Is it just me, or is the Fourth of July one of the hardest holidays for Christians to figure out?  Sure, Halloween is controversial, Santa might be an anagram for Satan, and Cadbury Eggs seem to be the only legitimate reason to posit the existence of an Easter Bunny, but none of those issues affect corporate worship.  Check out the Christian social media sphere around July 4, and you’ll find scores of articles, statuses (stati?), and tweets expressing opinions about patriotism and Christianity.  You’ll find everything from “America is God’s chosen country so let’s quote OT verses about Israel as if they applied to the USA” to “patriotism is flat-out idolatry and has no place in church at all.”  Here are a few thoughts about patriotism and Christianity that I mulled over last weekend.

First, America is not God’s special chosen nation.  That’s so obvious it hardly needs mentioning.  Yet Christians persist in the error of printing Israelite-nation-specific verses on red, white & blue placards.  (I’m looking at you, Ps. 33.12 people!)  To be frank, the belief that America is God’s chosen nation in some unique way borders on nationalistic arrogance.  It exaggerates the Christian influence on the country’s founding and ignores America’s more recent history and current status.  Of course, the deepest problem is that this elitism is impossible to support Scripturally.  Ironically, the people who pretend America is a chosen nation (replacement theology of a sort!) are often strongly dispensationalist in their statements of faith.

Second, America is not as good as heaven.  How many of you sang “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” in your church services?  I nearly choked on the second stanza:

My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free,
Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My heart with rapture thrills,
Like that above.

To begin with, I like America’s rocks, rills, woods and hills.  They’re beautiful, but I don’t exactly love them.  But that last line – “my heart with rapture thrills like that above” – I cannot sing out loud.  To sing that the joy of seeing America’s geography is like the joy of heaven is idolatry.  Yes, the issue really is that simple and clear.  That stanza has no place on a Christian’s lips.

The question of whether “hymns” addressed to and extolling the alleged virtues of a nation have any place in a church service dedicated to God’s glory is an issue I’ll not answer at length here.  I’ll simply say this: any song whose primary message is anything other than the character, work or worth of God is unworthy of inclusion in corporate worship.

Third, America’s founders were not all Christians.  In their eagerness to see Christianity at America’s founding, many well-meaning people have incorporated quotations from Jefferson, Franklin and other outright unbelievers into their services.  Let’s think carefully about what this actually does.  It may seem patriotic to say, “Look, even people who weren’t quite Christians still believed in prayer and Judeo-Christian values.”  What it might actually communicate, however, is “It’s OK if you’re not really converted as long as you pay lip service to an Almighty Being of some sort.”  That’s not patriotic; that’s sad.

Proving America’s “Christian heritage” by referencing men who rejected the Gospel blurs the meaning of the word Christian.  It implies that Christian simply means “believing in or influenced by conservative, semi-biblical values” and it marginalizes the core of Christianity: Christ’s sacrifice to redeem His people!  Since so many churches intend their patriotic services to be evangelistic outreaches, the last thing they ought to do is validate a Gospel-less “Christianity” of mere ethics.

Fourth, God’s providence is evident in America’s history.  A patriotic service that accurately praises God for that providence is a great idea.  Admittedly it takes more restraint than usual to dial down certain extremes and to avoid certain pitfalls that often accompany patriotism.  Furthermore, looking at God’s providence is a lot deeper than being thankful for war veterans and political freedom.  Focusing on all of God’s providence in America also takes us right up to His present providence.  What is America today?  It’s one country among almost two hundred others.  It’s less than 5% of the world’s souls.  It’s a country that needs Christ far more than it imitates Him.  That is God’s providence today: we have a mission.  Not a political goal, not an ethical target, not a national unity to pursue, but a mission for Gospel living and preaching.  Any nostalgic look at our providential past that leaves us happy and satisfied with the status quo is insufficient.

One final thought in closing: I’d like to see a “patriotic service” that focuses the worshipers on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ (but not just as a riff off of the sacrifice of war heroes), that magnifies the providential power of our personal God (not merely the vague “Power that hath made and preserved us a nation”), and that motivates the worshipers to go out and present the Gospel with their needy neighbors one-at-a-time (without getting distracted by dreams of national revivals).

I’m sure some of you have attended Gospel-centered patriotic services and have been blessed by a biblically accurate response to the position God has put our country in.  Please share some sermon links and stories in the comments!

