"To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according
to this word, it is because there is no light in them....
And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble
and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven
to darkness" (Isaiah 8:20, 22).
Last night I attended a Christian music festival. I will
never forget what I saw, and I can truly say it was a
heartbreaking experience. Since leaving the concert I
have been weeping for hours, groaning in the Spirit feeling
the wrath of a holy God burning against what I saw.
I went to the festival because the "star performer" featured
last night had been in my office just hours before, crying,
telling me how much he loved Jesus, how sincere he was,
how he wanted to learn more about holiness. He told me
my written messages convicted him. His words sounded right
- his attitude seemed humble. At his request I went to
hear him and his group because he assured me I would not
be offended.
My heart is now so set on the massive human need in New
York City, and my great concerns now have to do with rescuing
last souls from drugs, alcohol and demon possession. I
did not want to get involved anymore in the matter of
rock and roll, heavy metal, and punk music in the church.
I felt I had said enough on the subject and I told the
musician so when he sat in my office. We had prayed together
and I hugged him when he left my office.
I went last night with an open heart, full of love and
compassion - for him, for all Christian musicians, and
especially for the 3,000 or so young people attending
the festival. I sat through two devotional-type songs,
then I sat attentively listening as the musician testified
about what he said Christ had done in his life. No preacher
anywhere could have spoken with more conviction and sincerity
- the words were right. He spoke of separation, of being
obedient to Jesus, of winning souls, of prayer, of holy
matrimony (he was married), of living a holy life. I prayed
as he spoke, "Dear Lord, maybe I misjudged this musician
and his hard rock group. Maybe you are doing something
new in using the music the ungodly prefer, to win them
- to get their attention, to attract them so they can
be ministered to. Lord, I am willing to rejoice in hearing
You preached, in any manner, from any group - if You are
present in it - if your Holy Spirit is blessing it."
I was honestly questioning if my writings about the music
of devils in God's house were just old-fashioned prejudices
or simply my distaste for rock music. Was it just so much
fuss about nothing? Yet something was not quite right.
There was an inner tug at my heart making me ill at ease.
I reasoned, "If Satan is camouflaged in this somehow,
if there is a leaven of evil - it will be revealed. Satan
always reveals himself in one way or another."
Suddenly the singer yelled in the microphone, "Jesus is
coming - He is going to crack the skies - get ready!"
The song was entitled, "Crack The Skies." Suddenly smoke
was billowing out of smoke machines, the pounding beat
was turned up to a frenzied pitch, eerie lights began
flashing, the musicians stood like phantoms rising from
a murky swamp. It was ghostly, weird, strange - and the
crowd went wild - they seemed to love it. At the same
festival, a wild spiked hair group had entertained - with
painted faces, prancing about like homosexual peacocks.
At first, I couldn't believe what I was seeing on stage.
I said out loud, "This can't be happening at a Christian
festival - they can't do this to my Jesus! These people
can't be this blind - the leaders of this youth ministry
can't be so undiscerning! Oh God - what has happened to
your church that its leaders, its people, can't see the
evil of this abomination?"
Suddenly I was on the ground, on my back, weeping and
sobbing, and groaning in the Spirit. I sat up and took
another look at the stage. I was horrified by what I saw
in the Spirit. I saw demonic images rising from that stage!
I heard Satan laughing! Laughing at all the blind parents
- the blind shepherds - the blind youth - the backslidden
church! It was an overt manifestation of Satan - worse
than anything I've ever seen on the streets of New York.
I stood to my feet, literally shaking with the fear of
God - consumed with a sense of His holy wrath against
such wickedness. I rushed into the crowd crying at the
top of my voice - Ichabod! (The glory of the Lord has
departed!) Ichabod! I ran through the crowd, pushing aside
chairs, weeping, shouting at the top of my voice, "Ichabod
- this is satanic! Stop! God is grieved!" I was mostly
ignored and I think most thought I was a crazy lunatic.
I doubt anybody knew who I was - the musicians could not
hear me, and the crowd was too tight to allow me near
the stage. I wanted to get to a microphone and cry like
an Elijah - "This is vomit on the table of the Lord! Who
are your teachers, that you could be so blind, so worldly,
so deceived!? What kind of blasphemy is this?"
I will not shut up on this matter! I will not be silent
while multitudes of our Christian youth are being deceived
by smooth-talking wolves in sheep's clothing! True love
demands that the truth be told.
