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Alright, welcome back, fellas. This week's Daily Blade dives into music that doesn't fit the typical contemporary worship mold. But like it or not, we are called to sing to the Lord, and I just want to expand your category of what qualifies as worship music. Yesterday we looked at the song What It Comes To by the ska punk band of the OC Supertones. And today we're looking at the song Multiplied by the indie folk rock band Need to Breathe. Now, before we get to the song, I just want to talk to you a little bit about raising your hands in worship and getting emotional during a song. So if you've listened to my main show on Daunted Life of Man's Podcast, you've likely heard me talk about this, but I did not grow up in church. So I grew up steeped in what I've grown to call country music theology. So I was around a bunch of people that thought that if you believed in God, voted Republican, and listened to 90s country music, that you would get to go to heaven, right? So it wasn't until a Sunday night during my sophomore year of high school when I was disabused of that notion by a guest preacher at First Baptist West in Lawton, Oklahoma. That night the scales fell from my eyes. I realized that I was a wretched, black-hearted sinner on the pathway to hell. Hell sounded terrible, so I decided to repent and put my faith in Christ. And then I started attending that small Baptist church as a member. I say all that to say that it did not, you know, or I didn't come from a background or a tradition that lifted hands and worship. So for the first 15 years of my life, I didn't worship at all because I didn't go to church really. And then after I became a believer, I didn't lift hands and worship because no one else in my church did. I mean, frankly, I didn't even know that was a thing until I was an adult. So as I age and as I grow more sanctified, I'm getting more comfortable with raising my hands during worship, depending on the setting. And it's just not old hat for me yet. But I can remember a time about a decade ago where during a part of a song at a concert, not a Christian concert, I felt everything slow down and I felt God's presence. And while listening to that song, I lifted my hands. So I was at a need to breathe concert in Oklahoma City, and they started playing the song Multiplied off of their 2014 record Rivers in the Wasteland. So I liked the song, but it really wasn't one of the songs that I was most excited to hear them play live. But then they started the song, and it immediately caught me off guard a little because the track on the album starts with an acoustic guitar or a marxophone playing, maybe even a mandolin, I'm not exactly sure which. But for the live version, it starts with a slow snare drum march with the organ playing. So very simple introduction, very beautiful, and then the first words of the song. Your love will surely come find us, like blazing wildfires singing your name. And then, again, this is happening in live, the snare drum stops abruptly, all of the stage lights pan up to the crowd, and then the sky, and the only instrument that is playing now is the organ and then these lyrics. God of mercy, sweet love of mine, I have surrendered to your design. May this offering stretch across the skies and these hallelujahs be multiplied. So it's actually really hard for me to describe just how powerful of a moment that was for me. So it was really full-on worship. And it's the closest you can get to hearing that one, yeah, you know, the closest really that you can get to really hearing that on your end would be their recording. It would have been, I guess, 2015. They did a double live album called Live from the Woods. So if you want to kind of get close to that, you can listen to Multiplied off of that double album. But I want to go to the lyrics again. God of mercy, sweet love of mine. So the mercy here is his Hasid. That's the original Hebrew, and this describes the covenant love of God, which is the heartbeat of the character and nature of God. And we see God describe himself in this way when he is communicating to Moses on Mount Sinai in Exodus 34, verse 6. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, this is God talking, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. And then we have this line I have surrendered to your design. Surrendered. So we are laying down our supposed right to design our own lives. So Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. And then we have the next line of the song, May this offering stretch across the skies. So whereas in the old covenant a blood sacrifice of an animal was to be paid, now our worship is a sacrifice where we are to offer ourselves fully to God. Hebrews 13, verse 15. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. In the last line here, and these hallelujahs be multiplied. So hallelujah literally just means praise the Lord, and the desire of our souls should be to multiply the praises to our Lord and our God. So the very last verse of the very last Psalm in the Bible, this is Psalm 150, verse 6, says this Let everything that has breath praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Amen and amen. All right, guys, come back here tomorrow where we are going to wrap up the week by looking at a song in a genre that the band describes as holy drone violent worship. Don't miss tomorrow.

Stay sharp.