Top 10 song, er, device of all time:

"Paul advises, 'Don't let Satan get an advantage over you because we're not ignorant of the devices; the tricks he uses,' said Preacher Richard Jordan last Sunday morning. "An unexpected device, and this is a device that most of the time nobody's ever even thought about as a satanic device, and yet this is one of Satan's MOST pervasive means of affecting your life . . .

"Ezekiel 28 talks about the Adversary and his original creation: [11] Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
[12] Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
[13] Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

"The king of Tyrus in 600 B.C. had not been in Eden the garden of God. So what's going on here? The king of Tyrus is really talking to the power behind the throne. Who is the god of this world? Satan. He's the prince of the power of the air. He's the prince behind the rulers of the world . . . 

"When the nations of earth came to the place in Genesis 11 where they said, 'We don't want the God of the Bible to be our God; we want to have our own gods,' God said, 'Okay, I'll let you walk in your ignorance,' and He gave them up. When he 'turned them over,' like Romans 6 says, He literally assigned to them fallen gods.

"When you read in Ephesians 2 about Satan being the spirit that works in the children of disobedience, that's not just like a great spirit working down at the ball game kind of thing.

"In Ephesians 6:12, you read about the principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world. There's a spiritual wickedness out there.

"Ezekiel 28:12 tells us Lucifer was a mental genius. He was beautiful. He had this glamour associated with him. If you ever wondered where sin came from and how it entered the universe, there it is. This is the character who introduced iniquity, crookedness into God's creation.

"Verse 13 talks about his clothes and how he literally had a pipe organ built in; he had music as a part of who he was. Inherent in his being was a universal language we call music and he was the director of it. He was the virtuoso, the master musician of the universe. Music is often called the universal language.

"It doesn't matter what language you use humanly speaking, the same music will produce the same effect on everybody no matter where you are on the planet. It's fascinating, because there's a universal language God's built into creation that the Adversary himself was designed to lead. So, when you think about his devices, you have to remember that music is one of the tools in his tool chest to affect your life."

*****

In a review of Taylor Swift's new album in today's Chicago Tribune, music critic Greg Kott writes, "Little wonder many of the songs sound like they’re marketing stratagems massaged by a team of A-list producers, including Jack Antonoff. When you’re the dominant pop star in the world, as Swift is, you’re no longer in the business of taking chances. Yet even those indifferent to Swift’s charms since she emerged as a teen-pop hitmaker in 2006 would probably acknowledge that she’s got a knack for writing hooks, and there are plenty of them on 'Lover.' "


"Woke folk" will tell you that many of the seemingly innocent romantic love songs we grew up with, and still have pop into memory whenever we hear them, are actually songs to/for/about the Devil!

For one example, who over 50 doesn't know the Carpenters' hit "Top of the World"?
The lyrics include, "Everything I want the world to be

Is now coming true especially for me
And the reason is clear
It's because you are here
You're the nearest thing to heaven that I've seen

I'm on the top of the world lookin' down on creation
And the only explanation I can find
Is the love that I've found ever since you've been around
Your love's put me at the top of the world . . . "

Frank Sinatra's "I Sing the Songs," later made famous by Barry Manilow in the '70s with "I Write the Songs," is actually said to be a song giving Satan's perspective on the subject.

It goes, "I've been alive forever, and I sang the very first song,
I put the words and the melodies together, I am music and I sing this song:
I Sing The Songs that make the whole world sing,
I Sing The Songs of love and special things,
I Sing The Songs that make the young girls cry,
I Sing The Songs, I Sing The Songs.
My home is deep within you, and I've got my own place in your soul,
Now when I look out through your eyes,
I am young again even though I'm growing old."

When I was a kid, I was a huge fan of the Muppet Movie (1979). The "Rainbow Connection" in the lead track is said to be the rainbow bridge to the spiritual/demonic realm!

The lyrics sung by Kermit the Frog, playing banjo in a remote Florida swamp, include, "Who said that every wish would be heard and answered 
When wished on the morning star? 
Somebody thought of that and someone believed it 
Look what it's done so far 

What's so amazing that keeps us star gazing 
What do we think we might see? . . . 

All of us under its spell 
We know that it's probably magic . . . "

 
*****

Job 38:7 reports, “The morning stars (the classification of angels Lucifer was in; the top echelon) sang together, and all the sons of God (or all the angels) shouted for joy.”

“They’re watching God create the universe, marveling, ‘WOW! I got it! I see it!’ and Lucifer was the one leading them,” explains Jordan. “Literally, when the morning stars sang together, you know who wrote the song? You know who provided the music? Lucifer.

“Pipes and tabrets, or percussion instruments, were literally built inside of Lucifer and he was the original composer of music. He was heaven’s choir director.

“Lucifer watched God create and decided he ought to be the one getting the glory in it all (Isaiah 14). He took the music and twisted it from being about God to being about him.

“That attitude of self-worship and independence from God—worshipping and serving the creature rather than the Creator—began right there and when Lucifer ‘fell’ he took his music with him.

“As Ezekiel 28:16 tells it, ‘By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.’

“He ran the world’s first advertising campaign, merchandising his ideas. And you know how important music is to that. It was a natural means of conveying his message.

*****

“Outlined in Genesis 4-6 is a picture of the original development of culture and society, including music, and its inherent sinfulness.

“When God wants to deal with the problems of life and culture, He doesn’t need 37 volumes written by Will Durant, or whoever else, to give you the course of Western civilization—He just writes it down in one chapter really.

“Genesis 4: 21 says, ‘And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.’

“Where does the art of music and entertainment come from? From whose descendants? Cain!

“I John 3:12 reminds, ‘Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.’

“Cain followed Satan. Now what kind of music do you think he was creating? You think he and his descendants were going to create music and musical instruments that praised God or praised themselves?

*****

“Describing the wicked in the days of Noah, Job 21 says, ‘They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ.’

“The wicked have got music and they love it and it’s affecting them. They want to feel good. But notice what they don’t want:

“Starting in verse 13, it says, “They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.
[14] Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.
[15] What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?
[16] Lo, their good is not in their hand: the counsel of the wicked is far from me.”

“They’re not interested in glorifying God; rather it’s, ‘Why should we serve God? There’s no profit. What profit shall we have?’

“I mean, tell me this morning, why do you serve God? You know a lot of churches today rely on music to bring people in; it’s not the teaching of sound doctrine.

“I talked to a business lady recently and tried to witness to her, and she said, ‘Oh, I sing in the choir every Sunday.’ When I asked her, ‘What does your preacher teach?’ she said, ‘Oh, I don’t get to hear the preacher very often because as soon as the choir’s quit singing I have to leave.’ She’s in real estate. She has to go do open houses after lunch. You understand why she’s there? To sing in the choir!

“There’s a whole lot of people who do that. You have the great music, the drama, and then the little sermonette stuck over at the end just because you’ve got to do something religious. The thinking is, ‘We don’t see any profit in serving God that way.’

“Listen, the closer you get to death, folks, and I’ve observed this for years, the harder you try to prove you’re not dying. And that’s not just the physical things; you’ll see that in spiritual things.

“When the wicked say in Job 21, ‘What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?’ they’re saying exactly what the people in Genesis 21 did, but the context is those overthrown in the days of Noah in the Flood.

“From the creation of the universe to the Flood, music degenerated until it debauched the world and filled it with violence."

(new article tomorrow)