Nevertheless, let every one of you, in particular, so love his wife, even as himself, and the wife, see that she reverents her husband.
That's great. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for your Word, thank you for the Bible.
Please bless the message we will hear this morning and thank you for having brought us up here.
This is a proclamation we have today that we might learn and invite one another. In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, we're here in Ephesians chapter 5. We're going to be continuing our series on the Pentecostal agenda.
We're going to talk about emotionalism here today, and we probably will have one more sermon on the health and wealth of the prosperity gospel.
Not today, but in another week, probably in a few weeks.
We're going to talk about emotionalism with the Pentecostal agenda.
The Pentecostal religion is very famous and known for being very emotional, very energetic, and everything like that.
We're going to talk about why exactly they're like that, why it's so dangerous, and how it's actually crept into Baptist churches.
Baptist churches are patterning themselves after these Pentecostal churches.
When it comes to emotionalism in churches, just like any church, the Pentecostal church has basically sections of their service.
They start with their music, they have their preaching, then they have their altar call, and these things tie together.
We at this church do something similar. We have the music, we have the preaching, and we don't have the altar call.
We do have the other things. These things are building off each other.
We're going to see this in various stages. With the Pentecostal agenda, it starts with their music.
Notice Ephesians 5 verses 18 and 19. The Bible reads in verses 18 and 19.
Be not drunk with wine where it is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in songs and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
The Bible says that we are to be filled with the Spirit, not to be drunk with wine.
Obviously, when the Pentecostals think of being filled with the Spirit, they mean something a little bit different than we mean.
They ask, hey brother, are you filled with the Spirit? I'm going to say, well, no.
It's like the Calvinists ask me, do you believe in the sovereign God? I say, no, because I know what they mean by that.
But then in verse 19, it tells us that we're supposed to sing with songs, hymns, and spiritual songs.
Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
So God makes it very clear the sort of music that we need to have.
It starts with songs. Now, this is actually in our Bible.
The dead middle of our Bible, the book of Psalms, is a song book.
There's 150 songs, and those are songs to be sung in church.
Now, we've sung Psalms 1 in church before, and we want to start integrating more songs, and we will as we come.
Unfortunately, over time, scripture songs have kind of died. They're not very common in churches.
And we're trying to bring those back as our other like-minded churches.
Then it says hymns, and when it comes to hymns, it's referring to songs very similar to the songs we sing each week.
These are hymns. Now, this hymn book that we have, this is not perfect.
It wasn't written by God, and there are some songs that we choose not to sing here because we don't agree with them.
But by and large, this is a very good book. There are very good songs in here.
There's also a lot of good songs that aren't in this book that we could add.
So the Bible says Psalms, and it says hymns. Those are the first two things mentioned.
Then it says spiritual songs. Now, spiritual songs are going to be pretty similar to songs and hymns.
Now, the Pentecostal church, what they sing in church is Christian rock music. We don't do that here.
If you notice, our music is completely different than mainstream music.
We have reasons why. We're going to talk about that here in a little bit.
But I want you to understand, we're not against new songs. It doesn't have to be an old song.
We have this church. We actually have members of our church who have actually written some songs,
and we've actually sung them, Victory in Jesus 2.0.
We had some men in our church collaborating on that song.
Hey, it's a great song because it teaches the doctrine we believe in, and it's a good song.
And there's nothing wrong with new songs. But there is a problem with the songs that they sing in a Pentecostal church.
They sing Christian rock music. That is not a song, and it's not a hymn.
And they can say it's spiritual music because they say the lyrics are edifying, but that's nothing like the songs in the Bible.
Now, turn to Colossians 3. I'll show you why this is.
Now, remember this about the Pentecostal church, which we talked about. Their church does not care about doctrine at all.
It doesn't matter what you believe. It doesn't matter what you believe about the King James Bible.
It doesn't matter what you believe about the end times. It doesn't matter what you believe about anything, about salvation.
It doesn't matter. All that matters is, do you want to get go of the Spirit?
See, their songs are meant to be very unemotional. They're meant to cause a reaction to get you ready for their preaching, which is also very emotional.
There's a reason why their music is a set type of music because it's setting the scene for what's next.
You know, I don't go to the movies, but if you go to a movie theater, especially if you went a long time ago, they would have classical music playing to prepare you for the movie.
