****MY RELIGION'S NOT OLD-FASHIONED

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There is an old country-western Gospel song that has been on my mind for a couple years. It was one of my mother’s favorites and I sang along with it on her record player when I was a child. 

For those of you who don’t know, records were what we used in the "old days" before eight tracks, which came before cassettes. Actually, records even pre-dated vinyl LPs (long play albums). They were made from slate.  Slate records were heavy, rigid, and fragile. They would shatter into pieces if dropped. Here’s a little record riddle for you; how many grooves are on a record? (Answer, Two; one on each side.)

These days when it seems that everyone is trying to dumb down or repackage Christianity to make it more attractive or relevant to a modern, enlightened, me-centered culture, it is comforting to know that there is nothing new under the Sun. This song was popular over a half-century ago and, apparently, they struggled then with the same slippery slope of liberalism and creeping modernism that is prevalent in Christianity today.

This song addresses the subject of TRUTH.  “What is Truth?  

That is an academic question that has been argued since creation when the serpent tempted Eve in the garden of Eden.  It comes up often in academic philosophy discussions.  After hours of debate, all the ignorant pinheads usually conclude that truth is fluid and relative; what is TRUTH for you, they say, may not be TRUTH for me.  And now, we are observing that in the classrooms of our children who are told that 2 plus 2 does not necessarily equal 4.

That kind of ignorant attitude recently surfaced in political media, when Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said to President Trump, “I reject your facts.”

That’s nonsense!  Facts are facts; if they’re not true, they’re not facts.  And the answer to the question, “What is Truth?” is simple; Truth is that which is true.

The song, MY RELIGION'S NOT OLD-FASHIONED, was written by Stuart Hamblen and made popular by Hank Snow.  OK, so it's not one that I would normally select for use in church but there are several things I like about it.  

First- unlike a lot of "praise team instrumentalists," the singers knew how to play the guitar.

Second- you can hear the lyrics over the instruments and understand them without an interpreter.

Third- The melody is technically easy and recognizable (probably because there really is a melody).

Fourth- The lyrics are wholesome.

Fifth and most importantly- I like the song for its doctrinal soundness and its solid, conservative message about the immutable nature of TRUTH.

“All Truth is God’s Truth.”  And, the truth never changes because God is Truth and He never changes.  Jesus claimed that attribute to Himself when He said, “I am the Truth.” 

The songwriter begins by declaring that there is only one real religion.  That’s because there is only One true God and only one true way to salvation.  And God revealed that way through His Son, Jesus Christ who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

The song goes on with a warning; we must be careful discerners of truth because there are many false teachers and prophets.  They stand behind pulpits, twist scripture, and speak beautiful words.  They will tell us that God didn’t really mean what the Bible tells us.  Those false preachers are snakes just like that serpent in the Garden and they will lead their followers to destruction.

Lots of people try to fit God into their own molds and practice religions that make them feel good.  But the One and Only True, Unchanging God has ordained an unchanging Gospel that still saves sinners today the same way He saved sinners in the past; by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.   

 
You can hear it as originally recorded by Stuart Hamblen, on this video clip. I have reprinted the lyrics below:

MY RELIGION'S NOT OLD FASHIONED

There is but one real religion that redeems the sinners soul.

It's as timeless as the ages and it never will grow old.

My Lord gave the key to Thomas, "I'm the Way, the Truth, the Life,"

And that Way has never changed since He spoke the Words that night.

In this world of wild confusion, we are often led astray,

When we hear the words 'old fashioned' as men speak of God today.

My Lord doesn't deal in fashion, He's more timeless than the seas

And His Words still hold the power as they did in Galilee.

Some are prone to take the Bible and dilute the Words of Christ.

They admit He came here one time but He'll never make it twice.

Be not tempted by those "prophets" - He said such men would arise;

There is darkness in their teaching but there's life in Jesus Christ.

chorus

My religion's not old-fashioned but it's real genuine.

Two and two make four today as it did in my Lord's time.

Modern days don't make a difference you can't alter truth or time.

My religion's not old-fashioned but it's real genuine.

