Edward Fudge Core Gospel Edward Fudge: those who pick out their CORE- Bull's- Eye- Thing Scripture will always end up worshiping another part of the bull. The Bible was not given by the Spirit Christ to be sifted for the most important parts. The Bible is intended to be used in the SYNAGOGUE OF CHRIST. It is to be taught "as it has been taught" and God will supply the SPIRIT value which He included in His Words just as surely as He enclosed Himself as Word or Christ into a human body.http://www.edwardfudge.com/home.html
Preacher heard: "I have decided to PREACH only Christ and Him crucified."
Paul said: I have decided to KNOW only Christ and Him crucified."
If you preach only the Christ and Him crucified you will probably miss THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. And if you do that I can almost guarantee that you don't KNOW Christ at all:
First, Christ gave up the glory of full deity to dwell as full deity in a human body and suffer like a common criminal. One who KNOWS Christ will "have this mind in" you.
Second, Jesus as SON spoke only what He Heard from the FATHER who dwelled within. One who takes liberties with what to PRUNE out of the Bible as more or less important REPUDIATES Christ who as "the Spirit of Christ" inspired the entire Bible "for our learning."
Edward Fudge's BULLS eye on Romans Ten focuses so sharply that it missed Paul's condemnation of musical idolatry.
I cannot respond directly to iBelieve.com because they said I said a CURSE word and needed my mouth washed out with SOAP. Wow! Here is the topic of conversation where I said the CURSE word "asses":
"These are Paul's words. Let them, then, show us that they are ministers of the gospel, and I will have no difficulty in conceding their right to stipend.
"The ox must not be muzzled that treadeth out the corn [1 Cor. 9:9]. But is it not altogether at variance with reason that the ploughing oxen should starve, and the lazy asses be fed?
John Calvin also speaks directly to the GUILT CLAUSE. You know: you shoot me in the heart and then blame me for spurting blood on your dancing slippers.
Good news! I need to tell you that it is iBelieve.com not IBelieve.net, and that I think that we have negotiated ASS down to vulgar and not a curse word. I think that the remaining problem they have with me is that I actually wrote "Huh, Huh, Huh": you know as in laughing. Stay tuned.
iBelieve.com argues the case of Fudge versus Jesus Christ:
Edward Fudge: Since no church has all the truth and no group of Christians is flawless, how do we determine which truths matter most and which flaws are of greatest significance? It is not as difficult as it might seem at first. We need only to to remember that Scripture itself has a focal point -- a bull's-eye, if you please -- which constitutes its own center of attention. That focal point is Jesus Christ himself -- who he is and what he has done for sinners everywhere. The New Testament authors do not leave us guessing about that primary point (Lk. 24:47; John 5:39-40; Acts 3:18, 24-26; Rom. 10:1-4; 2 Cor. 3:15-18; 4:3-6; Phil. 3:8-9; Heb. 12:1-2; 1 John 5:20).
Jesus said that "the flesh counts for nothing: the words that I speak they are SPIRIT and they are LIFE." John 6:63.
Furthermore, He identified the role of SON as to speak only what He heard from the Father within.
And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. John 12:47
He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. John 12:48
For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. John 12:49
The very MEANING of the Son of God is that He didn't FOCUS ON JUST JESUS AND HIM CRUCIFIED. He put His focus on revealing the mysteries of the kingdom. To that end He gave us A holy spirit ONLY at repentance and baptism. The same Peter said that at Baptism we REQUEST A CLEAR CONSCIENCE which is co-perception: the ability to hear the Words of Christ.
We will look at Romans 10:1-4 as THE BULL'S EYE THING. Unfortunately when you focus on the bull's eye you get yourself smack into deep stuff connected with BULL WORSHIP.
Here is the CORE principle of Romans 10 which is Edward's CORE:
BRETHREN, my hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. Romans 10:1
For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. Romans 10: 2
For they, being ignorant of Gods righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. Romans 10: 3
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. Romans 10: 4
There were several events where the Israelites attempted to establish their own righteousness. God gave them THE BOOK OF THE COVENANT which was a covenant of Grace. It was much like the Abrahamic covenant which had no mandatory sacrifices and therefore no priesthood. Later, they demanded a human king. God understood that it meant to WORSHIP LIKE THE NATIONS. God abandoned them again and warned that the kings would enslave them and lead them into captivity. The NATION'S worship was focused on animal sacrifices with INSTRUMENTAL NOISE.
What everyone should grasp is that not in the most vile pagan temple did the singers or musicians ever enter into the Holy Place which, among the Jews, was a carnal type of the body or church of Christ. The type shows that musicians or singers who enter the "church" are worthy of death.
