“Do not let any unwholesome talk come
out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according
to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Ephesians 4:29
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ut the melody of that song to which those lyrics are attached is, at least
to me, absolutely beautiful. It really
is no less than haunting. After hearing it, I walked around for days
unconsciously singing it because of its artfully-composed crescendos and
decrescendos of questioning and pain, confession and pleading. And all this was AFTER I had written a blog
post and two devotionals about the insanity of its message!
If your heart is not particularly plucked by
music, you might think it’s crazy for me to talk about musical notes and tones
depicting such emotional stories, but some of us really do hear narrative in music, complete with rising
action, conflict, climax, and resolution.
The minor and major keys denote something almost palpable to some of our
ears. I’m a sucker for violins and French horns, and a flute solo can bring me
to inexplicable tears.
And herein lies a huge
problem. We can be snared by all of this
loveliness. We can be lured into a den
of—well… evil. I hate to sound
melodramatic, but truly, no good can come from soft-peddling this kind of
danger. For years I wondered if this was
just my secret sin, but others have
come clean to me about falling into the same kind of temptation. Beauty lures us. It happens in all the best stories: Sleeping
Beauty and the shiny, red POISON
apple, Edmund and the White Witch’s delectable Turkish Delight, the serpent in
Eden and his promise of divine wisdom via a bite of forbidden fruit.
And I have learned that
for me, (and I’m only gently
wondering here if maybe also for you?) that one of my most tempting of
forbidden fruits hides encased within music.
Although I own probably no less than 500 Christian music c.d.’s, I also
really enjoy listening to love songs, especially those from the 60’s-80’s.
Sometimes I tune in, but I know that I am treading on thin ice, walking through
a minefield, tiptoeing through quicksand, and any other apt metaphor you want
to add. Danger lurks here for me.
For a while the danger
was that it pulled me into romantic memories of old loves and thus into the
danger of unfaithfulness to my husband.
When all that sort of thing passed (Praise God from whom all blessings
flow!), I thought I was out of the woods and could enjoy my music without
inhibition. But then I was blind sighted
by another snare. A hauntingly beautiful
melody could hypnotize me out of consciousness to the words I was allowing to
come out of my mouth. I had been listening to my secular music on a trip alone in
my car and had been singing with the radio (a huge compulsion that probably
cost me many second dates in high school).
The song had meandered along for a while when it finally dawned upon me
what I was singing, and thus saying: “Me and
Mrs. Jones, we got a thing going on. We
both know that it’s wrong, but it’s just too strong….” Aaaaggghhhh!
Here I was— a Christian who writes devotional books, no less, fouling
the air with blatant garbage. I don’t sympathize
with or condone any of these words that heap adulation
upon adultery, of course, but the tune
of the thing is mesmerizing and fun to sing and embeds itself up under my skin
before I know it.
Actually, that’s wrong. It doesn’t embed itself; its gets embedded—blatant
evidence that we have an Enemy who is doing just what the scripture says he is:
“roaming around like a lion seeking whom he may devour.” Some don’t believe there is a real devil, a
literal Satan, that evil is just evil unpersonified. But I’m naïve enough to believe our enemy is
real, alive, stirring up trouble and torment with his theft, lies, and
destruction. He must be wise enough to
realize that some can’t be easily gotten to unless the evil is masked in
beauty, sometimes even draped in splendor.
For most of us, straight-out-loud, screaming evil isn’t the problem; it’s
the element of mixture that gets us.
The
Bible says we are accountable for every word we utter. I believe this is one of
those places where we are to be wise as serpents so as not to be ushered into
the darkness through enchanting facades. If you are a music person, pay attention to
what you are allowing to come out of your mouth. It might surprise you. And don’t swallow his lie that this kind of music is the only kind that
is really lovely. The truth is that the
most of the modern stuff was inspired by the ancient, and most of the ancient
was inspired by praise for the Creator.
