Be careful when singing Old Testament lyrics

In my years in the charismatic movement, we sang many songs with lyrics derived from the Old Testament.

I didn’t think anything of it at the time, because the words sounded cool and thrilling. They excited us. They evoked the emotional reaction that so many aspects of the charismatic movement are designed to evoke.

And perhaps even more telling, we were never taught those phrases and half-verses in the context of the Scriptures they came from. We didn’t exposit the Bible; we gave pep talks centered around our favorite verses.

Therefore, it took some time for me to realize how ignorant we were about the meaning of the words we were singing, and how much we mishandled the word of God, in more ways than this.

To illustrate what I’m talking about, here are some examples from today and yesteryear:

‘Ask of Me …’

Ask of me
And I will give the nations
As an inheritance for you
As an inheritance for you
My children, ask of Me
And I will give the nations
As an inheritance for you
Ask of Me

If you read or hear those lyrics in a vacuum, what would you say it’s about? Evangelism, right? It sounds like God promising He will give the nations to His children, the church — that the nations will be our inheritance.

These lyrics are taken from Psalm 2, where verse 8 says,

Ask of Me, and I will give You
The nations for Your inheritance,
And the ends of the earth for Your possession.

The surrounding verses, however, give critical context that’s not conveyed in the song. In verse 7, the Lord says, “You are My Son, today I have begotten You.” Paul confirms in Acts 13:33 that that’s referring to Christ Himself. Psalm 2 is the Father speaking to the Son. The Father is promising to give the Son the nations as His inheritance.

But we’re in Christ, right? We’re sons of God too, right? Therefore what God promises to Jesus, He promises to us, some would say.

Not this time. We know that because of verse 9, which says what the Son will do to the nations:

You shall break them with a rod of iron;
You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.

That’s not evangelism. That’s wrath. Psalm 2 is a psalm of wrath.

It’s consistent with the glorious return of Christ in Revelation 19, which borrows language from Psalm 2: “Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God” (verse 15).

When Christians sing this song, are they thinking they’ll break and smash the nations? Are they celebrating Christ’s judgment? No, and that’s not the song’s intent; instead, by adding the phrase “My children,” it adds to God’s word, yanks it out of its context, and misapplies it.

And the song’s not done; it goes on to poach another Scripture:

‘Here Am I’

Here am I, send me to the nations
As an ambassador for You
As an ambassador for You
My Father, here am I
Send me to the nations
As an ambassador for You, here am I

“Here Am I” is actually the title of the song. “Here am I, send me” is a popular phrase in contemporary worship music; here’s another song based on it, from Bethel Music.

It’s derived from Isaiah 6, verse 8:

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:
“Whom shall I send,
And who will go for Us?”
Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

It’s another verse fragment that we think is about evangelism when we sing it. It’s meant to fire us up for reaching the lost. But all the times we sang this in church, we never mentioned the next two verses in Isaiah 6:

9 And He said, “Go, and tell this people:
‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
10 “Make the heart of this people dull,
And their ears heavy,
And shut their eyes;
Lest they see with their eyes,
And hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart,
And return and be healed.”

Wait, what? Tell the people to not understand? Make their hearts dull? Shut their eyes?

Yes, that’s what God told Isaiah to do. God was sending Isaiah to pronounce judgment against apostate Israel. Like Psalm 2, this is a passage of wrath.

Jesus quoted those two verses when He was asked why He spoke in parables (Matthew 13:14-15). His parables, which were intended to conceal His message from those who didn’t “have ears to hear,” fulfilled Isaiah’s words, He said.

Therefore, they do not apply to us. And if our intention is evangelism (which is a good intention), that passage is not our rallying cry. The Lord sends us not to hide the truth in parables, but to plainly, boldly proclaim the good news of salvation.

Here’s one more tune, more of an oldie, that gets many Christians unwittingly singing about judgment:

‘Blow the trumpet in Zion’

They rush on the city, they run on the wall
Great is the army that carries out His word
They rush on the city, they run on the wall
Great is the army that carries out His word

The Lord utters His voice before His army
The Lord utters His voice before His army

Blow the trumpet in Zion, Zion
Sound the alarm in My Holy mountain!
Blow the trumpet in Zion, Zion
Sound the alarm!

Some of us may have known that those lyrics come from Joel chapter 2. But I doubt that we realized that that passage, too, is about God’s wrath.

The alarm is one of warning, of dread. Joel 2:1 continues, “Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the LORD is at hand.” That ain’t in the song.

When we sang, “The Lord utters His voice before His army” and “Great is the army that carries out His word,” both derived from verse 11, we didn’t realize that that was an army of pagan invaders that God brought against Israel (see verse 25), that was carrying out God’s word of judgment. At least some of us saw ourselves as that army in the song.

Once again, the context of these verses never even crossed our minds. We just saw the words trumpet, army, great, etc., got excited, put ourselves in the text, and sang it.

What’s the big deal?

Is this issue worth writing about? How can I fault Christians for singing about what they believe to be winning souls, even if the original texts aren’t about that? It’s not like this is damnable heresy.

That is true. But the bigger problem is, it’s typical of how modern evangelicalism approaches the whole Bible: lifting words, phrases and half-verses way out of context, with a focus on self. That’s the road to error at best and apostasy at worst. It’s dangerous.

Good intentions do not justify using God’s word in ways He did not intend. Especially when there are so many other Scriptures that are about evangelism. I’d love to sing lyrics based on “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations” (Luke 24:27), “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:11), or “God now commands all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30).

Would you?