No, it really doesn’t.  But that’s a criticism that comes up occasionally.  If you challenge a slightly careless or assumptive interpretation by pointing out what the verse specifically means in context, you’ll find that some people will defend the poor interpretation based on their belief that it needs to apply to something (usually outside the boundaries of the context).  Phrases like “the appearance of evil,” “the day the Lord has made,” “the nation whose God is the Lord,” “stumbling-blocks,” “a new song,” and numerous others find themselves often abused by over-broad interpretation.  Are we losing something valuable if we limit those words to what they actually mean in context?

Reading in Context

First of all, if reading a verse in context limits its application, that’s just fine.  We ought to be more concerned about God’s intention in His Word than we are about our creative applications!

Second, sometimes reading a passage carefully actually expands the application!  Take the story of Eli’s sons Hophni and Phinehas, for example (I Sam. 2-3).  If you read quickly, the story looks an awful lot like a lesson in parenting.  Eli failed to discipline his sons, therefore his sons misbehaved badly, therefore God punished both parent and child.  What difference would that make today?  I suppose the application (of a reading on that superficial level) would be “Be sure you discipline your children to obey or else you’ll get punished by God.”  While raising children to serve the Lord is an excellent thing to do, that’s really not a great application to pull from this text.  Here’s why.

Reading Too Quickly

A superficial reading of this passage only applies to a fraction of readers.  I don’t have kids – should I just put this passage in my “save it for later” drawer and apply it when I’m older?  What about parents who are already raising children who love God?  I suppose they should just say, “Good stuff, glad I’m doing well here.  Next chapter, please!”

A worse problem with the superficial reading, however, is that it misses Christ.  Really, where does the Gospel of Christ fit into that application?  I’m not saying it’s impossible to tie the two together; I am saying that the “parenting advice” interpretation makes it really easy to rattle of a moralistic application that doesn’t leave much room for connecting to Christ.

Of course, the biggest problem with reading carelessly is that you may miss what God actually says in His Word.  Whether application is broad or narrow is immaterial if you don’t know what the passage actually says.

A Better Application

We should notice that God gives His view of the situation in I Sam 2 – that should get our attention and focus our application.  God identifies the root problem.  It wasn’t parenting; it wasn’t corporal punishment; it wasn’t even learning self-control.  The root of the issue was idolatry.  Look at I Sam. 2.29: “Why then do you scorn my sacrifices and my offerings that I commanded, and honor your sons above me by fattening yourselves on the choicest parts of every offering of my people Israel?”

Wow.  Do you see what happened there?  No longer can we read this passage as mere parenting advice.  Now we see that the real application strikes at a sin that affects each of us constantly: the sin of idolatry.  Now I can’t skim the passage and say, “Great, I’ll apply that parenting stuff later.”  Now the mirror of the Word reflects my own heart and I pray, “Lord, I don’t have any sons to ‘honor above You,’ but I’ve got gadgets, money, clothing, lust, entertainment, comfort, self, and far too many other thrones before which I bow.  Forgive my sin and turn my heart back to Your worship alone!”

This still applies to parenting, of course.  But now we see that the root issue in a family might not merely be style, technique, or method; now we’re forced to examine our hearts to see if family problems are actually the by-products of our idolatry.  Simply preaching parenting advice from this passage could easily overlook the core issue, allowing hearers to salve the symptoms without treating the causative disease.

And the cross of Christ fits right into the careful interpretation – the Gospel meets idolatry head-on!  The problem with all of us is idolatry: exchanging God’s glory for images of creation, worshiping creature rather than Creator (Rom. 1.18-32).  The solution for all of us is justification by faith: God’s righteousness imputed to those who have fallen short of His glory (Rom. 3.21-31) and enables them to worship Him alone (Rom. 12.1-2).  Do we still struggle with idolatry?  Yes, we do.  But our solution is not “better parenting,” “more discipline,” or “self-control.”  Our sole solution is still the Gospel: it is the message that Christ paid the penalty for our idolatry and that in Him we can rightly worship God.

The Real Issue

Confronting our idolatry is a powerful application – one that hits us right between the eyes.  It’s something that we’d miss if we read too quickly and get sidetracked on the “obvious” point of the passage.  You see, the real question is not whether paying attention to the context limits or widens application.  Paying attention to the whole passage means finding the application that God intended (regardless of how it compares to our assumption about the passage).  And the application that God intends is always more powerful and practical than any application we can invent!

“Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.  From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD’s name is to be praised.”
~ Psalm 113:2-3

These stirring verses give us the big picture of worshiping God: His praise lasts forever!  From the present moment to forever beyond, His name will be blessed.  God receives worship for decades, centuries, millennia, and any duration thereafter.  We will praise God for eternity without weariness, fatigue, or tedium.

