Judgement songs
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
I go through periods of listening to different music around the place. I've been listening to a lot of music from Mars Hill this week. One song that has struck me as I've listened is a song called "Destructor" written by Team Strike Force (one of the MH bands). Here are the words:
"From the first time you flooded the earth; to the last time you burned up the curse; to the way that you hated your son when you hung all the sins of the world. Holy, Holy, Holy... heavens disappear with a roar, hosts of God will come to destroy, send his declaration of old, God will have his glory one way or another."
The second verse is all about Jesus and that he is glorious. The lyrics are different to most contemporary songs being written. We don't often sing about Judgement although we do sing about God's holiness. I wonder if our hesitation comes from the way that we have been taught about evangelism. Growing up in church and youth group I always believed that the prime reason for telling others about Jesus is because we should not them to go to hell. The urgency we have for evangelism is the urgency you would have to prevent a friend from making a bad mistake. You don't want them to get hurt. The focus is on the person. You don't want them to go to hell. A sensible person wouldn't want that on anyone. Therefore we shouldn't sing songs about God's judgement because that is the big bad thing that we are trying to get everyone away from. There are two big problems with this view. The first is that as a sinful human, I don't care enough about others. I am self-centred and unless someone is very close to me, I don't feel the need to save them from God's wrath. The second is that this isn't what the Bible holds as the primary goal of evangelism. The bible teaches that all things are being brought under the headship of Jesus (Eph1:10) and we as christians are part of this new world order (Eph1:11-12) and so when a new believer puts their trust in Jesus and is sealed with the Holy Spirit they are giving glory to Jesus (Eph1:13-14). We should be so captivated by all of God's glory that we can't help but tell others about him, to the praise of his glory. This is why David can cry out for God to come in Judgement on the wicked (Psalm 10:12-15). He cares about God's glory being upheld more than anything else. This is why we can praise God for his holiness and the way that it is seen in his judgement upon the earth, because his holiness and it's display in the final judgement is glorious.
So songs like "Destructor" are helpful to give me a wake up call. Remember what matters most is God's glory, and he will have it one way or another.
Posted byDan at 6:22 PM
Labels: Destructor, glory, hell, Jesus, judgement, Mars Hill, songs
