Why Some of You Absolutely MUST Start Singing Again
…You’ve GOT to Sing!

 

You know how to sing in the Holy Ghost. You know, without doubt, what is anointed music and what is not.

Many of you have taken a back seat to the newer modern and perhaps younger crowd of Church singers and musicians.

It seemed the thing to do, in some situations you had no choice. You watched when the age of Performance and Entertainment in the music entered into our services.

If you think about it, the change was somewhat gradual, not all at once.

I must confess that my spirit is so stirred from watching two videos on YouTube someone sent me called “The Worse Praise Music you’ve ever heard.”

What I saw stunned me. It made me sad and it frightened me. What is going on in many services all over the country is completely shattering to those who have an ear.

A well known minister has said that Music has taken over the Church; the desire to be entertained overpowering what the Spirit desires. And he’s right.

Dancing in Church. I remember when that was such a great controversy among Pentecostal Churches. Some thought it “worldly” and acting in the flesh although dancing before The LORD is very scriptural.

Years later, there was a return to dancing in our mainstream Churches, especially at conferences and camp meetings. It was a wonderful time.

The style of worship and praise music changed greatly in a short period of years. Degrees in music education became the norm and much was accomplished in the ability of our young people particularly.

It became a paid profession where all had been voluntary in years past. Some of our greatest choral achievements were accomplished and we could boast of some of the most talented musicians and singers in the known Church world.

The strive to have the best music department began in earnest and competition actually set in. I have to shorten this. Who would have thought the spirit of the music could take us somewhere we did not want to go.

We were dancing in Church and having a wonderful time. Who would notice that at some point in the music we would switch partners, that a spirit other than The Holy Spirit would step in and hope to be unnoticed, undetected and ignored.

It was subtle. At the end of the service when people were shouting as we called it was a good time for the change to occur.

Who knew many of our musicians were becoming haughty and sometimes cold. The age of electronic keyboards ushered in a new era of Music.

One person could actually control the entire service with their keyboard, the entire affair could rotate around a single individual. We should have been alert.

Some of us knew the spirit was not right in some things we heard and we did not have to have great gifts of the Spirit to detect it.

The desire to succeed and grow larger and more prosperous allowed us to incorporate certain methods that accented more on accomplishment than true worship.

Our ability to preach and sing became more important than following the exact leadership of the Spirit.

The gradual decline in Spiritual discernment in many areas allowed fakes to arise, professional fakes who often had no real depth in following the Spirit, more often the desire of self and being number one.

The same transition was happening in the pulpit. Some of this was accomplished by politics of who’s who, allowing individuals who were not even spiritual, only popular.

Loud became the same thing as anointed, names and where you came from was highest, wrestling for the front seat, even on the platforms across our establishment.

The creed of “keep em jumping” was born. The result is that we have a host of people calling themselves spirit-filled who do not know what the Anointing of the Holy Ghost really is. They cannot tell the difference.

I kept hearing this phrase “singing in the Holy Ghost“. In my mind and forever I could not think of where I had heard it.

One day it came to me. “Heaven’s Jubilee.” It was a favorite of our day. It says, “When with all the heavenly host, we begin to sing, Singing in the Holy Ghost, how the heaven’s will ring.”

I knew it was there. Once we taught and practiced that singing, praying and preaching “in the Holy Ghost” was absolutely more important than anything, first and foremost. Always!

We knew the difference. In that day, everyone could tell what was of The Spirit and what was not. It must be so again.

We have evolved into an entertainment Church, a strive and determination to excel and “put on a show.” And I’m sorry, it is a show and by all past standards, a poor show, more and more so every day.

Frankly, it doesn’t even sound like worship or praise. Listen closely!

There is an uncertain sound prevailing, yes, it is that sounding brass and tinkling cymbal, that inner sense that something isn’t quite right.

I dare to mention that if Discernment of Spirits was allowed to operate truthfully today, some music departments would be shut down, some services would be stopped right in the middle if necessary until we found the channel the Spirit wanted to move in, an utter silence would grip us.

