Jack Reese, The Christian Chronicle Worship Forum Review

Kenneth Sublett, pineycom.com, Hohenwald, Tennessee

Abilene christian University BAPTISTS Studies Center.
Myles.Werntz.Ephesians.2.Salvation.by.Faith.Only
Anti-Christian Anti-Biblical - Anti-Literate : All of those OF the World, the kingdom of the Devil have fought with animal violence about HOW DO WE DO WORSHIP SERVICES.

God did not ordain a day of WORSHIP but Sabbath means REST and rest from any and all pagans who profiter by performing worship services for the paying customers.  God blushes at the IMPOSED ignorance of any person who rides the backs of widows and the poor for anyting beyond.

John 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the TRUE
        worshippers
        4353. proskunetes, pros-koo-nay-tace´; from 4352; an adorer: — worshipper.
shall worship the Father
        IN SPIRIT and   [Spirit is a PLACE opposite of Jerusalem or Gerezim]
        in TRUTH:  [WORD, Logos, Regulative Principle]
        for the Father seeketh such to worship him

Acts.17.25.God.Not.Worshipped.Mens.Hands.html

Those who hear A spirit tell them to sow massive discord and steal congregations and whole universities are not MEN.  Dust means "aborigine" and Jesus says that they are from BENEATHor Tartarus.

Rom. 1:8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all,
        that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.
Rom. 1:9 For God is my witness,
        WHOM I SERVE WITH MY SPIRIT
              in the GOSPEL of his Son,
              that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;

Acts 8:25 And they, when they had testified and
        PREACHED the WORD of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem,
        and PREACHED the GOSPEL in many villages of the Samaritans.
 Col. 1:5 For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven,
        whereof ye heard before
        in the WORD of the TRUTH of the GOSPEL

  Rom. 7:6 But now we are delivered from the LAW,
            that being dead wherein we were held;  that we
                    Should SERVE in NEWNESS of SPIRIT,
                    and not in the oldness of the letter.

http://www.pineycom.com/WorshipReese.html
Jeanene.Reese.LGBT.MUST.be.Included.html
Jeanene.P.Reese.Theology.of.Women.Teachers.html

PAUL SILENCED WOMEN BECAUSE THE MOTHER GODDESS SAYS THAT "TRUTH ORIGINATED WITH THEM.

ACU Baptist Dogma? We believe that salvation is a GIFT of God’s grace through FAITH in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Theology, by definition, repudiate THE FAITH once delivered to the Saints.  Myles Werntz leading ACU's BAPTIST THEOLOGY quotes

THOSE ALREADY SAVED (EPHESIANS 1) ARE KEPT SAFE FROM THE PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS.

Eph. 2:8 For BY grace are ye saved THROUGH faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph. 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

For Christians who are Disciples or STUDENTS only, Ephesians 1 proves that Paul is writing to those ALREADY SAVED.

Second, no "scholar" is allowed to ask: SAVED FROM WHAT?

The first verses of Ephesians 2 shows that we are Saved From the Corruption of NOT-Christian universities.

ACU's Werntz Baptist Theology gives itself the right to Co-inspire.  Therefore, as a terminal Sin they ADD to Holy Scripture.

Christ’s death fully accomplished justification through faith [YES] and redemption from sin [NO]. Christ died in our place (Romans 5:8-9) and bore our sins in His own body (1 Peter 2:24).

Jesus died to REDEEM, PURCHASE (create) the sins of the World (Kosmos, Ecumenical, the Kingdom of Satan).  However, it is almost impossible for those OF the World to want to be saved.

JUSTIFICATION proved to the Jews that ALL people QUALIFIED. Neither Gentile Dogs nor Swine are Ceremonially IMPURE

Faith Justifies because, as in a court, it gives the Righteous Believer the "Judicial Standing" to REQUEST that they be acquitted .

1John 2:1  My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.
        And if any man sin, we have an advocate [the Paraclete] with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
1John 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only,
        but also for the sins of the whole world.

ACU Werntz: Good works and OBEDIENCE  are results of salvation, not requirements for salvation.

1John 2:3 And hereby we do know that we know him,
         if we keep his commandments.
1John 2:4 He that saith, I know him,
        and keepeth not his commandments,
        IS A LIAR and the truth is not in him.
1John 2:5 But whoso keepeth his WORD, in him verily is the love of God perfected:
        hereby know we that we are in him.

"Scholars" at ACU make a living by DEBUNKING the "Regulative Principle." They cannot be OF God.

WORD
Logos  computation, reckoning 2. statement of a theory, argument, ouk emeu alla tou l. akousantas prob. in Heraclit.50; logon ēde noēma amphis alētheiēs
        discourse and reflection on reality,
IV. inward debate of the soul, reflection, deliberation
Regulative and formative forces, derived from the intelligible and operative in the sensible universe,

Opposite to epithumia
 A. desire, yearning, longing after a thing, desire of or for it, Theaomai :--gaze at, behold, mostly with a sense of wonder, 3. view as spectators
Opposite Pathos  A. that which happens to a person or thing, incident, accident,  Moralizing Rhetoric
Opposite Poiein to excite passion, Arist.Rh.1418a12; V. Rhet., emotional style or treatment,
Opposite Enthousi-astikos , ē, on, A. inspired, “phusis” Pl.Ti.71e; esp. by music,
Prose,  OPPOSITE -poiêsis, Id.R.390a;
OPPOSITE -poiêtikê, D.H.Comp.6; OPPOSITE poiêmata, onomatopoeic word
OPPOSITE  emmetra Modus   2. The measure of tones, measure, rhythm, melody, harmony, time; in poetry, measure, metre, mode: Mūsĭcus a, um, adj., = mousikos.
X. the Word or Wisdom of God, personified as his agent in creation and world-government,

Theologians are doomed to call God a liar or INCOMPETENT.  If God had wanted any kind of music in the tuneful sense He was INTELLIGIBLE But denied by C. Leonard Allen.

mousikos kai melōn poētēs” 2. generally, votary of the Muses,  The Muses were the LOCUSTS unleashed with Apollon their "musical worship leaders." The Greek and Latin literature identifies them as dirty adulteresses

http://www.pineycom.com/DocHesTheog.html
[25] the Muses of Olympus, daughters of Zeus who holds the aegis: “Shepherds of the wilderness,
        wretched things of shame, mere bellies,
        we know how to speak many false things as though they were true;
        but we know, when we will, to utter true things.”
               and they bade me sing of the race of the blessed gods that are eternally,
                but ever to sing of themselves both first and last.
pharma^kon 3. enchanted potion, philtre: hence, charm, spell, Od.4.220 sq., Ar.Pl.302, [Circe, Church, Corinth mother of harlots]  Theoc.2.15

The singers [Muses], instrument players and craftsmen as sorcerers in Revelation 18.

1John 5:19 And we know that we WE OF God, and the whole WORLD lieth in wickedness. 

ACU Werntz: We believe salvation is received by grace ALONE, through faith ALONE, in Christ ALONE.

ACU Werntz: Good works and OBEDIENCE  are results of salvation, not requirements for salvation.

Jesus in the STATE of Holy Spirit guided Paul to say:

Rom. 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ
        were baptized into his death?

THE Form, Tupos or Pattern to be imitated.

Rom. 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death:
        that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father,
        even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Rom. 6:5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death,
        we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
Rom. 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him,
         THAT the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

Rom. 6:15 What then? shall we sin,
        because we are not under the LAW,
        BUT under GRACE? God forbid.

A CHRISTIAN-DISCIPLE-STUDENT cannot miss the fact that Faith, Grace etc speak of the NEW COVENANT where BAPTISM SAVES

Rom. 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye YIELD yourselves servants to OBEY,
        his servants ye are to whom ye OBEY; whether of sin unto death, or of OBEDIENCE unto righteousness?
Rom. 6:17 But God be thanked, that ye WERE the servants of sin,
        BUT ye have OBEYED from the heart that FORM of doctrine which was delivered you.
Rom. 6:18 BEING THEN made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

The Death, Burial, Resurrection or INspirited was a FORM or g5179.  tupos, i.e. a model for IMITATION, PATTERN

Dr. Jack Reese, dean of the College of Biblical Studies, A.C.U, offers an apology for many ICOC detractors' use of the "cult" label. At the same time we see the RISE of mind control: Max Lucado Discipling Minister----Promise Keepers Shepherding----Lynn Anderson Discipling from P.K., ---- Rubel Shelly "community interpretation" not for "individuals." [Are UNITY meetings just shams?]

Terry Rush 'we are wrong about instrumental music.'
Unfortunately our "colleges" have left our preachers thread bare about the music issue beginning in the garden.

Mark Henderson falls prey to Christian church "unity"
Rick Atchley: Justification for sowing discord at Richland Hills.  Part One review of "foundation

See Jack Reese on Taize Worship

Jack Reese in The Christian Chronicle : Are women in public worship, fermented wine, praise services with instrumental music, solos and choruses not fundamental issues? An issue such as instrumental attempts to worship God is never an issue for debate until people use huge machinery such as the Jubilee and sister-religious festivals around the country to deliberately try praxis as a way to acclimate people to women's worship teams, instrumental music, raising holy hands, laying on of hands, ridiculing the legalists and trying to wash away baptism. Then, when people refuse to navigate the winds of change but resist them as Paul taught in Ephesians 4 and plow straight ahead or get out of the wind, they are charged with "sowing discord" and with attempting to destroy the brotherhood (being fratricidal.)

If you get nothing else please grasp that not among the Jews nor in the most vile pagan temples did the musicians enter into the Holy Places. Among the Jews, the Holy Place is a carnal type of the spiritual body of Christ. No Levitical musician could enter into this type of the church of Christ even to clean out the garbage.

The temple musicians in a "religious sense" (grouped with prostitutes in pagan religions) were in the court making a loud mocking noise during the sacrifice and burning of animals. Their service, under the KING and COMMANDERS of the ARMY is defined as HARD BONDAGE: a word much like Abaddon in the book of Revelation.

In fulfilment of the prophetic type in Psalm 41 and fulfilled in the Dead Sea Scroll translation, Judas and the military musicians would attempt to turn Jesus into a coward. Click for some examples.

When people see "Godliness as a means of financial gain" they see "ministry" as an occupation like plumber or psychologist. Lindy Adams interviews Jeanene Reese and we can see that when "schools" are set up to manufacture preachers it inevitably falls under the charm of the world to see ministry as "office on the good Ship Synagogue" or church. While we believe that the "doctors of the law" can be sincere, Jesus fired them out of the church because it is virtually impossible to "Seminary" an honest Bible Student without turning him away from that which you charge too much to train him for.

Why Males in the Post-Biblical Effeminate Church are Disguised as Empty Pews or Hostile Masculines: it Will Get Worse! "Of the Effeminate Willow-Creek "Holy Entertainment" System: "The cost of this approach is hard work and loads of strife with church insiders." Christianity Today

Giving Heed to the Word was the principle "act" of worship in the Christian Synagogue. "Preaching" Narrative Theology of cut-N-paste sermons was never an act of worship. Thomas Campbell and most older scholars define how the Word is the "Truth" of worship "in spirit" or in the mind which is the only kind and place God even bothers to look for. Outrageious Biblical illiteracy "among the scholars" is explained by Paul's teaching that "fools love to be fooled." Read how two people had to abandon churches built around pagan entertainment in order to discover the Word. Click and go down to where The Devil is Laughing to see how he and the watching world is not laughing WITH the new for-hire Bible Repudiators but laughing AT them and their followers just as the Israelites became a LAUGHINGSTOCK with their musical idolatry at Mount Sinai (Now the SCHOLAR'S pattern for worship and community.)

We have added some notes BELOW to FERMENTED WINE as an optional issue: Click Here.

And slandering Jesus by accusing Him of being a wine drinker and wholesale manufacturer: Rubel Shelly.

The brotherhood has been so tenderized that I cannot even make that statement of opinion without being a legalist and sowing discord. If they sowed thistles in my garden and I came along and picked up the seed and planted turnips I would be sowing the seed of discord. So, get used to it until the Yo-yos swing like a pendulum having run out their string. This, too, will pass.

As children, we always just hated it when we had a master plan for capturing "Flat top" and the other kids wouldn't let us be Dick Tracy. However, as grown ups we understand that those who try to combine the wrong elements from our chemistry set are responsible for the explosion. And yet, we get charged with guilt because we kept yelling, Stop.

