Noises off

(new article tomorrow)

God says in Isaiah 10: [9] Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?

[10] As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria;
[11] Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?

"You see those same cities that are in Amos are the ones that the Antichrist is already going to have conquered," explains Richard Jordan.

"God's telling Israel: 'Look, the man of sin is going to get you and you think because of all this leisure and fine things you have over here that that's my blessings but listen, those things, that's not my blessing. That's the evil fruit of an evil deed. You don't have my protection and the Antichrist is going to come get you just like he got all those other places and you think you're better than they are? You can forget it. I'm going to treat you just like you're not mine and I'm going to bring the Antichrist down on you and when he comes, he's going to clean your clock just like he cleaned everybody else's and he's going to take all that wealth away from you and leave you sitting out there on the ash heap, crying like a bear bereaved of her whelps.'

"Here's Israel's religion in Amos 5: [23] Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

"These songs God's referring to were not harmonious, wonderful sounding things; they were rattle, rattle, thunder, boom, boom. The noise.

"If you go to Exodus 32, Moses is on the mountain with Joshua and they come down with the commandments and when they hear they say, 'There's the noise in the camp; it's the noise of war.' Turned out it was music.

"Now, where had those people just come from? Egypt. Where do you think they learned their music? In Egypt. What they learned was music that sounded like noise. Now they've incorporated that into their religious services.

"He says, 'And I will not hear the melody of their viols.' You see, there is some music God doesn't like. Every kind of music has the potential to be used to glorify God, but your flesh and the religious system will take ANY kind of music and twist it into something God doesn't want--make noise out of it.

"Here's how they're doing it in Amos 6: [5] That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David;

"A chant is a repetition; you repeat it over and over. They chant to the sound of the viols. They've got the great orchestration, but it's just repetition. You ever go to a church with a liturgy where they're just repeating stuff over and over and over and they're singing? That's what they were doing.

"And watch this: 'and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David.'

"Now, let's take David off the hook, because when they say they're doing it like David, that's their hypocritical--Isaiah has that verse about them being a hypocritical nation; they're a bunch of hypocrites. They're not doing it like David.

I Chronicles 23: [5] Moreover four thousand were porters; and four thousand praised the LORD with the instruments which I made, said David, to praise therewith.

"When David made instruments, he made them to praise God with. He didn't make the instruments to please people. You see that's what Amos 5:6 says. They didn't invent instruments that praised God; they invented something to please themselves with.

"I guess that's probably one of the great identifying markers of music. Music is one of the most dangerous things in the life of anybody.

"Music is the one thing that quicker than anything will take the place of God the Holy Spirit in your life. It will take the place of sound doctrine in your life quicker than anything."