Having erred through strong drink

Last night I visited a friend who contracted the shingles even though she got the shingles vaccine. Through On Demand, she rented for us the movie “Martian,” starring Matt Damon.

Coincidentally at church tonight a friend I was catching up with after the service mentioned the movie. We were talking about Damon and I couldn’t help but tell him about the time I met the actor while I was living in New York.

It was on Valentine’s Day, 2001. A co-worker friend coordinated for a group of us singles who didn’t have a date to treat ourselves to a night at the historic Keens Steakhouse in Midtown.

Sitting at a big old red-vinyl banquette table, we were informed by my co-worker (a career veteran NYC ad saleswoman) as she returned from a trip to the bathroom, “You’ll never believe who I just saw at the bar! Matt Damon!” She then told us that she asked him if he would stop by our table and say “hello.”

Not even a minute went by and there he was, dressed in a T-shirt that wasn’t tucked in, a pair of hipster jeans with a fashionable tear and a baseball cap he had on backwards.

Before I even thought about what I was doing, I said with a genuinely surprised tone, “I can’t believe you’d come into a place like this dressed the way you are.” He quickly responded, “I didn’t come over here to be insulted.”

Fortunately, my co-worker expertly smoothed over the exchange in split-second damage control and all was well in the end. We had a nice exchange with him and he was a really good sport.

The thing about it is we were all consuming alcohol. None of us were over-the-top, or even close, but there it was. I never would have made such a comment if not for being intoxicated.

Thankfully, I am finished with alcohol. I can’t of anything more destructive in my life as I look back at it all.

As Paul writes in Ephesians 5: “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, [16] Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
[17] Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
[18] And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.”

Proverbs 20:1 says, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.”

Proverbs 23 says, “Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way.
[20] Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh:
[21] For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.”

Verses 29-32 say, “Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
[30] They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
[31] Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.
[32] At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.”

*****
Here is an old sermon passage:

“I used to love that ad slogan talking about, ‘The Finest Product of the Brewer’s Ark,’ " says Jordan. "Some beer company. I used wonder why somebody didn’t talk about the FINISHED product! I wondered that at 18 years old down at the rescue mission where you SAW the finished product!

“At the last, look at what it does. ‘It biteth like a serpent and  stingeth like an adder.’ I mean, they’re just hooked. They got to have it, got to have it. Though it’s stupid and foolish they’re hung up by it. If you haven’t got sense enough to get beyond that in your life, well, you’re going to find out that what God says about it’s true, okay?

“I say all that to say to you that is not exactly what Paul’s talking about in Eph. 5:18. I’m going to disappoint you. Eph. 5:18 is not a verse where Paul is teaching abstinence. It’s a verse talking about drinking wine in a little different context.

“Come with me to Isaiah 28. When Paul’s talking about the ‘be not drunk with wine’ over there, he’s got something more in mind than just social drinking and social issues. He has some religious issues in mind. Isaiah 28:7 says, ‘But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.’

“I mean, you went down there to church in Jerusalem and the priests were up there drinking and carrying on and they just were vomiting and puking. You ever been on a dance hall on a Sunday morning after a Saturday night spree?

“I remember years ago down in Mobile when I was working at the rescue mission there was a little church that started in a dance hall. It was called a Junior Achievement building. On Saturdays they would rent it out to this dance band and they had dances in there and then on Sunday morning this church would use it.

“And I used to go down and preach for them every now and then and you’d go in there sometime and there’d be people just get sick and you know, if you’re drunk and you’re sick, you’re going to get up and be careful you go to the restroom and take care of it, right? Yeah, sure you are! I mean, you just find an empty pocket and puke, is what you do. I don’t mean to be uncouth but that’s what you do. Might as well call it what it is. Listen, they’re not called ‘upholstered sewers’ for nothing.

“Only in this verse they’re not down at the Club 500 and they’re not down at the discotheque; they’re at church! They’re in the temple. And what they’re doing is they’re worshipping idols and the idolatry.

“The idolatry in Israel is associated with the drunkenness because the heathen contacted their gods through getting these out-of-body experiences. Isaiah 5. You see the first drug addicts were not in the 20^th century in America. The drug culture and all that business, like in Revelation 9, all that stuff comes through the occult and the idolatrous systems of the heathen out there.

“Hosea has said, ‘Ephraim has joined idols; let him alone.’ The mark of it and the outward manifestation of it was this drunken debauchery up there in the temple. These are the woes upon the nation Israel for which God destroyed them.

“Isaiah 5:11-12 says, ‘Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!
[12] And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the LORD, neither consider the operation of his hands.’

“Listen, he’s not talking about somebody having a fling on Saturday night. He’s not talking about somebody sitting with a six-pack in front of the TV eating pretzels and watching football on Sunday afternoon. He’s talking about the religious system out there and this is part of the worship of the heathen.

“It’s part of the idolatrous system out of which the Ephesians were saved. They had that great goddess Diana at Ephesus. These people were saved out of a life and a religious life that consumed them in these ways.

“I Cor. 10:20. If you go back to Deut. 32 where that passage is a quote from, and study down through that thing, you’ll see that cup he’s talking about is filled with wine! And a religious ceremony where they’re taking wine and they transform it into blood! The pure blood of the grape! The only people who take wine and transform it into blood in order to drink it is religion. Paganism.

“When you come to Ephesians in that light, and he says ‘be not drunk with wine where is excess,’ what he’s saying to them is, ‘Don’t try to worship God and serve God like you used to in the heathen church. Lay all the traditions of the former life, all the religion that you used to have, all of you viewpoint about how God can be happy with you, lay aside all of that. We’re not going to worship God today like we used to!’

“Now, maybe you came out of a religion like that. I don’t k now. Maybe you didn’t. I didn’t. I never came out of a religion that did any of those kind of things. They did worse kinds of things in other areas. See?

