Does not save natively

It was some 20 years ago and I laid a very good foundation on the subject which I suggest that you catch up on to fully understand what I'm going to share today. Today I want to speak on the importance of music and song. We saw originally that music and singing were originated by God.

God lives in music. He has worship taking place around the clock and that's the main function of the worship angels. They worship continuously without taking a breath because they are not human like us that they have to take a breath.

They just sing continuously. Now the leader of the worship angels, because all of these angels have leaders, each of the three main groups which I've taught elsewhere had an archangel who was in charge of them and the archangel in charge of the worship angels was an angel by the name of Lucifer, the son of the morning, the light bringer. He got tired of giving all the worship to God, wanted to get some glory for himself and staged a rebellion in heaven and he and all of the worship angels that followed him were thrown out of heaven and God had to make I guess a new set of worship angels.

Now I don't know who is the leader of the worship angels now. If God made somebody to replace Lucifer I guess we'll find out one day when we get to heaven. But one thing you need to realize is that Lucifer was cast down to this earth and he didn't lose the skills that God created in him.

Those skills were largely in the realm of music and in singing. Satan is a master on the subject of music and of singing. Now it may interest you to know that when Satan fell down to this earth he wasn't happy because Adam had been given this earth which I believe previously was under Satan's control.

And so we know the story of the temptation of how Satan eventually got Adam to hand the earth over to him and from that point Satan and his demons began to control this world. Now it may interest you to know that it was Satan who first taught man how to make music, not God. How do I know that? Well I think there's enough evidence in the scripture because right back in Genesis 4 already straight after the story of the creation and the fall of man we see God beginning to create two lines of generations.

Originally Adam and Eve had two sons Cain and Abel and we know that Cain was the first one who was influenced by Satan who filled his heart with hatred against his brother and he killed his brother. God gave Adam and Eve a new son to replace Cain and Abel. Abel had his line but God created a new son to follow the good line via Abel and his name was Seth.

Cain on the other hand his generations that came from him were all contaminated with the evil that was in him and they were if you like the unrighteous line of Adam. It was from Abel and Seth came the righteous line. Okay now coming from Cain's line we find that within a generation or two man was born by the name of Lamech.

Lamech was the first one who was a bigamist. He married two wives instead of one. He was also a murderer.

He also killed somebody just like his ancestor Cain. Now one of the sons that was born to one of his wives was a man by the name of Jubal and Jubal was according to the biblical record the first one to create musical instruments. It says that he created in the original scriptures there are two words there that are used for instruments.

I think it says the harp and something else but if you look at it effectively what they were was a stringed instrument and a wind instrument. The two main ways of making music. Okay the stringed instrument that was first known and was in vogue throughout the scriptures was known as a lyre and the lyre is like a little mini portable harp.

It was the ancestor of our modern guitar. These were the instruments that Jubal made but we don't read about music, we don't read about singing anywhere in the scriptures even after that until we get to where Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and God miraculously took them over the Red Sea and then drowned the Egyptians in the Red Sea and there for the first time we read of a song being sung by Moses and the whole crowd. Moses sister Miriam took the tambourine and led everybody in a song and a dance.

Now I want you to notice the first song that was ever sung was sung to the Lord. I will sing unto the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously the horse and rider he has thrown into the sea. Those were the words of the first song that was recorded that was sung by a man and Miriam took her tambourine and led the people in song and in dance.

We're not going to speak about dancing today, we'll probably cover that another time but song and dance often go together. We see here again the fact that music and singing were created to praise and worship God but the music that Satan taught unbelievers in this world is never designed to glorify God, it's always designed to glorify self. The music and the singing of this world is always used for selfish purposes.

Singers in this world and musicians rise up and are treated as little gods, is a term that they use for them. They're known as idols. Now there's a famous talent competition, there are several.

The most common today is known as the American Idol, was originally called the Pop Idol. The Pop Idol was the British version, American Idol was the American version and the whole idea is to find people that can be lifted up as idols. What's an idol? An idol is worshipped as a god.

That's what Satan does with music, is lift people up and make them into little gods. Now we saw that music and singing are part of one of the three roads that God's given us to walk on and it's the social road. Music and singing were not designed by Satan, they were designed by God and they were meant to bring men and women into a life of joy in his presence.

Music is a spiritual force but instead it's become a competition. Just like in this world, survival of the fittest, dog eat dog, push other people down and lift yourself up and only those who are gifted, they make it. Everyone else gets pushed down and nobody is given a chance to develop.

Now I watched some of the earlier versions of some of these idol programs and many poor people went on there to audition to try and present their little vocal skills and very frequently they were mocked and laughed at and told they are foolish. Why are you even bothering trying to come on this program when you are so pathetic? Have you seen it? You still see it in the world. Have you noticed that if you just seem to have this natural gift for singing, everybody will lift you up and exalt you but if your singing doesn't come up to scratch, people will condemn you and put you down.

