Isaiah says it best. In Isaiah 5:12 and again in 14:11, the harp and the viol were silenced because the musicians were not geared toward worshipping God or to please him, but to produce something which by the interpretation which is supposed to represent God. Jeremiah in Jeremiah 48:36 sees the sadness of what God's people had become and through this the instruments display such sadness. Isaiah warns (Isaiah 5:12, 14:11, 24:8) as does Amos in Amos 5:3 of the use of instruments for interpretation, merely the tip of the ice berg of how far God's people had strayed from Him. And they had no clue of this. Isaiah says that God's thoughts are not my thoughts and His ways are not my ways. (Isaiah 55:8) When I think of worshipping God with instruments, I think of worshipping God with a medal or prayer beads or various liturgies or the seasonal prayer book. That may be a spur, but it is not worshipping God. It does nothign for my relationship with God, only my representation of what I think God wants of me. The only reason I have come to worship Him after all is to understand better Who He is, to know Him, to grasp Him, to share Him. Not my interpretation of Him.

Now please don't get me wrong. Music and instruments are indeed useful and sometimes inspiring in expressing how one feels about God. Such a wonderful expression can elicit peaceful and uplifting or thoughtful feelings and an audience will pick up those emotions. But is this truly worship, or are we like in some theatrical performance picking up on an emotion that the writer and composer what us to feel? How is this worship, if it is the interpretation of the artist rather that God's Word which evokes a feeling in man? Is this not more a worship of the artist than God? That's why I love knowing what scriptures are behind the hymns,and I love even better putting God's Word to music. The feelings that are evoked are purely from God's Word, to me and personal between me and God, not the artist and his interpretaton in between.