Satan in the choir

Are you looking for "Screwtape Letter" speculation or actual examples?

I've seen both...

Over the years in the pulpit, it has become evident to me that Satan has indeed planted many an individual into the local church. After a while, it becomes rather easy to spot them. They are the popular ones that no one can really figure out -- they pedal their influence, cause votes to change, generally instigate revolt in the church, especially against the pastor or pastoral team, are involved in a ton of ministries, but settle on none, and often are the root cause of a church split -- though they never seem directly to blame, they are always in the thick of the battle.

Directly, I've come into contact with several persons who were evidently under the influence of demonic spirits, including several who have spoken during meetings in ways that would raise the hair on the back of your neck (and did!). I've also run into confessed Satanists during door-to-door witnessing encounters, and they were SO happy to see us at their door so they could let us know that they were working against the church. That was no big deal -- anyone could say that -- what was weird and anti-God-supernatural was that they could name names and know details...

Oh, and start the search with the deacon board... Those who refuse to recognize God's mandate for servanthood and insist on "ruling" the church and pastor are high on my list of the ones serving someone other than God.

 

Music doesn't cause church splits. People cause church splits, and often it is because of pettiness, cruelty, indifference, or an attitude that is anything but Christian.

On occasion, the church split is a good thing and separates the good apples from the bad.

Oh yeah...and guns don't kill people. Murderers kill people.

And McDonald's toys don't make kids fat.

And being in the choir doesn't make you a satanist or a Christian.

And vanilla isn't the same as chocolate, but it's yummy too.

 

Easy. I'd attack the home. Make sure mom and dad do not get along and/or are non-existent. Distract them with everything possible so they cannot have a good marriage and family time. Have mom work outside the home and not have time to nurture the kids. Tempt dad with impure thoughts and use the tv and computer to help with that. Make sure they learn to depend on the government to raise their kids for them and are too busy and exhausted to bother with God or church. By the time the kids are grown, the plan will be a success.

 

Bingo! If satan can destroy the home, he can easily destroy the church.

 

One good way to attack a church is through the preaching and teaching. Satan could put a man in the pulpit (if God would allow it; he can do only what God allows) and in the Sunday school classrooms with subtle false teachings that sound right to the average Christian because of their lack of Bible knowledge, and few (if any) would be the wiser.

 

Way back when I was in school I had a professor who taught that. He believed so often music ministers were more into music than sound doctrine. He would give the stats of how many times a music minister because he might have been causing division with in the church had to be moved from one church to another or out of the ministry with in the Presbyterian Church. I have seen it happen a few times.

I believe it is the man isn't being the christian leader of the home as he should in so many of our familes. So many familes if it wasn't for mother's teaching of Scripture, no matter how small or great, there wouldn't be any teaching about our Savior in the home. However dads actions are working hard against what so many mothers are teaching.

Many homes do not have a mother or father teaching their children about our Savior. If the church had real christian men coming out from the Christian homes, teaching and working with in the church to get the Gospel out, the church would be doing its job better.

 

There are songs with questionable words. With so much theology out there that is contrary to the truth, it's easy to find songs with words that come from false doctrine.

Example: "Just a Little Talk with Jesus." I sang that for several years before a pastor pointed out the words "prayer wheel" to me. He told me that those words come from a religion where a little "prayer wheel" is held and spun in circles. With each revolution, the person's prayers allegedly went go to God one time.

Example: "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder." In the Bible it says that Jesus will return "in the clouds." In that song it says that He will return on a cloudless day.

These may seem like minor infractions, but if we allow one "small" false statement into a song, message, or teaching, it gets easier to overlook other false things--including sin.

I believe in absolutely NO compromise on what I KNOW to be the truth.

 

Depends on the church. Each one has its unique personality. With more and more churches using choirs less and less that might not be the case for every church.

Honestly from what I've seen the most effective weapon that Satan is using is removing the centrality of Jesus' atonement for sin. Make Christianity more about feeling good about myself, more about how I can be better xyz, more about being comfortable about my lifestyle. That seems a far more effective weapon. Just my opinion though.

 

I never heard of that being some weird thing about a prayer wheel. I assumed it had to do with Ezekiel's vision of a wheel and the faith and vision they represent and that usually, in a majorly minor degree to the vision, are in us and we feel and it comes out in prayer. It's a burning, is it not? A need to connect. A desire for knowledge...vision. Takes faith. Etc..

Who is it that looked up the writer of that song and how did they get the idea that he meant it to be some weird heathen thing? That makes no sense. Sounds like just another example of the extreme nit-picking that leads to splits. That's not Satan. That's just dumbness.

 

A very knowledgeable pastor told me that it had to do with a Tibetan religion.

 

Do we REALLY think that that hymn comes from that distant a theological perspective? I mean, really?

That is akin to 3rd world animism, where they find a spirit of some sort in and under every rock, tree, bush, and river.

 

We have to be careful, because a lot of people try to tie elements of music they don't like with paganism (like the whole thing with the beats).

You would have to examine which wheel (the Ezekiel one or the Tibetan one) it more closely resembles.

 

Yes, there are "prayer wheels" in the Buddhist tradition. But that's not what is referred to in the song.

Not arguing it's a well-written song...just making the point for accuracy's sake.

 

And all musicians are in some way a decendent of Cain. Very EVIL rather than Seth.

 

The Puritans were syncretic compromisers with Tibetan Buddhism too.:laugh:

Cotton Mather, Ecclesiastical History of New-England:

of John Eliot

"He kept his heart in a "frame for prayer," with a marvellous constancy; and was continually provoking all that were about him thereunto. When he heard any considerable news, his usual and speedy reflection thereupon would be, "Brethren, let us turn all this into prayer!" and he was perpetually jogging the "wheel of prayer," both more privately in the meetings, and more publickly in the churches of his neighbourhood."