In this sermon, the speaker reflects on the power of music and its ability to evoke emotions and bring about change. He uses the example of a man in Berlin who played a song that had been illegal for 40 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, symbolizing the end of communism in his town. The speaker then discusses the importance of following the shepherd, drawing a parallel between sheep following their shepherd and individuals following God. He encourages the audience to examine the underlying philosophies behind their music choices and to sing to the Lord with joy. The sermon also touches on the need to avoid mixing worldly influences with the church and to stay true to the message of the Gospel.

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold. You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www.charityministries.org. If you would like a catalog of other sermons, please call 1-800-227-7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, EFRA PA 17522. These messages are offered to all without charge by the free will offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. It's the last time I'll be here and Brother Patrick from Manitoba is going to take it over from here. It's been a real pleasure to be with you. Today we're going to look at music. The title of this sermon is The Principles of Godly Music. Now, I know that this is a controversial subject. When Brother Denny and I put together the remnant and when we did some articles on music, I think I got more hate letters in that remnant than I did of any other I've ever received. It's a controversial subject. And I know that. Because music has a lot of meaning. I remember the first time really seeing the meaning in music, I remember visiting Hungary when I lived in Germany over there and my wife's parents, her father's from Hungary, left during the revolution in 1956. And when communism came in, it had been years, I think 40 years or so, since they could sing certain songs. And he took me up to his hometown of Gingispada, Hungary. And they took me up this bell tower. And this old priest was there and he wanted to show me something. Of course, I didn't understand him, although he acted like I did, speaking to me things in Hungarian. And all of a sudden there were these old-fashioned loudspeakers. And he cranks on this tape recording and it's blasting out this very strange-sounding Hungarian music, kind of like some kind of old anthem or something. And he just sat there and wept and wept. And I said, Les, what is all of this? He said, well, the Berlin Wall has just recently come down. Communism has been crashing. And that song has been illegal for 40 years. And he finally gets to play it. And so he's going to broadcast it over this loudspeaker over this entire town. And it made him cry every time because finally communism was dead in his town. And I looked at that and I thought, wow, music has power. It does have power. So I'm going to, you know, when I look at this, I have about an hour to present these things. I was just flooded. How in the world? What am I to say? And I'm not going to be able to give just a lot of specifics on music. I drew up this little picture here. Somebody made fun of me earlier about my art lessons in school. But anyway, what this is here is a fence with the sheep inside there. And when you put the sheep inside the fence, what do they want to do? They look out on the edges, okay? But if you can get a shepherd to these sheep, what do the sheep want to do? They follow the shepherd. So if I would like to do is I'd like to follow the vein of what we've been doing here and look at some of the underlying philosophies under music. The underlying things that make us do this thing or that thing. The cues of why you choose this music over that music or the other. And if I could just encourage every one of you, I know, I just know that I know that there's many here that are going to disagree with a lot I have to say. And let me put you at ease here for a moment. The majority is on your side, okay? The modern church is spending literally millions and millions and millions of dollars in contemporary Christian music and modern music and all these things in the church. So you're in the majority. You're the big guys. So if we say a few things here at this church that may be a little different than that, then you don't have to get huffed up about it. You don't have to get upset about it. You're in the majority. That's the way the whole Christian church is going. But what I'm going to hope that you can do today is to step into our living room. Sit down. Put your dukes down. And just listen for a minute. You know, a lot of you have chosen, like Brother Ross was saying, to come a long ways because there's something you saw about this church or something, some reason you came here. And we have certain things that are just kind of distinctives, if you would, about our church. And sometimes people say, well, I like this, but I'm going to come there, but I'm going to do all these other things. But you see, when you're here and you're amongst us and you pray with us, you see that sometimes these distinctives come out of something within. They come out of something within. We don't just make these things up. But they come out of devotion to God and love of God. And so, if we could, I would like to show you some of the ways that we look at some of these things. I'm not going to be able, again, to get all the specifics. Brother Mo has just preached a really good sermon here at Ephrata just about a few months ago. It's called The Inroads of Contemporary Christian Music. I'm going to recommend it, and Brother Mark's going to put some CDs over there. John B. Martin has done a lot on contemporary music and the principles of music, and I can't begin to go into all the beautiful things that he brings out. He has some things you could also contact the tape ministry for some of those things, if you want some more in-depth study in these things. I'm going to be using some of both of their positions throughout some of this. But here's where I want to focus on. Again, just like I did with the non-resistance, I wanted to show you that you're not a blank slate as much as you think you are. That you're being controlled by something. That you're choosing these things for a reason. And just like the clothes that you put on, you're doing it for a reason. Although you think you're individual, you're not. You're being programmed by one thing or another. And if there's anything that's this way, I do believe and convince that music is one of those things. But just as a disclaimer, let me quote 1 Corinthians 10.23. All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Can we look at it this way? Just loving Jesus, praising God, looking to Him. I don't want to draw up a bunch of laws or rules or something. I want to get deep inside to the very thing that drives you. And get under there instead of just putting a bunch of little fences up here today. I want you just to be able to relax and to be able to just consider another opinion. Can you? Can you do that? Alright. So, I'm going to be a bit dogmatic here. Alright? That's just the way I tend to be. But in that, let me just say, I'm not trying to say this is the only way you can say it or something like that. But it's important. And I tell you what. In my years that I've seen, if there's one thing that has wrapped the church and hurt the church and vexed the church and is killing the church today, I do believe that one of these things is this music. So, please listen. Please listen. Even if you're totally against what I'm saying, remember, you've got the majority on your side. Just to let you know a little bit, what do these people think about music? You'll see that we worship acapella here. Who knows what acapella means? What does it mean? As of the church, it's an Italian word. It's not Latin. It's an Italian word that means like they sing in the church. And we sing acapella. We don't have some strange rule about it where we don't allow musical instruments in the home or something like this or we dream up some kind of evil thing. To us, it's like a worship to God and it's a purity in it and a holiness in it and it's a blessing. I'm telling you, it's a blessing. And we've been blessed by that. And so you see, that's the way we worship. You see the kind of music you've been able to taste a little bit of the music and the style that we like to sing. We like to sing that same style in our cars, in our homes, around our tables and it blesses us. We see it affect our children. We see over the years that lives, you just tend