Jeff Walling: Dancing and Instrumental Music: Part Two
update
If the head of the family is fond of tambourine,
It is no wonder why the whole family dances!Muslim poem 3
Look at this material as a resource which you can use to defend or reject the growing idea of music and dance as a way to fill the halls of religion. This writer has no mercinary "dog in this fight." These forms of "body worship" are being suggested for many religious groups. Those who attempt to impose "regeneration through external means" are judgmental in deciding that traditional churches are "decadent and deliterious" and they are divisive in using psychological means to impose their changes on unwilling groups.See the Origins of the Feminist religion forcing males into musical worship.
See another version in Hypostasis of the Archons
Rubel Shelly As the modern Musical Worship Facilitator must be skilled in music, dance and drama, in Donandar's cult they "must be master level with at least two entertainment skills." The following notes are based upon Rubel's suggestion of some form of priesthood involving priestesses and his appeal to Plato to explain how God is too vast to "get our arms around." We suggest that the God we must identify with is Lord Jesus Christ and I would dare you to try to dance with Jesus.It is clear that modern preachers, prayers and musical worship teams see themselves as the mediators between mankind and God. For instance, Rubel Shelly wants the confessee to consider the church Father or Mother to be the confessor:
"You must understand that the person will not be able to take your pronouncement of forgiveness seriously if he or she does not believe you have taken the sin seriously... Frequently a sensitive priest will affirm not only that God has forgiven the confessor, but that he or she has as well." (Rubel Shelly, Randall Harris p. 159).
See Also Rubel Shelly, Direct Guidance included the confessional group
Lordy, Lordy, did we skip the whole purpose of Christ to restore us to be able to approach God through Christ as the One and Only Mediator? Webster's defines a priest as, "One authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion; especially as a mediatory agent between man and God. The following was clipped off the web and I cannot give credit. It begins by quoting:
We remember that the Seeker model Rubel Shelly and Jubilee 99 promotes demands a "Musical Worship Facilitator." Now, a facilitator is a manipulator who repeats the process until, in Lynn Anderson's mind, the audience is brought to the brink and then yanked back until the comfort zone is repositioned where the manipulator wants you to be. Others mean that the platform upon which you have been trying to meet God must be shifted to the helio-port where God lands -- If you are not where the manipulator wants you to be then you just miss God. This is what Marduk thought of the top of the Towers of Babel.
Signs are literally words but, symbols or wonders are miracles! The Seeker model of Willow Creek holds that the performers are the literal sign or symbol of what God wants people to be.
However, this passage is in contrast to the musical worship teams of paganism adopted by the Jewish clergy. Our sign dancer probably didn't notice that 8:18 is connected to 8:19 which reads:
And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? Isaiah 8:19
To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 8:20
The familiar spirit is the owb. It was an empty wineskin or waterskin. The "witch" peeped and muttered into the wineskin and pretended that the echo was a message from the gods. It is interesting that the definition is almost identical to the nebel or musical instrument used by the Nabal or "empty, file fellow." It is qute identical to the sounding booms and gongs Paul condemned as identical to speaking in tongues -- or crying "Aba, Aba" or "Lord, Lord" -- in 1 Corinthians 13.
If they make up their own songs and sermons to be God's "facilitator" of the Word then Isaiah and God would say, "It is because there is no light in them."
The facilitator's task is to help "lead the worshipper's into the presence of God." This is so like the Babylonian form of worship at the towers of Babel that it makes us shudder. The music was to lead the worshippers back up through the seven steps or muscal spheres to the temple at the top. The top of the tower was like a helio-port where the god landed to meet the worshippers after you paid the priestess who was the institutional prostitute. The right brain of our dancer drifts back in pre-Christ history and hallucinates:
We are called to be kings and priests (I Peter 2:9). In this study I would like to focus especially on the priesthood and some of the functions which they were responsible for, as well as how these functions relate to dance particularly in regards to intercession Webster's defines a priest as,
"One authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion;
especially as a mediatory agent between man and God."
- This is what most theatrical performers claim: the power to move you into the presence of God. Therefore, consistent with the Zoe Group Concept, they are the feminine or effeminate goddesses on a level higher than Jesus Christ. Eve or Sophia or Zoe were the mediatrix, the Mother of the gods:
- However, Paul said:
- Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. 1 Tim 2:4
- For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;1 Tim 2:5
- Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. 1 Tim 2:6
- "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6
"As dancers we have a calling to be signs and symbols to the people of God and to the world. We are to manifest His character in every step that we dance and every gesture that we make.
