Speaking Monday in a session of BYU's Education Week, Ballam said that just as hymns and songs can be inspired by God, so can music be inspired convincingly and beautifully by the devil.
"He is a real being. He has majestic
powers, formidable powers." Ballam said. "He's preaching his
gospel with great eloquence, through some of the most
brilliant performers and musicians of all time. Don't tell
your children or your grandchildren it's junk, because it's
not. You think he would use junk? He uses the best he can
find."
While it may seem like a small thing to some, the music
people listen to actually has a profound effect on their
souls as music is an integral part of the human experience.
Simply defined, music is sound that has been organized,
Ballam said.
"Sound is vibration. Vibration is
movement. Movement requires energy and energy is the source
of life," he said. "Music is life."
Thousands of years ago, Greek philosophers hypothesized that
music held the heavens and earth together.
"Plato and Aristotle described the fact that the universe
itself is held in order by music. Now that was a pretty
statement to have said thousands of years ago. The
interesting thing is that they're right," he said.
Researchers in the 1950s were able to calibrate the
vibrations -- or music -- of the earth and the planets in
our solar system, he said, and their findings show that some
planets' vibrations were octaves apart.
"The universe is held by vibration in its order. Someone
must have put it there," he said. "Someone who understands
music because it comes from him."
Isaiah taught that the whole creation, including rocks, will
sing at Christ's second coming, which isn't hard for Ballam
to believe as research indicates that they already are.
Music has profound spiritual implications, he said, which
reach farther than many realize. Christ's birth was attended
by singing angels, and his Second Coming will be accompanied
in a similar fashion. Jesus and his apostles also sang
together in an upper room before the Last Supper. These
songs aren't just to provide some sort of rest hymn, he
said, but because music itself has power to invite the
spirit.
Similarly, music can deter it.
"If that is true of the good side, it can also be true of
the dark side," he said. "I think the music of our time is
being crafted very carefully to teach a gospel of despair
and lack of hope. It has nothing to do with the lyrics. It
has nothing to do with the rhythms. It has nothing to do
with the harmonies, or the melodies. It has to do with the
essence of inspiration. And that which comes from on high,
we can tell it instantly. And that which comes from the
other direction, we know it as well."
Ballam has witnessed transforming occasions where people
have come out of comas on account of music, he said. A man
whose young daughter was in a coma once called him asking
for advice on how to get her to come out of it. Ballam told
him to sing her favorite primary song, "I Am a Child of
God," over and over again, occasionally leaving out words.
After a night of singing with no response, the girl's
grandfather sang, "I am a child of ....' and the girl
quietly filled in the word "God." They carried on that way
until she was fully restored, Ballam said.
It's also possible to use music to bring the spirit back
into one's home and life, he said.
When Ballam's oldest son was preparing for a mission, he
began to feel evil forces encroaching upon their home, he
said. To combat that feeling, he and his wife began playing
music from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir around the clock,
even while they slept, in order to make the evil forces
uncomfortable. Soon enough, the troubling feelings left.
But music inspired of God doesn't only come to Mormon
musicians or artists, he said. It has come through the
centuries to messengers of all walks of life.
"Oftentimes, very important truths come to us from unlikely
messengers. Some of the most inspired music and art came
through unusual messengers, and our job is not to judge the
messenger, but rather to judge the message -- if, in fact,
it did come from a place of light," he said.
The music of Handel and Bach, for instance, was clearly
composed with the light of Christ, he said, and invites all
who listen to it to do good.