A Jewish Christmas Story

Joy to the World

Always thought this was a beautiful hymn, but apparently like so many modern songs, not consistent with His Word: the Savior does not now reign or rule the world with truth and grace, and thorns still infest the ground!

Searching for the words on the internet tonight, discovered something strange. Found almost a dozen lyrics; each one different. Some politically-corrected the word men. Some changed the tense from is to was. Some deleted or added verses in entirety. The words below are from a disintegrating hymnal in the organ.

Searching further, discovered the name of this song is not Joy to the World, but rather The Messiah’s Coming and Kingdom! This is both the intended meaning and the name that author Isaac Watts originally pined.

Hope you will think about the words of this song, and of "the twinkling of an eye" when “heaven and nature” will LITERALLY sing for joy at His coming "while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy": "For you will go out with joy, And be led forth with peace; The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, And all the trees of the field will clap their hands" (Isaiah 55:12).

The Messiah’s Coming and Kingdom

Joy to the world! The Lord is come;

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And heaven and nature sing,

And heaven and nature sing,

And heaven and heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns;

Let men their songs employ;

While fields and floods

rocks, hills and plains

Repeat the sounding joy

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat, Repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes and make the blessings flow

Far as the curse is found,

Far as the curse is found,

Far as, far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,

And makes the nations prove

The glories of His righteousness

And wonders of His love,

And wonders of His love,

And wonders, and wonders of His love.

The Faith of Our (Deist) Fathers

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." (The unanimous Declaration, adopted by the Continental Congress, July 4, 1776). This sentence summarizes the essence of the document commonly referred to as the "Declaration of Independence." Appealing to the "Creator," "Divine Providence," and "the laws of nature and of nature's God," to affirm "self-evident" truths, these "truths" are not to be found in Scripture....

The Jefferson Bible

All those who reverence Jefferson's Declaration and alter ego as "American Scripture," and eulogize the like-minded pseudo sainthood of our founding fathers, would do well to read the "Jefferson Bible." Eliminating angels, miracles, and concluding with the stone sealed sepulcher in his final verse, Jefferson created a "sanitized" version of Scripture to fit his "faith":

"... the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus...  will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" (Jefferson to Adams, April 11, 1823).

Holy to the LORD

The children of Israel needed an intercessor - a priest - to go before the Lord. Aaron was that intercessor, and always upon his head was a plate of pure gold with the engravings "Holy to the LORD" (cf., Exodus 28:36-38).

When we look into a mirror, may we each see upon our forehead the words "Holy to the LORD."

Be Careful Little Tongue What You Say

For every sin there is forgiveness but for one.
"Therefore I say unto you, Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come" (Matthew 12:31-32).

Forgotten

 The Holy Spirit is the often forgotten part of the Oneness called God. Many professing believers regard the Spirit as a power, an instrumentality, an influence emanating from God, i.e., an "impersonal" pronoun rather than a unique and distinct person. They forget that He is God!

"Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19).

Life and Peace

"For they that are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace.... But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any... hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Romans 8:9). 

Between Truth and Error

How are we to discern between light and darkness, good and evil, truth and error?

"If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God..." (John 7:17).

SURPRISE ME!

Some time ago, my uncle's pastor was at the hospital with his wife and son. "Dad, you are the best father a son could ever have." David, gasping for breath from the apparent decadence of earlier years, with effort and in kind responded "you are the best son a father could ever have." And as final exchanges waned, his pastor ask: "David, do you want the service at the church or the funeral home?" Then David with joy and peace and a smile consistent with his latter years shot back: SURPRISE ME!

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us" (Hebrews 12:1).

Don't Know How to Pray?

Ever have those times when you don't know how to pray? How to pray according to the will of God? Actually, we never really know how to pray:

"Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God" (Romans 8:26-27).

The Commonality of Calvinism

Calvinism is just another "in-process" system of theology with variants: there are Five-Point-Calvinists, Four-Point, Three-Point, Two. There are Hyper-Calvinists and "Not-So-Hyper" Calvinists. There are Old-School and New. There are the purist, Calvin-Calvinists. And there are Calvinists who couch arguments in terms that only they can pronounce e.g., Sublapsarianism, Sublapsarianism, Infralapsarianism. However, they all have one thing in common: the certainty that only THEIR Calvinism is Truth

Lay Hold on Eternal Life

End of Days

Regrettable that Harold Camping acquired the following to orchestrate such an "End of Days" event. Satan has outdone himself using a senile old man to hide what is obvious from Scripture:

"But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father" (Mar 13:32).

However, the power of darkness has done one thing more; he has prevented many from turning or turning again to the Lord and His word. They will be woefully unprepared for that Day, and for how they will be judged:

"He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day" (John 12:48).

Goddess of the Dawn

The Last Days

Orie McClanahan

When I called my father tonight, he mentioned that Orie McClanahan died earlier this week. Orie was named after my grandfather Orie Jacob Smith. When my father Ben was called to serve in the Pacific Theater shortly after Pearl Harbor, Orie McClanahan helped my grandfather farm until he too was called to serve.

Never met Orie McClanahan, or if I did, I didn't know. Spent many years away, and now work as an engineer in Silicon Valley. However, when returning to visit, always attend Church of God Holiness. Looking at his picture tonight in the Daily Express, believe he was one of those kind gentlemen who welcomed me on Sunday mornings.

Three impressive years of service, apparently as a medic in the "301st Infantry, 94th Division, serving in the European African-Middle Eastern Theater, including France, Germany and Czechoslovakia." But more impressive: four bronze stars! Couldn't help but think of a verse:

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his live for his friends" (John 15:13).

How Lonely Sits the City