The Christian Chronicle recently cast doubt upon our clinging to the name church of Christ. However, a reader responded with some history 101aaa and we have added it (without authority) to our research for a Catholic or universal meaning. Click Here to see that this is the historical name of the church.

Clifton Yeager, Huber Heights, Ohio responded to the Christian Chronicle "Restoration 21" series. But don't look for any of the conservative crowd here.

"Over the last several years, many people in our congregations are choosing one of two different paths. On one hand, more and more of our children, and not a few of their parents, are leaving Churches of Christ and the values and practices of the Stone-Campbell heritage, a development that troubles us. Since many of us no longer believe that only members of Churches of Christ can be saved, exclusive loyalty to our own fellowship is in decline. With that, of course, comes the loss of some unique things that our churches have long stood for."

We suggest that the old dividers who decided that others could not go to heaven have now used the same judgmentalism to declare that they can go to heaven. By what right does this God-like interrogation begin in the first place? Didn't Jesus demand that those needing support "go into all the world and preach the gospel" and not stir up stinks about issues which seem to insist that the church of Christ is a "big ugly denomination" needing the medical attention of doctors of the law.

We suggest that judgmentalism begins with professional religionists feeling some need to protect turf and not form the lowly members.

We also uggest also that members have not left but been driven away by people who take the pay but do not believe what they are preaching. Thus, in my memory of the last 30 years, there has been a drum beat by expansive preachers and book sellers and lecuture peddlers to belittle the church of Christ. It is sectarian, mean spirited and Pharisaical, they say, because we continue to believe that instrumental music is wrong when the Denominationally-educated pastors don't have a clue about the Biblical teaching against music or the 2,000 year anti-music or other mechanical efforts to worship God. They leave because the same ignorance declares that baptism is no longer required.

They leave because "the lecture is the least effective way to communicate" and they just refuse to support fill in the blanks sermons which will leave a 20 year audience brain-drained and biblically illiterate. They can now, free of charge, get the resources not even available to the doctors of the law. TV is much better entertainment than theatrically performed sermons or the slap in the face of musical worship teams pretending to mediate for the audience.

Now, they are like the mechanic who broke my wife's Jeep's heater: "I will fix it for $300.00." That which the "scholars" have wrecked they now presume to fix. How about just butting out and finding another "profession" rather than "seeing godliness as a means of financial gain."

The article also suggests, as usual, that churches of Christ caused the split. Our article shows that prior Disciple census effort alerted the Census Bureau to the fact that they were counting non-society and non-instrumental churches as their own. The division had taken place long before.

The Christian Chronicle for 20 December 2000 shows the distribution of churches of Christ. It absolutely suggests that church growth ceased because the church coming under the dominant pastor system refused to obey the Great Commission. Therefore, it feeds on itself and totally explains the division as fight over Leming-like panic when the turf gets too crowded. Preachers coming out of demoninational colleges will, without a doubt, reflect the teaching of those colleges.

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Jack Reese will be in RED, our review is primarily in BLACK and BLUE reflects many other comments.

Related Material: Dan Dozier: We need to be filled up, to be comforted, to be overwhelmed with wonder, and to be lifted up in the exhilaration of praise. Sorry, but God is pure or Holy Spirit and if you try to get too intimate you will be burned to a crisp.

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Amos meant what God told him to say:

All of the doctors of the law, even A Cappells, love to pretend that God would have been perfectly delighted with the worship of the golden calves in Israel if only they had a good mental attitude. This flies in the face of the text and numerous parallel passages and in the face of ancient and modern scholars. This is purely a preacher fallacy. Why? Perhaps because when ministries fail, music is always there to fall back on. Or perhaps they do not believe what their employers think that they believe about music.

We have added Amos notes to let heavy-weight scholars refute Jack Reese and all of those who trivialize the addition of instrumental music and choirs. This has the effect of declaring that opposition to those adding non scriptural practices is being trivial when they should be about more important things. If only the wind navigators will quit blowing hot air this might be possible.

The primary new Amos notes may be found by clicking here.

And an article on Amos Five to show that the MUSICAL WORSHIP in Israel and also Judah was the worship of Molech or Chiun (Saturn 666). Stephen says that God "turned them over to worship the STARRY HOST because of this mortal idolatry which was MUSICAL. Note that the diagram proves that the MUSICIANS for animal sacrifices were NOT in the Holy Place as a TYPE of the Church of Christ or Body of Christ. It was not to be POLLUTED by ever by either SINGERS or MUSICIANS entering. The SERVICE of the Levitical musicians "under the king and commanders of the army" was called HARD BONDAGE and they served the Priests. The priests in turn sacrificed all of those thousands of INNOCENT ANIMALS. This was a TYPE of the musical mocking the Levites would try on Jesus as they SACRIFICED him as the ONE-TIME offering which stopped all of the music which was called NOISE.

Not even in the VILEST PAGAN TEMPLE did the singers or musicians enter into the Holy Places. One exception was the Abomination of Deslolation in the Jerusalem temple where Zeus and Dionysus were worshiped with MUSIC and its eternal CO-PARTRNER: Sexuality and perverted sexuality. See Second Macc.

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Online: Part 1 of a 3-part Series on Worship

Article in The Christian Chronicle:

Jack Reese: Dean, College of Biblical Studies

Abilene Christian University

Abilene, Texas

A Baptist Pastor sees the same problem. Therefore, it is not honest to blame the world-wide discontent with institutional religion as created by "non-instrumental churches of Christ."

"I am finding myself having more and more conversations with long-time friends who are literally heart-broken over changes in their churches regarding the music. More and more churches that have had a good reputation for godly music are going off in directions that are perplexing many of the "good people" who have borne the weight of that ministry.

"In that process of change, the pastors have succeeded in greatly offending many of the faithful mainstream of workers, soul winners and teachers to the point that many of these people are considering or will soon consider changing churches

because they cannot tolerate the new direction the music has taken.

"Call this reaction prejudice, being old-fashioned, being narrow-minded, or having spiritual convictions, etc. it is time that someone considered the "good people" who are being driven from the churches they love

by people intent on making church music more acceptable to the 'lost world' or even just more 'enjoyable' for themselves.

"Church music has been rapidly changing in the majority of the churches in America. A statement was made in that between 1993 and 1996, the percentage of churches using mostly traditional music with piano and organ declined from 49 to 37 percent. And during the past five years, more churches that use mostly contemporary music (69%) experience growth than did traditional churches (47%). Christianity Today.

"Most people say that the church must be relevant and need-centered to be acceptable to today's generation. Churches are examining their programs to accommodate this new wave of "my need and of my family". "Make them feel comfortable" is the cry. "Meet them where they live." "We all must learn to like this music".

Constant with the Great American Awakenings which featured radical new styles which attracted the widest possible kinds of "seeekers" the growth peaked, fell back and in the end nothing changed but "sowing discord" by the Seeker styles of music. In the end, the "revivals" had to be ended because the booze salesmen and prostitutes were more evangelistic among the youth than the preachers. You see, you always need a bigger and bigger fix.

Citizens of Zion: The Social Origins of Camp Meeting Revivalism by Ellen Eslinger shows that the pattern of growth is not based upon human performance which ignores the narrator's teaching role in the church. After the radical changes to the churches it was recognized that this radicalism hindered the growth of the Restoration Movement.

Of the First Great American Awakening:

"The picture changes somewhat, however, if long-term trends are analyzed. Very soon after the revival the average number of admissions dropped considerably

below where they had been in the 1730s.

"While it is true that these figures do not fully reflect the formation of new "Separate" and Baptist churches, they do seem to suggest that revival did not drastically increase the total number of people actually joining the church with a profession of faith over the entire period, 1730-1750.

It seems rather to have concentrated church admissions in the years of its great impact.

It is not fair to blame non-instrumental, Bible believers for the problems the colleges have created by training PREACHERS to man secular institutions rather than to train TEACHERS to help lead the assembly. No, Jesus promised to BUILD MY EKKLESIA or SYNAGOGUE so training CHURCH administrators equips for the worship of CIRCE or KIRKE whom we worship every time we say "church" this or "church" that. Circe was the model of the holy whore who uses "phramacy" or sorcery and music to seduce members sexually. The drug high turned them into "beasts" often pigs. Circe then spent her ministry time making DUNK CAKES to feed those who had been seduced. DUNG was a very important "food" in many ancient religions. For instance, the Levitical Sounders (not musicians) were to serve the priests and not God. The priests had to endure the slaughter of innocent animals as if they were slaughtering Jesus Christ. Their world was filled with screaming animals, blood, dung and burning flesh. Because Israel's elders wanted a KING LIKE THE NATIONS God understood that it was so that they could WORSHIP LIKE THE NATIONS. Therefore, He abandoned them to kings who would destroy them.

Jesus said: "I will build my ekklesia or synagogue." The Qahal or Synagogue or church in the wilderness met only for instructions and "blowing instruments and 'making a joyful noise before the Lord'" was outlawed because it was the warrior's panic alarm (Numbers 10).

The concensus makers (now Thought Leaders) always seem surprised when the changes they have actively sought through "naviging the winds of change" actually take place. They simply cannot grasp why people who are taught about "the big ugly denomination" suddenly follow the destructive leaders. For instance, in the First Great American Awakening:

"In New England, the Great Awakening sounded the death knell for the comprehensive Puritan conception of the world.

Its immediate impact was to divide the Puritan churches into four more or less distinct groups.

However, their new-style worship was exactly like old style paganism which overwhelmed Jerusalem so that it was called "Egypt and Sodom." When the Musical Worship Team tried to conduct "funeral" for the dead girl as they would conduct weddings or religious rituals, Jesus cast them out "more or less violently" as one casts out dung.

Aristotle, Athenian Constitution

These then are the matters administered by the Council. Also ten men are elected by lot as Restorers of Temples, who draw 30 minae1 from the Receivers and repair the temples that most require it; and TEN CITY Controllers, [2]

[five of whom hold office in Peiraeus (REPLICATE city) and five in the city;

"it is they who SUPERVIZE the FLUTE-girls and HARP-girls and LYRE-girls to prevent their receiving fees of more than two drachmas,

"and if several persons want to take the SAME GIRL these officials cast lots between them and hire her out to the winner.

"And they keep watch to prevent any scavenger from DEPOSITING ODURE (dung) within a mile and a quarter of the wall;

"and they prevent the construction of buildings encroaching on and balconies overhanging the roads, of overhead conduits with an overflow into the road, and of windows opening outward on to the road;

"and they remove for BURIAL the bodies of persons who DIE on the roads, having public slaves for this service.

Skubalon (g4657) skoo'-bal-on; neut. of a presumed der. of 1519 and 2965 and 906; what is thrown to the dogs, i.e. refuse (ordure): - dung.
Kuon (g2965) koo'-ohn; a prim. word; a dog ["hound"] (lit. or fig.): - dog.

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. Mt.7:6

The work of the clergy who LADED the people down with BURDENS laded them with "spiritual anxiety created by religious rituals." This is related to the word DUNG. The rhetoricians, sophists, singers, musicians, technicians or craftsmen were members of the HYPOCRITE sect of the Jews. The are all identified in the Greek world as parasites.

Proponents of revival were known as "New Lights,"

but this broad designation covered at least two distinct groups

Jonathan Edwards represented the moderate New Lights who wished to remain within estalished Congregationalism, but who did not mute their evangelistic zeal, their renewed Calvinism, and their belief in pure churches.

"A new desire to see the churches purified of all but the elect was an ecclesiastical reflection of this more intense piety."

"To the left of these Edwardseans was a more radical camp. Many who had been quickened by revival found the established church sterile and oppressive. Such people ohen broke away to form "Separate" churches.

It is a fact that charismatics identified by "musical worship teams" leading you into the presence of God (mediators) and turning to HOLY THEATER (by and for the effeminate) have as their first task the building of a new theater as "venue for Rock and Roll" then get it paid for. The next task is to drive off the old folks or hope they die so we can get the "girls" busy performing their new "worship" to attract those brain and soul damaged by music.

Revivalistic or charismatic practices includes music. And music induces endorphins meaning morhphin-like. When you wheel off into the realm of drug-induced "worship" there is not end in sight. Those who added Cowboy Dan with his guitar will want pipes and drums, changs and booms.

And so, those who have led the church off into musical (meaning charismatic) rituals will get their due reward when some new turk leads his sheep from being skinned or fleeced to being slaughtered. As a result of the first Great Awakening:

Historian C. C. Goen has painstakingly identified 321 separations of one kind or another by these New Lights. Some of these splits were healed rapidly. Others led to the continuation of "Separate Congregational', churches. But most eventually became Baptist congregations.

