If you have spent any length of time getting to know the High and Lofty One,[1] you know He doesn’t think like you think. His “ways are not your ways”[2]—but thank God. Because He thinks differently, He operates differently. And He leads differently. Only the LORD can guard a flickering wick[3] and nurture it into a burning heart.[4] Only Jesus can be trusted to “open the scroll and loose its seals,”[5] because only Jesus had enough freedom from His own ego to walk the ultimate road of perfect obedience to the Father’s costly will on behalf of the whole world.[6] And only Holy Spirit can shepherd you out of the dark depravity of doubt and disobedience, into the fullness of wholehearted maturity. Only the Father can raise you from infancy into a disciplined, diligent adult. Only He can finish what He started and “bring you to completion.”[7] Get you to the finish line.[8] Be the Helper who helps you “get ready.”[9]
This kind of maturity requires we “contend for the faith.”[10] Contending on that level demands we have clarity on the faith and the message—that we grow up to use our molars and chew the meat of the message, rather than becoming adolescents and adults in diapers not yet weaned from the breast or bottle.[11] But all the prophetic promises illuminating the end of the story of this age tell us the Body of Jesus will be fully grown, fully developed, and fully matured.[12] Perhaps more incredibly, His “bride” will have “made herself ready.”[13] He will not be unequally yoked, and we will not be an insult to Him.
But how do we get from here to there? Any objective, honest look around would quickly inform us that we are too scattered, fractured, and drunk on the spirit of the age (if not our own egos) to be described in these terms of readiness and maturity. Yet, He is committed and will not turn back. He will see this, and us, through to the end.[14] But how?
In the foolish wisdom of God, He has engineered the folly of song. We believe what we sing, and sing what we believe. We must, as Laura Hackett Park put it, “sing our way into the truth.”[15] Over and over, Scriptures exhorts us to sing either directly or indirectly through the example of someone who did:
“Sing, O barren,
You who have not borne!
Break forth into singing, and cry aloud,
You who have not labored with child!
For more are the children of the desolate
Than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord.[16]
You shall have a song
As in the night when a holy festival is kept,
And gladness of heart as when one goes with a flute,
To come into the mountain of the Lord,
To the Mighty One of Israel.
The Lord will cause His glorious voice to be heard,
And show the descent of His arm,
With the indignation of His anger
And the flame of a devouring fire,
With scattering, tempest, and hailstones.
For through the voice of the Lord
Assyria will be beaten down,
As He strikes with the rod.
And in every place where the staff of punishment passes,
Which the Lord lays on him,
It will be with tambourines and harps;
And in battles of brandishing He will fight with it.
For Tophet was established of old,
Yes, for the king it is prepared.
He has made it deep and large;
Its pyre is fire with much wood;
The breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone,
Kindles it.[17]
And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation....[18]
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.[19]
Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.[20]
Scripturally speaking, music is warfare.[21] Music is a uniquely effective teaching device.[22] Music is the wave worship rides on in the throne room.[23] Most significantly, it is a strategic means of fellowshipping with the One who inhabits eternity.[24] If that doesn’t blow your mind, I don’t know what will. Yet in light of all these things, we find that music is one of His methods of maturing us. Music is a means of maturity. This is as factual as it is absurd, as absurd as it is true. Music matures us—if we let it (and it’s worth pointing out, carnal music can also ensnare and impede us).
The prophet Isaiah saw the mature bride singing a “new song” at the end of the age. In chapter 24, which serves a bit as Isaiah’s equivalent of Matthew’s chapter of the same number. It is an overview of the calamity at the end of this age, in the Day of the LORD. It describes the surface of the earth as “twisted” under the hand of the LORD. “Utterly empty, utterly plundered.” Think of the scourge of the Harlot Babylon as she drank her fill, and the eerie ringing left in survivors’ ears after her collapse. Music is silenced, instruments are stilled. Neither wine nor bourbon meet the needs of the lips drawing them, yet the earth is staggering on her axis like a drunk man, buckling under the weight of the curse and our transgressions. Yet in the middle of it all, the prophet described this incredible anomaly:
They shall lift up their voice, they shall sing;
For the majesty of the Lord
They shall cry aloud from the sea.
Therefore glorify the Lord in the dawning light,
The name of the Lord God of Israel in the coastlands of the sea.