“Hey people, I’ve seen people so drunk on pride, if they had gotten that drunk on whisky they’d be dead! Let’s be honest about the thing!

“So we’re going to get rid of one sin for another sin. You didn’t improve yourself; you deceived yourself. But when Paul says, ‘Be not drunk,’ he’s saying the Christian life isn’t going to work the way . . . we’re not going to worship the way we used to.

“We’re not going to worship with the wine. Experience-based religion is to satisfy the flesh. That’s the way they used to worship! It was a religion based on their experiences: ‘I feel it, I see it, I touch it, I experience it, my senses are involved in it and it satisfies the lusts of my flesh.’ The desires of my flesh.

“What religion is designed to do is to make you feel good about doing good: ‘Give me something to do and make me feel good about doing that.’ Feelings. Your experience. Listen, folks, when the basic content of your religion is what you experience, and what you can feel . . . I mean the beautiful building and the wonderful music, and the wonderful message, and the warm cordial feeling. Feeling good in the place and that kind of stuff.

“As soon as your religion is based in that you’re going to be outdone a hundred to one by the Adversary because that’s his realm. His wisdom is first, sensual. James 3:15 says, ‘This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.’

“God works on our inner man by His Word resident inside in our spirit and that works out of us. The other is just the religious external form. Experience-based religion. Paul says that won’t get it.

“There has to be a reality in your life that goes far deeper than the external activities you’re involved in. In fact, it has to be exactly the other way.

“I had a woman come to me the other week who was raised in a church just like ours and believes what we believe; more or less, she acknowledges the doctrines that we preach. She sat there and said, ‘Brother Rick, I’m just dead on the inside and I’m tired of carrying all the baggage on the outside.’

“You see, that’s the opposite of the way it ought to be! And yet that’s how we get sometimes.

“Now there’s one of two answers to that. No. 1., you didn’t have any life on the inside to start with. Or No. 2, you put so much baggage on the outside that the life’s gone to sleep. In her case, it was the latter. The answer to it is verse 18: ‘Don’t do it that way but be filled with the spirit.’

“Ephesians 3:16-20 says, ‘That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
[17] That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
[18] May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
[19] And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
[20] Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, inner man.’  "

Give me that old-time hymn-singing

In helping a friend in Cary who is remodeling her living room, a neighbor came over to take out a heavy picture-frame window pane from its wall encasement. He told us he had just returned from a vacation in Florida, and that while he was there some local friends talked him into going to their Methodist church for a Sunday morning service.

He said he was turned off by the music that went on for far too long and included drums, electric guitars and the like. I asked him if the crowd was waving upright arms and hands and he said yes.

Instantly I was brought back to my college days at Ohio State (1983-1987) when a friend I was training for a triathlon with encouraged me to attend a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting with her that was held in a university auditorium.

It was the first time I ever experienced a live church service with a band and a rock-concert emulating audience on its feet, swinging and swaying to simplistic, repetitive lyrics like, “Jesus we love you.”

I was raised in several different old-fashioned Baptist churches where singalongs consisted only of a few chosen hymns from the hymnal, listed in the bulletin, and sung before and after the sermon. There was always a robed choir in their designated loft that performed a practiced hymn for the week. Never were there any instruments beyond the organ and piano, save for the occasional soloist with a trumpet, clarinet, violin, etc.

I remember being very uncomfortable at the CCC worship service and did not join the crowd in the singing, waving and clapping. I did remain standing, though, as not to embarrass or offend my friend.

For the rest of my student career I mostly chose just to watch Jimmy Swaggart on the TV, enjoying him sing for me as part of his hour-long broadcast church service. To this day I fondly recall with a smile the shocked look on my boyfriend’s face when he first learned that I was regularly sending checks in the mail to Swaggart’s ministry.

*****

A post from a few weeks back, entitled “Praise and worship pales in comparison,” continues to garner a big readership.

Reading about the men and women of faith behind some of the most beloved hymns of the past, and how influential their music was, is a special treat I highly recommend—one that not only gives you a fascinating trip back in time when Christianity had a MAJOR hold on the culture, but provides strength and comfort to learn how really REAL these songwriters were.

As I mentioned before, I count as a favorite hymn Elizabeth Clephane’s “Beneath the Cross of Jesus,” especially the third stanza: “I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place; I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of his face; content to let the world go by, to know no gain nor loss, my sinful self my only shame, my glory all the cross.”

Clephane, a Scottish woman who lived from 1830-1869, is also responsible for the classic hymn, “The Ninety and Nine.” According to Wikipedia, “Folklore claims that Elizabeth wrote ‘The Ninety and Nine’ for her brother, George Clephane (1819-1851), who had ‘returned to the flock’ only a short time before his death. As the story goes, he fell from his horse and struck his head upon a rock and was killed instantly.”

The tune is famously based on Jesus Christ’s question in Matthew 18 (also in Luke 15): “If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?”

It represents the first and most famous composition of Ira D. Sankey (1840-1908), often called the “father of the gospel song” for making the “new” type of music a major focus in his famous evangelical campaigns with D.L. Moody (The two were actually in the middle of a revival meeting when the Great Chicago Fire broke out!)

One of my hymn history books tells this great anecdote regarding "The Ninety and Nine”:

“Sankey and Moody were en route from Glasgow to Edinburgh, Scotland, in May, 1874, as they were to hold a three-day campaign there. This was at the urgent request of the Ministerial Association.

“Prior to boarding the train, Sankey bought a weekly newspaper for a penny. He found nothing of interest but a sermon by Henry W. Beecher and some advertisements. Then, he found a little piece of poetry in a corner of one column that he liked, and he read it to Moody, but only received a polite reply.

“Sankey clipped the poem and tucked it in his pocket. At the noon day service of the second day of the special series, Moody preached on The Good Shepherd. Horatius Bonar added a few thrilling words and then Moody asked Mr. Sankey if he had a final song. An inner voice prompted him to sing the hymn that he found on the train.