Someone has tabulated at least 146 different Baptist groups still in existence and growing. And, would you believe it, among musical-charismatic churches the whine is "how do we keep our young people?"

When we substitute human poetry, often silly, sometimes heretical, and always sentimental and effeminizing, the people are, as Amos warned in chapters 5, 6 and 8 "hungering and thirsting for the Word of God." We wander from sea to sea trying to find it and cannot. As a result someone comes along with a fish hook and leads us into captivity and spiritual death.

In very undeveloped areas people eat dirt quite naturally because they do not know that they are starving for some unknown mineral. In the same way, people who are malnourished because they are not fed on the Word go looking for something without knowing why. Rather than feeding them on dirt or junk food it would be better to hand out mineral tablets and teach them the Word.

However, Jesus warned that the doctors of the law take away the key to knowledge and therefore demanded that He is our Shepherd to lead us to tall grass and the Water of the Word. At the same time, He observes silence to allow the process work.

Perhaps the young man needs to be fed from the Hand of Jesus with the Bread of Life and given the Water of the Word. However, when you feed people a "wine-like gospel" you destroy their internal "organs" and they die spiritually. God often condemns the elders of Israel because they just muddied the water after taking what they wanted.

The style of harmonizing which we do more radically than most irritates before it begins to feel spiritual. The music-induced endorphins are created to heal the wound from music and give a bit over to give us the drug high. However, in time the "fix" needs to be bigger and bigger until we cannot see or hear the word like the clergy whom Jesus dismissed by speaking parables which they couldn't grasp. Our music has been called "low level glossalalia" or just speaking in tongues and it has the same effect of creating ecstasy like mescaline or peyote.

Without knowing it, the wish for more excitement could also be satisfied if there was just one teacher who had turned to Christ and had a clear-conscience (or consciousness) or the ability to co-perceive the Mind of Christ, the Spirit of God, the words of Christ (John 6:63).

Highly charismatic and musical denominations voice the same plea on the web: "What can we do to keep our kids." The high from music cannot compete with stolen CDS as a bigger fix than most churches are willing to provide the needle for. The problem in both extremes is the same: ignoring the command to "preach or teach" with the Biblical text and hallucinating that singing is translated in the New Testament as "music." It is not.

The trauma is that newly-selected elders are being taught by Rubel Shelly and the new Wineskinners that the elders should not think that their views are more important than the concensus opinion of the flock. Once the elders have been emasculated then they are driven on the rocks by the winds of change rather than steering a straight course.

The Taliban are known as the SEEKERS. During the wars they were invited in but the 10% of the strangers took over Afghanistan. When the universities and their Thought Leaders decide that it is much easier to for a theatrical Seeker Center like that of Apollo (Abbadon, Apollyon) than to imitate Jesus and Paul and obey the evangelistic mandate. Don't be surprised that the universal law prevails: the Seekers turn your synagogue into theater for strange people believing that their well-honed "talent" replaces the Word and Christ as the One Mediator.

These wars are not breaking out: they are being provoked by a dedicated band of men whose educational experience has overrun their ability to hear the Word. And by "grouping" with denominations the effect is, like the Jubal/Genun story, we come down to the valley because of the mixed-sex choirs and instruments which are certainly better collection-plate fillers than singing the Biblical text. The worst form of proof-texting can be found in apologies for instrumental music and lying is not beyond the reach of some we know.

See our notes on those who clap at Clapp.html

Maybe it takes a Phd to NOT grasp that Paul said nothing about MUSIC. He difined "glorifying God with one mind and one voice" using "that which is WRITTEN" (Rom 15), The Spirit or Word of christ (Jn 6:63) in Ephesians 5 to TEACH and "the Word of Christ" to teach and admonish in Galatians 3. The MUSIC word is never used in the Bible of spiritual worship.

The battle lines are arranged by Satan himself: on the right we have singing secular songs and making harmony with the voice. On the left, we have instruments, clapping, raising hands, lament services, choruses and other forms of ritualistic ceremonial legalism.

In Justin's Dialog with Trypho the Jew he translates Amos:

Who applaud at the sound of the musical instruments;

they reckon them as stable, and not as fleeting.

Who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments,

but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

 

We do know that Jesus read the Septuagint which reads:

 

who excel in the sound of musical instruments;

they have regarded them as abiding, not as fleeting pleasure." Amos 6:5 LXX

The truth lies between the extremes and our Unity Forums and Thought Leaders don't have a clue to the fact that when God is in His Holy Temple (naos) He dwells in my spirit or mind (nous). Worship in spirit does not mean "lets's see how sexy we can make this theatrical performance without exceeding prayerful brinkmanship." The pagans always knew that as the only way to pay for temples.

However, "outside the camp" is lonely Jesus who did not prescribe any of these rituals. Worship is "in spirit" or in the mind or human spirit and not in the drug-induced high producing "fight, flight or sex." The church was ekklesia only in the sense of being an assembly. However, the function throughout the New Testament including with Jesus was not "pagan worship center" but synagogue. There was no ritualistic, pagan praise service in the synagogue. They met to read the Word and pray.

If anyone needed a musical, sexual fix everyone knew that they ran to the pagan temples where the musical prophesiers could fix you up jiffy quick. That is why all women in religious circles were known as "the harem of the gods."

By grouping hand clapping (contempt for the losers) and choirs (organic organ) with a modern version of the Overhead Projector this seems to be errecting a straw man. Never heard of anyone objecting to a TV set or computer as teaching aid. Wow! However, this would seem to put those who object to instruments and choirs in the same category as those who object to computers. And in similar articles, rejecting instruments is even compared to racism. That surely is phsychological violence. Clapping hands in the Bible and in history was the universal way to ridicule the loosers.

Both extremes have fallen for Abaddon's end-time Babylon Harlot system: women, commerce and music (Rev. 18). However, Jesus sent a coded message to His tiny group but never revealed to the multitudes so that they could catch His meaning: prayer or seeking God is "in the prayer closet" representing the "spirit." And the operative "worship" word is not SING. The word is teach or preach. The melody is in the heart because external melody, even with instruments, meant to grind people into a fine powder (sop) in order to defeat them. See the Twanging meaning of external harmony. This was the meaning of David "singing to the Gentiles." Playing instruments and "making a joyful noise before the Lord was a war chant to panic the enemy into cowardice or cringe (worship) in defeat. David played to the Gentiles with his foot upon their necks and David shed the blood OF the Gentiles. However, Jesus is Prince of Peace and He "sings in the Heart" when His Word is taught one to another. Jesus shed His blood FOR the Gentiles. See the difference?

See Dr. Rubel Shelly on Clapping Hands

Most of the superstitious "praise craze" comes out of the Vineyard movement. The explicit goal is that the New Style Music must bring on a climactic event (reaching a climax). The next logical step is called THE GIVING OF SUBSTANCE ACT OF WORSHIP.

These crazy teams claim that they are priests and "mediators between man and God." In Rubel Shelly's words the music helps "bring them into the presence of God." Praise songs are selfish and sentimental and often erotic and the teams, especially the women, don't hesitate to say that they are inviting the Holy Spirit to COME. This was always implicit and explicit among the pagan prophesiers (male or female) who were male and female prostitutes. The "musical team" was always know as "the harem of the gods."

Arnobius wrote and we ask: "Why would any of these be acceptable in the Synagogue of Christ?"

35. But is it only poets whom you have thought proper to allow to invent unseemly tales about the gods, and to turn them shamefully into sport?

What do your pantomimists, the actors, that crowd of mimics and adulterers? Do they

not abuse your gods to make to themselves gain,
and do not the others find enticing pleasures in the wrongs and insults offered to the gods?

At the public games, too, the colleges of all the priests and magistrates take their places, the chief Pontiffs, and the chief priests of the curiae; the Quindecemviri take their places, crowned with wreaths of laurel,

and the flamines diales with their mitres; the augurs take their places,

who disclose the divine mind and will
and the chaste maidens also, who cherish and guard the ever-burning fire;

36. But this crime is not enough: the persons of the most sacred gods are mixed up with farces also, and scurrilous plays.

And that the idle onlookers may be excited to laughter and jollity,

the deities are hit at in jocular quips, the spectators shout and rise up, the whole pit resounds with the clapping of hands and applause.

Thomas Aquinas: "It seemed to some that this argument about the allurements of music as God"s temporary device to arouse a dull and unresponsive people would apply equally against the continued use of singing in the church. This objection is considered in an anonymous work, of uncertain date,"called "Questions and Answers to the Orthodox": [Note: We believe that this is from Thomas Aquinas on LIPS and SONG. ksl]

"Question: If songs were invented by unbelievers to seduce men, but were allowed to those under the law on account of their childish state, why do those who have received the perfect teaching of grace in their churches still use songs, just like the children under the law?

"Answer: It is not simple singing that belongs to the childish state, but singing with lifeless instruments, with dancing, and with clappers. Hence the use of such instruments and the others that belong to the childish state is excluded from the singing in the churches,

and simple singing is left.

For it awakens the soul to a fervent desire for that which is described in the songs, it quiets the passions that arise from the flesh, it removes the evil thoughts that are implanted in us by invisible foes, it waters the soul to make it fruitful in the good things of God, it makes the soldiers of piety strong to endure hardships, it becomes for the pious a medicine to cure all the pains of life.

Paul calls this "the sword of the spirit," with which he arms the soldiers of piety against their unseen foes. for it is the word of God, and when it is pondered and sung and proclaimed it has the power to drive out demons."

But then there is no relationship is there? How can what we do one hour a week radically change how we think of the worldwide AIDS epidemic? Why is there such an emphasis upon AIDS ministry and no AIDS prevention? I probably cannot "save" a single AIDS victim. One might be able to point out a connection between AIDS and theatrical performance.

Again, we lump "praise services with instrumental jusic" with "meeting in homes." Is there a "navigating" or "prayerful brinkmanship" connection? We don't quite grasp it.

One of the fads these days is to deny the inspiration of the Epistles. Then, when Paul speaks so clearly that 2,000 ears of scholarship cannot deny the limited role of women in the assembly we can just blank out as if Paul wasn't there. Paul still denies women speaking and non-sedentary roles because you CANNOT use women (as they say) without her flaunting AUTHENTIA authority which is both "erotic and murderous." There are NO performance roles in the synagogue and therefore what is defended is the CIRCE or holy whore of Revelation 18.

When the musical worship team tried to ASSIST Jesus, He cast them our more or less violently. He used a word which means like one ejects DUNG. It is interesting that the ancient world also associated FLUTE PLAYERS who, like all minstrels, were also prostitutes with the DUNG HEAP:

Aristotle, Athenian Constitution

L. These then are the matters administered by the Council. Also ten men are elected by lot as Restorers of Temples, who draw 30 minae1 from the Receivers and repair the temples that most require it; and ten City Controllers, [2]

five of whom hold office in Peiraeus (upper duplicate city) and five in the city;

it is they who supervise the flute-girls and harp-girls and lyre-girls to prevent their receiving fees of more than two drachmas,

and if several persons want to take the same girl these officials cast lots between them and hire her out to the winner.

And they keep watch to prevent any scavenger from depositing ordure (dung) within a mile and a quarter of the wall;

and they prevent the construction of buildings encroaching on and balconies overhanging the roads, of overhead conduits with an overflow into the road, and of windows opening outward on to the road;

and they remove for burial the bodies of persons who die on the roads, having public slaves for this service.

See Aristot. Ath. Pol. 7.3. A drachma (say 9 1/2d. or 1 franc) was a hundredth part of a mina (say 4 pounds.)

Did you know that a tiny bit of alcohol at the wrong time during pregnacy can cause fetal alcohol syndrome? The ancient Romans knew that and outlawed wine for pregnant women. The rules against leaven in bread also applied to wine. And when wine replaced blood it was poured out on the altar.

Wise choice because the priests could not drink any grape product when on duty. Is the Christian priest ever "off duty?"

Many scholars have noted that to accuse Jesus of manufacturing intoxicating wine and feeding it to a soon-to-be pregnant bride are defined by Lenski:

"Those who charge Jesus with manufacturing intoxicants are "eager to mar, if by any means they could, the image of a perfect Holiness, which offends and rebukes them." (Lenski quoting Trench)

Rubel Shelly: Wine was a common beverage in his world. He drank it. He served it. He produced well over 100 gallons of it for this event.

See Rubel Shelly at ACU: Number four: Wine Drinking focus and DIRTY PICTURES of the New Style Worship.

