"NEARING MIDNIGHT UPDATES" WITH THE SPLENDID TODD STRANDBERG AND TERRY JAMES!

March 23, 2015

Satan’s Clueless Minions

The term “Satanism” is thrown around with reckless disregard in relation to popular music. A simple YouTube search for a [Pop star’s name] + "Satanism” will turn up an ocean of videos from people who think various singers have an active relationship with the prince of darkness.

There is some logic the connection people make between a musician’s music and his or her personal life. Eric Clapton produced the tune “Cocaine” and he had a well-known publicized drug habit. In fact, Clapton was so addicted to heroin, he, at one point, contemplated suicide.

Country singer, Hank Williams, and his son had several hits that involved the subject of booze and both were certified alcoholics. The song “Family Tradition” has the lines: “Hank, why do you drink? Why must you live like the songs that you wrote?” Hank Jr. makes light of the tragic legacy of his namesake by replying, “I’m just carrying on an old family tradition.”

One of the most common topics addressed by Rock & Roll bands is sexual hedonism. The 80s hair bands such as Poison, Ratt, Quiet Riot, and Warrant specialized in this type of lifestyle. They also showed the consequences of burning the candle at both ends; with all but one of them having lost at least one band member to a drug overdose.

The pattern strangely breaks when it comes to musicians that specialize in lyrics with a demonic theme. Groups like Black Sabbath, Dio, AC/DC, and Metalica have all penned songs that put Satanism in a positive light, but I couldn't find any indication that these bands have a religious connection to Lucifer. Most of them claim that their fixation on the devil and hell is only about symbolism. Here is what the lead singer of AC/DC had to say about Christians that speak negatively of his music:

I love America. I live here now, and it’s the greatest country in the world, as far as I’m concerned. But unfortunately, ya have some of the biggest looney tunes, meaning the religious right. They’re just nutcakes, and if they can get advertising for themselves, they'll pick on something people are enjoying just because they’re enjoying it. An’ of course they never listened to our lyrics, because there’s nothing satanic in there. Like “Highway to Hell,” which we explained was about a three-day drive across a desert in Australia. But these people, they’ve got so many gullible followers down in that Bible Belt. —Brian Johnson

There is nothing complex at all about the song “Highway to Hell.” Rather than being about the Australian back country, the lyrics are clearly about a twisted view of hell itself. Here are some examples (lyrics):

Goin’ down.
Party time.
My friends are gonna be there too.
 On the highway to hell.
Highway to hell.
I’m on the highway to hell.

Hey Satan.
Payin’ my dues.
Playin’ in a rockin’ band.
Hey mumma.
Look at me.
I’m on the way to the promised land.
I’m on the highway to hell.
Highway to hell.
I’m on the highway to hell.
Highway to hell. 

The band Mötley Crüe had an album that featured a large pentagram with the title, Shout at the Devil. The groups’ bass player, Nikki Sixx, said, “It just looks cool” and “It’s not like I worship Satan or something.” When asked about the devilish theme in one interview, he remarked that the name of the album was Shout at the Devil not Shout with the Devil.” Since Mötley Crüe lived like the devil, it was obvious where their allegiance stood.

If there was an award for the group with the most subtle satanic lyrics, Led Zeppelin would win it hands down. Zeppelin’s songs are saturated with the occult doctrine. Guitarist Jimmy Page of Zeppelin is a devout follower of Aleister Crowle,; the Satanist who proclaimed himself as “The Beast 666.” Page has been called a devil worshipper by some, but it he wasn’t the one who came up with the words. Most of the lyrics are from lead singer Robert Plant who received them in a “mysterious” way. Stephen Davis’ book, Hammer of the Gods talked about how Plant wrote “Stairway to Heaven”:

... Robert described the “automatic” nature of the lyric: “I was just sitting there with Pagey in front of a fire at Headley Grange. Pagey had written the chords and played them for me. I was holding a paper and pencil and for some reason, I was in a very bad mood. Then all of a sudden my hand was writing out words. “There’s a lady who’s sure, all that glitters is gold, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven.” I just sat there and looked at the words and then I almost leaped out of my seat.“He [Robert Plant] often remarked that he could feel his pen being pushed by some higher authority.” (Pages 164, 262)  

Many musicians have talked about songs coming to them from some invisible guiding force. Few of them ever bother to question the source of their inspiration.

The fans of these groups are equally ignorant of these demonic lyrics. When I was a teenager, I have a friend who had every album by Black Sabbath, AC/DC, and Led Zeppelin. I asked him how he could listen to songs that were so openly satanic. He was totally oblivious to the obvious. At the time, I didn’t understand that this was a matter of spiritual discernment.

