Undeniably, many secular musicians have testified in various ways to supernatural influences as the source of their ungodly music.[1] In online written messages to me, at least two CCM supporters have claimed that secular testimonies about music and spirituality are unreliable.
Are secular testimonies about fallen spirits and music inherently unreliable? Two passages provide revelation that points to this view being false.
2 Kings 6:8-12
At a time when Syria was warring against Israel, the king of Syria conferred with his servants to determine various places where he would locate his camp (2 Kings 6:8). Elisha warned the king of Israel about each location so that the king was able to save himself on multiple occasions from being harmed by the Syrians (2 Kings 6:9-10).
In response to the repeated foiling of his strategy, the king of Syria demanded that his servants tell him who was the traitor among them who was giving away their location each time to the king of Israel (2 Kings 6:11). One of his servants replied, “None, my lord, O king: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber (2 Kings 6:12).
The passage provides no indication that this Syrian servant somehow had secretly spied on Elisha on each occasion and then returned to give his eyewitness testimony to the king about what had happened. Nor does the passage tell us that he received that information somehow through some other informant.
This remarkable testimony, therefore, by presumably an unbelieving Syrian servant shows that an unbeliever was able to testify reliably about a profound spiritual reality of which he would not have been able to obtain any evidence to support his testimony. Although we have no way to know how or why this servant was able to provide this testimony, we must accept that this record of his ability to do so teaches us that secular testimony about spiritual realities are not inherently unreliable.
Acts 16:16-18
While Paul, Timothy, and Luke were going to a place of prayer, they encountered a certain female slave who was possessed by an evil spirit (Acts 16:16a). Through the influence of the evil spirit of divination that was upon her, this girl was greatly profiting her masters through her fortune telling (Acts 16:16b).
This girl followed Paul and the others around for many days and repeatedly gave forth a remarkable testimony: “These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation” (Acts 16:17). After being grieved by her doing so for many days, Paul commanded the spirit in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of the girl, and the spirit immediately left her (Acts 16:18).
This passage informs us that a presumably unbelieving girl who was possessed by an evil spirit yet repeatedly bore a reliable testimony to profound spiritual realities! Not only did she correctly proclaim crucial spiritual information about who Paul, Timothy, and Luke were, but also she gave forth a fully reliable testimony to the spiritual content of their message.
Even though she was a demon-possessed woman, she bore repeated testimonies to spiritual truths about which no demon would ever want any human to give true testimony! Her testimony was pointing people to true servants of the true God who were telling them the truth of how they could be saved—something about which the devil and his demons use all their infernal powers to try to prevent as many people as possible from ever hearing the truth about and believing!
Discussion
Second Kings 6:8-12 teaches us that a secular servant of an evil king somehow testified to profound spiritual truth in spite of his having no stated source of his having such knowledge. Acts 16:16-18 shows that even a demon-possessed lost person yet provided provide reliable testimony to truths about vital spiritual realities and did so even though her testifying to those truths was in direct opposition to the aims and purposes of all fallen spirits!
Taken together, these two passages refute the notion that testimonies from secular people about spiritual realities are inherently unreliable. Applying what we learn from these passages to the objections raised about the reliability of secular testimonies to the role of fallen spirits in influencing people to produce ungodly music, we can be confident that such testimonies are not inherently unreliable.
Conclusion
Christians must not hold the false view that secular testimonies about fallen spirits and music are inherently unreliable. Because we have many testimonies from secular musicians that fallen spirits have influenced them to produce their music, we should reject all such music and all other music that uses the same styles about which they have borne testimony concerning the evil supernatural source of those styles.
[1] The following quotes are from a website that I found by doing a Google search on evil spirits and rock music:
Angus Young: (AC/DC guitarist) “…it’s like I’m on automatic pilot. By the time we’re halfway through the first number someone else is steering me. I’m just along for the ride. I become possessed when I get on stage” (Hit Parader, July 1985, p. 60).
John McGlaughlin: “One night we were playing and suddenly the spirit entered into me and I was playing but it was no longer me playing.” (Circus Magazine, April, 1972, p. 38)
Little Richard: “My true belief about Rock ‘n’ Roll — is this: I believe this kind of music is demonic . . . A lot of the BEATS in music today are taken from voodoo, from the voodoo DRUMS.” (Charles White, The Life and Times of Little Richard, p. 197)
Van Halen’s David Lee Roth “I’m gonna abandon my spirit to them which is exactly what I attempt to do. You work yourself up into that state and you fall into supplication of the demon gods…” [Van Halen’s David Lee Roth. Interview w. Rock. April 1984. Pg 30]
—http://www.inplainsite.org/html/voices_of_rock.html; accessed 1/17/14; 4:09 pm)
I also found the following sources from that same search: Note the testimonies provided in this web article (https://truediscipleship.com/ten-scriptural-reasons-why-the-rock-beat-is-evil-in-any-form/; accessed 9/21/19; 9:40 pm) and these testimonies from rock musicians themselves in this article (http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/CCM/hip_hop.htm; accessed 1/17/14; 3:55 pm); see also the similar testimonies in a similar article (http://wayoflife.org/index_files/rock_musicians_as_mediums.html; accessed 1/17/14; 4:14 pm.)
Please note that I have not independently verified the quotes provided in any of these sources. I have no reason, however, to doubt their veracity, especially since several sources provide some of the same quotes.
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