Paul Woodhouse - Grace Centered Magazine - Instrumental Music

Paul Woodhouse, Grace Church of Christ, Instrumental Music is Commanded by Psalmos. A review of an article appearing in Grace Centered Magazine. Grace Centered Magazine, like many others, seems to see its goal as defending the Vineyard-like "New Wineskins" dogma and denouncing those who will not get sucked into the instrumental fold.

Posted a thread on GCM Forum and then blocked me from correcting the false impression. I have posted my rebuttal of Terry Rush who insists that 'we are wrong about instrumental music.'  Like most of the band, Terry has never tested false teachings by the NACC stable of writers to see that they are lying about all of the Bible and church history.

Terry Rush Our stance on instrumental music is wrong: Discussed at Grace Centered Forum but rebuttal blacklisted. Therefore, I have posted a growing review.  Wade Hodges confesses that the Tulsa Soulwinning workshop really means WINNING for the NACC who spreads all of the false teachings at these meetings of the giddy gatherings.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Grace was not a blue-eyed blond. In fact Grace was a brown-eyed Greek. External "grace" or CHARA is the base meaning of charismatic. Charismatic links directly to musical, homosexual "worship." Melody or Psallo is never a "musical word" but speaks of the twanging bow string and "singing" arrows of Apollo or Abaddon or Apollyon. He will arouse the MUSES or "locusts" about now to separate those with different MARKS. More later. Charismatic or threskia "worship" was highly musical and homosexual.

You must understand that Dr. Rubel Shelly intends for the musical worship team to "help lead you into the presence of God." And musical, dance or theatrical groups agree with Dr. Shelly and claim that "we are the mediators between God and man." This has always been the theme of mechanical instruments which in both Hebrew and Greek is from the same word as "weapon."

To resist this, Grace-Centered magazine and other groups seem intent on discrediting those who still believe that Jesus Christ as Spirit is in our midst and cannot, must not, be "called into His temple" with machines.

This is because you cannot create a new form of religion or cult, according to researchers, without...

First: making the old pre post-moderns disillusioned by "upsetting the equilibrium by attacking traditional religion. (This is what Hybels pushes for in his destabilization)." See Under Lynn Anderson's model which is quite identical to that used in witchcraft.

"An art so deeply rooted in the security patterns of the community should not, in theory, be subject to rapid change; and, in fact, this seems to be the case.

Musical style appears to be one of the most conservative, if not the most conservative of culture traits.

Religion, language, even many aspects of social structure may change;

an enterely new set of tunes or rhythms or harmonic patterns may be introduced;

but, in its over-all character, a musical style will remain intact.

Only the most profound social upheavals--

the coming of a new population;

the acceptance of a new set of mores--

or migration to a new territory,

involving complete acculturation will profoundly transform a musical style, and even then the process takes place very slowly." (Goldschmidt, Walter, Exploring the Ways of Mankind, p. 609, Holt, Rinehart and Winston)

Those navigating the winds of change know that as "wine may be fine but likker is quicker," if you are going to radicallty change the music, as plato says "to change the laws," you have to use prayerful brinkmanship: hoping that you can push them to the edge of emotional breakdown without getting fired. In that case, you may have to dodge and weave and momentarily retreat to "safe" preaching until it is time to give it another, below the belt, jab.

We have reviewed Rubel Shelly and John York's Narrative Theology where change is acceptable even if you have to translate the Exodus into a nation "baptized by the Holy Spirit," our "spiritual fathers" and a pattern for worship and community (commune).

Narrative Theology is defined here. If this system is going to work then the styles of music will have to be used to "break down the equilibrium" to get them to accept a new "set of laws."

Rubel Shelly and John York's retrospective see the Corinthians in danger but having been "baptized by the Holy Spirit." Like the wineskin parable, the Exodus is radically reconstructed here.

"Rising up to play" as a clear and present danger in Corinth is the musical idolatry Satan and His demons used at Mount Sinai to radically reconstruct the covenant of grace into the Law of Moses and a death sentence.

Christian Chronicle Worship Forum Reviews: Dan Dozier --Jack Reese

New notes added 6/10/2000

See Theatrical (preaching or singing) performance in modern Shamanism.

See Drama and Dance "worship" Claim to be The Mediators between Man and God

See Rubel Shelly and ACU on Anti-non instrumental music.

Part Two

Part Three

---

The Call For Explicit Endorsement by Refusing to Teach the Truth and by merging with those with whom we disagree.

For those using psychological violence to try to force non-instrumentalists to "at least" fellowship musical groups, J. W. McGarvey is a good example of "who gets the victory over whom."

"In 1950 bro. J.P. Sewell, in a Harding College lecture, recalled the following advice, given to him by bro. McGarvey away back in 1902. Ist is advice preachers today might ponder.

"You are on the right road, and whatever you do, don't let anybody persuade you that you can successfully combat error by fellowshipping it and going along with it. I have tried it. I believed at the start that was the only way to do it. I've never held membership in a congregation that uses instrumental music. I have, however, accepted invitations to preach without distinction between churches that used it and churches that didn't. I've gone along with their papers and magazines and things of that sort. During all these years I have taught the truth as the NT teaches it to every young preacher who has passes through the College of the Bible. Yet, I do not know of more than six of those men who are preaching the truth today. It won't work. See J. W. McGarvey's battle.