- In our priestly duties as dancers we have an incredible resposibility.
- We not only bring the offerings of the people to God, but as we dance we also
- provide a platform for God to step down upon in order to touch His people with His presence....
- I see us as a bridge between God and man, and bridges do get walked upon! So if we are to be anointed vessels of honor used for His glory, then we must not shy away from the fiery trials of purification that will surely come our way. As our lives are, so will our dance be!
However:
"Shamanism often exists alongside and even in cooperation with the religious or healing practices of the community....Knowledge of other realms of being and consciousness and the cosmology of those regions is the basis of the shamanic perspective and power. With this knowledge,
- the shaman is able to serve as a bridge between the mundane and the higher and lower states.
- The shaman lives at the edge of reality as most people would recognize it and most commonly at the edge of society itself." - Dean Edwards, "Shamanism-General Overview"
And in Witchcraft:
"The circle above represents a circle of spirits, joined in prayer, standing around a healing light. Half are in body; half are in Spirit. They have joined hands,
- forming a bridge between the two worlds. Our faith tells us that once you entered this page, a link with Spirit has, indeed, been established. Please Click Here Before You Endanger Your Soul.
Rubel Shelly is looking for this talent:
Position Title: Worship Facilitation Minister
"Work with the worship planning committee, the preaching minister and worship presentation groups (music, drama and technical) to facilitate group worship experiences which will help bring worshipers into the presence of God."
While Jeff Walling's dance with God is explained using literal terms and analogies. it is then "taken back" and said to be just a Spiritual dance. Lynn Anderson, Keynoter for Jubilee 99, as one promoter of commercial change agentry, proposes that you advance something new to upset the equilibrium of the crowd. This really upsets (or embarasses) mature believers. The change agent continues to "drive them to the brink" of catastrophe and -- just at the last moment -- you yank 'em back with some "old traditional" stuff to call the cattle. However, you keep up the feinting and jabbing -- the footwork is fabulous, a true halucinating dance! We have to believe that Jeff is appealing to the outward man because the inner man doesn't dance.It is clear that the band of men pledged to change the church to fit an Old Testament or even pagan pattern, use the "Let's pretend" upon those whom they may hold in contempts as being unloving and unloved, ignorant "rural mules." However, this is not a game of "Simon Says." The game is deadly serious. Just listen to Rubel Shelly as he promotes a worship "better felt than told."
While Rubel allows private worship it also involves some method to do an end run and see God manifested outside the face of Lord Jesus Christ:
"an assembly with other determined worshipers when a block of time is intentionally set aside to seek the face of God."
"Plato observed that the idea of God is too big for the human mind to wrap around. Precisely! And thus is born the attitude from which worship springs. When one becomes aware of a God who is more than the conclusion to a theistic argument, greater than anything the human understanding can approach, and too magnificent to explain, he bows before that God and whispers, "Holy!' Or he dances before him and shouts, "Holy!" Or he weeps before him and cries, "Holy!" Or he is too struck with awe to say anything at all." (Rubel Shelly and Randy Harris, The Second Incarnation, p. 118-119.)
Then Shelly - Harris pulls you back from the brink and warns that: "To create settings that deliberately manipulate emotions and tantalize participants is cheap theater rather than worship." At the same time, "when an encounter with the Living God is fostered -- with whatever 'feelings' may accompany that encounter (e.g., celebration, melancholy, tears, laughter, judgment, etc.) -- has worship transpired."
While "worship" rather than "edification" is their goal of the assembly, no one ever comes up with any Biblical evidence that the church ever came together to "foster worship" with some form of feeling must transpire when one is "fostered" into an encounter with God.