to sing them. And I tell you what, there's nothing more blessing than seeing your little girl when she's playing house and she's singing out little hymns. Instead of singing these songs of the world or whatever. So, we're going to look at today the principles of godly music and how this world is influencing the church to try to steal that away. Let's pray. God, I believe there's nothing, I believe there's hardly anything more influential than music, Lord. And can we lay that, can we allow our hearts to be open and let you touch that today, God? Can we allow you just to touch that? Is there a God in our life? An idol, a something we're not willing to give up? Can you touch it, Lord? Lord, preach for me today, Father. I'm trembling over this topic. Preach for me today, Lord. Let all my opinions and all the things I would have to say in my own mind go away, Lord. And you say what you want to say to the church today. In Jesus' name, amen. Again, this kind of theme that I've talked about is that I'm very concerned that the church today is very influenced by our society. And I look over here at the potential, I get excited. I get excited. But if we lose this idea and we get wishy-washy with these things and run with the world, we're going to lose everything. There's a quote I'm going to read to you. This is a quote from Martin Luther King when he was put in jail. He was put in jail and he was talking to the church. Martin Luther King, for those of you who didn't know, was in the 60s and he was an African-American who was preaching and trying to bring out rights for the African-Americans and the minorities in America and the positions, the prejudice that the church had against those. And they threw him in jail over this. And while he was in jail, he wrote this letter and it gets me when I read it. Listen to it. He wrote this from prison. There was a time when the church was very powerful and a time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days, the church was not merely a thermometer, not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion. It was a thermostat that transformed the morays of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being disturbers of the peace and outside agitators. But the Christians pressed on and the convictions that they were a colony of heaven called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be astronomically intimidated by their efforts to and example. They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiator contest, leaving babies out to die. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch defender of the status quo, far from being disturbed by the presence of the church. The power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silence and often even vocal sanctions of things as they are. Keep things the same or copy it. Follow after just the way the world is. But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century. That's what he said. I think he's right. So we look at over these things, we look at the way we worship God, the way we look the way we talk. You know, we look at Scripture, those things that Ross was sharing today. You know, you just look at it. You kind of scratch your head. You say, Ross, Brother Ross, that just doesn't seem like the church is today. That kind of vocabulary doesn't seem right when I'm in the middle of some great big contemporary Christian rock fest and we're all just banging against each other and everything and screaming. It doesn't seem that that spirit that Ross put up here is the spirit that we see in the church today. Second Peter's chapter two says in verse one, but there were false prophets. Second Peter chapter two. But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you who privilege shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that brought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. Second Peter chapter two, verse two, and many shall follow their pernicious ways. People follow these people, their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of the truth shall be evil spoken of. And though covetousness shall they and through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you. And this is my concern. You have been made merchandised of. They have bought you and you were sold to them for a cheap price. You have been bought. And that's my conviction. That's my burden. This morning, the church of Jesus Christ has been bought and bought cheap. It says that they were made merchandise of you, whose judgment now of long time lingereth not in their damnation slumbereth not. For if God spared not the angels that sin, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains and darkness to reserve into judgment and spared not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which let Rene Ravenhill tells us in his book, Sodom had no Bible. And he brought judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto us that should after live ungodly and deliver just lot vexed with filthy conversation of the wicked. Verse nine, the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to reserve the unjust into the day of judgment to be punished. Evil people, evil teachers are going to come into the church. Peter is saying, and people love them and they're making merchandise of you. They're selling you. And the church has been sold, has been sold. I say it over and over. You're not a clean slate. So where is the church today? Is it a thermometer? Just, or is it a thermostat? Is it a thermostat setting the temperature? This is what we're going to do right there. Now, world, you come to that. Or are we a thermometer? Oh, you want to be a little hot? We can be a little hot. Oh, you want to be cool? We can be cool. That's a thermometer. The church is called to be a thermostat to this world. A thermostat. You're not a clean slate. Again, we use this verse over and over again. First Corinthians nine, how much to the wrong and to the Jews who became Jews that I might win the Jews and to the law as it under the law that I might get gain them that are under the law to them that are without the laws, without the law being not without a law to God. Paul says, but under the law to Christ that I might gain them that are without the law. The idea there is we're supposed to give the idea that we're going to just conform and change all these things to match up with the way this world is. We're missing it entirely. Quit reading that verse that way and quit using it for an excuse. You like it. You like it. You like the world. You love the world. You love its fashions. You love its clothes. You love its music. You love its ways. You like the world. I skipped a little verse there earlier about lot. It said there in that second, Peter, speaking of lot when he was in Sodom, Gomorrah and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example to us that we should live ungodly. That after should live ungodly and deliver just lot vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked for that righteous man dwelling among them and seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. You know, a really hard, hard on lot. And for a good reason, he pitched his camp real close to Sodom, didn't he? He was there. But even he was vexed day by day by the ungodliness and the unrighteousness. It says that his soul was vexed daily. Oh, but we just be bop around. Oh, this world, it's great. It's all these things are so pleasurable. Even lot was vexed. Oh, but we're trying to be the Greeks of the Greeks. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddlebrook Church, says this of his music. And he was the author of what was that book? Purpose Driven Life. Huge swept the entire evangelical church, Protestant, I mean, all kinds of churches. He says this. We use a style of music. The majority of people in our church listen to on the radio. They like bright, happy, cheerful music with a strong beat. Their ears are accustomed to music with a strong baseline and rhythms. For the first time in history, there exists a universal music style that can be heard in every country of the world, and it's called contemporary pop and rock. And that's what we use in our church. Well, it doesn't sound like his soul is very vexed like it was lot lot had no Bible lot, had not the Holy Spirit, lot had none of these instructions, lot had not to see what the church has done and failed over these years. But now we're going to just be all happy that we've got this one world music that we can all listen to a one world music sounds scary to me. What is the spirit of your life? What is the spirit of your music you listen to? What's the spirit of your worship when you read the Bible, when you read the scriptures that I read yesterday on clothes, the scriptures that Ross has been bringing up here on the tongue, the things that you have read. If you look at that, you say, wait a minute. That does not sound like my Christian life. Guess which one is wrong. The Bible's not wrong. It's the word of God and our whole attitude. I tell you, I've seen, I've been, I shame to say, I've been to these Christian concerts that they've been there and they're just swarming with all this rock and foolishness and things are going on. And is this what the Bible has given us? Oh, they try to defend it with all these things. But let me just read you a few words on caution just to the spirit of how we come to God. Look at your Ephesians, Ephesians chapter two. I got to move kind of quick here. A lot to cover. Ephesians chapter two, verse three. Listen to him. Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, talking about the world among whom also we had our conversations, everything about us, the way we thought, dressed and everything. Our conversations in time past and the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. And he says in verse four, he says, verse 22, that she put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, you have to put off the way you used to be. What's the most common thing said in these, what they call, uh, was it friendly seeker churches or they call it that? What do they say? Come as what? Come as you are. I was at, I was at a church once. It was a church and I heard they were debating what to do with a lesbian couple that wanted to come. They said, well, do we let them come to communion and all this? They said, yeah, let them come to communion. We're going to love them in the church and let God work with them. Is that the Bible? Amen. No, it says here, Ephesians chapter four, verse 22, that she put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lust. You put those things away and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, righteousness and true holiness. This is the attitude of your music, your dress, your way of life, your worship and devotion to God. You're talking amongst your little groups when you're walking around. Hold on the Ephesians chapter five. Now let's go there. Ross, I love following Ross preaching on James. He says here, Ephesians chapter five, Be ye therefore followers of God. This isn't a Lancaster County charity Christian fellowship principle, young people. It's not. Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children. Verse two, And walk ye in love as Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice of God for a sweet smelling savor. How is your aroma that you are before God? But fornication and all uncleanliness or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as becoming saints, not once named among the saints. They would never say that, oh, the church is covetous or the church is unclean. Neither look at this market, put a big star in your Bible, young people, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving a thanks for this. You know that nor whoremonger, nor unclean person or covetous man who is an idolater have any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things come with the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. If your religion, you know, I mean that if your way that you look at Christianity is just prospering, foolishness and jesting and all this foolish things. If you can go and just be in the middle of a whole thousands of young people and just laughing and all these slapstick sort of things that the church and these meetings have turned into, running and jumping and going through these things. Does it sound like this church? Does it? Okay, now open up your heart a little bit. I'm not just quoting some standard on, I'll open up some big rule book here in Lancaster County. It says no foolish talking nor jesting. Oh, how many plays and slapstick things that the church go on with all their carrying on. How many? Be ye not therefore partakers with them. Serious stuff, church. It's serious stuff. How's the very mood of the things you're doing and the things you're bringing before God? First Thessalonians chapter 5, 22 says abstain from all appearance of evil. Abstain from all appearance of evil. Music has always had a big place in the church. I like church history. I came to the difference in conversions in my life and the different things in my life because I've seen one of the things that affected me the most with the early church. Those who know me know I talk a lot about that. Because I saw in the early church a church before the state was wrapped up in there. Before they had all the state church and all things together. A people who would just die for their faith with joy. That the lions would rip them apart and I said I want to be like that early church. And the changes in my life, I've gone through my changes and one of the biggest things that inspired me were those things in the early church. And the early church speaks about music. They speak a lot about music. And early, one of the very earliest writings was actually written by a non-Christian. In the year 112 was Pliny the Jew. In Pliny the Jew writing to the emperor Tarzan about the believers said this about the church. Explaining about them. It says they were in the habit of meeting on certain fixed days before it was light. Early in the morning. When they sang an anthem to Christ as God and bound themselves by a solemn oath not to commit any wicked deed. I wish they could say that. That was a pagan saying this is what those Christians do. If they stepped into our churches today, what would he have said? It goes on, you know, the Clement of Alexandria speaks a bit of different forms of music. And not just building up to some sort of ecstatic thing. He says that. Writing around the year 190. Tertullian speaking a lot about the different things that make us and wanting to run after. And talks about the love feast particularly and about the sobriety. I remember once I had a meeting with Gene Edwards. I don't know if you know him. He's written a lot of things about the early church. Supposed to have a lot of things about the early church. And I met him when a book was coming out and I was representing Scroll Publishing. This was back in 92. And he had this book and it was a book that he was helping to co-write. And it said in there, it talked about the early Christian communion. And he said it was like a cross between a frat party and a super bowl. I read that and I thought, wow. That's not true. So I went up there and I said, okay, I'm going to talk to him the next day. And I brought, I had some of those early Christian writings with me. The primary sources. And I talked to that author and I said, you said this quote. And you mentioned that this was the communion. And number one, it's the love feast. And number two, let me read you how serious they took that thing. And he looked at that and he said, no, son, that was the love feast that they were referring to there. I said, well, no, that was the communion they were referring to. And I opened it up and I said, well, here's the primary source. Tertullian is saying right here, it's the agape feast. It said agape. And then it talked about the sobriety that they had and the carefulness of over sin. And how they encouraged each other to walk a holy life. It's not a frat party in a Super Bowl. He said, well, maybe you should speak to my publisher, Gene. I talked to Gene Edwards and I talked to him about it. And I said, well, what do you think about that? He said, well, I haven't read any of those early Christian writings there since seminary. And I thought, wait a minute. You're the guru of the early church. Church, let me tell you this. Young people, history is very fragile. Very fragile. People go out there saying a bunch of things and you start to believe them. You start to follow after it. It starts to make sense to you and it's a bunch of lies. That was a bunch of lies. A frat party in a Super Bowl. I showed them the primary source. They had nothing to say. It's a very serious offense. Going through the early church, one of the biggest heresies that struck the church was the heresy of the Arians. The Arians coming into the church. The church had already grown very complacent coming into the year 300. And coming into Constantine, there was a monk from Britain named Arius who believed that Jesus was created like the Jehovah's Witnesses do today. And he had that and although he learned a new way to be able to get his doctrines across. We're going to start making