But Jesus said that the Jews were liars for accusing Him of being a wine drinker.

The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children. Matthew 11:19

Here is the new wineskin prophets who "prophesy of beer and wine

If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people. Micah 2:11

Nataph (h5197( naw-taf'; a prim. root; to ooze, i. e. distil gradually; by impl. to fall in drops; fig. to speak by inspiration: - drop (-ping), prophesy (-et).

If a liar and deceiver comes and says, 'I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,' he would be just the prophet for this people! Micah 2:11NIV

"I'll preach to you the joys of wine and drink"-that is the kind of drunken, lying prophet that you like! Micah 2:11LIV

I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men. Micah 2:12

Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; Micah 3:2

Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron Micah 3:3 .

And Here is what they are doing with music according to Amos 5 and 6 so that they perish for lack of the Water of the Word. And Proverbs still teach:

Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings. Prov 31:3

It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink: Prov 31:4 I

Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. Prov 31:5

Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts (BITTER). Prov 31:6

Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more. Prov 31:7

Bitter is from the Hebrew:

Mar (h4751) mar; or (fem.) 4784 maw-raw'; from 4843; bitter (lit. or fig.); also (as noun) bitterness, or (adv.) bitterly: - / angry, bitter (-ly, -ness), chafed, discontented, * great, heavy.

Marah (h4784) maw-raw'; a prim. root; to be (caus. make) bitter (or unpleasant); (fig.) to rebel (or resist; causat. to provoke): - bitter, change, be disobedient, disobey, grievously, provocation, provoke (- ing), (be) rebel (against, -lious).

Miriam takes her name from this word for bitterness. She is considered Paul's prototypical model of Lording women.

So, the writer of Proverbs might say that the New Wine from New Wineskins is the CORE GOSPEL for the bitter and perishing. So, drink up!

If you carefully lay the ground work that to resist the winds of change is legalistic, racists, sowing discord among brethren, being sectarian and other psychologically-violent scare tactics, most people suffer in silence. But make no bones about it. While the forty-year old children are playing musical games tying to pipe and get Jesus to dance the effeminate, Dionysus chorus, the sixty-five year olds are sitting like owls on a log wondering "when will this be over so we can get outta here."

That will teach them not to give up their "one another" churches for dominant pastors educated as "doctors of the law."

It will do no good to claim: "You're another one" or "things could be worse." Martin Luther who defined "faith only" just as did Thomas Campbell wrote:

"If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every part of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, then I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all battlefields besides is merely flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point." Martin Luther

Some believed that these self-composed hymns violated the principle established by Jesus as the "Son" who earned that title because He spoke only what He heard from the "Father" or Authoratative Teacher. Are self-composed hymns Idols? Yes. Why? Why, because we "give attendance or heed" to the hymn, the writer and the performer: that means that we worship the hymn as idol..

Some believe that "preaching Jesus" is preaching or singing Jesus. Paul modeled the Jesus principle by speaking only what He heard from Jesus of Nazareth, the Spirit Lord. Paul instructed the churches a dozen times to teach (or sing) the Word which is Spirit which is what has been delivered in person or by letter from an inspired person.

Worship is directed to the one we "give heed to." If we give heed to Fanny Crosby then we are worshiping Fanny Crosby. If we give attention to (with claims of awesomness sounding like lust) to the "team" then we are worshiping the team. That is why "in spirit" worship is in the mind or spirit and the ONLY RESOURCE is the Word of Christ.

SINGING IS NOT AN ACT OF WORSHIP. Therefore, if we sing Twila Paris then we are not worshiping in spirit because the ACT does not make the worship automatic.

Well, we do know, or don't we, that this battle involved a commercial battle between two publishers (Scribes) and has nothing to do with instrumental music. A church can be wrong about every thing that it practices but still hold the Biblical view about music as a carnal, sense stimulus. These "parallels" are always drawn to try to make the non-instrumentalist look silly. However, we should note that the music issue was fought outside of the normal "church of Christ territory."

However, Alexander Campbell also understood that "music" was not a word associated with the worship of God at any time or any place. Nope! Having the Levitical Overseers (not musicians) strum all of the harps, beat on brass, make a loud shouting sound as the priests blow 120 shophars tuned to the same note could hardly be classified with Music. When David "praised" with the harp the word means to "make self vile or to put on a show." Because David was never a spiritual person but a king we suggest that like in all of the naitons Israel imitated He was boasting.

However, when David worshiped he "sought the Lord."

For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live: Am.5:4

Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. Amos 5:14

Darash (h1875) daw-rash'; a prim. root; prop. to tread or frequent; usually to follow (for pursuit or search); by impl. to seek or ask; spec. to worship ...

Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph. Amos 5:15

Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. Amos 5:23

Dr. Rubel Shelly claims that the Exodus event is a pattern for Christian worship and community. But, we know, don't we, that the musical idolatry the Israelites "prayed" for was the musical worship of the devil under Osiris and the golden calf. This, at its heart was S.U.N. worship which is suggested can replace S.O.N. worship.

The Exodus Pattern For Worship and Community
Rubel Shelly / John York: The Exodus Pattern for Worship and Community: Retrospective
Rubel Shelly / John York: Rising Up To Play in Musical Idolatry Made The Exodus a Failure

Praise And Thanksgiving

Psalm 106 as a Paradigm for Praise

When Israel rose up to play they engaged in musical idolatry. For that, God "turned them over to worship the starry hosts." This was Saturn, Molech, Chiun or any one of the idols representing the "wandering stars" or planets, the sun and the moon.

LUCIFER BROUGHT Wind, String and percussion instruments to BLEED OFF worship due to God by GIVING HEED to His words to TEACH (as Paul makes clear). Throughout the Bible and other writings the MUSICAL IDOLATRY is the MARK.

Chrysostom of the Musical Idolatry at Mount Sinai:

Prior to that, he tells of "living oracles," life-giving precepts:

after it, and as its consequence, sacrifices, etc., those statutes which were not good, and ordinances by which a man shall not live, as God says by Ezekiel.

Not a word of sacrifice till then:

and the first mention is, of the sacrifices offered to the calf.

In like manner, "they rejoiced," "the people ate and drank, and rose up to play:" and in consequence of this,

the feasts were prescribed: kai eufrainonto, fhsin: dia touto kai eortai.-'Epishmainetai might be rendered,

"he marks," "puts a mark upon it"
(so the innovator, who substitutes, we take it passively, "there is a mark set over it-it is emphatically denoted."

In the active, the verb taken intransitively means

"to betoken or announce itself," "make its first appearance."-In the Treatise adv. Judaeos, iv. §6. tom. i. 624. C.

Let us then ever obey the voice of the divine word . For the to-day signifies eternity. And day is the symbol of light; and the light of men is the Word, by whom we behold God.

Rightly, then, to those that have believed and obey, grace will superabound; while with those that have been unbelieving, and err in heart, and have not known the Lord's ways, which John commanded to make straight and to prepare, God is incensed, and those He threatens.

And, indeed, the old Hebrew wanderers in the desert received typically the end of the threatening;

for they are said not to have entered into the rest, because of unbelief,
till, having followed the successor of Moses, they learned by experience, though late, that they could not be saved otherwise than by believing on Jesus.

But the Lord, in His love to man, invites all men to the knowledge of the truth, and for this end sends the Paraclete . What, then, is this knowledge? Godliness; and "godliness," according to Paul, "is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. {1 Tim. iv. 8.} Arnobius, Against Heresies.

XV. A Psalm. Of Solomon. With a Song.

1 When I was in distress I called upon the name of the Lord,

I hoped for the help of the God of Jacob and was saved;

2 For the hope and refuge of the poor art Thou, O God.

3 For who, O God, is strong except to give thanks unto Thee in truth?

4 And wherein is a man powerful except in giving thanks to Thy name?

5 A new psalm with song in gladness of heart,

The fruit of the lips with the

well-tuned instrument of the tongue,

The firstfruits of the lips from a pious and righteous heart

6 He that offereth these things shall never be shaken by evil;

The flame of fire and the wrath against the unrighteous shall not touch him,

 

Of the unrighteous:

10 For the mark of destruction is upon their forehead.

11 And the inheritance of sinners is destruction and darkness,

And their iniquities shall pursue them unto Sheol beneath.

And of the king of Babylon as an AGENT of Lucifer:

Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. Is.14:11

Contrary to what every preacher or scholar will tell you Amos was not condemning a case of everything approved but just a bad mental attitude. He was condemning "musical worship" because it took away devotion to God by giving it to the "musical team" which stands where Satan stood when, equipped with flutes and tambourines, He tried to take honor from God.

But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. Am.5:26

When the leaders refused to teach:

And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence. Am.8:3

I will turn your religious feasts into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day. Am.8:10

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: Amos 8:11

And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. Amos 8:12

Can anyone dispute that the NEW STYLE WORSHIP of the Wimbers where the end of singing erotic praise songs is reaching a CLIMAX with God has deliberately fostered the idea of the CORE GOSPEL and the rejection of the Words of Christ through inspiration as having any value for "faith and doctrine." Throughout the pagan systems, singing "praise songs" was to make the gods "land on the team as platform." I Gnosticism the goal was always to make the Holy Spirit COME. From Source showing the sexual, voodoo roots of "revival" music.

This was what Paul commanded as "teaching" rather than singing with "music" so that the Christians would not hunger, thirst, go into captivity and die spiritually.

However, the Worship of the "Stars" with music will be the end-time Babylon Harlot religion where in all paganism "women singers were the harem of the god."

Musicologists are aware of the black, oppressed music of Voodoo and "anti-master" coded songs which had infiltrated and had a huge impact on the Second American Awakening. Until the First Awakening everyone understood the Biblical mandate to teach the Word as not remotely related to "music." However, revivalist preachers competing with one another were validated by the number of charismatic fits they could produce.

Therefore, the modern American Hymody is distinctly a blend of "folk, gospel and Voodoo."

Michael Horton writes: "I'll Do The Best That I Can" was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet. In "Climbing The Stairway of Love," we read, "I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heav'n above. Each step is guided by God's great hand of love. I'm moving higher and nearer that home up in the sky, and if by faith I keep climbing I'll reach it by and by." Here are some other examples: "Higher yet and higher, out of clouds and night, nearer yet and nearer rising to the light,-Light serene and holy, where my soul may rest, purified and lowly, sanctified and blest."

They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God, sin and grace, Christ's saving work, the Word, church, sacraments, etc.) to Romantic individualism. (translate romantic "erotic.")

We sing, "I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses. And the voice I hear, singing in my ear, the voice of God is calling. And he walks with me and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own."

Or, "He touched me." The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture, and that which God has done outside of my personal experience,

is overwhelmed by the number of hymns that focus on my personal experience. It is my heart, not God and his saving work, that receives top billing.

If that was true of the 19th century, the 20th century only exacerbated this emphasis, and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in songs that elevated personal experience and happiness above God and his glory.

Today, the vast majority of entries in the Maranatha, Vineyard, and related praise song books (Howard Publishing) are not only burdened with this self-centered and Gnostic tendency,

but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally (?), but as a result of sloppy theology.

The famous "Spirit Song," written by John Wimber, reads, "Oh let the Son of God enfold you with His Spirit and His love." Now, how would that first line be rewritten in a more classical Christian vein? "Oh trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood." It even rhymes with the original version.

The "Inside God" is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album, A Life That Shows. For example, in the song, "I Want To Be Just Like You," a father prays for his son: "Help me be a living Bible, Lord that my little boy can read..." turning from the external Word to "the self." The song then continues, "...I know that he'll learn from the things that he sees, And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me."

So not only are we missing an "external Word," now we're not even left with an "external Christ.

AS Dr. Horton notes, this is pure Gnosticism.

Someone has said that "song books have less to do with proper singing than with the interest of the publishing houses." Wasn't this the same commercial interest which fired warfare over the Received Text which Erasmus hustled into print and still raging because of commercial promotion of something other than KJV.

The king of Tyre, the king of Babylon and the end-time Babylonian Whore religion creates great problems because it attempts to marry religion commerce.

The church fought the same battle over secular songs long before Alexander Campbell added them under the stimulus of the Great American Awakenings -- a charismatic mental breakdown. These were "Revivalistic" hymns because they had the magical effect honed over the years to do mind altering and even Voodoo which could be sold as "spiritual" feelings or even "dancing in the arms of Jesus."

