****A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD

Oct. 31 is the beginning of what we generally refer to as the HOLIDAY SEASON and I am intrigued by how the holidays line up on the calendar.

  

Halloween comes first and in actual dollars spent on decorations and entertainment, it has overshadowed Christmas as the biggest holiday of the year.  From a spiritual standpoint, Halloween is an appropriate holiday; the world is in darkness. That is our natural condition.  In fact, the Bible tells us that “men love the darkness because their deeds are evil” (John 3:19).  It also tells us that we are “dead in sin” (Eph. 2:1, Col. 2:13).  We are “of our father, the Devil” and have no knowledge of God so it is understandable that most people embrace or celebrate the holiday of darkness, superstition, and evil.   Unless and until the Spirit of God brings us light, we cannot know Him.

  

The next holiday on the calendar is Thanksgiving Day.  In 1621, the Pilgrims had just endured a terrible winter in which scores of children and adults had starved to death. They were discouraged and defeated and ready to return to England when God answered their prayers and another ship arrived with medical supplies, food, and just enough hope to encourage them to press on despite the adverse conditions.

Two years later William Bradford, the governor of the Plymouth Colony, said, “Inasmuch as the Father has given us an abundant harvest and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish; and He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship Him according to the dictates of our own conscience; I now proclaim that on Thursday, Nov. 29, 1623, we will render thanksgiving to the Almighty God for all His blessings.”

Romans 2:4 says, “The goodness of God leads you to repentance.” We celebrate His goodness at Thanksgiving and the ultimate manifestation of God’s Goodness was the gift of His Son, the Light of the world, and we celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas time; the very next Holiday on our calendar.

St. Valentine's Day was named for a priest near Rome during the rule of Claudius II.  A few years before Claudius began persecuting Christians for not worshiping the Roman gods, war broke out in the Roman Empire and Claudius began drafting all the able-bodied men to go into battle.  Many of the men were reluctant to leave their families or their sweethearts.  So, to remedy that, Claudius ordered that there be no marriages and that all engagements were to be broken off immediately.

In addition to helping many Christians escape persecution, Valentine earned a reputation for being a friend of lovers by secretly performing Christian marriages in defiance of the Emperor's ban.  Claudius imprisoned him on Feb. 14, 270 A.D., and later had him beheaded because he would not renounce his faith.

Romans 5:8 tells us that “God demonstrated His love for us (the bride of Christ) in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  And He did that on the cross at Calvary, which brings us right up to Resurrection Day.

Spring is the season of new life.  Statistically, there are more babies born in the Spring than any other season.  There came a time when each of us was physically born into this world.   And, for Christians, there was another time when God caused His light to “shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" (2 Cor 4:6 ).  He gave us new life and we were Born Again.

Next on our American calendar, is Independence Day when we celebrate our liberties which were secured by those who made great sacrifices for our political freedoms. Likewise, Christ sacrificed His life to free us from the bondage of sin and death. “If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). That’s real freedom worth celebrating.

Finally, we come all the way back to Halloween, but we who are Christians, no longer lurk in that darkness.  “The Light of the world has shined in our hearts.”  We walk in the Light and have no fear of death because Christ has triumphed over sin, death, Satan.

Oct. 31 is one of the most important dates on the church calendar.  It is Reformation Day; the day that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the Wittenberg Cathedral door.  After 600 years of worldwide spiritual darkness (the Dark Ages) when most men were illiterate and very few had access to the written Word of God, Martin Luther and a host of other reformers, ushered in the Renaissance by shining the Light of God’s Truth into a world of superstition and darkness.

Martin Luther wrote A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD, based on Psalm 46.  The hymn, sometimes called the Battle Hymn of the Reformation, is a celebration of the sovereign power of God over all the earthly and spiritual forces of darkness, and of the sure hope we have in Him because of our Savior, Jesus Christ who is the Light of the world. 

****GUIDELINES FOR CHURCH MUSIC

I am a simple man.  I was not trained or experienced in leading my congregation in singing; it is not my gift.  But I served in the position of song leader for nearly ten years because there was no one else to do it.

That position of song leader was mine, not to grasp firmly but to hold carefully in trust with open hands. Any man whom God would send our way and was qualified, willing, and available, could assume that responsibility from me without objection.  In the meantime, I took that ministry seriously. 

Over the years I assembled this guide to remind me of my ministry responsibilities according to my understanding of scripture. And now I gladly offer it here for your own edification.

GUIDELINES FOR CHURCH MUSIC

• Sing songs people know. The important thing is that people sing songs of praises and thanksgiving to God; that is a scriptural commandment. And it is hard to do if they don’t know the songs.  When you introduce new songs, do it sparingly and then repeat them several times over a few weeks until they become familiar.