some snappy little songs. So he started singing these snappy little songs and they would stand actually out in the city and do them with antiphonal. They would say this and another choir would answer. And he would say this and the choir would answer. And they would sing this and all of a sudden people started to catch to it. Okay, Jesus was created. I see it. Yes, okay. And the entire Christian world followed it. The entire Christian world followed after that. There was a time when Athanasius said about himself, it is me against the entire world. He thought he was the only one still believing that Jesus was God in the entire world. And by those songs, the entire world was being swept up into heresies. It's nothing new, church. It's nothing new. They said there that in some of the early writings mentioned that there was teams of ladies, little worship teams of ladies that would sing these songs and attracting all these things. And it also said that how they let off people that were following after them just by their appearance and their beauty and things like that. Chrysostom actually then, I'm ashamed of this, Chrysostom then made his own little battle of the bands and they were going back and forth and trying. He would sing one thing and they would sing the other and they ended up killing each other and having wars there. It was ridiculous. These battles over music are nothing new in the church. Nothing new. We have the idea that music is just your taste. See, you understand, brother, it's just my taste. I happen to like the contemporary sound. I like it. It feels good to me. It's the way I am. It's the way I like. I just want to, again, to wear out the point. You're not, you've been formed in that way. Do you think it's a coincidence that you who may be around inner city and you get around some Hispanic places or you're down in Mexico, do you think it's a coincidence that all those people just happen to listen to mariachi music cranked as loud as they can, banging? Do you think it's a coincidence that when you go over to India that they're playing the Indian music and that the Arab, they're playing this Arab music and then all the sitars and everything going on, do you think that's a coincidence? Do you think that it's a coincidence that you are liking this taste? The taste is because music has something that has memories to it. It has meaning to it. It has effects to it. And when it forms there, it forms just the way you are. And it's very cultural thing. It becomes part of you. Yes, it does. But keep in mind that you've been formed by that. It's not a coincidence that in Mexico they're cranking mariachi music at the stop light and you're cranking your contemporary Christian music. It's not an accident. You've been formed by something. So at least admit that, be it good or be it bad, you've been formed by something. Let's not kid ourselves. It has been said that the hymns took on the melodies of the people of the past. Well, brother, you don't understand. The hymns of today, you know, in those days they were just those kind of music that came out of the bars and all that. That was the kind of music they had. And this is the kind of music we have today. And so what's the difference? What's the difference with all those things? Well, first of all, a lot of that is lies based on some mistruth. People have never done the research on that. Remember, historical history is very fragile. But the other point in there is that there has been something that, as I'm trying to explain here and through these different messages that have happened in the last 200 years, particularly in the last 40 years, that has changed things much more than they have ever been changed. It is true that of every generation, as far as you read back ancient records, people have been concerned that the younger people are into foolish things with their dress and their music and the older people are concerned about it. I mean, you can read Aristotle and Plato and see them concerned about those things. Matter of fact, here's a little quote from Socrates. I'm getting this from John Dee. He quoted this. He says here, The music is a very powerful thing. This is Socrates is writing hundreds of years before Jesus Christ even existed. The pagans can see this, but the church can't. Socrates said, Let us write the words to the music of our own nation. Let us write the words to the music of our own nation. And we care not who writes its laws. Saying there that if we let the music just have a certain thing, the laws are just going to find it. Socrates said, So you see why Socrates said what he did. His student Plato said, Quote, The introduction of a new type of music must be shunned as endangering the whole state because of because of the styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most political institution. His student Aristotle said this. Music directly represents the passions or states of the soul. Gentleness, anger, courage, temperance. If one listens to the wrong type of music, he will become the wrong kind of person and vice versa. These are these aren't Christians saying this. These are Greeks saying this. If they understood that this music is powerful. So we're going to have to be careful. Plato's Republic, there's a book on how do you govern your people without the Bible, without the Holy Spirit? They said, Well, one of the biggest things we've got to watch out for is music. They understood that they understood that we don't understand that. I'm not sure why. But over these years, and that's always been something that's happened. But in the last 200 years or so, when humanism has come, there's been a change that has gone much further than it's ever gone in the history of the world before. And I am, I am concerned about how humanism has so wrapped up in you, in you, in the church, how much it's wrapped up in me. Over the last 200 years, particularly the last 400, humanism, secular humanism has changed all our rules. You know, we're living where we're living today, the age that which we have been called in here to sojourn on, to give the gospel to, to turn this world upside down. The age that you have been called for, why you're here, to see a revival, to see a change in this world. You have to realize that these people of the world that you're living in are not indifferent. They are not. They think that they're just indifferent. We don't care. It's all this or that. But they are decidedly, well indoctrinated, and very convicted, radical, secular humanists. Radical, well indoctrinated, secular humanists. Go anywhere. They preach with one voice, with amazing consistency. They're devilish, dogmatic creeds that any real understanding of God is impossible. From the universities to the slums, from the White House to Hollywood, everywhere the cry that any real and conclusive statement about who God is, is an archaic, naive holdover from the dark ages. It is everywhere. It is in everything, including our music. This is the dogma. This is the attitude. This is the way of life of the modern, secular, radical, secular, fundamentalist humanists. That we have been called to sojourn these people. We've been called to turn these people upside down. It is true that most people we encounter, as I said before, don't want to give the idea that they are programmed in any way. It's not a modern thought. I haven't been changed. This is just who I am. But just like I said about the clothes yesterday, you go there to the street corner and everybody happens to have the same mohawk. And everybody happens to have the same anarchy sign on their head. Or you go to skinheads and everybody just happens to have a swastika tattoo. Or you go somewhere and all the concerts, they all shave their head. Why is it they all listen to the same music? Why? Hey, do you have that music? Oh, I listen to that. You bet I do. And what about this one? Oh, I go to New York City. Oh, yes, I listen to that. Oh, I'm going to fly all the way over to Paris. Do you listen to that music? You bet I do listen to that music. Do you think it's a mistake? Oh, but they're all individuals, just like with the clothes. It's the same way with the music. This is just who I am. This is just who I am. I'm just being my own self. At least, can we at least admit you're programmed by one thing or another. You're programmed. I want to be programmed by this. I want to be programmed by devotion to God. I want those words that I spoke from Ephesians chapter 5 to change my nature. I'm not there. I am an unclean man and unclean lips and I dwell with a people of unclean lips and I beg God for the coal from his altar. I wasn't raised with this