17-12-2011, 09:40 PM
(This post was last modified: 17-12-2011, 10:29 PM by itgwfdisciple.)
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Pump up the volume
If you listen to the noise generated by a lot of churches nowadays you would think that righteousness was defined by how much the volume is turned up. You will also notice that most churches are organised like a night club that happens during the day, they have a set program, there is no real opportunity for an outsider to ask questions and there is more than enough loud music and singing to satisfy any party goer. The church of the New Testament, on the other hand, was a quiet and sedate place that didn't have a strict order of service, in I Corinthians 14:26 we read "How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying" and we notice that Paul says everything that is done should be for the edification of the congregation.
Origin of the noise
The noisier churches try to justify what they are doing by quoting Psalms, an example is Psalm 150 "Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD." where you can see that they have a lot of license to make some serious noise and say that they are doing it for God. If we read Acts 13:13-15 & 42-48 "Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem. But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down. And after the reading of the law and the prophets the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on." Paul speaks and then "And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath. Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." we can see the benefit of having a relaxed and open atmosphere where anyone is allowed to address the congregation and the results that can be obtained from it.
Noise without hope
If you go into one of these noisy churches and you want to educate them on their folly, then all you have to do is read to them Amos 5:23 "Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols." and Matthew 15:7-9 where it says "Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." and finally Matthew 7:21-27 "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it." and explain to them that doing the will of God is a requirement to make it into the kingdom of God. If you read through the whole of the New Testament you will not find any mention of loud music, loud singing and dancing and you have to wonder why people are so desperate to do it considering that it does not seem to be the will of God, one clue could be had from Revelation of John 12:9 where it says "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." and the "deceiveth" part could explain why people are so convinced that what they are currently doing will get them into the kingdom, when Jesus is obviously of a different opinion. I am looking into how Satans deception works and I seem to have unearthed some clues but I still have a long way to go.
Noisier than Jesus
Another thing you will notice about the loud churches is that some of their preachers are also loud as well, hopefully they do not think that being loud makes them seem more righteous than the quieter preachers, not surprisingly though some members of the congregation seem to prefer the louder preachers; I wonder if they are being deceived again? If you read in I Peter 3:15 "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:" you see that we should be answering people with meekness and fear rather than with a loud and shouting voice and in Matthew 11:29 it says "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." and we see that Jesus, the head of the church, is a person with a meek and lowly heart, so anyone who thinks that they can do a better job by screaming and shouting to people is making a big mistake.
Noise of doom?
So, after reading all of that, what can be done? Trying to break the members of the churches with the word of God seems to be a lost cause because they seem to have this uncanny ability to listen to what you say, and they might even agree with you, but when you see them the next week it is as if they have not remembered the conversation and if you repeat it again then they will have forgotten it the next week again and so on... The next option seems to be for like minded people to have a discussion to work out what to do. For any discussion that is had the important thing to remember is that there must not be a repeat of what Jesus said in Matthew 23:13 "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in." where the current churches act as if they are the gateway to the kingdom. They then convince you to follow their doctrine, which of course always seems to have something in it that goes against the word of God, and if you do not read your Bible properly then you will follow them to their doom, meaning that the kingdom of heaven is still shut up against men in this modern age.
What can we do?
If you want to discuss this or any other problem with the church then post a question on the forum and lets see if we can do something to rescue the situation. The most important thing that needs to be worked out is how to make teaching the center of the church like it was in the New Testament times because we all still need to learn a lot from God if we want to have a chance of making it to the kingdom.
Pump up the volume
If you listen to the noise generated by a lot of churches nowadays you would think that righteousness was defined by how much the volume is turned up. You will also notice that most churches are organised like a night club that happens during the day, they have a set program, there is no real opportunity for an outsider to ask questions and there is more than enough loud music and singing to satisfy any party goer. The church of the New Testament, on the other hand, was a quiet and sedate place that didn't have a strict order of service, in I Corinthians 14:26 we read "How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying" and we notice that Paul says everything that is done should be for the edification of the congregation.
Origin of the noise
The noisier churches try to justify what they are doing by quoting Psalms, an example is Psalm 150 "Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD." where you can see that they have a lot of license to make some serious noise and say that they are doing it for God. If we read Acts 13:13-15 & 42-48 "Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem. But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down. And after the reading of the law and the prophets the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on." Paul speaks and then "And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath. Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." we can see the benefit of having a relaxed and open atmosphere where anyone is allowed to address the congregation and the results that can be obtained from it.
Noise without hope
If you go into one of these noisy churches and you want to educate them on their folly, then all you have to do is read to them Amos 5:23 "Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols." and Matthew 15:7-9 where it says "Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." and finally Matthew 7:21-27 "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it." and explain to them that doing the will of God is a requirement to make it into the kingdom of God. If you read through the whole of the New Testament you will not find any mention of loud music, loud singing and dancing and you have to wonder why people are so desperate to do it considering that it does not seem to be the will of God, one clue could be had from Revelation of John 12:9 where it says "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." and the "deceiveth" part could explain why people are so convinced that what they are currently doing will get them into the kingdom, when Jesus is obviously of a different opinion. I am looking into how Satans deception works and I seem to have unearthed some clues but I still have a long way to go.
Noisier than Jesus
Another thing you will notice about the loud churches is that some of their preachers are also loud as well, hopefully they do not think that being loud makes them seem more righteous than the quieter preachers, not surprisingly though some members of the congregation seem to prefer the louder preachers; I wonder if they are being deceived again? If you read in I Peter 3:15 "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:" you see that we should be answering people with meekness and fear rather than with a loud and shouting voice and in Matthew 11:29 it says "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." and we see that Jesus, the head of the church, is a person with a meek and lowly heart, so anyone who thinks that they can do a better job by screaming and shouting to people is making a big mistake.
Noise of doom?
So, after reading all of that, what can be done? Trying to break the members of the churches with the word of God seems to be a lost cause because they seem to have this uncanny ability to listen to what you say, and they might even agree with you, but when you see them the next week it is as if they have not remembered the conversation and if you repeat it again then they will have forgotten it the next week again and so on... The next option seems to be for like minded people to have a discussion to work out what to do. For any discussion that is had the important thing to remember is that there must not be a repeat of what Jesus said in Matthew 23:13 "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in." where the current churches act as if they are the gateway to the kingdom. They then convince you to follow their doctrine, which of course always seems to have something in it that goes against the word of God, and if you do not read your Bible properly then you will follow them to their doom, meaning that the kingdom of heaven is still shut up against men in this modern age.
What can we do?
If you want to discuss this or any other problem with the church then post a question on the forum and lets see if we can do something to rescue the situation. The most important thing that needs to be worked out is how to make teaching the center of the church like it was in the New Testament times because we all still need to learn a lot from God if we want to have a chance of making it to the kingdom.
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