep. Now, one of the world's entertainment forms is listening to music, and this brings up the next thing that we haven't really talked about yet. What do you do when you're talking about music and rhythm? What about, you hear a lot of people talk about the beat of music. Of course, all music has rhythm. You can't separate rhythm from music. And even the music we played earlier this morning, it has a very lively, energetic rhythm to it. And I'm all for it. Again, I don't think you can separate it. But what happens if it becomes so prominent so that someone's entertainment form going to a club or going someplace where the music is super duper loud and the main thing you hear is thriving, I should say throbbing, loud, bone rattling rhythm. Now is that going to make you think contemplatively about God and his gifts and his blessings? Thank you, God. Wow, that was beautiful. No. What would be, in that case, what would be the purpose of music that is acting that way? How does the world use it? Put it that way. What's the function? Yes. Yeah, it's dance music. And this is not something that good little Baptists talk about and no one else agrees with us on. Everyone agrees. If you go to a club and they have this super duper loud music that's making your head hurt and vibrating all the organs in your body, the purpose is to dance. I mean, don't sit there and try to evaluate the music or think about it or think deep thoughts. Shut up, get up, and dance. And in most cases, there's actually substances involved. People are drinking alcohol or doing drugs, and all of these things are working together for that experience that they call entertainment. And so when we put that stuff together and we start evaluating us, I should say evaluating it in our activities and our entertainment, does that send us more in the direction of the love and the joy and the peace and the meekness of God's spirit, or does that send us more in the direction of the drunkenness, and the idolatry, and the strife, and revelings, as is mentioned in the other list in Galatians. And I think the answer is pretty clear. People use music in a way that's completely out of balance. And somebody could say, well, what do you think about that drumbeat? Is it wrong for music to have a drumbeat? No, of course not. You guys use percussion in your church services. I think percussion adds a lot of really good elements to music. But what we also notice is that when that element becomes so over-pronounced, and it completely suppresses the other element. I mean, have you ever noticed, I'm sure you have, somebody drives by in their car, and you're like, are they just listening to a bass drum in their car? No, I'm pretty sure in most cases there's some other element going on, you just can't hear it. And it's actually damaging to their health. I mean, you shouldn't listen to music like that for the same reason you shouldn't smoke cigarettes or drink nothing but Mountain Dew every day. You're hurting your health, right? It's bad stewardship, not to mention the actual influence of the music. But the way I talk to my students about that, because it is kind of hard, like someone would say, well, if we're not saying drums are actually bad, What are you saying about that music? How do I understand it? One way to understand it is. when you take an element like rhythm and it becomes so overwhelmingly powerful to the point that it suppresses all the other elements in the music, then you start thinking, okay, what is the intended response from the listener? Is it to enliven my thought process and help me think about God's gifts and help me contemplate and be aware of God's goodness and have this awareness that God always sends us toward? Or is it possibly to put my brain to sleep and activate my physical response, such as someone would do with dancing. As I think about that, like, which way is this music sending me? That helps me sort out a lot of the music in the culture. You'll hear people talk about rock music or country music, and of course, every other genre, hip-hop, you name it. There are a million genres, a bunch I haven't even heard of. Somebody will say a genre, I'm like, I don't know if I've ever heard that music before, because I've never even heard the name of that genre before that you just said. There's always a new genre label, and I would never profess to be able to break everything down for you in our present culture, but when I think about, okay, what is the intended response of this music? What's its purpose? How is it functioning? Are people using this music like a drug? A lot of people use music like a drug and they actually combine it with other drugs. It's just to make them feel good. It's just to sort of put their brain to sleep so they can enjoy a physical response. Actually not that far off from the way people use alcohol or marijuana or heroin or any other drug. They're using it to make themselves feel a certain way, but conscious, intentional thought process, and certainly a godly thought process, is no part of the equation. It's all physical. Sometimes it could actually encourage them to do something evil physically, and there are instances of that. Other times it could just be for