Addicted to Music

C. H. Fisher

(Eccl 5:1 NKJV) "Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not knowthat they do evil."

(2 Sam 6:5-7 NKJV) "Then David and all the house of Israel played musicbefore the LORD on all kinds of instruments of fir wood, on harps, on stringed instruments, on tambourines, on sistrums, and on cymbals. {6} And when they came to Nachon's threshing floor, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. {7} Then the anger of the LORD was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by the ark of God."

(1 Chr 15:16 NKJV) "Then David spoke to the leaders of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers accompanied by instruments of music, stringed instruments, harps, and cymbals, by raising the voice with resounding joy."

Let me begin by first explaining my experience with music.  As I have stated in my personal testimony (testimony), I became obsessed with music at a very early age. I started playing professionally when I was only about 16 years old. When God saved me I had been a full time musician for over twelve years. I lived for the music and never went a day without playing music.  After I was saved and delivered I began developing several obsessions early in my Christian walk. Although I was influenced by older ministers who felt free to involve themselves in certain hobbies and activities, I take full responsibility for my actions. I have discovered that if one justifies themselves long enough, they lose the conviction of the Holy Spirit and that is not all that they will lose. They will also lose the power, anointing, the sense of God's presence, and the peace and confidence of knowing they are in His will.  I discovered that my obsessions were nothing more than substitutes for the joy of the Lord.  I was trying to get through entertaining myself what can only come through intimacy.   However, whether it is music or sports, the excitement that we feel can be addictive and we can be pulled into an obsession to get our fix of excitement over and over again.  When we get into this cycle, we will lose our intimacy with God and fall into a spiritual sleep.  Satan will offer us pleasure and excitement as substitutes for the joy of the Lord.  His goal is to get us into and keep us in a  deception and he never shakes or wakes a sleeping saint.

Sooner or later God is going to get through to us with His word, His Spirit, through a friend, a minister, a book, and etceteras, that things are not as okay as we declare and defend them to be. Getting angry with God will not work.  We may even try some brilliant maneuvers to avoid a face to face confrontation with the truth. The flesh will pamper our hurt feelings and bruised ego during this time, but the only way out of the misery is to submit to the conviction verdict rendered by the Holy Spirit, repent and change.  When God's Holy Spirit convicts us, we may point to a few things that are right in our life and attempt to use them as evidence to justify what is wrong with us. Of course, that's how the deception gets so strong anyway, it is self-justified. We might blame everyone and everything for the lack of power we once had, but the problem is inside of us. The excuses, angry denials, aggressive accusation of people who confront us are just ploys to keep from being discovered. I heard somewhere that an excuse was just the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie.

When God exposes an error in me now, by whatever means, I turn to prayer and repentance. The wrestling with my error will begin the moment I repent and vow to change. It is not an easy battle. God exposes and convicts us but He doesn't come down and force us to give up the sin, that is our responsibility. I can pray until there is a blister on my tongue, "Lord, help me quit watching bad stuff on television," but sooner or later I will have to push the off button and do battle with temptation. Christian character and integrity is not formed in the pleasant places with smiling friends all around. It begins in the furnace of affliction with criticism and exposure stroking the coals and is fashioned on the anvil of God.

As long as one remains in an error, it is very difficult to get a clear view of how bad that error is. Abstinence will sharpen our spiritual vision and hearing. It helps me to put everything aside, concentrate on reading and studying His word, praying, fasting if necessary, and I can see so clearly how deep I may be in in error. This is how God helped me see and understand what is wrong with most modern "Christian" music. I was addicted to it. I am a musician and my wife is a very talented musician. We had music going continually in the house and in all our vehicles. It didn't matter to me what style of music it was,  from "Christian" Rock to Southern "Gospel," we loved it all.  If we took a trip we might forget the toothbrush but we never forgot the music. I played my guitar, wrote and sang songs, recorded in my home recording studio, and literally stayed completely absorbed in music. I look back now on those wasted years and realize how much more productive I could have been had I broke that obsession sooner.

I reached the point to where I was going to give up pastoring and go into full time music. To think of how close I came to doing just that is very sobering to this day. After years of God dealing with me I finally began to see something was wrong. At first I made all sorts of excuses, cut backs, and tried to trick God into believing I had changed. There is no use in trying to deceive God; He knows it all. When I finally gave in, I saw just how addicted to music I had become. Now I can see this addiction in others.  The light came on when I had several experiences directly related to the music.