What hurt my spirit the most, and what is so hard for
me to understand, is that this particular group, and many
others, attend Pentecostal churches. The musician I refer
to told me he gave up drugs, drinking, evil sex and rock
and roll performing when he got saved. He cut his long,
feminine hair, he quit dressing like an exhibitionist
and began to change all his ways. It was a pastor who
encouraged him to "quit looking so square and use rock
and roll to reach the kids." A teacher, in his sixties,
travels on occasion with them, teaching them and encouraging
them in their evil methods. According to their teacher,
rock and roll is gong to be the "normal music in all Pentecostal
and evangelical churches."
It's now the middle of the night and I can't sleep! I
can't stop weeping inside. I am shut in with God in my
study diligently asking Him to show me what is happening,
because hours ago I saw a few thousand young Christians,
with uplifted hands, thinking it was Jesus, when it was
most assuredly the devil. Has the church - or what man
calls the church - so backslidden that there is no more
discernment whatsoever? Has God given up on some who are
set on bringing devilish practices into the realm of worship?
Now I wonder - "Who dares teach such a Jesus - a Jesus
who winks at deception? How blatantly they are mislearning
Jesus Christ! What Jesus are they preaching?"
"But Ye Have Not So Learned Christ" (Ephesians 4:20).
That is what Paul said in his letter to the Ephesians.
He was warning them not to walk as some do "in the vanity
[pride] of their mind" (Ephesians 4:18). He warned of
those who learned Christ in a perverted way, because their
understanding was darkened. They were "cut off from the
life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because
of the blindness of their heart" (Ephesians 4:18).
Some teacher, some shepherd, had mistaught Jesus Christ
to them. The Christ they learned was not the Christ of
God, the Lord of holiness, the master of purity. While
they speak so sweetly of Jesus, and weep when they mention
the name, and tell of a hunger to walk in the ways of
Christ - Paul said of them, they "are past feeling and
have given themselves over unto lasciviousness [lustfulness],
to work all uncleanness with greediness" (Ephesians 4:19).
That is what I saw last night at the music festival -
a group of musicians who were pied pipers, leading many
young people right into the arms of Satan with their smooth
words about Jesus, about celebrating forgiveness - then
with an energy of flesh and carnal greediness hard to
fathom - they put their stamp of approval on a paganism
right out of the devil's treasury. They were saying, by
their music and their worldly, ghastly performance - that
Jesus and the garbage of this world are compatible. They
wore two masks - one of sincere followers of Christ, the
other of performing clowns. With their faces lifted up
to God, they cursed Him by their blasphemous mockery.
Isaiah prophesied of such, "...they shall curse their
king and their God, and look upward" (Isaiah 8:21). What
they preach and practice are two different gospels.
They are deceived, and consequently they are deceivers
themselves. They have mislearned Christ! They have been
duped, manipulated and cheated! They should have had a
pastor or teacher with enough Holy Ghost discernment,
with enough devotion to the true and holy Lord - to warn
them, to show them that God does not put up with holding
on to the old man and the old carnal ways. Why didn't
their shepherds discern that these boys were walking in
ignorance and spiritual blindness, not understanding the
true demands of Christ? Why wasn't their greed dealt with
- not so much for money and fame, but a greed that would
not let go of the very thinking that once led them into
drugs and emptiness. It's all coming out now - that these
groups are falling on all sides, going back to the secular
crowd, back to cocaine, back to groupies - playing the
part of hypocrites and gospel phonies. Their shepherds
are so easily conned, because they are blind in every
way. Paul said it right, "For it is a shame even to speak
of those things which are done of them in secret" (Ephesians
5:12). The very music they perform drives them back to
darkness.
Now - it's probably too late! They have rejected the reproof
of prophets and watchmen who really preach the truth!
They are like those Paul warns about, who have become
so lost in spiritual ignorance and blindness, they are
past feeling conviction. They are confirmed in their worldly
ways! They are so blind they believe they are honoring
Christ and blessing multitudes of youth the church "can't
reach."
Sin-Soft Preachers Are Driving This Generation Into Darkness
"...they shall be driven to darkness..." (Isaiah 8:22).
I blame their smooth talking, sin soft shepherds. Those
same shepherds must one day stand before Christ's judgment
seat and answer - not only for the musicians under their
care - but for all the Christian young people they in
turn have hurt and destroyed. Without flinching, I declare
that cowardly ministers, those who want to be loved and
honored rather than rejected for preaching truth, are
driving this generation into deep spiritual darkness.