****FOR THE BEAUTY OF THE EARTH

I read, this week, that The Church of Sweden has urged its clergy to use more gender-neutral language when referring to God and to avoid referring to the deity as “Lord” or “he.”

The move is one of many made by the national Evangelical Lutheran Church, which is in the process of updating a 31-year-old handbook, which will outline how services should be conducted in terms of language, and that will include necessary revisions to the hymns they sing.

It is not unusual that many of our older hymns have gone through some revisions.  Sometimes those changes have been improvements but there are some that were made for the wrong reasons.

In 1864, Folliot Pierpoint published an eight-stanza poem, “The Sacrifice of Praise.”  It was originally meant to be used as a communion hymn.

In the original refrain, “Christ, our God, to Thee we raise, This, our sacrifice of praise,” reflected the author’s intent for a communion hymn.  But it was changed to “Lord of all, to Thee we raise This our hymn of grateful praise.”

As it turns out, that was a good change, but it was forced by political correctness.  There were heresies then, like now, that denied the deity of Christ and there were spineless publishers who were uncomfortable with the way the text equated Christ with God.

 

Pierpoint stood firm in his defense of the original text.  He argued that there had been a long tradition of Christians singing hymns to Christ as God; and, besides, the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553), referencing 1 Cor. 2:8, affirmed that our Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified in the flesh, is true God, and the “Lord of glory”.

Nevertheless, the hymn was changed and, I think, for the better.  Two stanzas, that weren’t very good, have been omitted and two have been combined. 

So, now, FOR THE BEAUTY OF THE EARTH, is a five-stanza hymn with a new refrain.  And the focus of the original hymn has been broadened from a communion hymn to a song of praise and thanksgiving to the “Lord of all.”

The progression in the imagery of this hymn makes it a good teaching aid for children.  The thanksgiving starts with the natural creation; the world around us and then progresses to thanks for human relationships, then the Church, and finally, to the incarnation; the Gift of God’s own Son in human flesh.

****TRUST AND OBEY

In my commentary last week, about the hymn, TRUSTING JESUS, I pointed out the necessity of trusting completely in Jesus Christ alone for our salvation.  There is nothing we can do to earn or merit God’s grace.   Jesus paid it all.  Ours is to repent and believe.

Throughout Church history, there have been many who have distorted that Doctrine of salvation by Grace Alone, in ways that are destructive and heretical.  The official word for the heresy is antinomianism which is literally translated, “against law.”  That is the teaching that says, “We are now in an age of grace and are no longer under the law.”

You might recognize some other names for the heresy such as ”Easy Believism,” or  “Free Grace.”  It’s the practice of encouraging people to repeat a simple, anemic, unrepentant prayer to ask Jesus into their lives and then convince them that they are saved and safe and eternally secure when there has been no real new birth.   

It is offensive to the Gospel and destructive to people when we allow them to believe that they can be positionally right with God while continuing in their sins without consequence; that Jesus paid the penalty for all their sins without telling them that God expects them to stop sinning.

I’m sure you have heard many variations of that, especially today, when so many churches, in the name of political correctness or tolerance, are welcoming and celebrating all kinds of gross unrepentant immorality into their memberships because, “after all, that’s the way God created them and who are we to judge?”

One man, I know, after leaving his wife and shacking up with another woman, said to me, “I don’t care, I accepted Jesus into my heart when I prayed that prayer and I know I’m going to heaven anyway so it doesn’t matter what I do.”

So I need to make a statement, here, which may seem like a paradox.   "While it is true that no one will ever get to heaven by their good works, it is also true that no one will get to heaven without them."

One night at a D. L. Moody evangelistic meeting a young man stood up to testify about the uncertainty of his salvation.  He said, “I am not quite sure, but I’m going to trust, and I’m going to obey.”

That statement was the inspiration for the hymn, TRUST AND OBEY.  It emphasizes two aspects of our salvation—first, our faith and then, our willingness to subject ourselves to God’s Word in obedience. 