“With conflict of spirit, he thought, this is impossible! The inner voice continued to prod him, even though there was no music to the poem, so he acquiesced. As calmly as if he had sung it a thousand times, he placed the little piece of newspaper on the organ in front of him.

“Lifting up his heart in a brief prayer to Almighty God, he then laid his hands on the keyboard, striking a chord in A flat. Half speaking and half singing, he completed the first stanza, which was followed by four more.

“Moody walked over with tears in his eyes and said, ‘Where did you get that hymn?’ 'The Ninety and Nine' became his most famous tune and his most famous sale from that time on. The words were written by Elizabeth Clephane in 1868. She died in 1869, little realizing her contribution to the Christian world.”

*****

Wikipedia says of the Chicago trial-by-fire for Sankey and Moody, “The two men barely escaped the conflagration with their lives. Sankey ended up watching the city burn from a rowboat far out on Lake Michigan.”

In my book from 1982, “101 Hymn Stories,” author Kenneth W. Osbeck writes, “Although the singing of Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs had always been an important part of public worship starting in the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation, Sankey introduced a style of congregational singing that was ‘calculated to awaken the careless, to melt the hardened, and to guide the inquiring souls to Jesus Christ.’

“It was frequently said that Sankey was as effective a preacher of the gospel of salvation with his songs as his associate, D. L. Moody, was with his sermons.

“For nearly thirty years Sankey and Moody were inseparable in the work of the gospel, both in this country and throughout Great Britain. Sankey’s smooth, cultured ways complemented and made up for Moody’s poor English and impulsiveness. They were often referred to as the ‘David and Jonathan of the gospel ministry.’

“Sankey had little or no professional voice training. He generally accompanied himself on a small reed organ, singing simply but with careful enunciation and much feeling and expression. His voice was described as an exceptionally strong baritone of moderate compass. An English newspaper once wrote the following review:

‘As a vocalist, Mr. Sankey has not many equals. Possessed of a voice of great volume and richness, he expresses with exquisite skill and pathos the gospel message, in words very simple but replete with love and tenderness, and always with a marked effect on the audience.

‘It is, however, altogether a mistake to suppose that the blessing which attends Mr. Sankey’s efforts is attributed only or chiefly to his fine voice and artistic expression. These, no doubt, are very attractive, and go far to move the affections and gratify the taste for music; but the secret of Mr., Sankey’s power lies, not in his gift of song, but in the spirit of which the song is only the expression.’

“Another writer wrote as follows regarding Sankey’s manner of singing: ‘There was something about his baritone voice that was enormously affecting. He had a way of pausing between lines on the song, and in that pause the vast audience remained absolutely silent.’ ”

Paul a suicidal maniac?

By II Timothy, Paul had ministered all across Asia into Europe all the way to Rome, planning churches in tremendously diverse cultures, but this is where the reader sees the church move from rule to ruin.

In his parting message to Timothy, Paul writes in II Timothy 4: “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

Jordan explains, “Paul tells you what his course is in Acts 20:24 when he writes, ‘But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.’

“That last part of the verse has always kind of tickled my fancy. You know, when you read Paul’s life, that verse helps you understand it. He lived like he had a suicide mania.

“If you look at Acts 14, he goes into a city and they drag him outside of town, stone him and leave him for dead. But he gets right back up and you know what he does? He goes right back into the city.

“You say, ‘No, wait a minute, what kind of deal is that?!’ You check the record; up until that point every time a city rejected Paul he shook the dust off his feet and went on to the next one.

“But now here’s one where he goes in, they drag him out, stone him and leave him for dead and God resurrects him. I believe he died and God resurrected him. That’s the experience he talks about in II Corinthians 12.

“Paul gets up and says, ‘You know, I’ve been up there in paradise and seen some things that I can’t even tell people about. It was so wonderful I’d like to go back. I’ll go back into the city and maybe they’ll . . . ’

“From then on he lived like he had a suicide mania. He would just go right into the mouths of the lions. In fact, here he talks about being delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

“The guy had this concept of holding on loosely to earth. When he says, ‘Neither count I my life dear to myself,’ he didn’t say he didn’t love his family, or that he was trying to die tomorrow. He said, ‘I’m holding it loose. The most precious things to me are not what I possess here.’

“When you talk about persecution, or someone coming along and taking what I’ve got, beating me up, putting me in jail, or being shipwrecked time and time again . . .
 

“Read II Corinthians about all the stuff he went through. They did all that stuff to Paul and you think, ‘Goodnight, I’d have quit about the second verse!’

“But he says, ‘I’m not just going to finish the job, I’m going to do it WITH JOY.’ Those two words changed that verse for me. He’s saying, ‘I’m not just going to endure, I’ve got a joy in this!’

*****

“Where do you get the joy? I’ve told people for years that a verse of Scripture that changed my whole life and my whole ministry many years ago was the last verse in II Corinthians 1: ‘Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand.’

“I can remember like it was this morning the Sunday morning when that verse changed my life. I saw that my job is to help you rejoice in the Lord. How do you do that?

“When you get a gift, do you go, ‘Aghhh, I got another gift. I don’t know what to do with this. Pffft.’

“If I can communicate to you the gift grace has provided, it’ll produce the joy. In Colossians 2:7, Paul talks about  being ‘rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.’

“Thanksgiving comes as a natural response to being grounded in an understanding of what it means to be rooted and built up in Christ. The Christian life is a lifelong growing in maturity in Christlikeness, where the character of the Lord Jesus Christ reveals itself out through us over a lifetime of spiritual growth.

“Folks, if it isn’t your faith . . .  if you’re going to ‘walk by faith and not be sight,’ it has to be that. So when Paul says, ‘I kept the faith,’ that’s what he’s talking about.

