(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

I'm going to grab my handy dandy ring book I've got at the house in case I need to reference it. Alright, I believe we should be live now. Yep. According to my sources, which is YouTube, we are officially live. So let's give folks a chance to... Sweet. Yeah. I'll do my official intro in a second here. Let's just make sure everybody's... Yeah, this is the pregame. You always have to have a little bit of pre-show. It gives it some life, some character. Exactly. I'm going to log into the chat. I'll do some sharing on my own side, with the folks in here. Alright, the chat is... we've had hundreds of people in there, if you notice. Alright, I'm going to start. What's that? It's because I'm on. I'm on. There's Maria. Alright, here we go. Let's get this thing on the road. The wife kick. Is it... Yeah, there you go. Maria. I'm trying to start the stream, and she just cracked me up. Alright, let's be professional here, Cameron. How's it going, everyone? Welcome to this live stream. It's been the Baptist Live. This is Benjamin Naim. I'm here with my friend, brother Cameron Hall, and we're asking the question, what's the big deal about music? We're talking about music tonight. We'll be talking about the songs, the hymns, the spiritual songs, the importance of singing hymns, the stupidity of CCM, and how effeminate it is, and we'll be also talking about learning instruments and kind of just picking the brain of my guest tonight, brother Hall, who has an expertise in this area. He plays instruments, he knows about music, and so I figured, you know what, he's passionate about this subject, might as well bring him on here for this stream. Now, I haven't done streams consistently in about three years. I did one a number of months ago with Mike Murphy about end times Bible prophecy, and here I am again, and so I just want to let you know right off the bat, if you notice any weird production value issues, I set this up using some equipment from Walmart, and so it might not be the greatest setup in the world, however, it works, all right? And so that's what I'm going with, but I'm trying to get back into things now, into the swing of things on YouTube, and produce more content on my YouTube channel. Of course, the first iteration of this channel got nuked, but I'm back, and I'll be uploading content more regularly here in the near future. I have some ideas, but for right now, I want to introduce Brother Cameron Hall. Here's his bio. Brother Cameron Hall attends Steadfast Baptist Church, the Oklahoma City church plant, and he does some song leading there. He does preaching as well. He preaches regularly, just kind of whenever the evangelist tanner fur is unable to fill the pulpit, but Brother Cameron preaches, but he also takes part in a nursing home ministry, which I think is pretty cool, and of course, like I said, knowledgeable on this subject, and I figured why not bring him on? He also has a passion for this, so Brother Hall has been a friend of mine for a while now. In fact, we did many live streams in the past. Every time I needed a guest, and I didn't know what to do or who to get, I just texted him, and I'm like, hey, I need to fill this spot, please, come on, and he was like, sure, and so we've done a bunch of podcasts together, but it's been about three, maybe four years, I don't know, three or four, it's been a while, so maybe we're a little rusty, I don't know. We'll find out here over the course of the next hour, hour and a half, however long it takes to get through this, but I appreciate Brother Hall joining me. I'll go ahead and throw it over to him now. Brother Cameron, how's it going, my friend? Hey, it's great, you know, just anytime you need somebody to test out your Walmart setup, you give me a text and I'm here for it. So yeah, no, I'm happy to be on, always happy to do a live stream. It's almost like I have the, you know, want to be set up for it, right, so I'm definitely about it, you know, always happy to, whenever I can lend a knowledgeable opinion, or even if it's not that knowledgeable, I'll still give it very confidently, so that's what I'm here for, and really happy to be on, honestly, and so I'm happy to be here. Well thanks for coming on, Brother Hall, I really appreciate it, I think we're going to have a good time tonight on this broadcast, and for those of you who are listening live, thanks for joining us, we've got a few folks there in the chat room, we've got Maria, YouTube 100, we've got Jennifer Hall, I think you may know her, Brother Cameron? I wish I didn't. She, wow, you're going to have to answer for that later. Robert Anderson is in there as well. Yeah, Brother Robert, that's OKC buddy, yeah. Not sure who he is, but I'm sure he's a great guy. He is. Shejo284 says Chat GBT, why? That's just Chat GBT in our chat with us, and so that's good, you know, the AI overlords are here. Yeah. Jennifer says, your quality looks great, I was definitely giving my husband a hard time in reference to webcam quality, it looks like she's not the biggest fan of the webcam quality you have going there, but that's alright. We have BSouth, Brent, from OKC, or I should say from DFW, he put OKC in the chat room, so thank you for joining us there in the chat, we appreciate it, and Brother Hall, I just realized that I left the door open here at the million dollar, two, three, four, five million dollar studio that I'm in, just kidding, my bedroom, I need to close that, so I'm going to have you stall, you're going to stall, here's what I'd like from you, if you would, we're going to open by talking about the importance of singing unto the Lord, if you could talk about that for a few seconds while I close this door, I'll be right back, but let's open the livestream by talking about the importance of singing unto the Lord. Sure, well OK, singing unto the Lord, I mean, kind of a very tangential point to spring off of, because there's so many aspects that you could talk about, there's so many routes that you could go with it, first of all it's a commandment, right, additionally, it's not only a commandment, to go even further, and this might be something that we hit on a little bit later, the Bible specifically commands to sing unto the Lord a new song, so it's not only that we should be singing praises and singing hymns unto the Lord, but you know, we should still be making an effort even today to sing unto the Lord a new song, and what does that signify, that it's not this tradition of I'm just going to regurgitate these same hymns that Fanny Crosby wrote forever ago, or whatever, it's I'm going to think about the words that I'm singing unto the Lord, not only in the ones that we still sing that are important, but enough that you should be able to sing unto the Lord a new song, and to mean the words that you're singing, and to put thought into those hymns. So I mean, I love singing, I'm not great at singing, my musical prowess does not translate into me singing well, that's not to say that I can't hit a note, but just sometimes you can hit the note and still maybe not sound great, but you know, I love music, I actually did write, I put some of Romans 10 actually to music, which we have at OKC, and so I just, it's one of those things that, you know, it's fun to write music, it's fun to try to sing unto the Lord a new song, not that Romans 10 is necessarily a new song, but all the words are already done for me, you know, so to put that stuff to music, it's important, you know, it says to, I mean, not in the context of singing music, but I would apply to cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice as a trumpet, right, well, what do you use a trumpet for, right, if you're not sounding the shofar or whatever on the new moon, you're sounding the voice, sounding that trumpet, right, to sing unto the Lord, to also in that context technically to warn others, so, you know, I think that, I think it's definitely something that is not taken seriously though, singing unto the Lord, I think a lot of people phone it in, I think a lot of people don't sing, you know, newsflash, the song leader does see you and whether or not you're singing or not during service, and I think a lot of people don't take it seriously, and it is something I think that we should hit on, that we should reiterate, so yeah, I mean, good starting point for sure. You know, I like what you said there about how a lot of people don't take it very seriously, that's kind of one of the motivations I had to do this live stream tonight, is to talk about this subject, to get a biblical view of music as well, but also just to try to light a fire under some people when it comes to singing, and I think a lot of people they kind of just go through the motions like you said, and they kind of sit there, and they maybe sort of sing, kind of, not really, just trying to get through it, and the reason why I can say this is because I've done it, alright, it's something I struggle with as well, where if it's a hymn that I'm not that jazzed about or interested in, I'll kind of just stumble through it without really caring, while daydreaming about other things, like hey, what am I going to go get up for lunch, or I wonder what the sermon is going to be about, or is pastor going to preach against me? The answer is always yes. Always yes. But my point is, you know, I've kind of been there, and it wasn't until, honestly I went to Red Hot, every time I go to Red Hot, but especially the first time I went, it's when I really decided, you know what, I want to be the change in this area, and I want to make sure that I'm singing my rear end off, if you will, every service, because it's an important aspect of the Christian life, and it's an important aspect of the service that we're singing with zeal, not just the songs that we like, but even the ones that maybe we're not as excited about, and that's where I struggle, because like, if I really love a hymn, I'm going to belt it, but if I'm not a huge fan, or it's just kind of a by the numbers hymn, that's where I would kind of struggle and not really sing with all my might, you know, the Bible says we should do everything with all our might, and that includes singing, so I appreciated that you brought that up, brother Cameron. Well, to spring off of kind of that point that you're talking about, you touched on a couple aspects of, maybe we're not singing it because I'm not a huge fan of the hymn, maybe we're not singing it because we're daydreaming, maybe we're not singing it because, you know, we're thinking of something else, our mind is wandering, but here's another one, and I think some people are cognizant of this, maybe you're not singing it because you feel like you're not a good singer, and look, coming from someone who, I know music, but I don't feel like I'm a good singer, the Bible says to sing and make melody in your heart, you know, you sing it out, and if you're not hitting that melody, you make that melody in your heart, right, and just as another encouragement to people that it does not matter how you sound carnally, I mean, God gave you the voice that he gave you, and he still wants you to worship him with it, so that's another aspect of people who may be more on that musical spectrum, but kind of like, oh, if I sing, it's gonna sound not that great, I mean, when all the voices blend together anyway, the way that the human mind is trained, the way that the human mind is designed is that the outliers don't carry as much weight as those that are actually on key or on melody or in tune, so you really get drowned out anyway, but you're not ever drowned out to God, and he knows whether or not you're actually singing or not, so you may as well just sing even if you don't think you sound that great. Yeah, and it's important to note too that the congregation sounds pretty good, right, so even if maybe there are some individuals who aren't very good singers, when it all comes together, I think it sounds good, and that's what I notice when I go back and listen to our services, we have our mic set up in a way where it picks up the entire church, not just the song leader. We do the same. Yeah, and I feel like that helps because all together, regardless of the individual skill set of each singer, it comes together to make something that sounds pretty good, especially when it's a conference and it's a bunch of people coming from all over the country, and they're just super pumped up and excited, they've got a ton of zeal, and they're singing their hearts out, particularly, it is well with my soul at Verity Baptist Church. I kind of mentioned Red Hot earlier, and Red Hot really was the catalyst the first time I went for me to go back home and think to myself, alright, I want to sing a lot harder, but the reason why is because at Red Hot, the music is so epic, and it's not just because of the skill set of the musicians that they have, the pianists, the instruments and things like that, but it's just the fact that everybody's singing super loud and super with zeal, tons of zeal. They're excited, they want to be there, they want to sing, they want to worship God, and that's a really cool feeling. It's almost like a microcosm of probably what we're going to experience in heaven, when we get to heaven and we're singing to God in his presence, but my point is that that sounds great, and I'm sure there are a bunch of people in there who, if they were to sing alone, go up and do a special, they probably wouldn't sound very good, you know, I'm one of them. However, altogether, it sounds epic. Well think about, I think about, and it's unfortunate that you weren't able to make it this year, but the Men's Retreat, I mean, you go to the Men's Retreat, you're in that cramped little prison barracks room that we have service in, right? Right after you drink the Kool-Aid, or wait, am I not supposed to say that? I'm just kidding, but I added Pastor, at least he's not in the chat, he's got better things to do, I'm just kidding. That's a sermon, I'm just kidding. But really, when you're in there, and you've got all the men there, and I mean everyone, and look, I am not aware of any men, and I don't know if I'm going to offend anybody, I am not aware of any men that I attend service with, that I'm just like, man, that is a great singer, myself included. But you get to the Men's Retreat, and everybody's singing, and it's like, man, this is a great song service, why? Because they're just singing it out, and you can't hear, you're like deafened because everybody around you is singing, so what does that make you do? Sing louder, right? And that's the key, is to sing loud. If everyone's like, I mean, it's like, that's not going to sound good, but if you're just belting it out, no matter how you sound, it's going to eventually sound good, right? Agreed, and I wanted to just offer a few verses for the audience about this subject, because we had brought up the importance of singing, and this is biblical. The Bible says over and over and over again, especially in the Psalms, sing unto the Lord. One example is Psalm 96 and verse 2, sing unto the Lord, bless his name, show forth his salvation from day to day. Psalm chapter 13 verse 6 says, I will sing unto the Lord because he hath dealt bountifully with me. First Chronicles 16 says, sing unto the Lord. In verse 23, it says, all the earth show forth from day to day his salvation. This is a means by which we as God's people worship the Lord by singing to him and singing edifying music, by the way, we'll get into that a little later on in the stream. Some of the counterfeits out there that people are using to try to replace hymns. Also, later on in the stream, we'll talk about some of our favorite hymns, and at the end of the stream, I'm going to play my favorite congregational hymn that I think is out there on YouTube. That just sounds super awesome. So that's coming up later. I want to share this with you real quickly here, Brother Cameron. In 2 Chronicles chapter 5 and verse 13, this verse has stuck out to me for years now as being kind of a picture