Music and Lyrics

by Becky Rene

Introduction

1. I love music and I love to sing and dance to my favorite songs but, as my parents and friends keep telling me, “You can’t sing and your dancing is an embarrassment.” Well that is true and so I have to sing and dance in the privacy of my room.
2. If you listen to music that has cussing and that encourages rebellion and bad behavior, then I find that very sad. I really do. If we want to be pleasing to God, then we will make sure that the music we listen to does not have bad things in it. Look at these verses from the Bible because they show you the attitude you should have…
3. Answer these questions honestly, and it will show what is in your heart…
   1. Is it your desire to please God?
      "Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him" (II Corinthians 5:9 NASB)
   2. Do you make sure you do not hang out with bad people?
      "I do not sit with deceitful men, Nor will I go with pretenders. I hate the assembly of evildoers, And I will not sit with the wicked" (Psalms 26:4-5 NASB)
   3. Do you make sure you do not look at bad things?
      "I will set no worthless thing before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away; It shall not fasten its grip on me" (Psalms 101:3 NASB)
   4. Do you make sure you never say (or sing) bad things?
      "I said, I will guard my ways That I may not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth as with a muzzle While the wicked are in my presence" (Psalms 39:1 NASB)
   5. Do you make sure you do not listen to foolish songs?
      "It is better to listen to the rebuke of a wise man Than for one to listen to the song of fools" (Ecclesiastes 7:5 NASB)
4. A lot of you know that I like to write poetry and songs, but…
   1. I bet you would be very shocked if I wrote a poem with tons of cussing in it, wouldn’t you? I can almost imagine what would happen: you are sitting at your PC one day and you think, “Oh, I think I will go and see if that girl Becky has written any new poems.” So you go to my web site and you see a new poem; so you start reading it and you cannot believe your eyes because there is all this cussing and blaspheming and other bad stuff. You are sooo shocked and you call out, “Mom, mom, mom come and look at this! You just won’t believe it.” So your mom comes over and she says, “Noooo, I can’t believe Becky wrote that.” So then your dad looks at it, and then all your brothers and sisters look at it, and everyone is so shocked. “She is such a good girl, so how come she is writing stuff like this?” You all say.
   2. Well, now you know how people feel about you if you listen to music with cussing and blaspheming and other bad stuff in it. People just cannot believe that you listen to stuff like that: “You are such a nice girl/boy, so how come you are listening to cussing and other bad stuff?” That is what we would all think.
5. This lesson is to try to persuade you to stop listening to music with bad words and bad attitudes.

Stop Listening to Bad Music

1. Facing Up To The Truth
   1. Maybe you don’t realize it but by listening to bad music you are encouraging people to carry on writing bad things.
      1. I do not know if you have studied business at school yet. Anyway, in business, there is something called “Supply and demand.” This means that people will only write bad songs as long as people want that type of music. If you buy that type of music, then you are really saying, “Yes, I like music with bad attitudes that encourage bad behavior, and I like music with cussing and blasphemy, so please keep writing more of it.” That is what you are saying. Yes, you are encouraging those bad people to carry on writing bad things. If everyone stopped buying music with bad stuff in it, then they would not write it.
      2. Now maybe you still haven’t got the point, so let me give you another example. If you knew that a record company was using all the money it makes from selling CDs to buy drugs and sell those drugs to children, would you buy their CDs? No, of course, you wouldn’t! Why not? Because every time you buy one of their CDs, you are participating in ruining a child’s life, that’s why?
      3. It is the same with CDs that encourage young children to have bad attitudes, rebel against their parents, use bad language, cuss, blaspheme and fill their heads with all kinds of trash; every time you buy one of those CDs, you are encouraging them to carry on doing that; you are participating in that, and you are a part of the problem.
   2. It also shows that you don’t care about what God says. God says, "But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth" (Colossians 3:8). A lot of music and lyrics are written by people who do not believe in God, and they write music that expresses their anger and malice, and the lyrics contain slander and abusive speech. (1) They should not write those bad things and, (2) you should not be listening to it.
      1. The Bible says "Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him" (2 Corinthians 5:9). Do you desire to please God? If you do, then you will stop listening to bad music today. The following Scripture is not about bad music, but it shows you what to do when you know something is bad: these people were reading magic books but wanted to please God, so they burnt all those magic books. Now do not burn all your bad music (that is dangerous), just throw them all in the trash.
         "Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver" (Acts 19:18-19 NASB)
      2. Now, the Bible says, "Do not be deceived: Bad company corrupts good morals" (I Corinthians 15:33). It does not matter whether you keep bad company by hanging with people or by reading or listening to what they have written; you are still keeping bad company.
         1. So if you keep on listening to bad things, then it WILL turn you bad.
         2. And you will just get worse and worse.

