Prophesying women in worship, laughing revival,
speaking in tongues and musical worship teams are promoted as tools
of evangelism. Corinth is the approved example. However, Paul
understood the pagan views of a budding gnosticism and denounced any
form of out of your mind madness as proof of moving into the presence
of God. The "Big Lie"
was simple -- tell the biggest, most outrageous lie; tell it often
enough; tell it loudly enough -- and eventually people will believe
it. Joseph Paul Goebbels
just repeating Adolph Hitler
"Order for some is
control. [Some say,] 'The meeting is out of order,' meaning, 'I
cannot control the meeting anymore. I'm not the head honcho in this
service anymore. Someone bigger than me has come into the service and
caused a disruption,
taken away the
attention from me, and
I don't like it and I want order back in the service so that people
will look at
me rather than what God
is doing.'
"I remember one service where I
just went and sat down for an hour and a half. I just went and sat
down. Well, there was nothing else I could do. Total pandemonium -
people falling off of
their chairs, people
crying, people
laughing and some were
wailing - some were shaking. So, I just said to the people, I said,
'Look, just come up when you're ready and lift your hands and God will touch
you.' I was sitting on
the platform - just sat there and watched them for about an hour and
a half. People came right up, got to the front, lifted their hands -
BAM! - on the floor. I just sat there. I didn't even pray. You say,
'What'd you do?' I just sat there and twiddled my thumbs. I thought,
'Lord, I wish every meeting was as easy as this.' Now I had preached
the word already and taught the word of God, and then I went and sat
down. And they came walking up, got to the front, lifted their hands - BAM! - under the power of God"(11)
What has happened is that, like
Pavlov's dogs, the "audience" has been taken over by an evil spirit.
When they see the "person" who is supposed to lead them into
laughing, they just lift their hands - BAM!
Power breeds corruption and
nothing is more corrupting than a little dose of worldly success. The
power to see "godliness as a means of financial gain" is perhaps the
most corrupting. Popularity and the applause of men has led faithful
men to claim for their books and methods the same place the Holy
Spirit claims for the Words of Christ.
Music, prophesying and speaking
in tongues in Corinth can be understood by knowing a little bit of
what always happened in the ancient world when charismatic men found
that they could make "tag alongs" of women and some men by inducing
them to speak in tongues or prophesying where prophesying was often
singing their own revelation and using musical instruments to give
their words more power.
People do not naturally fall
into speaking gibberish or laughing out of control unless they have
been hypnotized by a mind manipulater (call him preacher) who holds
expensive meetings to slowly introduce you into bodily (carnal) acts
which can be interpreted as spiritual and give the manipulator power
over you. It has been noted that this is a real "love affair" so that
you wander from sea to sea just to hear them make pronouncements and
gain more power. It has also been true that when you "fall out" with
the preacher-soothsayer you loose the power.
Jubilee 98, for instance,
estimated spending 1/4 of a million dollars to call the wanderers
into assembly. Musical worship teams, instrumental music, lifting
holy hands and laying on of hands were introduced with a vengeance.
Ordinarily the 1500 people assembled would feel no impulse to "lift
holy hands" at anything Mike Cope said or the musical worship team
sang. Therefore, Mike introduced the people to lifting holy hands
(overhead as in effeminate-not feminine). Most were coerced by the
example of the manipulator and were subconsciously threatened with
embarasssment if they did not lift up and lay on hands. Of course,
the promise was that next time it will be easier. But we ask why?
Isn't this ceremonial legalism trying to disfellowship those who
disagree and build a new system leading to charismatic breakdowns?
What if - and it will happen - someone begins to speak in tongues
while all of the mind-altering tools are at work (weapons are
instruments)? Won't this give the manipulator more power for the next
convocation?
To their credit, most church
members come out of a higher educated group and don't easily get
suckered into having their minds bent out of shape.
Others just get sick at their
stomachs and refuse to be manipulated. Click
Here for the review
of a young Christian looking for meat.
Irenaeus, and most early
writers, show how this mind manipulation is done and undoubtedly was
being done in Corinth where Paul condemned "out of assembly"
prophesying and outlawed it in the assembly (1 Cor 11:14f). These
manipulators in Corinth and later always believed that they had
improved upon the master. Songs and sermons always prove it!
Irenaeus: Against Heresies (120-203 AD)
CHAP. XIII.--THE DECEITFUL
ARTS AND NEFARIOUS PRACTICES OF MARCUS.
I. But there is another among
these heretics, Marcus
by name, who boasts himself as having improved upon his master. He is
a perfect adept in magical impostures, and by this means drawing away a great number of
men, and not a few
women, he has induced
them to join themselves to him, as to one who is possessed of the greatest knowledge and
perfection, and who has received the highest power from the invisible
and ineffable regions above. Thus it appears
as if he really
were the precursor of Antichrist. For, joining
the buffooneries of Anaxilaus
to the craftiness of
the magi, as they are
called, he is regarded by his senseless and cracked-brain followers as working miracles by these
means.