If you are struggling to improve your voice and to sing, you don't have to look far to find somebody to say don't give up your day job, forget it. You just don't have it. Why are you bothering to waste your time singing? You see, the whole idea is that you either got it or you don't got it.

That's the way of the world and those who got it, they are lifted up and exalted. Those who don't have it, they are pushed down and pushed aside. They're not given an opportunity.

Well, I'm going to show you today that you can sing and you can play music and you can do everything that's involved, even if you weren't born with it, even if you don't have a natural flair or a gift for it. I'm going to look at music first. Music is structured.

It has scales and keys. All of us have learned the basic. Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do.

We all know that. That's a scale. See? And there are many different scales.

There are many different keys of music. And if you want to play music, it's advisable that you learn a little bit about how music is set up and some of the patterns that are involved. Otherwise, you're going to play in a way that's not going to sound very nice.

Your playing must be harmonious. Things must flow together. Notes must agree with each other and harmonize one another.

Otherwise, we have what we call discord. Just pick up a guitar that's out of tune and strum it. And it sounds awful.

It's discord because each string must be tuned to a specific frequency that when they play, they flow together in harmony. Now, most of us can recognize discord when it comes. You know why? Because music is spiritual.

And when we hear music, our spirits automatically respond. We may not understand what's wrong, but something inside us says, that just doesn't sound right. Are you sure you're playing that correct? Something's wrong.

You know, several people stand up to sing and one person is singing off key. You can hear it immediately. Something's wrong.

We don't know what it is, but somebody's out of tune. It's built into us. Music is part of our spiritual nature.

Why? Because we have the nature of God and God lives in music. God created in the presence of music, as I taught in our previous teaching. Now, there are what are known as musical keys.

And you get major keys and you get minor keys. I don't want to get too technical, but if you want to play music, you better learn the difference between a major key and a minor key to play well. Major keys, they're simple and they're joyful.

They flow nice. Minor keys are mournful. They got like a sad sound to them.

They have a term in music, they call it sing in the blues. The idea is I'm feeling blue. I'm feeling sad.

I'm feeling negative. And I express that in my music. The blues got a lot of minors in it.

Now, if you listen to a song that's written in a minor key, it can still be pleasant, but it has a certain mournfulness about it. Songs that are played in a major key, they are simple. We all understand them.

We can adapt to them. We find we can harmonize easily with them. They seem to be brighter and bring more joy.

Now, since the fall of man, I don't know if this happened before, the creation, birds sing in minor keys. Did you know that? Birds cannot sing in major keys. You ever tried to harmonize with a bird? Birds sing and it may sound like they're very happy, but there's a mournfulness about their music.

The whole of creation has been put, if you like, in a minor key. And when you start getting into professional music, taught the way Satan the master knows it, it starts to get quite complicated. It starts to get very complex.

And the reason for that is that the world is being influenced in its music by the one who controlled music from the beginning, Lucifer. If you want to start playing music now as a beginner, people are going to say to you, is that all you know, major chords? Can you only play in major keys? What kind of musician are you? Where is all your other chords? Where is all the major sevenths and minor x plus y z? Man, they get so complicated eventually. And I've seen even Christian musicians brag about how many fancy chords they put into their songs.

Have you noticed that when people release a song to the public, a lot of the time, they're the only ones who can sing it. Ever try to sing along with one of the latest popular songs? You probably get one line every now and then. Maybe part of the chorus, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then I can't get that part. It's too complex. See, that's the way Satan wants it to be.

Because you have to rely on him to teach you how to do it that way. Be very careful as a musician not to boast and brag on how professional you are and how many different chord formations you can form. You know what, when you sing from your heart, or you just feel the joy of the Lord rise up in you, you begin to sing, praise the Lord.

I tell you what, you're singing simple, probably major chords. Anybody can pick up a guitar and follow you. It's very easy because that's the way our spirits flow in simplicity, in joy, and love to the Lord.

Now, when you play music in simple keys like that, it's much easier for people to join in. It's much easier for people to sing harmony notes, that you can have voices joining together and flowing together as one. Now, if you have learned how to sing harmony with somebody else who's singing the lead, and you add harmony notes to it, which are not the same notes, but they blend together, that person is singing in a standard major key.

It's actually quite easy to find it and eventually get in the flow. They start playing all of these complex chords. Unless you know the music and you know which note to sing, it's not going to be harmony.

It's not going to be the flow. Well, you know, God wants us to flow together in his presence, and part of what music does is to bring us together in harmony and one spirit and one heart and mind. It's so much easier to worship the Lord that way, isn't it? And you don't need to feel inferior because you're playing straightforward music.

