Posted on 12/07/2004 12:06:09 PM PST by LouAvul
The growing clout of America's 100-million evangelical Christians is being heard loud and clear. Just turn on your radio, and you'll notice that a seismic shift in American culture is taking place.
Before, you could tune into different stations, which offered different music and different messages.
But now, as Correspondent Bob Simon reports on 60 Minutes Wednesday, Dec. 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT,, evangelical Christian music is flowing into mainstream media -- and changing it. In fact, Christian entertainment now brings in $4 billion a year.
Rappers and rockers are making hits and making money while spreading the gospel to national audiences. Christian groups can be heard on secular radio and seen on "The Tonight Show." Earlier this year, the group Third Day even played at the Republican National Convention.
"The fact that there are Christian themes now emerging in rock and that Christians are in rock is just representative of a spiritual desire or a spiritual hunger in our culture," says Cameron Strang, publisher of Relevant Magazine, a religious publication.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
It was on their "What a Joke" album. It is by far the best song on the album. They did change one line though, instead of "God is the only way to love", they sing "Christ is the only way to love".
***If by "mocking" you mean wearing black, wearing crosses,...****
Yea, that what a Sabbath concert was, a church service, a place to find Jesus!
Ozzy was telling folks how to get saved (between mouthfulls of bat's heads and booze)
I've know a lot of kids who've been drawn into occultism through the influences of Sabbath and their contemporaries.
But we are commanded to share the Gospel, and the topic of the discussion is how music is used to that purpose.
Yeah, I get a lot of that when people from church get a look at my CD collection. :)
Well we should all just go our merry private lives, since after all God has no "need" of us. Let the gospel preach itself!
That's an extreme which Calvinism has sometimes gone to and it's silly. You can count on that if God created you, God wanted you to be there. Let the light shine from lamps of a billion different designs.
rwfromkansas is right.
God does not need us. To believe otherwise indicates a fundamental lack of understanding of Who He Is.
See what Christ has to say about honoring the Sabbath in Matthew 12.
Hubby loves it, of course he loves all medieval chant. I only like it to go to sleep with. When I'm awake, I wanna Rock!
You fallaciously confuse "need" with "want" in a straw man. Sure God does not "need" us in the sense that there is any external necessity compelling His hand or rendering him the poorer if He does not act or the richer if He does act, but it is perfectly certain that God "wants" us. He put us there on purpose... what man ever popped into existence of his own accord, without God going to the trouble? He made a plan for us and prepared us.
You are the one confusing "need" and "want".
"Want" wasn't in my post. Nor that by rwfromkansas.
Please reread.
I'm not telling you anything. Those were Paul's words. He is saying that you should respect others whose specific practices differ from yours in regards to eating, not eating, celebrating the Sabbath on Saturday versus Sunday, etc.
To this we can add worshipping with music, without music, in silence, or shouts of praise.
Let each individual pick that way of worshipping which appeals to him. Let God judge whether that worship is from the heart for Him or whether it's for the benefit of other men....
Christ was the perfect sacrifice, giving us forever access to heaven. The veil was torn.
Heb 9:7-24
7 But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people:
8 The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing:
9 Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;
10 Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.
11 But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;
12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
15 And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
16 For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
17 For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.
18 Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood.
19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people,
20 Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.
21 Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry.
22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.
23 It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:
John 4:23: But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth."
It is clear there is a huge difference between OT and NT worship. The veil is torn; we have direct access to the Father through Christ. We can worship him with our sins already atoned for. We can worship in Spirit and in truth. Simple devotion to God instead of all the extra outward expressions (instruments etc.) like was required in the OT. We worship by making melody in our hearts (Eph. 5:19), by worshipping "in spirit and truth" (John 4:23).
Here is some good stuff from a sermon outline:
"NOT ALL WORSHIP IS ACCEPTABLE...
1. There is vain worship - Mt 15:7-9
a. Based on traditions of men, while ignoring the commands of
God
b. Offered without involving our "hearts" (spirits)
2. There is ignorant worship - Ac 17:22-23
a. Ignorant of the true nature of God
b. Ignorant of the worship He desires
3. There is will worship - Co 2:20-23 (KJV)
a. Self-imposed, not God-directed
b. What we like, what we think is good
-- Just because we worship God, does not mean He is pleased with
our worship!"
Many Calvinists read "need" so broadly as to encroach upon "want." As though God just barely cared.
That's interesting, the kids I knew in High School that got drawn into the occult never listened to anything close to Sabbath. They were all hippies and mods. Actually, all of the metal-heads I knew ended up getting to a point where they were broken enough to accept Christ. The hippies were to arrogant for that.
But, I went to a strange High School
There are also thickets of strawmen.
God uses even evil vessels to accomplish his sovereign will.
"As the wife of a former youth minister, let me just say that thinking Christ is "uncool" (or Christians are uncool) can keep people out of heaven."
Oh ye of little faith in the power of God's Holy Spirit!
God's elect will be saved. Period.
So they might as well stand around and do nothing, after all they'll end up in the same heaven as if they lived a passionate life on earth, daring to "pollute" the world with gospel.
This is a pretty ludicrously one sided view.
Whether they worship with electric "geetars" or pipe organs or in silence.
Now, please give it a rest. Unless you're God and know someone's heart you aren't fit to judge how anyone worships.
There is some evil in all human vessels, this side of eternity. It does pay to be humble, as God is passing over more of your sins than you would ever think.
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