of a Christian being filled with the Holy Spirit as a result of singing and music. It says in 2 Chronicles chapter 5, I'm not sure if I said 1 Chronicles earlier, 2 Chronicles chapter 5 verse 13, it says, It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord. And when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good, for his mercy endureth forever, that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord. So the house of the Lord filled with the presence of God, filled with a cloud there in 2 Chronicles chapter 5 verse 13, and that happened after they started praising and thanking God and after they started to lift up their voice and with trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, praising God, and then the house is filled with a cloud. And I think that's a picture of what the Bible tells us in Ephesians 5, 18, when it tells us to be not drunk with wine, we're in his excess, but to be filled with the Spirit speaking to yourselves in songs and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. So I just wanted to share that nugget there. But Cameron, your thoughts on, just from a biblical perspective, how singing to God is one of the ways in which we worship the Lord, and so for that reason it should be important to us. Yeah, absolutely. So I think the best place to start, especially from my perspective, is to hit on not going to the extreme. And what do I mean by that? How do you go to an extreme in singing unto the Lord? Well, here's what that extreme looks like in one way. I grew up, I was not saved, I did not grow up Baptist. I grew up in the Church of Christ. Now the Church of Christ will use that verse, you know, singing, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart unto the Lord, as a proof text is what they call it, for no instrumental music. And what they're doing is they're kind of hyper-focusing. They'll say, well, let's focus in on using our voice to sing unto the Lord, right? And they hyper-focus in on what this carnal aspect is of their singing. And look, there's nothing wrong with singing in parts. I think that you should sing. As a matter of fact, it says in 2 Chronicles 5 verse 13, it talks about that they were lifting up, they were praising their sound to be, it says in the singers were as one. And I don't think that means without harmony, obviously. But what does it mean is that they're skillfully executing this praise service. And I don't think there's anything wrong with executing a praise service skillfully. But people can go to an extreme where they're like, no instruments, no nothing else. It's only the voice. And you get kind of hyper-focused on singing unto the Lord. And then it becomes singing and not unto the Lord, if that makes sense. So just as kind of a segue in for me, that was something that I know that I had to relearn. And I feel like that a lot of people might be stuck on, and again, I think probably a vast majority of people that view this obviously aren't going to be saved. This live stream, they're probably in a Baptist church or would affiliate themselves as Baptist. But for those that are new, for those that are coming in, this was something I had a hard time with. And for a while, when I started, didn't really want to sing that much. Why? Because in my mind, when I started going to Steadfast OKC, I thought in myself, man, these people can't sing. This sounds horrible. I'm not going to lift up my voice with these people. Like this isn't something that God's going to be pleased of. And look, I'm saved at this point, having very carnal, prideful thoughts. Why? Because it's easy to go to an extreme, even for someone that's saved or a babe in Christ. You're newly saved. But when we shift into it being unto the Lord, then we can really start to focus on, OK, why is it important to sing praise unto the Lord? First of all, let's think about the fact of tonality, right? And I don't want to lose anybody. I promise I'm not going to make this a music lesson, but just me speaking and you speaking in this live stream now, we have used modulation in our voice. We have used intonation, right? Intonation, speaking of the tone in your voice, tonality. Do you realize, listener, that God created every note, that God created the ability for there to be different notes and harmony and dissonance and and accompaniment when you have music? So obviously taking what God has created to worship him. It's not that he created us with just one tone. Everyone's not just monotone. And beyond that, it's not like everyone has just their one tone. Like, oh, well, Cameron is just a C natural, you know, for for his tonality. And Ben is an A flat or whatever. Everyone has the ability to modulate their voice. Why aren't we using it to praise the Lord? You use your ability to speak, to preach the gospel. You use your ability to read, to read from his word. You use your ability, your mobility to go to church, or at least, God willing, you are doing those things. Why would we limit another blessing, another benefit that God gave us in the fact that we have the ability to sing and withhold that from the Lord? Wouldn't that be robbing the Lord? In my opinion, it is robbing him of a blessing that he's given to us that we use in every day. I don't use my voice every day 100% of the day for God's glory. So you better believe when I'm at church, when I have the option to sing praises unto the Lord, I'm going to sing praises unto the Lord. And look, that's just a logical fact. You can look at this and know zero Bible and just get to that as a fact. So it's a low barrier to entry of people. I think it's just cognitive dissonance that they don't want to sing. They don't want to lift up their voice and they don't want to realize that you know what, you are, you do have the ability to modulate your voice. Does it sound great? Maybe not. Maybe mine doesn't either. But why don't you use that gift that God gave you the same way you're going to use every other gift because you being alive is a gift. So we need to sing praises unto the Lord. It talks about sing praise unto the Lord. Sing is praise in the congregation of saints. I mean, get around that one. You know, the, for me, there's a lot of lines that you can draw in the Bible for why you should or shouldn't do something. And you can look at, well, how am I going to be blessed if I do this right in which you work based on positive feedback or you want kind of a carrot at the end of the stick as to why you should or shouldn't do something. But let me help you out. I think you should focus on whether or not God commanded you to do something, regardless of whether you're going to get a carnal benefit or not. And the reality is that the Bible commands you to sing praise unto the Lord. And that should be the only line that you need to know, hey, I'm going to do this. This is why this is important. I mean, it talks about, what do you think, here's another good question. When you get to heaven, what do you think you're going to be doing? Singing. Don't you think that singing is going to be a big part of that? I mean, like, maybe not a hundred percent, but you know, there's going to be singing in heaven. And I guarantee you, I would almost guarantee you. I can't guarantee you. Right. Cause I haven't been there, but there's going to be musical instruments in heaven. You're, there are going to be people playing instruments skillfully. It's something that we see in the Bible. I don't recall if it was Asaph or David, it may have been Asaph. It says that instructed skillfully, musically, right to, unto the Lord. And so like, I don't know. It's just, it's, it's something for me, you can maybe tell that I'm very passionate about. I love music even before I was saved and then realizing that you could take that same passion and love that you have for something and do it unto the Lord. I mean like, sign me up, say less, right? I mean like sign me up. This is the ultimate blessing when you can take something that you love already and do it unto the Lord. Yeah. Well, that's the reason why I want to bring you on. I appreciated that. And just to back up your point there, Revelation chapter 15, it says, and I, in verse two, and I saw as it were a sea of grass, of glass, excuse me, mingled with fire. And then that had gotten the victor over the beast and over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God and the song of the lamb saying, great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God almighty, just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. That takes place in heaven. You're going to be singing in heaven and what an occasion that'll be after we go through the tribulation. And I guess we just lost the old IFP. If we could, if we live to that point, obviously, Colossians 3, 16 says, 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. So I think we've shown you from the Bible that this is something we should be doing as Christians. It's a way in which we thank the Lord, praise God, exalt the Lord. And really just pedestalize God in our lives and worship the Lord. Now in an effort to worship God, obviously a pretty good place to go is church. And at church, you're going to have songs before the service. Now I think that we should also be singing in our everyday lives. Perhaps when you wake up in the morning, kind of get you into spiritual mood on the way back from work in the car, wherever you want to do it. But my point is, is primarily a lot of people do this at church. And obviously when we sing at church, we are being guided by a song leader. And as I said at the beginning of the stream, I'm actually talking to a song leader right now. Brother Cameron Hall does song leading at the Oklahoma city church plant, which is under steadfast Baptist church and under the leadership of evangelist, Tanner Fur. And brother Cameron, I wanted to ask you, what's it like to song lead? I mean, when you're up there and you're kind of going through and you're going through the songs and things like you, you noticed people that are slack that are kind of slacking off, but just tell me in general, what is it like to have that responsibility? Well, and to, to qualify this a little bit, I don't want people to think like, Oh man, Cameron's getting up there. So I'm going to sing loud so that he doesn't see me slacking off. Obviously it's under the Lord. And for every one of those, every, for every adult slacking off, there's a one and a half or two year old, just belting it out, you know, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings is praise perfected. So you know, but what is it like to song lead? Well, it is nerve wracking, even as someone that knows music, because you, you have to confidently and loudly sing my, my rule is if I can hear an individual singing louder in the audience than I am singing myself, I'm failing as a song leader. It's a personal standard. I'm not trying to apply that to everyone, but that's certainly how I feel. You know, you, I have my ring, I have a, I have a ring, a little booklet at home. My dad actually bought it for me. But it's a soul stirring, soul stirring songs and hymns so that I can spend time. I spend time at home going over the hymns, reading the words. I do also the, at OKC, the scheduling. So like what songs are going to be done on what day, who's on what day, which we already have kind of have that established, but picking the songs and so in that, and we're trying to go through the entire hymnal, but to do that, we've got to make sure that we're singing not carnally, but under the Lord. What does that mean? That we're going through and making sure we're not picking songs that are like, Jesus could come at the end of this song, you know, like, alright, maybe we're going to skip on that one. So as you get up, and a lot of this has already been done kind of pre you getting up to song right? Ideally, you're not picking your song last minute, but we have done that before. Sometimes you got to call an audible and just do it on the fly, you know, do it live, as it were. And so then you're getting up, then there's a time signature, right? What time signature is the song in? You're going to have to know how with your hand to conduct that it is not that complicated for those that know music. But to others, it might look like I'm trying to take flight. You know, who knows what the people in the crowd think. I don't think that anyone really even looks at me or watches me what I do. Because I'll try to even say and I've done this at OKC, start small and work up. But I try to modulate not only the time signature, not obviously you're not modulating the time signature, you're just keeping a tempo. But there is a volume modulation in many of the songs, where you'll go from musical terms like piano, pianissimo, mezzo, forte, forte, fortissimo, so you're going to get louder, you're going to get softer in certain songs. Like though your sins be a scarlet is great him kind of toward the end of the hymnal, I can't remember the exact number. And there's a lot of modulation of the volume. And so you try to conduct big and I'll say that beforehand, hey, I'm going to conduct big, I'm going to come up real big, watch me, and we're going to be loud. And then when it's soft, we're going to come down, and we're going to be soft. And I think that is part of that executing skillfully in the music to not just so that oh, man, that sounded so good, we're such good singers, but so that we're like, putting some effort into serving the Lord into the service of the Lord, right, that we're not just doing it by the book, necessarily, just to the number right of the hymn. It's not just like, oh, we're perfectly in time perfectly in tune, but that we're just, we're actually putting some thought that we're actually attempting, again, not for that carnal aspect of how great it sounds, but singing under the Lord to put that effort forth. But to get up there and do that, to have the musical knowledge is one thing I mean, I know, I was in music, I've taken music lessons for a long time started when I was in middle school, I play multiple different instruments, my family that my both my parents are very musical, my sister is literally in musicals like this weekend. So I've come from a very musical family, I would attend musicals for fun, like like Broadway style musicals. It's one of the things that I like to do right now. It's less fun, because there's fags in all of them. And I'm saved. And so it's unfortunate that it's like, dang it, because they're kind of fun to go to. So it's one thing to know all this information, but then you get up, and you try to take it line upon line piece, precept upon precept, with many people. And I'm not saying everyone, but the reality is many people are there. And they're not necessarily interested in learning anything about music at church, right? There, and look, I'm talking about good people who are coming who are great Christians who are three to thrive, who enjoy the preaching, who know a ton of Bible who are faithful Christians. It's another hurdle to get them to want to learn. It's a hurdle to get anyone to want to learn anything sometimes. And music sometimes is just not people's forte. And so you have to get up and have the confidence to say, this is how we're going to do it in a nicer way. Obviously, I wouldn't come off across that strong. But you could say, hey, this is how it's going to be. This is what is written. What about getting up? There's another thing where you get up, you know, I had this happen where before I was song leading at OKC, I'm just like in my hymnal and I'm like leaning over to my wife. And I'm like, that's not even close to what's written. That's not even close to how that that one of the Psalms, one of the Psalms that Pastor Anderson wrote people saying wrong forever. And and I'm like, that is a pickup note. It is not what they're doing. It's not like on the one. It's on the end of the four. But they're like, they don't know that. And then it's like, well, someone has to show them. I mean, someone has to teach them. Not that it's going to matter to God