The Infinite God of the Universe can never be grasped by human hands, hugged or danced with. Therefore, in His infinite wisdom He took off the "clothing of" might and glory and "put on" the clothing of a self-sacrificing human -- Lord Jesus Christ. You can sing, chant, dance, play musical instruments, use the "team" to arouse sexual feelings or even, as in the case of David, vile madness, but you cannot ascend to bring Christ down or bring the worshipers into the presence of the invisible God. Not to worry! Jesus, fully God, presented His full deity as a suffering servant going about teaching and doing good. It was prophesied that He would never call a Jubilee-like meeting and He never did -- He performed the final Jubilee by dying on the cross. According to Paul, we can reach out and touch Him and He will probably look like a poor peasant in Guyana or next door looking for a cup of cold water. With confidence, I can assure you that he will not look like the travelling minstrel, singer, dancer, hand-clapper, spitter of the product of his own self-induced charisma appealing to both male and female.
If God has not defined how He wants to be worshipped (Calvin's Regulative Principle) how can Shelly - Harris know that they are not deliberately creating a Lynn-Anderson "brinkmanship" emotional breakdown? Why would Lynn be the Keynoter of Jubilee 99 if there was no intention to deliberately induce these effects? Why would Mike Cope, Jubilee 98, deliberately try to hype the "audience" with hand waving and music to induce hand-raising and laying on of hands?
If God has not revealed Himself and He is to big to hug, then how can one invent body-worship rituals out of the old "bonker' and wind up dancing with Baal? The music and dance is really a dead giveaway to the god being sought!
We direct you to another article which shows how music and drama bypasses the rational mind. Click Here.
"Dancing with the gods" always carried a sexual connotation. However, it was extremely "Platonic" or deviant for males to want to dance with a Male God. Rather, it was the women who ordinarily performed the dance with the male gods and the paying "congregation" got the "feeling" which was peddled by the hucksters as "spiritual." The story of Jesus is the story of deviant clergy trying to get Him to dance the Dionysus, effeminate dance reserved for women or the deviant.
This is what the Israelite Apis worshipers with singing, dancing and playing music tried at Mount Sinai after God had just given them The Book of the Covenant. However, Paul quotes Moses who warned against sending for experts to help them find God in song and naked dance. Both say:
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
And: That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: Acts17:27
See what happens when theology comes from Plato rather than God? Human philosophy, unfortunately, fuels most modern forms of restructure of the church in the paradigm of a "new winskin" -- just intoxicates you so that you cannot grasp that Jesus was saying, "Don't put my pure juice of the word into an old, leaven-contaminated wineskin!"
Plato also warned against men flying false banners. They feed you secret code words which sound wise but hide the secret agenda to make you into cogs in an end-time marriage of religion, music and commerce. Plato warned:
- The newest song which the singers have,
- they will be afraid that he may be praising, not some new songs, but a new kind of song; and this ought not to be praised, or conceived to be the meaning of the poet; for any musical innovation is full of danger in the whole State, and ought to be prohibited. So Damon tells me, and I can quite believe him; he says that
- when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State (church) always change with them..."
- "Then," I said, "our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in music?"
- "Yes," I replied, 'in the form of amusement: and at first sight it always appears harmless'." (The Great Dialogs, Plato, Classic edition, p. 312)
- The Abomination of Desolation during the Intertestament Period was the Jews readily adopting the Greek music and gymnasium in order to be SEEKER FRIENDLY. Eating pork as in a modern Agape or "love feast" in connection with the Lord's Supper was the test of fellowship. See Maccabees
Modern Change Agents clearly use music, drama, dance and mass gatherings to change the fundamental laws or patterns of the church. While many may need changing, it would be helpful if the "paradigms" didn't move further away from God's plan or didn't look identical to the denomination down the street..Didn't God, through Amos, also warn Israel that they were "improvizing" their musical worship just as David had adopted musical praise for His civil animal sacrifices?
We should be aware that when the Spirit is present, He is Lord Jesus Christ who promised to be in the midst of two or three -- I don't know about a thousand?? Rubel Shelly expects (Second, p. 132) that "The church must be open to the invigorating presence of the Spirit's fresh breezes through our sometimes stuffy worship experiences." Remember that the children-clergy of Jesus' day wanted to excite Him and get Him to do the dance of Dionysus -- fully explained by Plato where Platonic love is the "love of a man for a young boy."
257) Plato Laws 669 explaining Paul in First Corinthians 13 and 14:
[669d] Nor would the Muses ever combine in a single piece the cries of beasts and men, the clash of instruments, and noises of all kinds, by way of representing a single object;
whereas human poets, by their senselessness in mixing such things and jumbling them up together, would furnish a theme for laughter to all the men who, in Orpheus' phrase,
"have attained the full flower of joyousness."