While wanting to appear to be tolerant it is easy to give consent where the "musical entertainment" will always be more "exciting" and sense-satisfying than devotion to the Word without human adornment in song and sermon.

---

So, you can believe it, when people try to radically and instantly upset traditional music you can bet that they have underhanded goals of profoundly upsetting the equilibrium of people for the sole purpose of changing their total culture to "fit the pattern" of those acting as change agents. And they always assume a grace-centered mask of superiority.

More threatening, those intent on eradicating the total Biblical pattern of teaching as opposed to "music" you know that even the Laws of God are being attacked and the term "Post-Denominational or Post-Modern is their confession knowing that the people they have kept in ignorance will know no better.

Those making the changes resist the Biblical pattern and rather try to manipulate you to enable you to "Navigate the Winds of Change" without totally sending you into dissociation or schizophrenia.

"However, it is important to note that Jeroboam I was under no illusions regarding the nature of the images that he had fashioned, for he spoke of them as 'thy gods, Israel, which brought the up out of the land of Egypt" (1 Kgs. 12:28). That other Israelites adopted precisely the same attitude towards the calves is made plain by Hosea, who said of the Samarian idol, 'A workman made it, it is not God" (Hos. 8:6).

"The basic reason for contemporary denunciations of the religious practices current in the northern kingdom is that bull-worship encouraged the syncretism of YHWH-veneration with the depraved fertility cult of Baal, and as such posed a serious threat to the entire ethic of the Sinai Covenant.." (Harrison, R. K., Introduction to the Old Testament, Eerdmans, p.412).

Bible 101aaa knows that Amos was not condemning a "bad mental attitude" but the wholesale "navigating" Israel into the same musical idolatry which destroyed the Covenant at Mount Sinai. This put the common people, now "strangers," under the control of the musical Levites and under the sacrificial system. You cannot adopt's Israel's noise without repudiating Jesus who is not just a "burning bull."

Tolerance for those intending to destroy the eternal Christian System or to accomodate to the Baby Boomers (Infantile Drummers) shows a lack of moral courage and "aptness" to teach the word.

Because it can easily be shown that many "churches" in their present incarnation are more Greek than Biblical, it is interesting that Plato warned that music was a tool of "gradualism" used as change agent. In the Republic, Book IV he understood that those changing the musical forms intended to change the laws. Therefore -- "music and gymnastic (must) be preserved in their original form, and no innovation made. They must do their utmost to maintain them intact. And when anyone says that mankind must regard... The newest song which the singers have, (Odyssey)... "they will be afraid that he may be praising, not some new songs, but a new kind of song; and this ought not to be praised, or conceived to be the meaning of the poet; for any musical innovation is full of danger in the whole State.. So Damon tells me, and I can quite believe him; he says that when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them..." "Then," I said, "our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in music?" "Yes," I replied, 'in the form of amusement: and at first sight it always appears harmless'."   Alan Morrison Notes that: "It is important to realise that the bulk of the New Style of Worship songs have been written by people who are ardent advocates of Charismatic teachings which previous generations of believers rejected as "fanaticism" and "enthusiasm". "These songs have been composed for the deliberate purpose of seeding their teachings in churches.   "In other words, the New Style of Worship is promotional -- and what it seeks to promote is another gospel and a form of Christianity which is very far removed from the Bible,   although the majority of professing Christians today are unable to recognise that.   "The New Style of Worship songbooks have been deliberately published in order to effect a change in churches to this new form of Christianity. One only has to read the books written by the major advocates and composers of the New Style of Worship to be convinced of that. Plato again: And, when a man allows music to play upon him and to pour into his soul through the funnel of his ears those sweet and soft and melancholy airs of which we were just now speaking, and his whole life is passed in warbling and the delights of song; in the first stage of the process the passion or spirit which is in him is tempered like iron, and made useful, instead of brittle and useless. But, if he carries on the softening and soothing process, in the next stage he begins to melt and waste, until he has wasted away his spirit and cut out the sinews of his soul; and he becomes a feeble warrior. Very true. Music has always been called "the effeminate art." If the element of spirit is naturally weak in him the change is speedily accomplished, but if he have a good deal, then the power of music weakening the spirit renders him excitable; on the least provocation he flames up at once, and is speedily extinguished; instead of having spirit he grows irritable and passionate and is quite impracticable. (The Great Dialogs, Plato, Classic edition, p. 312) "History notes that when religion swings from repression to permissiveness, those with mental disorders lose their emotional footing and react by flaunting the violation of previous religious views. Karen Armstrong, A History of God. Others have called this "the holiness of sin." By sinning, grace may abound and the thumbed-nose is given to old moral values because, in one pattern, you simply have to burn down the old world order in imitation of the Aztec jubilee before your new "lighted fires" can be restored to all of the houses (congregations). Thus, Hitler warned that the "emotional" could be used as "human material" but if the leaders were emotion-driven then the offspring of the movement would be sterile. It is probably true that the neo-pagans, like Antiochus, will take over the temples and "drum you to death on a drum frame" if you refuse to eat a bite of their "pork." However, they will not replicate Christianity and the "assembly" will again be driven underground where it can recover its manliness and produce a true Restoration Movement without "bread and circuses." Old religious "fortresses" make great night clubs and museums. Even musical theologians are warning about the new musical sectarianizing and the erotic nature of the new praise hymns. Wasting or melting away is the message of most musical instrumentsd: Nebel (h5035) neh'-bel; from 5034; a skin- bag for liquids (from collapsing when empty); hence a vase (as similar in shape when full); also a lyre (as having a body of like form): - bottle, pitcher, psaltery, vessel, viol (A "famiar spirit.") Nabel (h5034) naw-bale'; a prim. root; to wilt; gen. to fall away, fail, faint; fig. to be foolish or (mor.) wicked; causat. to despise, disgrace: - disgrace, dishonour, lightly esteem, fade (away, - ing), fall (down, -ling, off), do foolishly, come to nought, * surely, make vile, wither

