Several months ago, when I started this website, one of my first reviews was Elevation Worship’s O Come To the Altar. It received a highly favorable review. As I was searching for recently popular songs to review, their song Do It Again came up often in my search results.

Elevation Worship has been active since 2007, releasing five independent albums, a remix, a Spanish album, and six live albums. This review will be on their latest single Do It Again.

Update: This song received an original score of 6.5/10. After reading Michael’s commentary (see below), I decided to re-evaluate this song and increased its score.

Note to new users: This is a different kind of review site! Read About the Berean Test and Evaluation Criteria prior to reading this review.

1. What message does the song communicate?

It is a song primarily focused on the faithfulness of Christ and that He has, in the past, never failed Elevation Worship.

Some of the phrases are purposefully vague, inviting their audience to fill in the blank with their own situation. I understand the appeal: Elevation Worship can succinctly generalize any given hardship; however, they run the risk of obfuscating clarity. I do not think it severely impacts the overall message; However, it does make Biblical comparison more difficult.

The modifier “yet”, in reference to Jesus’ lack of failure, I thought was problematic. My belief is that it has an unintended implication that God’s failure is possible, though unlikely. The Bible does teach that God will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5, quoting from Deuteronomy 31:6), though I believed we could have done without “yet”. However, it also states in Chorus 2 that “You’ve never failed”, nullifying my criticism.

Score: 8/10

2. How much of the lyrics line up with Scripture?

Although it is mostly biblically accurate, as described in section 1, there are certain phrases that are obscure, preventing accurate comparison. Lyrics posted with permission.*

[Verse 1]

Walking around these walls

I thought by now they’d fall

A euphemism for…well, let’s think this through. What do walls do? They hold up roofs. They enclose a space. They provide shelter and security. They keep people out. Given Elevation Worships’ desire for the walls to fall, we can discern the barrier explanation. The “wall” is some sort of obstacle that is preventing them from doing something.

It is not immediately clear what that obstacle is that is described, perhaps as an attempt to reach a wider audience with intentional vagueness making Scriptural application elusive. A listing, such as that given in Romans 8:31-39, would have clarified the obstacle. Still, we do know that God works all things for good (Genesis 50:20 and Romans 8:28).

The account of the fall of Jericho came immediately to the forefront (Joshua 6:1-21); however, that would be taking the account out of context to make a point, much like when pastors speak of the “giants” in our lives, in reference to David and Goliath.

But You have never failed me yet

…but “You” might. At least, that is implied with the inclusion of the qualifier “yet”. Elevation Worship would have been better off without it. It persists throughout other instances of this phrase.

Qualifier aside, in what sense does Elevation Worship say that He “has never failed [me]”? The answer is within the Chorus: God’s faithfulness. We will explore Scriptural passages in that section.

We know that “You” refers to Jesus based on Verse 2.

Waiting for change to come

Knowing the battle’s won

What change does Elevation Worship refer? What battle is won? Is this internal warfare? Addiction? Isis? North Korea? Once again, this is intentionally vague so that their audience can fill in the blank with their own situation. This makes Biblical examination impossible.

For You have never failed me yet

See line 3, above.

[Chorus 1]

Your promise still stands

Great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness

The promise described here is Christ’s faithfulness. See list of references to Christ’s faithfulness.

I’m still in Your hands

Although the context is specific to Jesus, given that Jesus is God, we can apply Psalm 31:14-15, Psalm 95:1-4, Job 12:7-10, Isaiah 62:1-3, Jeremiah 18:6, and Daniel 5:23.

This is my confidence, You’ve never failed me yet

The word “confidence” is a compound word from two Latin words: “con” meaning “with” and “fidence” (or fides) meaning “faith”. Literally, Elevation Worship is saying “this is my [with] faith”, in reference to Christ’s faithfulness. They can have faith in Jesus because Christ is faithful to us, as described in line 2.

[Verse 2]

I know the night won’t last

Once again, this is purposefully unclear to widen audience inclusion with puzzling Biblical application.

