Monday Morning Music Ministry

7-13-20

The tenth chapter of Matthew is one of the hardest chapters in the Bible. Not hard to understand, at all. No, it has the hardest truths, hardest warnings, and hardest of challenges – commands, really – as anywhere in Scripture.

It contains the words of Jesus, start to finish.

This is not the moony-faced Jesus of paintings on Sunday-school lessons or church bulletins or calendars. The chapter quotes the Jesus we saw in flashes like overturning the tables of money-changers in the Temple courtyard; or when he rebuked people. Just as God the Father in the Old Testament would show Himself sometimes as a God of jealousy and vengeance, so Jesus was sometimes “hard.”

When children need correction, we discipline them. When God sees sin, He hates its presence and routs it out. When Jesus perceived lack of faith, He sternly confronted His followers with… the Truth.

The Lord disciplines the ones He loves, and chastises every child whom He receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as children. For what child is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not His (Hebrews 12: 6-8).

Most of Matthew 10 is teachings and warnings, a battle plan for His warriors. The chapter names the disciples; directs who should be first given the Good News; and promises spiritual gifts of healing power.

Significantly, He says if people are not receptive to the Message, to “shake the dust from your feet and move on”! For such people and such communities, He said, what befell Sodom and Gomorrah would be better than the fates they deserve. Hard-sounding, but in our times there will be an urgency preceding Judgment; and some people will have stiff necks, hard hearts and stopped ears, will reject the Truth no matter what we do.

Jesus promises here that if we are in jeopardy in perilous times, the Holy Spirit will give us wisdom to answer, and power to withstand. This is the chapter where He reminds us that if a sparrow cannot fall without the Father seeing, how much more will He care for us? God knows the number of hairs on our heads, and will provide.

But then… get ready for the Hard Gospel. Not warnings, but marching orders into the midst of oppressors. Difficult Times, Persecution, Trials.

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law…. He that loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me: and he that loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he that takes not his cross, and follows after Me, is not worthy of Me. He that finds his life shall lose it: and he that loses his life for My sake shall find it.

Thus saith the Lord.

I regret to say that many of our churches today, filled with Sharing the peace, and “Smile like you mean it” mantras, and happy music performances with PowerPoint projections of springtime fields, and more smiley faces on banners than crosses on the walls… they only preach half the Gospel. Or less.

They don’t know the Jesus of Matthew 10.

How many of us do? “Weren’t those warnings only for the early Church?” No. “Didn’t Jesus give these words as fall-backs for occasional crises they faced?” No, He spoke in the future tense. “Weren’t those words just for End Times?”

We are living in End Times. His words are for today.

Christians are under persecution in America, in the West. Not only in Communist and other oppressive regimes – where, despite persecution, individuals and communities of faith are thriving. But believers in the United States are being crushed from two sides: an Establishment that uses the power of the State to suppress rights, remove Bibles from schools, Jesus from the public square, references to faith from daily life, except, virtually, in secret. Where saying “God bless you” is proscribed, and statues of Jesus are defaced and toppled. Also squeezed, now, by common rabble, from below.

It is times like these that Jesus told us to be ready for… and how to be ready… and what to expect.

We should expect – no, we are seeing it now, aren’t we? – our neighbors and our children turning against us. The “world” defining us in libelous terms… and that we suddenly face life-choices that we never dreamed of; and with life-altering consequences. But Jesus here tells us, in effect, to preempt these attacks. Not only be ready for it, but proactively act it before it kills us.

For our sake. For His sake.

Choices are seldom easy. I guess that’s why they are “choices” and not slam-dunks. The “hardest” part of all the warnings and commands of Jesus in this passage is verse 36, right in the middle. It is hard to hear… but we see – especially in these very days – in the news and on the streets:

A man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

We need to understand that those rebels, the “protesters,” anarchists-with-initials, the vandals and arsonists and looters and murderers, the cop-killers… we need to understand who they are. They not a foreign army; they are not romantic revolutionaries; they are not philosophers with agendas for utopias; they are not lovers of anything but selves; they are haters. They hate the nation and our heritage. They hate themselves and the society that bred them. They hate the Revealed Word of God and they hate you.