“He says, ‘I finished my course,’ meaning, ‘I took the job God gave me and I finished it.’ The course was the ministry God had given him. When you finish the course, you keep the faith.

*****

“I Corinthians 16:13 is a verse people like to complain about that to me has always been kind of helpful.  It says, ‘Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.’

“People say, ‘Well, what does it mean to quit you like men?’ How does a man quit? A man quits when the job’s done.

“I ran track when I was in high school. You know the race was never finished until the finish line? I ran a 440 relay. You’d run your leg, pass the baton to the next guy. My leg was done but the race wasn’t done. You know how a man quits? When he passes the finish line.

“ ‘The greatest ability is dependability,’ some wise man said. When you finish . . . Did you see Alabama win the national championship the other day? That was as good a game as you’re ever going to see.

“If you watched the Alabama players, they had headbands with the word ‘FINISH’ on them. The coach, Nick Saban, his whole philosophy is ‘FINISH.’ Finish every play, every assignment, every game.

“If you just go do your job and finish, win, lose, or draw, you did what you were supposed to do. ‘Quit ye like men.’ Don’t quit with two minutes left in the game. That’s quitting like a girly-man. The MAN is the one who quits at the end.”

*****

Here’s a related post from a few years ago:

From II Corinthians 12 we know that the Apostle Paul died and came back to life.

Paul talks about how, “I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.”

Jordan says, “My own private, personal, subjective opinion is that’s talking about Paul, and the encounter where that took place is right there in Acts.”

Specifically, Acts 14:19 says, “And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.”

Jordan goes on, “So, at Lystra Paul’s dragged out of town after having a ministry and preaching. Verse 20 says, ‘Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.’

“Now when somebody rises up—he’s been stoned to death and he rose up! What just happened?! If he died, what happened to him when he rose up? He’s resurrected! There’s a miracle that takes place. That shouldn’t surprise you because there are miracles that took place all through this chapter.

“By the way, he rises up, came into the city, and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe. That’s a 20-mile walk from Lystra! If you were stoned to death with stones . . . if someone took brick bats and stones and whacked you in the head long enough they thought you were dead, I don’t think you’re just going to get up and walk 20 miles the next day! Unless something miraculous happened!

“Verse 21 says, ‘And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch.’

“Timothy got saved right in the middle of some real interesting ministry. You follow Paul’s ministry through the Book of Acts and you’ll find something radically changed at this point. Up until this point, Paul would go into a city and people would reject him and he would just leave.

“From here on out, though, they reject him and you know what he does? He just goes right back at them! A guy once said, ‘He acted like he had a death wish from here on out.’

“Now, I don’t know about you, but if you got caught up into the third heaven and saw things that weren’t lawful for you to utter, and the Lord says, ‘Okay, you’re going back,’ and you got back down here, how long would you want to stay down here and not go back up there?

“I don’t think Paul gained that opinion in Philippians 1 in the jail in Rome. I think he had that opinion from the time of Acts 14. He lived with such reckless abandon all through his ministry from there on out. And Timothy cut his spiritual teeth on that kind of exciting dynamic ministry. Must have been an impressive time to have been around the work of the ministry.

“Timothy was there when the gospel would go into a community that had never heard the name of Christ. They didn’t have advance billing. None of them had ever heard the message Paul’s preaching. And he goes in and preaches the gospel and sees people get saved. Then he sees those saved people begin to get together and study the Word of God. He edifies them in a specific manner.

“When he tells Timothy that thing about ‘godly edifying,’ Timothy had experienced that and knew exactly what he was talking about and Timothy came out of the kind of ministry where that was the norm.

“By the time Paul’s gone, apostasy set into all of that. All of that had been co-opted into ChristenDUM. It had been co-opted into a religious system that took the truth and mixed it back into kingdom truth; got rid of right division. Mixed law and grace and produced death in the pot.  But Tim was there when it all started.

*****

“When you look at II Timothy, you see Paul didn’t give any one way (established churches) had to look. He said, ‘Here’s truth, now you go wisely and maturely structure it the way you live.’

“You remember Romans 15 where he says to the Romans, ‘I’m in Macedonia and when I leave here to go to Spain I’m going to stop and preach there to you.’

"Paul had some plans! I think he did get to Spain and it would have taken another two-year span, at least, so what you’re seeing is Paul traveling. Now eventually he’s put back in prison and that’s when he writes II Timothy at the end.

“When he wrote I Timothy, he was writing after he left Timothy in Ephesus when he went around furthering that trip. He’s writing it at a point where they’ve both been in prison and now they’re out and Paul’s gone on to do some other things and then he writes back to Timothy, ‘Let me encourage you to keep that ministry going.’

“You see how he says in Verse 2, ‘Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord’?

"Timothy was a convert of the Apostle Paul. In II Timothy Paul says it a little differently: ‘To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.’ When he says ‘my own son,’ he’s saying in essence, ‘You’re one that I introduced to the Lord. You’re the fruit of my ministry.’

“Timothy first shows up in the Bible in Acts 16. Paul’s been to Derbe and Lystra before, but when he comes back there to minister and establish the saints, confirming the churches there, Timothy is there. Verse 2 says, ‘Which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium.’

“There are churches in two different cities that say, ‘Paul, this Timothy kid, he’s really making head way!’ and they recommend him to the Apostle Paul and Paul begins to take notice of him as far as ministry is concerned and this is when he circumcises Timothy and begins to take Timothy with him in the ministry.

*****

Here’s yet another post on the subject:

Acts 14:21 says, ‘And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch.’

“Paul preached in Derbe and then Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, to confirm the souls and to establish the structure for the local church. Notice the first place he went back to was Lystra.

“If you look at verse 8, it says there was a certain man at Lystra, and what happens in Lystra is in verses 9-18. Verse 19 says, ‘And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.’

