I had soundtracks for my moods, and songs for getting certain ‘vibes’. By about May/June 2016, I had plans to become the bad girl people thought I was, and I had music to help me do that. Most of it was trap and rap music, and it was usually better in parties or clubs because I could feel the bass beats physically – in my chest and such. Again, if you know, you know. So, if I was about to have a photo-shoot dressed in things I wasn’t comfortable with (indecent clothing), do makeup based on a ‘vibe’, or do ungodly things in public, I liked listening to that sort of music with the volume turned up. It was easy, like acting – it’s not really you there, and you’re the suave bad girl character in the movie, with the background music as your soundtrack.
So, after I came to God’s Lighthouse, one Sunday afternoon after the meeting in the house, I was hanging around in the parlor when Pastor asked someone if they had seen The Truth Behind Hip-Hop, or was telling them to watch it. I had been around for maybe four or five meetings before then, and I still had my music, but I stopped playing them after I felt many scary things around me at night when I listened to James Joint. That song had lots of slurred parts, like echoing mono-syllables; like soul journey music. I asked him if it was wrong, and he said a few things about why it was bad, somehow mentioning specific people I liked, like DMX and so on. I found it hard to accept that hip-hop music was bad. He referred me to the video.
I watched the video (The Truth Behind Hip-Hop, from EX Ministries) with Pastor Ibim and someone else. In one of the videos, G Craig Lewis played a clip from my former ringtone, (Lucifer, by Jay Z), backwards, and it was ‘666, murder, murder, Jesus, 666.’ I knew things were bad, but that night, my soul was sorely terrified. While Pastor Ibim and I resolved not to even think about any non-Christian songs after that, the other girl who saw this video insisted that not all that music was so bad. (This person is living in sin at the time I’m writing this, and she used to be part of our church group, but she fell away because of things like this. Don’t give any room to the devil’s little foxes. Don’t love the world or the things in the world; if you do, there won’t be any room left to love the Father with.)
I prayed at the end of the message, and I was alarmed that when I repented and asked God’s Spirit to replace those negative influences, there were palpable physical reactions in my body. I didn’t consider myself much of a ‘feeler’ at the time. I think I was surprised that there was spiritual activity, laying on of hands, going on from a video recorded before I was a year old. Of course, I should’ve known better – if the demonic music from electronic media laid hands on me, why wouldn’t deliverance come through a Holy-Spirit-powered video on a laptop?
After then, I deleted all my songs, and I tried to exist in a vacuum. Pastor Ita mentioned in one of the meetings that when you remove bad things from a house, you have to replace it with good things. So, I collected some Christian songs from Pastor Ibim. Pastor Ita also sent some music and sermon audios to my tablet. I listened to some of them, and I didn’t like them at first, but I kept playing them to drown out the bad songs that played in my head. It was a real battle – whenever I started singing one of the bad songs and Pastor Ibim was around me, she’d correct me immediately – ‘Matilda, is that a Christian song?’ Whenever I caught myself humming one of the tunes or hearing the song in my mind, I used to sing (loudly, to drown it out), ‘Jesus, Jesus! At Your feet, Oh to dwell and never leave…’ It was from a Casting Crowns song I didn’t even ‘like’, but it worked. I adjusted after some time; I liked the Maranatha! Singers, and some others like Bob Fitts and Don Moen. I found it relatively boring, but it was good enough.
A short while after I’d acclimatized to Christian music, Pastor Ita sent me Jason Upton’s Between Earth and Sky album, and When You Were A Child, from the Remember album via email. I was happy to get music, and I eagerly downloaded the files, but when I played the first song, strange things happened. I was so afraid, my body was misbehaving, and it seemed everything inside me wanted to turn it off, so I did. I didn’t play any of the songs again for a while. When I remembered that the songs were supposed to be a message, I tried to play another one – When You Were A Child, and I felt angry and worked up, so I didn’t go further than a few seconds. I don’t think I had even heard any of the lyrics.
Eventually, I looked the lyrics up online, so at least I would know what the songs were about. Sometime later, I mentioned this to Pastor Ibim, and she sent me some of his songs. She told me she had experienced something similar to that, at some time, though perhaps not as bad as my reaction, and that she really liked him, because he didn’t just sing about God – it seemed that he sang before God, or to God. She spoke to me about loving God with my heart and mind, and delighting in Him – Jason Upton kinda teaches you to do that, you know.
(Quick story: One of the songs in the Remember album is They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love, recorded in a church meeting at Tulsa, Oklahoma. The tornado that had already devastated other parts of that state was headed straight for them, and the church leadership there had planned to get everyone to a safe area. Just before they left, Jason Upton suggested that they ‘sneak some worship in’, and at some point, he sang ‘Tornado, you’ve gotta go!’ and began speaking directly to the tornado. They later learned that the tornado system mysteriously broke apart at the time they started praying – God stopped the tornado. That’s not such a big deal, anyway, because God does crazier things than that through and in His people. When you’re loving God, He’ll make you step out in faith and do crazy, audacious things, and everything you do – singing or listening to music, reading or writing, speaking and hearing – will be done with/in His strength, grace, and authority. See Colossians 3:16-17, 1 John 5:3-4.)
I resolved to listen to at least one of them, from beginning to end. I stopped feeling angry and flustered after a minute or two, and after then, I didn’t feel all those weird feelings anymore. In fact, after a short time, I loved them, and the Lord spoke to me a lot through Jason Upton’s music.
The lyrics of songs and videos that go along with the songs have massive impact on the life and even the atmosphere of a place. Listening to a song with the lyrics ‘I wanna die young’ cannot birth anything good in your life. Music is not music! There is a huge difference between things. Things are different based on what is in them and the power behind them. You must watch the thing behind what you are doing. Get rid of things that promote the works of satan…destruction is good! You do not need everything.