And where did they come from? Jesus called them out already. “Foes of our own household.” They are perverted versions of ourselves. They grew from the soil of our increasingly secular, self-absorbed, prosperous, liberal and “accepting” culture.

We ignore the foes of our own household at our peril. What has happened lately is only a little foretaste. We cannot let it – and them – roll over us. We can continue to fool ourselves about where we were until recently in America, that we had “found” lives of comfort and security.

Just remember that Jesus said that those who find such lives… will lose them.

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Click: I’m America

4-29-19

News item: The murder of more than 320 Christians at Christian churches on Eastern Sunday in Sri Lanka is claimed by Muslim plotters to be an attack on Christianity.

News item: Hillary Clinton and other American politicians describe the victims not as Christians or Christianity but as “Easter worshipers.”

News item: In the first half of last year, 1870 Nigerian Christians were killed by Boko Haram and related Islamic groups, many of the victims schoolgirls slaughtered for their faith. “Sectarian violence,” many news reports describe it.

News item: The cause of the destructive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is still being investigated weeks afterward. But in the first two hours the French government definitively declared that “Muslim extremists were not to blame.” Meanwhile, an architect who will bid on new construction proposes that the ancient church add an Islamic minaret to its new roof.

There are increasing numbers of massacres of Christians, persecution of believers, laws banning confessing a faith in Christ, destruction of churches, and monitoring of worship in India, Myanmar, China, Pakistan, Egypt, and 83 other countries around the world. Even in Hong Kong, the “free” part of China. In France, prior to the fire at Notre Dame, almost 400 specific incidents of Islamic attacks on Christian churches were recorded this year.

The group Voice of the Martyrs has issued a downloadable country-by-country report on persecution of Christians around the world: https://vom.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2019-Global-Prayer-Guide.pdf

Another news flash – the hundreds of thousands of Christians who are persecuted and martyred every year, more in the last hundred years than all the years added together since Christ, did not die because of “computer glitches” or “faulty wiring” as liberals and secularists were quick to claim about Notre Dame. Liberals have a way with double standards.

Who are the instigators? The answer is not radical Muslims, or the Hindu, Communist, or Mohammedan governments. They are the enablers, conspirators, even the guilty culprits… but they are not the instigators.

Let us understand, even if we awake late in the game of cultural suicide. Instigation of Christian persecution and attacks on our cultural heritage is humanism, secularism, relativism; wearing camouflage outfits of democracy, “openness,” and tolerance. In the guises of politicians, educators, and the news media, they attack the time-honored traditions of Western society and our religious values. Their attacks are so constant, and insidious, that most of the sheepish public are persuaded to agree… even when people decry the crumbling social order.

By the way, I add our contemporary churches, except for remnants of faithful Bible believers, to the list of villains. How has being “welcoming” supplanted respect and pride in our traditions, and protection of our families?

The other instigator? No mystery. The Bible identifies the evil one in myriad places. Jesus Himself prophesied the sources, and He predicted what will happen to us… what is happening to us. Persecution, if you are a believer, is not mere bad luck. It is not a threat. It is a sad promise. Get ready as it comes closer.

If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you… If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you (John 15:18,20).

All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution (Letter from Paul to Timothy, II Timothy 3:12).

Before Crucifixion, Jesus said, Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it (Mark 8:34-35).

Christianity aside (for the sake of argument; I do not believe it can be extricated) we can recognize that without religious moorings, America has lost its soul. But with indifference and hostility to morality, a sense of history, and self-respect, America has lost its way. The false religion of Tolerance pollutes our culture: to believe everything is to believe in nothing. And believing in nothing is what caused every previous notable civilization in world history to collapse, from within.

Forewarned is forearmed. Not to resist – resisting the true enemies – is acquiescence. Will we partner with those who hate us?

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Click: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow

3-7-11

The assassination this week of Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minister of Minorities in Pakistan, is a story that garnered some attention in the news, but for the most part was subsumed by other reports on related issues from the Islamic world.

Shahbaz was the only Christian in the national cabinet, a brave advocate of religious freedom before world forums and in his own land. The news that crowded his murder from the headlines included other assassinations; street protests; Christians being arrested; Muslim factional hatred; Christians fleeing their homelands; government crackdowns; Christian churches being invaded; piracy, kidnappings and murder; and Christian martyrdom, from lowly believers and pastors to prominent officials in several countries.