(Note: Paul spoke of
buffoneries in Ephesians 4 before he demanded internal melody as they
spoke the Words of Christ or "Spirit" to one another.)
Joseph
Campbell says that
terms like "wine" or "wineskins" are affect images or secret
change-agent words which have, among the simple-minded, the power of
actual wine. Wine is dead but is still the image of exhilarating
worship rituals. Long speeches and extended meetings have the same
power to alter consciousness.)
Theatrical
performances are also
events that can be used to secure blessings and happiness; the element of recreation is indissolubly blended
with edification and spiritual elevation. The structure and character of drama ... reveals its origin and function:
it developed from
the last part of a magico-religious ceremony, which survives as a ritual introduction, and begins and closes with
benedictions. Drama is produced for festive occasions with a view to spiritual and religious success
(siddhi),
which must also be prompted by
appropriate behaviour from the spectators; there must be a happy ending; the themes are borrowed from epic and legendary
history; the development and unraveling of the plot are retarded; and
the envy of malign influences is averted by the almost obligatory
buffoon (jokes soffen them up just like music)
2. Pretending (4) to consecrate
cups mixed with wine, and
protracting to
great length the word of invocation,
he contrives to give them a purple and reddish colour (new
wine)
so that
Charis (Note: code
word for grace only and Charismatic meaning
perverted), (5)
who is one of those that are superior to all things,
should be thought to drop her
own blood into that cup through means of his invocation, and that
thus those who are present should be led to rejoice to taste of that cup, in order that, by so doing,
the Charis, who is set forth by this magician, may also flow into them.
Again, handing mixed cups to
the women, he bids them consecrate these in
his presence. When this has been done, he himself produces another
cup of much larger size than that which the deluded woman has consecrated,) and pouring from the
smaller one consecrated by the woman into that which has been brought
forward by himself, he at the same time pronounces these words:
"May that Chaffs
who is before all things, and who transcends all knowledge and
speech, fill thine inner man, and multiply in thee her own knowledge,
by sowing the grain
of mustard seed in thee as in good soil."
(Note: The mind manipulators
takes the old wine of the gospel and kingdom, which Jesus never
allowed to ferment, and using hot air, blow it up so that the old
wineskin will no longer hold it.
The new wine must be consecrated by his women disciples because
real men won't do
it.
See the magic? Our new paradigm
is so much greater than the old pattern of our lost, decadent and
destructive churches that we must have a new wineskin to hold the new
wine expanded by our magic. Some teams "plow the ground" so that the
seed of Christ will sprout!"
Eliphaz said that what happens
at Jubilee 98 and celebrative, seeker forms of preaching and music
actually prevents "the worshipers from coming into the presence of
God." This does not keep the new wineskins called The Family of God from directly violating the wisdom
of Eliphaz to do what Ireneaus condemned:
Should a wise man utter (scholars singing together responsively)
vain (angry, grieved) knowledge (ignorance), and fill his
belly (hollow self) with the east (to project self as in halal) wind? Job 15:2 (The "east" or "from old" is the spirit of
Babylon)
Should he reason
with unprofitable (not ministering) talk? or with speeches
(self-composed discourses) wherewith he can do no good? Job 15:3
Yea, thou castest (frustrate)
off fear (reverence) , and restrainest (other's) prayer before
(presence of) God. Job 15:4
For thy
mouth uttereth (is associated with) thine
iniquity, and thou choosest the tongue of the crafty (smooth tongued and cunning). Job 15:5
The law of truth was in his
mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in
peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity.
Mal.2:6)
Repeating certain other like
words, and
thus
goading on the wretched woman [to madness],
he then appears a worker of wonders when the large cup is seen to
have been filled out of the small one,
so as even to overflow by what has been obtained from it. By
accomplishing several other similar things,
he has completely deceived many, and drawn them away after him.
We might allegorize
him to agree with the Scripture that they claim to take the "tiny"
resouce of and transform it into a "bigger and more powerfult" song,
sermon or instrumental performance to completely deceive many and
draw them away after him.
3. It appears probable enough
that this man possesses a demon
as his familiar spirit, by means of whom he seems able to
prophesy, and also
enables as many as
he counts worthy to be partakers of his Charis themselves to
prophesy.
He devotes himself especially to women, and those such as are well-bred, and
elegantly attired, and of great wealth,
........... whom he frequently seeks to draw after
him,
........... by addressing them in such seductive
words as these:
"I am eager to make thee a
partaker of my
Charis(ma), since the
Father of all doth continually behold thy angel before His face.