This clueless mentality can work its way into the Church. Several weeks ago, I ran across a video that had a pastor casually admitting he listens to “Highway to Hell” while working out at the gym. The abundance of seducing spirits in these last-days is a key reason why all Christians need to be constantly seeking after God’s guidance.

“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1).

--Todd

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Israel's Vote and Joel's Prophecy

Listening to the mainstream news talking heads the day after the elections in Israel has been self-validating. Like so many who try to use common sense in considering these strange times, I didn't see any way the people of Israel would throw a strong defender of their nation out in order to install a Neville Chamberlain-like leader in such a critical political position at such a crucial time.

Days leading up to Tuesday, March 17, vote by the Israeli people brought from liberal journalists every possible reason why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should lose and a more conciliatory government be installed.

I have never heard such announced polling data forecasting a likely win that turned out to be so starkly wrong. The American press predicted a close race with Hertzog, Netanyahu's opponent for prime minister, to be in the lead right up until the exit polls began on election day. Then it changed to "the election has tightened."

Benjamin Netanyahu, as it turned out, claimed victory relatively early--so dramatically in his party's favor had the voting gone. --This, even despite the American president having sent an election advisory team to Israel to help Netanyahu's political opposition. I must admit: I basked in the results of that election. I envy the people who had the good sense to re-elect the type leader (through their own brand of party politics) that I would hope we in America will be wise enough to elect again one day, should the world wag on in its precipitous state for a time yet.

While contemplating all of this--how pleased I was, and am, with the election results--I was brought back in a moment of epiphany to the deeper reality of what it all might mean in terms of God's prophetic Word.

Benjamin Netanyahu made one campaign adjustment at the last minute that--my spiritual senses reminded--seemed to make the difference in his momentum toward re-election. He promised that if his government was returned to leadership, he would not allow a two-state solution to the ongoing Palestinian conflict with Israel.

We now get a sense of exactly the import of the prime minister's speech before Congress on March 3. He laid out his case for why Israel must be on alert at all times against Iran and all of its enemy neighbors. At the heart of the hatred for Israel, of course, is the very point of the two-state solution much of the world of the diplomatic realm wants to force upon the Jewish state. At the same time, the Iranian antagonists and all other of the Islamist peoples surrounding Israel want only a one-state solution. They have voiced it many, many times since the establishment of Israel in 1948. Nasser, Sadat, and most every leader of Arab nations and of terrorist organizations in the Middle East have declared that they want Israel off the land it "occupies."

They, in fact, have often, like the Nazis, proclaimed that the Jew is the problem with the lack of "peace" in the region and world. Every Jew should, therefore, be expunged from the earth.

There has been conjecture among those who watch the issues and events of the times, analyzing them in light of Bible prophecy. Many indicated they sensed that if Benjamin Netanyahu had lost the election, such a result putting a Hertzog government in power would speed the dividing of the land, thus bring on Armageddon.

The prophecy by Joel the prophet reads: "I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land" (Joel 3: 2).

I understand where those considering the prophecy might reasonably conclude that dividing the land spoken here speaks to a future time when, for example, Antichrist causes the land to be divided as part of the covenant of Daniel 9: 26. Or, perhaps the dividing of the land might be thought to mean a precursor agreement such as one made by Obama and John Kerry or some others in the Roadmap to Peace process .

However, in the much greater context, God's land has been divided for centuries by the world of nation-states. The land has been forced by the Babylonian system of successive governments to carve up God's real estate covenant with Israel. For this, the world is about to pay a terrible price--be brought to the killing field called Armageddon.

The Obama administration is simmering over what it calls Netanyahu's "divisive rhetoric" regarding the prime minister now saying that he will not allow two states. If the president and the rest of the world diplomatic enclave could truly be made to understand the immensely greater danger of their own divisive demands--those demands against God's chosen nation--they would indeed be trembling instead of pushing for the phony peace that Joel and Isaiah say will destroy much of the world's population.

. It was learned that late into the election week, the Obama Administration indicated it might now favor removing sanctions from Iran, while recommending sanctions be put on Israel. It is reported that the president, petulantly–through implied things to come—is thinking about going to the UN Security Council directly, thereby bypassing the negotiating process, to recommend that the UN declare a Palestinian state. In times past, the U.S. fought against such tyranny. This president wants to use such a process to get what he wants, no matter what, apparently–to show Netanyahu and the world he always gets his way.

We are in the most dangerous times in U.S. history. But, we must also be in the time very near hearing the call from Jesus: “Come up here!”

--Terry