The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 1301-R, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 20." A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. ©1982. All Rights Reserved.
Question
I have a question concerning Christian music. I have a lot of music that’s hard rock, and sometimes it’s hard to understand the words. You know you can if you listen a lot. I was wondering what the Bible has to say about it, and if it is wrong, are these bands that are doing this living in sin?
Answer
You’re asking me about hard rock that is Christian hard rock?
Question continued
Right.
Answer continued
OK, that’s what I thought. So you’re not asking me about worldly hard rock;
you’re asking me about Christian hard rock—which is difficult for me to
understand. Let me see if I can answer you, you know, in a brief way.
Music, like anything else in the world, can be used for good or for evil. You
know, God has given all kinds of things to mankind that he can use for good or
evil. Music in itself is a neutral commodity. I mean you could sing a song to
glorify God, or you could sing a song to glorify Satan. You can sing a song
about virtue, or you can sing a song about vice. So music is a neutral vehicle.
I mean it’s like a printing press. You could print pornography, or you can print
Bibles. Now, so basically you’re talking about a neutral commodity, but there
are so many things that feed into that, right? Culturally.
Now I believe that basically speaking, rock music in and of itself is
problematic—period. And I believe that for many reasons.
One is: rock music is a product of a disoriented, despairing, drug-related sex-mad generation. There’s no question about that. The first big rock singer was Elvis Presley, who killed himself with drugs and who went through women, you know, continuously. And he gave rise to the whole rock generation. He was the first, and his whole act was sexual, sensual, you know; it was terrible. Nowadays we think he was comical because we’ve come so far. But the vernacular of rock music at this particular point represents a generation that I have real trouble identifying with. And what happens is if you put a Christian message in that vernacular, I think Christianity suffers immensely because I don’t think you can take that kind of medium and use it to propagate a Christian message.
For example, in the sixteenth chapter of Acts, you have the Apostle Paul on
his missionary journey, and he came to Philippi. And a demon-possessed girl came
out and started following them around. And the demon-possessed girl said of Paul
and his traveling companion, Barnabas, “These men have come to show us the way
of salvation.” Now, was that the truth? That was the truth. They did come to
show the way of salvation. Paul turned around and rebuked that girl and cast the
demon out of her, because God does not use demonic mediums even to propagate
true doctrine. Do you understand? And basically the whole rock thing is tied in
with drugs and sex, and the occult, the whole shootin’ match. And people who
come out of that scene find it very difficult to listen, say to Christian “rock”
without being pulled back into all that stuff that they had in their former
life.
Now some people say, "Well, we use it as a vehicle to evangelize." Nowhere in
the Bible is music ever indicated to be a source of evangelism. Music is given
in the Bible as a source of praise to God. And I think God likes to hear what
we’re saying, for one thing, when we praise Him, and I think it’s good if we say
it in a vernacular, in a medium that honors Him. People say, well, now wait a
minute because when Wendell Loveless used to write all those mushy songs back in
the 30’s and the 40’s and “I’m in love, deeply in love with the lover of my
soul”. That’s schmaltzy, you know stuff; I don’t like that stuff. That’s crummy
hymnology, but people used to sing that stuff. And there’s a lot of that mushy,
you know barroom kind of schmaltz going on in Christianity today too.
But let me just say this. We’re so far removed from that schmaltzy stuff that
that’s not as offensive today because it’s not associated with the way out
fringe kind of drug culture. So it may be, you know, in the next 50 years there
will be some things that are a little more useful to us, but right now in this
environment I think that just drags in a whole pile of stuff. And sad to say,
there’s a lot of problems in the Christian music field, too with people whose
testimonies aren’t really what they ought to be. And there are some good people,
but you know Amos 5 says, "Stop singing your songs; your heart’s not right." So
I guess I have a problem with that vernacular. And it’s very important that the
words be right. I also feel that a lot of the current Christian music, not only
in a rock medium, but in a lot of other mediums too, is really lousy theology.
And of course there’s a lot of old hymns that are bad theology too. So you have
to be very careful.
I don’t want to say that, you know, now you get into the fine line of what is
rock music and what isn’t. I think that’s a decision each individual has to make
in a sense. And the older you are, the easier that decision is. I understand
that, but you want to be sure that you don’t identify Christ in a medium that is
demonic or drug-related, sex-related, and so forth. You want to make sure that
Christian music is distinct.
I’ll never forget two guys who walked in—I was speaking at a rally in San Diego
for Youth for Christ—a couple thousand kids. I was sitting in the back row
waiting to do my thing and there was this group up there, and they were just
ripping the place up. And you know, I don’t know what they were saying. Nobody
knows what they were saying. God would only know what they were saying. But it
was just, you know, a din. And two guys walked in—I’ve never forgotten this—and
sat down beside me. And they were pretty cool guys, just rollin’ in. They had
the long hair and the whole bit. And there was a bunch of kids there and they
thought they’d come in and see what was going on . They sat down and they heard
this stuff, and after about 10 minutes of this, the group finally stopped. And
this one guy said, “Hey, man, I thought these Christians had something
different. We could hear this anywhere; let’s split.” I never forgot that; they
just took off. In the Old Testament, particularly, and you can compare the New
as well, the word new is used more times with song than it is with any
other noun, more than new birth, more than new life, more than new creation,
more than new anything is new song. If there’s anything that identifies a
Christian it’s a new song, something different. So I think we have to be very
careful about that, all right?
Question continued
Well, in defense of it though, I know people who have come to Christ through
it.
Answer continued
No, nobody comes to Christ through the medium; they come to Christ through
the message.
Question continued
Well, through the testimony that these people give.
Answer continued
Nobody comes to Christ through the medium, right? They come to Christ through
the message. And they come to Christ because God has prepared the soil. You
know, we baptized a guy on Sunday night who said that he received Christ
watching a TV commercial, well, nobody got saved through a TV commercial.
Something in that situation prodded his mind where the Gospel seed had been
planted, and he responded. And the Lord may use things like that. I mean, let’s
face it, the Lord uses all of us in our weakness. The Lord uses us in our
frailty. The Lord used Balaam’s donkey, but that doesn’t mean we train donkeys
to preach the Gospel. You know, basically, the Lord will use anything. The Lord
will overrule. And there are times I think when they do sing things that are
clear and the words come through and the Lord will use it. You see, the message
is so powerful that it will overpower the medium; you know what I’m saying? The
message is so true that it will penetrate the heart. I mean, you look at your
own life; I look at my life. And I say, you know, “How does God use me?” It is
not because of me; it is because of the message that’s so powerful, it
overpowers the human frailty. So we don’t ever want to say, "Well, because
somebody got saved through that medium, therefore, that sanctifies the medium in
all cases." You understand what I’m saying?
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur's Questions and
Answers" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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