Don't let people ever put you down. Don't ever say, well, you know, I don't play the guitar very well. You know, I just know a couple of basic chords.

You know what? You only need three chords to sing a regular song. Add an extra three minors to that major chord. Six chords.

You should be able to sing any normal song. If you've got to add other complexities to it, you're moving outside of what music was designed for, which is simple worship to the Lord. Now, over time, musical instruments have changed.

I think David was reputed to have actually created various different instruments, but largely music is created by vibrating strings or vibrating air or some of them with vibrating reeds, which actually act very much like the vocal chords. Vocal chords are two folds of skin and muscle that vibrate together like that. And if you put two pieces of reed together like that and blow through them, you can get a sound.

So most of the common instruments that are played are of that kind. The harp was the most popular, starting with the lyre, which was like a portable harp. And then you got the big harps.

But you know what? You can't carry a big harp around you wherever you go. The lyre was like a guitar. You could take it with you.

So the lyre, if you like, has become our modern guitar. And just like it was the most popular instrument in those days. I mean, could you see David sitting with this big harp? David, King Saul wants you to sing.

Okay, guys, can you lug the harp into the king's throne room, please? So I could say, no, no, David carries a harp with him all the time. He was sitting while he was looking after the sheep with a little, it was his guitar. That's what it was.

Okay, so a guitar is one of the most simple instruments for us to use. Now, the larger form, which is the harp, if you've seen a harp, you'll see its shape has that curved shape, looks like that. What they did is they took that, put it on its side, and put it in a box.

And they called it a piano. If you've ever looked inside a piano, you will see that the actual strings of a piano look like a huge harp. But now instead of plucking the strings, you just press a key, a little hammer hits that string and makes the sound.

So the piano has become your larger instrument. And you can't carry that around with you. But modern technology has now even allowed us to make portable pianos and electronic keyboards.

So here's the two main instruments that are available for you. They're inexpensive. They're not cheap, but they're inexpensive by comparison.

And they're mostly portable. You say, well, I would like to play music, what do I start with? I would start with the instrument that David used, the guitar. It's the easiest, it's portable.

It's the easiest to learn. From there, you can graduate to the big harp, which is the piano, or the keyboard. Electronic keyboards these days can even work on batteries.

So it's actually quite portable. Okay, now, that's music. Why do we need to play music? Because if you want to sing, singing is usually accompanied by music.

There's a very good reason for that, as I'll look at shortly. But let's look now beyond music, and let's look at singing. Now, I believe that music is being played in heaven.

I don't believe the angels are just singing a cappella. As wonderful as they can, and as how their voices blend together, I believe there are musical instruments in the heavenly realm. But the singing is the more important part, isn't it? The singing is the ultimate instrument that we add to create what God is looking for, praise and worship.

Okay, now, before you can sing, you need to be able to speak. And the first contact that mankind made with God was made with speech. You'll read it there again in Genesis chapter 4. I'm going to read you quickly, Genesis 4, 25 and 26.

It says, And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son, and called his name Seth. For God, she said, has appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. And to Seth also there was born a son, and he called his name Enos.

And it says, Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord. Well, how do you call on somebody? With speech. Men began to pray.

They began to communicate with God through speech. Okay. Now, if you'd like to sing, you better learn to speak first.

It might seem quite obvious. But it's not necessarily that obvious. Because you see, speech must be taught.

We're not born speaking. We're born with vocal cords. A baby knows how to use them well.

Yeah, I'm hungry. Noise. See, we got to convert those air sounds that come from the vocal cord into intelligible sounds that we can use on purpose It takes a while before the baby can finally say, Mama, I'm hungry.

But then it's not a baby anymore. See, crying out to the Lord and just wailing is not enough. We got to be intelligible.

And that's what speech is. Okay. Speech has to take the sound from the vocal cord and modify it with our mouth.

You know, we do that all the time without thinking what we do. But you know, you had to learn that. You had to learn how to do that.

It didn't come to you automatically. How did you learn? You learn by listening to those all around you. You hear what they're saying.

These days, we make it a bit more complicated and we have specific trainings. We have teachers and vocal teachers. But originally, people just grew up hearing one another speak and then copying what they said.

And what kind of language do you speak? You speak the language of the people around you because that's what you've been exposed to. See, I grew up in a family that speaks English. So English is my natural tongue.

Maybe you grew up in a country where the natural language is something different. You grew up being exposed to that language. It now became your language.

Well, don't you know English is more spiritual than French? Is it? So well, hang on. If I'm going to use my voice to glorify the Lord, what language does he want me to speak? See, it doesn't matter. But you must be able to speak.

Otherwise, you can't ask somebody something. You can't tell anybody anything. See? And you know something else? Even though you've learned the words of a language, the way that you pronounce those words also is unique.