From the ends of the earth we have heard songs:
“Glory to the righteous One!”[25]
As far as you can go from Jerusalem, in the far-flung coastlands of the sea (which are, in fact ,the South Pacific islands on the Ring of Fire straddling the International Date Line to welcome each day’s first rays of early dawn), in the very “ends of the earth,” in the middle of the catastrophic, confusing, calamitous Day of the LORD, a contingent with clarity in the purposes of God and confidence in the goodness of God is...singing.
We find these voices and this “new song” again in Isaiah 42, as it then travels from the ends of the earth, makes its way through the Arab world, and then hits Jerusalem for the climactic “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!” moment we’re all looking forward to.[26]
Sing to the Lord a new song,
And His praise from the ends of the earth,
You who go down to the sea, and all that is in it,
You coastlands and you inhabitants of them!
Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice,
The villages that Kedar inhabits.
Let the inhabitants of Sela sing,
Let them shout from the top of the mountains.
Let them give glory to the Lord,
And declare His praise in the coastlands.
The Lord shall go forth like a mighty man;
He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war.
He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud;
He shall prevail against His enemies.“
I have held My peace a long time,
I have been still and restrained Myself.
Now I will cry like a woman in labor
I will pant and gasp at once.”[27]
This “new song” is literal and figurative; I am inclined to believe “Maranatha” is the “new song.” [28] But we need new lyrical landscapes[29] to garner language to navigate such tumultuous days. Therefore we must write new songs now to help the Body sing a new song then. We have to get the message in our bones.
To this end, FAI STUDIOS is producing our third original album singing through a book of the Bible (see Ballads of the Revelation and Ballads of the Exodus now available on our YouTube Channel). Sixteen original songs comprising an Americana/Appalachian/bluegrass/Gospel concept album wading through the narrative themes of “the ultimate song,”[30] Ballads of the Song of Solomon will thread together the prophetic testimony of Scripture’s emphasis on the supremacy of the Son of Man, the centrality of Jerusalem, and the narrow way[31] out of lazy love and into wholehearted maturity.[32]
All our production projects are independently funded and distributed for free, as a gift to resource the Body while we labor to reach those who’ve not yet heard the Gospel on the frontier.[33] We invite you to sow into the production of Ballads of the Song of Solomon and get early access to the album (writer/producer Stephanie Quick will host a preview party for all project supporters Oct/Nov 2022).
Stephanie Quick (@quicklikesand) is a writer/producer serving with FAI. She lives in the Golan Heights and cohosts The Better Beautiful podcast with Jeff Henderson. Browse her free music, films, and books in the FAI App and at stephaniequick.org.
[1] Isaiah 57:15
[2] Isaiah 55:8-9
[3] Isaiah 42:3
[4] Luke 24:32
[5] Revelation 5:5
[6] Philippians 2:5-11
[7] 1 Corinthians 1:8
[8] Philippians 3:7-14; Hebrews 12:1-2
[9] Revelation 19:7
[10] Jude 1:3
[11] Hebrews 5:12-13
[12] Ephesians 4:11-16
[13] Revelation 19:7
[14] Matthew 28:20
[15] “You Satisfy My Soul,” Laura Hackett Park. Forerunner Music, 2012. Watch/listen free: https://youtu.be/l8nhtOy8UaI
[16] Isaiah 54:1
[17] Isaiah 30:29-33
[18] Revelation 5:9
[19] Colossians 3:16
[20] Ephesians 5:17-21
[21] Joshua 6 gives us one example. David’s deliverance over Saul’s demonic oppression through playing harp is another. There are many more in the biblical account.
[22] While empirical research has since provided evidence for this, Paul himself made exhortations to burgeoning fellowships with this precept in mind.
[23] Read through the Revelation and consider how and when hymns appear and what purposes they serve in the context of the apocalypse.
[24] Isaiah 57:15
[25] Isaiah 24:14-16a
[26] Psalm 118:26; Matthew 23:37-39; Romans 11:13-15
[27] Isaiah 42:10-14
[28] See “‘Maranatha’ is the New Song” from WALKING MIRRORS: https://www.walkingmirrors.org/articles/maranatha-new-song
[29] See “Lyrical Landscapes” from WALKING MIRRORS: https://www.walkingmirrors.org/articles/lyrical-landscapes
[30] Song of Solomon 1:1
[31] Matthew 7:13-14
[32] Deuteronomy 6:1; Song of Solomon 8:5; Matthew 22:36-40
[33] FAI Founder & President Dalton Thomas explains this value as it serves our ultimate mandates in this video: https://youtu.be/OE4iDbwuN8k
