I’ve wanted to write an article of this nature for a while, but only recently did the thoughts start coming together into something worth writing.
Something I’m passionate about is keeping our Christian philosophies of any kind Bible-based. Every conviction and standard I adopt should not only be in line with Scripture, but also flow out of Scripture. This way, I avoid creating fences that will cross into my brother-in-Christ’s yard.
So let’s start with Scripture. In Numbers 21, the children of Israel were wandering in the desert in trouble with God. They had spoken against God and Moses once again (complaining as usual), and God was tired of it. As judgement, He sent “fiery serpents” among the people to bite them. Many Israelites died, but a few came in desperation to Moses and begged him to do something about the snakes. When Moses asked God what to do, He instructed Moses to construct and erect a bronze (or brazen) serpent on a pole, and when an Israelite was bitten by a snake, he could look at the bronze snake statue and be healed.
Fast forward hundreds of years later. Israel is out of the desert and has become a nation in the promised land. They’ve had a monarchy for a while, and Hezekiah is the current king. Hezekiah is a godly man trying to bring reform and holiness back to Israel, which has turned away from God once again. Part of those reforms is listed in 2 Kings 18:4: “He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.”
Did you catch that? Israel was burning incense to a statue that should have reminded them of Jehovah’s mercy! (At this point, the snake-statue wasn’t serving any medical purposes. That had ended long ago in the desert.) They took something that was not wrong in and of itself—possibly even good—and turned its purpose into something terribly sinful (Exo. 20:3). The bronze statue was not the problem; the Israelites were. But still the snake had to be destroyed so the temptation to sin with it would die as well.
I think a principle here applies to music quite well. Satan has existed as a musician longer than this earth has been around. It would be at the very best naive to assume that music is not one of the most powerful weapons he employs against the kingdom of God.
I would further suggest that Satan has used music of some kind for his own purposes in every generation.
From my study of music history, millennia of tension between church music and pop culture of the time supports this. Some people venture to say that Rock Music has been Satan’s music all along throughout history. I do not believe that’s accurate to assume, but I would agree that he has used that genre extensively, especially in recent times.
If you have studied the origins of Rock and Roll in the early 20th century (including its derivatives, including Rap “music”), I’m sure you are aware that it has been associated with anti-conservative values from the time of its inception even until recent times. Today, I will admit its use is far more varied than it was before, but I believe it is not unfair to still call it the musical emblem of liberal and anti-Christian values. I realize that is a strong statement, but I hold to it unashamedly. Rock has a history of undermining societal values especially in youth, and if you trace it through the decades, you will see much destruction left in its wake.
This is where the bronze serpent comes in. Whether it can be proven that Rock and Rap (and similar genres) are morally problematic apart from the lyrics (the objection everyone wants to bring up) is irrelevant to the point I’m trying to make. Since their introduction to the world platform, those genres have stood decidedly as symbols of anti-God society. To reject this is to reject history. So what then? Simple. Break the Brazen Serpent. If something stands as a symbol of sin in society, don’t hide it. Don’t just remove it. Don’t just repurpose it (and I mean that). Break it…destroy it completely. Our holiness is at stake, so it has to go.
Break the Brazen Serpent.