Fudge stops just before we hear Paul warn about the MUSICAL IDOLATRY as a primary way they tried to ESTABLISH THEIR OWN RIGHTEOUSNESS:
For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. Romans 10: 5
But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Romans 10: 6
Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) Romans 10: 7
But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; Romans 10: 8
Paul, a Bible reader, knows what most do not: the "religion" Israel practiced for most of the 430 years was the same worship they returned to at Mount Sinai when God "tested" them for 40 days.
Here is the way Moses wrote the WARNING against MUSICAL IDOLATRY. After losing the Covenant of Grace Moses warned that you don't have to restore the old Osiris (Dionysus) worship centered on replacing his lost penis but:
For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden (in the nether world) from thee, neither is it far off. Deuteronomy 30:11
It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Deuteronomy 30:12
Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Deuteronomy 30:13
But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it. Deuteronomy 30:14
They rose up to PLAY which was musical idolatry worshiping the Egyptian Triad of Osiris, Isis and Horus. The enemy of Osiris cut him into many pieces and SENT THEM BEYOND THE SEA. Isis searched for his members and they were put back together and life breathed into him.
Ooops! Something missing: his penis (is that vulgar?). As a result most of what we call "musical" religion is PENIS WORSHIP. The same Jews 'afflicting' Jesus with music worshipped Dionysus (Osiris) which had been the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION in the temple. Jesus would not perform in the Lamenting Song and Perverted Choral dance. Sodomy was the major initiation when they "piped" hoping to get others to "sing and dance."
"As I will show in the fourth chapter, the Egyptians said in their legend that the body of Osiris floated to Byblus, on the coast of Syria, and Isis went there to re cover it. Cyril gives the whole legend of Adonis-I will reproduce his words later-and rightly identifies Adonis with Tammuz and even with Osiris. Then, to explain the "letters of papyrus" in Isaiah, he tells us that every year the "friends of Venus" (priestesses of Aphrodite) mourned at Byblus,
and the women of the land "beyond the rivers of Ethiopia," the land (to translate the Hebrew text correctly) "of the fluttering of the wings of birds," wrote a letter on papyrus, put it on a raft, and sent it out to sea. It was supposed to float to Byblus and to inform the "friends of Venus" that her lover's body had been found, and so their mourning turned into the joy of the resurrection. Resource
Venus is Lucifer or the morning star.
See the nature of musical idolatry in Egypt. This is Isis and the infant Horus. She is still the pagan view of Mary and "little bitty Jesus."
Their symbol was the real, living APIS bulls made into the idol of the golden calf.
"The priest (here the Pope) sometimes holds up the sunburst monstrance with the host encased for the congregation to adore and venerate. Virtually any time the monstrance, a pagan sun symbol, is viewed by the congregation, they kneel in submission. A Catholic cannot walk past this sun symbol without acknowledging it by kneeling and or making the sign of the cross with their hands."Theodoret (Quasten, Music & Worship, p. 65) claimed that the Jews brought liturgical music from Egypt and Philo wrote that "Moses learned rhythm, harmony, meter and everything concerned with instrumental music from the Egyptians." This is why Moses knew that the noise at Mount Sinai was not the sound of defeat or of victory. Rather, it was the "sound of them singing that I hear."
"The Jews sang in the type of the Egyptian threnodies (elegies for the dead):The same Jews using the same Levitical Warrior musicians would still momentarily defeat Jesus by musically mocking Him and others under their rule:
They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept. Lu.7:32
Threneo (g2354) thray-neh'-o; from 2355; to bewail: - lament, mourn.
Threnos (thrênos). The Greek term for a dirge sung by a chorus to the accompaniment of flutes, either at the burial or at the funeral feast. See Funus; Musica. Perseus
Threnos (g2355) thray'-nos; from the base of 2360; wailing: - lamentation.
Throeo (g2360) thro-eh'-o; from threomai , (to wail); to clamor, i.e. (by impl.) to frighten: - trouble
Thriambeuo (g2358) three-am-byoo'-o; from a prol. comp. of the base of 2360 and a der. of 680 (mean. a noisy iambus, sung in honor of Bacchus); to make an acclamatory procession, i.e. (fig.) to conquer or (by Hebr.) to give victory: - (cause) to triumph (over).
That is why Jesus cast out the MUSICAL WORSHIP TEAM more or less violently as one ejects dung.
"Thus they made a golden bull, the image of an animal that was held to be the most sacred in that land; they offered unholy sacrifices, performed impious dances and sang hymns which differed in no way from the pagan mourning songs. Philo, De specialibus legibus
"This reference probably indicates the use of songs from the cult of Osiris... it can hardly be denied that Egyptian influence on Jewish musical practices was quite significant. This would stand to reason because of the high quality of Egyptian cultic music. The tambourine or timbrel, a hoop of bells over which a white skin was stretched, came from Egypt. Miriam used this instrument to accompany the singing and dancing on the shores of the Red Sea (Ex. 15).
