Monday Morning Music Ministry

3-13-23

A friend recently asked about Messianic Jews and Christians who choose to observe the traditions of the ancient Hebrews. Festivals, dietary laws, customs of holy days. Should Christians, and “fulfilled” People of the Book, feel obligated or be encouraged to observe practices from centuries prior to Christ’s incarnation?

Those ancient traditions pointed toward the Messiah’s coming. Discernment was required with all prophesies, customs, ceremonies, and the most minute elements of observances. Things that inspired people of Old Testament times can provide reminders to Christians of our time: God’s sovereign and eternal plan; the unity of the full Gospel; the confirmation of His miracle workings.

To the extent that awareness of ancient observances can turn into obsessions into substitutions into replacements, we should discourage these things. Anything that takes our eyes from Christ Himself must be resisted. Christ and Him crucified, Christ risen and reigning – all else pales. Customs and prophecies become academic; signs and wonders are confirmations. Luke 12:30 warns us that “these things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers all over the world.” Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Taking these thoughts further, I remembered one of the most powerful books of warnings, so to speak, in the Bible, and one of its most powerful chapters. Amos the Prophet speaks to us today.

The customs and observances of the Old Testament were for the times in which they were given by God. As I said, they are for our edification still today; all of Scripture is inspired. Laws and commandments are likewise of God, and yet we should remember that Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. However, the books of the Prophets are slightly different, in my view. Many of the prophecies, especially the Jeremiahs, were for people of the day – warnings to repent and return to God. And many of those warnings, as we know, were rejected… resulting in punishment, wrath, and exile.

Yet many prophecies were spoken and written to us, too. For us. About us. Not only in human-nature categories of advice, but specifically to our circumstances – our places is historical dispensation; our situations. The sixth chapter of Amos reads that way, as if Amos looked almost 3000 years into future and knew our society, reading our headlines.

And what he saw is not pretty.

We know things are not pretty today. And the more serious our crises are, contemporary life dresses things up to look pretty… taste sweet… and appear harmless. But don’t we know that these are perilous times? Problems barely beneath the surface? Amos did. God does.

Woe to you who are at ease…

Woe to you who put far off the day of doom, Who cause the seat of violence to come near; Who lie on beds of ivory, Stretch out on your couches, Eat lambs from the flock And calves from the midst of the stall; Who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments, And invent for yourselves musical instruments like David;
Who drink wine from bowls, And anoint yourselves with the best ointments, But are not grieved…

The LORD God of hosts says: “I abhor the pride of Jacob, And hate his palaces; Therefore I will deliver up the city And all that is in it.”

You have turned justice into poison, And the fruit of righteousness into bitterness.

“Behold, I will raise up a nation against you…” says the Lord God of hosts; “And they will afflict you…”

“Woe to the complacent” is the thrust of this prophecy. It is a stark reality – a tragic truth – that America and the “Christian” West have arrived at a point where we are not only diverted by, but we put our trust in, bread and circuses. We look to wealth and armaments for protection. We believe we are privileged and secure. We think that because the world loves our rock ‘n’ roll and blue jeans, others are not jealous and lustful after our resources and blessings. We call good evil and evil good, fooling ourselves that it makes no difference. We have manufactured our own morality – believing that sin has no consequences; that we can exploit and abuse each other; that marriages, babies, and the “inconvenient” among us are expendable. Crimes are not crimes anymore; and substance abuse is assuaged by more and more substance abuse. We have become insensitive to beauty and truth.

We have come, on this mad journey of democratic license and self-indulgent capitalism, to a point of elevating Self – the deity of contemporary life. Human nature reigns supreme, the ultimate force to be trusted, a secular god that believes nothing, forgives everything, and demands our worship and trust.

All of this instead of trusting in the Lord.

How is this working out? How has it ever worked out, three thousand years ago or in any civilization, past or present?

We have turned the fruits of righteousness – to which we delude ourselves into thinking we are dedicated – into bitterness. And justice in contemporary life – whether regarding neighborhood crime, or respect for the sanctity of life, or international relations – we are turning into poison. And poison kills.

Thus spake the Prophet. The words are true, even if we ignore them.

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Click: Purcell Funeral March

3-14-16

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

This was written by David, the “sweet singer of Israel,” who, given his lifelong relationship with the Almighty and his activities as Psalmist, warrior, and king, could be considered prejudiced on the matter. He was described in I Samuel as “a man after God’s own heart.” He was a blood ancestor of Jesus. He is even revered as a prophet by Islam.