........... Now the place of thy angel is among us:
(7) it behoves us to become one.
Receive first
from me and by me
[the gift of] Chaffs. Adorn thyself as a bride
who is expecting her
bridegroom, that thou
mayest be what I am, and I what thou art. Establish the germ of light
in thy nuptial chamber.
Receive from me a
spouse, and become
receptive of him, while
thou art received by him.
Behold Charis
has descended upon thee;
open thy mouth and
prophesy." (sing their
own songs, dance and play)
On the woman replying," I
have never at any time
prophesied,
nor do I know how to
prophesy;"
then engaging, for
the second time, in certain invocations, so as to astound his deluded
victim, he says to her,"
Open thy mouth, speak
whatsoever occurs to thee, and thou shalt prophesy.
"She then, vainly
puffed up and elated by these words, and greatly excited in soul by
the expectation that it is herself who is to prophesy,
her heart
beating
violently [from
emotion], reaches the requisite pitch of audacity,
and idly as well as impudently
utters some
nonsense as it happens
to occur to her, such as might be expected from one heated by an empty
spirit. (Referring to
this, one superior to me has observed, that the soul is both
audacious and impudent when heated with empty air.)
Henceforth she reckons herself
a prophetess, and expresses her thanks to Marcus for having
imparted to her of his own Chaffs.
She then makes the
effort to reward him, not only by the gift of her possessions (in
which way he has collected a very large fortune),
but also by
yielding up to him her
person, desiring in
every way to be united to him, that she may become altogether one
with him.
(Note: Of the Worship
Faciliation Minister: Facilitation meaning 2. Psychologically
increased ease of performance of any action resulting from the
lessening of nerve resistance by the continued successive application
of the necessary
stimulation."
(Webster).
4. But already some of the most
faithful women, possessed of the fear of God, and
not being deceived
(whom, nevertheless, he did his best to seduce like the rest by
bidding them prophesy),
........... abhorring and execrating him, have
withdrawn from such a
........... vile company of revellers.
This they have done, as being
well aware that
the gift of
prophecy is not conferred on men by Marcus, the magician, but that only those to whom God sends His grace
from above possess the divinely-bestowed power of prophesying; and
then they speak
where and when God pleases, and not when Marcus
orders them to do so.
For that which commands is
greater and of higher authority than that which is commanded,
inasmuch as the former rules, while the latter is in a state of
subjection.
Note: "the writer
of comedy, expressing his dissatisfaction with the common usages,
tries to expose the impious arrogance of the pravailing error in the
drama of the Priestess, sagely declaring:
- 'If a man drags the
Deity
- Whither he will by the
sound of cymbals,
- He that does this is
greater than the Deity;
But these are the
instruments of
audacity and
means of living Invented by men. (Tertullian, Exhortation to the Heathen,
Ante-Nicene, II, p. 193).
If, then, Marcus, or any one
else, does command,--as these are accustomed continually at their
feasts to
play at drawing lots,
and [in accordance with the lot]
to command one another to prophesy,
giving forth as
oracles what is in harmony with their own desires,--
it will follow that he who commands is greater and of higher authority than the prophetic spirit, though he is
but a man, which is impossible.
But such spirits as are
commanded by these men, and speak when they desire it, are earthly
and weak, audacious and impudent, sent forth by Satan for the seduction and perdition of those who do not
hold fast that well- compacted faith which they received at first
through the Church.
5. Moreover, that this Marcus
compounds philters (charm to arouse sexual love as in Asherah poles) and love-potions,
in order to
insult the
persons of some of
these women, if not of all, those of them who have returned to the
Church of
God--a thing which
frequently occurs--have acknowledged, confessing, too, that they have
been defiled by him,
........... and that they were filled with a burning
passion towards him.
A sad example of this occurred
in the case of a certain Asiatic, one of our deacons, who had
received him (Marcus) into his house.
His wife, a woman
of remarkable beauty, fell a victim both in mind and body to this
magician, and, for a long time,
........... travelled about with him.
At last, when, with no small
difficulty, the brethren had converted her, she spent her whole time
in the exercise of public confession, (1) weeping over and lamenting the defilement which
she had received from this magician.
6. Some of his disciples, too,
addicting themselves (2) to the same practices, have deceived many silly
women, and defiled
them. They proclaim themselves as being "perfect,"
so that no one can
be compared to them with respect to the immensity of their knowledge, nor even were you to mention Paul or
Peter, or any other of the apostles.
They assert that
they themselves know more than all others, and that they alone have
imbibed the greatness of the knowledge of that power which is
unspeakable.