The psalmist, however, does not leave our minds floating in the vastness of eternity.  He brings us right down to the daily joy of praising God.  From sunrise to sunset, each day brings us the delightful duty of praising the Lord’s name!  We need not wait to praise Him; we must not denigrate this life as an inferior opportunity to praise God; we must not put off eternal praise for the future.  The time between today’s sunrise and its sunset is our time to fill with praise.  Eternal worship will prove glorious indeed; it begins with our daily worship.

I’m excited – today we get to quote Ps. 118.24 with its full and real meaning!  It’s worth much more than a mere “don’t complain – God made today” rebuke.

Let me ask this: who knows what the rest of Ps. 118 says?  The context for this verse reveals that it is saying something intensely wonderful – we’re actually cheating ourselves out of a great Scriptural encouragement when we reduce Ps. 118.24 to a quick response to complaint!

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Ps. 118.22-24

The first word of verse 24 should tip us off to the fact that we need context – “this.”  That’s a demonstrative pronoun (sorry for the grammar lesson!) which means that it points to something specific.  What is “this” day that the psalmist is pointing his poetic finger at?

Ps. 118.22-23 tells us about the specific day that caused the writer to rejoice: an actual historical occurrence that is described as the exaltation of a rejected cornerstone.  Peter helps us understand what “this” day is all about:

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.  This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.  And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Acts 4.8-12

Christ was rejected – the crucifixion; he became the cornerstone – the resurrection!  It is God’s miracle and it is wonderful in our viewpoint!

Therefore, Easter is the celebration of the real “day that the Lord has made” – the resurrection of Jesus Christ!  That resurrection is our only hope and it guarantees our salvation in the only true source of salvation.  It’s a much bigger deal than “don’t complain at what God’s given you” – it’s a statement of the proof that God has given you the most amazing gift of all – eternal life in his risen Son!

We know that God loves us – we could repeat those words like a mantra all day long – but sometimes feelings argue against that knowledge.  Whether harsh trials have you wondering if God actually loves you, or some quiet distance just has you wondering how exactly God does relate to you, the doubts and questions are nothing new.  Of course, God’s Word meets that need.  Eph. 1-3 contains quite a list of things that God has done for us:

[Your name here] has been blessed immeasurably, chosen, predestined, redeemed, forgiven, lavished with grace, shown the mystery of God’s will, included in Christ, marked with a seal, possessed by God, enlightened, empowered, made alive, saved, raised up with Christ, seated in heaven, made God’s masterpiece, given good works to do, brought near by the blood of Christ, reconciled, given access to the Father, made a fellowcitizen of God’s people and a member of his household, built up to be God’s temple, made an heir with Israel, allowed to approach God with freedom, strengthened, indwelled by Christ, rooted and established in love, and filled with the fulness of God!!

I don’t know about you, but I find that list to be pretty impressive!  Take a few minutes to read through Eph. 1-3 and be amazed by what God has done for you!

Another high-profile American has been shocked to have the hidden details of his personal life public paraded before the nation’s eyes.  Responding to a woman’s accusation that they carried on a two-and-a-half year affair, Tiger Woods apologized for not being “true to my values and the behavior my family deserves.”

Tiger also expressed surprise at the high level of “tabloid scrutiny” that he now faces.  He feels that (apart from the issue of the affair) “there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy.”

And we all sympathize with that, don’t we?  The moment we are most concerned about our privacy is when we’ve been caught in a secret sin.  But most of us don’t face the “tabloid scrutiny” that athletes, politicians, musician and movie stars face.

Or do we?

Truth be told, every one of us faces a scrutiny that far exceeds any tabloid curiosity.  “The word of God is living and active, … discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Heb. 4.12-13).  Tabloids make mistakes, they can’t know everything, and they are only temporary.  God is perfect, he knows everything, and he lasts forever.

The problem is that we can see tabloids, but not God.  It’s like speeding on the lonely open stretch of highway but driving at the limit near that well-known speed trap in town.  When we see the police, we respect them.  When we can’t see them, we drive as though they don’t exist.  Solomon saw this principle at work in the world (Eccl. 9.1-3).

But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him.  It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

Good men die young; bad men die young.  Good men die old; bad men die old.  Sometimes it doesn’t look like our actions on earth get any heavenly response.  The result of that apparent justicelessness is that people do whatever they want: “the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts.”  And then, when they’re caught and their sins are dragged through the public square, everything seems unfair and the “important and deep principle [of] human privacy” has been terribly endangered!