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”  Eph 2:10

That’s what we were redeemed for; to walk in good works.   Salvation is just the beginning.  When God saves us, He begins the process of cleansing us and making us fit to live with Him forever.  With the Word of God and the indwelling Spirit of God to convict us, we begin to see ourselves as God sees us.  If our sins don’t bother us; if we are not changed, and if we are not turned from our old ways to walk in obedience to Him, then there is a good reason to question the reality of our salvation.

“TRUST AND OBEY, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, But to TRUST AND OBEY.”

****IN CHRIST ALONE

Is God's wrath something to sing about?

The doctrines of sin, judgment, and the cross have become unpopular and rejected in much of our contemporary theology.  There is nothing that irritates liberal Christians more than the idea of divine wrath.

In 1934, Richard Niebuhr wrote a book titled, The Kingdom of God in America.  In it, he described liberal Protestant theology, which was called “modernism,” in one famous, concise sentence; “A God without wrath brought man without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”

One Sunday morning, the text for my pastor’s sermon, was Romans 1:24-32.  The subject was “Understanding Our Sin-Sick Culture."  As was my custom, I attempted to select songs for our worship, that supported the sermon.  And I found that there were very few Christian songs on the subject of God’s judgment or wrath.

One of them, IN CHRIST ALONE, is probably the best-loved and most often used contemporary song among Christian churches in the past several years, and most of you are familiar with it.  But it is despised by liberal Christianity.  

Recently, that song became a major point of controversy among Presbyterians.  A PCUSA denominational committee voted to exclude the contemporary worship song from their new hymnal.

Although most Presbyterians wanted to include it because of its popularity, they just couldn’t allow it because of one short line in the second stanza.  The committee wanted to make a change in the song's lyrics.  They wanted to cut the phrase, "Till on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied," and replace it with, "the love of God was magnified." 

Well, Keith Getty and Stuart Townend, the authors of the hymn, insisted on the original wording so the committee vote to discard the song.

Interestingly, though, Presbyterians were not the only, nor the first, denomination to find the line problematic; It seems that some of us Baptists balk at the subject too. Unbeknownst to the songwriters, the alternate lyric had already been inserted and published by the American Baptists in a 2010 hymnal.

So what about it?  Were the authors right?  Is God angry?   Well, consider these verses:

Psalm 7:11 - "God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day."

Nahum 1:6 - "Who can stand before His indignation? And who can endure the fierceness of His anger?  His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him."

Romans 1:18 - "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness."

Revelation 14:18-20 - "And another angel came out from the altar, who had power over fire, and he cried with a loud cry to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, 'Thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe.' So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.  And the winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, up to the horses’ bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongs."

There is a popular little meme that says, "God hates the sin but loves the sinner," but that is a false and unbiblical statement that is found nowhere in Scripture.  In fact, the Bible makes it very clear that God is not only angry at sin but also sinners.

And He has revealed His anger at the sin of mankind many times; He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. He wiped out the entire world, except for Noah, his family, and a few animals, in a universal flood.  But those were nothing compared to His ultimate act of vengeance when He poured out His wrath on His Only Son who bore our sins on the cross of Calvary.   The book of the Revelation foretells a time when God will bring terrible judgments during the Tribulation.   And finally, at the end of the age, God will display His wrath against all the unrighteous at the great white throne judgment.

One of the main points of my pastor's sermon suggested that we may be observing God’s judgment and wrath on our nation as He abandons us to the consequences of our own reprobate minds.  

Words mean things and the words of our Christian music are especially important. Debating over doctrinal issues in the lines of hymns is not a new thing and it is not always a bad thing.  But, in this case, if we fail to recognize God’s capacity for wrath, we, in effect, trivialize His sovereign power.  It is true that God is Love.  That’s one of His attributes.  Wrath is not one of His attributes, but wrath is a function of His holiness and justice; without His wrath, there is no need or appreciation for His mercy.

It is good to sing songs about the judgment and wrath of God.  They are direct reminders of His mercy toward us.  And this contemporary song is one of the great ones and this controversial line is even greater.  We will only know and fully appreciate God's grace when we understand the magnitude of our sin that required His great sacrifice.

“…'Til on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.  For every sin on Him was laid, here in the death of Christ, I live.”