• Sing in comfortable keys.  Your job is not to show off your vocal range (or vocal gymnastics).  If it is too high, too low, or in challenging intervals, your congregation will not sing.

• Sing to celebrate the power, glory, and salvation of God.  There are good personal and relational songs of testimony or sentiments that may be appropriate in certain situations but, for the most part, worship is NOT about how warm and fuzzy you feel; it is about bowing down in humble awe of the power and glory of God.  Sing His praises, sing about His attributes and sing about His mercy and grace.

• Serve your people.  This might seem like a no-brainer but a legitimate worship service provides people with what they need; not what they want. 

• Saturate them with the Word of God.   Support your song choices with biblical references to God’s Word.   He has assembled your congregation in your presence for only a few minutes each week and they don’t need junk food.  They need spiritual meat and music can be a useful vehicle to deliver it to them.  Make sure that your song choices are substantive and rich in scripture.

• Don’t sing songs with humanistic philosophies or heretical theology.  I once read a comment that asked, “If your music doesn’t preach, why sing it?”  The fact of the matter is that ALL music preaches.  The problem is that so many Christians learn so much false doctrine from spiritually anemic, or downright stupid, popular contemporary music in church and on Christian radio.  It takes wisdom and discernment to examine all the lyrics in light of Scripture.  If necessary, you may have to make some corrective changes to the lyrics or, better yet, throw them out entirely.  Just do it because you are no less accountable than is your pastor when it comes to preaching or teaching false doctrine.

• Don’t draw attention to yourself.  It’s not about you (or your “worship team”).   Someone has suggested that, if worship teams were required to sing from behind a curtain, there would be no more worship teams.    Entertainment is not an element of  worship and the musical portion of your ministry is not your turn to perform.  And no one wants to hear your overly dramatic, rehearsed praises and prayers.  Do not use your music ministry as your outlet for creativity at the expense of the centrality of the Gospel.  I once had a pastor who had a small plaque on his pulpit, engrave with these words, “Sirs, we would see Jesus.”  It was fixed there to remind him (and anyone else he allowed to share his pulpit) that his responsibility was always and only to point men to Jesus.

****GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS

Thomas Obadiah Chisholm was a poor, simple man of who experienced God’s faithfulness throughout his whole life.  He was born in a log cabin in Franklin, Kentucky in 1866.  He was educated in a little, one-room country schoolhouse, and at the age of 16, he began teaching there.  Later, he worked as an associate editor of the Franklin Advocate, his hometown weekly newspaper.

After God saved him at the age of 27, Thomas learned to find comfort and strength in the faithfulness of God to provide for all his needs in difficult times of illness.

With no formal college education or seminary training, he was ordained to the Methodist ministry at age 36.  He served as a pastor for only one year because of his fragile health. There were many periods of time when he was confined to his bed and unable to work.

Between his bouts of illnesses, he would push himself to work extra, long hours at various odd jobs just to make ends meet.

 

Thomas loved to write and during his lifetime, he wrote hundreds of poems.  One of them was GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS, which was inspired by Lamentations 3:22-23, “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.  They are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness.”

This hymn has three verses that demonstrate God’s great faithfulness. 

Verse 1 declares His faithfulness as He has revealed Himself in His Word.  It is adapted from James 1:17, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”  

God is faithful because of His unchanging nature.  He is always the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

In verse 2, the writer points to the witness of nature as evidence of God’s faithfulness. The courses of the Sun, the moon, and the stars; the seasons, and even the ebbs and flows of the tides are all ordered and regulated by Him.  

If you are fearful about global warming and rising seas, you can rest assured that God has it all under control.  It is He who, said, “For I have placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, an eternal decree, so it cannot cross over it. Though the waves toss, yet they cannot prevail; Though they roar, yet they cannot cross over it.” (Jer. 5:22)

He has orchestrated all of creation and He holds it all together according to His purposes and for His glory.

Verse 3 then assures us of God’s faithfulness in our lives.  He saves us, forgives us of all our sins, gives us His peace, empowers us for His service, and assures us of our eternal hope. And so we can trust Him for all His benefits, not because of anything we have done, but because of what Jesus Christ has done.  “The Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one.”  (2 Thess. 3:3)

He is faithful to deliver us.

About his simple, ordinary life, Thomas Chisholm said, “God has given me many wonderful displays of His providing care which have filled me with astonishing gratefulness.”

Whatever difficulties or trials we might face in our lives, this hymn reminds us that God’s promises are true, that He never changes, and that His compassions never fail.