And we call that an accent. You can hear it, can't you? Somebody begins to speak and we know, yeah, I can tell they come from that kind of country. They've got an Italian dialect.

They sound like a German. They sound French. They sound African.

We can identify people by their accent. So you learned a language and you learned an accent. And once you learn that, you now could use speech to communicate.

Now, we go beyond speech and we now want to read and write. But you know, writing was only created much later. And each language had to actually create their own spelling and their own grammar.

See, all of these things didn't come full blown. Now, the reason I'm emphasizing this is because so many people think that the ability to sing is something you're born with and came full blown. Well, I want to tell you the ability to speak didn't come that way and neither does the ability to sing come that way.

It needs to be learned. Everybody's got the same piece of musical equipment. It's like a reed sitting down here in your larynx.

But the sound that comes out is going to be changed by the way you form it in your mouth. And not everybody can speak well. Some people mumble, I can't hear what they're saying.

I beg your pardon. I don't know who taught them to speak. But I don't want to listen to that.

Lord forbid you put somebody like that behind the pulpit. You speak for an hour. See, before I could stand up here and preach, I had to learn to speak better.

I had to learn to pronounce my words clearly in a way that everybody can understand. And I developed my speech and my ability to speak first. And I got pretty good at it.

It took time. It took practice. But you know, after being such an awesome speaker, I wanted to think I should be able to sing automatically now.

But I couldn't. You see, singing doesn't come automatically any more than speech does. Singing is something you have to learn to do.

So I can go, ah, that's not singing. That's just making a note. See, that's the same as speaking.

Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. What did I just say? You don't know. Because I didn't turn those R's into specific vowels and consonants with my mouth.

So if you can't sing, don't complain and say, Lord, that's not fair. That's not fair, Lord. You gave that person over there a beautiful singing voice.

Just listen to them. Everybody raves about how wonderful they sing. And me, I sound like a frog.

But you don't have to stay sounding like a frog any more than you needed to stay like a baby just going, goo, goo, goo, goo, goo. You can learn to sing the same way you learned to speak. Now, why should you learn to sing? Can I give you one very good reason? Because music and singing were created by God for the heavenly realm.

And if you can't sing, you're not going to fit into heaven. Is that a good reason to sing? You know, when I get there one day, I'll automatically know how to do it. Perhaps the Holy Spirit can do amazing things.

I'll tell you shortly. But singing is a vital part of our communication with God. It's a vital part of our worship to him and our adoration of him.

It's not enough just to say, praise you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. I love you, Lord.

There's something powerful about music. And I covered it last time. The effect that music has in your spirit and your soul and your body, when you add music to your speech, it releases a spiritual power.

Singing is basically speech said to music. That's all it is. And because of that, it's done best if it's accompanied by a musical instrument.

The difference between speaking and singing is in speaking, we concentrate on what we call the consonants. In singing, you concentrate on the vowels, which in English are A, E, I, O, U. There are variations of the way we pronounce those. We don't just say, ah, we can say, eh.

We can say, uh. We can say, eh. Those are all vowels.

And when we speak them, we speak them short. But when you sing them, your main emphasis comes on the vowel rather than on the consonant. Okay, let's take a simple phrase.

Praise the Lord. See, my main emphasis there was on the pah, zz. Praise the Lord.

Singing makes those kind of fade into the background and becomes praise the Lord. Now, that doesn't happen automatically. Because you're used to saying praise the Lord.

That's clear. It's a beautiful accent, beautiful elocution. Your lips going the right way.

Now, we're going to sing, praise the Lord. Very different. You can't do it the same way.

It's not automatic. Not automatic at all. Sometimes, for some people, singing is easier than speaking.

It's a known fact that sometimes, people who battle to speak because they stutter are actually able to sing without stuttering. The joke is told of folks that were traveling on a ship and there was an emergency. And one of the crew came running up to the captain.

And he was distraught. And he said, c-c-c-captain, c-c-c-c-c-captain said, for goodness sakes, if you can't speak it, sing it. And so he sang.

Let old acquaintance be forgot, and still so fresh in mind. The poor old cook fell overboard and he's drifting far behind. Singing has a power in it, which speech doesn't.

If you have not developed that ability and used it, you are missing so much, especially in the spiritual life. So much. I'm gonna quickly share with you my experience.

I've shared some of this before, I'm just gonna go through it very quickly. I grew up in a family that was musical. My mom had a beautiful singing voice, one of those natural ones.

My dad, he could sing in key, but he didn't have that natural quality in vibrato and everything. So naturally, as I grew up in church, my mom would be the lead singer. And my dad, he could just accompany her.

Sometimes he'd just play the guitar while she sang, and sometimes he'd sing a harmony with her. But my dad was an expert on music. He became a choir director, and he would train each one of the voices in the choir to sing.