way. I was. Grew up in an evangelical church with all the rock things. I was there with all those things. I'm going to get to all that in just a minute. I was about to get ahead of myself there. As we see this world has gone on and all the different things that it's come, we've seen the humanism slowly turn things bit by bit, affecting. Even in the classical music, you start to watch it. When you come into the 1800s and you come into Beethoven, coming to his ninth century and a ninth symphony and the praising of human, the praising of humanism and all these things are lifted up. You start to see the world looking to man and looking to the glory of man and all that is splendor. And these things start to come out. Going on, there were certain speakers there also in the 1700s and such, Rousseau and some of these people lifting up humanism, Voltaire and some of these different ones. They were looking for a man that was unaffected by the church. They talked about Tahiti a lot and talked about different native groups. And they said, if you could get to those native groups that have never had the church there, there's a purity there. And actually people wrote books and it circulated and the translations were made into 15 translations across the world about lies that people had made up about the society that these natives in Tahiti had. But one of Rousseau's students was an artist named Gagan. He actually went to Tahiti. He said, I'm going to find this. And he went there and he saw there. And he came back and he saw and he spent his life there. And he said, wait a minute, there's corruption here too. There's trying to have laws here too. And although he was a complete, probably atheist, I'm sure an atheist, he saw and he didn't understand that the word was sin. And that sin was there too and there was nothing he could do to get away from it. He came and wrote this, he painted this foolish painting and he wrote a book by it and he called it the gospel. And he actually, after he painted that picture and wrote that gospel, he was so in despair that he tried to commit suicide and failed. Humanism was building, was building. In the early 1900s, Igor Stravinsky debuted his Rite of Spring in Paris. The Rite of Spring was the lifting up of all the different pagan types of things that went on during harvest time. All their rites and all their things and all the carrying on of all this demonic stuff. And it was so revolutionary to Paris that when he debuted the Rite of Spring, Igor Stravinsky in Paris, the day he did it, they came out and rioted out of the opera house. And there was a riot because the people just didn't even know what to do with such paganism being exposed and just proclaimed on the screen. But now, it wouldn't even have anything at all. Wagner came on the scene with his, a lot of devilish thoughts and anti-Semitic things and the idea of lifting up of the solstice and the human and trying to go back to an Athens idea of human. And Hitler actually used these, Wagner and these different people to bring out his different damnable lies in Nazi Germany. It came from there that Mahler came out and all these different people came out with their classical music and their different things and it was just building in to let's get rid of the rules, get rid of the standards, get rid of the things that are stopping us. Let's let humanism come out. Let all the restraints go and let's just go with it and go with it. And the building, it just kept building on and building on. The 20th century saw jazz coming out and the vaudeville things that used to be going on like behind closed doors with all the nakedness and sin. And then finally they started putting it on stage and started to proclaim it and everything and people started to say, yeah, I like this, I like this. And started copying it. Then with the advent of radio and television, these things got pushed more and more and more into the world and then somehow into the church. But remember, you're a blank slate. All that stuff is wrapped up somewhere behind your foundation. All of it. It came up to the rock and roll of the 70s and the 60s and there's an interesting song by George Harrison of Beatles and he's there and he's singing this song, it's called My Sweet Lord, whatever his Lord is. He sings it and he starts singing Hallelujah in the background and suddenly the song turns into Hare Krishna and you realize that you've been chanting along Hallelujah and suddenly you're singing a chant to Hare Krishna. And suddenly the devil is laughing, I've got you. I've got you. And there you sit today. Now all those things happens over a long time. Oh, Satan is very patient. Very patient. Used to be, oh, you go take any music history class, they laugh about, oh, you didn't used to be able to use your thumbs and didn't used to be able to use a tritone or couldn't do these things. They used to have to sing just a cappella or didn't use a thing and every time a music history teacher gives it, they laugh about all how prude the church was. Oh, but Satan was just waiting. No problem, I'll wait. I'll wait. And then there you sit in your car after all that stuff has happened and all those things and just instantly go click and there it is coming in on you. And you don't realize what's happened over these centuries. You have no idea. In Genesis chapter 14, Abraham gives a stirring thing that I wish we could get this principle back. I got to hurry. Genesis chapter 14 says, The king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons and take the goods to thyself. And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up my hands unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread even a shoe latchet and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldst say, I have made Abraham rich. I'm not going to in any way say that Sodom made Abraham rich. Oh, but we'll partake of all this stuff from the world, won't we? Keep it going. Keep up the modern things and we'll just copy it right there. Right there. We'll copy right along with it. They've made us rich. I wish we had a little bit more of this caution. A little bit more of this caution in the church. Worship. Worship. Proverbs 15.8 says, The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight. It doesn't matter what you have. If it's the sacrifice of the wicked, it's an abomination. It is an abomination. But the simple prayer of the upright is His delight. Tozer says this about our worship. First of all, you know, we worship how we think God is. How you think God is is the way you worship. If you haven't heard Brother Denny's sermons on the attributes of God, I recommend them. You need to know what you're worshiping. Do you know what you're worshiping? Because we worship the way we think God is. We think it's foolish and flippant and all these things. And that's just the way we tend to want to be. A.W. Tozer said, Within the last quarter of a century, we have actually seen a major shift in the beliefs and practices of the evangelical wing of the church so radical as to amount to a complete sell-out. There's that merchandise. And all this behind the cloak of fervent orthodoxy. Remember, this is 50 years ago, young people. With Bibles under their arms and bundles of tracts in their pockets, religious persons now want to carry on services so carnal, so pagan that they can hardly be distinguished from old vaudeville shows of earlier days. And for a preacher to write to challenge this heresy is to invite ridicule and abuse from every quarter. Religious music has long ago fallen victim to this weak and twisted philosophy of godliness. This is their way of godliness. Good hymnody has been betrayed and subverted by noisy, uncouth persons who have too long operated under the immunity afforded to them by the timidity of saints. The tragic result is that for one entire generation, we have been rearing Christians who are now in complete ignorance of the golden treasury of songs and hymns left to us in different ages. You know, in the Old Testament, there's a shocking story. It's about a strange fire. Do you remember that? Abihu and Nadab. Do you know what I looked this up? Do you know what Abihu's name means? He was the second born son of Aaron. Oh, little Abihu. Let's name him Worshipper of God. That's what Abihu means. Worshipper of God. Oh, won't that be a blessing. I can't wait to see how he worships God. So he and Nadab, the Lord just gave the law. This is how I want it. And all it came down to was taking a fire to light their incense pans, and it had to be from a certain spot. It had to be in Leviticus 6.9, taken from the great brazen altar. But they