okay so I can already read some of your minds I know what many of you are going to write in the comments section you're going to say brother Alan you're taking these lyrics too seriously you're nitpicking you're splitting hairs you're just trying to argue over a few words that the author has used in these songs as they told creative freedom to express themselves to God others of you might say hey because you're not a charismatic Allen you disregard anything Supernatural but before you write that in the comments section let me challenge you on one thing let me ask you a very simple question when you and I write lyrics and introduce songs to our congregation is it okay for us to be 99 accurate as it relates to how we express ourselves to God or how we describe God or should we seek to be 100 accurate let me rephrase it a different way let's say somebody gave you a drink and they said it's one percent poisoned but 99 of the drink is pure you can drink it right would you be willing to drink that absolutely not why because it's not good enough for that drink to be 99 pure it needs to be 100 pure my friend the same is true with Worship lyrics it doesn't matter how popular the song is it doesn't matter how great the song is it doesn't matter how great the beat is if 100 of the lyrics are not theologically accurate the song needs to be avoided and so the song that I'm referring to is a new very popular song that was recently released by Elevation Church called Praise now I'm not at Liberty to play or sing uh the song in this particular video due to copyright issues but more than likely if you have gone to a contemporary church you probably heard this song played probably at the beginning of the church service because it's got a high up beat type of uh Rhythm to it which a lot of churches like to use as their opening song to get people going and get people excited about praise now before we jump in lyrics Let me just go on and say I love this song I think it's a great song for the most part however there are some questionable lyrics that we are going to address and all I ask is that you listen to my commentary on these lyrics with an open mind and then let me know what your thoughts are after watching this entire video all right don't comment below after watching two minutes no all right watch the whole video listen to what I'm saying and then I would love to hear your thoughts on this song okay let's jump in the song opens up and it says let everything that has breath praise the Lord you got it praise the Lord let everything let everything that has breath praise the Lord praise the Lord let everything that has breath so so far this is biblical this is theologically accurate coming straight out of Psalm 150 which says let everything in that breath praise the Lord okay love let's keep moving Our Praise In The Valley Praise on the mountain I'll praise when I'm sure praise when I'm doubting Our Praise when outnumbered praise when surrounded so all right so far I'm feeling this song I'm here for it right hey praise God and things are not going well for you in the valley praise God when you're on the mountain when everything is going well God hasn't changed God deserves all of our praise no matter what season praise whenever you're sure praise whenever you're doubting right all those are good okay so then it says this cause praise is the water my enemies drown in Saints we gotta talk all right what in the world does this mean answer me that in the comment section what in the world does it mean that praise is the waters that my enemies drown in so if you're the writer of this song answer me that question what does that mean what are we talking about here are we talking about physical enemies or spiritual enemies are we saying as we introduce this song to our congregations worship leaders are we trying to teach our people that if I praise God enough all of my physical enemies people who don't like me my haters people who talk about me people who gossip about me all of them are gonna drown the word drown means to die it means to exist no more right so are we saying that my praise is going to cause my enemies to drown my physical enemies people don't like Alan Parr all I have to do to get them off my back is just praise God even more praise God even more and my enemies are going to drown all right are we talking about spiritual enemies are we talking about if I praise God all of the spiritual enemies the demons the Devils spiritual warfare all sorts of demonic attacks on my life are going to drown because I praise God in other words am I able to control demonic activity in my life simply by praising God Saints let me ask you a question where in the Bible book chapter and verse does it teach anywhere that you and I as Christians have the ability to control demons with our praise it doesn't teach that anywhere in the Bible what the Bible does teach is that we don't praise God to get him to do something for us we don't praise God because we want to convince him to do this or do that no we praise God for one reason one reason alone because of what he's done who he is and to express our sincere gratitude to him the Bible does not teach anywhere that our praise is a weapon that we can use against the enemy as a matter of fact the Bible is very clear with regards to how we are to conduct and regard ourselves to enemy attacks in our lives Ephesians chapter 6 10-18 says put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand right so even there it doesn't say that even if we put on the armor of God that our enemies are going to drown our enemies are going to flee or anything like that no it says that you'll be able to stand against the spiritual forces of wickedness in Dark Places right by putting on the full armor of God elsewhere it says we're resist the devil and he will flee from you but nowhere in the Bible doesn't say we can use our praise to manipulate the situation to cause our enemies to drown now some people will even go as far as to say that this phrase is a reference to the Old Testament story in the book of Exodus where God caused the enemies of the nation of Israel to drown in the Red Sea as they were going through the Exodus experience my friends this is even worse let me explain it to you all right first and foremost if you go back and read that story the people of Israel were not praising God before The Exodus before their enemies were drowning in the Red Sea as a matter of fact they were complaining to god let's go back and read it it says here in Exodus 14 as Pharaoh Pro to people of Israel looked up and panicked when they saw the Egyptians overtaking them they cried out to the Lord and they said to Moses why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness were there enough Graves for us in Egypt what have you done to us why did you make us leave Egypt didn't we tell you this would happen when we were still in Egypt we said leave us alone let us be slaves to the Egyptians it's better to be a slave in Egypt than a corpse in the wilderness now let me ask you this does that sound like praise does it sound like the people were praising God and does it sound like God responded to their Praise by saying hey because the people praised me I'm gonna therefore cause their enemies to drown in a red sea no God delivered the from Egyptian slavery because of his Sovereign and divine plan and because of his goodness to his people that's it it wasn't in response to their praise that he caused their enemies to drown now even if God did respond to their praise and cause their enemies to drown in a Red Sea that is still a very very poor hermeneutic hermeneutic is a fancy word for interpretational principles that we use to understand what the Bible means let me give you example guys you we cannot continue to sensationalize and take isolated stories in the Old Testament or new testament that happened to a select group of people and then translated over to our lives and say that the same thing is going to happen for us can we say that God is going to rain down bread from Heaven because he did it in Old Testament can we say that God is going to rain down meat from Heaven because he did in Old Testament can we say that just as God preserved their clothes for 40 years in the wilderness because there was not a Walmart in the wilderness right so as their bodies grew their clothes supernaturally grew and things of that nature God provided for them Supernatural can we expect God to do the same can we expect God to add 15 years to our life whenever we are ill just like he did when Hezekiah prayed to him can we expect if we're in prison to do as Paul and Silas did in Acts chapter 16 where the Bible says that they praised God and the doors of the prison open and all the prisoners Go free so if I'm in prison am I able to praise God and expect for God to open up the prison doors and let me go free no Guys these are isolated stories where God did something special something Supernatural in the lives of his people we can learn lessons about God and his faithfulness and his love and his long suffering his kindness and all of that but we can't expect God to do the same for us all right so now let's move on because there's a little bit more to the song let's keep going as long as I'm breathing I've got a reason to praise the Lord oh my soul praise the Lord oh my soul okay that's the chorus okay I like it and no issues here as long as I'm breathing I've got a reason to praise okay once again I told you I like the song all right I do love this song but let's keep going all right verse two I'll praise when I feel it and I'll praise when I don't I like it I'll praise cause I know you're still in control I like it cause my praise is a weapon it's more than a sound okay now once again I've talked about that guys you will not find anywhere in the Bible where it talks about our praise and weapon what's a weapon a weapon is something that you and I use to control a situation that's what a weapon is so once again there's this idea here that they're presenting and I'm going to get into a little bit later in this video but it's consistent with this man-centered approach that is very popular for from uh groups like Bethel Hillsong and elevation and other groups as well not just those three although let me go on record and say I love most of their music and I listen to it on a regular basis so I'm just going to tell you that right now I listen to their music on a regular basis and I love it because most of it is good most of this song is good but there's some questionable things nowhere does the bible teach that our praise can be used to control and manipulate things and it is a weapon you won't find it anywhere alright but then there's this next line oh my praise is the shout that brings Jericho down now I would have been a whole lot better if they had said praise is the weapon that brought the walls of Jericho