They also maintain that they
have attained to a height above all power, and that therefore they are free in every respect to act as they please, having no
one to fear in anything. (See the
Second Incarnation greater than that of Jesus)
For they affirm, that because
of the "Redemption" (3) it has come to pass that they can neither be
apprehended, nor even seen by the judge.
But even if he should happen to
lay hold upon them, then they might simply repeat these words, while
standing in his presence along with the "Redemption:"
"O thou, who
sittest beside God, (4) and the mystical, eternal Sige, thou through whom the angels (mightiness), who
continually behold the face of the Father, having thee as their guide
and introducer, do derive their forms (5) from above, which she in
the greatness of her daring inspiring with mind on account of the
goodness of the Propator, produced us as their images, having her
mind then intent upon the things above, as in a dream,--behold, the
judge is at hand, and the crier orders me to make my defence. But do
thou, as being acquainted with the affairs of both, present the cause
of both of us to the judge, inasmuch as it is in reality but one
cause." (6) Now, as soon as the Mother hears these words, she puts
the Homeric (7) helmet of Pluto upon them, so that they may invisibly
escape the judge. And then she immediately catches them up, conducts
them into the bridal chamber, and hands them over to their
consorts.
(Note: if we ridicule the
oponent and stand very still, God will not see us and judge us).
7. Such are the words and deeds
by which, in our own district of the Rhone,
they have
deluded many
women,
who have their consciences seared as with a hot iron.
Some of them, indeed, make a
public confession of their sins; but others of them are ashamed to do
this,
and in a tacit kind of way,
despairing of [attaining to] the life of God, have, some of
them, apostatized
altogether; while
others hesitate between the two courses, and incur that which is
implied in the proverb, "neither without nor within;" possessing this
as the fruit from the seed of the children of knowledge.
CHAP. XVI.--ABSURD
INTERPRETATIONS OF THE MARCOSIANS.
3. I well know, my dear friend,
that when thou hast read through all this, thou wilt indulge in a
hearty
laugh over this their
inflated wise folly! But those men are really worthy of being mourned
over, who promulgate such a kind of religion, and
who so frigidly and
perversely pull to pieces the greatness of the truly unspeakable
power, and the dispensations of God in themselves so striking,
........... by means of Alpha and Beta
(magical
songs),
........... and through the aid of numbers
(magical incantations or
songs).
But as many as separate from
the Church, and give heed to such old wives' fables as these, are truly self-condemned; and these men
Paul commands us, "after a first and second admonition, to avoid."
(8) And John, the disciple of the Lord, has intensified their
condemnation, when he desires us not even to address to them the
salutation of "good-speed;" for, says he, "He that bids them be of
good-speed is a partaker with their evil deeds;"(1) and that with
reason, "for there is no good-speed to the ungodly,"(2) saith the
Lord. Impious indeed, beyond all impiety, are these men, who assert
that the Maker of heaven and earth, the only God Almighty, besides
whom there is no God, was produced by means of a defect, which itself
sprang from another defect, so that, according to them, He was the
product of the third defect.
Click for Paul's Comments to Timothy and Titus about
lifting holy hands.
(3) Such an opinion we should
detest and execrate, while we ought everywhere to flee far apart from those that hold it; and in
proportion as they vehemently maintain and rejoice in their
fictitious
doctrines, so much the
more should we be convinced that they are under the influence of the
wicked
spirits of the
Ogdoad,--
just as those
persons who fall into a fit of frenzy,
the more they laugh,
and imagine themselves to be well,
and do all things as if they
were in good health [both of body and mind], yea, some things better
than those who really are so,
........... are only thus shown to be the more
seriously diseased.
(Note: Gnosticism
Ogdoad: The term that describes the
eight
deities (four
male-female pairs) that is associated with Hermopolis, who symbolize
the state of the world before creation. The Archon of the Ogdoad imagines himself the supreme god.) (Note: The Dionysus women stood for or
mediated for the other
women)
In like manner do these men,
the more they seem to excel others in wisdom, and waste their
strength by drawing the
bow too tightly,
(4) the greater
fools do they show themselves.
For when the unclean spirit of folly has gone
forth, and when
afterwards he finds them not waiting upon God, but occupied with mere
worldly questions, then,
"taking
seven other
spirits more wicked
than himself," (Note: They do work in teams)
and inflating the minds of these men with the notion of their
being able to conceive
of something beyond God, and having fitly prepared them for the reception of
deceit,
he implants
within them the Ogdoad (team spirit) of the foolish spirits of
wickedness.
To understand why Paul
condemned these same people Click
Here for the
background to Corinth
To understand why these women
were silenced in Corinth Click
Here.
Against the Heresies (Ancient Christian Writers, No 55) by of Lyons,
Saint Irenaeus, Dominic J. Unger (Translator) is available through
Musical
Worship Index
Home
Page
Counter added 2.02.05 9:37p 1738