According to the BBC, “Mr Bhatti, 42, a leader of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), had just left his mother’s home in a suburb of the capital when several gunmen surrounded his vehicle and riddled it with bullets, say witnesses.” He routinely had been receiving death threats for urging reform of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. “Pamphlets by al-Qaeda and Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab, a branch of the Taliban in Pakistan’s most populous province, were found at the scene.” Tehrik-i-Taliban told BBC Urdu they carried out the attack.

Four months ago, Shahbaz said in a video, “I want to share that I believe in Jesus Christ who has given His own life for us. I know what is the meaning of [the] cross. And I am following… the cross.” He continued, “I am ready to die for the cross,” speaking these words calmly and with confidence. He knew he was reciting his own epitaph. Shahbaz was not a supernatural prophet – he surely knew the dangers to his life – rather he was a humble servant, an obedient follower.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will follow me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross (Matthew 16:24).

Shahbaz correctly pinpointed the center of our world’s coming crisis – not economies nor resources nor pollution; not even religion – but the cross of Jesus Christ. And the persecuted church, in so many of the world’s fiery corners, understands this. Despite the horrible treatment of uncountable Christian martyrs, now approaching one a minute, every day, around the world, that persecuted church is being purified, like gold in a fire.

Some Christians in the West concern themselves with the “Prosperity Gospel,” and debate universalist theories that everyone is going to Heaven, “if there is a Heaven.” But Christ-followers and missionaries and martyrs elsewhere in the world work to “know Christ and make Him known.”

The “crown” is the exclusive focus of too many Christians. Christ promised an abundant life, certainly; but He offered, and warned, and promised, the burden (mysteriously, a glorious burden!) of the “cross.” Plausible Christianity is that the Crown awaits us in Heaven; and the Cross is our lot here.

“It is one thing to kneel at the foot of the cross for forgiveness; it is quite another thing to get on that cross to follow Jesus in His death. But it is the only way to live the resurrected life. This is what it means to be His disciple. When we live the crucified life, nothing can truly harm us. You can’t hurt a dead person.” So wrote a friend, singer/songwriter Becky Spencer, this week. “Our churches are filled with bored, dissatisfied Christians. Not because our God isn’t enough, but because most of them have only visited the cross once for salvation. It is meant to be embraced every day.”

I did not know Shahbaz Bhatti. Three of my close friends did, but I cannot say that I would speak his mind here. However, his murder this week has me thinking more than ever about the persecution of Christians, and our proper response as believers ourselves – response not alone to the situation of martyrs, but response to Christ’s commission. And it all has to do with the Cross, the Cross.

Jesus came to save us from our sins, but not necessarily from the effects of our sins; nor the world’s persecution; nor evil, punishment, or sickness; all because there is sin in the world. And as He offers forgiveness from sin, it might be said that He did not come to grab us from hell or push us into Heaven. His ministry was to keep hell out of people, and put Heaven into us, so to speak. We are to do His work while we are here.

Christians often think we have to “close the deal” and assure that people have eternal life. But all we can do is quote the Promise. To presume that we can do any more might be to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, whose work this really is. Believers, by responding to the invitation to believe on Jesus, have a say in that; and God, of course, is the Judge.

So what is left? To servants like Shabaz Bhatti, and to missionaries in heathen areas (including – think about it – you and me, right in our neighborhoods), our work is to do Christ’s work. Here. And now. Working to keep hell out of people and planting a little Heaven – by sharing belief in Jesus Christ who has given His own life for us, as Shahbaz testified; that He is not just one way, but the way to God – this must be our mission. And our privilege. And our Cross.

Jesus frankly said that the world will hate that message. It hated that message when He spoke it, and He was crucified on the cross. It hates that message when we speak it, and the world will likewise and therefore hate us. To take up the Cross and follow Him is not an option. It is as much of being a Christian as confessing Jesus as Savior.

The Book of Revelation tells us that to add or subtract a word from scripture is anathema, yet I would venture to say that in Heaven another verse has been added this week to Hebrews, Chapter 11. That book is “the Hall of Fame of Faith,” listing great heroes and martyrs of the faith – many of whom did not live to see the fruits of their service and sacrifice. “By faith, Shahbaz…”

God bless you, brother. None of your countrymen will come closer to the Truth through the motives of a dozen cowardly murderers. But I pray that millions will see the Truth through your martyrdom, your purity of faith, your service to the cross of Christ. And He will be glorified. Amen.