“My own personal, private, subjective, individual opinion is that Paul was stoned to death. Nobody drug him out thinking he was dead that wanted him dead that didn’t check a pulse. Their estimation of stoning Paul was that they killed him.

“Verse 20 says, ‘Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.’

“I would take it that they killed him and God raised him from the dead. That’s the point in time, it seems to me, where, in II Corinthians 12, Paul talks about how, ‘I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.
[3] And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;)
[4] How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.’

“My point to you is, where did that happen? It happened in Lystra. In Lystra, they got so mad at Paul that they killed him, yet they didn’t kill him. They thought they did; they stoned him and that’s bad enough.

*****

“You ever had anybody stone you? Can you imagine the headache that would have been? Years ago, I was on a golf course and heard a ‘WHACK!’ I looked up and saw a golf ball coming right toward me. You ever had one of those moments when you see it and you know it’s going to be bad but you can’t move?

“I watched that golf ball coming toward my head and I could actually see the dimples in it as it spun and hit me right square in the noggin. Next thing I knew I was on my back, looking up at the clouds in the noon-day sky. There were stars everywhere I looked; light flashes all around my eyes as I sat there in a daze. A big, old goose egg came up on my forehead and that was just one little golf ball.

 “Paul was stoned; he didn’t have pebbles thrown at him. They thought to kill the dude.

“Now, I went away from that golf course with a headache and a minor concussion. No broken bones. My point to you is, what did he experience at Lystra? It wasn’t good. So what does he do?

“He goes right back into that city where they just tried to kill him! It was so important to him that they get a local church properly established at Lystra that he was willing to risk his life.

*****

“Establishing a church wasn’t just a, ‘Well, you know, when I’m retired, I think I’ll do this.’ For Paul, it was a life or death situation. It was that critically important to the work of the ministry.

“Come to Ephesians 3 and see why that local assembly is so important to Paul. The churches of the Gentiles—where do you think Paul got the idea that it was that important? Where’d he get his ideas for what the ministry was? The preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery. Christ gave him instructions for what the work of the ministry was to be about.

“When he established churches of the Gentiles, that’s what he was doing in Acts 14.

“By the way, when he went into every city, he went into Thessalonica in Acts 17 and established a local church; a church of the Gentiles. Then, in Acts 18, he went over to Corinth and established a church of the Gentiles. Then he went to Ephesus in Acts 19 and established a church of the Gentiles.

“In Acts 13 and 14, he established churches (plural) of the Gentiles. But you know what he did to those churches in Acts? He wrote to them about the churches of Galatia. He wrote two letters to Thessalonica. He wrote two letters to the Corinthians. He wrote the letter of Ephesians and I Timothy to the assembly and Timothy there in Ephesus.

“Then he says over in Colossians that he got this dispensation of God to fulfill the Word of God. But in connection with fulfilling and completing God’s word . . .”

(new article tomorrow)

God's insight into love, friendship

“God didn’t need us to give Himself someone to love,” explains Columbus, Ohio, preacher David Reid. “What our role is we have the privilege, honor and the incredible grace of God to participate in the love that already existed between the three members of the godhead before the world began.”

*****

“What it means to live in a consciousness of being accepted in the beloved, first of all means you have a consciousness of God’s love for you in Christ,” says Jordan. “And it’s what ‘the love of Christ constrains us’ means. It gives you the capacity to have a closeness and intimacy with Him to bring everything He is into the details of your life.

“Not like Peter with, ‘I’ll do it,’ and then fail. But let it be His life. When you live in a consciousness of His love, it gives you an insight.

*****

“John was the only one of the disciples who identified Christ’s betrayer. Christ said, ‘Here, the one I give the sop to.’ Nobody else understood that.

“Doctrinally, typically, the Little Flock, represented by John, is the group in the tribulation that will have the Antichrist identified. They will understand who the Antichrist is.

“All those running around saying, ‘We love you, Lord! We love you!,’ and are going about to establish their own righteousness, will be blind. But the ones who say, ‘He loves us,’ and live in  the consciousness of His love for them, they’ll be the ones who have the truth revealed to them. See that?

“When you study through John, and I spent about five years doing it, you really examine the seminal moment in the life of Christ.

“He’s fixing to die and He’s literally going to turn the care of his mother over to a disciple and the disciple is called ‘the disciple whom He loves.’

“Christ didn’t turn His mother over to Peter, who said, ‘I love you so much I’ll die for you!’ Wouldn’t you’d have thought he would have been a good one? Well, by now he’s already screwed up.

“Who are you going to trust in? Christ reasons, ‘The one who knows how much I love him, because he loves because I first loved him.’

“Peter was the one ready to fight to the death until Jesus gave up, and the one thing Peter couldn’t understand was surrendering without a fight.

“You talk about a confused guy. What does Peter say to Christ? ‘I’ll defend your life to the death. There ain’t nobody going to touch you. I love you so much I’ll die for you.’

“Peter is boasting in HIS love for the Lord and what happened to him? He denied Christ. You see that?”

*****

Jesus says in John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

“In John 15, Jesus Christ and the apostles have left the Upper Room and are walking on the way to the Garden when Christ continues the conversation with, ‘Ye are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you.’

“In other words, a friend is somebody who can think and do like Christ thinks. Verse 15 says, ‘Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.’

“A servant doesn’t know some things but the friend does. A friend is somebody who’s as your own soul. You pour out your inner being to them; you tell them what’s inside, what’s in your thinking, what’s in your heart.

“Jesus said, ‘I’ve called you friends because I’ve told you. I haven’t sent you out without a sense of what’s going on. I’ve communicated with you all the things the Father has given to me.’

*****

"A friend is someone who gets information that no one else has access to. Now you know that in personal relationships, but when it’s talking about Scripture, the idea here is that to be a friend is you’re going to get all of the information.

“Now the reason that’s important…come with me to the Book of James. James 2:21. The first person in the Bible ever called ‘the friend of God’ is Abraham.

