The Power of Song - Part 1

The Power of Song

Part 1 – Music That Brought Me to Jesus

[This is an adaptation of a sermon delivered to the Roseville Church of Christ on December 22, 2019. The original title was “My Story.”]

For years people (mostly preachers) have been telling me I need to practice telling “my story.” By that they mean the story of how I was converted to Christianity and how my faith grew. Have you ever been told that?

A lot of people have fascinating stories. There’s one very faithful man in the Eagan church who had been searching, who had a lot of questions when someone knocked on his door. It was a preacher trying to find the right address for his appointment for a Bible study. He was on the wrong street. His appointment was for one street over, the same house number. But they got to talking and the preacher called his appointment and postponed it so he could talk with Dan.

But I didn’t have a story. The point is that, in order to convince anyone, I needed to be able to tell people what led me to believe. The problem has been that I haven’t known the answer to the question.

You see, I have always believed. I learned that God loved me almost before I could sit up by myself. I have always understood that “Jesus Loves Me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so.” And that “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.” And that I should try to hold up my little light “all around the neighborhood.” But I didn’t really know why or how I knew those things.

Then a couple of weeks ago someone called the question on me. I was in a weekly Bible study with a group of guys and the announcement was made the we were going to pause our study of Joshua mid-way and during the month of December we would take turns telling our stories. 

What would you do if you were put in that situation? I kinda panicked for awhile. I didn’t know the answer. Started trying to figure out how I could get by without telling my story and without embarrassing myself too badly. But then somehow the discussion led me to an epiphany. I suddenly realized what had confirmed my belief and had grown my faith. It was the music!

This lesson comes in three Parts: 1) Music that brought me to Jesus; 2) Music that grew my faith through the years; and 3) Music that, as I get older, deepens my longing for heaven. 

Music that brought me to Jesus

It probably really started with “Jesus Loves Me” and “Jesus Loves the Little Children,” but I don’t really remember that part. The song that I remember kicking off my faith in God was the one I sang that day at home. My mother was in the kitchen and I was in our bedroom. I was probably too old to still be in a crib (baby bed), but kids stayed in cribs longer then when their parents couldn’t afford the price or the space for a real bed. I was at the foot of the crib, kicking it in time and singing at the top of my lungs, “Up from the grave He arose.” It seems like yesterday, though it must have been at least 74 years back.

That was the song that I brought home from church.  It was the song that told the tale of Jesus getting up and walking out of the grave on a Sunday morning, proving once and for all that there is nothing in this world that we need to be afraid of. 

I don’t remember ever really being afraid of anything. I was once with an infantry platoon that was pinned down in a rice patty in Viet Nam and the Captain directed me to get up and go help load the wounded on the helicopter while we were still being shot at. But I don’t remember being afraid. I’ll say more about fear in a few minutes.

What my three or four year old self brought home from church was “Up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o’re his foes. He arose a victor from the dark domain and He lives forever with His saints to reign. He arose! He arose! Hallelujah, Christ arose!”

There are other parts of that song that still excite me: “Death cannot keep its prey. He tore the bars away!” I have often said that the four most important words in the Bible are “He is not here.” They were spoken by the angel at the grave that Sunday morning to the women who went there looking for Jesus.

If Jesus had stayed in the grave that morning, we would be living in a whole different story. This life would be all there is. This life with all its disappointments, sicknesses, setbacks. hard times. That would be it. We would come to the end of the road and there would be a big drop off. Nothing more.

Some of the other songs that meant a lot to me from that time period were invitation songs. They were powerful! One that haunted me was called “Oh why not tonight.”  We sang that song over and over and over. It goes on like this: 

1.   Oh, do not let the Word depart,
And close thine eyes against the light;
Poor sinner, harden not your heart,
Be saved, oh, tonight.

o   Refrain:
Oh, why not tonight?
Oh, why not tonight?
Wilt thou be saved?
Then why not tonight?

2.  Tomorrow’s sun may never rise
To bless thy long-deluded sight;
This is the time, oh, then be wise,
Be saved, oh, tonight

3.   Our Lord in pity lingers still,
And wilt thou thus His love requite?
Renounce at once thy stubborn will,
Be saved, oh, tonight.

4.   Our blessed Lord refuses none
Who would to Him their souls unite;
Believe on Him, the work is done,
Be saved, oh, tonight.

Oh, why not tonight?
Oh, why not tonight?
Wilt thou be saved?
Then why not tonight?

And there was of course “Just as I am” with all 46 verses that went something like this:

Verse #1
Just as I am, without one plea,
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Verse #2
Just as I am, and waiting not,
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Verse #3
Just as I am, tho' tossed about,
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
Fightings within and fears without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Verse #4
Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind,
Sight, riches, healing of the mind,
Yea, all I need in Thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Verse #5
Just as I am, Thou wilt recieve,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve,
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Verse #6
Just as I am, Thy love unknown,
Hath broken every barrier down;
Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

The conventional wisdom of the time was that there was something called the “age of accountability” at which a young person would be held to account for his or her sins. Little children were thought to be free from sin, but after the “age of accountability,” he or she would have to answer for them. There is no Bible for that, it was just understood.

At the time, 12 was the acceptable age. Charlene and I were in a church with 1000 members and there was a constant stream of 12 year olds going forward when the invitation hymn was sung after the sermon.

But as I was approaching my tenth birthday that car accident on the way home from church that the preacher said we were all going to die from became more and more real. And the song’s assurance that “tomorrow’s sun may never rise” weighed heavily on me.

I was a private person and I didn’t talk with anyone about it, but I didn’t want to “die in my sins” as the preacher put it. So on one Sunday morning when they started singing the invitation song, I jumped up out of my seat, without conferring with anyone, and went down in front of those 1000 Christians and told the preacher I wanted to be baptized. To their credit, no one questioned my age or my understanding. They just put me under the water and my sins were forgiven – just like the 3000 people on Pentecost 2000 years before! And I knew that if tomorrow’s sun didn’t rise, like it said in “Why not tonight” I was okay.

Some people have second thoughts about the effectiveness of their baptism and are baptized again, but I never looked back. I believed the part of the song that said,

“Just as I am, Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve,
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!”

Music has always been important to me. My family says that nothing happens that I don’t tie it to a tune. Every time Charlene and I start off on another over-the-road adventure, I’m thinking, if not humming, whistling or singing Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.”

The oldest song I remember was a Tex Ritter piece called “Blood on the Saddle” and I remember it from the original, not from the Country Bear Jamboree.

Next entry: Music that grew my faith through the years.