Worship: Transcendent of time and culture

In every culture of every age there has always been worship.  Worship may seemingly be omnipresent, but the Bible tells us that the One, true and living Lord God is omnipresent and there is no place on this earth for man to hide from God.  2 Chronicles 16:9 starts by saying “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth,…”  This verse describes for us the omnipresence of the Lord in anthropomorphic language, or the assigning of human characteristics to an attribute of God.  No one can be sure of whether or not our Lord has eyes, but this description certainly gives us good perspective of the Lord’s omnipresence.  God is the all powerful creator of this earth!  There is no need for the Lord to travel to Italy or Alaska.  The Lord, not only, sees everything, but is everywhere.  

Another passage regarding the omnipresence of God is found in the Psalms and is helpful for us to be able to relate a little more to the concept of God’s omnipresence.   Psalm 139:7-10: 

“Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if                                                                                                              I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.”

God is omnipresent, and in a similar way, worship is also omnipresent, in the sense that anywhere on earth that a person goes, they can find some sort of worship.  It seems that you cannot get away from worship. In whatever country one finds them self, there is worship.  Music has a role in the worship of just about every religion, and whether the worship is towards God or demons.  Every culture has some form of music.  In some cultures, it could be simply beating on rocks and in others it could be the high-energy rock shows that seem to overcome that society. 

Let’s just narrow this down to today’s culture and look at a company that has made it their business to provide music everywhere we go.  Muzack is a company that started in the 30’s and their main goal was for everyone to be able to hear music, whether it be while they were shopping or at an amusement park, Muzack wanted people to hear their “product”.  From the start in the 30’s, Muzack and their researches develop music “environments”.  They realized the power and influence of music and have sold these musical environments to 470,000 businesses across the USA and businesses in 40 different foreign countries.  These music environments are created to target businesses that want to increase their employee’s motivation, concentration, and even lower their blood pressure, simply by the music. 

 Today’s technology enables everyone to have their music at their fingertips.  The first thing people do when they go for a walk or bike ride or even snowboarding, is put in the ear buds and turn the music on.  Music has a tremendous influence and it is so common and accessible to have music with you today that we seem to be forgetting how powerful a tool it is and that it’s being used by the devil to put believers in a complacent state in their walk with the Lord. 

Hebrews 5:9 “And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;”

One of the many things about God that can be learned from this verse is that God surpasses time.  God is the author of our eternal salvation and so, God is eternal and everlasting.  God is the creator of the whole heavenly and earthly realms and He is the same God gave Moses the Ten commandments, the same God that Daniel referred to as “The Most High God”, the same God that the Lord Jesus spoke of while he was on earth and the same God will be the judge of our lives on that final day in the future.  It’s plain to see that God is transcendent of time and in a similar way, music is also transcendent of time.  Ezekiel 26 and Isaiah 14 both contain the record of the fall of Lucifer and God says that one of the things that fell with Lucifer was his music.  Music was in heaven at the beginning and music was also involved when Moses came down after receiving the Ten Commandments.  There was music in Daniel’s day, Jesus and his disciples sang hymns and there will also be singing in eternity.  Music was in the very beginning and music will be present for eternity. 

In a closer more personal way in our lives, music is transcendent of time, in that, certain songs will bring back memories of childhood or an event from our past.  It seems only natural that we relate music to memories or important milestones through our life.  In that sense, music is powerful enough to bring us back to that time period in our lives, before we knew Christ as our savior or perhaps music was involved in our accepting Christ as our savior.  Most of what has happened in our past should be forgotten, and in Philippians chapter 3 beginning in verse 13b, Paul tells us that his goal was “…forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, ¹⁴I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”   Believers need to press toward the prize, and most of our memories, whether good or bad, do not have any effect on the present.