From the earliest days of recorded history
There's always been power in song
Most theologians believe that Genesis chapter one
Literally says this in the Hebrew
God sang "let there be"...
We know beyond the shadow of a doubt
From the cross
Jesus begins to quote Psalms twenty two
And until this day
Psalms twenty two is never read in a spoken language
It's only sung and chanted
So at the most difficult days of His life
Jesus was still singing
So whether you're Mariam
And you gotta to take a tambourine
Because your enemy just fell behind you
You have to begin to sing your way into believing
That a horse and rider has been thrown into the sea
Or whether you're King David
And the only way you could ever find your purpose
Is to slip off in a field somewhere by yourself
And just start worshiping and singing and
Making melody in your heart to the Lord
Or maybe you're Paul and Silas in a prison cell
And your midnight hour is about to arrive
And you realize that you don't have the keys that can unlock your problem
But you've still got a song down on the inside of your spirit
I've come to look for somebody tonight
That has a song on the inside!
There's a word that we quote very often in church circles
Its the word "Hallelujah"
I dare you to say it
"Hallelujah"
Hallelujah is often times, people say
It just means "praise ye the Lord"
But it literally meant to make a boisterous sound of song
That boasted about how good your God is
We are not singing songs tonight of discouragement and depression
We are singing songs boasting about how good our God is
When Ashley talked to me about this recording he said
"Bishop I want it to be a worship night"
Because there is a major difference between singing and worship
A lot of people sing that never worship
When Moses had been in the presence of the Lord
He came down off the mountain and everybody dancing around the golden calf was singing
And Joshua said "the sound of victory is in the camp"
Moses said no its not the sound of victory its the sound of singing
Because if your worship has not got its proper focus
It can never have its proper effect
You can't sing around your success
And you can't sing around your accomplishments
And you can't sing about your talent
But you can sing about the One who made a way when there was no way
The song that Ashley is about to do is a song that God literally began to speak into my spirit strongly
Because a line of this songs says "a melody is my weapon"
I may not know the whole bible
I may not even know where to find a scripture
But I can have a melody that becomes my weapon
The song says "raise a hallelujah"
That implies two things
I believe wherever you are listening to this song right now
You're gonna have an option of doing one or two things
To raise it that means you've got to get bold
You've got to get bold enough to say my voice is gon' to be used as an instrument
You know what there's incredible people here that helped make music for us tonight
But he greatest instrument in this room is your voice
I believe we're tuning up because we're about to raise
I ain't got no help
I believe we're about to raise
Is there anybody in here ready to raise
Here's the other thing
Is that not only do you have to be bold enough to raise it
Sometimes you're' laying in the ashes of things that didn't go the way you though they ought to go
Sometimes you prayed and it didn't turn out like you think it ought to turn out
Sometimes you believed and it went in an opposite direction
But in those days out of the ashes you begin to raise a hallelujah
I don't know how and I don't when
Don't even know where but I do know who
I do know who is about to change my circumstance
So i'm gon' count to three and when i do
I want you to raise a hallelujah in this place
One
Two
Three