a physical enjoyment, or dancing or something. But I would suggest to you that if you look at the scripture and you look at the ways that God sends us, the directions he sends us with the principles he's given us, it's never toward the mindless physical response that his truths send us. It's always toward a more conscious and intentional thought process. To appreciate his gifts, to enjoy and thank him for his gifts, and of course to worship him with his gifts. So we spent time talking about the power and purpose of music. And I want to spend the very last bit of time taking a slightly different angle that I think will help kind of narrow this thing down a little bit. Now somebody could say, for instance, OK, you've told us that we shouldn't listen to heavy metal. Check. How many people are listening to heavy metal? You don't have to raise your hands. Probably not very many, if any of you, okay? You've told us that we shouldn't listen to Madonna. Probably not a huge problem with that. We're not gonna have an invitation and have you guys come and bring your Madonna records up to the. platform or anything like that. You told us to avoid super duper heavy dance club type music. I think a lot of that, it's pretty extreme examples, right? The question is, if we know that there are these lines and boundaries and ways to get it wrong with our music, whether in church or in our personal listening habits, how do we actually figure out what we should do? Maybe with things that are a little bit less obvious. And so I noticed that, As I was sorting through these things and helping my students and other people that I've taught over the years, there were a list of questions that really helped clarify things for me personally. So I'd like to go through those with the last few minutes that I have. We've spent some time with the first question, which is this. Does the Bible prohibit a certain action, entertainment, music, et cetera. We've talked about ways that we can evaluate music and say it's actually wrong to communicate in one way or another. And of course, if the Bible prohibits it, we don't need to ask any more questions, right? If it's unbiblical, we ought not to do it if we're obeying the scriptures. But let's say that maybe it doesn't fit into one of those crystal clear categories. We might need to ask some more questions about it. Does this activity lead me in a direction that's not helpful for my spiritual life? That's a little bit deeper question, isn't it? Does it lead me towards something I shouldn't do? If I don't know for sure if it in and of itself is something I shouldn't do, what direction does it lead me? There are passages like 2 Corinthians 6, 17, Proverbs 14, I should say Proverbs 4, 14 through 15. Proverbs 5 verse 8. And I don't have time to go through all those right now. But in Proverbs, there's a particular passage, I think it's Proverbs 5, where it says, go not near the door of the house of the strange woman or the immoral person. It's not just don't go in and do bad stuff, right? It says don't go near it. And I know for me, it helps a lot to think not just is such and such thing wrong and sin in and of itself, but does it encourage me in directions that are wrong? And I have a testimony that I'll very quickly share with you. When I was about your age, I worked in a public place where they played lots of different kinds of music. It was not believers that I worked with. And I noticed that over a period of time, I started developing a taste for the music that was being played. And it became something that, no, I didn't pursue it on the level of like going and buying all the albums on my own and listening to them on my own time with the things I had bought. But I kind of developed a taste for it. And I kind of started to enjoy it more and more. And I had to surrender that. And what I determined was that there were some things that I wasn't totally sure how I should approach them. in and of themselves, but because it so obviously led me in this direction that I knew God didn't want me to go, that told me a lot about that thing. Does that make sense? You could even apply that to your friends. You could say, there's a person that I enjoy hanging out with, it's really fun to hang out with them, and I'm not saying they're a terrible person, but every time I hang out with them, it seems like we end up gossiping and saying things that aren't kind, or even eventually doing things that are not right. And again, I'm not saying blacklist everyone around you, but if being in a certain situation or exposing yourself to certain influences leads you in that direction, that ends up giving you a lot of clarity about that thing that you might not know how to evaluate otherwise. Does that idea make sense? Let's move on. The next question is, does this thing actually reflect God? Does it show God's greatness? Is it truly good? And I know for myself, there are times when somebody could say to me, hey, you shouldn't do that, that's not right. And my first instinct is to defend it, right? Hey, what's wrong with it? Show me the chapter and verse that says I shouldn't do such and such. Show me that it's wrong for me to get on this website and spend my time