like, well, that was a pickup note, but you were singing it on the one. But just like, why don't we take something seriously? Why don't we not be adverse to learning more about music and and learning instruments, even learning things to be in the service of the Lord? You know, you're not a better or worse Christian because you do or don't play the piano. Why don't you take some of your free time and take the talents that you have and not bury it under the sand and learn to do something in the service of the Lord? All of those things cross my mind on a weekly basis being the song leader. And you'd think by this point, it'd be like, oh, it's it's water off a duck's back. But you think about it every time. And it's nerve wracking and you're nervous and you don't want to mess up because then it's like everyone's going to question whether you know anything. It's like preaching a sermon, right? Yeah. You and I preach sermons, multiple sermons where sometimes we know what you're talking about or we're talking about, you know, and you're going to make a mistake and you're going to have misspoke. And then don't you know that there are people sometimes that are like, well, because he used the wrong word there. Is that really a credible source? This is what all the trolls do online. And you know why the trolls do it? Because it's natural as a human to find one flaw in something that someone has done and to question all of their credibility about something. It's easy to do. And that happens in the church, not just for preaching and people who are preachers and pastors, but also for those that play instruments. I mean, I've overheard many times some of our accompaniment people talking about our accompaniment and I'm like, well, you're not playing the piano, you know, or whatever, or people who are leading songs or, you know, I like a lot of Christmas songs. I do Christmas in July, but at one point I remember hearing someone actually they came directly to me and they were giving me a hard time, but they were like, can we like pump the brakes on the Christmas songs? And I'm just like, all right. So what is it like being a song leader? I think it's kind of like Moses and the children of Israel. Sometimes you're just kind of like try the best that you can and people are going to complain about it and do whatever. But other times you notice a change and you'll notice, hey, you're singing that right now. Hey, I noticed that you're paying attention to the song leader. Hey, I see that you're doing X, Y, and Z now. And it's great to affect that change again, not because we're looking for some carnal change to take place in people with their singing. I don't want that to be misconstrued from this. But what I do want is I want people to not just come for preaching and think that everything else is just, you know, nuts to that. It's a full package experience. We don't zone out during the prayer, you know, or do you listener? So we shouldn't zone out during the music, right? We shouldn't zone out during the preaching for sure. We shouldn't zone out during announcements. We shouldn't zone out during any. Let everything be done decently and in order. And that's a prayer that I do repeat every time I get up to song lead because I want that it's a genuine prayer that I want the service of the Lord to be decently in order in all aspects, including the commandment that we've been given to sing unto the Lord. Well I think, you know, you hit on an interesting point there about the fact that, you know, at the end of the day, the song leader can sometimes be what, what I mean by the, okay, here's what I'm trying to say. You mess up and people just kind of stare at you. And I realize that could be difficult. But at the end of the day though, the song leader is an important part of the entire process and helping to guide things. And what I like is at Verity, when I went to Red Hot and I've been there twice, if the congregation was kind of singing, but not great, the song leader will just straight up rebuke them. Like, come on, you could sing better than that. How about you sing? Like we're actually saved. Here we go on the second. And then they kind of go, which I thought was pretty cool because one of the roles of a song leader for me is they provide motivation to sing with all your might and to sing like you mean it and things like that. And they kind of provide that spark, if you will, if you do find yourself zoning out. So I appreciate that aspect of it, but thank you for sharing your perspective on, you know, what it's like. And again, I appreciate what you said because all aspects of the service are important. It's not like we only go there simply for the preaching or only go there simply for the singing or whatever. We're there for all of it. And we should go to church with our might, with all our might. Pastor Shelley, when he preached that at Red Hot, it was a lot of people's favorite sermon for a reason. And I think it's because he touched on a lot of areas where we all struggle and really exhorted people to fix those areas. And of course, one of them would be singing. But I wanted to bring this up when it comes to instruments because you had brought up that you play multiple instruments and you look in the Old Testament and when the priests were consecrated, they dipped their thumb, their ear as well in some blood, their toe. And I felt like that was kind of a picture of being well balanced in the Christian life. But it also showed the many ways in which we as the spiritual priesthood in the New Testament can serve the Lord. We can serve God with the things that we listen to, talking about music here on the podcast. We can serve the Lord with our feet in terms of going out and preaching the gospel. But I also think that we can serve the Lord with our hands. And one of the ways you could serve God with your hands is by learning an instrument and playing an instrument in church. One of the big needs in church is people who need, or I should say people who play an instrument. It's always a need. People who can play an instrument to try and really just bolster that portion of the service. And you had brought up that you play some instruments. So what can you play? What instruments can you play? We'll start off with that. And then I got a follow up question. Yeah, sure. I also want to say I made a small adjustment to my mic boost because there was some cracking that some chat said. So let me know if it's any worse. Chat room's always complaining, man. Significantly. Why don't I know? Hey, therein lies the thing. When people complain to me, maybe I take it to, you know, I'm like, oh, let me try. I'm going to try to help you. Maybe I just need to say no, get over it or whatever. Anyway. Thank you. Thank you for pointing that out chat room. We appreciate it. What instruments do I play? So a lot. So if you are going, okay, well, it's still cracking. It's just my wife. It's probably her. I'm just kidding. So maybe it's my mind. I'm going to leave it. I'm going to leave it. It's me. She said it was online. So instruments. I am. I am a percussionist by trade. And so that would be basically when you say percussion, most people think drum set, which is true. I play the drum set. I was section leader in the marching band. So I play or a section leader of the drum line. So I played quads. I also played snare and marching bass and would teach and write cadences for those. My first instrument that I learned to play was a Casio keyboard that my parents bought me when I was eight or nine. I mean, I was very young and I learned self-taught really piano. It was, it was one of these Casios that had the little blue screen on it and it wasn't like super digitized. It was really just like the black ink was already on there and it would light up blue the different portions. But I would play the pre-saved songs in the bank and watch what keys lit up and would learn to do those in middle school. I got into percussion, learned to play everything percussion. So that goes from the triangle, which is its own instrument that does have different notation as much of a joke as that may seem all the way up to playing drum set in jazz band. My dad was first chair trumpet, so I learned to play trumpet. I learned how to have decent chops when playing the trumpet, but I could not play the trumpet now. I play in high school. I played four mallet vibraphone, which is basically just a giant metal piano with a pedal for reverberation that has a pad that would come up and mute the vibes. And so you'd play four mallet with different mallets to hit different chords, marimba xylophone, glockenspiel bells, right? Standing chimes, concert bass, I think I brought up triangle already. So basically all things percussion related and then I still play, I could play piano. When Gears of War came out back in the day, the original Gears of War on Xbox, they had on the commercial was Donnie Darko, all around me are familiar faces. And I was so into that game that I learned how to play that on the piano and still play it today. So sometimes you have cringe reasons that you learn to play an instrument, but hey, if it gets you to play an instrument, you know, that's what it is. So all those are kind of where I'm at with recorder, but that doesn't really count. Everyone in elementary school learns to play hot cross buns for something on the recorder. This year, and I didn't do it this year, but I want to do it in 2024 though. I don't play a woodwind instrument and I'm going to learn at some point in the near future to play saxophone because saxophone is technically a reed woodwind instrument and I want to learn saxophone as well. So that is what I play, right? All right. That's another reason why I wanted to bring you on the broadcast and I'm trying to get subject matter experts here on the show. Cameron, what tips do you have for someone who wants to learn a new instrument? Absolutely. A very popular question. Pick an instrument that you think is cool. And that seems so simple, but pick an instrument you like. Don't learn an instrument that you don't like. Hey, you know, I don't know how PC I have to be on Bend the Baptist, but I'm not going to be very PC. Here's what I'm going to say. Don't go the Korean route of every one of your kids is learning the violin. That's a bad first instrument in my opinion. Here are two good instruments to start with. So that's a Korean thing? I didn't even know that. It's all stringed instruments because I think piano is well, but that's fine because that's one of the two that I would say because that was one that I started with is piano. Now piano is fine because what are you going to get on the piano? You're going to get basically you'll learn all the scales, right? And your standard piano layout. If you learn that and then you do like I did and end up doing percussion. So every vibraphone, marimba, xylophone, blockage feel, bells, standing chimes, all those instruments that I listed off there. There's one that's made out of glass. I can't remember what it's called either slap a phone. That's another one. That's a real instrument. I did not make that up. Okay. Those all have that same layout like a piano would have. So if you learn your scales on that and vice versa, if you learn your scales on marimba like I did in middle and high school, I can go back to a piano and I know all my scales all the arpeggiations of those scales. So those are transfer. And if you start with an instrument like piano, again, pick something that you like. But if you like something like bassoon, which is a really cool instrument, let me recommend that you pick something that you like that's easier first. And my recommendations are two. One is piano. Very basic. Right? And what are you going to learn with piano? You're going to learn and keep where you can get a keyboard online. We're no elitists here. Okay. Get your Yamaha keyboard, you know, for 80 bucks on Amazon. That's totally fine. That's what I have in the other room right now, right? That's what we practice on. So take that, get a piano and learn how to play it. Learn your skills. Learn though how to read music. I cannot express this enough. Get whatever songbook that you want to learn from whatever hymnal you want to learn from. That's great. Please also learn to read actual music notation. And that goes into my second recommendation. If you say, I can't spend $100 on a keyboard. I don't have anywhere in my house for a keyboard. I'm really on limited space, limited budget, and I want to learn an instrument, do percussion. Now one, I'm very biased. Two, you're never going to use this in a church. You know, let me know the new IFB church with a drum set, you know, or a percussion section at all. I'll move there. I'm just kidding. Okay. That's a joke. But you're not, we're not going to use really percussion. Although the Bible does talk about praise them on the high cymbals, you know, Hey, if you have high cymbals, that means maybe you have low cymbals. So I'm thinking that there's a drum set somewhere or whatever. We'll get to CCM later and I'll rip on that because I have, I'm not soft on CCM. That stuff is wicked. We get you a practice pad. There are drum practice pads that you can get. And it's basically just like plastic, a round piece of plastic that you can get on Amazon for 20 to 30 bucks. Get a pair of drumsticks and get a percussion booklet that teaches you rhythm. While you're not going to learn your scales necessarily on a practice pad, what you can learn, and this is how I, I, cause I'd still, I self taught piano. I've never taken a piano lesson a single day in my life. You play piano. Okay. I play by ear, which is another skill that not a lot of people, it's, I say it's a skill. It's not something I ever trained. It's really something that some people can just do. I'm not saying I have perfect pitch. I'm working on relative pitch in my own time, but just having an ear of like, I can hear it. Like my wife has taken piano lessons. You can play her a song and then say, play it on the piano and she's like, where do I start? Let me see it. I have never taken a piano lesson. I don't know the proper finger placement, but I can hear a song and go to the piano and within a couple of seconds I'll pick it out and can play it. And that transfers into playing a lot of instruments. But with the practice pad, if you go the percussion route, you're not going to learn the notes. You're not going to have to have an ear for tones, but you can learn rhythm and rhythm is very, very important in keeping on time. You, if you know what the timing is of the hymns that you look at, you could look at the hymn with no notes, just, just the rhythm notated, no words, no notes. And there are a lot of hymns that you could like, Oh, I know what that is just based on what the rhythm is. It's a skill that can help you. And then when you go to translate that kind of like I've done, I've gone all through percussion, which there, there are notations in the things that I've played, like marimba and things like that. Obviously you're hitting notes and rhythms at the same time, but if you take that skill and then go back to learning another instrument, you only have to learn half because you already know rhythm. Of course, you could argue that the same thing going forward, if you learn piano, you're learning the notes and rhythm at the same time. But that's where that's what I would recommend. If you're picking an instrument, pick something common that people have that you're not alone on and pick something that you think is cool. If you think I never want to play the drums in my life, but Cameron said a practice pad with drumstick. I mean like probably don't do that. If you're like, I never want to have anything to do with percussion. Don't do that. If you think everyone at my church already plays the piano, I don't want to play the piano. Hey, don't play the piano because if you try to pick, it's like learning a language, learn something that you're going to use or that you think is interesting because if you try to get yourself to do something that