said, well, it's just fire. I'm going to take a different fire to light my incense with. It's used the word strange fire, or a common fire. It just means not the one that's sanctified, not the holy one. And so they took this strange fire and put it in the pans and brought it before God. And what happened? They were killed. Now that's God. That's God. That's the nature of our God that you're worshiping. And thanks to His mercy, He's not striking us dead. But that's still God. And He wants us to offer pure, not strange, not of this world, nothing unholy. He wants us to offer a pure fire to God. John 4, we see an interesting story there. We hear a lot about it. John 4, Jesus is meeting the lady at the well. And you know the story. She's there. He first convicts her of sin about her living with all these different husbands. It's a good lesson to the divorce and remarriage of today. And He's rebuking her. And after He does that, she realizes that He's a prophet because He's exposed her life. And then so she tries to bring up a theological debate. Okay, finally. You're a prophet. Okay, we all have a theological Christianity and we want to know what you think. Everyone else says that we worship there on the mountain that was named by Jeroboam long ago, and this was the Samaritans now, on the mountain. And you Jews worship in the temple. Which one of this is it? Now we focus on the fact that Jesus said those who worship God are going to worship Him in spirit and truth. There's an interesting point I don't want you to miss. Jeroboam started that worship there that led to the Samaritans and the northern people worshiping on the mountain. And they had a lot of things that looked like Christianity. Jeroboam copied a lot of stuff. He copied a lot of stuff. It looked a lot like what they worshiped. But at the very heart of their worship was a calf. The heart of it. It looked a lot alike. But it wasn't God. And Jesus said to her there in John chapter 4. Turn to it real quick here so I can get it just right. Verse 22. When she asked that theological question. Ye worship ye know not what. We know what we worship. For salvation is of the Jews. Ye worship ye know not what. Do you know what you're worshiping? Do you? Do you know? Is God glorified? What are you bringing in your incense pan to God? And where have you got that fire from? What was the origin of that fire? What went into making that fire over here that you said I'm going to take that and I'm going to put it in my incense pan and I'm going to offer it before God. That's it. A little bit about myself. You know I was raised in an evangelical church. Grew up in a Baptist church. And it was one of those churches that when I was young I was attracted to it. Water slides, pizza parties, all night lock-ins were common. But probably the most influential thing in my life was this new upcoming phenomena known as contemporary Christian music. It was brand new. We were on the pioneer days of it. Pioneer days. It was the late 70's and the more progressive youth groups were really pushing this new fad. They were talking about it. It was everywhere you'd go around Christians they were talking about it. I guess they still do. The early concerts usually ended with an altar call and many people responded with a sinner's prayer. So they started to think, okay, things are happening. Things are moving here. My pastor was relatively young new and full of innovative ideas. And I can remember some of the people laughing about the former pastor before I got there. They said, our last pastor was so backwards. One of the common jokes on the way to our Christian rock concerts was, can you believe that just a few years ago there was this old revival thing they had at our church and there was actually a burn barrel in front of our church and they were burning rock albums and they were burning contemporary Christian stuff right there in the church. Really? Yeah, they sure did. And it was so embarrassing because even the newspaper got there and they put it in the newspaper. And it really put the church in a poor light. Oh yeah, that's terrible. That's terrible. So we would just look at those things and agree that, well, I'm glad things are better now. The sad thing for me is that as I went to those things I didn't even really have a desire for rock music. I didn't. My brother listened to it but I didn't particularly care for it. But month after month as they would put us in buses and take us out to these things I sat and listened to these rock concerts and, you know, I started to get a taste for it. I started to say, you know, I kind of like this. It kind of makes me who I am and speaks to me. Eventually I began to crave the sound and started to purchase as much of this music as I possibly could. I can vividly remember these concerts. We would brag about how exciting and wild the next one would get. It was sort of a thing to see how far you could push that Christian envelope in those days. It would be kind of a joke about did you hear what Rez Band did? Boy, they have this guitar solo and oh, Petra did this and they did that and some of those new groups back then. And we would talk about Mylon Le Fevre and all these people and they would just see how far. And any of these concerts we would go and do the next radical thing would be the next radical thing. We'd have the same thing as secular rock people. We had our t-shirts. We had our... We're screaming for the musicians. We've had our lighters and all this stuff and we did all that. And I was part of all that. And later I thought, well, this is who I am. So I started to get a little group of people together. Let's start one of these Christian rock bands. So I got a little group together. We called ourselves 180. I wish we really did know what that 180 meant. We needed to make a 180 but we thought that was a catchy name. So we started to play this rock music and I started to follow after it and I started to sing it and try to study it and be it. And I thought, okay. And in those early days it was a little bit hard to tell what exactly was coming around the corner. But I can remember that even in those times thankfully there were a few there that were cautioning us, saying, are you sure this is right? Oh, we just label them what? Legalists? Old fashioned? You don't understand this because people are getting saved here. But one by one I saw my friends going into secular rock, sin and godless lives. I did. I did. I did. All caution was thrown as people got into high school and a little further on and many still went to church but still they would even respond to some of the revival meetings but all of us were completely ignorant of a holy god and his standards for our lives. Few, if any, had any convictions at all to search out god's word. But we were so radical, we thought. We had this music and we're on the cutting edge. We're doing things that are kind of upsetting people. One by one I saw those people and as we went on further and that youth group grew, it seemed to be that the biggest concern of the church was to make sure the young ladies in our church didn't end up with babies before they got married. And that was about the height of the holiness that we had in the church that I was a part of. And there was no doubt in my mind that later on, that gave me the taste that later on, that I became a rock musician over there in Germany for the army and was over there and it led to my life of sin over there. It was no doubt in my mind that I got my taste for rock and roll from the church. I did. And they were going to win the Greeks, didn't they? In those days, the warning sign was hard to recognize. I realize this. I remember going to see an unknown young lady sitting on a little bench, playing my father's eyes. Amy Grant. Who's this? I don't know. Amy Grant, they'd call her. I remember Sandy Patty and Laurel Harris sung at my girlfriend at that time, my wife now's church. I thought they were just someone, my wife thought it was just somebody there at church. I remember her saying, you know, they should let these people sing more often. But she didn't know who they were, even. But they were just coming up and going on. Keith Green was trying to do a lot of evangelism. Petra said they wanted to reach the lost. I can even remember at an Imperials concert where this man was singing and he did this little thing and he said, well, no, Christians shouldn't dance. That's not for here. Even in those days, those sort of cautions were trying to be given. But the warning signs were everywhere. And because we loved the music and because the way that thing grew and the way it brought in what they