Dear Strand Baptist and friends
I want to write a few words to you today about congregational singing; and the godly idea I want to highlight is 'singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God' (Colossians 3: 16). The reason I would like to briefly ponder this verse is because of the fact that in our contemporary Christian culture today the voices of God's people are being drowned out by electronic technical instruments. This biblical injunction needs to be heard afresh today in the light of trends in the church. When Heather and I visit other churches when away from SBC, one of the most startling things is the level of church music. On the Sunday prior to my return to SBC I visited a nearby church, arriving 15 minutes before the service (making sure I practice what I preach!). Though there was not a band, there was some 'foreground' music playing. It was so loud I struggled to hear the people welcoming me and had to nearly shout to be heard! Time and again I have been noticing that a shift has taken place in many churches, where the band is taking the centre stage and the congregation a back stage, the instruments dominating the voices of God's people. Naturally I was glad to be back at SBC! Now, let me say that this is not a sign that I am loosing touch with 'where things are at' today or am just making a personal judgment where there should be liberty and tolerance. No, the fact is that the way of doing church in too many churches is determined more by the culture of the world than the culture of the Word. Congregations are turning into passive audiences instead of active singers. For this reason, I am becoming more and more convicted that congregational singing needs to become the dominant method of music in the church today. Of course that does not mean that instruments are out (or that I am rationalising our present situation at SBC) it just means that music must subordinate itself to the voices of the people of God rather than supplant them. Too often the 'band' has been the tail that wags the dog in congregational singing. I think there needs to be a singing reformation in today's church when God's people will not be happy with the method of music in the church unless the voices of the congregation can be heard above the music. This will reverse the present trend where the style of music becomes the key criteria either for keeping people in a particular church or else for sending them away. It will also facilitate the important biblical (and baptist) conviction that the gathering of God's people is an act of Christ-like active service to all, and not a passive observation by the many of the few. In the open-heaven visions of the book of Revelation, we have many glimpses of angels in heaven singing the praises of God and the Lamb, but no instruments. So, let's begin to prepare for going there and come this Sunday to sing from our heart the high praises of the Lord. Love in Christ, Pastor Paul Dear Strand Baptist and Friends, When Archimedes, the Greek mathematician, working with a simple lever, said, “Give me a place to stand on and I will move the earth”, he was asking for a base for his lever’s fulcrum necessarily outside the cosmos. When asked for an illustration of his contention that a very great weight could be moved by a very small force, Archimedes apparently used a large and fully laden ship and to have employed a mechanical device by which any man was enabled to move it himself. The power of leverage! Now a fulcrum is a firm centre base that can support and implement a mechanism used to move another object. It is succinctly defined as ‘the point or support on which a lever pivots’. But here is the issue: in order for the lever to lift an object, the fulcrum for the lever must be outside of the object it is acting upon. I hope this is not either labouring the obvious or ‘mist-ifying’ (that’s not a spelling mistake!). Do you likewise look for the fulcrum of life, that has the ability to lever your life above your present cul-de-sac’s and treadmills, burdens and bondages? Now the Cross of Christ is such a fulcrum, and in preparation for Good Friday it will do us good to be in awe of its peculiar power. The Cross is a veritable power and truth that stands rock-like and safely outside of us, eternal in the heavens. Paul says, ‘For us who are being saved, the cross is the power of God’. The message of the cross has the power to transform us and pull us out of ourselves, into that other world around us where, ‘behold, all things have become new’. It is in that unique book of Hebrews that this ‘alien’ message is sounded out. Let us turn our minds and hearts there. As we read chapter 6, we hear the writer say, ‘we have this [hope] as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone.’ As Jesus took His shed blood into heavens holy of holies, He was completing something on our behalf, doing something eternal and infinite for us outside of us, outside of humanity, outside of the earth and universe, but inside the very presence of God. And what did Jesus do once He had presented His blood as His provision for the responsibilities of all our sins? He sat down, waiting until His return. Oh, the cross of Jesus and the finished work of Christ for the world. Not the wood, or the physical agony, or the supposed magical qualities of the blood of Mary’s son – but the life which He gave up in death as an offering for our sins. He took all our guilt and sin, and having borne the reproaches of God that should have fallen upon us, He accomplished atonement (‘at-one-ment’) and reconciliation and cleansed the heavenly realms for us, once and for all. The writer in Hebrews clearly states that Jesus has now ‘made purification for sins’ (1:3), has ‘PUT AWAY sin’ (9:26). The Greek word used for ‘put away’ (athetesis) is only used twice in the entire New Testament, here and also in 7:18. In chapter 7v 18 (read it please) it is used in the sense of ‘to set aside’, or ‘abolition’ or ‘set at naught’ – for the Levitical priesthood is no longer necessary, it is obsolete. Through His Cross, he abolished the old ceremonial machinery of the Old Covenant. It is a strong Greek word, with our English ‘abolish’ a fitting equivalent. So in the Cross, Christ absolved and abolished the power of sin. Marcus Dodds says of 9:26, “This was the great object of Christ’s manifestation, the annulling of sin, its total destruction, the counteraction of all its effects’. Hallelujah! Where the Old Covenant called sins to mind by the perpetual and regular sacrifices, He sacrificed Himself, once for all, and thus annulled sin (note: as He made purification for sins plural in 1:3, so