---

In the new attack "Getting Real" seems to mean "getting non-instrumentalists." After all, they "stood in the gap" to get Jesus with musical instruments ordained by God for war.

> "Many of us need a reality check." Grace Centered Magazine Statement of faith.

> "Gospel is not a "correct" view of instrumental music in the worship service.

> "I think that sums the purpose and direction of Grace Centered Magazine. Real, core Christianity--no legalism allowed.

Paul's "Core Gospel" was called "milk" and it was fed to those "still carnal" because they couldn't advance to turning loose of self and become a suffering servant like God-Incarnate. The Corinthians never advanced beyond the Core made of Milk and are still the pattern of "unity in diversity" to those Paul would still not claim as "the perfected."

So Paul begins:

-

Let's Get Real: The Instrumental Music Issue by Paul Woodhouse

Grace Centered Magazine June 2001. Because of previous threats we are not able to reproduce the article here. Paul's quotes or concepts will be in Red, our comments in Black and other quotations in Blue:

The growing theme defending instrumental worship does not take note of the huge Biblical and historical resources which equates instruments and even complex singing to the secular or pagan world. Paul, whose words are so easily perverted, connects it to demon worship at Mount Sinai.

It is a fact that instrumental music is always ascribed to Satan teaching the Baby Boomers (Infantile Drummers) how to seduce the people away from the literal presence of the Word and down into the dark valley of the Cainites using mixed-sex choirs, wine, instrumental music and sexual perversion with Satan's elders able to image themselves as either male or female.

This is the message of Enoch quoted by Jude. But God will come with ten thousand of His saints just as He did at Mount Sinai when Israel "rose up to play" with idolatrous, musical worship.

A modern (probably musical) scholar notes that:

"In pagan traditions, musical instruments are invented by gods or demi-gods, such as titans (Satans). 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).

While we are not obligated to believe all of the recorded history, it should give pause to those who proclaim that the non-instrumental churches resist because they are sectarian or Pharisee hypocrites.

Ignorance even at the highest university level may be an excuse for musical worship but one doubts that not trying to find out is excusable.

Because of his pa st experiences, Paul believes that this gives him authority to speak to the non-instrumentalists to get them to change their minds or bad attitudes and agree with the pro-instrumentalists.

However, most of our backgrounds almost guarantees that we have never truly heard the musical worship horror at Mount Sinai which lost Israel The Book of the Covenant and earned them The Book of The Law. It separated them into "strangers" and "clergy" where the Levites would kill you for trying to get into the symbolic presence of God when the music (called noise) was accompanying the slaughter of animals. Yes, Jesus did die for "A Cappella Music" because each priest is now able to come boldly before the throne of grace and no Levitical musician is allowed in the space which permits only each priest and God. Musicians claim to be "mediators between God and man." Therefore, you cannot worship to the beat of the music without denying a fundamental part of the Gospel.

Next, Paul Woodhouse identifies the instrumental music issue as a "hot button" matter in churches of Christ.

But, it seems to me that most of the hot button pushers are pro instrumental.

To the alert, the association of instrumental music and telling God: "we won't hear you" is clear.

To all of the "church Fathers" and denomination founders and theologians the non use of instruments was an absolute belief held "en toto" until the liberal 19th century among protestants.

To the alert, those who should know that the sectarians added instruments in an attempt to take over churches of Christ in the South for the larger Society, this is a hot button issue because it is a Biblical issue.

When the aggresive "evangelizing" pro instrumentalists "invade" then the button is pushed and must be met with the universally true but almost universally unknown to preachers facts.

The non-instrumentalists did not invent the new but ancient pagan "praise" concept believing, like David, that the lost gods can be called into the new but not-yet-paid-for temples or that praise jacks you up into the presence of God.