thought was young people coming to the church, it grew and grew and grew. And the people, the artists themselves, became deceived by it all. Well, that was over 20 years ago. And by the grace of God, my wife and I both are now out of that. It's out of my blood. It's out of me. But this Christian church has brought this thing and it has become more and more and more corrupt since then. The Christian rock culture now has only proceeded from bad to worse. With few Christians recognizing the heinous beast that it has become today. Hardly any church is free from its influence. Hardly any. I've preached at different Mennonite churches, been preached at different evangelical churches, and this thing is totally invading the church of Jesus Christ. It gets to our little things here. It gets to our things there and it just wants to keep stealing us away and stealing us away and taking us away. There's some different things that as it's gone through the labels that used to be people tried to sell them free and all these types of things, oh, the world has realized the potential. Do you know that contemporary Christian music now outsells both classical music and jazz music combined? That the Christian labels have now sold out to the secular labels. And do you think those secular labels are now sitting saying, yeah, I wonder what her life is like. I wonder what his life is like. Okay, okay, what does he say on stage? Well, I'm a little concerned about it. No, they're pagans. But it sells. They're making merchandise of you. And you're selling out cheap. You're selling out cheap. This thing has gone on. You know, the Bible states plainly, be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion hath light with darkness? You know, during these concerts, I remember them to the point that these little groups, I forgot what they call them, the section up front here where people are banging against each other and all that kind of foolishness. What's the name of that thing? Yeah. Oh, and that's going to mash up with Ephesians chapter five? No way. No way. And in these very concerts, I'm going to mention some of these by name and what they're actually playing in the concerts. Jars of Clay admits to listening to Ozzy Osbourne, a self-professed Satanist, and even sings Crazy Train during the concerts. Amy Grant plays Joni Mitchell, a professed New Age follower. Johnny Cash, who's now changed over to Christianity, plays Beck in Soundgarden. Petra plays Soundagent, Ditto, and Kiss. 77s play Led Zeppelin. DC Talks play the Doobie Brothers, Beatles and Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana and R.E.M. Audio Adrenaline plays Edgar Winter. Point of Grace plays Earth, Wind, and Fire, a professed New Age follower and a pantheist. The Rez Band, always playing Jefferson Airplane. always playing Holy Soldiers plays Rolling Stone. The list goes on and on and on. Mixing the world with the church. So, what are we doing? What are we doing? The message of what you've heard today in the Gospels and James, what you heard preached at night, what you've seen written on the board, you understand, can you start to recognize, it doesn't look like what I see in the church today. It's different. It's different. And they want it to be different. Rich Mullen says, I'm really sick of this heavy-handed Christianity. Musicians take themselves too seriously. They should have more fun and they should stop preaching unless that's what God calls them to. If they want to hear a sermon, I'll go to church. Thank you. Wayne Watson said, there's only one way I want to write. I won't, I won't, there's only one way I won't write. I won't write a song that says, you better get right with God. Audio Adrenaline, this is the call to save the church and to reshape and reform ideas, to not be afraid to stand up and challenge fundamental thoughts. Jars of Clay, we don't have a specific audience of mine. We're not writing songs that are intentionally geared for a Christian audience versus a regular mainstream. SixpenceNoneTheRicher says, FrontwomanLeeNash says, she's really fed up with being pigeonholed and she's really fed up with being called the Jesus ban. The Christian thing doesn't follow creed and life house around, does it? It's so irritating. 80% of the articles written about us, Christian in it, they're somewhere. It's always a banner and we won't, and we just don't want to carry that around anymore. People with all their religious claims and just gets old. I don't want to read their books. I don't want to hear them talk. I want to know what I believe and I try and quietly nurture that so I can be a little stronger when I go out to face the world again. Point of Grace, it goes on. But so what we tend to do is we get balanced. Comparing ourselves among ourselves, we become fools. We become balanced. And later in our lives, a lot of the stuff that's just basic foolishness and it appeals to the young, it appeals to the young. When I was doing study for this, I was reading some of the secular works on how the mind works. I was reading one of a neurophysicist who was used to be a recording artist. And it's a very interesting book called This is Music on Your Brain. Or This is Your Brain on Music. And he goes in there and he talks about how and he looks at through the different ways the mind is affected and there's different things and different sensor and there's no doubt about it. He says that the pleasure sensors and endorphins and things like that are released by pleasure sensors in our body. Whether that's good or whether that's bad, that's what's happening. And when that happens, that certain music releases those things more than other types of music. And he says there, and this is a complete no way professing Christ in this book says, he says some people are very cautious about what they allow themselves to hear. For instance, he said, I could not listen to Wagner because of all its anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish things. I don't want to, I might become like them, he said. I read that, I thought, wow. Can the church get a hold of that? Do you know, I heard once that Madonna doesn't allow her little one to watch television because she thinks that television is too empty mindedness. Madonna? Oh, but we're open. I can balance that television. I can balance that radio. I can balance those things. You see what I'm saying? There's a quote here and it's, let me give you a quote. This is by a professor of Yale. Professor of Yale University wrote a few, about 20 years ago, a book called The Closing of the American Mind. He's not a Christian. But he came and he saw that his goal was to educate people in a deeper way. To educate them in a way, and he said in the old days, education used to be able to try to take your passions and try to redirect them and try to give you some conformity and put you on the right way and get you clear to go. He said, that's no longer. And believe it or not, this complete non-professing Christian, in his book there, goes to a lot of detail on what he says about rock. And I want to give you his final statements about rock and roll. This is not a Christian. He says this, the job of education in the past has been to show them the difference of what they feel and what they can be. But this is a lost art. Now we have come to exactly the opposite point. Rock music encourages passions and provides models that have no relation to any life that they are trying to lead. Rock music provides premature ecstasy and in that respect is like the drugs in which it is aligned. It artificially induces the exhilaration naturally attached to the completion of great endeavors, victory in a just war, marriage relationships, artistic creations, religious devotions, and discovery of truth. In my experience as a professor of Yale, in my experience, students who have had a serious fling with drugs and gotten over it, find it's difficult to have enthusiasm or great expectations. It is though the color has been drained out of their lives and they see everything in black and white. The pleasure they experienced in the beginning was so intense that they no longer look for it at the end or as the end. They may function fairly well, but dryly, routinely, their energy has been sapped and they do not expect their life's activities to produce anything, but to make a living. I suspect that the rock addiction, he goes on to say, particularly in the absence of strong counter attractions has an effect similar to that of drugs. A student, a student's gonna get over this. You're not gonna always be listening to this stuff. A student will get over this music or at least the exclusion