Last night Adam had his piano recital and did a most outstanding job!

He performed Prelude in C# Minor, Opus 3, No. 2 by Sergei Rochmoninoff. We are, needless to say, all very proud of his accomplishments on the piano!

Psalm 67

God be merciful to us and bless us, And cause His face to shine upon us,

That Your way may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations.

Let the peoples praise You, O God; Let all the peoples praise You.

Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy! For You shall judge the people righteously, And govern the nations on earth.

Let the peoples praise You, O God; Let all the peoples praise You.

Then the earth shall yield her increase; God, our own God, shall bless us.

God shall bless us, And all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.

How is it that songs of joyful praise from all the nations to our God will come about?  This question presupposes that the nations will want to do such a thing. We are assured by the scriptures that indeed the command to disciples the nations will be brought to completion and that the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. Thus, the gospel will indeed bring the nations to want to sing of the blessedness of our own God! Further, the question presupposes that the nations will be able to sing His praises.

I recently came across the work of Eric Whitacre and his virtual choir. The video below is his own explanation of what he has accomplished.

Toward the end of his clip he talked about two things that struck him as a result of this project:

1) Human beings will go to any lengths necessary to find and connect with each other…

2) People seem to be experiencing an actual connection…not just a virtual connection…

These two things don’t surprise me because indeed we are created as image-bearers of the Truine God – who has an infinite capacity and desire to connect socially. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit have loved each other perfectly throughout eternity, and have made us to yearn for connection with Him and one another. This social connectivity in manifested in so many ways over the last six thousand years that we could not possibly imagine them all. Chief among the ways that the Bible tells us that we are to be connected to other people, by the Spirit of God, is to speak to one another in song (Eph. 5:18-21). In so doing we learn to lay down our lives for one another in mutual submission and love.

Fascinating to me is the phenomenon of social media and how people actually feel some connection with people, virtually, that they wouldn’t feel without it. While I neither understand it, nor do I think all of it is edifying, it is without doubt very important to our world today.

In some way, when seeing the work of Whitacre and his virtual choirs, it occurs to me that this is indeed an expression of the human race united together in song and beauty. It puts me in mind of what it is like for God, each Lord’s Day, when He hears the songs of His beloved children singing to Him in worship.  It puts into perspective precisely what is happening when we sing together each week, along with millions of other believers around the world. If only we could see and hear what God Himself experiences – it seems to me that we would have a much larger and more healthy view of the world – and the goal of the kingdom of God. It would cause us to long and labor all the more to see the nations be glad and sing for joy along with us!

I have never been a fan of Rap music, not only because I struggle to experience it as music, but also because the lyrics I’ve heard are generally not very good (putting it kindly).

Having said that – I’ve recently been exposed to a Christian Rap artist of the same spiritual stripe as myself and my homies. His names is shai linne.

You can learn more about his thinking and music on his blog and website

In a discussion in a Sunday School class yesterday the question was posed, “How do we explain the fact that God, in the Old Testament, commanded His people to destroy whole cultures down to every man, woman and child?” Or as many moderns might ask, “Doesn’t this show that the ancient religions of the Jews and Christians are inferior to modern humanistic values?”

My answer to this legitimate and interesting query is that there are only three times (as far as I can remember) in the Bible where it was the will of God for whole peoples to be destroyed.

'The Deluge the Ark of Noah Drifting on the Water'

The first of these is with the flood in Genesis 6-7: at the hand of God Himself. God created mankind perfectly suited to rule the earth in righteousness (Gen 1:26-28). However, humanity rebelled against Him was judged in the persons of Adam and Eve. And yet, God saved them by His grace, and promised that one would come to make all things right (Gen. 3:15). Over time the rebellion and sinfulness culminated in God’s terrifying assessment of humanity:

“Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually…The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” (Gen. 6:5, 11-14).

The response of our righteous God was to destroy all life with breath, except for righteous Noah and his family. Our God is so committed to righteousness on the earth that He is not content to allow corruption and violence to continue unabated. God’s judgment was simultaneously a destruction of evil and a salvation of the world. God so loves the world that he saved the righteous by grace through faith (Heb. 11:7; 2 Pet. 2:5).

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, John Martin, 1852.

The second complete destruction of a people, several hundred years later, was also at the hand of God with the comprehensive annihilation of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:18-19:29). The Lord God saw and evaluated these appalling cities and their citizens:

“And the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know” (Gen. 18:20-21).

What evil could possibly justify raining down brimstone and fire to exterminate all of the inhabitants of these cities? When two angels (in the form of men) came into Sodom, the old and young men from all parts of the city came to gang rape the visitors. Sodom and her sister city Gomorrah were so wicked that God was not only justified in His scorched earth judgment against them, but also used it as an example throughout the rest of scripture of the intolerable nature of such wickedness (2 Pet. 2:6; Jude 7).

But once again, it was a judgment unto salvation. God delivered righteous Lot (from the city of Sodom), “who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds) – then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment” (2 Pet. 2:7-9). God so loves the world that He saves the righteous by His grace through faith.