For they behold all these things jumbled together, and how, also, the poets rudely sunder rhythm and gesture from tune,
putting tuneless words into meter, or leaving time and rhythm [669e] without words, and using the bare sound of harp or flute,
wherein it is almost impossible to understand what is intended by this wordless rhythm and harmony, or what noteworthy original it represents. (See First Corinthians 13-14)
(Remember that Platonic love is "the love of an older man for a young boy.")
"Such methods, as one ought to realize, are clownish in the extreme in so far as they exhibit an excessive craving for speed, mechanical accuracy, and the imitation of animals' sounds, and consequently employ the pipe and the harp without the accompaniment of dance and song; [670a]
for the use of either of these instruments by itself is the mark of the mountebank or the boor.
Enough, then, of that matter: now as to ourselves. What we are considering is, not how those of us who are over thirty years old, or beyond fifty, ought not to make use of the Muses, but how they ought to do so. Our argument already indicates, I think, this result from our discussion,--that all men of over fifty that are fit to sing ought to have a training that is better than that of the choric Muse (Female worship team.)
Rubel Shelly and Randy Harris seem to describe a split form of worship by a people who cannot decide -- unless the Spirit blows in -- how they should worship at the moment. This thesis, based upon Plato perhaps, defines a frantic or ecstatic form of worship where one, in Corinth, might sing, play sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, pray in gibberish, eat too much, drink too much from the wineskins, and the "Seekers" would just see them as mad or Insane. Christ never described worship as an external act. However, read on to see that Plato was smarter than a lot of for-hires. Again, it is unsettling even to use "let's pretend" patterns based on ancient religion.
Plato Ion 534a continues to speak of the female musical worship team - the Muses:
"and attract other rings; so that sometimes there is formed quite a long chain of bits of iron and rings, suspended one from another; and they all depend for this power on that one stone.
In the same manner also the Muse inspires men herself, and then by means of these inspired persons the inspiration spreads to others, and holds them in a connected chain. For all the good epic poets utter all those fine poems not from art,
but as inspired and possessed, and the good lyric poets likewise; [534a] just as
.... the Corybantian worshippers do not dance when in their senses,
... so the lyric poets do not indite those fine songs in their senses, but when they have started on the melody and rhythm they begin to be frantic, and it is under possession--as the bacchants are possessed, and not in their senses, when they draw honey and milk from the rivers--that the soul of the lyric poets does the same thing, by their own report.
For the poets tell us, I believe, that the songs they bring us are the sweets they cull from honey-dropping founts [534b] in certain gardens and glades of the Muses--
like the bees, and winging the air as these do.1 And what they tell is true. (Plato then explains a lot of musical worship and even preaching)
"For a poet is a light and winged and sacred thing, and is unable ever to indite until he has been inspired and put out of his senses, and his mind is no longer in him: every man, whilst he retains possession of that, is powerless to indite a verse or chant an oracle. Seeing then that it is not by art that they compose and utter so many fine things about the deeds of men--
Demosthenes Against Midias describes what the clergy tried to excite Jesus to do:
"[21.52] Please take and read the actual oracles. Oracles You I address, Pandion's townsmen and sons of Erechtheus,
who appoint your feasts by the ancient rites of your fathers.
See you forget not Bacchus, and joining all in the dances Down your broad-spaced streets, in thanks for the gifts of the season, Crown each head with a wreath, while incense reeks on the altars. For health sacrifice and pray to Zeus Most High, to Heracles, and to Apollo the Protector; for good fortune to Apollo, god of the streets, to Leto, and to Artemis; and along the streets set wine-bowls and dances, and wear garlands after the manner of your fathers in honor of all gods and all goddesses of Olympus, raising right hands and left in supplication."
(Note: the evidence is clear that the Jewish clergy, practicing pagan rites, was sacrificing one person so that the whole nation did not have to suffer. While Christ was performing true sacrifice, the clergy was imitating the rituals of Dionysus. Thus, the music, dancing and hand-raising. For a few years they probably thought that their pagan sacrifice had worked. Surrounded by errected Asherah Poles, Jubilee 98 with singing, instrumental music and hand-raising somehow excluded the words of Christ.)