"The reason he’s called that is because Abraham obeyed some specific instructions that God gave him, and when God gave him information that he hadn’t given to anybody else, Abraham stood on that information.

"It allowed him to be called ‘the friend of God.’ Not just the servant who doesn’t know what his master does, but the friend who is taking action based upon something the Father told him to do.

“II Chronicles 20:7 is where he’s called ‘the friend of God.’ You see when Abraham is called the friend of God, he’s called that in connection with his seed.

*****

“Ephesians 2:11. If you were an alien and a stranger that’s as opposite as you can be from being a friend, and the reason God made this distinction between the Gentiles down here and the circumcision (Israel) up there, those people up there were His friends and these people down here were aliens and strangers.

“The people in Israel were a friend and it had to do with the fact God had given them some information He didn’t give anybody else.

“One of the great verses about that is in Exodus 33:11. God was communicating to Israel what he was going to do.”

*****

“A verse that demonstrates how the term ‘friend’ is used in the Bible is in Proverbs 17:9: ‘He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.’

“Notice gossip and evil reports separate friends. Well, the implication there is a friend is someone who’s not separated from you, who’s one with you, who’s a companion. Verse 17 says, ‘A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.’

“A friend is somebody where circumstances and your conduct and that kind of stuff isn’t really the issue. They have a value and esteem for you and they’re going to love you regardless of what the circumstances in your life are; regardless what the adversity that comes in life will be.

“Proverbs 18:24 says, ‘A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’

“It’s kind of a two-way street and ‘there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’ The context is found in verse 22: ‘Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.’ Who he’s talking about is really your spouse.

“A friend is somebody who will be more loyal to you and value and esteem you more than a family member. My point is friendship is something esteemed very highly in God’s Word.

“Probably the most famous friend quote in the Scripture is when Judas approaches the Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden to betray Him and the Lord Jesus Christ looks at him and He says, ‘Hail, friend.’ That title that Jesus is using comes out of a verse in Psalm 41:9: ‘Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.’

“Christ quoted part of that verse in John 13 when He was with His apostles in the Upper Room.

“This is a song of David, and when David historically is writing it, he’s talking about Ahitophel, his friend. Prophetically it turns out to be talking about the Lord Jesus Christ and the one who’s going to betray him.

“So what’s a friend? It’s somebody I’ve trusted: 'Here’s somebody I’ve had close communion with.' He’s closer than a brother. 'Here’s somebody I trust with my heart and here’s somebody I sit at the table . . . I share what belongs to me with this person and if it’s mine, it’s theirs. And if I have it, then they can consume it. They’re with me.' "

(new article tomorrow)

Five-grade education

“What we think, we become,” followers of Buddha love to quote their guy as saying. “All you need is love,” is the big one from the Beatles.

“I think therefore I am,” Rene Descartes once philosophized. “Let the good times roll,” B.B. King famously belted out on his blues guitar.

 

*****

In I Cor. 14:19, the Apostle Paul assures, “Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.”

Jordan says Paul’s words made him wonder about places in the Word using five-word statements for fundamental understanding from God.

“Over the years I’ve found about three dozen of them that carry a lot of power; they’re just fascinating,” he explains.

“Numbers in the Bible have meaning and many of the numbers have more than one meaning. The best way to discover the meaning of a number in Scripture is to start in Genesis and just read.

“Take Genesis 1. Count the first five words: ‘In the beginning God created.’ That’s the foundation of everything. That’s the foundation of all of history, all of theology, all of life.

“ ‘In the beginning God created.’ There goes atheism right out the door.

“Notice God CREATED, so that means God is outside of creation. There goes pantheism and polytheism. What He created had a beginning. There goes materialism; the idea that matter is the ultimate reality.

“ ‘In the beginning God created.’ There goes deism; the idea that God doesn’t really get personally involved in creation.

*****

“Have you ever had anybody try to tell you that Albert Einstein believed in God? Someone asked Einstein one time (I read his testimony about this), ‘Do you believe in God?’ and he responded, ‘Well, if you mean a personal God who intervenes in history, then no. But if you mean an ultimate FORCE that is behind everything, then yes.’

“So as Hillary Clinton said the other day at the end of the debate, ‘The force be with you,’ well, that’s what Einstein would have said.

“But if you mean an intervening God who enters into human history, he would say, ‘No, I don’t believe that.’

“That’s called deism. It says there is a God but He doesn’t waste any time interfering in your life. He set things up, like you set up a clock. He wound the clock and punched it and goes off.

“ ‘In the beginning God created.’ What does that tell you about Creation? That tells you there’s a personal involvement, a personal plan, a personal activity. It’s a visible, supernatural presence. By the way, that’s the opposite of Kierkegaard’s existentialism.

*****

“What I’m saying is that all the philosophies men develop to try and create their own world, the first FIVE words in the Bible tell you that none of that is true.

“Where did it all come from? It came from God creating. People say, ‘How do you know there’s a God?’ Go look in the mirror. Who else would have created something that looks like you? I mean, look at you!

“If you doubt in ‘creation,’ just look around you; you can SEE it. That’s why Romans 1 tells you that everyone knows there’s a God. When He created you, He created you in such a way to know Him. So you have innately in your heart . . . there’s not anybody who says they don’t believe in God that hasn’t talked themselves into believing they don’t and so they read that verse, ‘In the beginning I created.’

“You need to understand something about mankind. Man’s attempt is to try and subvert God with himself. It doesn’t work and man’s attempt is to try to alibi away to get his own way.

“The first five words in your Bible set that straight. If you don’t get those first five words straight, the rest of the Bible’s not going to mean much too you.

*****

*****

“Come to Romans 5:12 and notice another five words: ‘By one man sin entered.’ You know where the problem in Creation, the problem in your life comes from? That one man was a guy by the name of Adam.

