Metal, Worship and lyrics.

        Alrighty people, it has been a long time coming but I have finally decided to share with you about music! For those of you who know me you know that music is something I am very passionate about.  For those of you that don’t know me, let me tell you, music is something I am very passionate about. 

I listen to all kinds of music, The list includes (but is not limited to): Singer/Songwriter, Pop, Punk, Rock, Worship, HipHop, Electronic, Hardcore (some call it metal, some call it screamo… whatever floats your boat). The last one on that list is the one most people focus on, telling me that “Any good christian should not listen to that type of music.” My normal response to these people is “Ummmm… ok” because most of the time I don’t feel like getting into an argument/don’t have my thoughts in order at the time. But now I have time to type it all out so HA!

Quite a few people will pull out argument that metal lyrics are evil and I have to say that for some bands that is totally true, but not for the bands I listen to. For example lets take a look at a song by one of my all time favorite bands, Fit For A King. This song is called “Kill The Pain” and it goes a little something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZiKZw-8w8g and the lyrics go a little something like this, 

I've filled my veins with poison

And silenced my voice just to take another breath

I've broken my vows to you a thousand times before

I'm losing myself, sit back and watch me die

How can I say that I'm scared of death 

when I spend each day sprinting towards my eternal grave. 

Every move that I make, every step that I take, crawling to my eternity.

These words are my plea, 

show yourself and rescue me.

Kill the pain, from the curse of myself.

Kill the pain, show me the way back home.

Kill the pain, guide me back to you.

Guide me back to you.

I've let these demons bleed me dry (hollow and cold, lost and alone).

Screaming these words to the sky.

Kill the hate within me. 

When I'm at my darkest I crave for the light, 

but when your hand reaches out, I abandon you.

Begging for death with every breath that I take, 

pull me from my self made shallow grave.

Now, believe it or not, this song is a lot like the typical worship song at your typical Sunday morning service! Lyrically it is different, but content wise it is the same. The entire song is a plea about how he messed up, and how he needs God to reach out and save him. Almost all of the songs by Fit For A King are like this, but most people will say that “God is not in their music” and other statements like that just because they don’t agree with the presentation of the music. 

Another great example is Wolves At The Gate. This band was what originally got me into hardcore. Lyrically they remind me a lot of the music they play on Air1 and other popular Christian radio stations, but they get discredited because of the style of music they play. But take a listen to them playing acoustically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yns5lkZfq-w Musically and lyrically it is something someone would play for a special at church while communion was being passed out. But because of the normal version (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Kf0PDgj8E) people judge it because of the style, not because of the lyrics!

Now there are many other points and things I could point out, and many more things that people judge, but this is the main point I wanted to get across today: People tend to judge because of the style, not because of the lyrics. 

No one listens. You have nothing. You gain nothing.

So I got to sit in on one of my Dads Bible studies before I left home after Christmas and they were covering the first little bit of 1st Corinthians. Specifically verses 1-3. These verses say,

“1.Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing”

Now as we were going through this passage I noticed something… without Love everything pretty much sucks. Just in this passage we learn that without love: No one listens to you, you have nothing, and you get nothing. Now you might be saying, “well that is a bit extreme.” But take a minuet to look at it again. 

Verse one is all about the mouth, and what comes out of it. In verse it says that, even if you can the most beautiful elegant speaker of all time, but dont have Love, you sound like clanging metal… No one listens to clanging metal, I personally tend to just block it out. Think back to the last time you saw someone, or you yourself, chewed someone out. Not to try to get them to do something better, but just chewed them out just because. That person that was getting chewed out, odds are they were not really listening, and most of the people will just tell them to shrug it off and forget it, because the yeller was out of line. They don't listen. If you are speaking without Love NO ONE LISTENS. 

Now on to verse two. This one is all about your brain, your ability to understand and comprehend, along with faith. Now most people wold be like “Dang… he can move mountains, understand everything, he has got this mental and spiritual stuff down”. But here it states that you can have all of these things, but if you dont have Love, you might as well have no understanding at all. If you don't have Love, YOU HAVE NOTHING. 

Now for verse three. This one is all about the physical. Even if you give everything you have away, even if you become a martyr, even if you go and buy things for homeless people, you feed hungry kids, you can donate to charity, you can go to North Coreia and yell out “I AM A CHRISTIAN”,  you can do all of the things, but if you don't do it with Love, you might as well not do it at all. It “prophets you nothing”, in other words YOU GET NOTHING from it!

Looking around at the church today it is very difficult for me to find the love, some people it is very obvious that they do things out of love, but others it is much harder to tell. We as Christians need to get back to doing things, not because it is the "good Christian thing to do" not because that is the way we have always done it, but to do it because of LOVE!

Without Love everything is pretty much meaningless.