Avenged Sevenfold (2007) "Scream"

[reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]
As performed by A7X

Caught up in this madness too blind to see
Woke animal feelings in me
Took over my sense and I lost control
I'll taste your blood tonight

You know I make you wanna scream
You know I make you wanna run from me baby
but know it's too late you've wasted all your time

Relax while you're closing your eyes to me
So warm as I'm setting you free
With your arms by your side there's no struggling
Pleasure's all mine this time

You know I make you wanna scream
You know I make you wanna run from me baby
but know it's too late you've wasted all your time

Cherishing, those feelings pleasuring
Cover me, unwanted clemency
Scream till there's silence
Scream while there's life left, vanishing
Scream from the pleasure unmask your desire
perishing

We've all had a time where we've lost control
We've all had our time to grow
I'm hoping I'm wrong but I know I'm right
I'll hunt again one night

You know I make you wanna scream
You know I make you wanna run from me baby
but know it's too late you've wasted all your time

Cherishing, those feelings pleasuring
Cover me, unwanted clemency
Scream till there's silence
Scream while there's life left, vanishing
Scream from the pleasure unmask your desire
perishing

Some live repressing their instinctive feelings
Protest the way we're built don't point the blame on me

Scream, Scream, Scream the way you would
if I ravaged your body
Scream, Scream, Scream the way you would if I ravaged

your mind

Cherishing, those feelings pleasuring
Cover me, unwanted clemency
Scream till there's silence
Scream while there's life left, vanishing
Scream from the pleasure unmask your desire
perishing

The poet suggests that there are deep, instinctive feelings repressed in a person that, if released, bring an intoxicating sense of liberation in which the pleasure is so intense it saturates you. The poet cherishes this feeling, wants it unadulterated, without "clemency" [Merriam-Webster: disposition to be merciful and especially to moderate the severity of punishment due].

When this song is performed live there is a sense of debauchery onstage, and more than a hint of vampirism. What is this "repressed instinct," and why does it feel so empowering to give oneself up to it, to hunt and to ravage? What is human nature, really?

Several of the new testament writers took some time to explore this issue. James, Jesus' younger brother who later became a leader in the first Jerusalem church, said,

Don't let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, "God is trying to trip me up." God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one's way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.

He recognized something deeply embedded in the human nature - lust - that wants to do evil.

Everyone's opportunity to indulge that desire will inevitably come our way. When that kind of desire (lust) meets opportunity you and I have a choice: Look to God for rescue and escape, or indulge the desire. Sin and death are the result of a sequence of events that begins with choosing to indulge the desire instead of surrendering the desire to God. As the poet said, in the heat of his ecstacy,

Scream till there's silence
Scream while there's life left, vanishing
Scream from the pleasure unmask your desire
perishing

The kind of death James is referring to, however, is not just physical death but also eternal, spiritual death, separation from God, a severing from the source of all life. Death is sin's penalty, it's natural consequence, it's inescapable, unavoidable end.

John, Jesus' youngest follower who outlived all the other disciples, also wrote about this aspect of human nature,

Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

The "world" was synonymous with humanity that lived apart from God. Unrepentant, fallen (Adam and Eve) people. The "apple," the fruit of the tree God told them not to eat, changed the very natures of the man and the woman, hardwiring rebellion and lust into their inner being. It's all they had, at that point, to pass on to the rest of us. It's what the Bible is refering to when it uses the word "sin" - it's that missing-the-mark of perfection, holiness and purity.

Sin has affected our moral capability. We end up with self-centered motives, not God-centered motives. The self, not God and His word, becomes the only measurement by which something is deemed good or bad, desirable or undesirable. We want to feel in control, or we want to feel good, feel happy, or we want to feel approved of. So our values are set on something else besides God.

Sin has also affected our intellectual ability by blinding our eyes to what is good and right, removing our ability to understand the truth. Instead of establishing right and wrong on God's principles, we end up talking about what works or doesn't work for us. What works or doesn't work for the system we live in. It isn't that stealing is wrong, it's just that stealing doesn't work for the economy. Getting caught up in that whole system skews our understanding of truth.

Sin has affected our wills by causing us to seek independence from God, by not trusting Him and choosing to rebel against Him and to disobey Him. John made it clear that walking in the light meant loving God and loving the brethren, which in turn would mean obedience to God by aligning our wills with His, and serving and taking care of our brothers and sisters by humbling our own wills for the sake of others.

You and I can’t love the world system and love God’s system at the same time, they are mutually exclusive.

Paul, the guy who wrote most of the epistles (letters) in the new testament, started out in life as a Pharisee, one of the religious rulers of his day. As far as his record of rule-following is concerned, he said he was the Jew of Jews and basically perfect in all his ways. Crazy thing is, nobody would have argued with him. He was perfect. On the outside. On the inside he recognized what a raging, boiling whirlpool he was of lusts, and he tried to work it out on paper in his letter to the Christians living in Rome,

I can already hear your next question: "Does that mean I can't even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?" No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God's good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own.

I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.

But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

The poet is right. There's something deep in us, in all of us, that takes pleasure in all that's evil. It comes from an ancient alliance our ancestors made with the serpent. It's hardwired, now, into our very natures. There's not much you and I can do about. But there is someone who can - Jesus. He is able to completely transform someone, down to the molecular level, figuratively speaking, so that the repressed instinct the poet refers to becomes a radically different inclination towards all that's pure, good and holy.

And the delights, the pleasure, is unsurpassed.

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment and join the conversation