And they have those commercials with popcorn and stuff like that. They have a strategy of what they're trying to do.
The Pentecostal church is doing the same thing. These stages are building together to get to the climax of the all-powerful pocket.
But the music is meant to set the scene for the sermon. And so the music is going to fit with the type of preaching that's done.
Now, in this book, these songs teach a lot of doctrine. They teach what we believe.
You say, why? Well, Colossians 3, verse 16, let the word of Christ well in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in songs and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
So the Bible says that the songs we sing are supposed to teach us and admonish us, which means they actually should be teaching you something.
Let me give an example of what I'm talking about. There was a mainstream song, and maybe it's still around today, that's called Our God is an Awesome God. Who knows that song?
Our God is an Awesome God. And the whole song would say, what are the lyrics to the song? Those are the lyrics.
That's all it is. Our God is an Awesome God. He reigns from heaven and earth, blah, blah, blah. And then it says, Our God is an Awesome God.
And it just goes over and over again saying, Our God is an Awesome God. That doesn't teach us anything.
Because the Muslims would hear that song, and they'd say, yeah, Our God is an Awesome God. The Buddhists would hear that song and say, yeah, Our God is an Awesome God.
The Hindus would hear that song and say, yeah, Our God is an Awesome God. The problem is it doesn't teach what your doctrine is.
See, this book, when you say, on Christ in solid rock, what you're saying is He is the only way to get to heaven. He is the Lord. He is the Christ. He is the way to get to heaven.
It's actually teaching you what you believe. Now, this ties in with the preaching because of the fact in the Pentecostal churches, they're not really teaching you what they believe.
The doctrine is not that important. It's all about this emotional service.
Now, when it comes to what we teach, our last sermon we just preached this morning, I made it very clear what we believe because doctrine is very important.
And see, the hymns and the songs we sing should be a reflection of what we believe.
See, the world, what they sing, they sing songs of these rock stars. They sing about drinking and doing drugs and fornicating.
Hey, that's a reflection of the lifestyle they live. They're singing and they're teaching about what sort of lifestyle they live.
The songs we sing, they need to be teaching us what we believe and what we're about.
So when somebody comes in here and visits the church, they're going to realize, okay, this is what the church believes. This is what this church is about.
You have to understand the power of music.
He ends at a very young age. When they hear songs over and over again, it's going to start to sink into them.
Now, it doesn't mean that they're going to get saved simply from hearing a song, but it will start to teach them what they believe.
Look, if you go to this church and you hear Victory in Jesus 2.0 every month, it's going to be pretty obvious to you, wow, they don't believe you have to receive these things.
They wrote a whole song against that. It's pretty obvious what they do and don't believe.
See, when you go to a church, you ought to know what they believe, even from the music itself.
This book is not perfect and there are some doctrines I don't think this book really covers and it would be great to have songs like that so we could sing.
This book does give us what we believe. We don't sing the songs about the Preacher and Rapture because we don't believe that.
There are songs in the symbol like that. We don't sing those because we don't believe that. We believe in a Posture and Rapture.
So what you sing should reflect what you believe. Let me give you an example of a song that was a very mainstream song back when I first got saved.
It's called They Don't Serve Breakfast in Heaven. This song was by The News Voice. Anybody know who The News Voice is? This might be before most people's time.
They were a very, very famous band back in the day. This is what the song says. Tell me if this tells you what your doctrine is.
When the toast has burned and all the milk has turned and Captain Crunch is waiting farewell. Is that teaching what they believe?
Captain Crunch is waiting farewell. When the big one finds you, referring to God. That's a nice title we gave God. When the big one finds you.
When the big one finds you, may this song remind you that they don't serve breakfast in heaven.
It sounds cute. It's this cute little Christian rock song. It rolls off the tongue. Yeah, Captain Crunch is waiting farewell. What a garbage song.
To me that's almost like mocking the things of God. It's like Captain Crunch. Why is that in the song when you're calling it a Christian rock song?
Is that like the songs in the Bible? No. Once a month we go through the Book of Songs. The last Wednesday of every month.
For you that have been there for those sermons, it's a doctrinal book. It teaches what you believe. The hymns we sing, they're doctrinal songs.
Yes, we like it if it musically flows well. But look, there's a proper source of words that you need in the song. This is not it.
Captain Crunch is waiting for all. This was a common song. When I first got saved, this was one of the big Christian rock songs.