The ultimate problem is not the media or any celebrity.  The problem is with all of us: we don’t take seriously the reality of God’s righteous standards, constant scrutiny and perfect accountability.  We can’t see God; thus, we don’t respect his authority.

The ultimate solution is Jesus Christ.  All of us have quite a track record of acting like God is not in charge – we can call that sin.  Jesus has a perfect record.  He has always been entirely mindful of the Father’s scrutiny and he has always obeyed.  On the cross, Jesus took our punishment and offered us his righteousness.  Additionally, Jesus provides the only way we can walk rightly before God now.  We live “in Christ,” we have his Spirit dwelling in us and we have access to his grace!  Furthermore, when we still act like God’s authority isn’t real, we have constant grace and forgiveness in Jesus – the Gospel never stops being effective for us.

We don’t need to act surprised when someone (ourselves included) is caught with a hand in the cookie jar.  God’s scrutiny far exceeds any human attention or publicity.  In Jesus Christ, we can heed the conclusion to Solomon’s wisdom: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Eccl. 12.13-14).

Quotes from this article.

In Numbers 32, a bit of a controversy arises between the tribes of Reuben & Gad and Moses.  Reuben and Gad present a reasonable request: since Gilead is good for our flocks, please let us settle here.

Moses, however, doesn’t care much for that idea.  His problem?  Gilead is on the “wrong side” of the Jordan River.  Remember, Moses was at Kadesh-Barnea when the Israelites refused to enter the Promised Land almost forty years earlier.  Moses had decades of experience with the rather grumbly and unfaithful nation of Israel.  Also, keep in mind that Moses is one of a tiny handful of people who actually experienced the Exodus and saw God’s power displayed then.  Moses hears the request of Reuben and Gad – and a mental trigger goes off.  I can almost see him shake his head and say, “Oh no! Not more unwillingness to enter the Promised Land!”  I can hear him begin to berate the leaders of Reuben and Gad, reminding them of Kadesh-Barnea and threatening God’s wrath.  In fact, he pretty much does just that: Num. 32.6-15.

This passage reminds me of one of those times when two parties are both right, but because they’re talking past each other, they feel like they’re arguing.  The Reubenites & Gadites were right – they had a reasonable request and they had no intention of disobeying God or forsaking Israel.  Moses was right – if the people of Israel shied away from the land of promise again, God would deal with them severely.  Perhaps those two tribes could have made their request clearer the first time, but (as the story is recorded in the chapter) it looks like Moses is the one who jumps past the actual and gives warning based on the possible.

Pause the Biblical story for a moment.  Think about the last time you saw this happen.  Perhaps you’ve seen it happen in a church or a movement of Christianity.  Older leaders are firm on the lines they’ve drawn because of the battles they’ve fought; younger members are reasoning through the whys and wherefores with good intention.  But there are times when the youngsters ask questions or probe philosophies or practices – and then the older generation responds with warnings and scolding (but no answer to the question!).  What happens next?  I’d submit to you that what happened in Numbers 32 is rather different from what often happens today.

The Reubenites and Gadites didn’t run off to their forums, blogs, Facebook pages or Twitter feeds.*  Ok, they didn’t have those.  They didn’t run back to their families in the camps and spread the news about how unfair and grouchy and anti-intellectual and wrong Moses was.  They responded humbly.  First, they moved closer to Moses and spoke to him directly (Num. 32.16) to reword their request (speculation: without a big brouhaha!).  Second, they allayed Moses’ fears.  They didn’t take affront at his “accusation.”  They (in the text) calmly explained their willingness to follow God’s plan and promised to give up their Gilead possession if they shrank back from the conquest..  Third, they put action behind their words of clarification.  They took up their swords and went to battle, keeping their end of the bargain.

Moses didn’t get up on a soapbox and denounce these two tribes to the rest of the nation.  He didn’t call them out publicly for cowardice, unbelief or any other sin.  Moses responded humbly.  When they demonstrated sincerity and obedience to God’s command, he agreed to their request and treated them kindly.

Why do things seem to fall out differently today than in Moses’ day?  Sadly, humility is often lacking.  Young Christians take offense at well-intentioned warning; older Christians assume the worst of well-intentioned questions.  What all of us need is Christ – we need his humility in us as we minister together (Phil. 2.5-8; I Pet. 5.1-6).

