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What about singing/playing “in/by/with flesh” songs in Church?

 If these “hymns and psalms” are composed in/by/with the natural man’s flesh or “might and power,” it’s probably not God’s first choice to include this in Church worship music!  Why?  They are from 2 entirely different worlds that just don’t mix.  “What is born of flesh is ongoingly flesh and/coupled that which is born of the Spirit is ongoingly Spirit” (a), and “What koinonia fellowship has light with darkness” (b)?  And “the cravings of the flesh are against the Spirit and/coupled the cravings of the Spirit are against the flesh, for they are opposed to each other to keep you from doing/accomplishing the things you want to do” (c).  This is like trying to mix Torah Law of conditional-favor with unconditional-favor-of-grace, like the old covenant versus the New Covenant, and like old wineskins trying to hold New wine – both are destroyed!  Secular music played for God by Christian musicians is simply self-deceived religion, and it destroys both secular and worship music!  It’s self-deception if you think you can play in/by/with the Spirit for God something created from and for the kingdom of darkness.  Yet, I’ve seen so many Christians go down this path, a slippery slope that ultimately ruined them!  What you really end up doing is playing these songs in/by/with the flesh for God or to please and honor God, but this is still religion because “the flesh absolutely in fact profits nothing” (d). <Notes> a) John 3:6, b) 2 Corinthians 6:14, c) Galatians 5:17, d) John 6:63

But what about God being able to ‘turn lemons into lemonade,’ or turn “what was meant for evil into good” (a), or that “all things work together for good to those who are called down-from/according-to His purpose” (b)?  Both of these verses are talking about trials, tribulations, and persecutions against God’s people.  I don’t think we can easily apply them to our voluntary choice to use “stones” from the world around us, “stones” that actually turn out to be those building The Great Wall quenching the Holy Spirit’s move in our churches!  Is it possible that God can make the “stones cry out from the wall” (c) – even praise to the Lord (d)?  Yes, but the plan was for Christ’s disciples to praise the Lord (e) and “little children crying out in the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ . . . for ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have ordained praise.’”  That’s God’s plan, not rocks! <Notes> a) Genesis 50:20, b) Romans 8:28, c) Habakkuk 2:11, d) Luke 19:40, e) Luke 19:39.

Does “singing and/coupled psalming in your heart unto the Lord,” which is coupled to “speaking (c) reciprocally to yourselves (d) in psalms and/coupled hymns and/coupled Spirit-kind-of odes,” then make all kinds of “psalms, hymns, and Spirit-kind-of odes” perfectly justified?  Does that mean I can take the #1 evil song The Oath by Mercyful Fate, which has lyrics taken from a black mass, which is basically a love song to Satan, and if I take this song and “sing and/or psalm this unto the Lord from my heart,” then is it now “acceptable worship” to the Lord?  No!  Paul explains what is “acceptable to God” in Romans 12:1, “presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your logical/rational worship-service (e).”  What does he mean by that?  Verse 2 explains:  “I strongly urge you to not in possibility be ongoingly conformed (f) this world but instead be ongoingly metamorphically transformed by the renewing (a) of your mind so that you may ongoingly scrutinize (b) what is that good and/coupled acceptable and/coupled perfect will of God.”  For more about discernment – see New Covenant Ways – BT16. <Notes> a) ana + kainosis: completely different-in-kind inward renovation, b) dokimazo: test, examine, or discern to demonstrate or prove something is acceptable, genuine, approved, good, and approved, c) laleo: conversational words emphasizing the social aspect, d) one another reciprocally, e) liturgy, f) pressed into the mold of.

The Lord is calling us to leave the world behind, not to still hold onto it and somehow “redeem it for God by singing/playing for God,” right?  I’ve heard this latter argument too many times!  James 4:4-5 says, “Do you not know that philia friendship with the world is enmity with God?  So whoever decides to be the world’s philos friend makes himself God’s enemy.”  Ephesians 5:11 says “I strongly urge you to have in possibility no sharing/partnership with (a) the fruitless deeds of darkness but rather expose their wrong (b) – that’s our apologetics to this world, not quoting from Josh McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict!  Our lives are not supposed to blend in with the world in agreement with “deeds that produce no fruit for God” (c), but be so completely different-in-kind that our “light” exposes the ‘wrong’ in them!  But “if the so-called light in you is actually darkness, how great is that darkness” (d)?  Jesus is talking to deceived people who think that what they are doing for God is actually “light!”  That was the religion of the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees, but I fear that it’s the religion of much of church-ianity! <Notes> a) sugkoinoneo, b) elegcho: correct/convince with solid, compelling evidence, c) John 15:2-4, d) Matthew 6:23, e) philia, philio:  fond friendship – see Fellowship.

But some will say:  “But my secular song doesn’t have evil lyrics, or they are neutral, or even positive, or it’s purely an instrumental song!  Why can’t I sing/psalm this to the Lord from my heart and thus make it ‘acceptable worship’ to the Lord?”  However, there is no “sliding scale” of flesh from 1-10, G-rated to X-rated.  Once it’s flesh, it’s flesh!  Just as there is no “sliding scale” of the Spirit – it’s either Holy Spirit or it’s not!  If any of it is flesh, it’s simply not Spirit, and vice-versa.

A “New (a) Song” (b) is not just new-in-time or younger, it’s completely different-in-kind, unique, and superior by definition!  You can’t take a rotten tomato and make it better!  Replacing it with a green tomato doesn’t help either because in time it will also become a rotten tomato since it’s still a tomato.  No, if you want something superior then you have to instead choose something completely different-in-kind.  Now a Twinkie isn’t superior in nutrition but it is in shelf-life – the world’s oldest open Twinkie for 40 years looks almost the same as a new one!  The Lord isn’t concerned so much about what is is new or old in time, but whether it is completely new-in-kind! <Notes> a) chadash, kainos: fresh, completely different-in-kind, unprecedented, sharing nothing with its predecessors, unique, and superior, b) Psalm 33:3, 40:3, 96:1, 98:1, 144:9, 149:1; Isaiah 42:10; Revelation 5:9, 14:3.

You really can’t take a “made in Communist China” product and somehow make it better in the USA and then call it “made in the Democratically-Free United State of America,” because that is still called a knock off!”  It’s still a “fake!”  It’s like putting USA shoelaces on a China shoe and calling it “made in the USA.”  This is fraud!  But that’s what Christians are trying to do with secular songs, sung or instrumental, when they now claim these are sacred/holy songs because they are “singing/playing them to the Lord from their heart.”  This is fraud!  Flesh is flesh no matter what wrapping paper you put on it, even if you believe you can make it somehow “Spirit.” It is inappropriate and ineffective to use when “worshipping the Lord in/by [singular] Spirit and/coupled [singular] Truth, which My Father is seeking such people to worship Him” (a).  This “borrowing” from the flesh is not “by [singular] Truth,” exactly because it’s not “in the realm” or “by the means” of the Spirit.  Oh, you can say that it is all you want, but deceiving yourself doesn’t make it The Truth.  This “borrowing” stones from the world for God and for your church is exactly what is building The Great Wall that is quenching the Holy Spirit.  <Notes> a) John 4:23.

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