First of all, I bought tapes for my daughters. My oldest daughter came to me one day and asked me if she could throw away a "Christian" music tape I had bought her. When I asked her why, she explained that it gave her thoughts of suicide. Since then she has discarded a lot of tapes and does not listen to most "Christian" music. She has a few favorite groups and even some of their songs are too carnal for her.

The next experience that got me to thinking was the young people in our fellowship who were getting very rebellious. Most of the problems that their parents were having with them began shortly after they began listen to "Christian" Rock music. We were able to minister to and council with some of these youth and was startled when they begin to testify that the music was provoking them to rebellion. One young man gave a public testimony that he became rebellious from listening to D.C. Talk and some other equally deceptive "Christian" music groups.  Some of them were also getting involved with secular music that was drawing them even deeper into rebellion. 

This present genre of Christian recording artists, who were weaned on secular Rock Music, have come into power and some of them have brought in a new idea.  They believe that it is proper to abandon originality and instead borrow their ideas and music style from the World System.  They feed a generation that now accepts "Christian" Rock music and cannot look past its origins to the birth of Rock Music. Secular rock music is satanically inspired and it does not seem proper to us it for the basis of Christian music.  However, most parents do not monitor their children's music closely enough and those who do believe it is better for them to be listening to "Christian" versions of satanically distorted music than the real thing.  I have to disagree.  The argument might be made that it may be better for short term, and that's debatable, but it sure was not better in the long term. The long-term results is that now we are seeing a large portion of this generation of Christian that believes communion with the satanic dark side of life by association is okay.

The next thing that caught my mind was the fact that everywhere I went I heard music. I began to wonder, why do people need to hear music all the time. This wasn't the way it used to be in our society. This led me to the conclusion that most Americans are addicted to music. Since the advent of the radio has made music easily obtainable, music has gotten an increasingly great position in our lives. Now it seems that we cannot do without music playing around us all the time. I wondered how one is suppose to have a thought of their own. How are we suppose to mediate on the things God desires to give us each day, meditate on a something we read in the word, pray with our minds focused on Him, when we have music banging in our ears and strumming our emotions all the time?

As I said previously, music has a far greater place in "Christianity" than it ever has historically and biblically. Many people are addicted to the music because it affects the emotional system with pleasure and keeps it constantly aroused. This desensitizes a person emotionally. Most people who listen to music continually are as people who watch television continually. They are desensitized to the extent God's Word cannot excite them. In fact, most churches have to find increasingly entertaining ways to get people to listen to the Word of God. Many young people believe that God can't speak to them through His Word unless it has the gutter effects of Rock Music as a medium. This sounds more like the days of Eli, the obese priest who fell backwards and broke his neck, than it does the day of grace and power (1 Sam 4:18 NKJV). Eli couldn't hear God, His sons couldn't hear God, but Samuel could hear Him clearly. The difference was, Samuel was listening, and his ears were not desensitized.

My proposal to those who are hooked on music is to abstain for a few weeks or months, whatever it takes for them to see and hear clearly. How long the obsession reveals itself depends on the amount of time that it takes for one to realize that they need a "fix" of music to start or help them through each day. If one involves themselves in prayer, reading and studying the Word, fasting if necessary, instead of music all the time, it will not be long before they will see clearly that they were addicted and possibly bound in a deception.

Of course, many will say, "I don't have to do that because my music was given to me by God." We will never know that until all we have is prayer, His Word and His Holy Spirit. When that is all that is in our mind, then we will clearly see that in these last days the entire world is addicted to music like never before in history. It will be obvious to us at that point that Satan is polluting an entire generation in the professing church with a completely uncensored and practically unchallenged method of music addiction.  Not only that, but Satan is spreading the apostasy through aberrant "Christian" music.

Music has its redeeming qualities. God gave us music and of that there is no doubt. But should it have the kind of priority, the quantity and quality of time, that it has been promoted to in our lives today? I do not believe so. I will testify to this, that since I have quit listening to music all the time, I found out I don't desire or need as much of it. I go for days, sometimes weeks, without listening to any music except for what I hear in the church services or someone singing around the house. I also have much more time to do the more important things such as study the Word and pray, plus I get a lot more done.

Are you addicted to music? Can you go a day, a week, without it? Do you believe you need it all the time? If so, you should consider abstinence and taking a good, hard, look at the matter from a biblical point of view.