I do wish I knew who sings this: it’s beautiful, whoever you are! Brought a lump to my throat. Sweet Hour of Prayer, a good old hymn from 1845–how many times did I hear my mother, my grandma, and my aunts hum this as they went about their daily chores?
Gorgeous background scenery by God the Father, maker of heaven and earth.
Sometimes there’s just nothing like a full orchestra and a couple thousand people singing–like here, at the Royal Albert Hall: To God Be the Glory. This video was made in 2012, not so long ago. I pray the hymns are still being sung in Britain. I pray there are men, women, and children humming or whistling them as they go about their daily activities.
Anyway, this is great–crank up the volume and let it do its thing.
Here it’s a dark and dreary, rainy morning, Labor Day is already upon us–wasn’t it Easter, just last week?–so we want a hymn to brighten up the day: Like a River Glorious, a classic from 1876, played by Nathan and Lyle and a couple of their friends. In someone’s living room. Any time you can get the Lord’s presence into your living room, go for it.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain… unless you’re a “progressive Christian,” then it’s okay.
When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith in the earth?
Maybe–if He stays away from certain churches.
An ordained Presbyterian pastor, Rebecca Todd Peters, who is a professor at Elon University, has authored a book titled Trust Women: a Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice (https://www.lifenews.com/2018/08/29/presbyterian-pastor-if-christians-truly-value-women-they-will-support-abortion/). Yowsah, yowsah, says the preacher: if Christians truly “value” women, why, they’ll support abortion!
Not to be outdone, the United Methodist Church is proposing to change its kinda-sorta-not exactly position on abortion to “We support abortion!”
Both the Presbyterian “minister” and the Methodist churchmen resort to the euphemism, “reproductive health.” Like, pregnancy is a disease and the baby is the symptom. Like, a woman going to have a baby is not “healthy.”
Look at the title of Ms. Peters’ book. “Progressive Christian” is surely an oxymoron, like “colossal olives.” “Progressive Christians” oppose God’s word at every turn. They hate God’s word. And as for “reproductive justice,” what is that? Justice for whom? Certainly not for the baby in the womb. But when liberals speak of “justice,” it becomes a dirty word.
What is with these churches? They “marry” homosexuals, denounce God the Father as a relic of some imaginary “patriarchy”–or is that term now “kyriarchy,” or “archiarchy”?–butcher the scriptures, and then wonder why they’re hemorrhaging members. At the rate they’re going, the Presbyterian Church USA won’t see the 22nd century.
Then again, you might say that for our whole global humanist lunatic civilization.
We have a hymn request this morning, this one from Joshua, for Arise, My Soul, Arise by Charles Wesley, performed a capella by Glad. It’s amazing, how well some of the 18th century hymns adapt to modern arrangements.
Yo, if you’re new here, let me tell you that we take hymn requests, one a day or even two, if we can get them. If there’s a favorite hymn or worship song you’d like to see posted here, just let us know and we’ll do the rest. You can make your request as a “reply” to any blog post or comment.
Some days the only good news you can find is in the Bible. –LD
This is the hymn that surged to the front of the line this morning: in Welsh, Cwm Rhondda; in English, Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah; in any language, glorious. “Bread of Heaven, feed me now and evermore.”
No one out-sings a Welsh choir. This is the Morriston Orpheus Choir, singing both in Welsh and English. Turn it up!
I love to start our blogging day with a hymn. Today’s hymn, May Saviour’s Love, written by Charles Gabriel in 1905, performed in gorgeous harmony by the Kingdom Quartet. Background sets by the Lord Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
[Editor’s Note: We don’t know who wrote this. Someone found it tucked inside a copy of The New York Times.]
Dear Comrade: I do love the way our plan for moral chaos is working out! Removing God from the equation, then removing truth–brilliant!
Once we’ve got them all shooting each other, betraying each other, every word a lie, court system completely overburdened, delivery systems breaking down because nobody knows how to do a job anymore, or wants to, every single one of them practically suicidal because they can’t get their own way every time–well, like the Boss explained to us, that’s when we make our move.
That’s when the government will have to get really, really authoritarian, just to keep the whole damned place from melting down. They’ll be begging for a “strong” government to keep order!
And then it’s payday, man! A hyper-authoritarian government, totally empowered to do anything it wants–and us in charge of it! Wow! We can lock people up! We can do anything we want, to anybody. Like, if they say the wrong thing, or read the wrong books, or even for no reason at all, just because we feel like tossing someone into prison!
Dig the humor, bro: every little tiny group of idiots, all thinking themselves The Smartest People in the World, all as sure as they can be that they’re gonna be the ones running the show–can you wait to see the look on their face, when we lock them up, too?
It’s just so great to be a devil!
No thanks, I’ll take the Savior that I have. Go away.
Check this out. I quote from the ad published in Biblical Archaeology Review.
“The Gospel of Judas is the most important discovery in history.” Ya think? “From gnostic texts that have just recently arisen–phoenix-like–from the desert sands of Egypt, is the true original mastership succession story of first-century savior James the Just, whose every detail is inverted to hide his coming in the “Betrayal of Christ” narrative of the New Testament Gospels. All biblical scholars–” What? All of them?–“missed that Judas–not Jesus!–is the spiritual self-sacrifice ‘of the man that bears me,’ and an inverted stand-in for successor James…” blah-blah. And there’s more if you have nothing better to do than visit their website (https://judaswasjames.com/).
There you will be told that “‘Jesus’ didn’t die to save anyone, and that he was in truth preceded and succeeded by other Masters of equal stature.”
And at the bottom of the ad, this notice: “Seeking assistance/publisher/producer”. It seems somebody’s too cheap to self-publish.
Is it me, or is there a lot of this pseudo-biblical buffoonery going around these days? Last I heard, gnosticism was a heresy, emphatically rejected by the early Church. Obviously with good reason.
Where can I go to buy stock in false prophecy–clearly a growth industry?
These people are going to have to do an awful lot of fast talking, come Judgment Day.