Christianity Today notes that the "praise craze" is a profound sectarianizing event even within a given congregation. When you have a song singing group but the Baby Boomers insist on "contemporary Christian" then you have developed sectarianism and it wasn't the older people who sowed the discord or divided the church. As it did in black churches and "charismatic" churches this will drive the masculine influence underground probably where God wants it.

To those wandering from sea to sea and from "christian" university to "christian" university with the mantra that legalistic churches of Christ are the unique sowers of discord, we offer the following growing table:

Next, Paul identifies this as a volatile issue because of the "distinctive" restoration movement group which possibly hatched from an egg in the later part of the 19th century and invented a cappella. For some reason a new word has been coined for the old timers: "Distinctives" meaning the peculiarities of people who won't dance when the priests pipe.

We believe that the normal people speak of "congregational singing" and not "A Cappella Music." Music is not a religious word in the New Testament and A Cappella was a latter day invention of the Pope who could not allow instruments among the top powers. Nevertheless, they trained young boys and invented A Cappella which made them into an "organic pipe organ" and the singing style was "organum." The musical ritual and "young, attractive" people dressed like girls is a universal theme is A Cappella but not Biblical.

"Music" in the classics often groups "singing and dancing" where harmony was a purely physical or carnal activity. Music with song and dance was the home-coming animal sacrifice for the prodigal but music is not a Christian "worship" word as it was not an Old Testament concept.

In the 1911 issue of the Catholic Encyclopedia instruments still were not allowed in the Sistine chapel and the Encyclopedia's articles on music agree totally with the congregational singing position as the ideal. That ideal fell aside when the Cathedrals as Seeker-Centers ran short on cash and before they found out about thumb screws and the burning stake.

Therefore, the pro instrumentalists use the word "A cappella" to allow the introduction of musical worship teams as the most sectarianizing and legalistic movement in history

David Lipscomb wrote as late as 1878 that:

We do not think anyone has ever claimed authority from Scriptures to use the organ in worship. They only claim it is not condemned. It is used as an assister in worship...Prayer, praise, thanksgiving and making melody in the heart (mind) unto the Lord are acts of worship ordained of God, but no authority do we find for for the organ." (p. 78).

It was the sectarians who all began as non-instrumental Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and the Restoration Movement but changed the two-thousand year old practice of congregational singing into A Cappella (choirs) and the use of instruments. This had no claimed biblical authority but was to help pay for the new buildings and entertain the city folk made affluent by the Civil War which was more about religion than slavery.

This is the typical effort as Barton Stone declared: "They strike the blow and raise the alarm." The Zealots would stab a person in a large assembly and then cry out: "Foul murder. Catch the murderer." Judas was such a "sicarri" and his "thief's bag" was for "carrying the mouthpieces of wind instruments.

Next, Paul Woodhouse accuses non-instrumentalists of constructing an elaborate but flawed system to defend the a cappella tradition as the only way to "express praise" to God.

First, we don't know what God will permit. However, consistent with non-Catholic theological history from Pentecost onward, what is safe and non-sectarianizing or non-divisive is to follow the Words of Christ and His apostles. If one does not believe that Christ and Paul are able to speak to the superior modern mind then that's ok. However, that does not give authority to pass judgment upon others who believe that Christianity is informed by a Book of revelation. Most of us don't care to hear about someone being a 13th apostle to pronounce Paul and Peter as divided men writing to divided churches and therefore not authoratative.

Second, we should note that there was no collective "praise service" under the Law, in the Synagogue, in the New Testament or in the historical church for hundreds of years. The practice was to chant inspired Scripture. "Praise ritual" is a distinctly pagan practice which believes that you can manipulate the gods or mankind if you praise enough. This is rank legalism.

For instance, Dr. Rubel Shelly along with the Vineyard people believe that with "facilitation" which is "manipulation" the musical praise leader can "move the worshipers into the presence of God." Paul specifically warned against the old Babylonian and Egyptian attempts to use music to ascend to God or to force him to come to them to bestow some favor.

Praise and dance teams claim the role of "mediator between God and man." That is what "moving them into the presence of God" claims.

Again, we don't know how much one can get away with but the non-instrumentalists have constructed nothing. It simply "justifies God" by accepting the Words of Christ as the unalterable pronouncement from heaven.

Non-instrumentalists remained faithful to almost 1900 years of church history with no Biblical defense in the literature or possible. Therefore, it is a false accusation to blame continuing a 2000 Biblical practice without falling into secular culture.

Therefore, one wonders why there is so much hostility and highly-organized effort as the first principle of establishing a new religion or sect:

First, you must destabalize the people by tearing down their total belief system before you can begin again.

Rubel Shelly and Randy Harris in The Second Incarnation equate this to the burning down old structures of the Aztecs. Not to worry that up to 20,000 were sacrificed in the 52 year and 52 week "Jubilee" to help the gods prop up the sky. The keynoter was given all of the wine, women and song for a year. Then, he laid aside his flutes and harps, climbed the steps up the "tower of babel," exposed his heart and "moved into the presence of the sun god." Maybe not.