We would not be facing a generation of backslidden, pleasure-loving,
worldly minded youth in our churches - youth who do not
even know the commandments of a holy Christ - if we had
more holy, bold preachers and evangelists who could teach
and preach the truth of Christ with purity and authority.
I am not accusing all preachers and teachers - thank God
for the few who still do not cower to the crowd or compromise
for the sake of numbers and success. Maybe the youth won't
listen to those of us who cry out against their lusting
after the world - but when the judgments accelerate -
they will turn to the preachers of holiness for a sure
word from God.
There is filth in Zion, and strangers have been exalted
in the house of God - by blind, compromised, undiscerning
Christian leaders. They are calling evil good, and the
counsel of a righteous God is lightly esteemed. Hearts
are hardening, ears are closing, eyes are being shut -
because pride and flesh and ungodly entertainment is grieving
the Holy Spirit right out of His temple.
Isaiah warned, "...their root shall be as rottenness,...because
they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and
despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore
is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people..."
(Isaiah 5:24, 25).
Hell must be ecstatic at the spectacle of ministers not
just abdicating to the immoral music standards of the
young - but actually promoting what only demons should
be promoting. Who brings these worldly bent groups into
the church for concerts? Who encourages the youth to embrace
the music of devils? Who ridicules evangelists and prophets
and watchmen who cry out against it? Who puts it on radio,
T.V. and who promotes the concerts and festivals that
are now degenerating into satanic showcases? It is the
pastors, youth ministers, Christian radio and T.V. station
owners and managers. They will all live to see the wicked
harvest of their soft gospel and compromise - as their
very own children fall away to the spirit of this age.
Webster's Twentieth Century Dictionary defines whoredom
as "the desertion of the worship of God for the worship
of idolatry." A whoremonger is one who procures or promotes
it. Any spiritual leader who procures or promotes this
idolatrous desertion of true worship is truly a whoremonger.
And Paul states emphatically, "No whoremonger, nor unclean
person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any
inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God" (Ephesians
5:5).
Young people - don't listen to the whoremongers listen
instead to the apostle Paul - who warned, "Let no man
[even preachers] deceive you with vain [empty] words:
for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon
the children of disobedience. Be ye not therefore partakers
with them" (Ephesians 5:6, 7).
Reprove Them!
"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,
but rather reprove them" (Ephesians 5:11). All spiritual
work that is tainted with the least bit of darkness, God
calls unfruitful works! This refutes the big lie of the
devil being promoted by the pushers of "new wave" music,
which argues, "But it can't be of the devil. Look at all
the kids getting saved! Listen to their wonderful testimonies.
They really reach the youth - many are getting saved.
They speak in a way the kids understand - they glorify
Christ in their speech."
God never has judged a work by results. No one is more
successful in holding converts than the Muslims. No church
is richer than the Vatican. The Jehovah Witnesses claim
to be winning multitudes to Christ.
God judges everything by light! That means, by how godly,
how Christ-like it is - by how clear, how pure, how transparent
it is. He repudiates and spits out of His mouth all that
has even a part dark. John saw the Holy City descending
out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. That
is a holy people, a bride adorned and prepared for the
Bridegroom. Its main characteristic is this: "Her light
was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper
stone, clear as crystal!" (Revelation 21:11).
Whatever is of God is clear as crystal! It is holiness
so pure, it is translucent as a pure jasper stone. Those
who are numbered in this holy Zion, this New Jerusalem
coming down from God - have all stepped out into the light.
There is no darkness in them at all - they have been translated
into His light! They walk in the light - they hate darkness
- they reprove it wherever it appears. The enemy has come
into religious circles to destroy what is pure and clear
by introducing a pagan element that creates a shadow or
film. If Satan can inject the slightest degree of error,
or evil leaven, he knows the Holy Spirit will draw back
because of a grieving. That is why no mixture - no shadow
of dark paganism must be permitted in Christ's church.
Also, the Bible speaks of every seed yielding after its
own kind (Genesis 1:12). An evil seed produces evil fruit,
often not recognized until maturity. The rock and roll
"prophets" of this generation are yielding a seed after
their own kind - a seed that will one day bring forth
a fruit that will wither and die. Jude makes that very
clear, "...these feed themselves without fear: clouds
they are without water, carried about of winds; trees
whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked
up by the roots" (Jude 12).
