Bad worship songs - "See A Victory"

From time to to we examine the lyrics of worship songs. Our desire is not to mock or humiliate, but rather to honestly examine content with a view to calling forth a better worship expression.

With the great volume and variety of worship music available, none of us should have to settle for bad worship songs. We should be able to select hundreds or even thousands of top notch songs very easily.

What makes a song a worship song? Is it enough to contain words like God or holy? How about vaguely spiritual sounding phrases? Should Jesus be mentioned?

We think an excellent worship song should contain the following elements:

• A direct expression of adoration (God, you are...)
• A progression of ideas that culminates in a coherent story
• A focus on God, not us
• Lyrics that do not create uncertainty or cause confusion
• A certain amount of profundity
• A singable, interesting melody
• Allusions to Scripture
• Doctrinal soundness
• Not excessively metaphorical
• Not excessively repetitive
• Jesus is not your boyfriend

It's worth noting the most worship songs contain at least something good. That is, there might be a musical idea or a lyric that has merit. Such is the case with this song, See A Victory.

Video link.

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Lyrics

Verse 1

The weapon may be formed, but it won't prosper
When the darkness falls, it won't prevail
Cause the God I serve knows only how to triumph
My God will never fail
Oh my God will never fail

Chorus

I'm gonna see a victory
I'm gonna see a victory
For the battle belongs to you Lord
I'm gonna see a victory
I'm gonna see a victory
For the battle belongs to you Lord

Verse 2

There's power in the mighty name of Jesus
Every war He wages He will win
I'm not backing down from any giant
'Cause I know how this story ends
Yes I know how this story ends

Bridge

You take what the enemy meant for evil
And you turn it for good
You turn it for good
You take what the enemy meant for evil
And you turn it for good
You turn it for good

Overview

We should say that this is not a bad worship song. It's well written. But it has some issues.

But before we discuss the song, let's look at a screen shot from the video. This worship band is comprised of a lead singer/acoustic guitar, four background vocalists, two electric guitars, bass, keys, and a drummer. What do we actually hear? The song begins with an amorphous synth pad and the keys doubling an electric guitar. After that most everything that started the song disappears, replaced by the lead vocalist, the drums, some rhythm electric, and bass. We never hear any background singers, keys, the two guitars playing together, or the acoustic guitar.

Oh, but the crowd. The crowd's singing is prominent. It seems to have the best production. And of course a live video needs to have the crowd singing, because that's what makes it sound "live." But it's not live. The lead vocal is unnaturally bright and compressed, and likely has been pitch corrected if not entirely re-recorded post-production. This is probably true for the entire band. This is likely a studio re-recording synced to the video.

We will say that the mix is not the typical wall of synthesizers and electric guitars, which ordinarily would gladden our sonically overloaded ears, but in this case we miss the rest of the band. The drums do sound big with the toms panned hard left and right. And the bass EQ is spot on. So what's there doesn't sound bad.

This is a repetitive song, and we soon got bored and started counting camera cuts. It didn't take long to get light headed. We used the tempo of the song as a counter to measure the duration of each camera scene, and it varied slightly between three and four beats of the song, correlating to perhaps one camera cut every two seconds.

Unacceptable. T.V. commercials and superhero movies can get two to three camera cuts in that amount of time.

Of course we jest. But the issue here is that this worship video, like many worship videos these days, is steeped in worldly practices like shaky cam, wild camera cuts, and sudden zooms. This, coupled with the fact that the audio and video were probably recorded separately, means we aren't watching/hearing live worship, and what we are watching is designed to be a visual spectacle. 

Aside from these irritating video and audio techniques, we need to mention the setting. The floor is lighted, a very strange effect. The video begins very darkly, gets brighter as the song climaxes, and goes dark at the end. In the background the video screen is showing a rapidly shifting Rorschach test intermixed with visual static. 

The reason? We can only speculate. It must be some sort of hip, modern thing. We don't know. Ugh.

Ok, we need to move on.

