Swimming Upstream: “New Musical Sounds from Heaven”

iPods. MP3 players. The world loves music and so does heaven.

In fact, every new move of God has had new songs from heaven, accompanying the move. The songs have helped fuel the fires of revival and reformation for their generations. Looking back, some of the songs may seem tame to us today, but in their day, the music touched hearts and changed people’s lives.

Martin Luther himself wrote 37 hymns, including the classic, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, which became the Battle Hymn of the Reformation.

In the Great Awakening, John Wesley’s brother, Charles, wrote over 6,000 hymns. One hundred and fifty of which are still in Methodist Hymn Books. His best known works include, Christ the Lord Is Risen Today, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and Jesus, Lover of My Soul.

A blind song writer, Fanny Crosby, wrote over 8,000 hymns. Many of these were sung by Ira Sankey at a D. L. Moody evangelistic crusade during the late 1800’s, when millions gave their lives to Christ.

Then, the Pentecostals erupted on the scene with the Azusa Street Revival in 1906. Unlike the calmer Protestant churches, the Pentecostals enjoyed uptempo music with lots of clapping and open praising of the Lord during a song. There’s Power In the Blood still gets a old-time Pentecostal out of the pew and clapping his hands and moving his feet.

The Latter Rain Movement. The Charismatic Revival. The Vineyard Movement. The Spiritual Warfare Movement. The Word of Faith Movement. All of these moves of God have had their own unique music.

Now, heaven is poised once again to bring forth a new musical sound. But this time, the music will not end up inside churches with people sitting in pews. This time the music will be like a musical John the Baptist out in the streets, calling people to repentance and making ready a people prepared for the Lord. And like popular music, this music will have a hook which will catch the attention of saints and sinners alike. People who have only heard the music once will find themselves humming and singing the tunes over and over again.

The music will arrive in same fashion as did the Liverpool sound of the Beatles in the 1960’s – all of a sudden. And when the music arrives, all of the other music genres will be pushed aside for the new sounds from heaven.