The church service in the Laurelbrook Seventh-day Adventist Church on March 31, 2018 began with Rich Sutton having the ministry corner. During the Cuba trip, several churches helped the group pass out literature. One family came to church the next Sabbath. Pedro Arce gave the sermon on both Sabbaths on music. The group held health expos and put on Vacation Bible Schools. Pray for future work in Cuba.
Rodney Herra welcomed everyone and made a few announcements. All visitors are invited to lunch in the cafeteria. He then led out in dealing with the second readings of membership transfers. All were accepted.
Jara (sophomore) played an introit. The congregation had a silent invocation. The congregation then sang “Open My Eyes”. Daniel Spencer then had the Morning Prayer; the congregation sang “Hear Our Prayer”.
Josia (senior) then called for the offering. Eric (junior) and Daryll Ellis then collected the morning offerings; the loose offering went to North American Division evangelism. The congregation sang the doxology, and Josia prayed for the offering.
Angela Volpe then talked to the children about air pressure gauges and their importance. God expects us to test things we hear or see by God’s standards, God’s “pressure gauge”.
Sarah (senior) then read Psalm 150 “1 ¶ Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power. 2 Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness. 3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. 4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. 5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. 6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.” Pastor Spencer and his family then had special music.
Daniel Spencer discussed the topic “Listen – The Story of Music in Israel”. Daniel Spencer gave his testimony of what the Lord had done for him, issued a challenge to the youth and staff members, and had the closing prayer.
Personnel Other Than Students:
Following are some notes on the sermon by Daniel Spencer:
There are many texts in the Bible dealing with dancing and drums.
Psalm 150 tells us to praise the Lord with various instruments and dancing.
Ezekiel 28:13, 17-18 13 “Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone [was] thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. 17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. 18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.”
Tabrets are a percussion instruments and pipes blown instruments. God is telling us that Satan is good with all types of music. No one else had this talent.
Sanctuaries in the Bible include the wilderness tabernacle, Jesus Himself, and the person himself.
Worship songs of the wrong type have become an industry making a lot of money.
Lucifer’s problem was not the music but the wrong adoration – he wanted to be worshipped as God.
When people change worship to suit themselves, they are offering that worship to themselves, not God.
Ellen White says that Satan had led the heavenly choirs but started to change songs of praise to song of hatred and curses to the Lord (Story of Redemption, pp. 25 and 31).
Satan was planning to ruin worship since it wasn’t about himself, but as an angel he was supposed to be protecting the character of God (he attacked that character).
Revelation 12:12 “Therefore rejoice, [ye] heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”
Satan and those giving you what you want (music) are not necessarily your friends – they want to destroy you.
Israel and the pagans had a struggle with how to worship. Israel wanted to worship the pagan way.
Many of the “heroes” in literature and music today are really the same old pagan gods – Superman, for example.
Exodus 15:20 “And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.” Miriam dancing?
1 Samuel 18:6 “And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of musick.”
Psalm 149:3 “Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp.”
Miriam had just crossed the Red Sea and was outside, not in the sanctuary.
1 Chronicles 25:1,6 “6 Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals: and the number of the workmen according to their service was: 6 All these [were] under the hands of their father for song [in] the house of the LORD, with cymbals, psalteries, and harps, for the service of the house of God, according to the king’s order to Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman.”
1 Chronicles16:4, 42 “4 And he appointed [certain] of the Levites to minister before the ark of the LORD, and to record, and to thank and praise the LORD God of Israel: 42 And with them Heman and Jeduthun with trumpets and cymbals for those that should make a sound, and with musical instruments of God. And the sons of Jeduthun [were] porters.”
Some Levites were selected to be trained to play in church – God took music seriously.
Musical instruments of God were selected by God for this special work.
2 Chronicles 5:12 “Also the Levites [which were] the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, [being] arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets:)”
Note the absence of certain types of instruments.
2 Chronicles 7:6 “And the priests waited on their offices: the Levites also with instruments of musick of the LORD, which David the king had made to praise the LORD, because his mercy [endureth] for ever, when David praised by their ministry; and the priests sounded trumpets before them, and all Israel stood.”
2 Chronicles 29:25 “And he set the Levites in the house of the LORD with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, and of Gad the king’s seer, and Nathan the prophet: for [so was] the commandment of the LORD by his prophets.”
Outside and before the Temple women were using timbrels and dances and tabrets. Inside instruments included harps.
No timbrels, loud cymbals, flutes, dancing, or clapping were used in the Temple. These are the instruments Satan used (see Ezekiel text).
Percussion instruments in Israel were cymbals. String instruments included psalteries and harps. Brass instruments included trumpets.
In the Temple, there were two groups, one on either side. The group actually singing would stand.
The temple cymbals were melodic cymbals, not loud cymbals used in war to provide rhythmic and loud sounds. A piano is similar to these melodic cymbals.
Only melodic instruments were allowed in the Temple. No loud instruments like loud cymbals were used in the Temple.
The drum set was invented at the start of the 20th Century, not back in Biblical times.
In the Temple, the emphasis was on melody, not rhythm.
We should reason out what types of music are acceptable to the Lord.
Texts work in parallel like Psalm 150. In Psalm 150, there are actions outside the Temple and actions inside the Temple. Inside instruments mentioned in the psalm are trumpets, psalteries, and harps. Outside instruments include loud cymbals and organs and include dancing.
Psalm 150 shows that the Lord can be praised in many different ways outside and inside.
Sometimes we perform hymns in ways that please us instead of God. Don’t call Christian what is really heathen.
Satan is trying to destroy conversion by dropping repentance out of accepting Jesus.
1 Chronicles 13:8 “And David and all Israel played before God with all [their] might, and with singing, and with harps, and with psalteries, and with timbrels, and with cymbals, and with trumpets.”
1 Chronicles 15:15-16 “15 And the children of the Levites bare the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses commanded according to the word of the LORD. 16 And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren [to be] the singers with instruments of musick, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy.”
In the first instance, David and his people were using the wrong instruments so they consulted the past and corrected their instrumental groups.
1 Chronicle 15:27,29 “27 And David [was] clothed with a robe of fine linen, and all the Levites that bare the ark, and the singers, and Chenaniah the master of the song with the singers: David also [had] upon him an ephod of linen. 29 And it came to pass, [as] the ark of the covenant of the LORD came to the city of David, that Michal the daughter of Saul looking out at a window saw king David dancing and playing: and she despised him in her heart.”
David is dancing, dressed like a person conquered by the Lord.
Tabrets and pipes were pop instruments and so not suitable to use inside the Temple. Satan used these instruments to destroy worship.
Daniel 3:5 “[That] at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up:”
In Babylon they were worshipping the beast (Satan) and using pop music to complete their false worship.
In the End Time, Satan will use pop instruments to force obedience to his wishes. The Sunday law is the end of a process to force everyone to conform to the devil’s worship. On TV advertisers use commands to try to compel people to buy their products.
Many believers will have no spiritual strength left in the End Time due to this conditioning process.
All should guard the senses because Satan will gain the victory if we don’t.