Because there is no hint of "music" (symphony) in the early church, most people understood that "notations" had no place in "singing" because the command was to teach or preach. Chanting was not singing. And everyone knew that the command was to honor Christ by speaking His revealed Word:

"But considerable prominence was given to the hymns by the Gnostic, Bardesans, who composed a psalter of 150 psalms. However, the 59th canon of the Synod of Laodicea, 360 A. D., enjoined that 'No psalm composed by private individuals nor any uncanonical books may be read in the Church, but only... the Canonical Books of the OT and NT." Int Std Ency., p. 2494

"In competition with pagan musical art, congregational singing began to wane. Basil states that he had 'the Psalms rendered by skillful presentors after the manner of the triumphal Odes of Pindar, the congregation joining at the closing verse, with the accompaniment of lyres." Int Std Bible Ency., p. 2494A

"The McClintock and Strong Cyclopedia not only speaks, in general terms, of 'heresy largely pervading the church and making rapid headway' at that very time, but it specifies 'the appointment of singers as a distinct class of officers in the church' with 'the consequent introduction of profane music'; and why should not instrumental music have been introduced if the carnal wishes of the people called for it" (Kurfees, p. 123)

This urge to use professional art to compete with others quite naturally led to the use of professional presenters. It is important to note the earlier statement that the use of music was often in the professionals.

"Psalmody thus came to be increasingly the monopoly of trained singers, and the 15th canon of the Council of Laodicea, 360 AD, proscribed that 'no others shall sing in the church save only the canonical singers...who go up into the ambo and sing with a book." (Int Std Bible Ency, Psalms, p. 2494a)

So, it won't do much good to try to pin every "besetting sin" on some ole Restoration Movement leader. They didn't invent these divisive issues, you know. How oh how are our doctors of the law gonna know anything from nothing?

So those who remain faithful to churches of Christ (needing more restoring) should not be put off. What we believe about music is the almost universal view. And our view of "command, example and inference" is well established by direct command in the Bible and acknowledged by most historical theologians.

Nevertheless, most of the historical practices of churches of Christ are billed as latter-day and out of touch with Scripture and history is less than the truth (on my charitable days). Click to see what God and men said long before Alexander Campbell.

Goody: AIDS is not nearly the problem they had back with the black death! However, the deliberate sowing of discord may be MORE violent. The boast of ACU's Osburn proves that the AGENDA is to train PROPHETS, CHANELLERS, AND FACILITATORS to go out and MANAGE the change. But the CHANGE is as new as Babylon. The THEATRICAL and MUSICAL industry boasts about INFILTRATING and DIVERTING churches into "theaters for holy entertainment."

"You never had it so good. If you had been my age you would have gotten up before dark, milked two cows, walked two miles to get to the school buss, drive fourteen miles and done it all over again in the evening." Ever heard that? The fact is that we do not live in the 16th century. So, why try to make music which has always been divisive seem trivial? It won't go away, you know.

Martin Luther would remind us that this is not the raging battle of the moment. And to try to move the troops away from the point of imminent battle will not work. We just have to keep our hands on the ball and our eyes on the prize and not be withdrawn from the battlefield.

When people turn their blood, sweat, prayers and tears into building a congregation and building only to have it stolen by the New Vine Skins, are the new Jubals or Rubels actually shedding the blood of the people who went before?

If instruments or musical worship teams are not introduced there will be no war. Wars are caused by doing things not necessary knowing that they will be divisive just to get our way for the peak of the week. Perhaps there is something more sinister about wolves trying to sneak into the fold looking just like lambs--unfairly using sheep skins, yet!

To evaluate whether music is the immediate battle point we need to look to the book of Enoch to which Jude points and which is quoted at least 128 times in the New Testament including by Jesus. It speaks of the "Jubal Gang" and appears in much of the literature produced before and after the time of Christ: The Book of Jubilees, Adam and Eve and the Gnostic literature concerning ZOE. The cardinal sin causing God's coming judgment was Satan's use of the youth (Jubal/Genun) to gradually introduce mixed-sex choirs and instrumental music to seduce the holy Sethites off Gods holy mountain. This theme is oft repeated, even at Mount Sinai. We have collected some of this material here to show you that Alexander Campbell is not the creator of beliefs we hold dearly based on Biblical and historical literacy.

Enoch, like Amos, notes that ignoring the "once delivered to the saints" Word of God by the "wandering planets" was the initial cause. The result was music-equated-to-sex and is listed with the abortionist as the ones God and His saints are coming to get. Believe it or not.

The Guilt Clause: "I shot you in the heart from my twanging bowstring. You are just divisive for complaining. Don't you know that I could have 'psalloed' your head off with a sword?"

Now, if you can go Vineyard and use Machiavelli to explain why change is always resisted, and you use it to steal my 'widow's house' you can always listen to

Lynn Anderson so that you don't push them over the brink

Weave! Alternate between safety and disequilibrium. Teach new ideas a while, stretching your church out beyond comfort zones and into fresh thinking...Bend but don't break!

Employ prayerful brinkmanship!.. ("To the brink of war. The policy of pursuing a hazardous course of action to the brink of catastrophe." Webster)

In the Commercial Zoe Group the similarity to neo-pagans is clear:

This is explained as: "To live in a quantum world, to weave here and there with ease and grace, we will need to change what we do.

We will need to stop describing tasks and instead facilitate process. We will need to become savvy about how to build relationships, how to nurture growing, evolving things.

All of us will need better skills in listening, communicating and facilitating groups because these are the talents that build strong relationships." -Margaret J Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science.

Fittingly, Rubel Shelly etal call for a Musical Worship Facilitator (manipulator) to lead you into the presence of God!

Why is there resistance to that? Because the 'proof-text' for Team-Working the audience comes from the Levites. We worship God in our spirit or mind (nous) which is God's new Holy Place (naos). If we allow a "musical worship team" to mediate for us we just hate to see the blood flowing when the presumptious pups try to wedge themselves into God's Holy Place.

Oh My Gooodddeenuss, as Shirly would say. When you know that for not "singing and dancing when the clergy pipes" people know that they are going to be despised and rejected of men. How, oh, how could one be selfish by denying self the same joy they get out of making love to their wives or watching a football game? The "Scriptures" are just there. It is never selfish to try to tell the blind being led by the blind that There is No Music Concept connected with the worship of a Holy, Spiritual God. Hasn't the universities been selfish in hoarding that fact? Do non-instrumental churches, in Dr. Rubel Shelly's words, actually deprive people of their God given rights to worship God with the instrumental music He gave us?

We have every reason to suspect that not one "doctor of the law" understands anything about the nature of "music" in the Bible and church history.

Why would it be selfish to argue for non-Scriptural practices using Biblical practices? Isn't that a put off to say that those who follow "the old paths" are just being selfish and therefore should stop it? Isn't it selfish to declare as the sectarian Disciples said "if music is used as worship then it is sinful" but then go on and sow discord and steal widow's church houses just so "WE" can enjoy the lust of the eyes and the lust of the ears at your expense? Why would it be selfish be be driven into silence or driven out?

When the neighbor's bull just marches in, nibbles my wife's day lilies and deposits a payment in kind on the lawn, I am not selfish if I get my BB pistol. Now, the bull might go home and claim that I am selfish and legalistic but that is just bull, you know.

Because most people love performance singing and instruments, it seems quite impossible to not use instruments and still be selfish or divisive.

That is about as silly as saying that Mennonites are just selfish in wearing those clothes.

Division has never been created by continuing with the "views held in toto from eternity even if the Universities and their professors love to meet to greet and declare that not allowing instruments to be forced into the church creates division.

Sowing of discord is caused by adding something pleasant but never by adding something which might produce discipline. What to the bull is a pleasant addition to our growing plan, may appear to my wife as a destructive addition. Who is right? My wife, of course. The bull has his own pasture upon which he can deposit "blessings" at will. And no one will call a Jubilee to question his right to spatter his own nest.

Heresy or sectarian: "An opinion especially a self-willed opinion, which is substituted for submission to the power of truth, and leads to division and the formation of sects... such erroneous opinions are frequently the outcome of personal preference or the prospect of advantage." Vine

Now, who could believe that there is any commercial interest in NOT using instruments or NOT replacing the fruit of the vine with an intoxicant? The only prospect of advantage comes from conforming to the will of the world, as much as possible, according to Dr. Rubel Shelly to "be all things to all people."

An ignorant view of the wineskin parable and the comparable call for "exhilarating worship experiences" clearly gives the young people permission to drink wine or even add the product of leaven to picture the blood of the Lord! When wine was used, it was always poured out at the alter.

I am not sure that you can know why you assemble until you gather to speak or teach the Word of Christ or Spirit to learn the how. How can you have one without the other? We noted that the sequence of false, musical worship resulted when they ignored the Word and had no interest in the why but wanted to use the how directly from Canaanite Baalism. Yes, even David's "teams" had Canaanite names.

Paul's almost unique WORSHIP word for the assembly or synagogue is to GIVE HEED to the Word. Martin Luther defines worship as "holding the THOUGHT of God in our minds" which is worship in the PLACE of the human Spirit. NO form of music can possible contribute. On the contrary, the Bible always shows MUSIC which is called NOISE as telling God: "We will not listen to your words." The music theme is important only to those who deny the value of the WORD OF GOD simply studied and HELD IN THE THOUGHT.

Now, the Exodus is the new paradigm. Get used to it folks. It is called Narrative Theology: Scripture is not truth but we can make it truth in our own experience as a Moses or Christ.

Perhaps, they say, if we can go back far enough for a pattern we can gain authority for the Old Testament scheme which, in its original form, had no musical worship.

God did not give Israel His heart. He removed Israel from Egypt to keep His word while His heart said to leave them in Egypt and let them consume themselves with Egyptian, musical gods. That wouldn't do, though, because the Israelites were so evil that they were just giving Yahweh a bad name among the pagan Egyptians. He gave them another shot at it but knew that they would reject the Covenant.

He offered a Covenant but Israel rejected it in the musical worship of Osiris under Apis the golden calf. Their "play" was with instrumental music to make the "joy juices" flow and helped out by the "wine."

There is no redemption in Exodus. Remember that all of the older, Egypt-polluted generation died in the wilderness?

The recapitulation of musical worship of "demons" at the foot of the mountain from which God was speaking doomed Israel at Mount Sinai. They had worshiped like the Egyptians for over four hundred years. Then, they repudiated their sworn-to covenant and fell back into the worship of Osiris under the symbol of Apis the golden calf. This worship was more exciting than "sex, lies and video tapes." They had the real thing including instrumental music. God gave them the Law and decided not to destroy them all. He put the Levites between the Synagogue as symbol of His presence and the people so that they could not come boldly before the throne of Grace. He wore out the older generation in the desert. The people became "strangers" and could never, even in the temple, come into God's presence. When the music was played, they were put "outside the camp."

What they repeated at Mount Sinai:

"In the New Kingdom women singers were found in large numbers in all the temples. 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 singular:

these singers constituted the 'harem of the gods'." (Quasten, Johannes, Music and Worship in Pagan and Christian Antiquity, p. 77)

Scripture is filled with this story and these exhortations.

That is a fact: Psalm 78 repeats the story of failure at Mount Sinai which doomed Israel to captivity and death. This "paradigm" is often repeted in the Old and New Testament. The theme is the same: Israel fell back into the musical worship of the bull or demon gods which had its beginning with Jubal and his band of whom he is still the "father" who handle instruments "without authority." God had Samuel warn the Israelites that the king would take their sons and daughters once again for his own service.

The Psalms are a "story book" but not a song book because they did not sing as the professors and universities want people to believe. Many of the Psalms carry the pagan theme because Israel's elders insisted that they wanted a king like the nations so that they could worship like the nations.

If we use them as authority for "legalistic praise rituals" then we miss the historical, synagogue-like teaching value even Psalms which advocate bashing out the heads of babies.

The common Israelite never worshiped by "singing Psalms with instrumental accompaniment." Not once.

We repeat, the like the nations rituals at the temple were more civic than religious. David was not the priest. The people met in their synagogues (assemblies) to hear Moses read. There was no praise service in these assemblies.

Get it? Israel as a congregation did not "sing congregationally with instrumental accompaniment."

Psalms were poetic version of the prose history and when recited (not sung) they were to "teach and admonish one another with Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs."

Expressions of praise are quite different from holding "praise services." Thanking people is praising them. Why not hold a ritualistic Thanking Service? And because it would be more selfish, why not accompanying this service with instruments? Or how about a "Thank You Team" all dressed up?