here in 9:26 His total victory is over sin singular, that is, sin in its comprehensive and total power. Every word of God is inspired!) Absolute atonement was achieved. No higher cleansing can be reached in dealing with sin. Sin was vanquished, set at naught. The curtain is now torn, man can come in Christ before a Holy Father. Redemption is achieved and effected. What a gospel. Regardless of what sin is still doing in the world of men after that first Good Friday period, something final in Christ has occurred. This we must always preach. What good news it truly it! Finally, going back to Archimedes. When king Hieron asked him whether a crown of gold made for him actually contained some proportion of silver, the famous scientist was initially puzzled. Then one day as he was stepping into a bath the solution dawned upon him. He was so overjoyed at the solution in his mind, having been rankled by the problem for some time, that he supposedly ran home without his clothes, shouting ‘eureka, eureka’ (Greek for ‘I have found it, I have found it’). Now readers, when you freshly discover the objective Truth of the Cross, and what it means for you and your relationship to God and the world, I would not be surprised if you did similarly! With love, Pastor Paul A Clear Word From Scripture
Just as there were globally publicized predictions of the End of the world in 2012, there will surely be many more to come. This is nothing new, and for most of the church's history sincere Christians have always fallen prey to such speculations. Yet in response to these delusive predictions, Christians have been sadly rather vague and unclear in their counter-responses. Because there has been no clear word from Scripture in answer to this growing chorus of count-down mentality, the vacuum of ignorance has only exacerbated the problem. I believe that Scripture is unambiguously clear as to how we need to respond to such prognostications and I want you to know how to respond to popular claims that Christ's return is just around the corner. To know how to respond, we need to turn to 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12. Please read it and then be like the noble Bereans (Acts 17:11) who searched the Scriptures for confirmation of what they were told. Here we see that Paul gave (1) a Certain Sequence (2) of Observable Objects (3) as a Defence for Delusion. The church he wrote this letter to had forgotten what he had earlier taught them and had slipped from a sound stable mind into alarmed and agitated instability regarding the Second Coming (Advent) of Christ. Based on false prophecy, words of people, and also a spurious allegation from a letter of Paul, some people were believing that Christ's Advent had already happened. Many people in the church were unsettled and did not know how to counteract this 'new teaching'. Here is the gist of what Paul said to them: 1. The Certain Sequence: Paul made it very clear that Christ's coming and our gathering to Him in the rapture (vs 1) could not happen at any moment but must be preceded by a certain complex of events (notice the temporal word 'first' in verse 3). Since there are certain events in history that must necessary transpire before the Advent, Christ could not have already returned. That is the gist of what Paul declares. No Returned Christ or any-momentism! - since the precursor signs have not happened yet. 2. The Observable Objects: Paul spends most of this section describing the nature of the events that must happen before Christ returns, in order that his readers may (a) know if Christ is not returning yet and (b) know what things will look like on earth if His Advent is imminent Paul describes certain global international world conditions. His words centre around a Satanic parody of the Messiah, a real man who will make his debut on the world scene, who will be personally slain by Jesus Christ at His Coming. This is the Antichrist, the one side of the coin of the expected events. The other side of the coin is the expected 'rebellion' or 'apostasy' which must happen. This Greek word 'apostasia' can be variously translated, dependent on the context it is used. At bottom is means a defection from one position to another. If Julius Malema and his followers had to move out of the ANC and join to DA, the Greek word for that would be 'apostasia'. If thousands of Baptists had to leave their churches and join the Moonies, that would be an 'apostasia'. So Paul's words can speaks of a specific religious 'falling away' amongst Christians or Jews, or in a specific political realignment. Given the context (which is always determinitive for the meaning of individual words) where Paul describes the Antichrist as the 'man of lawlessness' who will appear and receive a global reception, the 'apostasia' is best understood in the broadest sense of a mass exodus from traditional law, order and religion to believe and follow the pretentious claims of this global demagogue. Also considering the context once again, the identity of 'the restrainer' is most reasonably a reference to Roman law and order (which actually saved Paul from being lynched by lawless mobs in Acts 19 and 22). As long as overall lawful governance was in operation in society, the full flowering of lawlessness and autocratic world rule would be keep in check. Overall, the logic of the inspired apostle is that these things are to be unprecedented and observable signs, clear for Christians to see, and that until these historical realities transpire, Christ will not be returning as yet. 3. The Defence for Deceit: False teaching misrepresents the truth and immunizes God's people to the authentic teaching of the Word. Delusive speculations also immobilise and distract us to our present mission in the world. Paul wanted the church to be 'in the know', stable and confident as to these things. He wrote these things as a safeguard to Christians and to enable them to walk in the light of truth, immunized to the current speculations. The teaching is revealed to be known and to support the church a midst a growing world alarmism. My friend, may you hear what the Word is saying on these things. Notice how clear Paul is! Unless we see Antichrist and the his 'abomination that causes desolation' in a Jewish temple, Christ will not return. Paul was teaching exactly what Jesus Himself taught in Matthew 24. Let us hear these words of Paul (and Jesus) afresh, know the truth, and by our service for Christ in this world 'hasten that Day of the Lord' (2 Peter 3:12). Pastor Paul Hartwig |
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April 2024
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