you don't want to do, you know, those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still support that my dad grew up telling me all the time over and over, but if you're going to try to force yourself to do something that you don't like, you're going to be fighting yourself every step of the way versus if you think something's really cool, you're like, Oh man, that's awesome. One of the instruments I forgot I got for Christmas this year. My mom bought me a tongue drum, which is one of the big circle metal drums that have the grooves cut out that you like, you know, play. It sounds like it's off of the Minecraft soundtrack or something. So it's like a little, you set it in your lap and you like get to grooving on it has totally different scales, not like a piano. It's tabulation and how music is written is totally different than what anything you've seen before. But it's so fun that like within a weekend I can play it. And I was like, I was like taking songs and I was like, I can just translate that here. I could just play that here and like writing my own tabulation for it. Why? Because it was fun. If it was really boring and I didn't think it was cool, it would like just collect dust in a closet somewhere. So that's the ultimate in not wasting your money is get something that you like. It's okay to like things. You know, you don't have to, everything doesn't have to be like, what's going to make me the most money and it doesn't have to necessarily be, what can I play at church? You might have a lot of people playing things at church and look, I encourage every single person to learn an instrument in the service of the Lord. Do not get me wrong on that whatsoever, but that does not have to be the end all be all deal breaker. This is what I'm going to learn an instrument for. If you think that you have a proclivity to wanting to learn that instrument that you think is like me with saxophone, I'm probably not ever going to play saxophone during a service. I'm not opposed to it. I definitely would. I think it's, it's a wood instrument, a woodwind instrument, like a flute or you know, any other, well flute is not, that's a wind instrument, but like any other reeded instrument, clarinet, there you go is one. So you could play it, but you know why I want to learn it? I think it's cool. And I think thinking something's cool goes a long way in actually having fruit to your labor. Well, I think the common theme that I'm hearing is pick an instrument that you actually are going to be motivated to learn and motivated to practice because in order to learn an instrument is going to take practice every single day. I remember when I learned trumpet, I played it in high school. I was in the marching band actually. Nice. But my point is that it took consistent practice for me to get to a point where I can play the instrument, read the music, et cetera. It wasn't something where I kind of dabbled in it a little bit and then forgot about it for weeks on end and then went back to it again. Just like anything, learning a language or even, you know, memorizing a chapter of the Bible, no matter what it is, you brought up language, pick up a language or try to learn a language that you're passionate about, that you want to learn. If it's a chapter in the Bible you're trying to memorize, what I would say is pick a chapter that has a bunch of verses in it that you really want to commit to memory and it'll help motivate you and it'll be the catalyst for you to stay consistent to continue on and practice. And I think the same rule obviously applies to learning an instrument. And so hopefully for those of you out there who want to learn what Cameron said there was helpful, take it from someone who obviously plays multiple instruments, I think that's a good person to get advice from. So I want to bring this up here. Let's talk about our favorite hymns. 372, easy, let the lower lights be burning. Is that your, so that's your top favorite hymn. Now why do you like that hymn so much? Because as a child growing up in the Church of Christ it sounded so cool and I could never get the rhythm nor the notes or the melody at all. And I couldn't learn it as a child and one thing that has been very beneficial in my life and also very detrimental is I absolutely detest not being able to succeed at anything given in front of me. Not a great trait, sometimes it's okay to not succeed at things, but because I couldn't get it I like, I just, I obsessed over that song and now it's like my favorite song to lead and sing. And it sounds so cool, for me it's like overcoming that challenge and you look at it it's like it's not really even that hard, but as a kid it's three fourth time and it, a lot of the melody is not starting on the one, it's picking up and then leading into the two or the and of the one of the next verse, anyway it, I love that hymn, 372, 372, my favorite one. Every time we get to pick a hymn, because we have our fellowships where people can pick a hymn, now I'm always song leading so a song leader doesn't really get to pick their favorite hymn, but when I do, I don't always pick my favorite hymn, when I do, it's let the lower lights be burning. Let the lower lights, okay, cool, well that was a real quick answer, so he knew exactly what your favorite hymn was. Mine changes pretty much on a day to day basis, so it really depends, I'm going to give everyone an answer now, but my answer may change tomorrow, but right now my favorite hymn is probably Wonderful Grace of Jesus. I think it sounds really good, I love, and here I'm going to reveal that of the two of us, I'm not exactly the subject matter expert here, but the, those hymns where there's like two lines of music, where one person, like the men sing one thing and the women sing the other, you know what I mean by that? Like a canon almost? Yeah. Where it's like, wonderful, the match, the straight, the match, the straight, there it is. Thank you. That's what I'm thinking of. I love hymns that are like that where people are kind of singing different parts of the song, but I like that. That's a good one, that's like a 10 out of 10 hymn right there. It's fantastic, it's exciting, it gets you pumped up for church, it gets you pumped up for the doctrine that the hymn is teaching, and this is what's so great about hymns is that they teach sound doctrine, at least the ones that we're going to be singing in our church. There are some heretical ones out there, I understand that, but by and large they teach sound doctrine on salvation, on the fundamentals of the faith, on the nature of God, and that aspect of it is so important that we're singing sound doctrine, we're singing that which is biblical, and Wonderful Grace of Jesus obviously is biblical, and I wanted to actually play it for everyone. You say, hold on, this isn't fair, Cameron didn't get to play his song, but you get to play yours. Well, you know what? I'm hosting it. Song Leader Never gets to pick their song, I already said that. So Cameron's just going to have to deal with it. Normal, whatever. And I want to correct myself real quick, this is how pedantic I am, it's not a canon, it's a call and response in Wonderful Grace of Jesus. But it sounds very close to a canon, but I just couldn't let that one go. I was wrong, but I've corrected myself. I mean, I cannot believe you made that mistake, frankly, and now I totally regret ever inviting you on here. Just in the stream early. Yeah, I might. I want to send this to you though, let's see, how do I, I think there's a way to chat on this Ninja app. I have a chat bubble here. Let me see, oh not that button, where is it, oh there it is, okay. I just sent you the link so you can listen to it, it's like a minute and a half or something, it's pretty short, maybe minute forty something seconds. But let's listen to this together. Oh, I need to actually play it. Now you guys can see I like Planet Coaster. We're singing and making out in a row. Yes, let's listen to it. Oh, I need to actually play this together, maybe a minute and a half or something, it's like a minute and a half or something, it's like a minute and a half or something, it's like a minute and a half or something, it's like a minute and a half or something. Oh, I need to actually play this together, maybe a minute and a half or something, it's like a minute and a half or something, it's like a minute and a half or something, it's like a minute and a half or something, it's like a minute and a half or something, it's like a minute and a half or something, it's like a minute and a half or something. Alright, took a little music break there, but I felt like I wanted to just share that with everybody. Love that hymn, and I think that singer is pretty good as well. But some other ones that I really like, how bout Heaven Came Down? Heaven came down and glory filled my soul, saved by the blood. That one's epic. Saved by the blood of the crucified one. Come unto me is really good, just directly quoting Matthew chapter 11. And how about this one, Brother Cameron? This one gets me fired up. Who is on the Lord's side? I love those songs that are kind of about the spiritual fight and how we're on God's side and we're going against the enemy and we're fighting the good fight of faith. Who is on God's side? Who is gonna take a stand and stand for the Word of God and stand for righteousness to proclaim to the world, hey, I'm on God's team. I'm on God's side. Love that song. And that's why it's important to know the words of the songs that you're singing because what could get you more pumped up for dealing with the inevitable persecution, tribulation, sorry old IFP. What can get you more fired up for dealing with those? It's funny that they're gonna sing those, you know, or and then it's like, you really don't have to be on the Lord's side, you know, in a real time of trouble because he'll take you out of it or whatever. Or if like, you know, you're in this prosperity gospel where the worst thing that'll ever happen to you is that the line at Starbucks is too long. Well, that's not really being on the Lord's side, okay? Being on the Lord's side is about having some, I mean, what do you think that Paul is thinking about when he's in jail and singing praises unto the Lord? You think he's like, let me really just make sure I hit that note? Or do you think he was happy that, or do you think he was like, man, I'm glad I just zoned out during music. Or you thinking he was, he knew because he, what do you think, they were like, and here's your songbook, Paul, you know, with your property, you can have your songbook. He didn't have a songbook. He was singing from his heart. He knew the words. Why? Because he was paying attention, right? And to have such a great deliverance because you're actually doing things as unto the Lord, man, I mean, I don't understand. If you don't want to sing unto the Lord, you know what? Nuts to you. That's your own problem. I'm gonna commit some hymns to my heart because I'm passionate about them, and I like singing unto the Lord, not because I sound great, just because I love the Lord and I want to sing praises unto him. I mean, it gets me fired up. Any of these songs get me fired up. I'm about to turn this, like, I'm about to burn this place down with some music. Burn the place down, alright. I'm gonna get Pentecostal in here pretty quick, but I'm just like, not really, obviously. So, if someone starts coming in, hit me with a, if Jennifer starts coming in, hit me with a suit jacket. We've gone too far. Yeah, perhaps, perhaps. Just, shouldn't it stir up something in you? Sure. Shouldn't that be a testament that music is more than just some notes? Doesn't it stir up something in you, Brother Ben? I mean, this might not necessarily have even been on kind of the thought of the structure of tonight, but how about that as a question for me to you? Doesn't it make your heart stir within you? Doesn't it make your heart burn within you when you actually sing some hymns that mean something versus our God is great or whatever 40 times over and over with your hands raised up and it means nothing, right? Yes, yes, and we're gonna get there. We're gonna get there. Don't worry. But I totally would say yes to that question, and especially when the church is going through something, like, I remember when we were kind of in the thick of the persecution at steadfast, and we're still kind of going through it, but back when we were getting evicted from every building and things like that, singing a song like Who Was on the Lord's Side and some of these other hymns really stirred me up, and you know, you feel something, but also if I'm a little backslid in mentally and I'm not feeling as zealous for the things of God, you know, the Christian life you have your ups, you have your downs, and perhaps, you know, if you come to church one Sunday and you're kind of maybe not feeling it, a good hymn can really kind of get you back up again, or even if you're not at church, like just in your everyday life, if you had a carnal day, right, you were just thinking about carnal things all day, or maybe you slipped back into a sin that you've been trying to kick out of your life, whatever the case may be, you can pick yourself back up again, dust yourself off, and keep moving forward spiritually with a hymn that can stir you up, and those are some of the ones that I like personally. I like kind of the fast tempo ones and the exciting hymns, those are my favorite ones, but I also really like Love Lifted Me as a hymn, that's one of my favorites as well. When nothing else can help, Love Lifted Me. Love Lifted Me, yeah, so those are my favorites, and like I said, those ones tend to kind of change, but my top one, it seems to change, my top favorite hymn seems to change every day, there's just so many great ones, but I also want to talk very quickly about spiritual songs, because we've talked a lot about hymns, but spiritual songs, I think just because it's not in the hymn book, doesn't make it a bad song that we should ignore, or a bad song that we should not sing, there are several songs that you won't find in the hymn book that I really like, the rendition of I Can Go In by Abigail Miller, I think is a very powerful song, and can elicit some emotions out of you about salvation, Turn The Tide by Abigail Miller is also really powerful, Pastor Jimenez liked this one so much that he had his choir sing it, and also he preached a sermon called Turn The Tide, which was based on that song. We Will Stand Our Ground is another one I really like by Grace Baptist College specifically, I really like their rendition of it, and then there's a song called I'm Saved by the Old Paths that I like as well, now you're not going to find these in a hymn book, but they teach sound doctrine, they're powerful, and so Cameron, when it comes to spiritual songs, or just songs that aren't going to be in the hymn book, I still think that there are plenty of options out there that are edifying, and that are good to listen to and sing. Yeah, I would agree, what's funny is I'm having a hard time really thinking of any that would fit that criteria, because it does say songs, hymns, spiritual songs, Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, sorry, and so it's interesting to think about delineating those, right? What is the delineation, and what makes something a hymn? You know, even really, I'm not saying that I could necessarily give you that answer, but I know I grew up on a different hymn book, obviously, in the Church of Christ, and there are a lot that are the same, I know a lot of these I grew up with, I mentioned Let the Lower Lights Be Burning, and I'll find renditions when I'm studying hymns out for kind of the song schedule, I'll stumble on kind of modernized renditions of hymns that we have in our hymnal, that I wouldn't consider a hymn in the state that someone else has re-composed, or rearranged it, but it would be a spiritual song, it's like all the same words, but maybe it's become a little more contemporary, right? Yeah. And that is like the right kind of