Nope! Got it wrong: Israel held more than authorized festivals (daily according to Amos). These were like the nations because they rarely (rarely, I say) honored Yahweh. Rather, in Israel they worshiped the same bull or demon gods they had worshiped in Egypt and repeated at Mount Sinai: wine, women and song. Not consistent even with "non-musical" church of Christ preachers, the older scholars understood Amos not to condemn the motives but "how they acted out their worship." Again, the word "music" in the Bible is only related to pagan rituals, secular dance parties or literal prostitution. Israel did not sing in the musical sense.

The temple rituals were national rituals. These were more MUSTERS for the draft age men: older men, women and children did not attend. They met 3 times during the year. After Solomon, the WARRIOR instrument players were given MAKE WORKS PROJECTS to give praise to the king, kingdom but rarely God. When the instruments made a loud crasing noise, the people were EJECTED outside the walls because these were NATIONAL festivals for the king, clergy, civil leaders and other representatives. The people NEVER sang congregationally with instrumental accompaniment!

The people "remembered the Sabbath and kept it holy." The view is that instruments were not used on the Sabbath because to tune them would be work. They did not have a worship leader, song leader, collection plate or nothing. The Sabbath was God's way to quarantine the people from the pagan or Babylonian "sabbath worship" where the "god's agents" rested while the people served him with singing, dancing, music, wine, sexuality and GIVING OF MEANS. By keeping the nation in LOCK DOWN they were restricted to reading and study of the WORD. This began as the synagogue or Qahal or "church in the wilderness" where it was unlawful to sound instruments and "make a joyful noise before the Lord" because this was the WARRIOR'S CHANE: the same one which Psalm 41 prophesied that would be used to MUSICALLY MOCK Jesus.

Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? Is.58:5

If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath,

from doing thy pleasure on my holy day;

and call the sabbath a delight,

the holy of the Lord, honourable;

and shalt honour him,

not doing thine own ways,

nor finding thine own pleasure,

nor speaking thine own words: Is.58:13

By analogy, you cannot honor Robert Frost by calling an assembly and reading your own silly poems. You are worshiping yourself.

Only the adult males were "mustered" at the central headquarters and the musical levites were under the king and commanders of the army -- not the priests. The "stationary men" came in from the outlying districts to represent the general population. The religious festivals got out of hand when they became common place but they were not worship services. Remember that Israel under the Monarchy was under the curse of the king and the kingdom. They were practicing a religion like the nations and engaging in the "idolatry of nationhood" or as we might say, "denominational structures" which replaced the rule of the local elders.

This would not happen with singing or speaking but of teaching the word to one another. Their rituals were "just out of paganism" and therefore musical. Paul would call them mad or insane. Paul implicates the instruments in 1 Cor 13 with the "sounding and clanging" of the pagan soothsayers or witches or of the army in their Levitical-like use to panic the enemy.

He equated speaking in tongues to playing lifeless instruments which had no "breath" and therefore could not worship nor aid worship.

Without understanding the classical record of the Oracles of, say Apollo (Apollyon, Abbadon) at Delphi it is impossible to understand the harshness of Paul's judgment.

The only one who might have theoretically worshiped would do so if he saw a quiet assembly speaking to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs or other revealed Scripture as "prophesying" in the non-pagan sense. The view of madness or insanity would describe many new forms of I-Me worship.

No, fellas, contrary to Dr. Rubel Shelly, the Corinthians and the Israelites were not "baptized with the Holy Spirit."

Corinth could not advance beyond the CORE GOSPEL and therefore drank milk but could never be co-perceivers (1Pe 3:21) of the deeper mysteries of the faith. To continue to preach THE CORE GOSPEL is to insult people and condemn one's previous preaching as not having the power to teach DOCTRINE or "meat."

This is a fact and this is why Christ did not prescribe an external "worship service." What was allowed in the Epistles is an assembly of pure innerness and honoring Christ in the Supper. As it was not intended to appease hunger and thirst, it was not intended to appease the lust for praise. Again, there was no praise service in the Synagogue and therefore we see nothing like it in the New Testament or in the historical church.

In Romans 14 Paul spoke directly to the vegetarian, musical Orphic and the meat-eating, wine-drinking, musical Dionysics to teach how "unity" was the goal.

He wrote Romans 15 Paul prescribed "teaching the revealed Word" and doing so "with one voice" as the operative way to "seek God" in the assembly. This is quite identical to the Ephesian 5 and Colossians 3 passages where the command is to "teach" and the singing and melody was "in the heart." Singing in this sense was the 'musical' concept of the Greeks so that Christian 'singing' involves a speaking format to teach and not to jack up the Holy Spirit into an orgasm.

The people "synagogued" and did not "church" or "ekklesia." The assembly took only its name from the Ekklesia which did not have any musical performance any more than the meeting of the City Council. The function was to "synagogue" or assembly for teaching. Music in any form was purely pagan or secular and never had any role in worshiping a Holy God Who will not engage in entercourse with the "musical singers pretending to be the harem of the gods."

For the main object of the synagogue was the teaching of the people.

There was no service of "praise" in the synagogues. Alfred Edersheim

There are "gods many and lords many" but the God of the Bible finished His Word and work and does not have to keep working in order for us to fall on our face and worship Him. The Hebrew word for service means hard, menial work. The common people never did this with music. In the liberated Christian system we "lift up holy hands" by lifting up the Word and woe "cower on the ground like a dog" by submitting to the Word of Christ (Spirit). When we use our own words for worship we are worshiping the composer and the performer. Don't call it worship.

That is a fact and that is why the outsider would fall on his face if he saw a non-charismatic (non-musical) assembly just teaching one another the Word in almost-silence. However, there was no confessional in the early church. If I offend Joe then I confess to Joe and Jill need not know anything about it. Confession is not another "act of worship."

Therefore, there was no "confession ritual" in the church. We confess to those we have offended. The "church" need not know anything about it. To speak of "praise rituals or lamenting rituals" is rank legalism which has no trust in the finished Work of a Holy, Spirit God who "needs nothing" but our acknowledgement of Him by speaking His words and not our own.

Worship is OUR holding the word and thought of God in the NEW PLACE for worship: the human spirit. We come boldly before the throne of Grace--into the Most Holy Place--in darkness and silence ONE at a time. There are NO MUSICIANS in the Holy Place (church or synagogue) and NO MUSICIANS in the Most Holy Place where Christ "lights" the way through His Body so that our prayers at the INCENSE ALTAR permit us to come before God.

Jesus made that so clear that NO ONE CAN MISTAKE IT. He said to go into our PANTRY to pray. This is the innermost sanctuary of the house. It is quiet, dark and SAFE from intrusion by ANY OTHER PERSON. He said to give our alms in private.

in the name of common sense can you surrender and worship while the Sister Singers are usurping the role of the elders and have authority to "teach over" the flock as long as they use a tune. In addition, the "liturgy section" of podium, pulpit and Lord's Table was defined in the cathedrals as "the holy place." Preachers regulate those cleansed enough to enter. And the musical worship teams are "standing in the holy place" and some even claiming to be "mediators between man and God." This may be the Abomination which brings desolation to many church "plants."

I know, the Sister Singers, urge us to not look at them but to look at Jesus. However, I cannot see Jesus because my eyes will not penetrate through the sister singer's dresses.

Webster Core: 1. "the hard central part of an apple, pear, etc., that contains the seeds." 2. "the central or innermost parts of anything."

Encounter: 1. "to meet unexpectedly; come upon." 2. "to meet in conflict or battle."

Surrender: 1. "to give up possession of or power over; yeal to another on demand or compulsion."

God, the Spirit, lives in the human heart. Therefore, if my worship is to take place then you have to surrender pagan-like and legalistic rituals. You cannot go there with me and you cannot facilitate or mediate or manipulate me into that Holy place as long as I can see your body and hear your voice.

Jack then says what the pagans always believed: that worship was warfare with the gods. Instrumental music was believed to call, appease or even threaten the gods. After the battle then someone has to give up based on legalistic compulsion.

This is why Jesus explicitly eleminated this form of worship in time and place. Thereafter, God only sought or went looking for those who worshiped "in spirit" or in the mind and "in truth" which is giving attention to the Words of Christ which He said are Spirit and Life (John 6:63). When John was "in the spirit" on the Lord's day he was not inside of a person called the Holy Spirit.

If it is ok with Jack I prefer to believe that when we reject disagreement over how to worship it is because we have not surrendered to the will of God. Surrendering to the dominant pastor getting too close to the musical band is not surrendering to God. But, I know, they claim to have been "selected, trained and sent by the sovereign grace of God." They claim to have "charisma." Some claim to be the 13th apostle. And they often dare you to question "God's annointeds." However, surrendering to them is to surrender to the carnal, presumptious world and not to God.

Surrendering to God means to obey "commands, examples and inferences." While the latter day prophets out of the university environment claim that there is no command for commands, examples and inferences so we can use the Law of Silence to declare that God has nothing to say to us about how we worship Him.

Again, this is a very young, embryo heresy which deliberately blinds the audience to the Word or God and claimes that while God has no will, He has turned that over to me and I do have a will consisting in commands. Click here to see how the Bible and all of the Scholars prior to the PRESENT, PERFECT TENSE "SCHOLARS" understood that the Bible speaks with authority. The Law of Silence is used to say that the New Testament is 'SILENT' about music and therefore we can use that SILENCE as authority to add music to worship knowing that we are pre-planning to sow discord and offend these little ones.

The musical sectarians especially depend on THE LAW OF SILENCE. We have reviewed it here.

Again, in all of the university-sponsored articles and meetings we get the strongest feeling that we are being told: "Don't worry your head over this. You just surrender to His will with we will define for you."

But, it simply isn't possible to see Jesus when the musical worship team sings: "Don't look at me, just look at Jesus." Why do I not believe them? Worship is my entering into my spirit or mind and contemplating God's Spirit or the Mind of Jesus. This is worship in spirit and truth. There is nothing which you can do to aid me in that. No person can think of two things at the same time. This is why Paul did not define a "worship service" but a minimal assembly like the local Greek ekklesia and not like the Oracle at Delphi with their musical worship teams.

We are not bound to surrender principle by surrendering to others. This would be cowardice and violating the direct command to "test the spirits" because the 'many' will always be false spirits.

The way to surrender is just do what Paul told us to do: "Preach to one another" using the revealed Words of Christ or Spirit (John 6:63). No show and tell. Remember that even Jesus had the common decency to stand up, read the Word and then sit down and dialog it. No performance from the men trained in the Greek theater (huper or super-apostles) and no pulpit which is, in the cathedral, The Most Holy Place. Even now, it is not occupied except by the neo-priests.

This BLAMES the invaded for objecting to being shot by the invader. Clearly, those who make changes without any Biblical mandate or necessity into the views held EN TOTO by the group are the BANDITS: they steal the church houses of widows. This makes the changers the deliberate SOWERS OF DISCORD and the STEALERS OF THE CHURCH HOUSES OF WIDOWS.

The countless arguments about music is solely a SYMPTOM caused by theatrical performers trying to seal the church as synagogue and make it into a venue for Rock, Rap and Contemporary Christian Music (an oxymoron).

Often as moles of such denominational churches they worm their way right into the APPLE CORE and leave nothing for those who bought the building.

If I resist a burglar when I see him "eating my apple" then I AM NOT SELFISH if I infect him with a dose of rat shot.

He is pushing for change which violates any knowledge of the music-against-God pattern throughout the Bible.

He is pushing it in my face: not "ours" because he is often an outside agent or especially trained insider.

Therefore, I am not selfish if I resist.

If the Change Agent had the spirit of surrender it would have never come into his/her mind to sow discord just so they could get their music fix at "church" as well as at home. So, he is not an honest broker.

Since I have not changed for 1800 years backed up by the Bible and all of church History, then I could hardly be called selfish for continuing to do what I know to be Biblical.

The problem, we fear, is that with the CORE GOSPEL HERESY there is no right and no wrong. Therefore, we should use the Heglian Dialectic to "facilitate change." We hear that view expressed over and over in our E-mail. It simply doesn't matter what the Bible says. If I oppose the designated agents then I am legalistic and using the Bible just proves it.

Unfortunately the conflict resolvers are often agents of change.

We repeat what we said above: as far as the Bible, Ancient Near Eastern texts, all of the Apocalyptic and Apocryphal literature, the consensus of the church fathers, the Catholic Encyclopedia, the history of the church for 2,000 years, all of the Reformation leaders, the many groups outside of Hollywood-Dollywood who still do not use instruments and the universal fact that adding instruments always sows discord and fractures the church that The most ancient and modern divisive issue is music to take away the key to knowledge.