The Music

The music is pretty basic. And actually that's a good thing. It makes musical sense. The chords and melodies are very well written, with no surprises, a natural flow, and it's not difficult for a worship band to play. Except for the key. The song is sung by a tenor who has easy access to his high range, thus making it difficult for the average male congregant to sing the song. By the time we get to the even higher bridge we are all tapped out.

Verse chords: vi - IV - I (repeat)

Chorus chords: vi - IV - I (repeat)

Bridge chords: IV - Vsus - I/6 - IV - vi - Vsus

The Lyrics

We pay a lot of attention to the lyrics because Christian music can really only be recognized by its lyrics. We are (or supposed to be) singing clear biblical truth at a bare minimum, and we certainly should not be singing heresy. But a lot of worship music is watered down to vague feelings about how I feel. 

This song has a little of that, but that's not really the problem. 

First, the song is not a worship song. A worship song articulates the glories of God, His nature, and His marvelous deeds. This song does not do that. There are no statements of praise, no moments of worship. Instead the song is about God winning the victory that we apparently will experience. It simultaneously couples perseverance with assurance, but implies our typical life problems will be eliminated.

Second, the exhortations articulated in the lyrics do have benefit for the Body. Whether or not they should be expressed in song is another matter. It's not that it is inappropriate, but rather, we think the musical worship time in a church service would be better spent worshiping.

Are there any heretical lyrics? Except for one stanza, every lyric is a biblically correct statement, if not a direct quote from the Bible. That stanza is 

I'm not backing down from any giant

Fighting giants (an allusion to Goliath, an idea seemingly in vogue in Christian songs these days) is  problematic. This idea is likely derived from 

Ep. 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

The word "struggle" is the Greek word palé, used only once in the NT. It means to wrestle or grapple, as in a westling match. Biblehub's commentary says:

The believer is portrayed as a wrestler locked in relentless, close-quarters combat with highly organized evil powers.

The context is clear that we aren't wrestling with humans over fleshly things but rather in the spiritual realm. We are to be equipped with Holy Spirit armor, which means we don't wrestle with human strength or abilities. This passage is not a call to cast out powers and principalities, but rather to understand the nature of our fight.

However, this verse is commonly misused by advocates of "spiritual warfare." But we think it is a mistake to rail against Satan: 

2Pe. 2:10-11 This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority. Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings; 11 yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not bring slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord.

On this basis, our counsel is that rebuking or binding the devil is not something Christians should do. It's not about fear, it is a matter of having proper deference to authority, not being bold or arrogant, and not engaging in activity that not even angels are not willing to do.

We discuss this here.

We also believe that taking the fight to powers, principalities, and rulers is not something an individual Christian ought to do. Rather, we think the Body of Christ in a city, having discerned God's specific call to overthrow such a demonic presence, is the only way to approach this. And this only after extended prayer and fasting, and then in total Holy Spirit unity. 

However, aside from Daniel 10:13-14, we don't have specific Scriptures that outline these recommendations. We simply think that the city church ought to deal with a city power. A regional church ought to deal with a principality. And the national church should deal with a ruler.  

So if by the words of the song our choice is to not back down from any giant, we'd better be prayed up, fasted, and in agreement with the brethren. Otherwise we end up like the seven sons of Sceva (Acts 19:14-16).

We do need to concede that this lyric is placed firmly in the context of the fight belonging to the Lord, which we think is critical context. There is great safety in understanding how we fit into God's purpose for spiritual warfare. Even Jesus operated in this context, being careful to do only what He saw the Father doing (John 5:19).

Conclusion

This song has a lot of merit. It relies on Scripture, it builds faith, and it's a good melody. Our opinion is, a congregation needs to receive extended instruction on the nature of spiritual warfare, coupled with prayer and fasting, as we have outlined above, before such a song is sung. The lyrics read like a challenge to the dark realm and as such could invite spiritual repercussions. This is not something that should be undertaken casually, but most certainly, it should not make any adequately-equipped Christian fear.