Music Matters to Pastors Part 3

Music Matters to Pastors Part 3

             Church music has great power!  It can prepare the people’s hearts for preaching or it can make it almost impossible to preach.  If music becomes the “main thing”, it will upstage preaching so completely that the preaching of Christ crucified will be greatly dwarfed in the minds of the people.  Music can also become the war department of the church!  Music style has separated congregations of worshipers to a greater extent in the past 25 years than any other single issue including theology and worship style of evangelical churches.

             If our goal is to entertain or to get the people’s attention, i.e. especially the un-churched, then there should be no complaint when church music takes over and dwarfs or takes the place of the preaching of Christ crucified.  Certainly the un-churched church attendee does not necessarily want to hear about the fact that sin separates him or her from God.  To them it is not fun or entertaining to hear “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23.” Although it is the best news the sinner will ever hear on this earth, it is no fun to find out that your sin sent Christ to the cross.

             There is no doubt about it, religious rock music about love and happy things is much less offensive than hearing the about the wrath of God in Getty’s “In Christ Alone”.  It is shocking to the sinner to find out that “The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law (I Corinthians 15:56).”  Sinners must be catechized first by preaching and second by solid quality church music that, because of their sin the law was given, and that the law brings eternal dearth. They must be instructed only God’s grace brings eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

             Furthermore, it is deceitful to feed sinners with the same diet of music they hear in a bar or night club and then slip Jesus on their musical plate when they are not looking.   It is no joke that the un-believer must be catechized by the preaching of Christ crucified because I Corinthians 2:14 instructs us, “But the natural man receiveth not the things of God: for they are spiritually discerned.”