And the addition can not possibly have any spiritual effect. Nimrod believed that he could use his musical women and regenerate men through external means. It is clear that the new "worship paradigm" to let the evangelists come in from the cold claims to have the power to regenerate you through praise teams or even "gospel meetings." God will never forgive this arrogance.

I am aware of no remote hint that WORSHIP changes people through music. The edification or "house building" is EDUCATION.

We remind you that Jesus said that the only PLACE where God looks for us in a Spiritual religion is in THE HUMAN SPIRIT as it gives heed to the TRUTH. Jesus said to pray in the closet, give privately to the needy don't perform in the synagogue. He did not prescribe a WORSHIP SERVICE. Paul's almost unique worship word is to GIVE HEED to Christ by "giving attendance to the public reading of the Word, to exhortion of that word and to the doctrine in that word." Worship is one "priest" at a time in the Most Holy Place in the "closet" of darkness and utter quiet. No preacher or musician can go into that place with us.

Therefore, the PROBLEM is that too many professors are "trained to the limit of their incompetency" and seeing "godliness as a means of financial gain" and the postmodern view allows everyone to lie about what Jesus established for education or edification and NOT ritual worship prohibited by stand over women and effeminate singers or musicians.

Like the view of music as having the magical power of changing the spiritual nature of manking, many "musicals" now suggests that worship is a kind of works effort: worship just right and effectively and your behavior will be changed!

How would one know whether worship is DONE CORRECTLY? This sounds so like animal sacrifices which was he only place for "sounding" instruments. Does it mean that everyone "moved up to a climax with God?" Does (yes, we are told) the "smiling faces on the second service people" prove that we have DONE worship correctly. Does the solemn faces on the "first service" prove that they are gross, non-spiritual worshipers who don't DO their worship correctly? Perhaps they have a hint of the meaning of reverence in the presence of a Holy God.

How would you know whether lives are changed or not? Is there some kind of Scripture which says that "worship is a magical change agent?" Just like the most ancient superstition musical "worshipers" truly believe that "praise" or "worship" is a work which if done properly changes human lives.

A Physics teacher has the responsibility to teach the principles "as they have been delivered to her." She does not make up new rules and she does not have the responsiblity to "regenerate" the students into great scientists.

On the contrary, the worship at Corinth could "do more harm than good" specificially because it included elements which CHANGE AGENTS want to restore such as "prophesying women."

I know how to worship God in spirit (my mind) and in truth (the Words of Christ) but I just don't know how you can tell whether your rituals have changed behavior in the world. People are great actors. As long as worship promoters push music which cannot be done correctly as worship we can guarantee that there will be no changed behavior in the world. Music "takes away the key to knowledge" and scholars have noted that music does not enhance but corrupts the human mind--the thinking part.

Huxley wrote: "Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession."

You can see an actual ancient painting of men following the advice of Lynn Anderson: "They are dancing on the rim." This also defines the Judas Bag.

"Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.

"A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls. Bertolt Brecht

If I just don't care whether it is done correctly then I just don't care. However, what I believe is not the way to understand the Word of God Who, after all, Is God Incarnate and must surely have some opinion if not laws. Jesus would disagree with Jack Reese and the new take over by the "doctors of the law" which will not take His warning seriously either about their "office" or their views of worship:

He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites (stage players actors), as it is written,

This people honoureth me with their lips,

but their heart is far from me. Mark 7:6

Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Mark 7:7

Kithara the Lat. cithara (whence guitar), a kind of lyre or lute, Hhymn., Hdt., attic: --it was of triangular shape, with seven strings, Eur. Cf. ki^tha^rizô

Latin with similar definitions

Parasi-tor . a-ri, v. dep. [id.] , to play the parasite, to sponge: parasitarier, Plaut. Stich. 4, 2, 54 : parasitando pascere ventres suos, id.

This is quoted from Isaiah but an almost-identical passage occurs in Ezekiel to describe what Jesus is condemning:

Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people still are talking against thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord. Ezekiel 33:30

And they come unto thee as the people cometh,

and they sit before thee as my people,

and they hear thy words,

but they will not do them:

for with their mouth they shew much love,

but their heart goeth after their covetousness $. Ezekiel 33: 31

 

And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song (like the musical prostitutes)

of one that hath a pleasant voice,

and can play well on an instrument:

for they hear thy words,

but they do them not. Ezekiel 33: 32

And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them. Ezekiel 33: 33

This is the universal Old Testament connection between instrumental music and prostitute religion.

The Corrupting Picture

Their worship was in vain because they had a bad mental attitude. Drawing near with the mouth was musical praise.

Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me,

and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: Isaiah 29:13 (songs and sermons)

Drawing near is:

Nagash (h5066) naw-gash'; to be or come (causat. bring) near (for any purpose); euphem. to lie with a woman; as an enemy, to attack; relig. to worship...

Music was never a spiritual word but a word defining real and spiritual prostitutes.

Music was very important in the temples where holy whores were also musicians:

That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name: Amos 2:7

Profane includes both prostitution and music because they went together in pagan worship:

Chalal (h2490) khaw-lal'; a prim. root [comp. 2470]; prop. to bore, i. e. (by impl.) to wound, to dissolve; fig. to profane (a person, place or thing), to break (one's word), to begin (as if by an "opening wedge"); denom. (from 2485) to play (the flute): - begin (* men began), defile, * break, defile, * eat (as common things), * first, * gather the grape thereof, * take inheritance, pipe, player on instruments, pollute, (cast as) profane (self), prostitute, slay (slain), sorrow, stain, wound.

Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; Amos 6:3

That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall; Amos 6:4

That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David; Amos 6:5

This was the worship of the same demon bull idols which doomed Israel at Mount Sinai.

Left to the student's exercise: just which one of those would God approve if one had a good mental attitude?

Players (h5059) are identical to players (h2490)

When God "wounds" the enemies of the people it is often with with blood and music--right there in the temple of Jerusalem and Topheth (hell itself) named after tabret or the tambourine:

They have seen thy goings, O God; even the goings of my God, my King, in the sanctuary. Psalm 68:24

The singers went before, the players (h5059) on instruments followed after; among them were the damsels playing with timbrels. Psalm 68:25

Timbrels are:

Taphaph (h8608) taw-faf'; a prim. root; to drum, i. e. play (as) on the tambourine: - taber, play with timbrels.

And his brothers name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. Ge.4:21

Handle is the Hebrew Taphas (h8610) taw-fas'; a prim. root; to manipulate, i. e. seize; chiefly to capture, wield; spec. to overlay; fig. to use unwarrantably: - catch, handle, (lay, take) hold (on, over), stop, * surely, surprise, take.

Tophtheh (h8613) tof-teh'; prob. a form of 8611; Tophteh, a place of cremation: - Tophet.

If we believe the Bible, Jubal's descendants are still on the earth actively corrupting. Assyria's hordes would panic and die of a plague or something after they became the model of Paul's condemnation of speaking in tongues:

And in every place where the grounded staff shall pass, which the Lord shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps: and in battles of shaking will he fight with it. Isaiah 30:32

For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it. Isaiah 30:32

Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the maggots is spread under thee, and the maggots cover thee. Isaiah 14:11

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! Isaiah 14:12

Yes, Lucifer is ZOE in all of the ancient views. She is called the BEAST and her mother, Sophia, is the SERPENT.

The Psalmist makes mentions to Rahab and Bablyon and Tyre and Ethiopia that "this man was born" in Jerusalem. And in praising Zion:

As they make music they will sing, "All my fountains are in you." Psalm 87:7NIV

As well the singers as the players (h2490) on instruments shall be there: all my springs are in thee. Ps.87:7

The people held the temple to be more important even than God because they believed that He actually lived there.

Consistent with the temple prostitutes in Amos, this same playing or polluting meant that the Israelites treated God and Ezekiel exactly as they would treat a prostitute: coming near to hear the entertainment with no intention of changing their lives and "hoping to get lucky" even with the prophets:

Nagan (h5059) naw-gan'; a prim. root; prop. to thrum, i. e. beat a tune with the fingers; espec. to play on a stringed instrument; hence (gen.) to make music: - player on instruments, sing to the stringed instruments, melody, ministrel, play (-er, -ing..

And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king: after the end of seventy years shall Tyre sing as an harlot. Isaiah 23:15

The Song of the Prostitute was:

"Take an harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered (as a male)". Is.23:16

The women or effeminate men were usually the leaders in pagan musical worship. For instance of the women Ezekiel wrote:

Because Jesus was murdered but was resurrected the pagan believers repeated the worship of Tammuz (Sun-rise ceremonies with music) or Adonis or dionysus just as they always had. To celebrate this resurrection the Christian worshipers, "just out of paganism" in Corinth and Ephesus were repeating the ancient rituals. The "Worship Facilitation Minister" is to help bring the worshipers into the presence of God. And-

"Early worshipers of dionysus reenacted this gruesome scene by whipping themselves into a frenzy (exhilarating) and tearing a live bull (the old, destructive brothers?) to pieces with their hands and teeth.

These grisly rites, accompanied by loud music and the crashing of cymbals, were intended to propel the revelers into a state of ecstasy, a word literally meaning 'outside the body' to the Greeks.

Through this ecstasy, the cultists hoped to transcend their earthly bonds and allow the soul a temporary liberation from the body.

Only in this way could the soul achieve a condition of enthousiasmos (from the Greek enthusiazein, "to be inspired or possessed by a god"), meaning 'inside the god,' which the worshipers believed was a taste of what they might one day enjoy in eternity." - The Search for the Soul

Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lords house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Ezekiel 8:14

See how Tammuz was worshiped with music.

Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose. Ezekiel 8:17

The branch of the reed or other plants were common material for making flutes. First, you had to take the vine and then pollute it by boring holes in it. Branch is:

Zemowrah (h2156) zem-o-raw'; from 2167; a twig (as pruned): - vine, branch, slip

Zamiyr (h2158) zaw-meer'; from 2167; a song to be accompanied with instrumental music: - psalm (-ist), singing, song

From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous. But I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously. Is.24:16

Rehearsing the musical idolatry at Mount Sinai, Psalm 106 says:

And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul. Psalm 106:15

Melody: Zamar (h2167) zaw-mar'; a prim. root [perh. ident. with 2168 (trimming a vine) through the idea of striking with the fingers]; prop. to touch the strings or parts of a musical instrument, i. e. play upon it; to make music, accompanied by the voice; hence to celebrate in song and music: - give praise, sing forth praises, psalms.

The most polluting but powerful with the gods was to play the nose flute. It carried the message of sexuality:

"The silingut is a nose flute used by the indigenous peoples of Sarawak. It is used to play music for individual entertainment, but the use of the nose breath attaches a special "magical" and religious significance to it. It used to be played during funeral ceremonies to converse with the dead. In some regions it was also used between lovers, as it's soft beautiful tone carried surprisingly well through the night air. The nose flute has almost totally disappeared inthe region, with only a few surviving players in the Baram River system of Eastern Sarawak. The are some efforts to revive it in the western part of Sarawak." (Jesus put the women musical lamenting team out "more or less violently.")

The next picture is a nose flute made from a branch in the ancient near east:

If one has faith then their worship will be "done correctly" but you won't be able to look into my mind or spirit and tell.

Can one really do worship? It is a fact that no one can read my mind and therefore no one can do my praying for me. Worship is my honoring God as Spirit with my spirit. It is just outrageous to believe that a clergy-singer can do that for me. When the Israelites tried that at Mount Sinai the watching world saw them as a laughing stock and Paul to the Corinthians shows that they would be seen as mad; insane.

I am not sure whether worship is an external means for making internal changes. The "high" produced by musical worship teams with the "visuals" purely enjoyed is just going to wear off before evening services have the congregation "disguised as empty pews."

There is not a remote clue that "worship" as ritual has any Christ-usurping power to make changed behavior.

If you read Acts 7 you will discover that God ABANDONED Israel to worship the starry host because of the instrumental idolatry of the Egyptian trinity at Mount Sinai.

This is the theme to silence Amos and Isaiah. The Lipscomb "Doctor of the Doctors of the law" makes a similar comment: There's nothing wrong with their worship. Let me tell you that such people do not grasp what happened at Mount Sinai. Click for the Lipscomb mantra. The worship at Gerezim was quite identical to the RISING UP TO PLAY at Mount Sinai. This was the polluted and perverted worship of the EGYPTIAN TRINITY. Because of this "transgression" God turned them over to WORSHIP THE STARRY HOST (Stephen Acts 7 etc.). This included Chiun or Saturn whose Chaldee number is 666. Their NEW STYLE WORSHIP was wrong because they had AN EVIL HEART. If they had a "good mental attitude" it would STILL not be acceptable for a father and son to go into the same temple prostitute. Or would it???