Herodotus Histories 1.155.4 descibes how to take the fight out of warriors:
"But pardon the Lydians, and give them this command so that they not revolt or pose a danger to you: send and forbid them to possess weapons of war, and
order them to wear tunics under their cloaks and knee-boots on their feet, and to teach their sons lyre-playing and song and dance and shop-keeping.
And quickly, O king, you shall see them become women instead of men, so that you need not fear them, that they might revolt."
Note: He is not talking about just any merchant. In ancient Rome as the city got too crowded for everyone to grow their own food and produce their own needs, both men and women became merchants; when they ran out of food or other product they would "sell themselves." Not unexpected, people who learn how to sell themselves don't need to be productive. Paul warned about these men who were talented at creeping into the houses of silly women.
Oh yes, when the worship is performed for the watching audience and loud preaching or singing or dancing or playing instruments, you can bet that you are being emasculated so that you don't ask too many questions such as: "But, didn't Jesus say?" The message is clear: "If you cannot be lulled then you cannot be loved and be a happy camper in our play groves."
Randall Bane When we hear these new and unique "paradigms" we can bet our life that it has been lifted from some one trying to restore ancient Jubilees and other rituals practiced after the people lost the Book of the Covenant and were given the Book of the Law including the priests and Levites to keep the people away from God's Holy presence. Therefore, when we see a priest or a restored, civil Levitical Praise Team we can know that someone has fallen from grace and may be beyond redemption. Whence the paradigm?Randall Bane is, like Joseph Campbell, a fan of restoring ancient Judaism to worship. The belief is that these ancient patterns carry a form of spiritual power now lost to the "civilized" worship service:
"In the daytime and evening courses a one hour teaching time was included with qualified speakers addressing a variety of subjects such as "Why Christians Celebrate Jewish Feasts (i.e. Jubilee)", "The Deep Foundations of the Church" and "Restoring the Tabernacle of David". The remainder of time was spent in expressive worship using music, dance, banners (can be idols), flags and a variety of other means of expression from formal processions to the quiet reading of psalms. Each course began and ended with a time of prayer. The blessing of God was with us from beginning to end. Randall Bane
"I believe that we're encouraged to use various forms of art in our worship to God." Bane says, "We often forget the variety of worship that was used in many different places in the Bible. We should be able to use all our senses not just be limited to hearing good music."
"Bane uses banners, silks, pageantry, several kinds of dance, music and various art forms to bring scripture and song to light. "We like to affect all the senses as we encourage everyone to express themselves to God with their whole heart," he explained. "Many people say it's the first time they've been able to truly abandon themselves to worship God freely." Click Here (Note: Paul called the result of singing and speaking as madness: being beside themselves.)
Remember what Dr. Shelly said?
"Plato observed that the idea of God is too big for the human mind to wrap around. Precisely! And thus is born the attitude from which worship springs.
No. Jesus said that Worship is in spirit (mind) and in truth from the "not-lost" Word of God which the lowliest member can read as a priest of God. They do not need to qualify someone to "go across the sea" (Egypt or Babylon) to get a worship scheme and impose it upon the non-priestly audience. Did you know that in Hittite and other forms of musical worship, the team was usually composed of "foreign women."
Poles, columns or even steeples are phallic symbols. They say that the owner is superior to all others. He ususally uses slave labor living in huts to burn his bricks and errect his columns. In reality, they are a huge sign of an inferiority complex. A true, secure person does not need to flaunt their wealth to "rule over" others out growing the cotton as the true power product.
Did we see the Asherah poles erected at Jubilee 98? Didn't we see the men "dancing", prancing, and waving hands at Jubilee 98? Didn't we hear the wind instruments and the little tabrets or drums at Jubilee 98? Remember that we began by reminding that the first Seeker Dance was recorded by Joshua. Of this dance:
"It was probably usual to welcome a king or general with music and dancing...The distinctly religious dance is more frequently mentioned. The clear instances of it in the Bible are the dance of the women of Israel at the Red Sea, headed by Miriam with her tambourine (Ex 15:20); the dance of the Israelites round the golden calf (32:19); the dance of the maidens of Shiloah at the annual feast (Jgs 21:19 ff); the leaping or limping of the prophets of Baal round their altar on Carmel (1 K 18:26); and the dancing of David in front of the ark (2 S 6:14-16) (Int. Std. Bible Ency., p. 1169-70).
