“Praise
the Lord! Praise God in his
sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens!” (Psalm 150:1, ESV)
In many
other places in scripture we read of exhortations to praise the Lord in song
corporately. A second reason to sing in
a corporate environment is to exhort and build up one another.
“Let
the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in
all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in
your hearts to God.” (Colossians 3:16, ESV)
I
honestly cannot think of another reason to sing corporately. If I have missed a
reason, please let me know in a comment to this post. Now, given that music in
the church is to either glorify God, or to exhort one another, does it not make
sense that we should critically evaluate the songs that are sung during the
meeting of the church?
I have
evaluated songs before in this blog. One brother encouraged me that if I needed
clarification on a particular song, why not write the author and ask him what
he meant rather than airing my concern in a public blog? But should I really
need to do that? If a song is not obvious in its meaning is it a good candidate
for corporate worship? What if I needed clarification from Isaac Watts on his
music? He’s dead. So I can’t ask him. Oh yeah, the subject of his music is
pretty obvious. It is simply Christ and Him crucified. I mean no disrespect for
modern day artists. I mean, they have to make a living somehow. A steady stream
of church pop music puts food on their tables in a way that public domain hymns
cannot. Regardless of our concern for
the need of worship leaders to feed their families, I do believe that it is
beneficial that if a song is proposed for corporate singing (especially in the
church I attend) that as a congregation we consider carefully what words will
leave our lips as we worship the Lord together.
So after having
given my reasoning for evaluating musical lyrics, let’s move on to this blog
post’s spotlight. Today’s critique is Daniel Bashta’s “Like a Lion.” Now, I’ve
been told that this is a very popular Christian radio song. That’s news to me
because I’ve never heard it. But then again, it’s tough to hear it when I never
listen to the radio. Some who have heard it tell me that seems strange to sing
it as a corporate worship song. In any case, I have it on good authority that
it is in the docket for corporate worship in a sanctuary near you.
I’m not
sure what a “Misc” is in music terms, but this song has 4 of them. Those are
separate from the Verses (there are two), and the choruses (there’s actually
only one).
The
entire “Misc 1” is “Now I’m lost in Your
freedom Oh this world I’ll overcome.” I
assume this is the first thing that is sung because it appears at the top of
the lyrics. Yet the word “Now” indicates some sort of causative action. It’s
similar to “Therefore” or “Because of (what was stated previously).” So already
I’m confused, “Now” what? Nothing has prefaced it. Next, what does it mean to
be “lost in Your freedom?” Being raised up in church I can see the capital “Y”
in Your and assume that this is referring to God. Would everyone know that?
Maybe. Maybe not. In any case, what does it mean to be lost in God’s freedom?
We aren’t told. “Oh this world I’ll overcome.” Hmmm, how will we overcome? I
John 5:4-5 tells us:
“For
everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory
that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except
the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:4–5, ESV)
Is this
what this song is hinting at? If so, then it left some very important details
regarding *how* we are to overcome the world. This isn’t something we are going
to drum up within ourselves. And if the song is going to make the claim that we’ll…sorry
“I’ll”…overcome, then shouldn’t we be given doctrine to back up the claim?
Next, we
fall straight into the chorus. “My God’s not dead He’s surely alive And He’s
living on the inside roaring like a lion.” Hmmm….why do you say He’s not dead,
but alive? Is it because He rose from the dead, conquering death, hell, and the
grave? Then tell us that! Rather we are left to assume that his god is not dead
with the following reasoning, “He’s living on the inside roaring like a lion.”
You know, that could just be heartburn. It might be good to have it checked
out. Seriously though. On the inside of what? Of me? Scripture reference? And where
does “roaring like a lion” come from? Without further context my mind wanders
to this scripture:
“Be
sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a
roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8, ESV)
Yes,
there are references to God as compared to a lion. But as we’ve seen above, a
lion can also be representative of satan. To get a full sense of what is
inferred here we need better scripture context, not simply “living on the
inside roaring like a lion.” We don’t worship Aslan. We worship Jesus Christ.
“Verse 1”…
“Let love explode and bring the dead to life A love so bold to see a revolution
somehow” I’m really scratching my head on this one. Typing “love explode” into
my Bible search in Logos pulls up no hits. Wasn’t there something from the 1960’s
that involved a “love explosion.” Nah… And does “love” bring the dead to life
or does Christ do that? And why, O why do we need to sing about “revolution?”
In most cases, revolution is an act of rebellion against God ordained
government. Consider the French revolution. This can hardly be called godly.
Some have called the American War for Independence a “revolution.” Yet, I
resist that label because of its anti-Christian aspects. I believe that a case
can be made for the justification of America’s founding, but that is a subject
for another blog article. But back to the issue at hand, what kind of
revolution are we supposed to be singing about in a corporate worship song in
the meeting of the saints? To say this is inappropriate is an understatement.
“Verse 2”…”Let
hope arise and make the darkness hide My faith is dead I need a resurrection
somehow” Hope in what? That’s a valid question because it hasn’t been stated in
this song. I guess we can assume Christ, because, after all, this is being sung
in corporate worship, right? But why do we assume? What if we assume wrong? Next
there is a lament that his faith is dead and he needs a resurrection “somehow.”
Well, we read in James 2:17 that:
“So also
faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 2:17, ESV)
So I
assume that there is no fruit of good works in this man’s life, else his faith
would not be dead. So, let’s assume for a minute that we are really singing a
song written by a man who has a self professed dead faith. He says he needs a
resurrection “somehow.” What can possibly resurrect his faith? Ohh, pick me!
Pick me! I know! How about Christ? Christ is the answer to your “somehow”
Daniel. Call out to Him! He can resurrect not only your dead faith, but your
dead spirit. And if He has already done that to you, then why not share that
good news with your music fans?
Falling
into “Misc 2” we are simply told “He’s surely alive Oh He’s surely alive”
Again, assumptions can be made as to who is alive, but since we’ve not heard
the name of Christ, it remains an assumption.
“Misc 3”
tells us “Let heaven roar and fire fall Come shake the ground with the sound of
revival” What is it that Daniel is asking for here? When I hear of fire falling
I think of God’s judgment.
“Then the
Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah
sulfur and fire from the Lord out
of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the
inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.” (Genesis 19:24–25,
ESV)
Maybe
Daniel is asking for a Charles Finney revivalism? If so, that’s not really what
I’d want in our Reformed Baptist church either.
“Misc 4”
trails off with five repetitions of “Oh He’s surely alive” never really telling
who is alive except for “My God” as specified in Chorus 1. As the name of
Christ is not named we are left once more to conjecture.
Brothers
and sisters, we have so little time to spend in corporate worship over the
course of our lifetimes. Will we spend these precious hours and minutes in
singing ambiguous fluff that we hear on our pop music radio stations, or will
we sing a solemn song of worship and praise to the Lord our God? If I’ve
unfairly characterized this particular song, I’ll welcome your comments. But my
guess is that most people who follow along glibly and sing this in corporate
worship don’t stop even for a second to consider what they are singing. It has
a good beat or a “chord progression” or it’s just fun to play on an electric
guitar. But is that really the standard that we should apply in determining
what we will offer as a sacrifice of praise to our one true and living God?