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In honor of Shabaz Bhatti and persecuted Christians worldwide:

Click: Anthem of the Persecuted

I want to acknowledge the words and wisdom of three friends who were privileged to know Shahbaz — Hope Flinchbaugh, Marlene Bagnull, and Dan Wooding, for whom this week has been trying; Becky Spencer (“sure you can quote me – the Holy Spirit doesn’t copyright inspiration!”); and insights I gained this week while researching a book, from messages by Lyman Abbott.

1-31-11

Recently in this space we regretted aspects of contemporary American life that tend to turn many a meaningful thing into meaningless bling. Our sound-bite society has been fed, and therefore has come to prefer, life’s pleasures as if they are spectaculars on an IMAX screen; and life’s challenges to be as brief as  downloads on an iPod.

“’Tis a Gift Be Simple,” began the old Shaker hymn of the 1840s. At one time this could have been the anthem of the American folk. Modesty, industry, simplicity: not goals inculcated by teaching and preaching, but ways of life, of living and giving; willingly embraced.

The next line of the sacred American folk hymn is significant today, perhaps honored most in the breach. “‘Tis a gift to be free.”

Like many virtues, “freedom” is inchoate. Is it the right of Americans? Is it a birthright – inherited but able to be squandered? Freedom from what? Free to do what? Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Free from sin; and there is no other way to this glorious freedom. At the same time, we are free to sin. In Galatians (5:13) we are told, “You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge your flesh, but through love serve one another.”

It would seem that, more than a right, freedom is a gift. A gift of God, not of governments or any other agencies of man. Not an entitlement to be indulged, but a privilege to be worthy of… to become worthy of. Continually.

The question in those lights is pertinent this week. Societies squandering their rights, people rallying to demand their rights, and regimes denying rights, are all in the news. Street protests across the Arab world are being met by repression… and leaders who flee with their lives. We find ourselves suddenly in a historical moment, as during the French Revolution or the fall of Communism, when hour by hour, seismic changes occur. Scenarios that seemed impossible yesterday are reality today, and might be obsolete tomorrow. Political boundaries might not be changing, but societies are transformed overnight. “The old order changeth.”

Also this week, Freedom House, a human-rights group, issued its annual report. It documented “the longest continuous period of decline since it began compiling the annual index nearly 40 years ago,” according to Agence France-Presse.

Repression and widespread denial of rights is nearing levels of the post-Cold War era, the report says. Areas of deep concern include press freedom, political and civil rights, ethnic prejudice, forced prostitution, arms and drug traffic, corruption, slavery, and genocide. Two fewer governments than in the previous report are characterized as “free” (87 countries in all; only 43 per cent of the world’s population). And, alarmingly, religious persecution and deadly violence sharply are increasing. We read the news; we see the reports – and yet we don’t know a fraction of the horrible occurrences.

Christians frequently are the targets of prejudice these days, in democracies that are familiar to us; and expulsion or murder, in countries that are strange to us. It increasingly seems that the strange is becoming familiar, and the familiar is becoming strange.

A thousand years ago, there were lands of legend – not only of fiction – where individuals had to fight for freedom, defend their faith, and “earn their spurs.” And they did! Today, in this land, if it were to become the case that it is against the law to be a Christian… would there be enough evidence to convict you?

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Here is a song about that time in history, when knights earned their spurs, standing for God and valor when “freedoms” were not automatic. It is sung by the London boys choir Libera.

Click: For God and For Valor

The lyrics of this song:

When a knight won his spurs, in the stories of old,
He was gentle and brave, he was gallant and bold;
With a shield on his arm and a lance in his hand,
For God and for valour he rode through the land.

No charger have I, and no sword by my side,
Yet still to adventure and battle I ride,
Though back into storyland giants have fled,
And the knights are no more and the dragons are dead.

Let Faith be my shield and let joy be my steed
‘Gainst the dragons of anger, the ogres of greed;
And let me set free with the sword of my youth,
From the castle of darkness, the power of Truth.