TEMPLES OF DOOM

   When I was a kid, there was a television show on Sunday nights called The Ed Sullivan Show, which featured an assortment of entertainers, such as stand-up comics, singers and musicians, dancers, circus animals, and young kids from rock n roll music.  One night we were watching the Sullivan show and while a rock n roll band was playing their music and singing their songs, my dad said:  "This is the devil's music". 
   That was fifty-five years ago. 
   Fifty-five years ago, Christian people identified rock n roll music for what it was, and still is.
   Fifty-five years later, however, and rock n roll music is in churches all across the United States of America---though under a different name:  Contemporary Christian Music.
   Contemporary Christian Music is the softer side of rock music, and CCM was allowed in churches as a way to attract younger people.  This happened because pastors accepted the idea that if churches do not have a dynamic music program, people will not come to church; and the more CCM was allowed, the more it was accepted; and the preaching of God's Word became secondary, or less important.
   Today, CCM is the primary form of worship in many churches all across America, which has led to the fall of many churches because thou hast left thy first love.  (Revelation 2: 4).   Thus we can clearly see that a transformation occurred inside churches as:
      traditional churches became contemporary churches
      when traditional music became contemporary music.
   Today, it is difficult to find a traditional, Bible-believing church that still places Christ first; it is also difficult to find a church that still has traditional Christian music. 
   Contemporary Christian Music is big business, producing millions of dollars of revenue.
   Contemporary Christian music is also a cancer.  If churches do not apply corrective surgery and remove this cancerous tissue, it will grow, consume, and destroy more churches. 
   Therefore, the danger of this music is in leading young people and children to believe that they have been born again in Christ, when, by deception, they have been born again to a familiar spirit:  after which they are being baptized, thus producing a false sense of security:  for a religious, spiritual experience has abducted them away from the truth of God's Word, for God still speaks with a still small voice (I Kings 19: 12) and not by the thunder of rock n roll music.
      For we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but against PRINCIPALITIES, against POWERS, against the RULERS OF DARKNESS of this world, against SPIRITUAL WICKEDNESS in high places.  (Ephesians 6: 12)
      Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.  (II Corinthians 6: 17, 18)
   The music we are seeing in churches today is the same music we saw on The Ed Sullivan Show fifty-five years ago---when my dad said, "This is the devil's music."
   If we, as Christians, fail to take a stand for the truth and righeousness of Jesus Christ, we will enter a state of denial and watch more and more churches become:  temples of doom.
   It is Contemporary Christian Music, perhaps more than any other factor, that has led Christian churches to the Age of Apostasy.
   Amen.