The Fall of Jericho

The third and final time that God called for the utter destruction of a people and their cultures was several hundred years later when He commanded His chosen people Israel to destroy all of the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. God had promised Abraham that through his descendants all of the nations would be blessed (Gen. 12:3). How? By extending the righteousness of God in the world. That means that wickedness must be replaced with righteousness. If mankind is to fulfill the creation mandate to rule the world for God, it means removing immorality and replacing it with righteousness, justice and faithfulness to God. For Israel to begin to bless the world, she would have to first be faithful to God by worshipping Him alone and not living according to the wicked ways of the inhabitants of the land (Deut. 12:2-4, 30). And so, God commanded them utterly destroy all the people of the land of Canaan:

“But of the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the Lord your God has commanded you, lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against the Lord your God” (Deut. 20:16-18).

What God had done twice before, He now commanded His people to do. Israel was to be a means of God’s judgments in the world – for the salvation of the world. And yet, Israel failed in her mission. She did not utterly destroy them, and within a short time forgot the Lord God and her mission to the world. She compromised and became a new Sodom and Gomorrah, and new Canaanite nation, and was herself deposed from the land.

It was not until several hundred years later, with the coming of Jesus Christ (the new Adam, the new Noah, the new Israel), that the world would see the coming of the true savior of the world. Never again would God send His judgments universally upon any people or culture to destroy them utterly. Jesus Christ slays the nations by the sword that comes out of His mouth, that is by the Word of God (Rev. 19:15-16).  Since the coming of Jesus, righteousness goes forth by the power of the Holy Spirit as men and nations are brought into submission to Jesus through the service of Christians in the world.

"Out of His mouth goes a sharp sword"

We have often heard that mankind has arrived at a true humanitarianism in the world. Modernity has, we are told, thrown off the oppressive and inhumane religions of the past in favor of a fully enlightened humanity. But what has modern humanism given us? It has made the way straight for a purification of humanity at the hands of Hitler, who massacre 6 million Jews in Europe. It has manifested the scientific control of society that enabled Stalin to justify murdering 20 million of his own Soviet Russian citizens. It produced the likes of Pol Pot and the Khmere Rouge with the famous “Killing fields” in Cambodia where more than 2 million people were butchered. What about how the world looked with helpless amazement at Bosnian genocidal atrocities in the former Yugoslavia, or the horrific slaughter of over 800,000 people in Rwanda just a few short years ago?

Neither Israel nor Israel’s God ever committed any wicked genocide. It is not Christianity that inspires genocide. Rather, it is Christians and the Christian church that condemns such godless killing and violence. As mankind turns away from Jesus Christ, humanity itself comes to have little value in the world. Why? Because man is made in the image of God – and the best way to strike a blow against Him is to lash out against His image.

The only hope for this world is for all men and nations to submit in faith to Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and seek the salvation of the world through Him. May God use us, His people, to make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them and teaching them all that Christ has commanded so that the genocidal wickedness of humanism would forever cease; so that the righteousness of God may cover the earth as the waters cover the seas.

There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse,

And a Branch shall grow out of his roots.

The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,

The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

The Spirit of counsel and might,

The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.

His delight is in the fear of the Lord,

And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes,

Nor decide by the hearing of His ears;

But with righteousness He shall judge the poor,

And decide with equity for the meek of the earth;

He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,

And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.

Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins,

And faithfulness the belt of His waist.

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,

The leopard shall lie down with the young goat,

The calf and the young lion and the fatling together;

And a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze;

Their young ones shall lie down together;

And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole,

And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,

For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord

As the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:1-9)

Clonmacnoise monastic settlement, County Offaly, Ireland

It was Patrick’s Christian mission that nurtured Irish scholarship into blossom. Patrick, the incomplete Roman [because his kidnapping and slavery interrupted his formal Roman education as a British aristocratic boy], nevertheless understood that, though Christianity was not inextricably wedded to Roman custom, it could not survive without Roman literacy. And so the first Irish Christians became the first Irish literates. (Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization, pp. 150-151)

Ireland is unique in religious history for being the only land into which Christianity was introduced without bloodshed. There are no Irish martyrs. This lack of martyrdom troubled the Irish, to whom a glorious death by violence presented such an exciting finale. ..the Irish had to think up some new form of martyrdom…The Irish of the late fifth and early sixth century soon found a solution, which they called Green martyrdom…leaving behind the comforts and pleasures of ordinary human society, retreating to the woods, or to a mountaintop, or to a lonely island…to study the scriptures and commune with God. (Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization, pp. 151)

What followed is the dramatic beginnings of monasticism that was spread by the Irish throughout Christendom in the following centuries. Irish monasticism became one of the most important elements of the Christianization of Europe.

The Irish monasteries were far more than retreats from the world for holy and pious pursuit of God. They became the places of greatest learning and literacy remaining in Christendom following the almost complete eradication of western literature by the barbarian invasions.

St. Brigid

The Irish monastics were famous , not only for their scholarship and literature, but also for their hospitality. The table grace associated with Brigid’s monastery says:

I should like a great lake of finest ale

For the King of kings.

I should like a table of the choicest food

For the family of heaven.

Let the ale be made from the fruits of faith,

And the food be forgiving love.

I should welcome the poor to my feast,

For they are God’s children.

I should welcome the sick to my feast,

For they are God’s joy.

Let the poor sit with Jesus as the highest place,

And the sick dance with the angles.

God bless the poor,

God bless the sick,

And bless our human race.

God bless our food,

God bless our drink,

All homes, O God, embrace.

St. Brigid’s Cross