I offer the following thoughts with only the deepest respect and gratefulness to God for the fact that youth are being called into the church of Jesus. I am aware that God can do His work in rock music as well as Gregorian chants and everything in between. But perhaps you can try to understand the feelings of seniors, of which I seriously am and have been for _________ years.
My message centers around the idea of what the Bible calls the "New Song." I have read that admonition, as you have, multiple times in the Psalms, "Sing a NEW SONG" to the Lord, and wondered what it could mean. I think I know now.
The new song is not seniors stuffing their ears with cotton so they can endure the drums.
The new song is not old people trying to swing with the beat of the contemporary sound.
The new song is not destroying all the hymnbooks so one can sit in the dark and watch a performance on stage.
The new song is not a new liturgy, a new tradition, that involves canceling piano and organ to replace them with keyboard, drums, guitars etc.
The new song is not even about learning "new songs."
The new song is Jesus. Look at Revelation 5:9-10.
"And they sang a new song , saying [to Jesus] You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth."
Spurgeon allowed no instrumental music in his church. But those 10,000 voices before him sang the new song. The song that even David could not sing, but in the Spirit told us to sing, to join in with the angels and the redeemed in worshiping the one who is worthy, the one who was crucified, the one who bought us with His blood, the one whose people will reign on earth with a kingdom of priests that we have become already.
That's the new song. True believers have sung it for centuries. Echoes of it are in many of those hymnbooks trashed or closeted by so many churches. What a book that was, not just a scrapbook of memories but a treasure chest of precious jewels of the faith.
"Contemporary" music changes with the generations. What we see now will be gone one day, replaced by another style. Only then will current musicians feel the pain we oldsters feel to see all our past considered irrelevant.
But style is not the main issue. Message is everything. Do any of the current musicians understand the wealth of the musical tradition that is being set aside for music that more matches the culture? And has the background music become more important than the very words of God that we are to be planting in the hearts of God's people?
Not saying we have to do what Spurgeon did, but it is a fact that larks and nightingales need no musical accompaniment.
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