contemporary Christian music, where you've taken good doctrine, and you, sure, maybe make it a little more contemporary, that's fine, there's nothing inherently sinful about that, but it's got good doctrine, that's a spiritual song. You know what I'm not gonna do though, I'm not gonna replace the hymns with that, you know, I'm not gonna go all spiritual songs, but it doesn't have to be all hymns, it doesn't have to be all psalms, we see, I mean, we have a separate handout for psalms, really, and sure, there are many psalms that are referenced in the hymns, especially if you go through, brother John Reed actually, I want to give a shout out, has been at the nursing home ministry taking hymns, popular hymns, and breaking them down from their biblical points. So, brother John Reed, steadfast OKC, nursing home ministry, look his sermons up, great preacher, great friend of mine, and it's cool to see, he plays the guitar sometimes for our services, and his daughter Amelia has been playing the piano as well, and so they're just another great family at OKC, really good friends of ours, and just, it's cool to go through and look at the, look at some songs and break them down to see what makes them, you know, different, because I referenced earlier, sing unto the Lord a new song. Well, here's the thing, what I write as a new song might not always be a hymn, but you know what I think would be a great example of this? I believe it's brother Clint Anderson writes a ton of spiritual songs, some of them you could, I would say, or on the hymn level, some of them are songs as well, some of them are spiritual songs. I mean, you want to talk about write unto the new, or sing unto the Lord a new song. The guy is just a machine, and he's great at it too, about making a whole bunch of different music, so it is interesting to kind of delineate between them, but yeah, I agree with you that you can have, you know, non-hymn, non-Psalm songs that are spiritual songs, but they're not ever gonna replace our hymns, not saying that one or the other is necessarily better, they just each have their own place, right? So men and women, none, neither is better, but they each have their place, and in the same way, you know, Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, none of them make you like more spiritual. They each have their place, and they each, and it's good for it to have things that have their place, right, in their proper place. In the chat room, Miss Jennifer says that her favorite hymns are How Great Thou Art, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, In the Garden, He Touched Me, My Savior, first of all, and she also says there are so many, I'm sure there's a lot more she'd like to share. Standard woman can't pick a favorite hymn. I mean, like, right? No comment on that one. If you want to share your favorite hymns in the chat, go ahead and do that, and I'll say it, I'll share it rather here on the air, but we talked about some of the spiritual songs, and I think what's so cool about these songs that maybe you aren't gonna find in the hymn book is they're still doctrinally sound, they still have some substance to them, and the reason why I bring that up is some people, they kind of look at our position and they misconstrue it as like, oh, it has to be one of those traditional old-school hymns or else you guys are gonna crap all over it or something like that, and it's like, no, that's not the case at all, there's newer songs even that I think are pretty good, and even there's some songs that don't have anything to do with God or spiritual things that are fine still, that are secular, that aren't sinful to listen to, you know, I'm not gonna just throw the baby out with the bathwater. 80 shares says, rescue the perishing. Ooh, that's a good one. That is a good one. Yeah. And so, yeah, I like that one as well, there's so many, actually your wife was right, there are so many. So many. Yeah, but if you have anything else you want to share there in the chat room, I will highlight it here on the show, but you know, there's newer songs that we like, it's not just that, and like I said, even things that maybe don't have anything to do with spiritual things are fine, it's really, and we'll get into the worldly music a little bit later, but a lot of that stuff, the issue is when it gets into sin and it glorifies sin and wickedness and right filth and things like that. Maria YouTube 100 brings up, how great thou art and can it be, love that one, blessed assurance till the storm passes by. So those are some of the favorite. Robert Anderson says, set my soul of fire is my favorite, very inspiring. Oh, you know another good one that I forgot, probably an honorable mention, and I can't remember, I'm sure as soon as someone says the name, it's probably very obvious, but where it says, and I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is able, I mean just a straight quote of the Bible, you want to talk about memorizing some verses as well, some of the hymns will help you do that. Absolutely, and you know what, our movement has actually put Psalms to music, and do you have a favorite Psalm that has been put to music by our movement? Let me answer while you think about it, my favorite is Psalm 119, honestly, Psalm 119 put to music, which is a recent production, this is something that our church just came out with, I believe it was our church, I'm not a hundred percent sure on that, but I think it was Pastor Shelley in fact, who produced Psalm 119 to music, if I'm wrong about that I apologize, but I'm almost positive it's Pastor Shelley who put that together, it sounds fantastic, and while Cameron thinks about his answer, I wanted to play one minute and seven seconds of Psalm 119 so you guys can see what I'm talking about, and I put this in the chat there Cameron if you want to hear it too, but you don't have to, you do what you like, I'm not gonna force you to listen to it if you don't want to, but Psalm 119 is super awesome, it is super epic, and what I love about it is it is so catchy, I find myself humming this thing throughout the week, singing it to myself throughout the week, and of all the songs that exist out there, if there's something that's gonna be stuck in my head, I'd like it to be a portion of Psalm 119, so I want to play this for you guys so you could see exactly what it is that I'm talking about, I love Psalm 119, and by the way if you're in the chat room share with us what your favorite Psalm is that has been put to music, even if it isn't by the new IFB, whatever, what song do you like, what Psalm rather do you like that's been put to music, share in the chat room, and I'm gonna play this now, Psalm 119 put to music, this is epic and awesome. I love this song, very catchy, it's a joy to sing, obviously the lyrics are straight out of the Word of God, so you don't have to worry about that, really love it, and let's see what the chat room said as far as their favorite Psalm, Maria YouTube 100 says Psalm 11, Jennifer Hall says Psalm 149 and 150 and how they go together, 80 shares said Psalm 147, so before we go back to you Cameron, another one that I really like is Psalm 117, which I believe was put to music by Faithful Word Baptist Church, that's a really good one, and how could you not mention Psalm 139, I love Psalm 139 put to music, especially when you go to church and you have to deal with a bunch of filthy disgusting abominable dogs outside harassing us, it is cathartic if you will to sing Psalm 139 in that situation, a great Psalm put to music there, but now I'm gonna put Cameron back on the spot again, he's had plenty of time to think, do you have a favorite Psalm put to music? Plenty of time to make one up, I'm just kidding, it was Psalm 11 and the reason I couldn't remember it is I don't believe that it's in our handout, we sang it, what's so funny to me, and this is not why it's my favorite, but when I think of Psalm 11, I think of Bo Ballard, because he would sing it loudly very poorly when I started attending OKC, but I do, I actually like it, because it talks about how the wicked bend their bow, and so he was just singing it poorly because it was about him, but you know, and he also didn't, and the Lord put in his trust, so I love that him. And for anyone who doesn't know, Bo Ballard was kicked out of Steadfast Baptist Church for being a complete idiot. Yeah, right, that's about it, but yeah, I don't even think this one's in our handout, and the Lord put I my trust, I'll say to my soul, I'm aware of it because we had it in our handout in Jacksonville, at Steadfast Jacksonville, so yeah, it's a great Psalm for sure, and I really appreciate those who put the time, the work, and the effort in to put these Psalms to music for the rest of us to enjoy, so thank you so much for that. If you know anyone who has done that, just make sure you show some gratitude, because I'm sure it's a very difficult project, and like I said, we all get to benefit because of their work in putting that together. All right, let's talk about CCM, Brother Cameron, we talked about our favorite hymns, we talked about our favorite psalm, but when it comes to CCM, I believe CCM is complete garbage, and there's many reasons why, and we'll get into it. I'll even share a few examples of CCM, and I'll put the links in that chat room for you, Cameron, so you can listen along as well, but I want to bring this up here from the Bible, and in 2 Samuel chapter 6, in verse 6, the Bible says, and when they came to Nacon's threshing floor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it for the oxen shook it, and the anger of the Lord was killed against Uzzah, and God smote him there for his error, and there he died by the ark of God. I realize this probably, you're thinking, what does that have to do with CCM? I like to go to this story to kind of talk about how when you try to do things the world's way, it doesn't turn out well for you, and when the ark of the Lord was being transferred here by Uzzah, he did so in the same manner as the Philistines, the heathen, and they put it on a cart like the Philistines had already done, and in doing so, it ends up kind of moving around, and before it tips over, Uzzah touches it and dies, and my point is, is that had they transferred it the way God ordained, it would have turned out better by actually picking it up, holding it with the staves, and transferring it that way. Obviously, there's a more clear verse. You have what the Bible tells us in Titus chapter 2, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, which I think implies a separation from the world, and 2 Corinthians chapter 6 just plainly tells us, wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, and so I don't want my music, especially when it's supposed to glorify God, to resemble the music of the world, to resemble the music that is secular, the music that promotes sin and wickedness and filth that's coming out of Hollywood. I don't want it to resemble that. If we're going to be separate, if we're going to be different from the world, then I think our music should also be peculiar or different or sanctified from that which you could find on the radio today, and one of the biggest problems with CCM is that it seems to have merged rock and roll and merged some of this other trash into Christianity and has created a fake spirituality, but Cameron, your thoughts, I guess right off the bat here, as to why you're not a fan of, this is, I should have explained, Christian contemporary music. What is your gripe with Christian contemporary music? Well, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to open this. You can see my finger's not in it. I have no marker in it whatsoever. I'm going to open to a random page, and so long as it's a hymn that people know. Okay, so it's Tell Me the Old Old Story is the first one that I turn to. So let me just give you some doctrine from Tell Me the Old Old Story just real quick. So here's an example of a hymn, okay, and this will make sense. There's a method of my madness. I'm just going to read a portion of the first line. It says, Tell me the old old story of unseen things above, of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus and his love. Tell me the story simply as to a little child, for I am weak and weary and helpless and defiled. Tell me the old old story of Jesus and his love. Now that's powerful. I like that hymn. Now let me read some lyrics to you from one of the top, I believe it's 25, but it could be a little off on that number just based on what website you go to. CCM songs of all time that you will know. Let me see if this is as powerful to you. Our God is an awesome God. He reigns from heaven above. With wisdom, power, and love, our God is an awesome God. Our God is an awesome God. He reigns from heaven above. With wisdom, power, and love, our God is an awesome God. Lift it up. Our God is an awesome God. He reigns from heaven above. With wisdom, power, and love, our God is an awesome God. Now this next one really gets me. Our God is an awesome God. He reigns from heaven above. With wisdom, power, and love, our God is an awesome God. And then to wrap it all up, our God is an awesome God. And it's actually not done. I'm not even halfway done. So, and that is one of the most popular. You bring up our God is an awesome God. Everyone hears that in their head. And obviously I'm being hyperbolic when I say everyone, but many, many people. No, exactly. I don't have a lighter obviously, but I want to be like, you know, what doctrine did you get from that? I didn't even try. I literally did not even try to find a hymn with more doctrine. And I got a hymn as cool as tell me the old story. I mean like it wasn't even planned. Well, that's a major issue with CCM is that there's zero doctrine. It's very just empty. It is completely vapid. And here's the thing. Am I against, is it sinful to listen to our God? No, it's not. But to try to spiritualize it in the same way that the ends are spiritualized, it's dumb. And honestly, I think your time would be better spent with the hymns anyway. Again, that's a personal standard. And here's the thing, transgression of the law. So I'm not going to say, Oh, you're in sin for liking that song, but it's obviously it's, I do not think anyone could come legitimately to the discussion table and say, no, I think that one has more doctrine. I think our God is an awesome God. It's just more doctrine. You lose, Charlie. You're done. You're toast. Well, part of the reason I brought up just kind of the worldliness factor is because I think there's a danger with this music because it sounds so worldly and it sounds like something you'd hear on just kind of your regular radio station is that people are going to go, you know what, I'd rather just have the real thing, right? I mean, when you listen to this Christian rap, it's like, well, I'd rather just listen. Then people who maybe really like rap are just going to go listen to the actual rap about hoes and, you know, cocaine and robbing. Well, I will tell you there is one, there is one incredibly powerful Christian rap from a church of Christ group that's on YouTube. And I don't know if you've heard it, but I'm about to get your channel nuked. And it's two white, old white people singing. Jesus Christ is my nigga. And let me tell you, it slaps. It's not really good at all, but it's really funny. I'm going to have to just send you a link to this because there's no way that you'll, you'll appreciate it. Otherwise, um, put it in that chat. Oh yeah. I'm putting it there. It's a meme. It's an old 6 million views. Uh, I mean, this is just, this is peak, um, right here. There you go. This is what trying to be like the world. This is what you look like. You think you're like, Oh God is an awesome guy. This link that I just sent you, this is what you actually look like. It is safer stream. Obviously. I mean, as long as white people could say nigga, but you know, maybe I just identify as black. So I've got the inward pass, go for it. You know, whatever. I'm playing it. Youth outreach program, wrap in for Jesus. You got to share the video too though. You need to see the transition. Okay. Let me, let me do that one sec. I have my music in a different window. Let me just go ahead and switch that over. All right. This is not real. Come on. Is this like an atheist who's just trolling or something? Unironically more base. Hey, you mentioned hell. He's worked salvation. Oh, I didn't hear that part. Okay. That's enough. That's all I can take. This is, this is awful. Cameron, why did you just subject us to that? Well, that's cause Jesus Christ is my nigga. I mean, I don't know what else you want me to say. You've walked right into that one, but it's like that. I thought what's so funny is in the beginning though, they qualify why this video exists. And this is not a joke. This is real. Okay. Or, or it's the best executed meme of all time. I love it. But they say in the beginning, if you want to reach the Christian youth, you've got to rap or something, you know, like the world or like the people do or whatever. I can't remember the rhyme. You know, that part eludes me. It's not that catchy, right? But this is where this is ironically where it leads you. This is what you look like when you try to just mix two things that don't mix. Yeah. This is what you see. Yeah. And again, it's like, okay, let's say I really like rap, which I don't. I hate rap, but let's say I liked it. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to listen to that and I'm going to go, this is garbage. You know, let me put on, you know, little Wayne or whatever. Oh, come on. If you want to get real modern NWA, you know, uh, let me put on a Snoop dog. I don't know. Whatever these rappers are out there. Let me just, I mean, come on. Yeah. Right. If you have the choice of that, if you even like rap, you have that or this guy. I mean, I don't know this, this is pretty convincing to me, but you know, so that's the danger. It's like, wait, let me go get the, let me just do the real thing. Why do I think, or whatever it is. If it's like a riot Coke versus Coke. Yeah. Personally, I don't drink diet Coke. I never could. I tried it one time and it tasted like medicine. And I was like, this is like a higher caffeine count and something else than regular Coke. I saw the other day. I think my wife sent me a thing. It's like, how is it worse for you? Yeah. I don't want anything to do with it. It tastes bad. It's not even good for you. If I'm going to drink Coke, I'm just going to have to acknowledge it's bad, which I think we're kind of getting away from the hymns because hymns are good for you. So this picture doesn't necessarily make sense, but anyway, the world. Yeah, exactly. You need the water. So it's like, okay, you have these songs, they model themselves after secular music, but very poorly. So then those who struggle with listening to music, they shouldn't be listening to just end up going and getting the real thing anyway. But another big problem, I like that you brought up the doctrine issue because that is an enormous issue with CCM. There's zero doctrine. In this case, that guy was like some false prophet or something teaching work salvation. But a lot of these CCM songs have zero doctrine in them. And so you learn nothing. It's very shallow. There's no depth to it. You just went to a random song in the hymn book and you were able to derive doctrine from that song. But with CCM, you can't. And I want to provide another example of CCM music because it's not just the fact that there's no doctrine. It's not just the fact that it sounds worldly. It's not just the fact that you're not going to learn anything. It's very shallow. But it seems like the CCM music out there is for faggots. And what I mean is it sounds very effeminate, like very, very effeminate. And this is a textbook example. And let me send this to you so you can hear it too. Well, when your pants are that tight, there's only one octave you can probably hit as a man. And so like get the skinny jeans off and you'll probably think of sounding like an effeminate soy boy with your hems. Yeah. And it gives Christianity a bad name when you walk into a church and it looks like you're at some kind of rock concert. And the guy looks like he's got more estrogen in him than a lady's coffee hour, just kind of sitting there and he's got the microphone. It's terrible. But I want to play this for you. I know, I know this one. Yeah. Let's play it now. This is so effeminate. Chris Tomlin, indescribable. I can't even go that high. Bro. I don't know what to say. I mean, it sounds like something my wife would listen to. But what I'm getting at with that is that it's not really music aimed at like any kind of masculinity reverence towards God. It's music that's aimed at making a paycheck, music that's aimed at appealing to the sensual senses of the world, which again, there's nothing wrong. And even when we reach into worldly music, which I don't know if we'll talk about at length or not, but hot take, there's really nothing wrong with worldly music as long as it's abstaining from things that are sinful or whatever else. Obviously a little leaven leavens the whole lump. You don't want to go down the rabbit hole. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. When I use that term, I'm talking about the sinful. Yeah, sure. But there's nothing wrong with listening to a song that's not necessarily a Christian song. But if you're going to, why not just pull up the faithful word Baptist church hymns on the app? Obviously, I don't want to get into this place where I'm gatekeeping what is acceptable or not, but I just like, you know, music can be very subjective. You know, it is what it is, but yeah, it's just this not for me. This is not something that gets me. I don't get the same feeling from this music as like pumped up and wanting to fight for the Lord. And I don't get the same doctrine as I do from any other song, you know, that'll teach me about, you know, God and his infinite wisdom and, you know, his wisdom, power, and love, right? Our God is an awesome God or whatever. There's so much, and again, without sounding like it's gatekeeping, you know, what you should or shouldn't listen to, I just feel like if you're going to do something, why don't you do it right? You know, if you're going to listen to, I don't know. Obviously, another big problem here too is that, you know, the Bible says being effeminate is a sin. Yeah, absolutely. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, I believe it makes it clear. And the culture surrounding this, it's just all emotion and just like soy boys and limp-wristed dudes that sing these meaningless songs. Here's another example. I put this in the chat if you want to look. I mean, it's a rock band. Jesus culture, man. They all sound the same. I know. It's a relationship. It's not a religion, man. I'm not religious. I'm spiritual. I'm spiritual, man. You just got to get out from under the law, man. You just got to get out from under the law. We're under grace, man. We're under grace. Look how baggy that part play was. He may be a faggot. Your love never fails. I like to go with her hands like palms up, like she's about to catch a pass or something. I don't understand. But she's doing it like this. She's like, do it again, do it again, do it again. What is this? I mean, like, the Bible talks about lifting up holy hands under the Lord, but like this. Yeah, I don't know what this is. I can't even bring his hand to his mouth or his chest or whatever. So it sounds like you're like Chris Angel or something. Sounds like it's for faggots. And they repeat the same, like, they repeat the same phrase over and over and over again. You know, he is able. He is able. You know what He is Able song I like? He is able to deliver these. He is able. Yeah. Now I just made that up. So I don't think that's not, I didn't even know. Yeah. That's not even a real, no subject matter expert. I just made that up. But that's how CCM is. I just, you fooled me. You, I mean, you've made it just, you might've just been like top 10 CCM hits of all time. Right. See that goes to show you, you could just make up a phrase that is so exactly. It's so surface level. Like, and, and just sing it over and over again. And it sounds like CCM. That's how you come up. That's how you come up with a CCM song, pick an innocuous phrase that is meaningless and repeat it a thousand times to like the same melody that they use for every other song. And you have CCM, you sound like a faggot. You sound totally feminine. Just get off the stupid CCM and let's get back to the old fashioned hymns. Let's get back to the songs, even if they're newer, that actually have sound doctrine that glorify God and glorify the teachings that are found in a King James Bible. And let's actually worship the Lord, the way that he's supposed to be worshiped, not in this, you know, faculty, just effeminate, embarrassing way that I think profanes the name of Christ. Agreed. Well, find me the song that does that we're in the Psalms, where in the Psalms is just one phrase just repeated and it means nothing. It's so something so ambiguous. It doesn't even do that with like, it's not like they even took like a great doctoral truth and repeated it like 50 times in the Psalms. No, you read the Psalms, which is, it's the Bible song book. Let me help you out. And like there it's, it's like intricate things that are being sung about. Yeah. I'm just going to flip to one. We're just going to randomly go, what about Psalm 46? Psalm 46 is really good. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. A shelter in the time of storm. It reminds me of that song immediately. Therefore will not fear though the earth be removed, though the mountains be carried to the midst of the sea, though the waters there are of war and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah, there is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the most high. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God shall help her and that right early. I mean like that's powerful. And if they repeated that in CCM, it would be better than what they're doing. They can't even open their Bible to the Psalms and get non-copyrighted material and repeat it. Why? Because it's not faggoty enough because the Bible is not effeminate. And because they have to get something that is so innocuous, that means absolutely nothing to anyone because that's the only way that their music is going to succeed. You think they're going to succeed in the devil's world of music? I mean the devil is like the chief over music. It seems like reading the Bible, the Bible talks about a description of the devil of him having I believe it's like the organs in his body or the pipes I think it says specifically in his body. But the devil's a great musician. You don't think he's the one that's in control of the music today and you don't think the devil would just like X out any doctrine that's coming in to the mainstream media. I mean good night. You are deceived today my friend. If you think that you're going to go get great. Look if you want to listen to CCM, it tickles your fancy and you just do it on your drive to Starbucks to get your pumpkin spice latte. Well brother I'm afraid of you but you do whatever you want. But as for me and my house, we're going to actually sing some hymns. Yeah we're going to appreciate some Psalms and some spiritual songs. Yeah we'll stick to the tried and true brother Tamron. We'll stick to what's tried and true. And again just to recap, what are the issues? It's patterning itself after worldly secular music. The likes of which we should that's coming from Hollywood that we really should stay away from that promotes sin and stuff like that. Also watered down, no doctrine. Also limp-wristed, faggoty, sounds like the Backstreet Boys. Well there's either no doctrine or bad doctrine. Or bad doctrine which is even worse. You know there's these black churches out there. Uh oh. Yep. There's these black churches out there and I love this isn't a black, white, green, or yellow thing but I'm just pointing out a statement of reality where they where they they sing these songs that are teaching work salvation or you know a wonderful change has come over me. I believed and now I no longer sin anymore and I've just completely turned over to leave and I just got rid of all my sins and I'm perfect now. And all this horrible just doctrine that is not found in the Bible is damnable heresy. They're confusing people with it and a lot of these black churches you visit them and what are you going to see? You're going to see a bunch of people juking and jiving in there and all kinds of stuff to songs that are teaching damnable heresy, work salvation, things of that nature. And you don't realize it at first you're probably not even paying attention. Most people aren't paying attention to the words. They end up getting these things stuck in their head. There are so many worldly songs that I could quote every word for you too that I didn't know what I was learning when I was listening to those songs. Yeah same here. And then you're just like it's in your heart forever you know. You want to talk about doctrine well I don't want to get too far off on a tangent but yeah we should not be we should not be patterning our spiritual songs and the things that we're lifting up our voice under the Lord to after those things of the world. You have a one of the person one of the people rather in chat divine ether made a comment and I think this is this is a good question to ask because I think this is something that's probably on a lot of people's minds. They said can I still listen to other music that isn't Christian but it's not vulgar or sinful and then they go into a couple artists that they enjoy. I'll tell you I don't know who any of those people are. I don't know who those people are but I'll tell you my position on listening to other music that isn't Christian but not vulgar. Yes I listen to other music that isn't Christian that's not vulgar on probably a daily basis. I love a ton of electronic music. I used to be really I went to one of the really earliest Skrillex concerts that he ever had at the Diamond Ballroom in Oklahoma City before he was really big when he did like Cinema the remix by Benny Benassi. Pendulum is a group that I really like which a couple of them did Night Party for electronic music. I mean you go back I well here here it is folks we're just we're we're this is this is where you just get it all out. I'm a fan of Avril Lavigne and look you get some bass music from back in the day like Sk8er Boy because what's the first words to this and I'm not saying it's I don't know all the words I don't remember but there's music back then that was more bass than music today. I mean Sk8er Boy is more based than some CCM because the first words of Sk8er Boy is uh he was or she was a girl he was a boy can I make it any more obvious? You can't sing that on the 2020 charts today right? You get shut down immediately but all I'm saying and I'm not you don't go and find the one part of that that I can't remember now and say I'm saying use some common sense. I'm obviously not advocating for every song some artist has ever done when I bring these up but what is sin? It's a transgression of the law obviously if we're singing and we could get into maybe worldly music that we don't listen to anymore yeah and I want to do that and I want to do that now well you want to you want to go for it go for it yeah let's do that now and I'll start us off because I think there's a distinction here between songs that are harmless that you can listen to that have nothing to do with Christianity and then some songs that we really should have nothing to do with whatsoever. When I was in high school I went through kind of a darker phase and this is way before I got saved and I kind of like this dark sort of industrial like gothic music that looking back at it now was pretty satanic. Do you like a Ramstein listener secretly where you at? I say that because I can relate to you in that that I had the same thing