“God gave Adam dominion over the earth and Satan coveted that dominion so he came along and deceived Adam into believing that Lie Satan propagated to him back there. Adam knowingly, willingly disobeyed the clear statement of God and sin entered the world.

*****

“I Cor. 15:3 says, ‘Christ died for our sins.’ Count the words. The Word that created everything was made flesh. He literally stepped outside of creation into creation and became one with us. He’s the one mediator between God and man. ‘Fully satisfying payment for us.’ That’s five words you want to remember.

“Count the words in, ‘And that he was buried.’ ‘And that he was sealed.’ He was buried and ‘rose again the third day.’ There’s five more words. ‘And that he was seen.’ There’s five more.

“All the message of the gospel there is in those five words. He died, He was buried. The death was real. It wasn’t a mystical, theological argument. It was a real death. Then He was raised from the dead.

“The theology is in the death and the resurrection. ‘And that he was seen’ is the historical validation. You understand your faith doesn’t rest in an enigma. It doesn’t rest in a theory. It doesn’t rest in some superstitious hoodilidoo.

“Come to Ephesians 2:5. Count the words in that parenthesis: ‘By grace ye are saved.’ See what I’m doing? Another five words that come along here and tell you everything you need to know.

“Colossians 2:10 says, ‘Ye are complete in him.’ How many words is that? Don’t forget that your completeness is in who God has made you in His Son.

“If you trust in Jesus Christ, God the Holy Spirit took you out of Adam and put you into Jesus Christ. Your identity isn’t in Adam anymore; it’s in Jesus Christ. His death became your death. The only answer to sin is death, so Christ died for you and you died with Him. His burial was your burial. He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. His resurrection is your resurrection.

“By the way, ‘I am crucified with Christ.’ How many words is that?

“Let’s do one more. Titus 2:13: ‘Looking for that blessed hope.’ You know what, we’ve got a good future ahead, folks. The Lord Jesus Christ could come at any moment and catch us away.

“And when Paul says, ‘So shall we ever be with the Lord,’ you’re going to be so one with Him that for Him to think it will be for you to do it. He’s got a job and fantastic things for you to be a part of as the Father exalts and glorifies His Son in all of creation.”

(new article tomorrow)

Self-talk of the Savior

Editor’s note: Still working on a new piece. In the meantime, here’s this:

In John 17 is the longest recorded prayer of Jesus Christ in His earthly ministry. It takes the reader into the very heart and mind—the inner thinking and intimacy that the Son shared with His Father.

Verse 5 says, “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”

Verse 24 says, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.”

What’s so notable is Christ doesn’t claim anything of His own. Instead, as Jordan explains, “He says, ‘The Father gave me. It’s the Father’s will. I’m doing the Father’s will.’

“So what you’re going to find in this prayer is the Lord Jesus Christ in communion with His Father about the plan the godhead had in eternity past and how they’ve worked it out through history and now they’re at that crucial moment; that lynchpin moment in which everything is going to hang. He’s being obedient unto death; even the death of the Cross.

*****

“If you ever wanted to see the internal self-talk of the Savior . . . if you ever wanted to see someone go through the very depths of life, struggles, difficulties, injustice, betrayal, criticism, hatred—not deserving any of it. . . ‘They hated me without a cause,’ He said. He’s conscious of it, and yet able to do it with steadfastness, joy of heart and complete victory.

“When Paul says, ‘Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus,' here’s the mind that was in Christ, and this is one of these rare occasions where you literally listen to Him express . . .

"One of the things you do when you pray is you open your heart up. One of the really valuable things about verbal prayer (audible) is that when you pray with one another (as husband and wife, with other members of the ministry, etc.), you get to hear what’s on the heart of the other person.

“Sometime we are real conscious of that so we try to pray, not to God, but to one another. Grace allows you to be real and honest with people.

"The thing that makes you put up a mask and try to hide your failures is not grace. That’s the law. That’s a performance.

"When someone’s accepting you based on your performance, then you have to be sure your performance is acceptable. But when you have a relationship with someone, and this is a rare thing--when the Scripture talks about loving one another, and walking in love, this is the goal!

"It’s to be able to value and esteem a person the way God does and not based upon your evaluation or expectation, but based upon God’s statement about who they are and who you are and what the relationship is.

*****

“Theology just tramples this passage in John and it’s a crying shame. But this one writer, he titled a commentary book (on John 17), ‘Take off your shoes because you’re on holy ground.’

"There’s really that kind of sense of sacredness about what’s going on here because the Lord literally opens Himself up to allow you to look into His heart and His innermost, intimate conversation with His Father.

“The Lord constantly was in a mode of prayer. It’s not strange that He would end His ministry with His apostles in that way. When you go back to, for example, Luke 3, in His baptism, it’s in the midst of praying that He goes and is baptized of John.

“When He selects the apostles in Luke 6, He’s up praying all night beforehand. When He’s on the Mount of Transfiguration, it’s an evening of prayer and then that. The very last words that came out of His mouth while He’s on the earth on the Cross was a prayer.

“Look at Psalm 31. The Lord constantly lived in communion with His Father but His prayers were intelligent. They were based, not upon emotion or just circumstantially, but they were communing with His Father about His Father’s will.”

Heavy on metal, light on common sense

Editor’s note: I am working on a new article to post tomorrow. In the meantime, given the nice response to my January 10 post, “Praise and worship pales in comparison,” I thought it might be useful to repost this article from 2013 on the subject of young Christians and their music:

Last week, Jordan brought up the subject of music, calling it “one of the dangers nobody seems to be alerting parents or Christian leaders about.”

He reasoned, “It’s just fascinating to me how often and how thoroughly regular people miss the danger in music. They’ll protect their kids in every way except that and you need to be careful. A lot of times parents don’t protect their children because they themselves are not protected against it.”

*****

An old saying is, “When the devil fell out of heaven he landed in the choir loft.” We all know Lucifer was THE superstar musician.