But he wasn't a solo singer at all. Well, I inherited my dad's voice, unfortunately. I wasn't born with that lovely, automatic quality vibrato that my mother could sing with so naturally.

So I had to follow my dad's order, and I had to learn to sing technically. I learned to play music technically. My dad got an accordion from somebody at work.

We'd never had a musical instrument in the home before then. And my older brother and I, we immediately got excited about learning to play the accordion. We were competing with one another.

You see, who was gonna first one who could play jingle bells? Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the, man, oh man. One note at a time. You know how long it took me to learn to play jingle bells? Just on the right-hand side of the accordion.

And you gotta try and add the left-hand side. And so while you're playing the tune here, you gotta go, ee, ah, ee, ah, ee, ah, with buttons on that end. And while you're doing that, you gotta move the bellows, otherwise there's no air and no sound comes out.

Needless to say, it took me months to learn to play jingle bells on the accordion. And I finally got it. Let me play the accordion for you.

Jingle bells, jingle bells. Can you play anything else? Well, not yet. But at least I can play jingle bells.

Well, I'd broken the ice. Once I'd learned that, I could start learning other things. And so that was my first intrusion into the music world.

Oh, my brother picked up a guitar and he started to play guitar. And me, again, competing with him, I figured, well, if he can play the guitar, so can I. So I started to learn chords and began to play the guitar. And you know, once you've learned one instrument, it becomes so much easier to learn another one because they all follow the same rules of music.

It was a matter of time, I graduated to the piano and then the organ. And now I had a whole variety of instruments that I could play. The only one I hadn't learned was the drums.

And those I learned because we saw a set of drums in the shop and we figured for our little home worship, wouldn't it be nice to have a set of drums? So we bought the drums. Well, who was gonna play the drums? Well, you know, we got the drums and the sticks and began to hit them. We couldn't afford to go for singing lessons or for music lessons.

So I began to fiddle with the drums until eventually I worked out a way to get the rhythm going on the drums. And I learned to play the drums. Later on, I began to look at drumming lessons and I found out nobody in the world drums the way I learned to play the drums.

But you know, the Lord helped me to play the drums. And I can play the drums and it sounds pretty good. I could teach other people to play the drums the same way.

So I had my music. The problem with the guitar is there's no melody with it. The accordion, you're playing the melody on the right hand and the left hand is kind of like the guitar.

On the piano, you can play the melody on the one hand and the accompaniment on the other hand, same with the organ. But the guitar, if you're just strumming a load of chords, nobody can even recognize what song you're doing. So you have to sing with it.

So I started to sing with my guitar. And you know, when you're so busy concentrating on the chords, you don't have time to concentrate on your vocals. But at least I could sing in key.

Over time, I learned to write songs. I've shared that story elsewhere. And so I began to write songs on my guitar.

You know, I was so sick of the songs we sang in church. Aren't you sick of those choruses they've been singing for the last 50 years? Really. So I started to write my own songs.

And I thought they were pretty good. They had the presence of the Lord on them. So I started to record some of those songs and upload them onto the internet for all the poor people out there that needed some new songs to sing.

I thought, wow, you know, yeah, I'm offering a service for free. I wasn't saying copyright, you must give my permission to use the song. Please be free.

There's my song. I began to get different responses. Somebody wrote and said, I really love that song, especially the words.

I knew what they were saying. The next guy didn't beat about the bush. He said to me, keep singing, but just sing for the Lord, please.

Don't make the rest of us suffer. You know, I didn't upload my songs to show them what a wonderful singer I was. I just wanted to show them how the song went so they could learn it and they could get a good singer to sing it.

But you see, that is the way people are. These are Christians, for goodness sake, were tearing me down and saying, please, don't make us suffer with your bad singing. Now, perhaps you face the same thing.

Perhaps you've tried to sing and it wasn't long before somebody said, quite clearly, you weren't born with a singing voice. So singing's not your thing. Stick with the guitar.

You know, with a bit of practice, you'll get a bit better. Stick with the piano. Go for some piano lessons and maybe over time, you'll play a bit better.

But singing, singing is not what you're gonna do. You weren't geared to be a singer. Now, I'm sure if I asked for a show of hands, a large number of people would be in that category.

Somebody sings and they got a beautiful voice and everybody says, man, you got a good singing voice. You should go for singing lessons. What do they need singing lessons for? They already know how to do it.

You sing and you make mistakes in your singing and nobody says, you know, you should go for singing lessons and you could improve your singing. No, people don't say that. They say, don't waste your time going for singing lessons.

You just don't have a voice to sing. It's a sad situation, but it's true. And in the church today, it's got to the point where few people even sing anymore.

