Post date: Apr 4, 2016 2:21:13 PM
Fred had a great sermon in the early days.
It was based on the text out of Samuel 6. The Ark had been captured by the Philistines and had remained with them. God had cursed the Philistines to encourage them to send the Ark back to Israel. The Philistines made a plan, but here is the point: " The Philistines did not have the Law of Moses, and thus did not have Levites, who were the only ones allowed to handle the ark. Yet the Philistines did pick up the ark and handled it. And God did not strike them for handling the ark. Why not?
They were not His People and they did not know any better.
Later on when David moved the Ark from Beth Shemesh to Jerusalem however a Israelite called Uzzah reached out and touched the Ark, to stabilize it, yet God struck Uzzah dead. The point of Fred's sermon was that Gods people could not use pagan technology to transport God glory even though the pagans could.
Ten years later Fred had another totally contradictory teaching called Iron Chariots. This time based on Judges. His point now was that God's people and God's plan could not progress until God's people had embraced secular technology.
Now whether God's people should have horses and trust in horses and chariots is another matter.
The point I am making here is simply that Fred got seduced over the years by secular systems structure and by money.
Those of us who heard the earlier sermons and questioned they changes, were simply replaced by much younger guys who were not there in the beginning. That does not make the new guys evil per se, but it does bear out that Shofar is not what God originally commanded Fred to do when it was still Shophar in the early nineties
Fred's text below for context
10 Then the men did so; they took two milk cows and hitched them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home.
11 And they set the ark of the Lord on the cart, and the chest with the gold rats and the images of their tumors.
12 Then the cows headed straight for the road to Beth Shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and did not turn aside to the right hand or the left. And the lords of the Philistines went after them to the border of Beth Shemesh.
13 Now the people of Beth Shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley; and they lifted their eyes and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it.
14 Then the cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh, and stood there; a large stone was there. So they split the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord.
15 The Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the chest that was with it, in which were the articles of gold, and put them on the large stone. Then the men of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices the same day to the Lord.
1 Samuel 6:10-15
19 So the Lord was with Judah. And they drove out the mountaineers, but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the lowland, because they had chariots of iron.
Judges 1:19