I've heard people singing it and they thought it was the greatest thing. I'm thinking I've got to change the music in my life. I'm not switching to that.
When the big one finds you. The Bible says we should have reverence for God. Don't call God the big one.
There are a lot of names given to God in this Bible. The Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end. Almighty God, Jehovah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't call him the big one.
That's being disrespectful to God. Imagine calling your father the big one. Go ahead.
You want to see what happens when my son grows up and starts calling you the big one? I'm pretty mad about that.
You're supposed to be respectful to your parents. Let me tell you something. It's not respectful to God the father when you call him the big one.
Turn to Psalms 149. Why is the Pentecostal church emotional? Because of the fact they're trying to reach people that don't believe in their church.
Their music has a strategy of reaching people that listen to rock music and reaching people that listen to the mainstream music.
Their goal is to get those people to start coming to church. It works. The Pentecostal religion has grown very rapidly. It works. They get people to come to church.
Our goal is not to build this massive church. Our goal is to build this church full of people that love the Lord.
When I first got saved, I listened to rock music. I didn't listen to godly music. But I'll tell you what, I did in my heart want to make changes to him for the Lord.
You don't climb a mountain in one day. You climb a mountain slowly. You don't jump from the bottom to the top of the mountain just like that.
There are certain people that when they hear the preaching of the word of God, they want to make changes and there are certain people that don't.
In this room, all of us need to make changes, including myself, my wife, and definitely my son.
Everyone needs to make changes, but there are certain people that are willing to see what the Bible says and say, you know what, I'm going to try to make that change.
It could take time. Like I said about communion, you don't have to be perfect to take communion next week.
But there are certain sins you better not be fatigued. If you listen to rock music on Saturday night the day before we have communion, you're welcome to do that.
I don't think it's right, I don't think you should do that, but that doesn't restrict you from taking communion because of the fact you still listen to other things.
But you should be trying to make changes in your life. Psalms 149 verse 1 says,
Praise be to the Lord, sing unto the Lord about a new song. And it's praise that the congregation sings.
The Bible says to sing unto the Lord a new song.
Now when I first got saved, I listened to rock music. And you know, I was in all these Christian groups in college, it's filled with pretty much people I've ever believed.
But then all these people listened to Christian rock music. And at the time, I was kind of naive to just talk to them.
And I thought that I was listening to really ungodly music and I was just thinking, which I was, but I was like, man, I need to start listening to what they're listening to.
I need to get right with God. And I went to, there was a Christian rock concert on campus at West Virginia University.
So I went to the concert just not knowing what the sort of music was, not knowing anything, and I expected people to be dressed really professionally and everything.
And these guys had like this really long hair, which the Bible says men are supposed to have short hair.
And these men had really long hair, and then they're playing the music and they're banging their heads like it's a heavy metal concert.
And I'm like, whoa, that's the music I listen to. And you say, well, what about the worst of the music? I couldn't understand any of the worst.
Do you understand the worst of rock music usually?
No.
No. I mean, it's just loud, it's not very melodic, you don't understand. You say, what?
Because as the Bible says in Exodus 32, as Joshua said, it's the noise of the Lord.
He said, what music does the noise of war fit with more than any music? Rock music.
Yeah.
Obviously there's genres of rock music, there's heavy metal, but Joshua was away from that camp where they were fornicating, getting drunk, and listening to ungodly music.
And Joshua's like, it sounds like the noise of war in the camp. And he's like, oh, wait a minute, it's the noise of those that sing, do I hear?
That's what he said. He heard certain music and he says it sounds like the noise of war.
Now, is the music we sing sounding like the noise of war?
No.
It's so sweet to trust in Jesus. That sounds like the noise of war. No, it's talking about rock music or similar types of music.
Yeah.
And see, mainstream music is like the noise of war.
Right.
It's ungodly music. But the problem is that in Psalm 149 it says a new song.
See, the music we sing in church should be different than the music you listened to when you were unsaved or before you were a rightful God.
Right.
See, I listen to Aerosmith. I listen to Guns N' Roses. I listen to very ungodly music.
But see, when you go to church, you're supposed to sing a new song.
Yeah.
See, the songs we sing are very different than Aerosmith.
Right.
The songs we sing are a lot different than Guns N' Roses. They sound different and the words are different.
Christian rock.