You know, in the churches that I grew up in, your worship team were not entertainers. They were simply there to provide the music and to lead you in the singing. And the congregation sung.

These days, the worship bands stand up there with the lights flashing and the smoke machines and they amplify so loud that nobody can hear what anybody's saying there in the congregation. And if anybody is singing there, they're singing to themselves or just mouthing the words. But we're there listening to the experts sing.

They're not gonna invite you to be up there if you are not a highly skilled singer. You know, sometimes they employ unbelievers to play the instruments and even to sing so that they can have quality worship. The state of the church today, where music is concerned, everybody's becoming another American idol or pop idol.

No more are we saying, I want to worship the Lord. I want to sing for him and tell him how much I love him. Well, folks, it's time for change.

And God is moving today. He's moving into the church. He's moving in his church to restore some of the most important things that are being left out.

And music is one of those important things. Now, I want to say this again. If you can speak, you can sing.

If you are dumb and you cannot speak, I doubt whether you're ever gonna sing. But there's not many of those people around. If you are able to speak and form words with sounds coming out of your vocal cords, you are able to express those same words with a melody and with musical accompaniment and in singing.

And you can learn to improve it, just like you learned to improve your speech. The baby first starts speaking, it just says, da-da, mama, and it begins to add a few words. Singing is exactly the same.

Maybe when you start out, you can just say, la-la-la-la-la. You can start. La-la-la-la-la.

Low-low-low-low-low. Lee-lee-lee-lee-lee. Try it.

Get your vocal cords going. And here's the mistakes that people make. Are we going to help you move into this because this is part of the social road and it's part of what God's calling us to do.

That's why I want to motivate you and encourage you today. Singing and music are played in specific keys. There are 12 of them.

Now, depending on how the song is written, the key that you are playing it in is going to put the pitch of your notes either low or medium or high. And if you've got the kind of voice that's more comfortable in the lower notes and you're singing in a key where the notes are in the higher range, you're not going to be able to do it. Now, I want you to know this.

Every CD, every recorded public song that you hear, 99% of the time is recorded in a higher key than what you can sing. So you've tried to sing along with your latest worship CD. And man, you just can't cope.

So you came to the conclusion, I don't have a singing voice. It's not possible for me to sing. It's not true.

If that song was brought down to a lower key that would suit your voice, you would actually cope with it very well. And you'll be amazed how well you can sing. You say, how do we change the key? See, that's why you need to learn a bit of music first.

So do you understand that? And if you can play an instrument like the guitar, you can change the key to suit your voice. Males and females have different voices. I guess you noticed that.

Do you know that a woman sings an octave higher than a man? We may sound like we're singing the same note in the same key, but the actual pitch of a woman's voice is a full octave, a full note higher. So don't try and compete and sing like this because I'm not a woman, I'm a man. And if you try and sing down here, you're gonna growl.

I didn't make you that way. Don't allow people to force you into what you're not. Women, in actual fact, tend to sing in lower keys than men.

The most beautiful woman voice is the deep, rich voice that has depth in it. Male voices, the most popular male voice is the tenor, which is high. It sounds almost like a woman's normal pitch.

It's high, and most people seem to love that. I was not naturally gifted with such a voice. I prefer the lower keys myself, but you can learn to develop the higher notes as well.

Don't hide behind that and say, well, you know, this is the kind of voice that I've got. I can only sing in these keys. You can work at it, and you can improve your range.

Your voice is your own built-in instrument. It needs to be tuned to play well. If you play a guitar, you know you've got to tune those strings.

And if they're not tuned properly, it sounds terrible. You need to tune your instrument that God's given you. Tune it and make it give the best possible sound.

Now, how do you normally tune an instrument? Well, these days they have electronic gadgets that help it. In the old days, the easiest way, if you want to tune a guitar and you can't hear the notes yourself, get somebody else's guitar that's already in tune, pluck a string, and then tune this one until it sounds the same as that one. You do that with all six strings, then you strum your guitar, you'll be amazed.

It's in tune. So sometimes you need to tune your instrument by listening to another instrument. Well, you say, I battle to sing on pitch.

Some people are called tone deaf. Actually, there's no such thing as tone deaf unless you've got a physical problem. You just haven't learned to identify the note in your head.

See, when you hear somebody say ah, and you say ah, a totally different pitch. You just, you haven't picked it up. With a bit of practice, if you could sit there at the piano or the guitar and pluck that string and keep trying until you get your voice to make the same sound, you're actually tuning your voice.

And if you do that often enough and practice it often enough, you'll get better at it. You know, after tuning guitars for years, I've come to the place now where I can almost tune a guitar by ear because I know what it sounds like. Sometimes, if I can just get the first key, the first string in tune, I can actually play a fret with the second string and I know where it needs to be pressed to make the second string and the first one sound the same.

