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.”
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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.
“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.’ ”
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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!
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“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.’ ”
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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.”
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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.”
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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 . . ."
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