In a scholarly study of the Willow Creek Association which fuels this new antism against non-instrumentalists notes:

First: disillusioned or "upsetting the equilibrium" with "traditional religion." (This is what Hybels pushes for in his destabilization).

Lynn Anderson in Navigating the Winds of Change repeats this almost completely and this is not different from the methods of Shepherding movements, the commercial Zoe Group or even Witchcraft. Click for some references.

Next, the churches of Christ constructed nothing. There was no rationale for instruments when the Legalistic system of animal sacrifices ceased and therefore the Jews did not use instruments until A. D. 1815 in a liberal synagogue which brought lawsuits and divided the Jews.

Music has always been a most works-intensive effort to "call the gods" to their temple.

The use of the "psallo" argument was used only when the sectarians began using it because there was no other proof-text or remote Biblical authority which would have survived the scholarship of the day. Most were too smart to try to drag the Legalistic Monarchy practices into the New Covenant church. People still tell strange stories about Psallo but it does not allow instruments because it defines as one of the allowable "instruments"--the human lips and mouth.

When the Restoration Movement tried to correct many apostasies, the use of instruments was almost universally rejected by non-Catholic influenced group such as Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians.

Therefore, music was not an issue and it would have been impossible to "construct" a flawed system to defend a problem which did not exist.

When the sectarians and institutionalists added instruments while dividing churches and sowing discord, the churches of Christ did not move an inch. Any competent scholar out of the Baptists, Methodists or Presbyterians would have been fully aware that the Old Testament condemns instruments (Calvin, Clark) and why they were not used in Christianity or Judaism once the sacrificial system was dead. It was left for the Disciples whose roots are the "High Church" of the Anglican movement which gains, from the Pope, the authority to add, like the Pharisees, new traditionalism in order to ignore the commands of God.

Churches of Christ kept on not doing what it was always agreed that one should not do. I suppose the fact that they "won't move" is what creates all of the hostility toward non-instrumentalists.

Paul Woodhouse writes this appeal to the "non-instrumental Churches of Christ" tradition.

A tradition as among the Pharisees and Scribes required two primary things condemned by Jesus:

1. The Revealed Word of God is deliberately ignored in order to use some new "pattern."

2. The purpose was to "sell books" and "steal the homes of widows."

3. Therefore, a tradition has no Biblical foundation.

4. Instrumental "god calling or appeasing" was the traditionalism of all known paganism.

The key embodiment of a "traditionalists" were the Pharisees. Again, were specificially marked by Jesus for "adding their own practices in order to ignore the commands of God" and by doing so for mercinary reasons.

A Jew who simply stuck to the 1400 year old story of the Old Testament would never be called a traditionalist.

We are known as churches of Christ as a stable platform against instrumentalists who tried to claim everyone in their own census. The name "The Church of Christ" is Biblical and historical in all groups. Click for the proof. It was not "invented" in order to create a new sect.

Non-instrumental church of Christ is like the word "Campbellite" intended to distort and inflict damage.

A traditionalist would be one who adds instrumental music at an exploding rate simply because "the Jones are doing it." This clearly defines a tradition and people don't hesitate to panic when the bills can't get paid because the people have already been starved to death for lack of the Word (Amos 5; 6; 8).

Paul's goal is to get the non-instrumentalists to examine their opposition to using mechanical instruments in worship. At least, the goal is to get them to quit condemning instrumentalists as a "freedom to disagree."

We are aware of no rational effort to disturb the instrumentalists to the extent that the irrational efforts against NOT using instruments have crashed into the printed page with Jubilees and other legalistic festivals as well as web magazines. To ask for a reconsideration presumes that the issue had not been considered for 1900 years. And it pretends that the instrumentalists have the high ground which repudiates the entire Bible and historical evidence. The goal would be to get non-instrumental churches to add instruments or to agree that instrumentalists have such superior authority that it was worth using the Law of Silence to add instruments as a "law" which you followed or got out. If you got out then you were fair game to be accused with sowing discord.

I shoot at a rabbit, he runs, he is a harsh, legalistic little fellow for refusing to join me at table.

The direct command of God is to teach the Word. That does not condemn people personally but challenges their grasp of Biblical truth.

This becomes an issue only when people presume to make a denomination out of churches of Christ. Otherwise, why should there be such judgmental hostility against those who won't join the instrumentalists nor agree that "we are wrong and you are right?"

The instrumentalists sectarianized after 1900 years. Might they not want to reexamine the issue without aid and comfort from those who still claim to be members of the church of Christ but have no foundation upon which to pass judgment against non-instrumentalists?

The division and sectaranizing occurs when instrumentalist did and do forcefully introduce instruments and "steal widow's homes" by driving them out of the buildings they paid for.

Events like Jubilee and the Zoe group and other activities sow the discord by spending huge efforts to blame the guilt upon those who "upon being invaded turn hostile and mount an attack." This is known as The Guilt Clause.

We have the musical sectarian's approval to condemn any mechanical means of worship as sin just as the pro music people claimed that it was sinful when used as worship but not when used as an aid to worship.