So I can start with the first one in tune and on the frets, I can tune the whole guitar where all the strings are tuned. Oh, you see, I just don't have it. You see, I can't keep the pitch.

How much time have you spent tuning your instrument? See, well, you know, I sing in the bath. It always sounds great in the bath, doesn't it? You get all that echo. But if you want to make your voice better, why don't you just sit down with an instrument? The piano is the easiest because you can just press the note and try and sing that note.

And then go down or go up to another note and try and sing that note and see if your voice can get that note. See what you can do to change it. How do we change it? There's different ways we can speak.

Some people, they speak like this in their nose. Well, what changed? It wasn't my vocal cords. It was the way I held my mouth.

Some people speak like that with the larynx right deep down in their throat like Sylvester Stallone. See, you don't have to. You can change it.

Sometimes, wherever you put your tongue, you say, and change the position of your tongue and watch how the sound sounds. All I did was move my tongue and the sound changed. See, you can learn these things and make it sound better.

Tune your instrument and get it right and make it sound better. Instead of complaining and saying, you know, that person just opens their mouth and out it comes, a beautiful sound. Yeah, some people are born that way.

They're not born that way. They seem to pick it up and grow with it. I wasn't one of them and the chances are you're not either.

So don't sit and envy them. You say, with the Lord's help, I'm going to change this. I tried everything with my voice.

I bought singing lessons. And oh, Lord, they tell you how to hold your mouth and where to put your tongue and what to do with your soft palate and everything else. Eventually it becomes so complicated, you don't even know where to do it.

So this is my simple advice to you. Learn to speak well and clearly, that people can hear and you've got a good voice and then sing the same way that you form the words. You'll find that amazingly enough, you can sing well.

You are unique. People can recognize you when you speak. Your singing should be the same.

Don't try and be somebody else. Don't envy that favorite singer of yours and think that you can try and copy them. You'd be amazed if you try hard enough, you can actually copy them and sound just like them.

But that's not who you are. In any case, why are you trying to do this? Who are you trying to impress? The Lord doesn't need to be impressed. He just wants you to reach out to him in love and worship.

You must tap your inner resources. You must develop your own style and do not allow yourself to be pressured by the world system. You don't need their recognition.

You don't need all their genres. You know, when I grew up, there were two kinds of music, Christian music and pop music. That's all I knew.

Well, if you were in church, you sang Christian music, you know, and Christian music sounded like Christian music. You know, the pop music that the world had, well, that was a bit different. See, then pop began to change to rock and country and alternative and jazz.

They got a whole list this long of genres that they sing in the world. Say, well, which genre of music should I follow? It doesn't matter. You do it for the Lord, he doesn't care.

The chances are the way you're going to sing is the way you heard singing. Tell me, how do you speak? You speak according to what you grew up listening to. If you grew up listening to German being spoken, you speak in German.

And you're speaking it with the accent that the people around you used. Well, singing is the same. The kind of music that you've been listening to the most is probably the way you're going to sing because that's what's in your mind.

And it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You know, people seem to think that one genre is more anointed than another.

Oh, you know, when I hear country singing, I just get taken up into the presence of the Lord. I don't. I hear about somebody whose dog died and the guy's girlfriend left him.

They're always sad songs. Ain't wrong with that, I guess. There's actually more Christian country singers than there are others, so I wouldn't knock the country music.

You know, when we went to Mexico, they had mariachi singing. Well, if you've heard one mariachi band, you've heard them all. They sound the same.

Well, you know, I grew up in South Africa and here they have something called Buramusic. And if you've heard one piece of Buramusic, you've heard all of them. They have the same old sound.

You know, can you worship God in Buramusic? Can you worship God as a mariachi? See? See, now, if I listen to somebody singing a genre that I'm not comfortable with, I find it difficult to get into the presence of the Lord. I'm too busy concentrating on that music. Especially when somebody stands up there and can't sing and they talk-sing and they call this rap or hip-hop, I think.

Hip-hop just doesn't take me into the presence of the Lord. It just doesn't. I can hear all the words most of the time.

They're bad words with bad language and bad everything in them. But I suppose you get Christian hip-hop and Christian rap and that's fine. If rap gets you into the presence of the Lord, I'm sure the Lord's gonna be rapping away there with you and you'll have a good time.

See, it's not a problem. Just don't try and impose that on somebody else now and say, you know, but if you wanna get into the presence of the Lord, you should rap. You know, you should be doing metal music.

You should be doing rock. Any one of those is music and can bring you into the presence of the Lord. What are you comfortable with? And then don't be stuck.

See, here I am. I grew up in a rock era. I feel comfortable with beaty, rhythmic music that has more of a rock-type sound.

Now, what if I get invited to fellowship with a group of people? And they have a style of music or a genre that's totally different? Am I gonna sit there and say, you know what? Please go ahead and worship. I can't worship with you guys. I can't worship with music like that.