So this citation from Psalm 14:1 is not a fortune-cookie slogan. David knew whereof he spake, if I may. And I invite us to meditate on the fact that the statement says as much about fools as it does about God.

It is the natural inclination of human beings to say “there is no God.” Sometimes, deep in our dark hearts, we wish it to be so. I think that many sociologists and anthropologists – even atheists among them – recognize that everyone is, nonetheless, born with innate desires to worship… to sense that there is something “greater” than ourselves… that we are coded with something commonly called a conscience.

Believers in the God of the Bible – “People of the Book” as our archaeogenetic spiritual ancestors are called – acknowledge One God. The Father Almighty, maker of heaven and of earth. We believe by faith, and reassure ourselves, and sometimes instruct people, or debate with others, on various bases of logic, history, revelation, the mathematical probability of prophecies and fulfillments, archaeological records, and so forth. We can cite miracle – miracles written about, and miracles we have experienced or witnessed.

But mostly, and ultimately, we rely on faith. The testimony of inner conviction is stronger than any rational formula or reasoned assurance. Truth is not subject to qualification or modification, except ratifications like “Absolute Truth.” What’s true is true. It invites, but cannot be reworked, adjusted, or amended, by arguments or theories; even those of science. Truth is truth. Otherwise, it is like being “sort of pregnant” or “relatively dead.”

The question comes when one asks, “What is Truth?” Ah. That question is also part of the human race’s DNA, so to speak. At some point, at some time, we all ask it. The most famous positing was by Pontius Pilate. I have never been sure whether he asked in genuine humility, or mocking. In any event, Jesus answered, “I am the Truth,” and that wasn’t enough for Pilate nor the rabid Jews whose rebellion he feared.

We will not wander into high weeds or deep swamps here. Accepting the existence of God, or denying Absolute Truth, are both matters of faith to every person.

What does interest me, and should concern us all no matter what our views on these elemental topics, is how quickly and substantially our culture has changed its views on these matters. We cannot see the forest for the trees that are right in our faces, but in the broad sweep of history, the reversal of attitudes about the existence of God and the reality of Absolute Truth is tantamount to intellectual whiplash.

It was my perception, when I was a young student, that all of society (European Christendom as well as the American culture) assumed the existence of God, the immutable nature of His laws, and the biblical foundation of customs and laws. Non-believers, in our democracies, were tolerated, even cordially so, and largely unmolested. Today – in one long generation or two, that’s all – those attitudes have been reversed.

And almost savagely so, with hostility toward Christians replacing cordial tolerance of secularists.

This is the real crisis of our age. It is not a question of being “welcoming” to those with different views; it is more: an entire people denying their intellectual birthrights, surrendering their spiritual inheritance. It is not a matter of favoring “pluralism,” because that dubious term has never meant abandoning one’s own heritage.

We have become a soulless society. Polls say that citizens feel adrift… but average Americans have loosed their anchor-chains, torn up their navigation charts, and long ago set sail away from Home Ports. Well-meaning Christians who have invited this cultural drift (to continue the nautical analogy) then wonder why they have spiritual sea-sickness.

Everyone in this rotting old boat known as America, be they Christians or the new pilots, secularists, can argue, or not, about “values.” In the current political campaign, Christians have been co-opted by spokesmen who “guarantee that in department stores you will be able to put up Merry Christmas signs” (Mr Trump) and have been pigeon-holed as “evangelical” voting blocs, to be delivered to the loudest panderers. This is why Jesus came to earth?

However. Take heart. Take heart for your soul, and the kingdom of God; even if we lose heart over our nation’s well-being and our culture’s future. The waters that roil have been calmed by a Savior before. Above those storm clouds is a heaven, and lodestars by which to navigate. Past the darkest storm clouds is God’s bright sunshine.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10).

Let us remember that the God of mercy is still a God of justice. Many will call it vengeance when God’s justice comes. No matter: God’s will is going to prevail, and His Word will be manifest.

“Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God, or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools…. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.” (Romans 1: 20b-22, 25)

How can anyone continue in unbelief, rebellion, and hostility to His Truth? They would be fools. But their actions – or inactions – are worse, more dangerous, than foolishness.

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“The Silver Swan” was published in composer Orlando Gibbons’s “First Set of Madrigals and Motets of Five Parts,” 1612. A beautiful and challenging poem built on the legend that geese might honk all their lives, but swans let out one note just before death: “More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise.”

The silver swan, who, living, had no Note,
when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat.
Leaning her breast upon the reedy shore,
thus sang her first and last, and sang no more:
“Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes!
More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise.”

Click: The Silver Swan