Quote: “When I was a kid picking tobacco in the fields I used to sing ‘Amazing Grace.’ My father forbade me to sing it with certain vocal nuances that sounded soulish because it would attract the devils that way. I had to sing it note for note just like it’s written.” From an interview with a blues singer from North Carolina. The devil will try to put Christians in a box with a plain vanilla wrapper, by causing them to fear him instead of God. If you ever go to a foreign country where spiritual darkness can be seen and felt, get a drum or tambourine and a flute or guitar or whatever musical instruments you can find. Play and or sing to the Lord however you feel led with whatever music or beat comes out of your soul. Worship God with all your might. You will see first hand that the powers of darkness don’t like and can’t stand the beat of your drum, the sound of your voice, or the flag you are waving, or the dance you are dancing. They will run. I wonder why it is in the American Church, drums are so controversial. In Mexico, Ukraine, Muldovia and Russia at least, drums of all types are the norm for worship services.  I can remember that back in the 60’s and 70’s there were more anti rock n roll preachers than there were evangelists who came to town. They seemed to all have this unique story that has been popping up for forty years. In fact I was just on a web site that parroted the same story as if it were a brand new revelation to scare Christians out of ever having the daffnable drum in their worship services. If the story was ever true, it has degenerated to urban legend status through over use and embellishment. It originally started out as something like this: Some American missionaries were in Zimbabwe and their kids were listening to Beatles Records and the recently saved natives came to the missionaries. They were very disturbed saying, “That beat is the same beat we used to call up spirits with….”  Over the past 40 years I’ve heard a hundred different versions of that story. Apparently missionaries to Africa, Cambodia, the Philippines, Brazil and even Holland have been having this experience for forty years and still are. When will they ever learn? According to the most recent occurrences the natives have come unglued about drums in worship services and CCM etc. This story seems to pop up where ever Christians debate the drum issue to validate the anti drum position and scare us all out of using them. In addition to the fact that it is so over told with so many versions that it no longer has any validity, the logic of the story in whatever version is faulty. Many heathen cultures also use flutes to conjure and communicate with spirits. I have yet to hear one story about natives getting upset because they used to use flutes to conjure up spirits. Maybe missionaries and their kids never play flutes or use them in their worship services?  The latest version now involves Tibetan natives and wind chimes. It isn’t just drums that are controversial, but the beat that often accompanies drums since, in fact, that is what people do with drums. They beat them. So I’ll set the story aside and address what God says about drums. The word “drum” does not appear in the Bible. The words “timbrel” and “tabret”  do appear in the Bible. In fact God commands their use. Psalms 81:2  Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery. Psalms 149:3  Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp. Psalms 150:4  Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. The “tabret” is ordained by God for spiritual warfare. Se context of below Isaiah 30:32 Isaiah 30:32  And in every place where the grounded staff shall pass, which the LORD shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps: and in battles of shaking will he fight with it. The tabret is also prophesied for future use. Jeremiah 31:4  Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. God created Lucifer with tabrets as a part of his being. Ezekiel 28:13  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. (Point of interest: Pipes in this verse are flutes. Isn’t it amazing that the very instruments that God created into Lucifer are the very instruments that pagan cultures use most to conjure spirits, yet God has ordained the use of both in praise to him!!) God had them first!! So the Hebrew words and their roots translated into “tabret and “timbrel” means drum or tambourine. Also the master linguist Noah Webster in Websters 1828 defines both words as “drum.” Webster’s 1828 Dictionary: TIM'BREL, n. [L. tympanum.] An instrument of music; a kind of drum, tabor or tabret,which has been in use from the highest antiquity. So without a doubt, the tabret that God himself created into Lucifer is a drum!! “Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into now Ollie” How do we get out of this one? How do the naysayers get out of this one. They can’t unless they are more qualified as linguists than Webster. Of course there is the lame explanation that a timbrel is only a tambourine. What is the difference? You create a beat on both a drum and a tambourine. Both are musical instruments consisting of a circular piece of wood with a skin stretched over them. Yet the nay-sayers have no choice but to condone the tambourine because God commands it. At the same time they place a difference between the tambourine and the drum.  Which part of the Word of God or even Webster do they not believe? I can visualize the evil spirits saying “Is that a drum I hear? Are we being conjured up again?”  “Nah, it’s only a tambourine. Rest easy.” Does it ever occur to anyone that while heathens do conjure spirits with drums, that the people of God use drums to beat the enemy up with? Read Isaiah 30:32 in it’s context from verse 18 through verse 32. So the religious experts say it’s the beat that is so ungodly and fleshly. Well anything Godly can be corrupted. Yet it is amazing to me that the same people who will nit pick and condemn any beat other than the “plain vanilla keeping time beat” in the church, will condone the very same beat at the high school football team half time performance. When they hear it at church, it’s fleshly and ungodly. When they hear it at the game, they cheer and rout to it. God himself has ordained the drums in whatever fashion to be used in praise to him. And since he created them into the highest of all created beings, Lucifer, it is apparent that he highly esteems them. Therefore you would think that if the beat is that sensitive of an issue, he would have given instruction or warning in the Bible. Yet the devil has us so afraid we will be fleshly if we beat the drum wrong. Those who are afraid of getting in the flesh while praising God need to remember that David danced before the Lord with all his might. That is impossible to do with out that muscle and bone material we call flesh. If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that for any of us to publicly dance before the Lord with all our might would require us to crucify our flesh. Galatians 5:16  This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. This means whatever we do in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Even if we drum in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The Bible says that all things are created by Him and for him. Is a drum a thing? Yes. He created drums into Lucifer. Is a beat a thing? Yes. Are all beats things? Yes. They were created by a very musical and mathematical God for himself. They can all be used for his glory and they can all be used contrary to what is Godly. Titus 1:15  Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.