It's not true. So break free of your prejudices because a lot of the time they have cultural things built in with them. See, the Lord taught me to appreciate the music that anybody uses because it's not the style of music that brings the anointing of God.

It's what comes from your heart and from your spirit. If you wanna avoid any of that, write your own songs. You say, well, I don't know how to write songs.

That's okay. If you want to learn, we can teach you. Got a full tutorial on how to write your own songs.

And then you can sing them the way you want to sing them. You know, I sometimes listen to a variety of music. Sometimes you have these music programs that give you extra pieces that you can add on.

And they say, okay, what genre do you want? Is it pop, rock, what that? My singing doesn't have a genre. I can't find one that suits it. It might be a bit like a rock sound.

It may sound a bit like country music. I don't know. Sometimes it's alternative.

It changes. Does it matter? No, it doesn't matter. I'm not trying to conform to the world.

I'm trying to worship the Lord the way I love to worship, the way I love to sing. See, now you need to learn to use your instrument the way you want to use it, the way you want to play it. As long as you're doing it for the Lord, it doesn't really matter at all, does it? Okay, so in conclusion, if you're gonna play and sing, remember you're doing it first for the Lord.

Not for yourself. If you do that, he's gonna anoint you and he's gonna add extra power to it. And once you've learned to do that, you can now take it and actually use it as a vehicle for releasing the anointing power of God to minister to other people.

Do not look for affirmation either from the world or even from fellow believers, because the chances are they are totally brainwashed with the music of the world. You're gonna find very few people will compliment your singing unless you've got a natural gift. They will not allow you to make mistakes.

Everyone thinks you either have it or you don't. Realize that it takes time to learn to sing well. Same way it took you a while to learn to speak well.

And even if you grew up and you could now communicate, you now want to become a preacher, you may have to work on your speech and improve it some more so that you can preach well. Same thing applies to singing. Keep pressing forward and improving.

Above all, do not try to compete with others. Imagine competing to be the best preacher. Imagine competing to be the best writer.

Imagine competing to be the best actor. Imagine competing to be the best artist. You know, I think the famous artists of days gone by were not competing with anybody.

They just expressed what was in their spirits. And if you're preaching, you're not preaching to exalt yourself. You're doing it to communicate the word of God.

If you are writing, you're not writing to impress people with how good you can write, but you're doing it to communicate something for the Lord. If you're acting, you're not doing it to become a star. Now, all of these things probably will happen automatically.

If you really do it the right way with the Lord's help, people are going to listen to your preaching and say, wow, I love your preaching. They tell their friends, come and listen to this guy. He can really preach.

It's going to happen automatically. People are going to be recommending your books to others because it flows so well and it's easy to read. People are going to invite others to come and see your acting because it's so real.

Now, the exact same thing applies to singing. The Lord will help you to sing well. His Holy Spirit will be your teacher and your helper.

And you have one extra set of helpers there. They are the worship angels. Especially if you've learned to flow in a prophetic ministry and a prophetic realm, you can tap into the anointing for worship in a greater way than other people.

And in the spirit, God may show you the angels. I often see the angels with us. And I've had occasion where I'm singing, where I would feel that I need to follow an angel.

Now, sometimes you'll have like a choir or a group of people and then one person will stand forward as the lead singer and sing. I've seen the angels do that. And I've seen one angel stand forward and sing.

And in the spirit, I could hear the way that angel was singing. And the Lord said, I want you to sing just like you're hearing that angel sing. And my voice, it just changed completely.

My whole way of singing changed. I could hear myself singing like the angel. The worship angels are there, not only to worship the Lord, but to help you enter into a greater worship.

God has given us far more than what the world has. If you do it always for him, you cannot fail. Thank you, Father, for this wonderful gift that you've given us of speech, that we can communicate with you, to communicate with one another, to share your word, to be a blessing.

Thank you, Lord, that you have also given us the ability to sing, to convert that speech with music into something more powerful. It can bring us into your presence and can release your anointing even in a meeting, can release your anointing upon those who hear as we sing. I ask, Lord, that you will just challenge each one today that has heard this word and those that will hear it in the future to realize there is hope.

There is hope for you to sing and to sing well and to enjoy the singing and to glorify the Lord in it and to have a greater sense of his anointing and presence as a result of it. You can play a musical instrument. All of these things are going to take time and you're taking efforts.

I ask you, Lord, that you will challenge each one. Challenge them, inspire them to get going, to get started now, to do what needs to be done, to add a skill like music, like playing an instrument, to add a skill like better singing. We can use these things, Lord, for your glory and that we can use them as tools for the ministry that you've called us to.

I thank you for that now in Jesus' name. Amen.

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