doing this, even if it's not a bad website. Why is it wrong? It's like we put up our defenses. We're really good putting up walls and defending the stuff we like. And a couple years ago, three or four now, God prodded me in a couple areas of my life that I'd been defending that way. No, it's okay. You know, what's wrong? And God would speak to my heart. Hey God, you know, I know lots of good people that do this. And the question that he would pop into my mind is, OK, is it truly good? Not is it OK, like, is it fine? Is it not bad, but is it good? Is it excellent? And for me, the answer was no. It's not excellent. Anytime we have to go to great lengths and get all clever in our defenses to show a hundred reasons why it's not bad and evil, when we have to go through that exercise, we're really reflecting the fact that it's not excellent. And for myself, I could think of movies or music or other forms of entertainment. There are probably people out there that are clever enough to try to defend it and say it's okay. But if I ask myself that question, is it truly good? Is it truly excellent and pure? Does it show and manifest this list of the fruits of God's spirit? It's much more clear. It's like, uh, no, probably not. It's not the best that I can do. Then there are More questions as well. There's a question like, could this be a legitimate stumbling block to others? And of course, Paul gives us some principles about things such as meat offered to idols, that in and of itself, you know, is it wrong to have that juicy piece of steak? I hope not, because I like steak a lot. But Paul was willing to give up things that could be a stumbling block to others. I believe that there are all these questions, and there are scriptures to go along with these. I'm sorry, I don't have time to do justice to all these questions. There are questions that we ask when we're trying to defend entertainment because we like it. When we say, I like doing this, and that's why I'm going to defend it, because I like it. It's a different set of questions that we ask when we say, what can we do with our time Even when we're ready for some entertainment or relaxing, so to speak, what can we do to truly honor God and pursue things that are good and pure and excellent and reflecting of His character? And if we will do that mindfully and intentionally, He will give us all the clarity we need in these areas. Because these areas are confusing and our culture is changing every day. There's going to be something that none of us have ever heard of that's being thrown at us tomorrow. We can't hope to answer and sort of solve every single thing that the culture could ever throw at us. But if we will take biblical principles and apply them to our lives and seek God and seek his goodness and seek to reflect him, and take what we know from scripture and be willing to apply it to things before we just jump into them because we like them, he'll give us the clarity that we need. And I think he's done that for me many times when I had a question and I just said, God, show me. I'll stop doing whatever it is, or I'll steer clear of this if you'll show me. He always does. When we want to know what he wants us to do, he always shows us. Conversely, if our goal is really just to find the things that we enjoy and then defend them skillfully, so we can always do the things we want to do, we can probably do that too. There will be consequences for that. Sometimes God chastises us, sometimes we just lose His power. We just have a Christian life that's still Christian. I mean, we're still believers, but we can lose our spiritual edge. We can lose the ability to impact others the way he wants us to because we have things that are taking the wrong priority in our life. We're not following God. So, I want to leave you with that today. Be willing for God to change you. If you are participating in media, in music, something that you know is not helping your spiritual life, be willing for God to change your tastes. He can do that. He's done that for me on multiple occasions. And I hope that this has been an encouragement to you. We've talked about the power of music and the purpose of music, and we've talked about how we as believers can make discerning and wise choices with the influences that we allow in our lives and the way that we want God to honor and bless and use us in his service through these choices. Let's finish with a word of prayer. Dear Holy Father, I thank you for the time that I've been able to spend with these young folks, and I thank you for their attention. I pray that you'd be with them as they go through a busy day, and I pray that you'd help the principles that we've covered to have an impact on their lives, and I pray that you'd help us to be able to pursue you and the righteousness that you've outlined for us in your word, and that we would do that in a way that's truthful, and that you give us the clarity to sort out issues in our culture. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Now, I want to mention one thing real quick. Some have asked about music books or CDs, and we do have a few things set up outside if you want to check those things out, and I will turn it over.