"This membranophone, translated in the AV as 'timbrel' and 'tabret,' was not permitted in the Temple, although it was mentioned in the Psalter and in religious hymns" (Ps 150:4; Jer. 31:4) Harrison, Into to OT, p. 988).
Of the tambourine or tabret, Smith's Bible Dictionary notes that&emdash;
"It was used in very early times by the Syrians of Padan-aram at their merry-making (Gen. 31:27). It was played principally by women (Ex. 15:20); Judg. 11:34; 1 Sam. 18:6; Psa lxvii:25 as an accompaniment to the song and dance, and appears to have been worn by them as an ornament (Jer. 31:4)... It is beat with the fingers, and is the Trye tympanum of the ancients,
as appears from its figure in several relieves, representing the orgies of Bacchus and rites of Cybele." (Smiths Bible Dictionary, Timbrel)
The worship of Bacchus or Dionysus was practiced in the Jerusalem temple and the clergy hoped that John wore "soft" clothing of a catamite or male homosexual and that jesus would sing the Dionysian lament and join the others in a choral dance. This was an attempt to "triumph over" Jesus as prophesied in Psalm 41 of Judas and explained in the Dead Sea Scroll translation as a warrior's musical attack.
Therefore,
"Do not keep company with a dancing-girl, or you may be caught by her tricks." ( Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 9:4)
Turn away your eyes from a shapely woman, and do not look intently at beauty belonging to another;
many have been misled by a woman's beauty, and by it passion is kindled like a fire. 9:8
Women who "stand over" a man are not "sedentary" and are therefore putting themselves on display. The authority Paul prohibited was, among the Greeks, sexual power. It is doubly obscene for men to try to exercise this sexual authority. There would be no display without looks and "talent." Therefore, it is a lead-pipe conclusion that men will not be seeing Christ or the dancing-team as God's landing pad. Indeed, can there be any other motive since there is no Scriptural warrant for it and there is a historical certainty that it will take people's eyes off Jesus. The ancients always warned, in our words, "If you believe that you are dancing to the True Spirit, don't be surprised if those landing on your pad are evil spirits."
Isn't it too bad that Jesus Christ, fully God the Spirit, could not do what the modern book writers can do?
Speaking for the Word we say that the eternal conflict between God and paganism has been the Word of God and "spirit" or mind worship, as opposed to feelings, feelings, feelings! It is between the water of the Word and new wine from new wineskins! The joy of worship is equated to spiritual drunkeness where one imagines himself "knowing God personally" - sexually - wrapped in His arms. That was the goal of pagan music and dance. The "feelings" were caused by the creation of endorphins (morphine-like) and not by God Who is pure or Holy Spirit without human body parts. The human image of God is the despised and rejected Jesus, and no one in their right mind would dare try to dance with Jesus. Just try it!
Israel dared to dance with God at the foot Mount Sinai but they woke up in the arms of Apis, the Egyptian bull calf - bull-necked and potent. As a result, God took away the Book of the Covenant and gave them The book of the Law.
David dared to dance with God while moving the Ark from God's presence to Jerusalem where the musical Levites would usurp priestly duties. He lost His clothes and his wife while "making himself vile" to be admired by the camp followers -- at least.
The Jews dared to dance with God-in-the-flesh and He identified them as "children playing musical games" and gave us permission to call no man your teacher because our Teacher is in heaven and earth and filling the whole universe. Besides, He said, "doctors of the law take away the key to knowledge.
Any kind of ritual which appeals to the human senses is a form of ceremonial legalism. Those experiencing lostness, like David and perhaps Jeff, cry out to God not to take His Spirit (life) from them. It is tempting to believe, along with the pagans, that we can make people better or pay our legal debt to God by dancing. David understood this ceremonial legalism:
Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp. Psalm 149:3
For the Lord taketh pleasure (be pleased to satisfy a debt, reconcile) in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation. Psalm 149:4
Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand Psalm 149:6
Did you know that the word for instrument and weapon are often the same in Hebrew?
To understand how people can get themselves into such a disconnected state with God we need to look at several examples of worship in spirit which has little to do with external rituals.
Kenneth Sublett Part One --- Part Three Counter added 12.07.04 p 5.31.13 10000
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