"The trumpet... was the signaling instrument of the Egyptian army. The name of the Sistrum (2 Sam 6:5) was mena'ane'im. It was the Egyptian kemken used in the cult of Isis.
This is why God outlawed it during the assembly (Qahal) or synagogue or church in the wilderness (Num. 10:7)
"The music during the transferring the Ark to Sion (David rose up to play)
and the dances of the women at the Shiloh (Judges 21:21), were similar to the Egyptian liturgy and parades.
"As Herodotus reports, women sang the praises of Osiris while liknesses of the gods were born about and, during the festival of Diana at Bubastis,
Women's singing was a vital part of all pagan worship. In very times women became priestly singers of the gods in the temple.
"Women and girls from the different ranks of society were proud to enter the service of the gods as singers and musicians. The understanding of this service was universal: these singers constituted the 'harem of the gods'." (Johannes Quasten. In Music and Worship in Pagan and Christian Antiquity, beginning on page 41)
The Egyptian Opis (Apis) and others which Israel worshipped at Mount Sinal were worshipped throughout the area.
Too Long In The Sun, Richard Rives sees in Exodus 32, a Biblical precedent which provoked God nearly to the point of destroying the nation of Israel for their sin of blending (baptizing) pagan worship with His own:
"...the golden calf was built and the celebration declared a 'feast to the Lord.'...The people had declared a celebration to honor God that
he did not recognize as being in his honor."
[As a result, God turned them over to worship the starry host!]
"Hathor and Aphis, the cow and bull gods of Egypt, were representatives of sun worship. Their worship was just one stage in the long Egyptian history of solar veneration. The golden calf at Mount Sinai is more than sufficient evidence to prove that the feast proclaimed was related to sun worship.
The event at Mount Sinai was just one episode in the Satanic apostasy which began at the tower of Babel. The celebration of December 25th, originally proclaimed in honor of the birth of the sun god Mithra, can only be one of the final events in the long continuing saga of Satanic sun worship." Richard Rives, Too Long in the Sun, Partakers Pub., 1996, pp. 129-30.
"In preference to all other hymns these choirs generally sang the so-called epiphany hymns, which were intended to invite the gods to appear. Plutarch wrote:
Why do the women of Elis call upon God in song to approach them with the bull's foot? Their song is the following:
- Come, Dionysus, Hero,
- into the holy temple of Elis,
- together with the Graces
- come violently into the temple with the bull's foot!
- Then they sang twice at the end: "Sacred Bull!"
- (Johannes Quasten, Music & Worship
- in Pagan and Christian Antiquity, p. 76)
"Choirs of young girls often officiated and they wore garments of the dancers consecrated to the gods. (The ephod was once a feminine apron)
Play or Laugh is: Sachaq (h7832) saw-khak'; a prim. root; to laugh (in pleasure or detraction); by impl. to play: - deride, have in derision, laugh, make merry, mock (-er), play, rejoice, (laugh to) scorn, be in (make) sport.
"The triumphal hymn of Moses had unquestionably a religious character about it; but the employment of music in religious services, though idolatrous, is more distinctly marked in the festivities which attended the erection of the golden calf." (Smith's Bible Dictionary, Music, p. 589).
Ephraim Syrus On Our Lord notes that Sinai was a test. The Israelites were consummate idolaters in Egypt. However, God gave them one more shot at the Abrahamic Covenant. By removing Moses as a visible "authority figure" He wanted to let them answer their own prayer:
18. But when their heathenism from being inward became open, then Moses also from being hidden openly appeared; that he might openly punish those whose heathenism had revelled beneath the holy cloud which had overshadowed them.
But God removed the Shepherd of the flock from it for forty days, that the flock might show that its trust was fixed upon the calf.
And he was there in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him. Mark 1:13
While God was feeding the flock with all delights, it chose for itself as its Shepherd the calf, which was not able even to eat.
Moses who kept them in awe was removed from them, that the idolatry might cry aloud in their mouths,
which the restraint of Moses had kept down in their hearts. For they cried: Make us gods, to go before us.
19. But when Moses came down, he saw their heathenism revelling in the wide plain with drums and cymbals.
Speedily, he put their madness to shame by means of the Levites and drawn swords.
So likewise here, our Lord concealed His knowledge for a little when the sinful woman approached Him, that the Pharisee might form into shape his thought, as his fathers had shaped the pernicious calf.
Comparing the musical worship of Israel to all of those nations whom Israel demanded to be like as they "fired" the God of righteousness and justice, Gurney notes of the successful movement of the ark by the king and his civil team after his musical move including the "congregation"--
"we recognize the same elements: the sacrifices and libation, the cultic feast in which the congregation gets a share of food and drink after it has been blessed by the king, and the merry-making, now in the form of instrumental and vocal music. But the central act of the ritual, which was performed by the king, is called literally 'drinking' the god (Gurney, O. R. Some Aspects of Hittite Religion, p. 33-34, Oxford University Press, 1977)
In the ancient mourning festivals and later Agapae what they DRANK from the women is just too vile to relate.