What of the good sounding testimonies, the sincere and
convincing sermonettes? Paul has the answer. "Now I urge
you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions
and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned,
and turn away from them... For such men are slaves, not
of our Lord Jesus Christ but of their own appetites; and
by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the
hearts of the unsuspecting" (Romans 16:17, 18 NAS).
Oh how God's people need discernment. Great deceptions
abound every where, not only regarding the rock and punk
music of the young, but also in regard to new forms of
worship and praise being promoted. Some of it is born
of the Holy Spirit, but much is born of the flesh - and
only those who walk in the light know the difference.
There is a revival of worship and praise in the land today,
and much focus on prayer, intercession and new revelation.
There is no question about there being more and more Christians
standing for an hour or two - with great congregations
singing and praising loudly. There are smiles, laughter,
joy, hand clapping, upraised hands, dancing - never in
modern times has there been a greater shout in the camp.
Thank God for those in the camp who worship in Spirit
and in truth - who lift clean hands and who have pure
hearts - who come before His holiness with a broken heart
and a contrite spirit. If they are walking in holiness,
trembling at God's Word, repentant and free from the bondage
of sin - it is a glorious and acceptable offering unto
the Lord. God does inhabit the praises of His people -
but only if those people are walking in practical righteousness.
But There Is a Shout Which is
Shallow and Meaningless!
There is the shout of the over comer and the shout of
the idolater - and we had better know the difference.
The Lord commanded Moses to "Go, get thee down; for thy
people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt,
have corrupted themselves: they have turned aside quickly
out of the way which I commanded them: they have made
them a molten calf, and have worshipped it" (Exodus 32:7,8).
As Moses and Joshua approached the camp of Israel, Joshua
"heard the noise of the people as they shouted..." (vs.
17). But it was not the shout of those who had overcome
the enemy. The true shepherd Moses, having come fresh
from the very presence of God's holiness - could easily
discern that the great shout coming from the Lord's chosen
people was not pure. Something was terribly wrong - it
did not ring of the holiness of God.
Moses said, "It is not the voice of them that shout for
mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for
being overcome: but the noise them that sing do I hear"
(Exodus 32:18).
That's all it was meaningless, shallow noise - but an
abomination in the ears of a holy God. They had no right
to sing; their hearts were lusting after an idol. Their
hearts were given to pleasure and fun. They stood before
a golden calf - and in the name of the Lord offered burnt
offerings. The people "sat down to eat and drink, and
rose up to play..." (Exodus 32:6).
I received many letters from Christians whom I know have
come through the school of Christ. They have come through
much suffering and spiritual warfare to a place in God
where nothing else matters but knowing Him in fullness.
They were driven by such deep hunger for God, they began
to thirst for Christ as "the hart that panteth after the
water." They tell me how out of place they feel in these
great assemblies where the shout in the camp goes forth.
It all looks good, and on the surface sounds good. But
they can't enter in, because they discern something is
basically wrong. They can't even explain it - the Spirit
of God within them will not let them partake of it. They
discern some kind of unspeakable darkness - something
subtle, yet ominous about all the flesh that accompanies
the singing, shouting, and dancing. It is almost too professional,
too put on, too carnal. They leave, thinking to themselves,
"Is it me - is there something wrong with me? Am I too
judgmental? Why am I not comfortable amidst all this singing
and dancing?"
Those who have stepped out into the light can easily discern
the shadow of darkness. They will not be fooled by false
shouting, false dancing, false worship, or false praying.
True Zion saints rejoice with trembling! (Psalm 2:11).
They know that gladness belongs only to "the upright in
heart" (Psalm 97:11). They can sing and dance when the
Spirit moves them, but with David they can say, "Zion
heard, and was glad; and the daughters of Judah rejoiced
because of Thy judgments, O Lord" (Psalm 97:8). Zion saints,
"Give thanks to the Lord at the remembrance of His holiness"
(Psalm 97:12).
No punk or rock or phony shouting and praising for those
walking in the light. They praise Him for both His goodness
and because they tremble at His great and terrible name.
"The Lord is great in Zion; and he is high above all the
people... Let the people tremble... Let them praise Thy
great and terrible [awe-inspiring] name; for it is holy"
(Psalm 99:1-3).
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