Because worship is defined by Jesus as "in spirit" or in the mind and devoted to the truth (His words) you can turn the buildings into theaters in a fulfillment of Revelation 18 but you cannot call it Christian Worship. It is thievery to take the "logo" Christian and glue it onto our practices.

Therefore to promote instrumental music as part of worship means that even those who introduced the first ones would brand you as sinful because they denied that it was "worship" even though the judge rejected their "logic."

All of the known Biblical and historical information condemns instruments as mind control and sinful. We just don't have time to repeat all of that information here.

Paul's approach to show the illogic of the anti-instrumentalists. Their first argument:

"Argument #1: Instrumental music, which was acceptable under the Mosaic covenant, is not authorized in New Testament worship. This is incorrect.

The first part is certainly incorrect.

Instrumental music was continued by Israel at Mount Sinai as ongoing Egyptian worship which they always lusted to restore. This "because of transgression" lost Israel the Covenant and shackled them with mandatory animal sacrifices and a priesthood. They were conditionally sentenced to captivity and death and it was finally carried out under the Kings "like the nation's" kings facilitating "like the nation's" worship.

The instruments of David were added to a "like the nations worship" tolerated when the elders demanded "set a king over us" as they fired God. God promised the kings would destroy them and He would not stop it. However, He sent the musical prophets from the Philistine high place and the destruction of the wheat crop as signs that they were lost beyond redemption.

In the end, it was Amos who spelled out the doom because the leaders were into "wine, women and song" and the people hungered and thirsted for the Word but could not find it. As a result, they went into captivity.

Click to Read Adam Clark and others who will tell you the facts.

The instruments made noise during animal sacrifice to force the people--outside the camp-- to fall on their face. If any of the "audience" who were just incidentially in Jerusalem stumbled into the holy precincts the Levites, like flaming cherubim, would put them to death. The common people did not worship with music.

"Numbers 18: 2-7. thy brethren also of the tribe of Levi--The departments of the sacred office, to be filled respectively by the priests and Levites, are here assigned to each.

To the priests was committed the charge of the sanctuary and the altar,

while the Levites were to take care of everything else about the tabernacle. The Levites were to attend the priests as servants-- (they did not serve God)

bestowed on them as "gifts" to aid in the service of the tabernacle-

while the high and dignified office of the priesthood was a "service of gift."

"A stranger," that is, one, neither a priest nor a Levite, who should intrude into any departments of the sacred office, should incur the penalty of death. ROBERT JAMIESON

As musical worship teams and Sister Singers claim to mediate for Christ (Who had his dispensation or "Blackaby Assignment"), they intrude into the pulpit area which in Catholicism is "the most holy place." And because their authority is that of Mosaic Legalism, they incur the death penalty for which there is no redemption.

That is, according to the fall in the wilderness "standing in the holy place" and pretending to be mediators.

This was not instrumental praise. The Levitical teams praised but this was a form of boasting and it was in defense of the temple state and not for God.

The people were shut out of the Temple to protect them from the horror of the burden which had been laded onto the priests and the Levites. All of the musical affairs were ritual purification or dedication of the "like the nations temple" and never for congregational assembly at which God outlawed blowing the trumpets and making a joyful noise because the assembly (synagogue) was for instruction (Num 10:7).

Some of the "proof-texts" used to defend the "Jews always sang with instrumental accompaniment" are separated in time by up to 600 years. If we heard of a church who held an exorcism ritual in a Catholic church in AD 1400 we would not drag this up as authority for instrumental worship 600 years later.

The synagogue (under various names) was the assembly of the people using the Hebrew word equivalent to the Christian Assembly.

There was never any praise service in the people's assemblies or synagogues and assuredly no instruments.

"Music" is a secular or pagan word: it is not a Yahweh Word. Therefore, anyone who interprets "teach with Psalms" into a "music" word simply is ignoring the Word of God.

Saul and then David became human kings of a secular temple-state and thefore "bluff" or panic was one of their major weapons. The Levites were to "excel" over all others. As a result of the musical idolatry at Mount Sinai, the common people became "strangers" and they would be killed if they wandered into the holy precincts or were not "outside the gates" or camp when the loud noise began to signal the animal sacrifices. Halal (h1894) haw-lal'; a prim. root; to be clear (orig. of sound, but usually of color); to shine; hence to make a show, to boast; and thus to be (clamorously) foolish; to rave; causat. to celebrate; also to stultify: - (make) boast (self), celebrate, commend, (deal, make), fool (- ish, -ly), glory, give [light], be (make, feign self) mad (against), give in marriage, [sing, be worthy of] praise, rage, renowned, shine. This word gave rise to the word "Lucifer." Heylel (h1966) hay-lale'; from 1984 (in the sense of brightness); the morning-star: - lucifer. The temple and its ritual was God's supernatural sign that He had largely abandoned Israel to captivity and destruction. Scholars are aware that the temple "law" was a radical change from the Law of Moses. This new religion was like all of the other surrounding nations like the Canaanites and Babylonians: "The book of Psalms contain new doctrine after the Law of Moses. And after the writing of Moses, it is the second book of doctrine... (David) first gave to the Hebrews a new style of psalmody, by which he abrogates the ordinances established by Moses with respect to sacrifices, and introduces the new hymn and a new style of jubilant praise in the worship of God; and throughout his whole ministry he teaches very many other things that went beyond the law of Moses." (Fragment of Commentary by Hippolytus, bishop of Rome, Ante-Nicene, V, p. 170) The king of Tyre was a type of Lucifer or even Lucifer's agent. Lucifer was the fallen angel who in all of the ancient accounts seduce the people with mixed-sex choirs, wine, instrumental music and perverted sex because Lucifer was bi-sexual: 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. Eze.28:13 When the King / Queen (Lucifer was bi-sexual) played the harp it was "the song of the prostitute." Therefore, far from being a sign of spirituality, the Monarchy or temple-state "worship" was a profound sign to everyone of the gagging horrible nature of sin. How better to illustrate this to the leaders than let them fall totally in time. The common people were put outside of this "worship" by the Levitical Musicians who were like the flaming cherubim who guarded the garden of Eden once Adam and Eve had forsaken God.

