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Pennsylvania Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

The Rise of Spiritualism and the Occult

Eric Walsh

Age of Deception

The Dark Side of Hollywood

Dragon Song

Social Justice, Politics and Spiritualism

All right, so this is another 1 that many have been asking about this week and looking forward to.

This is the session on music and spiritualism.

I can tell you this is a tough 1 for me because I'm someone who grew up listening to lots of music and lots of different types of music and so every time I study this again I am always in awe like God saved me from some of the stuff I used to listen to.

Our scripture reading is taken from Ecclesiastes 7 starting at 5.

Ecclesiastes 7 in verse 5 says this, it is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools.

It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools.

And our message this morning, the dragon's song.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your Word.

Once again, Lord, I ask that you just make me a nail upon the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord.

But upon that nail I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

This is our prayer and Lord bind the devil he doesn't want this message to go out.

Bind him and his demons now Lord and cast them far from these hallowed grounds.

Alright if you have your Bible and you want to follow along, go to 1 Samuel chapter 16, and I'm gonna read a Bible story we don't always read all by itself.

1 Samuel chapter 16, and we're gonna start at verse 14.

The Bible says, But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.

And Saul's servant said unto him, Behold now an evil spirit from God troubles you.

Let our Lord now command thy servants which are before thee to seek out a man who is a cunning player on a harp.

And it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, thou shalt." What is interesting is that his servants, all servants, realize—you go back here, actually here, in verse 18, notice that the attributes of the man, who David is, is as important as the fact that he can play a whole.

So, especially when you're playing music that is to worship God, The person does matter.

In some of our churches we would just hire gifted musicians to come in and play.

But let me submit to you that the danger with that is whatever spirit is upon that person also comes into your church to play.

We'll come back to that, but I don't want to miss that.

This is literally the biblical criteria by which David was chosen to play for the king.

Verse 20 and Jesse, when he got this message from Saul that he wanted his son, took an ass laden with bread and a bottle of wine and a kid and sent them by David his son unto Saul.

And David came to Saul and stood before him and he loved him greatly and he became his armor bearer.

And Saul sent to Jesse saying, let David, I pray thee, stand before me for he has found favor in my sight.

And it came to pass when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul that David took a harp and played with his hand.

If the right person with the right skill playing the right music can cause a demon to be played out of a man.

Can the wrong person playing the wrong music play a demon into a man?

Here is a Bible story that gives you a glimpse into the spiritual warfare that is Christianity.

What you listen to clearly matters or else this story could not appear in the Bible.

Here's what the SDA Bible commentary says on some of these verses.

Some people get hung up on this so let me read the explanation.

Saul had rejected the Spirit of God, committed the unpardonable sin, and there was nothing more God could do for him.

It was not that the Spirit of Jehovah withdrew from Saul arbitrarily, but rather that Saul rebelled against his guidance and deliberately withdrew himself from the influence of the Spirit.

This must be understood in harmony with Psalm 139 7 and with the fundamental principle of free choice.

If God through his Holy Spirit forced himself upon Saul, contrary to his desires, God would be making of the king a mere machine.

1 of the spirits that went out from God, according to the book of Job, was Satan himself.

And the Bible says that Satan departed from the presence of God.

Saul was being chastised by dark evil spirits, and music liberated him.

This is just to give you the rest of that take on this.

The scriptures sometimes represent God as doing that which he does not specifically prevent.

In giving Satan an opportunity to demonstrate his principles, God in effect would limit his own power.

Of course there were limits beyond which Satan could not go, but within his limited sphere he did have divine permission to act.

Thus, although his acts are contrary to the divine will, he can do nothing except what God permits him to do and whatever he and his evil spirits may do is done with God's permission therefore when God look at this therefore when God withdrew his own spirit from Saul Satan was free to have his way.

Music is what was called upon to deal with this spirit.

In fact, the Bible has 3 books that are actual full song books.

The book of Psalms, the book of Lamentations, and a book, the Song of Solomon, being probably the quintessential 1.

It happens after the children of Israel safely crossed the Red Sea in Exodus 15.

John sees those who have overcome the beast singing the Song of Moses, and that's the last song in the Bible and the lyrics are different but the message is similar.

Music is there in both of these cases used to celebrate God-giving victory.

You remember at Belshazzar's feast, when Herod played music and his stepdaughter danced for him and he wound up beheading John the Baptist.

The Bible records that the Apostles sang songs.

In fact the Bible in Zechariah tells us that 1 day God himself will sing to us.

But music is also something Satan can manipulate.

And I'm going to show you biblically why that is the case.

Scientific American had an article, The Power of Music, Mind Control by Rhythmic Sound.

From the article, The region of the brain, this region of the brain, processes the earliest steps in vision, speaking of the visual cortex, the circuits that detect visual input.

This means that our perception of the external world entering our mind through our eyes is affected by the rhythm of what we hear.

How the world is affected by the rhythm of the things we hear.

Something seen at a point precisely and beat with an auditory rhythm is more likely to be perceived than if it appears out of sync with the rhythm put by auditory rhythm does not require a prolonged meditation on the rhythm to cause the person to enter into some sort of a trance-like state.

Within a few measures of music, your brain waves start to get in sync with the rhythm.

And when this happens, based on the research, literally you become more open to whatever is being presented to that rhythm.

You've heard people talk about syncopation and stuff.

We'll get into that today, except to tell you the rhythm actually does matter.

I was telling them that I went to Haiti and 1 of the French speaking pastors warned me before I went to go to Haiti, he said, listen, when you get to Haiti, when you hear the drums, he said, do not follow the drums.

He said, whatever you do, don't follow the drums.

I went down there with a whole bunch of people from Loma Linda, and the first night we were there sleeping in the clinic where we were gonna do this mission work, you could hear drums come surround the clinic.

And I have to say, there was some really serious beats.

I was like, man, these guys, where did they get these beats from?

And I was tempted to go outside and look.

And I remember what the speaking speaker told me.

Series

The Rise of Spiritualism and the Occult

Dragon Song

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

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