Churches\u00a0give music preeminence because it entices people, especially young people, to \u201cgo to church,\u201d something that parents used to have a battle with.\u00a0 It is entertaining, so the church meeting isn\u2019t as boring for disinterested youth and nominal Christians.\u00a0 High energy music will draw secular people from all walks of life into the building.\u00a0 Some of them will even profess Christianity, as long as it is a bare-bones version requiring no major changes and not initiated by conviction.\u00a0 In fact, the current trend in Church Growth is to make adherents by rendering Christianity palatable to secular people.\u00a0 The actual philosophy is, \u201cIf we can\u2019t bring them in by the biblical standard, let\u2019s lower it to a level that is comfortable and convenient for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Music has been enlisted to assist in this type of conversion.\u00a0 The leader of a major Christian band (at that time), \u201cBride\u201d, during our\u00a0debate insisted that scores of young people were getting \u201csaved\u201d during their concerts.\u00a0 What actually occurred was another \u201cgospel\u201d was \u201cpreached\u201d by the music, and during the consequential emotional cool-down period, they were invited to the front.\u00a0 They said the \u201csinner\u2019s prayer\u201d and received some literature.\u00a0 There is absolutely no way for the man and his fellow band members to know if that person was truly saved, or if they continued in their profession.<\/p>\n
In that period, which was near the end of the last century, they would have been hard pressed to find a church offering the religion they experienced at the concert.\u00a0 Today, they can come back to the concert Sunday after Sunday.\u00a0 \u201cSaved\u201d has been reduced to any sign and degree of commitment, even if it is just attending a concert\/church meeting.\u00a0 The philosophy is, \u201cAnything to get them inside of the church.\u201d \u00a0That is no guarantee that they have been included in the Body of Christ.<\/p>\n
Salvation is not getting people inside of a church building, convincing them to say the \u201csinner\u2019s prayer,\u201d or any of the modern methods for getting someone onto the attendance rolls.\u00a0 Salvation is the result of being convicted by the Holy Spirit after hearing the Gospel.\u00a0 One must come to the realization that he or she is a sinner, else why would he or she need the Savior.\u00a0 If they do not recognize the need for the Savior, they do not see the need to be saved.<\/p>\n
The struggle of rebirth begins during that conviction.\u00a0 The individual decides during that struggle whether to accept deliverance from the chains of sin and darkness, or to reject God\u2019s gift of salvation.\u00a0 If salvation occurs, it is because that person submitted to the atoning work of Christ Jesus as well as surrendering to His Lordship.<\/p>\n
The ones who claim salvation by gradually merging into a Seeker-Friendly, Emergent, Launch, or another church where music is given preeminence over the Gospel, have no spiritual birthdays.\u00a0 Further, they may never have one if they do not believe they are lost.\u00a0 They came into a church where the major force was overwhelming carnal and devilish sensationalism.\u00a0 The preached word is\u00a0more like an afterthought that one endures.\u00a0 The only validation of this method of \u201cconversion\u201d is its widespread acceptance.\u00a0 It has no scriptural paradigm.<\/p>\n
What has actually occurred is, a generation has arrived that does not recognize the line of demarcation between light and darkness, good and evil.\u00a0 A verse in Isaiah caused me to think about what might have caused this deficiency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWoe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, And sin as if with a cart\u00a0rope;\u201d – Isaiah 5:18.<\/p>\n
After reading that verse\u00a0long ago, I had a vision of Christianity tied to the world system with a rope.\u00a0 When the world system moved on and became worse, eventually Christianity was drawn into the position the world system once occupied.\u00a0 Trying to maintain a certain distance between us and the world system may eventually bring us to accept evil that we once rejected.\u00a0 The biblical pattern is to draw near to God.\u00a0 If one has that mindset, the gap will continually widen between them and the worlds system.<\/p>\n
I refuse to compromise to appease people who desire the apostasy.\u00a0 If it means our church will remain small, or become even smaller, so be it.\u00a0 Someone might say, \u201cBut don\u2019t you care that you are not getting them into the church?\u201d\u00a0 That was never my goal.\u00a0 I was commissioned to invite them into the kingdom of God.\u00a0 If getting them into the church is the goal, then sure, use whatever means necessary. \u00a0In fact, turn the church into a musical circus with all the sights and sounds and back-flipping clowns that the flesh desires. \u00a0However, as the apostasy degenerates into such rancid wickedness that churches completely replace every vestige of Christianity with secular patterns to get people to come, what\u2019s next?\u00a0 Where does Hillsong go next when what they are doing now gets old and boring?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Churches\u00a0give music preeminence because it entices people, especially young people, to \u201cgo to church,\u201d something that parents used to have a battle with.\u00a0 It is entertaining, so the church meeting isn\u2019t as boring for disinterested youth and nominal Christians.\u00a0 High energy music will draw secular people from all walks of life into the building.\u00a0 Some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paIm2N-dg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=822"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":825,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions\/825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}