Worship

From Herescope:

Evangelicals and New Agers

We want to call our readers’ attention to a recent article by Constance Cumbey posted at www.newswithviews.com entitled “The Family and its Hijacking of Evangelicalism: Part 1“.

This is a must-read article from the Michigan attorney who first brought the “New Age Movement” to the attention of the evangelical world in the early 1980s in her landmark book The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow (Huntington House, 1983).

In this new article, Cumbey links New Age leaders with evangelical leaders in ways which have heretofore have been undisclosed. Based on the groundbreaking research on the evangelical secret society called “The Family” (or “The Fellowship”) made public by Jeff Sharlet in his recently released book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, Cumbey connects the dots to the Institute of Noetic Sciences. And she adds important pieces to the perplexing puzzle of interconnections between key evangelical leaders and ranking New Agers.

Read more here…

Here’s a good example of how such New Age doctrines are making their way into our churches, courtesy of folks like Patricia King and an introduction to Ekstasis “worship”.

On a related note, I’ll like to draw your attention to Vee’s blog where she shares her salvation experience and deliverance from when she herself was “… mixed up with a Christian Spiritualist”.

I pray that it will warn you of the dangers of this movement, and help you discern against such occult practices.

For the Lord is good and His love endures forever
He’s a faithful God to all generations
For the Lord is good and His mercies will not fail us
They are new each day
O lift your voice and say the Lord is good

Great is Your faithfulness O Lord
Your loving kindness fills our hearts to overflowing
Songs of rejoicing and sweet praise
They fill our hearts
They fill our days

This was brought to my attention at Symphony of Scripture since I don’t have a television set, much less cable.

I wonder who they are referring to when they replaced “Jesus” with “Shepherd” and called that shepherd “Lord” and “Savior”, amongst other things.

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t give two hoots about glorifying the name of Jesus (oh! if only they knew of Philippians 2:9-11!), but neither are many churches nowadays to be honest. Throw in the Emergents and Universalists and what you get is a big bowl of confusion.

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It was expected that He should come in pomp. Instead of that, He grew up as a tender plant, silently and insensibly. He had no form nor comeliness, nothing extraordinary which one might have thought to meet in an incarnate Deity. The manner of His appearing in the world had nothing of outward glory.

His gospel is preached, not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but with plainness. He was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. His whole life was not only mean but miserable. Being made sin for us, He underwent the sentence sin had subjected us to. His condition was, upon many accounts, sorrowful. He was unsettled, had not where to lay His head, lived upon alms, was opposed and endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself… We never read that He laughed, but often that He wept.

…

Carnal hearts see no excellency in the Lord Jesus, nothing that should have induced them to desire an interest in Him… Men whom He came to save rejected Him, and His sufferings mean nothing to them. Christ, having undertaken to satisfy the justice of God for man’s sin, did it, not by divesting Himself of the glories due to an incarnate Deity, but by submitting to the disgrace due to worst of men and malefactors. Thus He glorified His Father… But alas, by how many is He still despised in His people, and rejected of men as to His doctrine and authority.

– Matthew Henry (October 18, 1662 – June 22, 1714)¹

¹ Extracted from: Rev (Dr) Tow, Timothy. The Gospel Prophets — An Applied Commentary On Isaiah and Micah. 120.

I’m not one of those stiff-necked folks who insist that only hymns are proper worship songs, but given the fact that there’s actually a plethora of bad Christian music out there nowadays, I still prefer hymns to contemporary Christian music (CCM).

There’s just something majestic and magnifying of the Lord in hymns, unlike bad CCM that harp about “what I want from God” or worse, not mentioning God at all in the lyrics.

As you can probably guess by now, lately I’ve been harking back to hymns after having listened to CCM for awhile. Perhaps it’s a ‘grass is greener on the other side’ phenomenon, but for most of my time in a church it was in one that only sings hymns, and not CCM.

The only reason I started listening to CCM was that I was younger then and needed a beat. I mean, if you’re a teenager who’s listening to Run D.M.C. and Bon Jovi on normal days and had to go with the slow solemn hymns on Sunday, you would not have any interest in the latter.

So, perhaps it’s also because I’m older now and (hopefully) more matured as a Christian, I have a new-found appreciation for hymns, especially those sung by a good church choir.

Here’s one I found recently that I particularly like titled Worthy of Praise — it’s from the church choir of a church that I plan on visiting on Sunday.

Of late, I’ve also thought much about going back to my Bible-Presbyterian roots, hence the planned visit. Sure, I don’t agree with infant baptism, and the KJV-only stance, but it’s a Biblical church and teaches sound doctrine.

Not to mention a great choir and mmm… hymns!

If you liked Worthy of Praise, take a listen to the hymn Trusting Jesus too.

Soli deo Gloria!

Source: All hymns linked in this post are sung by the Calvary Pandan Church Choir. Photograph of the Calvary Pandan Church Choir taken from the Calvary Pandan Church web site.

Amen! Amen! Hallelu et Adonai!

so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:10-11

I am also reminded of Paul’s joy when he describes how he, despite all his accomplishments, count nothing more precious than following Christ Jesus — a joy even in suffering for His sake that we too should have!

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

Philippians 3:7-8

Amen!

Soli deo Gloria!

HT: The Warfare Journal.

My wife requested that this song be our song of the Shabbat recommendation, and I agree with her totally, so here’s Hillsong with Hosanna:

Listen especially to the bridge, which I love.

On another note, my apologies for the lack of a voice at the moment; I’ll get to answering all your comments and a post soon as I am rested from a most strenuous week.

Shabbat Shalom from both of us to you and your loved ones.

It has been years since I have bought a single Gospel-oriented CD, but thanks to Shalene who has now earned the honor of being a great DJ (in my opinion at least), I added a new Gospel CD to my collection today.

Paul Baloche’s “A Greater Song”.

What drew me to Paul Baloche was the fact that I had the chance to sing one of his compositions “Your Name” at the church I visited on Shabbat a fortnight ago, and the song has become one of my favorites.

And when Shalene linked the YouTube version of it, I finally found out that Paul Baloche was the composer behind this wonderful song.

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Lord Jesus, thou art

Above all powers, above all kings,
Above all nature and all created things.
Above all wisdom and all the ways of man,
You were here before the world began.

Above all kingdoms, above all thrones.
Above all wonders this world has ever known.
Above all wealth and treasures of the earth,
There’s no way to measure what you’re worth.

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

1 Colossians 1:16-20

Shabbat Shalom.

Lyrics taken from “Above All”
Lenny LeBlanc and Paul Baloche
©1999 Integrity’s Hosanna!Music/ASCAP & Lensongs Publishing/ASCAP
(From the album Above All; Worship Leader:Lenny LeBlanc; CD 14842/CS 14844/TRAX 14849)

We often think of idols as graven images of humans or animals fashioned by machines or human hands and which people worship.

Yet, here’s another definition of idols that I was just mulling over.

You see, in a broader sense, idols can be anything in our lives that takes us away from serving God with all our minds, our hearts and our souls.

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Finally, it’s the Shabbat and today is also finally the day when I can pay a visit to Hephzibah Christian Fellowship and find out more about them.

Finding the place was a breeze. After alighting at Queenstown MRT station, it was only about a 350 meter walk to the building itself.

As advised by one of the elders, Michael, I arrived a little late as he had previously told me that services don’t really start on time as they usually have a home group at church that he leads.

It All Looks Good!

The service is held on the fourth floor, but Michael was on the second floor of the building to welcome me, which was really nice of him. Upon entering the service hall, I was pleased to find no extraneous decorations like images of saints or a figure on a crucifix. In fact, there wasn’t even a crucifix to be seen anywhere, which is great.

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It’s Sunday evening here, and no doubt many Christians across the country and the world would have already attended church services or are preparing to attend one.

Which makes it a perfect opportunity to discuss what some have asked me about a statement I made in my old blog on the fact that I believe we Christians should keep the sabbath on Saturday instead of Sunday.

I am not a Seventh-Day Adventist; it just happens that I agree with them on this point about observing the sabbath on Saturday instead of Sunday.

So why do most churches observe what they call “The Lord’s Day” on Sundays?

The Reasons Why

From what I understand, there are basically two reasons why:

1. Church tradition has most people believing that Christ was resurrected on Sunday after His crucifixion on a Wednesday afternoon
2. Constantine, the Roman Emperor who claimed to have converted to Christianity (but in fact created a false church) decreed Sunday to be the day of worship. At the Council of Laodicea, in A.D. 363, the following formal decree stated: “Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, resting rather on Sunday. But, if any be found to be Judaizing, let them be declared anathema from Christ.”

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