where and yours might have been different than me but when I was in middle school and high school I was into the shock value of some music that sometimes I was into dark gritty music but then shock value of music and I mean just horrific things that should absolutely never even be entertained for a moment were like my daily listeners and I know all the words to them to this day and boy what a regret what a regret that is yeah a lot of that darker stuff that I don't think Christians should be listening to but I also at one point believe it or not listen to rap music when I was a kid and I listened to a lot of songs that are about just fornication and you know crime and prison and whatever things like that that are really terrible influence and I personally believe when you go into some of these inner cities one of the reasons not the only reason for sure not the only reason but one of the reasons why you see especially young people getting into this cycle of crime is because they're being socially engineered to do so by the same multinational corporations that profit from them falling into a life of crime courtesy of our private prison system and there's kind of like an industrial complex there but my point is is a lot of young people are socially engineered to go out and live a wicked life and not care about the things of God and not live a straight laced life because they listen to music that glorifies that lifestyle rap music I think does that I think it's wicked as hell I want nothing to do with it and I did but at one point I did listen to it I also transitioned from that eventually in my later years in high school I started listening to country music a lot I was a huge country guy was like pretty much the only genre that I listened to and to this day I love a lot of country songs and I don't think all country songs are bad but there are some country songs that I don't think Christians should listen to that I stopped listening to and a lot of them still do glorify fornication and I think the big thing when it comes to to country music is alcohol they love to say beer you know I drink beer whiskey for my men and beer for my horses big and rich you know that was big when I was I know that song very well I could sing it right now save a horse save yours right in the latter part of that verse yes but you know what I mean well you have music verse there's a beer for my horses by Toby Keith I mean there's a lot of songs that I really love that I really liked oh you're right I think wait was that was whiskey for a minute beer for my horses wasn't that big and rich or was that Toby Keith that I think I just quoted to you yeah it was Toby Keith's song you got it wrong it's okay but my point is almost every song it has something to do with alcohol something to do with beer especially you know drink beer every day you know and about having a beer with Jesus you heard that one that's horrifying yeah it's awful it's ridiculous it's comical that someone even would think so I personally believe that Christians should not listen this is like the most obvious statement ever I don't think Christians should listen to music about drinking a beer with Jesus no you know the Bible talks about how you're unwise if you drink alcohol we should stay away from it be not drunk with wine etc that's a whole other podcast yep but Cameron obviously sorry what was that all the Calvinists just left Jeff Durbin has left the chat Jeff bourbon or entered the chat to argue with you I don't know which one Jeff bourbon we just lost him we just lost him even though he you know he wasn't listening but we'll pretend he was we just lost him he just exed out of the stream now but Cameron it's pretty obvious that there are a lot of songs out there in the secular world that Christians should have nothing to do with can you speak to some that in your life you turned away from that maybe you used to listen to and then you realized this isn't godly I need to stop listening to this yeah I want to put a caveat I want to put a disclaimer here that um if if I think we should be wise uh concerning a lot of things but simple concerning evil the Bible says to be simple concerning evil and so things that if I bring things up obviously I'm gonna keep this g-rated here and as I bring things up that the human nature is to look stuff up you should be simple concerning evil when I say these things but for those that may sometimes it's nice to have some specific application and so for those that may have listened to some of these same groups I'm gonna name some groups by name but I don't recommend you look them up some shock value stuff I listen to a group called Bloodhound Game and man they had a lot of stuff back in the day it was kind of like white uh shocked value rap and I mean you go back and listen to that it's just horrifying Avenged Sevenfold I mean by the name alone I was a huge Avenged Sevenfold fan. Beast in the Harlot I actually preached an entire sermon at Pure Words on music and one of the reprobate music was yeah reprobate music and one of the things I brought up was in Avenged Sevenfold's song Beast in the Harlot I mean I can I can recant to you the words it's like the Bible it's talking about it says a shining city built of gold a far cry from innocence there's more than meets the eye around here look to the waters of the deep uh and then it talks about when it goes to the chorus it says she's a dwelling place for demons she's a cage for every unclean spirit um and then talks about drink the poison wine and forticating with our kings fallen now is Babylon the great I mean where do you think Avenged Sevenfold got all the words to that song and you can actually look up all the words to that song it's not vulgar but they're singing about end times but then they have another song I mean they have a lot of other songs that are that are are just horrific Tenacious D Jack Black and Kyle Gass a duo big fan of Tenacious D Tribute Wonder Boy and look I'll be honest if Tribute or Wonder Boy come on the radio I usually still listen to them because I like them but any of the newer songs they come out with it's clear that Jack Black is probably super wicked he's he's really liberal so he's wicked in that regard but his guitarist Kyle Gass um intentionally during COVID time they had a song where he dressed up in drag and was like really leaning into it I think that guy's a reprobate we should have nothing to do with songs that have people that are that are dancing around fornication and let me wrap maybe not wrap it up if I go on a tangent but I'm gonna bring it home here what about Queen how many Christians today or so-called Christians is Bohemian Rhapsody gonna come on or is you know whatever other song gonna come on that you're gonna start singing along with Mercury I'm sorry Freddie Mercury and it's like why are you why are you taking so much pleasure in this I mean Bohemian Rhapsody let me translate what that means faggot fantasy that those are synonymous words for what he's talking about and and if you read it or read it if you read the lyrics and I did in a sermon I believe it is my position that in Bohemian Rhapsody he is talking about his process of becoming a reprobate of killing a man you know pulled the trigger now he's dead uh where anyway you could you could look at the lyrics yourself because again I don't think there's anything necessarily vulgar I believe he's talking about the process of either him or someone becoming a reprobate to kill the man to kill that soul permanently to be twice dead but there's just so much worldly music that gets played on you know how about old town road to whatever I'm gonna ride my horse to the old town road or whatever with it was uh Billy Ray Cyrus and Lil Nas X or whatever well then Lil Nas X is it ends up being like a flaming foaming out their own shamed faggot but that doesn't come out until everyone's hooked on that song oh funny how that oh that was just coincidence he needs to just die I hope he would die he needs to die immediately if they if they recommend this happened to me though because they'll recommend music a lot of times I'll get music recommended to me and like the thumbnail of that recommendation of that song on youtube which nukes preaching the thumbnail is him nude with a bunch of other nude men dancing on youtube now it is very lightly blurred but I'm like how can this even be a thumbnail or a song oh because the Jews love to get these lewd fellas at the baser store and promote them on their platforms for their doing surprise you know I'm so shocked but then what happens you have someone that wrote that song he didn't write the song he he is credited as a writer Lil Nas X is credited as a writer but you get what's called a ghost writer okay in the music world there's something called a ghost writer or sometimes you could refer to him as writer there's two different ways it's talking about writing and what it is is it's someone who is actually writing the music these people aren't coming up with their own music Katy Perry the alleged Christian artist who then comes out with a song about I kissed a girl and I liked it yeah you were never a Christian artist what was happening people were getting they were liking your music liking your music liking your music faggot Lady Gaga you know people they get into her music she's weird get in the music born this way I mean look at all there's just count after count after count of times where people are getting second Taylor Swift most recently I can't remember exactly what it was but there's something in the news recently where she's like super weird and off the deep end it's like you can't get away from it and what they do is they always like get the hook in you with the music and then it's like yeah you're right Soul H talks about Beelzebub has a devil set aside for me in Bohemian Rhapsody you're right he was possessed he had probably a lot of devil you know faggot Mercury but they get you with the hook in the music and then they draw you in oh that guy's a faggot and it's like whoa I don't support his lifestyle it's like the weakest Christian thing you can ever hear yeah well I don't support the lifestyle but it's just a really popular song brother I just I just have that song stuck in my head I just like to whistle that song well that you're a partaker in their evil needs too you have no excuse yeah and how about the blatant Satan worship as well in a lot of these songs that they put out today and it's Jewish influence is obvious there in a lot of these songs the Jewish influence is obvious because they're the ones who are in control in Hollywood and the media and in the upper echelons of these industries specifically to cause a breakdown of conservative traditional Christian values in society through these different mediums and especially through music the satanic imagery the satanic music videos the satanic lyrics causing people to worship the devil knowingly or not is gross and there's so many examples I'm gonna spare people's eyes and not even show them because it's so bad what's the point right why would I say tenacious d tenacious d every show that they would do they have because tribute talks about the devil and that's the whole premise of the movie the pick of destiny was they were like getting this pick from the devil and it's made out to be like oh we're fighting the devil with rock you know rock is gonna beat the devil or whatever but they're they have Dave Grohl at their at their concerts um I believe it's Dave Grohl dresses up as the devil and comes out and plays the drums there you go and then they have someone dress up as Jesus a long-haired faggoty looking Jesus and they have this whole thing play out on stage and it's all to just subvert you know what you think it's like Lizzo or whatever that that you guys were talking about and I think Lizzo what's funny I didn't even know this I was driving what I like to do a lot of times I'll take a song that I've heard or that's popular and I will just on the fly start making up words that aren't that song singing to frustrate my wife because every good husband is good at frustrating or messing with their wife so we're driving like two nights ago to get dinner and we're going to Taco Casa and I'm hungry and I was talking about I'm gonna need a taco so Lizzo has that song and I didn't even know it was her but it's like in a minute I'm gonna need a sentimental man or woman to pump me up and so we're like driving down the road and I'm like in a minute I'm gonna need a taco burrito you know to fill me up just like being dumb singing and then Jennifer I love my wife but she's like wow singing Lizzo over there and I was immediately mortified because she was like I'm gonna tell pastor and I'm like what do you mean it's Lizzo I didn't know that and so she's like yeah pulls it up but I've never even heard that full song I didn't know who the artist was but boy that one line you hear once and then it's just boom it sunk in now look God created us that way we have proclivities to enjoy music and for it to sink in and for it to lay on our heart but it's not so that you can remember tenacious d it's not so that you can remember bohemian rhapsody so you can remember you know tell me the old old story right yep exactly exactly there's a lot that our brain is capable of memorizing and learning let's use that space for something that is productive and not something satanic or perverted because Christians we should probably strive for that and there's plenty of satanic music out there that we should stay away from but once again what's the line right and I think for me if it's glorifying satan that's a pretty good indicator we shouldn't listen to it what do you think it's a decent that's a decent line I don't know that anyone's like I don't know I mean I think we could do a little satan glorifying no like obviously that's a lot right that's a good line definitely there if it's are you still attending steadfast what were are you on good terms is that I mean the line here I'm just I'm giving Ben a hard time because we're good friends yes people on the outside that have no sense of humor don't understand a dry sense of humor when they see one and I have one okay so but yeah I mean it's like obviously that's the line if it's if it's like sin if it's glorifying bottom girls first of all that's queen but what about mc hammer you know now you say well he's truthful he says I like big butts and I cannot lie but here's the thing it's not about how truthful he is that's probably not necessarily the song that you want to be have it in your heart but doesn't everybody know that song I mean doesn't it feel like everybody knows mc hammer you know sir mix a lot or whatever it's just like what is the line things that if I wouldn't sing it or if I wouldn't be comfortable talking about the lyrics with a child or with people at church yes that's good yep I probably should not be yeah things that are about sin fornication alcohol you know whatever crime uh songs about the bedroom right which it is amazing to me which is like there are so many of those now so and and again to spare people's ears I won't even mention those but like Nicki Minaj is wicked and like these people that sing about stuff like that are wicked but they just go super viral and super popular why because people like that shock value yeah well our culture is whatever it's very perverted we live in a woman like a promiscuous culture who yeah who wasn't the same promiscuous girl I mean there's a song about being a promiscuous girl and it went like super viral I can't that's the only word being a whore right right it's just like songs that promote being a whore and and and perversion and filled because it makes people not feel convicted about their sins sure when you sing though your sins be as scarlet yet they shall be as white as snow though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool right one of my new favorite hymns that we've been singing that I've never heard before that convicts you about your sin being red as scarlet and needing jesus christ righteousness to wash it white as wool white as snow but then you go sing promiscuous girl and it makes you feel better about getting drunk and sleeping with some dude or if you're a dude it makes you feel better about getting drunk and being a whoremonger or maybe even not getting drunk and being a whoremonger you're like well that makes me feel better about my sins now you need to feel convicted about some things when you share some songs you know so I think you know some good principles for any song does it promote heresy does it promote sin does it glorify the devil you know worshiping satan those are some pretty good lines I think and some good principles where if you have that present in a song you should listen to something else I agree you know there's some worldly songs out there or songs that are secular that are perfectly fine obviously there's a lot of instrumentals sure but there's other songs that were they're harmless and and there's nothing wrong with it so you know there's a group I used to play a lot of I play a lot of video games in general have for a lot of my life but rock band when the game is like guitar hero and rock band that was a fun fun game to play I love those I still have like all the equipment for them at my house and everything anyway there there's a song from rock band 2 I don't remember if it was a dlc or not but it's by a group named thrice and the name of the song was uh image of the invisible and I never listened to the words but it was a song that I really liked it's kind of a rock song and I went back and pulled it up recently I actually listened to it again today but it was a few months ago that I went back and pulled it up and I had to go tell my wife and I'm like look at these words to this rock song it's a rock song they get mistaken for a Christian band and they're totally not but this rock song is totally fine but the lyrics are talking about we're more than carbon and chemicals we are the image of the invisible we have a name and we are known we know that we'll never walk alone and it's like a rock song and talking about stuff like that and if you watch the music video it appears to be about like Christians being captured and persecuted now of course this one song went mega viral and then it's like you've never heard from the beginning and then when they're they're like we're not a Christian band you know but then people are like no the lead guy is a Christian he's trying to write stuff in there and so it's like you can find rock bands that sometimes will go mega viral and they'll end up having a good hit and good lyrics where nothing is wrong and other songs that I can think of that aren't Christian at all that have no ties to God and I'm gonna get laughed at when I say this name but maybe people will know is like Hoobastank you know Hoobastank had uh like the reason I had that album that you know was a was a group that I listened to a lot um Lincoln Park you know I listened to a lot of Lincoln Park and I can't off the top of my head remember super vulgar stuff there but again you have to go in cognizant of what you're doing and you have to be very careful and you don't want to toe the line and flirt with it you don't want to start permitting it to a little bit because a little 11 11 is the whole lump but you don't want to I don't think it's also healthy to go to the extreme of you know you know some people are like I'll never watch tv I'll never listen to the radio I don't listen to the radio either to be fair okay that's that's bad idea nowadays maybe not maybe not 10 years ago but like I'll never listen to any music at all unless it's a hymn you look you have your standard you make your standard for your home if you're the husband that is your authority 100% whatsoever but I think it's unrealistic and I think that you probably will be honest do straight from that at time to time keep a more realistic goal of like hey and and keep a goal that's smart that I think you can explain to your children you know I don't have children but I know a lot of rules my parents had I would respect because I didn't always get the because I'm mom and I said so because I'm dad and I said so it was let me show you the reasons why yeah let's use some critical thought and think about why and I think that's important not only in a parental aspect but doesn't God do that with us I mean it's not like God's like here's all the commandments because I said so now the caveat immediately is you know you shall have no other gods before me I am the Lord thy God okay well that's because he is the Lord he's giving you the reason because he is God like there's no other God but like other things it's like here's why you know alcohol you're gonna have redness of eyes because it's destroying your blood vessels that's what it means when your eyes are red from alcohol wounds without cause you're gonna get hurt and not remember you're gonna you know be like a dog returning to his own vomit when you wake up you're gonna seek it again you know you're gonna get over that hangover and go for it again he's giving you reasons as to why you shouldn't do things and I think we should apply that in our lives as well and we should have legitimate concrete biblical reasons on why we're avoiding sin and by having those you're going to be much more successful in your Christian life of not falling into those rather than just saying I'm never gonna do it and then like you hear it and you're like well maybe I could do it once because you want to have that in your heart to say like whoa no this is why I'm not doing this this is why this is wrong we don't wait lay the word of God on your heart you can't know and be convicted this holy spirit can't call things to remembrance for you if you have not put any of the words of the Lord in your heart you know that's kind of yeah we'll set attainable goals as well yeah for sure a big part of it and one thing I want to mention is there's some songs out there that are political that I really like you know recently Richmond North of Richmond went viral this country song and I thought it was a pretty good one there was a song by Jason Aldean try that in a small town yeah that's that became a meme quickly yeah yes there's songs about guns like gun rights and how you know we're gonna uphold the second amendment and things like that I like those kind of songs and I don't think there's anything wrong with them but I think we also clearly drew a line in the sand of where the boundary is and I think as Christians we need to be careful not to cross that line and make sure that what we're listening to even if it's not spiritual isn't sinful and isn't in violation of scripture we provided some examples of that here but I think we can wrap it up now brother Cameron I appreciate you very much for coming on it's starting to storm pretty badly outside I'm not sure if my microphone is picking that up but if it is and you're wondering what's going on there's a storm but Cameron I appreciate very much your time and thank you for doing this live stream it's been a while but it's always fun to get you on here and talk about the bible talk about different subjects and especially I like to get guests on who are passionate about the subject matter and for sure I could tell that you're very interested in music love it and so I live it I mean it's every day I'm listening to music constantly I'm whistling you know brother Robert Anderson was in the chat I'll leave it I kind of wanted to get this in before we wrap it up there's another great thing about the hymns there's so many purposes for the hymns but I've been at Oklahoma City we have a really good engagement of new people coming out soul winning silent partners brother Robert has been going out and he started just recently he's going and he's talking and I mean this is a young guy who's zealous for the lord I could not just just commend brother Robert enough he is such a great example of a young man and a great friend of mine and we're out and and so he's learning to talk and he's like do I knock once or twice what are you know just normal questions that everyone is going to have to you know to figure out at some point you know how do I do this what's the best way and I say hey here's how I do it if there's a doorbell in the door I ring the doorbell and knock at the same time and whistle one line of a hymn to myself or sing a little bit that way you can time yourself you know so seeing a little bit of a hip well you can only do that if you have one memorized right and that's like the perfect time in my opinion to knock you know sing like not a not a five verse or okay you're not there for 15 minutes but you kind of like oh he's still here I saw no participants I thought he was given a ghost shout out but he's still here so now I gotta give him a hard time but I'm just kidding but you kind of think about that and then you move on to the next one and here's the other thing about singing hymns is it strengthens you too at the door there are so many applications of hymns that and and music that you know in your normal life if you're having a bad day you want to sing a song a worldly song or just replace that with a good christian hymn there's so many uses so many applications you're right it's something I'm passionate about and I knew going in I was telling my wife I was like man he's asking me on for a music podcast I'm like we'll be here till midnight I mean we'll have eudicus in the chat I just like you know I love being on I love getting to talk with you I love just kind of throwing stuff at the wall getting passionate about it maybe having we don't really have any disagreements but you know sometimes it's good to just get those out flesh things out to talk to get passionate to bring up the bible to bring up examples to have a little bit of passion have a little bit of desire in what you're talking about and open yourself and put yourself on the line for you listener where you've had this happen before you know your proclivities you know what you've listened to and you know you know where you're at hey open yourself up don't get a hard heart just realize where you are make attainable goals listen to hymns put them in your heart sing unto the lord when you're at church not in the man as men's service right we're not doing this as men pleasers but as unto the lord and you are going to notice a change you know I take it from someone who is into the worst kind of music who is super worldly who did not sing loud at church who is not a good singer I know music but I don't sing very well that changing your hymn life will change your spiritual life it worked for paul I mean it worked for you see anybody in tribulation in the bible more than paul right paul is like the guy and what's he constantly doing he's constantly talking about how he's singing hymns he's lifting up his voice I mean if I get imprisoned ever for preaching the gospel I want to be the guy at midnight that's singing praises unto the lord not that can't remember what the hymn was like you know what I mean so find you a reason that's a reason for me that I like maybe that doesn't resonate with you but just I mean how else could I how else can I even wrap this up get your get your hymn life right okay that's it that's what I got well it can often be a response to persecution you see that in the bible that's really cool right when you're being persecuted if you're in a situation where you're being afflicted for the faith to respond by singing and that could be another application I think we could go another couple of hours if we wanted to but for sake of time I'll wrap it up here so appreciate again you coming on brother Cameron and I'll have to uh bug you to come back on again sometime please do please do I'm more than happy to we can talk about mcdonald's or something next time get get pastor Shelley on as a guest we'll talk about mcdonald's and Indian food and we'll see how long that one goes I'm sure longer than 10 o'clock I don't know that I don't know that he would stick around too long for that and being chili with beans in it so I do like the classic cheeseburger at mcdonald's hey next time you're coming to town maybe uh take you out for some mcdonald's you might be the only one that I know that would actually enjoy that let's do it all right well god bless you have a great night see y'all and that's brother Cameron hall if you want to hear more from him just subscribe to the steadfast baptist okc youtube channel search for it on youtube steadfast baptist okc or actually I believe it is uh steadfast okc just search for steadfast okc on youtube and you can subscribe there he preaches every once in a while leads the music and he's a good friend of mine and I really enjoy doing the podcast with him and there he is texting me there all right well what I'm gonna do now here to just end the stream is I'm gonna play a congregational hymn that is super epic that is awesome and that gives me chills when I listen to it this is from the Daniel Baptist youtube channel which by the way I meant to plug this earlier and I totally forgot but if you want to hear some great congregational hymns subscribe to Daniel Baptist on youtube and there's tons of music there you can play it in the background as you're doing some other things in your house but I want to play this one it is well with my soul at the conclusion of this song I will wrap up the stream and end it it is well with my soul congregational style right now enjoy this it is awesome it is epic and it will get you fired up to serve the lord number 433 if you would take your hymnals number 433 a wonderful wonderful hymn we haven't sung it yet this week now is a great time it is well with my soul and we're not in a hurry we're here to sing we're here to praise the lord at this point in the service so let's do that with our whole heart at this time number 433 join us on that first verse now is my soul let this bless Well, blessed is He, and has shed His own blood for my soul. Israel, in my soul, in my soul. Israel, in Israel, in my soul. I see, oh, the bliss of this glorious dawn. I see God in part, but the Lord is built in the cross. Amen. And I bear with the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, oh, my soul. Israel, in my soul, in my soul. Israel, in Israel, in my soul. And Lord, praise the day when my faith shall be signed. The clouds we roll back as us roll. The drums shall resound, and the voice shall be sung. Israel, in my soul, in my soul. Israel, in Israel, in my soul. In my soul, in Israel, in my soul. All right, people, send praise the Lord for that. You may be seated. All I can say is if that doesn't stir you up, I question whether you have a soul. It is well with my soul. One of my favorite hymns, I don't think I mentioned it earlier, but I'll throw that into the list as well in terms of some of my favorite hymns that I love to sing. That was Southwest Baptist Church in Oklahoma City. Daniel Baptist is the YouTube channel where I got that from. Make sure you subscribe to it if you want to hear some more congregational hymns just like that. But that's going to do it for the live stream tonight. I'll be doing more of these regularly. Stay tuned to my Facebook page, facebook.com slash bendthebaptistkjv. That's facebook.com slash bendthebaptistkjv for updates on this channel so that you can know when the next time a live stream will be taking place here on this channel. I plan on bringing in different special guests and I'll go ahead and just announce this now for those who care. I used to do a preacher profile series years ago. And I'm bringing that back. So that'll be returning to YouTube. And that's always a lot of fun. It's a great chance to get to know some pastors, some preachers a little more and their back story and things like that and everything that led up to where they're at today. So stay tuned to the channel. Stay tuned to the Facebook page for updates on future projects. But until next time for Cameron Hall, this has been Naeem signing off. God bless you all. And I'll talk to you guys again after a while.