down for the Old Testament children of Israel that is true right but once again what are we talking about here right my praise is the shout that brings Jericho down so are we saying that because God in the Old Testament ordered the nation of Israel to March around the city of Jericho for seven days and then on the seventh day shout seven times and when they did the walls of Jericho came down and my praise can do the same thing right my praise is able to make the walls come down well first of all what walls are we talking about here we talk about physical walls we're talking about emotional walls spiritual walls mental walls so if we're talking about emotional walls let's just say because I've heard songwriters say oh you know walls of depression have to come down walls of suicidal thoughts have to come down walls of uh uh of anxiety have to come walls of addiction have to come so are you really telling me that if I praise God enough the walls of depression will just come down in my life imagine telling that to somebody who comes into your Counseling Practice oh you want to get over depression all you have to do is praise God in that wall of depression will come down okay thank you I'll take 100 bucks right um if you have an addiction to something hey you don't need to get help you don't need to go just praise God because that wall of addiction is going to fall in your life as long as you pray guys this is the problem with so much Christianity so much things are being taught Christian we want a quick fix we want to be able to go to a Deliverance service we want to get healed we want somebody to touch us we want somebody to bless us heal our uh give us a financial blessing we don't want to work for anything right we want God to fix our situation in an instant we want instant Christianity it doesn't work like that most of the time so once again the issue here goes back to what many people who do not support Bethel Hill song in elevation it's the main argument for a lot of their music not all but let me just be careful some of their music it's very man-centered and it needs to be more god-centered all right so the rest of the song Simply says this I'll praise cause you're Sovereign praise cause you Reign praise cause you Rose and defeated the grave I'll praise cause you're faithful praise cause you're True Praise cause there's nobody greater than you I'll praise cause you're Sovereign praise cause you Reign so on and so forth once again guys I'm I'm going on record to say I love the song I'm Gonna Keep saying that I love this song but it's not good enough for a worship song to be just almost theologically accurate we're talking about God we're talking about the creator of the universe and he deserves for when we write and worship a worship song and we introduce those songs to our congregation worship leaders for these songs to teach the truth about God his word and theology so what's the lesson here as we bring this video to a close I want to encourage you if you're just somebody who listens to worship music to be Discerning don't just listen to it because it has a good Rhythm because it's popular because it makes you feel good right because it's a warm and fuzzy song no print out the lyrics Google them ask yourself is this true does this really communicate the truth about God and if so do I really need to be listening to the song to My Worship leaders who are watching this video because I know some of you are upset because you've already introduced this to your church and maybe you're feeling like I'm nitpicking a little bit I'm fine I can deal with that but I want to caution you and urge you to be very careful about simply introducing a new song to your congregation simply because it is the popular song every church is jumping on the bandwagon you also know what it's going to do to your congregation it's going to get everybody up it's going to get everybody praise and it's going to get everybody in in engaged in the worship experience no take a moment analyze the song send it to a few trusted people your pastor some other people and say hey most of the song I'm good with but what are your thoughts about this do you think this is good you think this is something that we need to introduce to our congregation as a matter of fact the reason why I'm doing this video is because a very good friend of mine did that he's a worship leader and he came to me and he said brother Alan um I want to introduce this song to my congregation but I've looked through it and I think it's mostly theologically accurate but a couple people in my church are saying they have issues with this that and the other what are your thoughts I looked at the lyrics it realized that I had heard that song and several churches I've been a part of and I was like oh okay you know what yeah we need to talk about that so if there are some Troublesome lyrics to a song that you want to introduce your congregation to I would encourage you to take the liberty of rewriting some of those lyrics so that you can still enjoy the song still sing the song but the song is 100 theologically accurate because once again it's not good enough for a song to be close enough we're talking about almighty God it needs to be 100 accurate so I'd love to hear from you what are your thoughts about this song Praise by elevation music or Elevation Church rather let me know in the comment section below and I'll see you in the next video bye for now thank you