No, it’s not too early for a Christmas hymn! In fact, if you’ve read the previous post and seen that appalling video, there couldn’t be a better time for this–O Come, All Ye Faithful by the Kings College Choir at Cambridge University. And if I were to try to speak out loud just now, I’d burst into tears.
No, the devils haven’t won! Yes, they’re running wild just now, unrestrained in their wickedness, preying on the people they ought to protect: but Jesus Christ has come into the world, and will come again; and He will save us. In fact He’s here already, never farther than a prayer away.
The kicker is unexpected: having seen this miracle of healing–proof positive that Jesus is the Son of God–the people are suddenly afraid of Him and beg Him to leave!
Were they afraid of their own salvation? That’s something to think about.
Note: I continue to display work by my fellow Christian bloggers. Really, we have to help each other to get the message out. None of us can do it alone.
I usually save this for Christmas–Gaudete (“Rejoice”), a medieval carol performed by the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, and the London Cello Orchestra–but has this fallen world ever needed Christ the Savior more than it needs Him now? “Rejoice, for Christ is born of Mary!”
I’m still saying Christian bloggers have to help each other. There are people out there who are trying to keep our message from getting out. They suppress our readership. But we can help each other by re-posting or re-blogging each other’s posts.
Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? (Luke 6:46-48)
This is a serious question that Jesus asks, and you can be sure He’s still asking it today. Anyone can call himself a Christian–and then go out and ignore the Lord’s teaching… or even actively oppose it.
Jesus warns us not to build on sand, without Him as the foundation. He warns us not to put our faith in things of this world, because that foundation will surely fail us when we need it most.
But to build on Him, and on His word, is to build upon a rock; and that foundation will endure.
Phoebe has requested The Hallelujah Chorus, from Handel’s Messiah, even though it isn’t Christmas time; and I am glad to post it. This is the Royal Chorale Society, at the Royal Albert Hall.
We proclaim the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, King of kings and Lord of lords: we proclaim his kingship over heaven and earth: to whom every knee must bow, and every tongue confess Him Lord.
I loaded this hymn last night–The Son of God Goes Forth to War, sung by choir and congregation at Christ Church, Moscow, Idaho. It is war, and this hymn has some hard truths to tell us. It’s not just skipping through the tulips with a hippie named Jesus.
Reading Hollowed Out, by Jeremy Adams, I was getting the very strong impression that everything is going wrong. Everything! But then a strange thing happened to me. I found myself singing the old Car 54 theme song.
There’s a holdup in the Bronx, Brooklyn’s broken out in fights,
There’s a traffic jam in Harlem that’s backed up to Jackson Heights.
There’s a scout troop short a child, Khrushchev’s due at Idlewild–
Car 54, where are you?
And the thought came to me: Everything can’t go wrong. It sure looks like it–but what’s that, that the Bible tells us again and again, about how we should walk by faith and not by sight? I mean, is God still up there on His throne, or not? Do we have His promises, or not? Is Christ risen, and our sins forgiven, or not?
The answer is not “Not.”
I don’t understand the details of what God is doing with this fallen world of ours. Maybe He thought we need a wake-up call. Maybe even a trip to the woodshed. But the end of it all, according to God’s own enscriptured word, is salvation. Regeneration. Christ shall reign forever.
This is what we must believe. God is pleased to let us into His labors with Him, to accept us as His servants: there is no higher calling. So buckle down and work, no matter what we see, no matter what we suffer.
Because He has a new heaven and a new earth waiting for us, and eternal life with which to enjoy it.
It’s one of those things you read about in the Bible over and over again–and you just accept it because you’ve heard this story since you were a kid in Sunday school and no one ever said you had to think about it. Well, we all need to read the Bible more alertly than we do! There’s so much to be gained.
I continue my campaign of bringing increased exposure to Christian bloggers and their blogs. It doesn’t seem I have much to contribute, “but such as I have, give I thee.”
Kristi Ann’s Haven has a lot of Bible verses for us, starting with John 3:16… “For God so loved the world…”