On her Christian website Crossroad, Norwegian author Berit Kjos presents this excerpt from her book, “How to Protect Yourself from the New Age and Spiritual Deception”:

“Man's attempts to transcend the boundaries of the physical world through music are intricately interwoven with the history of mankind. While God encouraged His people to enter His presence through genuine worship and songs of praise, Satan offered seductive counterfeits.

“Thus, pagan societies used music as a conduit to help them connect directly with the occult spirit realm. Neville Drury, who promotes New Age meditation and visualization in his book, Music for Inner Space, points to ancient cultures as models for today:

" ‘In societies where magic and myth define and influence everyday existence man aspires to be like the gods and to imitate them.... [Magical] incantations and songs are a source of Power.’

“In primitive Africa and South America, witch doctors function as mediators between the tribe and demonic spirits. The sacred drum (credited with magical powers) together with hallucinatory drugs (sorcery) induces trances, which transports him into the spirit world where he receives occult guidance and power.

“Nanci des Gerlaise, author of Muddy Waters, is the daughter and granddaughter of Cree medicine men. Now, as a believer in Christ, Nanci warns others about the occult music in Native Spirituality:

" ‘Now when I hear powwow music, my spirit recoils, and I know that it is because there are spiritual forces of darkness at work. Some people, even some Christians, believe there are two different kinds of powwows -- one used only for entertaining tourists and the other for traditional competitions. Frankly, it makes no difference to the spirit world which version is used as long as there are drums and chanting.’ ”

*****

Music is an essential part of life, confirms Jordan. “Every piece of living creation has music to it; has a vibration—that’s what music is,” he says. “Music is really just math in regard to the tonal vibrations.

“When the Bible says back in Ezekiel 36 about the trees singing, well, they literally do. Music is so engrained in the creation that it’s everywhere.

“So when you see music, people call it ‘the universal language.’ You can affect people with music. One of the most dangerous things that happens with your children is the music they listen to, because it communicates ideas and you don’t even need to have words to go along with it.

“Listen, baroque music is considered to be the highest form of musical expression, but Mozart was an ungodly wreck. They’ve done experiments where if people have Mozart in the background, they actually do better in their learning curve. You think, ‘Oh, that must be godly music.’ You ought to go find out something about Mozart!

*****

“My point is, in I Chronicles 24, David organized the priests. Why didn’t he just let them do it any way they wanted to do it? Because God is ‘not the author of confusion.’ So in chapter 25, he’s going to organize the music ministry. He talks about the choir directors and the singers.

“When you hear about this guy, Asaph, understand this about him—he was not just a musical director.

“As I Chronicles 25:1 says, ‘Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals: and the number of the workmen according to their service was:’

“Notice what they’re doing. They’re not just singing; they’re prophesying. In other words, God’s Word was being communicated in the psalms that they sang.

“This is a teaching prophesy, but I want you to notice what he does in Psalm 78. What he does, if you read down through that chapter, what’s literally here in Psalm 78, is a recap of the history of Israel from the Exodus all the way to through the reign of David.

“This tells you that from Exodus to II Samuel where David is, it’s used here as a prophetic parable to teach Israel about what’s going to happen to her in the ‘last days.’ That’s why Hosea says, ‘As in the days of your youth . . . ’

“Hosea 2:15 says, ‘And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.’

“Psalm 105 and 106 are others recounting the history of Israel. Those psalms are laying out a dress rehearsal for what’s going to happen in the ‘last days.’ ”

*****

In an old sermon on music, Jordan made the point, “Music is not an issue of sacred and secular. Lazy Christians have made secular and sacred out of life, but you don’t have a sacred life and a secular life; you only have a life in Christ, and in the Bible music is music. It’s not church music and ‘Saturday-night-boogie-oogie-woogie’ music.”

He quoted Job. 22: 15-17: “Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden?
[16] Which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood:
[17] Which said unto God, Depart from us: and what can the Almighty do for them?”

Jordan explained, “They’re saying exactly what the people in Genesis 21 say, but the context is some people who were overthrown in the days of Noah in the Flood.

“What I’m trying to get you to see is God created music and from the creation to the Flood, music didn’t go up, it went down and it degenerated from the Creation morning until it debauched the world and filled it with violence. They weren’t praising God; they didn’t want to know Him and He wound up wiping them out. You have to be careful about music. Just because you like it don’t make it good for you.”

*****

From the Book of Daniel, we know Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, a picture-type of the Antichrist, employed loud, beat-driven music to engender the mass idolatrous worship of his “beast” image by all the rulers of the nations—it’s judges, police, politicians, etc.

“It was a regular ‘rock festival,’ ” writes Noah Hutchings in his 1998 book, Daniel the Prophet. “Now, why would Nebuchadnezzar accompany this anti-God mass with loud music? Satan knows the power of music to stir the emotions of man and to deaden his natural senses.

 “Loud and discordant music brings out the worst beastlike qualities in man and drives him on to godless pursuits and inhuman behavior. It is no wonder that Nebuchadnezzar used loud and harsh music at his worship service that was base and godless. And this is why we question the wisdom of using modern rock music in the worship service today.”

 *****

 When Daniel’s three Hebrew compatriots held in Babylonian captivity—Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego—remained true to God and refused to worship Nebby’s image, they were by the king’s law to be cast into a fiery furnace.

 Hutchings writes, “The king was absolutely furious, but he doubtless liked his three Jewish governors, and he said to them, ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’ll have the band play my song one more time, and if you fall down and worship the image, we will forget all about this first offense. But if you are still stubborn and refuse to worship the image, when the last note is played I will order the guards to overpower you and throw you into the furnace.’

 “We notice in these last verses which we read that the musical portion of this false and idolatrous worship service is stressed twice again. Music can be used to create any type of specific mental attitude that is desired . . ."