Next, the foundation is laid for instruments because Paul commanded "speaking" with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. This seems to be the major undertaking of Grace Centered Magazine as one of the driving forces for the first step to a new sect: make everyone hate their old churches and their old preachers and elders.

True. The word is speak and not sing. Noticed that, eh? Speak is the same word as preach. The resources were all inspired Biblical text. It is called the Words of Christ in Colossians and Spirit in Ephesians because Jesus said "my words are spirit and life." (John 6:63).

One of the first heresies was singing self-composed songs. The very first is defined by McClintock and Strong as the "Musical Worship Minister."

Paul showed the Orphic, vegetarian, instrumentalists how to worship with Dionysic, meat-eater, wine-drinking, instrumentalsits in Rome by using the same "singing" method:

For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me. Rom 15:3

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Rom 15:4

Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: Rom 15:5

That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Rom 15:6

This is the "singing to the Gentiles" word but it is not a musical prescription.

The result would be singing and making melody in the heart because "singing" was secular and "melody" means the sickening thud or twang of a bowstring aiming an arrow at your heart. Or it is the enemy "plucking out your hair." Melody means "to grind into fine powder" and is related to the SOP Jesus fed Judas. The Judas Bag was "for carrying the mouthpieces of wind instruments" because Psalm 41 prophesied that he would attempt to triumph over Jesus where the triumph which was condemned by Numbers 10:7 would not ultimately succeed.

The message is absolute: music means to silence God's Word by silencing God's Son:

The translation found with the Dead Sea Scrolls reads in part:

And they, teachers of lies and seers of falsehood,

have schemed against me a devilish scheme,

to exchange the Law engraved on my heart by Thee

for the smooth things which they speak to Thy people.

 

And they withhold from the thirst the drink of Knowledge, (Amos 5, 6, 8, Is 5)

and assuage their thirst with vinegar,

that they may gaze on their straying,

on their folly concerning their feast-days (Jubilee, Feast of Tabernacles)

on their fall into their snares.

 

9

Of Jesus it is said translating the word "triumph over" or "alarm"

They have overtaken me in a narrow pass (gap) without escape

And there is no rest for me in my trial.

They sound my censure upon a harp

and their murmuring and storming upon a zither." Ps.41:11

Anguish seizes me

like the pangs of a woman in travail, (John 16:21)

and my heart is troubled within me.

I am clothed in blackness

and my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. (Vermes, 165f)

 

The "core gospel" goes along with trying to silence the whole word of God.

Nevertheless, In Victory, prophetic of "singing to the Gentiles" or the commanded teaching of Paul:

I will groan with the zither of lamentation

in all grief-stricken mourning and bitter complaint

until iniquity and wickedness are consumed

and the disease-bringing scourge is no more.

Then will I play on the zither of deliverance

and harp of joy,

on the tabors of prayer and the pipe of praise

without end. Click for More

 

So the prophecy of Psalm 41 is that Judas as Satan's agent along with the clergy would Stand in the Gap to get Jesus with instrumental music. He was seen as "among their idols."

In practice, they mocked him and played the usual musical games. Jesus said that they "piped" trying to make Him sing and dance the feminine Dionysus dance performed only by Herod's stepdaughter as prophetic of getting the head of John.

Next, Paul Woodhouse notes that Paul was a Jewish Rabbi and that by specifying "psalms" he was making way for instruments. However, look at the word "psalmos."

Click for some of the Classical, Biblical and other scholarly commentary on these words.

The Temple-State was under the control of the Sadducees and the priests were hand selected by the Roman authorities. This was where the instruments were found and condemned by Josephus.

The Pharisees had control of the Synagogues and there was no praise service in the Synagogue and assuredly no instrumental music. The Pharisees were moving the people away from the sacrificial system even if they were, like us, hypocrites.

The Rabbin did not "sing with instruments" in order to teach the Word. And Paul was neither a priest nor Levite.

Therefore, one doubts that saying that one is a Catholic Scholar would prove that he likes to sing, dance and play instruments.