This repeat of the Mount Sinai musical idolatry was repeated and warned about by Amos and other writers including Stephen in Acts 7. The Marzeah was like the Greek Agapae or "love feast." It began as a polluted pagan ritual, was practiced by the Christians for a short time and outlawed it:
"The marzeah had an extremely long history extending at least from the 14th century B.C. through the Roman period. In the 14th century B.C., it was prominently associated with the ancient Canaanite city of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra), on the coast of Syria...
"The marzeah was a pagan ritual that took the form of a social and religious association... Some scholars regard the funerary marzeah as a feast for--and with--deceased ancestors (or Rephaim, a proper name in the Bible for the inhabitants of Sheol)." (King, Biblical Archaeological Review, Aug, 1988, p. 35, 35)
"These five elements are: (1) reclining or relaxing, (2) eating a meat meal, (3) singing with harp or other musical accompaniment, (4) drinking wine and (5) anointing oneself with oil." (King, p. 37).
"In pagan traditions, musical instruments are invented by gods or demi-gods, such as titans. In the Bible, credit is assigned to antediluvian patriarchs, for example, the descendants of Cain in Genesis 4:21. There is no other biblical tradition about the invention of musical instruments." (Freedman, David Noel, Bible Review, Summer 1985, p. 51).
Because of the musical idolatry at Mount Sinai, God turned Israel over to worship the starry host including various models of Saturn whose Chaldee number is 666.
Paul relates this RISING UP TO PLAY at Mount Sinai. By their musical idolatry they were really turning away from the Spirit Christ who led them.
And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 1 Cor 10:2
And did all eat the same spiritual meat; 1 Cor 10: 3
And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. 1 Cor 10: 4
But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 1 Cor 10: 5
Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. 1 Cor 10:6
Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. 1 Cor 10: 7
This was demon worship and Stephen said that God "turned them over to worship the starry host." The musical worship in Israel was that of Chiun or Saturn numbere 666. He/ she will rise up in the end as the Babyon Whore and here worship will consist of commerce, false religion and musicians and instrument players.
Demon: "It is used in the Septuagint, Deut. 32:17, to translate the Hebrew word which seems, originally, to have meant a supernatural being inferior to the gods proper, applied among the Assyrians to the bull deities which guarded the entrances to temples and palaces." (Vincent, p. 244)
"Paul, however, fixes attention on the feast which was entirely after the manner of idol worship.
"By doing this Paul strikes home directly at the Corinthians who thought that they, too, could preserve their relation to Jehovah while, pretending to make use of their liberty,
they ate, drank, and amused themselves at idol celebrations.
"This very thing the Israelites of old attempted when they feasted upon the offerings brought to the golden calf and then rose up 'to play,' to dance and to have a gay time after the fashion they had learned from the idolatrous Egyptians." (Lenski, 1 Cor., p. 397-398).
"It is a great mistake to imagine that back of their idolatry and their idol sacrifices there is nothing but an empty vacuity. True enough, as 8:4 makes plain, the gods of the idols have no existence whatever; no being by the name of Jupiter exists, and this is true with respect to all other gods.
But something does exist, something that is far more terrible than these pseudo-gods, namely an entire kingdom of darkness which is hostile to God, a host of demons or fallen angels who are ruled by the greatest of their number, namely Satan, Eph. 2:3; 6:12.
The fallen angels under Satan taught the youth how to close the mouth of the Living Word with choirs and instruments which always went hand in hand with perversion.
All altars, all sacrifices, and all worship that are not intended to serve the true God are thus actually though not necessarily consciously and intentionally devoted to these demons... Hence all idol sacrifices, whatever the pagan ideas concerning them may be, are really sacrifices unto devils." (Lenski, on 1 Cor. p. 415).
Trying to establish their own righteousness with MUSICAL IDOLATRY they are subjects of those in the Book of Enoch who deceived with the PERFORMING ARTS as noted by Jude.
And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. Deut.33:1
And he said, The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery (burning-goad) law for them. Deut 33:2
Paul alluded to both the Mount Sinai musical idolatry and Nadab and Abihu. They tried to approach God without REVERENCE and Godly FEAR. As a result, Paul says:
For our God is a CONSUMING fire. Heb.12:29
MUSIC has always been a BURDEN LADED on the backs of people used like pack animals to fill the collection plates for unlawful purposes. That burden is defined by the word Jesus used as "spiritual anxiety created by religious ritual." Only by leaving the fired doctors of the Law and coming to Christ can we receive a MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE GOSPEL.
The BULL'S EYE THING of Romans 10 is a very clear warning about trying to establish our own righteousness through MUSICAL IDOLATRY.