Modern equipment is wonderful and so often accents our services and worship but a fine test of just how spiritual our performance is would be to totally unplug the P.A. set and all instruments and see what kind of Church service we could have without them.

What has been a blessing has also become a medium for chaos and distortion, fake music, fake singing and even fake preaching.

Why don’t we stop everything and just wait and tarry like we used to, quiet and silent for a change and see what the Spirit would say to us, what He might reveal about our entire operation?

Why do some of you need to start singing again. Why must your voice be heard again?

Because too many of our people and especially our young people do not know the difference in what is real singing and what is not.

They don’t know that the Spirit can move through the lesser talented too, through the old people, through those who are only second best, that He isn’t always concerned with who’s the best but who can follow his leading in a service and who can be a channel, a vessel His Spirit can move through so He alone will be honored and get the glory.

A clear note must be sounded, our people must hear the real thing again and they deserve to hear it.

Not a show, a put-on, a contest or only how loud or how high we can jump. Some of we musicians need to take a seat, we need to sit down until we remember what we are doing on the platform to begin with.

We’ve entered an age where all the promotion we can muster won’t change lives or heal anyone.

I have to cut this short. Hear me! Being the least worthy of all of you, I’m telling you to sing!

You have experience some of these other people will never have, they’ll never get it.

You’ve sung under tents, in house prayer meetings, at funerals, in the rain, in the cold, at revivals, camp meetings and some even yet alive under brush arbors.

You are Pentecost in this country. You helped build our Churches to what they are today. The only show the people came to see in our day was to see the moving of the true Holy Ghost and to hear REAL anointed singing, singing that needed no fine instruments, singing that resounded with a depth and power.

People with no formal training whatsoever brought the house down, they just stood under the anointing of the Spirit, totally dependent on Him and gave their best to honor Him alone and to bless his people.

Surf the internet if you please. Get your head out of the sand.

Revival? So many now don’t even know what that means . It means “to bring back,'” to revive something that we had once but lost. It means to bring back the old paths, that of following the leading of the Holy Ghost, no matter what!

Sing in the house. Sing in the yard, on the porch, in the car.

Start humming a tune while you’re in the grocery store or at work. Sing for the old people in the nursing home. Start belting it out again during the service when you can.

For the love of God, ask the Music Director or Pastor to let you sing a solo again. Get back on the piano sometimes or the organ, that’s if you even have those cherished instruments any more.

On a light note, I knew we were in for trouble when I first saw a big single electronic keyboard sitting on top of a 12 foot Steinway Concert Grand Piano, with the lid closed!.

The fake for the real thing. Forevermore, it takes a real man or woman to play a concert grand piano or a Hammond B-3 or C-3 Organ, no wimps can perform this.

Light shows in the Church service. Let’s don’t even go there.

Do you remember who the chief organ player was in Heaven? Think about it. What I see today shakes everything I ever knew about music in God’s house.

I had no training. I had no formal education, I wished I had but I did have a talent that had been given to me by The LORD God on high and although the enemy and all his hosts have tried to take it from me and I must say a lot of his saints in the Church along with it, there was one thing I never gave up. It was what made the difference in all the work I ever tried to do for Him.

It’s simple. To follow the leading of the Spirit and give all of the honor and glory to Him, no matter what. It still works.

I haven’t posted a song in six months. The adversary has done everything in this world to stop me and at times it succeeded.

But you see, there is something down inside of me, the very same thing that is down inside of you, born not of this world but of the greatest Spirit ever known that “would not be denied.”

You must sing, children!

It’s all I have left! It’s the only thing left in my life I can give Him.

The years have gone by. It’s harder today, but I refuse to sit by and let fakes and the enemy take over the music kingdom of my Heavenly Father.

He’s all I’ve got left and as long as I can hit a note or touch a key, I’ll praise Him. Don’t tell me I can’t praise Him — He’s done so much for me.

First published: January 25, 2011.

~ Robert Blackburn

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Robert Blackburn

 

 

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