Stop Listening to Bad Music

1. Silly Excuses For Listening To Bad Music
   1. Why do people come out with silly excuses?
      1. People who want to go ahead and do bad things will always have silly excuses, but excuses just show that you want to be bad.
      2. I heard about a boy who stole $2 from his dad’s wallet, and after he spent the money, he got caught and was forced to admit that he stole the money from his dad’s wallet. That boy is a thief but he tried to make excuses; he had two excuses: (1) “It was only two dollars.” Can you see what a silly excuse that is? It does not matter if it was only ten cents, stealing is stealing, isn’t it. He is still a thief whether he stole 10 cents or ten million dollars. (2) “Well I did ask for the money but you wouldn’t give it to me.” So does that mean that if I ask my mom for $500 and she does not give it to me, then I have the right to steal it from her? How silly can you get? But I am sure you can see that is silly, can’t you?
   2. The silly excuses people give for listening to bad music:
      1. Here are seven silly excuses:
         1. “You can’t tell me what to listen to!” What is that supposed to mean? I cannot tell you not to steal or to murder someone or to steal a car but that does not mean it is ok to do those things, does it? If you want to listen to bad music, then what kind of a person are you that likes to listen to cussing and people taking God’s name in vain? What kind of a person are you that enjoys songs about how great it is to take drugs and that you shouldn’t listen to what your parents say and stuff like that? Bad people like listening to bad things, and listening to bad things just fills your head with bad thoughts and bad attitudes. The truth is, it is not me you are not listening to; it is God.
         2. “I listen to music that has cussing and blaspheming but it doesn’t affect me. I mean, I don’t cuss or blaspheme!” So you do not cuss and blaspheme? Really! Or do you just mean you do not cuss and blaspheme at home, but you do at school? Well, even if you do not cuss and blaspheme, then it will not be long before you start. Think! If you listen to music that has cussing in it, if you have friends who cuss, if you watch TV programs with cussing in it, if you read books with cussing in it, if you have parents and neighbors who cuss, then you will start cussing sooner or latter because bad company corrupts good morals - I Corinthians 15.33. You are like a fish who bites the worm on the end of the hook and says, “Huh! All those other fish get caught on a hook when they eat worms but that will never happen to me.” Huh! But that silly fish is already hooked, isn’t he?
         3. “It only has a little bit of cussing and blaspheming in it.” I know a girl who used to get slapped around the face by her drunken father, and a neighbor heard that girl screaming, so that neighbor called 911. Do you know what the father said to the police officer? He says, “I don’t know what all the fuss is about; I just beat her a little bit.” Beating a 5-year-old girl around the face “a little bit” does not make it ok, does it? Doing anything bad “a little bit” does not make it ok. Surely you are intelligent enough to see that, aren’t you?
         4. “Well, what about Janet, she listens to stuff that’s a lot worse.” Janet might be your friend, your sister, or your cousin. This is almost the same silly excuse as “It only has a little bit of cussing and blaspheming in it,” isn’t it? Listen, if you steal 10 cents from your mom’s purse, and I steal 200 dollars from my dad’s wallet, who is the worst? I have stolen more, which is true, but guess what? We are both thieves. Only stealing 10 cents does not make it right and only listening to a song with a little bit of cussing does not make it right.
         5. “Well, my older sister listens to very bad music, and my parents let her listen to it.” This silly excuse is nearly the same as the one above. The difference with this excuse is that you are saying, “If she is allowed to listen to bad music, then I should be allowed to listen to it.” So your older sister or brother gets away with it and you think it is not fair that you don’t. Supposing your older brother or sister had children and they were very cruel to those children, but they got away with it, does that mean you should be allowed to get away with being cruel to your children? Now, you might say, “Oh, but I would not be cruel to my children.” That is exactly the right attitude to have and that is the attitude you should have; you should be saying, “Oh but I would not listen to bad music.” But you are giving excuses instead.
         6. “Everyone else is listening to bad music.” Well, that is not entirely true, is it? There are a lot of people who listen to bad music but not everyone (I don’t). Now, you could say that everyone drinks alcohol, everyone takes drugs, everyone bunks off school, everyone cheats on their exams, everyone goes to the mall on Saturdays and steals CDs, and everyone does all that sexy stuff before they get married. Well all those things are wrong as well and it does not matter how many people are doing those things, they will never be right. What if everyone was cruel to their pets? Would that make it okay? You are intelligent enough to see how silly that is, aren’t you?
         7. “I just like the tune, and I don’t listen to the words.” This is such a pathetic excuse. Now I have a confession to make: that is an excuse I gave one time. Yes. But I know that this is rubbish because you do listen to the words. When Amanda said to me, “Oh, why are you listening to that song when it has bad words in it?” I did not say, “What bad words?!” That is because I knew it had bad words, and I heard those words every time I listened to that song. If you are so interested in that tune, then go and find that music without the words. The truth is it is just an excuse.
      2. Those are just seven silly excuses; maybe you know some more but they are all silly excuses. You should not be listening to bad music.

Summary

1. If you carry on listening to bad music, then there are two things you should realize:
   1. Every time you listen to bad music (it does not matter whether you bought it or not), you are saying to those songwriters that you like their bad music and that they should write more and more of it.
   2. God does not want us to listen to music that has cussing, blaspheming, and bad attitudes and so you are saying that you do not care what God says.
2. Some people think they have a good excuse for listening to bad music but, honestly, they are all silly and pathetic. I am sure you are intelligent enough to see that.
3. If you carry on listening to bad music, then it will affect you (it already has!), and I do not think I want friends who say they are Christians to carry on listening to bad music even when they have been shown it is wrong.
4. So what do you need to do?
   1. Say a prayer and tell God that you are really sorry for upsetting Him by listening to that bad music, and promise Him that you will not listen to any more bad music.
   2. Go through your CDs and find all those ones that have bad things and throw them in the trash.
   3. There are probably people who tried to tell you about that bad music, but you ignored them and were even rude to them. So maybe you need to tell your parents you are sorry for being disobedient when they told you not to listen to it, or maybe you need to apologize to a brother or sister or friend for being rude to them.
   4. And please remember that people warn you about the bad things you get into because they care about you.

Stop Listening to Bad Music

"Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him" (II Corinthians 5:9 NASB).