* I’m not condemning these technologies; all they do is facilitate good or evil.  We are accountable for how we use them.

Is old music better than new music? We all know the joy and freshness of learning a new hymn or hearing a new song of praise, but at other times we feel hesitant and uncertain about being too new or too edgy. Add to the mix the fact that churches and families are made of people with a variety of opinions and ideas about music. It certainly seems like the safe thing to do is just to stick with the old, proven hymns that we’ve been using for years. The safe and easy option, however, is not necessarily best. God teaches us that we should create and sing new songs of worship.

The Scriptural references to singing a new song are widespread. Around 1000 BC, David testified that God had “put a new song in [his] mouth” (Ps. 40:3) and that he would “sing a new song” to God (Ps. 144:9). Three hundred years later, Isaiah preached, “Sing unto the Lord a new song” to the nation of Judah (Isa. 42:10). Throughout that time, several anonymous psalms called God’s people to sing a new song to the Lord (Pss. 33:3; 96:1; 98:1; 149:1). In the New Testament, it is possible that several passages in Paul’s letters are parts of ancient hymns (perhaps Phil. 2:6-11 and 1 Tim. 3:16). The apostle John looked forward to the new song that the twenty-four elders and four heavenly creatures would sing to the Lamb (Rev. 5:9), and he saw 144,000 redeemed people singing a new song that only they could learn (Rev. 14:3). Throughout Bible history, each generation of God’s people wrote new songs to express their praise.

What does a “new song” entail? If we were to look at that phrase in the Hebrew or Greek, we’d notice that it literally means “new song.” There’s nothing fancy, surprising, or revolutionary about what the words mean. It was common for a time to make a sharp distinction between “new in time” and “new in quality,” but a detailed study actually shows that those two ideas overlap more than they differ. Those who promoted the split definition usually went on to argue that the music of a Christian should sound different from the music he listened to before he was saved. For some Christians, that’s true. But what about people who listened to classical music before they come to Christ? Or children who grew up in a home where they were protected from harmful music? It is not universally true that one’s music must change stylistically at the occasion of his conversion. I would suggest that the “new song” we’re talking about is new in both time and quality, but primarily in time. Simply stated, the Scriptures call us to write and sing new songs.

Why does God desire that we write and sing new songs? Is our song new because He is changing? Certainly not! He is the same praiseworthy God yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8). Should we use new songs because the content of our praise is substantially new? Again, no. Take Psalm 33 as an example: the “new song” praised God for creating the world (vv. 6–9). The content can’t get much older than that! Has the record of God’s marvelous work in history changed? No, the historical events of our deliverance (Christ’s life, death, and resurrection) have not changed.

We must sing our new songs because we are new people. We are not the same people who were saved during the third century. We are not the same people who were saved during the Reformation or the Great Awakening or even the 1910s. God wants us to articulate our praise in our own words and our own songs! Here we find an inconsistency in many churches. We rightly stand against ritualistic prayers and stolen sermons, yet some insist on exclusively singing a bygone generation’s praise.

There’s a balance here, of course. Jesus and the disciples sang a hymn at the Last Supper (Matt. 26:30), and that hymn was most likely a psalm. Paul exhorts singing psalms (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). We have a hymn heritage that is rich and profitable, and we should certainly take from it the many songs that are doctrinally rich, devotionally expressive, and musically good. But we should not rely solely on the praise of saints who have gone before us; we must put our hearts and minds to the task of creating new songs of worship!

At SacredAudio.com, you can find new songs from nearly all our artists. We seek to offer recordings of the best new conservative sacred music as well as the excellent hymns that have been passed down to us. Our goal is to help your worship as you “sing unto the Lord a new song”!

This is a slightly longer version of the article I recently wrote for SoundForth‘s Accents newsletter.

Isa. 59.15-19

Truth is lacking,
and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.
The Lord saw it, and it displeased him
that there was no justice.
He saw that there was no man,
and wondered that there was no one to intercede;
then his own arm brought him salvation,
and his righteousness upheld him.
He put on righteousness as a breastplate,
and a helmet of salvation on his head;
he put on garments of vengeance for clothing,
and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.
According to their deeds, so will he repay,
wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies;
to the coastlands he will render repayment.
So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west,
and his glory from the rising of the sun;
for he will come like a rushing stream,
which the wind of the Lord drives.

Eph. 6.13-17

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,

Some folks go to town on every political problem, societal ill, governmental shift or watchdog alert that they hear. They’d do well to meditate on Isa.. 8.11-13 instead:

For the Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.