Your Word will come to pass

Pairs with Chorus, Line 2. Christ’s word always comes to pass because He knows all things (1 Kings 8:39, 1 Chronicles 28:9, Psalm 44:21, Psalm 139:4, Psalm 147:4-5, Isaiah 40:28, Matthew 10:30, John 16:30, John 21:17, Acts 1:24, Hebrews 4:13, and 1 John 3:20).

My heart will sing Your praise again

What is implied is that Elevation Worship sings because Jesus is faithful. There are numerous passages of those (particularly David) who sings praises to/about God because of His faithfulness, including 2 Samuel 22:1-51, Psalm 13:6, Psalm 18:43-49, Psalm 21:8-13, Psalm 27:1-6, Psalm 28:6-9, Psalm 51:14, Psalm 57:1-7, Psalm 59:16, Psalm 63:7, Psalm 69:29-36, Psalm 89:1, and Psalm 108:1-4.

Jesus, You’re still enough

His Grace is sufficient for us (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Keep me within Your love

A prayer to God, asking Him to remain faithful in accordance to His love. The love of God is demonstrated through action as described in Nehemiah 9:17, Psalm 17:7, Psalm 36:5-7, Psalm 63:3, Psalm 69:16, Psalm 117:2, Isaiah 54:8, John 3:16, John 13:34, John 15:13, Romans 5:6-8, Romans 8:37-39, Galatians 2:20, Ephesians 2:4-5, Ephesians 5:25, Titus 3:4, 1 John 4:8, and 1 John 4:16-19.

My heart will sing Your praise again

A repeat of line 3.

[Chorus 2]

Your promise still stands

Great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness

I’m still in Your hands

This is my confidence, You’ve never failed

Your promise still stands

Great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness

I’m still in Your hands

This is my confidence, You’ve never failed me yet

A slight variation of Chorus 1.

[Bridge]

I’ve seen You move, You move the mountains

And I believe, I’ll see You do it again

Although the source material in Matthew 17:20 and Mark 11:23-24 references our (figurative) moving mountains through faith, God is in the source power behind it.

You made a way, where there was no way

This references the juxtaposition between salvation through obedience to the Law and salvation through faith, as succinctly captured in Matthew 19:26 and Luke 18:27. It becomes more obvious when one reads these passages in context.

And I believe, I’ll see You do it again

Alludes to the final resurrection, a hotly debated topic. I won’t go into details about the various views since this line does not espouse one. The idea is that we will see Jesus again after physical death (Revelation 1:7-8 and Revelation 22:1-4)

[Outro]

Oh, You’ve never failed me yet

A repeat of Verse 1, line 3.

And I never will forget

A double negative meaning “I will always remember”.

Score: 8/10

3. How would an outsider interpret the song?

Given the explicit reference to Jesus and implicit connection to faith, those who are not Christians should immediately understand it as a faith-based song. They may not understand the church lingo, such as faith, moving mountains, and God making a way, but then again, it was probably not written with evangelistic reach in mind.

Score: 8/10

4. What does this song glorify?

Despite my earlier comments, God is highly magnified throughout these lyrics, even if some of it is perhaps intentionally vague.

Score: 9/10

Closing Comments

Do It Again is a decent song. Most of its lyrics have Biblical application while small portions seem purposefully vague, slightly obfuscating God’s glory. It’s worth listening to at least once, but skip it for your own worship set.

Final Score: 8/10

Artist Info

Track: Do It Again (listen to the song) (buy the song)

Artist: Elevation Worship

Album: There Is a Cloud (buy the album)

Genre: Contemporary Christian Music (CCM)

Release Year: 2017

Duration: 6:38

Agree? Disagree? Don’t be shy or have a cow! Calmly and politely state your case in a comment, below.

*Copyright © 2016 Thankyou Music (PRS) (adm. worldwide at CapitolCMGPublishing.com excluding Europe which is adm. by Integrity Music, part of the David C Cook family. Songs@integritymusic.com) / worshiptogether.com Songs (ASCAP) sixsteps Music (ASCAP) Said And Done Music (ASCAP) (adm. at CapitolCMGPublishing.com) / Be Essential Songs (BMI), Music by Elevation Worship Publishing (BMI) (admin at EssentialMusicPublishing.com). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Share this: Share

Facebook

Twitter



LinkedIn



Like this: Like Loading...