THE AWESOME POWER OF MUSIC

Many of us are aware of the mood-influencing power of music.
Grocery stores play background music that stimulates buying. Doctors’ offices play calming music.
Youth fashion shops play foreground music—loud rock that attracts the young and the cool.

Classical music supposedly stimulates learning abilities; some studies have suggested that children who listen to Mozart make higher grades.

Music was known to be therapeutic even in Old Testament times.
When King Saul was visited by “an evil spirit from the Lord” he would call for David, whose playing and singing would drive the spirit out (1Samuel 16:23).
Elisha summoned a minstrel to aid in his prophesying (2 Kings 3:15).

But few have really understood the incredible power of music to change the world.

Plato understood it when he wrote, “Give me the making of the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws; I will control its people.”

Martin Luther understood it when he penned, “Music is a fair and glorious gift of God. I am strongly persuaded that after theology, there is no art which can be placed on the level with music. The devil flees before the sound of music almost as much as before the word of God.”

Shortly after the turn of the century USA Today and CNN News headlined: “The 100 Events that Shifted History, a list of the top news stories of the 20th century, as determined by a survey of 67 journalists and historians.”

Standing at number 58, lower in rank than the bombing of Hiroshima and the first man on the moon, but higher than the Vietnam war, Watergate, the United Nations, NATO and the Panama Canal, is “The Beatles appear on Ed Sullivan, 1964”

A&E Television Network polled over 300 distinguished world leaders and scholars to come up with their “Biography of the Millennium,” the 100 most influential people of the last 1000 years. The Beatles, “new leaders of a cultural revolution,” ranked 76th, ahead of Joseph Stalin, Peter the Great, Guglielmo Marconi (inventor of radio), J. Robert Oppenheimer (“Father of the atomic bomb”), Susan B. Anthony (U.S. leader of the fight for women’s suffrage), Louis DaGuerre (inventor of photography), Vasco Da Gamma, Ronald Reagan and Suleiman the Magnificent.

Years earlier, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Beatles’ 1967 Sergeant Pepper album, Time magazine featured it on its cover, and Ted Koppel on Nightline called the album “an epochal event in the history of western civilization.”

In 2003 Paul McCartney, with A&E, made a moving TV special in Moscow’s Red Square. Thousands upon thousands of all ages, including pre-teens, sang the old Beatles’ songs with Sir Paul. Many older people were in tears. It was almost like a religious experience. Between songs Russian historians discussed how the Beatles helped topple communism. Topple communism? The Beatles! Nah. Read on:

Banned by the USSR, the Beatles became the secret voice of a generation. Because the government had suppressed freedom, the Beatles became the generation’s symbol of freedom.

Both Presidents Putin and Gorbachev admitted to having been Beatles fans, listening in secret on Luxembourg Radio. Gorbachev, taped several years earlier, said, “The music of the Beatles taught the young people of the Soviet Union that there is another life—there is freedom elsewhere.” Putin said, “Their music was a dose of freedom, like an open window to the world.”

Russian historian Arteme Troitsky said, “The Beatles have done more toward the fall of the Soviet Union than any other Western institution. In the 60’s they started a whole new movement in the Soviet Union, involving millions of young people.”

Another Russian historian added, “The Beatles were affecting the superstructure of the society and itliterally brought about that change that caused the collapse of the whole system.”

We now see that the movement the Beatles epitomized has changed the history, not just of western civilization, but also of the world.

Half a generation ago in much of the world, we would have heard music strange and foreign to our western ears. Each culture, in relative isolation for centuries, had developed its own system of music and cultural distinctives.

But today in many cultures what you are bombarded with is the pop music of the western nations, although sometimes with a refreshing local flavor.

Paul Eshleman, director of the Jesus Film project, said in 1992, “I have been in many nations, and I have not yet been in a jungle village so small that I didn’t see a kid wearing a Michael Jackson tee shirt or someone listening to music on the radio. And what they’re listening to is not their indigenous music!”

What this worldwide movement of popular music has done is to break down many of the tribal barriers that once separated nations. It has become a universal language, uniting the young of almost all nations into one amorphous body of music lovers.

There are now in many cultures at least three generations who respond to the same beat.
Seventy-five-year-olds still make nostalgic pilgrimages to Graceland to pay homage at the shrine of King Elvis.
Fans of early rockers now show up at their concerts in their walkers. Those silly teenage girls who screamed and fainted for John, Paul, George and Ringo are now in their sixties.
Music lovers in their fifties, forties, thirties, twenties and teens follow their current favorites.
Three-year-olds bounce to the same beat on TV kid shows.

Now here’s our point: If secular music can change the world, can you imagine the explosive potential of genuinely Holy Spirit-anointed music to change the world for God? What does this mean for the Christian musician seeking his role in the fulfillment of the Great Commission in the 21st century?

There has never been such a time as this for Christian music. And the phenomenon is worldwide. People are listening to Christian music!
If you’re gifted, now is your time! This is your challenge! The whole pop music phenomenon of the past sixty years and more has been a setup for you—a giant sting operation!

The devil may have meant it for his purposes, but God in His higher purposes has allowed it to help prepare a generation throughout the world for what is perhaps the final harvest.

So here we have a modern-day “missionary” phenomenon: in all of these disparate places, tied together by a common musical culture, the harvest field is ripe for those whose gift is music. What an opportunity! What a responsibility!

Let your music change minds and lives and cultures. Learn to write great stuff, full of imagery, hooks, emotion, energy. . . and God’s truth. Then, if you have a mandate from Him, go sing it on the street corners, in the parks, in the churches, the halls, the arenas.

Don’t wait for some hot agent to get you big money for a “gig;” go where the needs are, whenever you get a chance. We’re not saying you shouldn’t make a living from your songs and your ministry; we’re saying, don’t let that be your goal or your guide.

So go for it! Remember that your gift is a trust for which you must give account.
But enjoy it.
Thank God for it.
Practice long.
Listen a lot.
Jam hard, as hard as an athlete exercises.
Master your music, don’t let it master you.

Do you want to be a star? “They that turn many to righteousness (shall shine) as the stars for ever and ever.” (Daniel 12:3).

Do you long to be the greatest? Try Jesus’ method: be a servant (Mark 10:43,44).

If God is calling you, throw yourself into the harvest field where your gift will count for eternity. Get yourself trained and prepared both musically and spiritually and then go and spend your life as a musicianary!