Paul understood that because of the secular or pagan domination of the word "psallo" the word had been stripped of its instrumental part. Based on how the word is used especially in the Septuagint, modern scholars give the broad meaning of the word:

Psalmos (g5568) psal-mos'; from 5567; a set piece of music, i.e. a sacred ode (accompanied with the voice, harp or other instrument; a "psalm"); collect. the book of the Psalms: - psalm. Comp. 5603 (an ode).

Proponents of musical rituals insist that a "psalmos" necessarily includes a mechanical instrument. Many scholars note that this would imply that everyone have an instrument and would exclude theatrical performance.

However, in the Hebrew, the usage is almost if not totally universal that when "singing with melody" is meant the instrument is always defined. You cannot use the word "Zamar" without defining it.

For instance, "sing and make melody with the harp." The first lines of 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. Is 23:16

The king (queen) of Tyre was an agent of Lucifer who was in the garden of Eden and came equipped with musical instruments.

However, look again at the definition from Strong's even though scholarship denies that it included instruments at the time:

A sacred (inspired) ode

Accompanied by the

Voice

Harp

or other Instrument

The Britannica notes that:

"Music, like the word, also may have symbolic meaning. The basic elements out of which musical symbolism is built are sounds, tones, melodies, harmonies,

and the various musical instruments,

among which is the human voice.

Therefore, there is no silence about this issue: Paul directly singing the inspired poetic parts of Scripture in a "speaking" sense in order to teach: speaking and melody is not silent enough to allow a Rock band.

In order to add instruments you have to:

Use the Law of Silence and go further to violate the direct command of Paul and radically destroy the purpose of the Psalms for teaching and not remotely for "music."

By defining the term "speak" rather than "sing" and by defining the voice and heart as the "instrument" the other options are excluded. Click for Bible 101aas. You have to say "Paul said the voice and heart but Paul DID NOT SAY 'THOU SHALT NOT USE A MECHANICAL INSTRUMENT.'"

Next, the contention is that to use psalmos is to exhort to use trumpets, lyres, harps, tambourines, flutes, stringed instruments and cymbals to praise God.

There you have it: Paul didn't really mean to pick out the "first instrument of choice" in rendering a psalmos. He simply made a terrible mistake (consistent with the Core Gospel) and Paul really said:

I command you to use trumpets, lyres, harps, tambourines, flutes, stringed instruments and cymbals to PRAISE God. I really didn't mean it when I said "to teach ONE ANOTHER."

David permits "praise" only from things which have "breath." This led most of the early scholars to allegorize instruments as the Dead Sea Scrolls do.

In explaining what Arndt-Gingrich really said, we have included a table which shows how instruments are used in the psalms.

The pro musical people always rest their case on Psalm 150 but this is the only place a cymbal is mentioned.

To warn against the unfair use of the Psalms we submit the following table which indicates by color the purpose for which instruments were used. There is no "congregational singing with instrumental accompaniment." None.

The blue text below indicates psalms which are from a person seemingly lost and often calling down God's judgment upon the enemy -- often personal enemies. The bold black text shows that these are redundant. For instance, Psalm 33 includes both the psaltery and timbrel are used. The timbrel was not allowed in the temple. Other colors indicate a processionals, new moons, symbolic, vengeance, arousal or awakening the harp, fear of being cast off, historical warning, prophetic. There is no congregational worship in these references.

Sing Only	Harp(s)	Psaltery Instruments	Timbrel Cornet	Trumpet(s) Reed	Cymbal	Flutes- pipe	Drums Tabret
Ps.7:17 Ps.9:2 Ps.9:11 Ps.13:6 Ps.18:49 Ps.21:13 Ps.27:6 Ps.30:4 Ps.30:12 Ps.51:14 Ps.59:16 Ps.59:17 Ps.61:8 Ps.65:13 Ps.66:2 Ps.66:4 Ps.67:4 Ps.68:4 Ps.68:32 Ps.75:9 Ps.92:1 Ps.95:1 Ps.96:1 Ps.101:1 Ps.104:12 Ps.104:33 Ps.105:2 Ps.106:12 Ps.135:3 Ps.138:1 Ps.138:5 Ps.145:7 Ps.146:2	Ps.33:2 Ps.43:4 Ps.49:4 Ps.57:8 Ps.71:22 Ps.81:2 Ps.92:3 Ps.98:5 Ps.108:2 Ps. 137:2 Ps.147:7 Ps.149:3 Ps.150:3	Ps.33:2 Ps.57:8 Ps.68:25 Ps.71:22 Ps.78:70 Ps.81:2 Ps.87:7 Ps.89:19 Ps.92:3 Ps.108:2 Ps.144:9 Ps.150:3	Ps.68:25 Ps. 81.2 Ps. 98:6 Ps. 149.3 Ps. 150.4	Ps. 47.5 Ps 81.3 Ps. 98:6 Ps 150.3	Ps. 150. 5	Playing the flute was always symbolic of obscenity. Play the flute, pollute and prostitute come from the same Hebrew word. Which is almost identical to the "halal" praise. <