Stephen makes it clear to those who never read Exodus that Israel's fatal sin was at Mount Sinai. They rose up in PLAY which was musical idolatry worshiping the Egyptian Triad using the bull image. He quotes Amos to make it clear that their WORSHIP was that which was practiced at Mount Sinai. They worshiped Molech, Chiun and Remphan. Chiun specificially was SATURN whose Chaldee number was 666.

Both Amos and Isaiah prove that their RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS left the people ignorant of the Word of God. The people were LOOKING for the Word but they died or went into captivity because of hunger and thirst for the Word.

You cannot worship Molech by buring babies and playing instruments to try to get a message from the gods. These were the astrial deities God had TURNED THEM OVER TO because of musical idolatry.

How can anyone then say that their ACTS OF WORSHIP were not wrong?

Looking back to the TERMINAL SIN by Israel: See Amos Five

> Stephen telling the truth about the Jerusalem Temple:

And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Acts 7:41

Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? Acts 7:42

> Smith speaking for ALL scholars:

"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).

> They were led captive by Satan into idolatry,

therefore God caused them to go captive among idolaters.

They were worshiping the same planet or "wandering stars" they worshiped at Mount Sinai. Scholars call this "musical idolatry." This is the same demon worshiped under the name Molech, a bull-headed, beast where even the Israelites burned infants to get a message from the "demons" better than the one they received form God. If this eas just a case of a "bad mental attitude" then we suppose that a father and son can go into the same shrine prostitute if they have a good mental attitude. Bunk!

The Prophets were the arch enemies of the priestly clergy and the elders of Israel.

Remember that sacrifices were added because of transgression. God used them to punish Israel to make them aware of their sinfulness. Nothing in changed attitude could make animal sacrifices appealing to the nose and eyes of Yahweh! Therefore, the point is that to see worship as something appealing to God is to try, like the Canaanites, to seduce God:

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. Isaiah 1:11

When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Isaiah 1:12

"The sacrifices of the ungodly are abomination to the Lord, for they offer them unlawfully." Proverbs 21:27 LXX

The "sounding" (not musical) instruments of the Levites were used in the courts for the burning phase of animal sacrifice. God did not command sacrifices when they came out of Egypt but they were added by Israel's request when God "turned them over to the worship of the starry host" in all of the nation. The blood, sound and horror of killing and burning animals was never worship: it reminded the people of their utter sinfulness at Mount Sinai which made most of them beyond redemption.

If God hates the burning of animals does GOD JUST LOVE INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC which had a rationale only in connection with the sacrificial system?

If Christ has finished that and torn down the Temple and scattered the Jews are we not in mortal danger to try to restore what God hates and which is our confession that WE DO NOT RECOGNIZE THE REST which Christ died to give: rest from "anxiety created by religious rituals."

The ungodly offer sacrifices in unlawful ways because they are ungodly. There simply would be no way for them to offer lawful sacrifices. A lawful way to sacrifice would be to not get but give something sacrificial and then fall flat on your face in total silence asking God to forgive your sins. You simply cannot sing, dance and play instruments as tokens of repentance.

The people were put "outside the camp" in Jerusalem while the national sacrifices were being offered. Only after the noise (not called music) ceased and the national sacrifices were over could the private individual bring their sacrifice. There were no Levitical musicians to accompany them.

Amos 5, and 6 Jack Reese alludes to is the story of Israel which reproduced the golden calves and "rose up to play" in musical worship. Their rituals were daily, a man and his son went in to the same temple prostitute, they sold the poor to buy wine, they were dominated by their wives who were truly thirsty and they left the people to hunger, thirst and die for lack of teaching the Word. (Amos 8)

Just which of these would be permitted if we just had a good mental attitude? The Amos story is repeated in Isaiah 5. No. The scholarship of the world agrees that it was not just a bad mental attitude: the people were worshiping "like the nations" and like the people in Egypt and Mount Sinai because they had a bad mental attitude.

If we use Amos as proof-text for musical worship it would not seem possible to have a good mental attitude at the same time. A clear-conscience or mind would automatically prevent trying to approach a Holy, Spirit God through external means or body worship.

Does this mean that Israel in Samaria can rise up to play (wine, women and song) as long as they have the right attitude? Musical dance around the golden calf? God could have told them that music and fornication was ok if they just cleaned up their attitude. He did not.

No. The bad attitude produces corrupt worship: corrupt worship cannot be excused by a ministry to AIDS patients.

One must not be lulled into the idea that these issues are of secondary importance which must not be questioned when the Lord's Table is moved out of the way to provide moving room for a musical worship team clearly calculated to massage every nerve ending in the body to be sold as spiritual worship. You simply cannot do this without peddling the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the ears.

It appears from the only material allowed to be spoken and published by the Jubilators and universities implicitly teaches that instrumental music as worship is acceptable if only we understand why we worship and have a good attitude.

This level of scholarship may be the cause and not the cure for several large city groups deliberately "sowing discord among brethern" and becoming church breakers.

Listen to some alternative scholarship consistent with the entire history of the Bible

"See how they sang! 'That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of music, like David.' Musical sounds gratified their auricular sensibilities, and they chanted to the 'viol.' Here is the lust of the ear... What a description this of a people that lived and wrought entirely for the senses! They were practical materialists. They had no spiritual vision, sensibilities, or experience. Their imperishable souls were submerged in the deep flowing sea of mere animal pleasures... There is, indeed, a reference to intellectual effort, for it is said, 'they invented to themselves instruments of music.'

"Carnal indulgences has ever been and is now as much, if not more than ever, the great employer of man's inventive faculties." (Pulpit Commentary, The Book of Amos, p. 131).

If we denounce God for being unable to define the "How" of worship then man's inventive faculties assumes that God has left his presumed silence for us to fill in the blanks:

"Such was the condition which Hosea describes as an absence of the knowledge of God (4:1). And the consequence cannot be better described than in the words of St. Paul:

'As they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting' (Rom. 1:28).

"Both Hosea and Amos tell us in no ambiguous terms how the devotees of the impure worship gave themselves 'to work all uncleanness with greediness' (Eph. 4:19; cf Amos 2:7f; Hos. 4:14)." (Int Std Bible Ency., Hosea, p. 1427)

This Encyclopedia expresses the overwhelming view that "refusing to have God in their minds" was expressed by the musical worship defined by Amos.

The scholar, Bernhard Anderson perfectly defines a modern Seeker-Service where a harloutrous spirit claims in some circles "I will do anything that it takes to get the people into this building."

"This harloutrous spirit had led the people into a false and idolatrous religion. Like the other great prophets, Hosea knew that religion was not necessarily a good thing, for it could be a way of betraying God, a manifestation of sin. In Hosea's time, popular religion, corrupted by the fertility cult of Canaan, provided a means of obtaining the good things of nature and tethering God to human interests. People thronged to the temples, not to acknowledge gratefully their utter dependence upon the God who had brought them out of Egypt, but to 'get something out of religion'." (Anderson, Bernhard W., Understanding the Old Testament, 3rd, Prentice-Hall, p. 287).

And F. F. Bruce agrees:

"...these same people were punctilious in their religious observances. Never did such abundant sacrifices smoke to Yahweh from the altars at Dan and Bethel and other sanctuaries in Israel; and the note of praise rose regularly and loudly from tongue and harp.

"Was not this the worship in which Yahweh delighted? So they thought, but the voice of Yahweh through His prophet told a different story." (F.F. Bruce, Israel, p. 58).

There was no congregational singing with instrumental accompaniment among the "people's" congregation. There was no praise service in the Synagogue.

There was no singing as such in "church." Rather, the direct command is to preach or teach one another, the resource is the Word of Christ or Spirit, the result is singing and melody in the heart. This is urgent to know because external melody means to "grind them into powder" and is related to the SOP Jesus fed Judas whose "bag" was for "carrying the mouthpieces of wind instruments."

We can add about 55 pages of similar quotations to weigh against the usual claim that Amos just condemned a bad mental attitude.

If you got here by clicking above you can return to the beginning of Joe Beam's comments by clicking here.

I believe that the Great Commission and not our worship is what calls all who claim to be evangelists to get off their "located couch" and go into all the world. And, by the way, one of those petty disagreements we are not supposed to fuss about is whether Jesus meant what He said about baptism and Peter was crazy when He obeyed the call.

If we solved all of the ABUSE problems it would STILL not be ok to follow the Lucifer- Principle as the "harp playing prostitute." Adding teams and redesigning our MEGA TEMPLES as a theater for holy entertainment takes more time, money and energy away from the poor and needy than the non-instrumentalists.

NOT using women or instruments does not keep you out of the inner cities. As the MUSIC industry had done its fair shair in spreading the AIDS epidemic, science now says that the FAT epidemic is now killing us. Know where much of the SPIRITUAL ANXIETY which makes us gulp down "deep fat fried southern grease balls" is coming from? From CHURCH WORSHIP of course or Jesus would not have died to give us rest under the shade tree by the rippling waters to KEEP US AWAY from SUNday religionists just as the Sabbath quarintined the Jews from the BABYLONIAN Sabbath worship.

When people are in deep spiritual stress the MUSIC gives them a DRUG HIGH much like the runner's high. It gives us an injection of endorphins or morphine and after the ABUSE is cured the left-over drug gives us a high. However, music is most addictive and is destroying the nation. Before Sunday evening attendance is "disguised as empty pews" the drug high is over. And the clergy drug peddlers and give them another MAINLINE FIX to keep the collection plates filled: in the temples they were called TRUMPETS.

This is absolutely the truth. Now, like the harpists in Revelation, try doing the music and playing musical instruments or waving your hands over the poor of the inner city at the same time.

However, and in the meantime, the forced introduction of musical worship teams, dance teams, wine in communion, singing when I am searching my own "house" in absolute silence as at the Passover, and the introduction of musical machines

are the most fundamental issues which must occupy our conversations because these issues have been rolled in like a tank over the head of the people.

We must defend where the enemy attacks. So, it isn't up to the non-charismatics to give up like cowards.

The fact that the preachers usually have some vested interest in paying off the building, steeples (phallic symbols) and getting a raise makes the introduction of these practices a sure brand or mark of sowing discord or sectarianizing the church for personal profit or glory -- number counts or, too often, the preacher gets counted out.

But, believe it, a true church will always be hated and despised by the overwhelming majority of people. No surer sign than to have a highly-mobalized band of agents somehow connecting "the old legalistic churches of Christ" with about every topic.

After awhile, Pavlov's dog begins to slaver when the bells or trumpets sound and while believing themselves free thinkers are just being tugged by unseen but not unheard "strings."

True. However, don't ever believe that in contradiction to all of the evidence, that musical worship is a petty issue. No one would reject instrumental music to "facilitate" the attendance unless there was a clear understanding of the Bible and history and the willingness to be despised and rejected by the grand universities and their "doctors of the law." Non-musical churches stand on the Bible, history and principle. Everything else may be wrong but that doesn't change a jot or tittle of the clear evidence:

"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). (Proof Here).

Nor, is there any secular tradition. In may Biblical cases, music says "I don't want to listen to you. I will not listen to you." A time comes when the Jewish clergy could not listen because Jesus spoke in unknown tongues: parables (Mt 13)

As long as the teachers teach the teachers teach the teachers we are in a degrading system of intellecutal incest. We have never heard anything from a Phd which gives a hint that they ever read much of the Bible except in the sterile, non-intellectual process of getting grades.

However, when one wants an expert one calls in one who agrees with what you are trying to prove. And the blind lead the blind and it will ever be the case as long as we ignore the fact that jesus fired the "doctors of the law" and Scribes (book writers.)

Scuse Me! That makes as much sense as being a consultant concerning making love to my wife. Worship is 'in spirit" or in the mind (nous) which is the holy place (naos) where I come boldly before the throne of Grace to "give heed" to God by devotion to His Trueht. This is the only place God SEEKS the worshiper.

Only the high priest and God were allowed to be there in total silence. If a Levitical "musician" or "sounder" attempted to "lead me into the presence of God" he would be run through with a sword. Those who attempt it in a spiritual sense have been run through with the Sword of the Spirit and they will never recover.

---

Kenneth Sublett

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