passion for this music, but they will do it the same way that Freud, the psychologist, says that men accept the reality principle. This is totally true. This is totally true. This is how even these worldly people look at it. The reality principle that you realize, okay, I can't do this anymore. I'm gonna have to be real. And so I'm gonna be real. So here I go. But he says, when you do that, you receive it as something harsh, grim and essentially unattractive, a mere necessity. These students will assiduously study economics or the professions, the professional different things. And the Michael Jackson costumes will slip off to reveal a Brooks Brothers suit beneath them, a fancy business suit. They will want to get ahead and live comfortably. But this life is as false and empty as the one they left behind. The choice is not between quick fixes and dull calculations. This is what education was meant to show them. But as long as they have the Walkman on, they can't hear what the great tradition has to say. And after it's prolonged use, when they take it off, they find they are deaf. You know, young people, you're at a very important point in your life. And it doesn't seem so harmful. You've got a balance. You've got this thing figured out. You've got it all there. There's gonna come a time when you want to grow up and you're gonna want to be mature and go with things. And if you just face life because you're just gonna start putting on this coat and do this right thing and go and take the reality principle, you're gonna have an empty life. And it's as empty as this pagan world has and there's nothing to it. There's nothing to it. And it can sap you. And although it seems so powerful now, listen to my words as a warning, it can destroy you. It can destroy you. That's a pagan writing. I don't want to leave you with just this and this very closing things. I want to say this. I want to give you a way out of this. It's a drug. It's an attraction. It affects us in many different ways. You know, it's an acapella. You know, we think, okay, don't just think, okay, that's why I didn't want to just do this. I didn't want to just do this because I'd say, okay, let's just sing acapella. We've all been here long enough to see acapella can do the same thing. That sensuality, that thing, you know, you hear it. Does it sound like a country honky-tonk? Does it sound like a burlesque thing? Is a woman singing with sensuality in her voice? Is this thing making this type of rebellious type of attitudes, making you want to speed, make you want to do these types of things? It doesn't matter if it's acapella. It doesn't matter if it has a full orchestra. It's still the same thing. Satan is coming in to lift up passions and to lift up the human and to lift up man so he can be great and have his own desires unhindered. So, it's a drug. And you know, the mind, the way it works, and that man brought that same point to it, the way the mind works is music you like, things that's familiar. And that's why the easy songs, the praise songs, and some of the easy rock songs are so attractive to us. You, when you hear something, you like getting it. We have a sense and something goes off in our minds, some kind of endorphins, something in our mind goes off when you get it. Okay, I got it. Two plus two is two plus two. Two plus two equals four. Ah, I got it. But if you see a formula that says two plus five, it feels a little funny. And music works that way. The very chord progressions we have, the one, five, you know, four, one, those sort of things, it makes a progression that goes, ah, it resolves. And those things attract us. And when we start to get it, we start to get a beat. And when you get a taste for something, that's why it sticks. That's why in Mexico, they're listening to one thing. And that's why the Indians are listening to the other, because that has become a habit. So understand this, you're under a habit. You have an addiction. You have an addiction. And if you want out, if you don't want out, remember, you're in the majority. You don't have to listen to this funny preacher in Lancaster County. So don't get all huffed up here. But if you're here today, and you realize that you want to go further, that some of the way that there's something that you see in your heart, something God tells you, not Brother Dean Taylor tells you, but God tells you, and you're saying, but I try. I keep clicking it on and clicking it off and clicking it on and clicking it off and throwing it away and buying it again. Let me tell you, you got to just put a stake in the ground. It's an addiction. And the first thing you have to do is just get rid of it. Get rid of it when God tells you, take the CDs and burn them. Take your CD player. I remember a testimony I heard a few years back, and the brother said he kept coming back to the player itself. He finally took the player and destroyed it. And then he got victory. You have to, and it takes a while, and you know, for a minute, it's gonna hurt. You're sitting in the car, and they're actually, have you done it? Who has done it? And you try to keep it off, and it actually hurts. I've been there. And you want to turn it on, but it actually feels uncomfortable that you don't have that beat on. You are addicted. Do you understand that? And it takes a while for that to happen. It takes a while to leave that and to let that addiction get out of your blood, to not know what's the common things that are going on. And then, just like when Jesus gave the warning about cleaning the house, you need to replace it. You need to replace it with godly music. And don't go try to get as close to you could as that. Get as far away as you possibly can. I mean, just worship the Lord, and I'm telling you this, it starts to catch on. I'll never forget, I was listening to a CD, and it was a Summer's Melodies, and it has a bunch of children's songs, and my wife was in the grocery store getting something to eat. And I was in there just waiting for her, and we were practicing it for a family of verses and songs. And I noticed all of a sudden, I was singing in the van as loud as I could this children's song. Suddenly I looked over, and somebody was looking at me. You know? Eventually, these songs begin to have meaning to it. There's something that stamps, okay, this is what that song means. To me, there was joy in that song. And just like the first time, I bet you when you were gathered up there, and you said to yourself, why did they choose these songs? I don't even know them. How many thought that? Okay, I've never heard these songs. But now, how many start to have a good memory attached to it? And you start to say, that's right. That's how you get out of this. So, I just want to give you a way out. Deliver it to God. Like an addiction, God can cure you like this. There's so many testimonies of people that have given up alcohol or given up drugs. And if you want out of this, I'm not making you, but if you want out, there's a way out. And I'm just giving you some advice and ways to do that. So, there in closing, let's sing to the Lord a new song. The good music and the bad music and everything, just turn it all off. And just leave in a self in silence. And just praise God. Not just be such a listener, but be a singer. Be a praiser. Be the one that lifts up to God and just start singing to God. One quick last analogy. I'm sorry I'm running so late, but I remember that one book, he said that one of his friends there was doing a dissertation on, I forgot, what's that country that's in between South Africa, that little country that's sandwiched in there? Okay, they were doing one right in that tribe there. And they were there amongst them and they were learning all the things, an anthropologist, and they said to him, okay, could you sing? And the man said, no, I can't sing. They said, what do you mean you can't sing? You talk. How could you not sing? But we're just professional listeners today. We say, turn it all off. And sing to the Lord a new song. Praise His holy name. Let's start having rejoicings come out. Oh, God would be glorified in that. So, I hope you heard my heart today. You saw what I came through in my life. That's in my 40 years. What's gonna happen in your 40 years? You've seen the Word. You've seen something different here amongst this county. I hope you have here visiting with us today. And I wanted to take you into our living room and show you something that we think's important. And church here, we think it's important. And we wanna keep those things important. So, let's just keep looking to God and singing to Him a new song. May God receive the glory.