Shout for Joy

Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. - Psalm 100:1

The first annual Sabbath of the autumn season is called in English the Feast of Trumpets. To those of us who know and love Jesus and celebrate this sacred day, its meaning goes forward to the 7 trumpets of Revelation, specifically perhaps the last, the return of Jesus with power, glory and salvation in His hands.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, though, the term doesn't show up. At least not in that exact form.

The day is called two different things in the Law: "a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts" (Lev 23:24) and "day for you to sound the trumpets" (Num 29:1). That is in Hebrew: Zichron Teruah and Yom Teruah respectively.

The NIV and most every English translation uses the word "trumpet", but the word teruah actually has a meaning that goes further than that. Strong's Hebrew dictionary defines it as: "clamo[u]r, i.e. acclamation of joy or a battle-cry; especially clango[u]r of trumpets, as an alarum". It's translated as "shout" numerous times in the Bible, for example Joshua 6:5, referring to the shout that the people if Israel let out at Jericho.

It's cool that the word teruah actually coincides with two sounds that Paul says will accompany Jesus' return:

1 Thess 4:16 - For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Teruah does refer to the trumpet blast, which is manifested in Orthodox Jewish practise of blowing the shofar (ram's horn) on this day. But it also refers to the act of shouting or letting out sounds of praise. We see some examples in these Psalms:

Psalm 47: 1 - Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy.
Psalm 66:1 - Shout with joy to God, all the earth!
Psalm 150:5 - praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals.

The first two of these examples contain the verb form, ruah, while the third has the word teruah itself.

So... what does this have to do with the Feast of Trumpets?

Zechariah 9 refers to the coming of Jesus as King and trumpet blast:

Zechariah 9:14 - Then the LORD will appear over them; his arrow will flash like lightning. The Sovereign LORD will sound the trumpet; he will march in the storms of the south,

Just a few verses earlier, Zechariah wrote:

Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Another prophet, Zephaniah wrote associated with the coming of salvation to Jerusalem, Jesus' coming:

Zephaniah 3:14 - Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem!

The teruah of praise associated with the trump of God. It is my belief that the shout of the archangel and the trumpet of God won't be the only clangour that the world will hear when Jesus returns. The cries of joy, from us, those who receive His gift of salvation, will join with them. And the world will hear.

So, I submit a further way to understand this sacred day: a Day or Memorial of our praises, our response to God's great goodness, faithfulness and salvation. Our proclamation to God and to the world that we love Him for who He is, not what we do or can do. Praise with our voices, with clangour or instruments to His great and holy name.

And we'll continue to praise Him forever and ever. (Psalm 52:9) Amen.

"Shout to the Lord. It's an eternal principle. It works."
Darlene Zschech

God: Pillar and Ground of Truth

¹⁵ but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. (1 Timothy 3:15, New King James Version)

Early this year (or late last year) I spent a lot of time meditating on this passage. The reading of I that I was hearing all around is that the church is the "pillar and ground of the truth".

That seemed so strange to me. Jesus defines Himself as the Truth (John 14:6). I find it almost blasphemous to imagine that Jesus stands on our feeble, mercurial shoulders. Yes, we are charged by Him to stand for truth and to declare it. But that's not the same as calling us the pillar of truth. That means that what we say goes.

The history of God's dealing with man has shown that the church can fail at remaining faithful to truth. We can faith; God cannot. We are founded on Jesus (1 Cor 3:11; Eph 2:20); not the other way around.

Granted, I'm no scholar or great teacher, but I submit another possible way to understand Paul's words here: "The church of the living God who is the pillar and ground of the truth."

We are to conduct ourselves differently because God is the source, definition and foundation of all truth; and if we stand on Him, we stand on truth.

Help us stand on Your truth, Lord.

Amen.

~Ken

Do You Know God?

You know, I love listening to the guys at Reach Records and the 116 Clique. I happened upon this video with Trip Lee, an American gospel rap artist, talking to an audience. It's not a music video, it's more like a sermon. He talks about relationship with God; and I think this video is worth sharing. At first, his accent was a bit hard for me to understand, but it was cool the direction he's taking with this message. Listen and draw close to Him.

~Ken

It's Necessary for Salvation!!!

I’m a Sabbath-keeper. I ‘rest’ on God’s weekly sacred day and I keep the annual Festivals He instituted. When people hear this, I think many assume that I do these things because I think they save me. (Could be wrong…)

A friend asked me once if I believe these things are ‘necessary for salvation’. Well…

Why do we obey God? Sometimes, when people talk, it almost sounds like the motive for obedience is our own benefit. Our own blessings. Don’t get me wrong, there truly are blessings for obeying God. He said so Himself (Deu 30:11-20) and such blessings are spoken of exhaustively in the longest chapter in the Bible, the 119th Psalm.

But… should that be the main reason to obey?

I don’t think so. The Lord Jesus quoted the words that He had spoken to Moses, saying: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deu 6:5; Mark 12:13; Luke 10:27) And John adds: “This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).

Love. Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the creative and saving force that is God Almighty. Jesus was willing to die, to risk living a human life in which had He sinned, He’d have to die just as we would have: without hope.

All for love. We all need to ask ourselves if we love God enough that we’d do this for Him. Can we imagine obeying Him without any 'blessings'? Can we imagine that the joy of knowing that you made Him smile would be enough for us? Would we be willing to die for Him?

Fortunately for us, there is resurrection. But what is it about the resurrection that motivates us to live in Christ? Is it the prospect of an eternity of riches? Or is it the prospect of an eternity in the presence of the Lord Jesus and the Father, seeing the beautiful face of God?

I truly do believe that God wants us to rest on His Sabbath, and to keep the rest of His Law. But I don’t do them to be saved. And I know that doing it does not ensure salvation. Salvation is by Christ’s merit alone. On the other hand, one must believe on Jesus to receive the gift of salvation. And to believe on Him, one must know Him. And there are definitely many false Jesuses; and only one true Jesus.

The Jesus I believe in will return and bring those who eat unclean meat to justice (Isaiah 66:17) and bring all the nations of the world to observe His Feasts (Zechariah 14:16-19).

So, what’s necessary for salvation? The blood of Jesus, shed for us around 1980 years ago. Saved by grace through faith to let that faith shine through our actions (Ephesians 2:8-10).

All for love.

All for Jesus.

[הלל] Celebrate Jesus!

In my first blog entry, I discussed one Hebrew definition of "praise", but I deliberately held off another one until now. This one is more well-known: halal, more often recognized in the form Hallelu Yah.

To be honest, when I looked up this word, it confused me. Some things didn't add up. It is translated "foolish" and "fool" in some places in the Bible (Psalm 5:5; 73:3; 75:4 Job 12:17). Weird!!! How can this word ever be translated "praise"?

But, I looked through, and found other translations for this word: to shine, to boast, to glory, to make a fool of oneself (Brown-Driver-Brigg's Hebrew Definitions), to celebrate, to rave, to be mad (Strong's).

In my head, a strange compilation of concepts. But... as I looked more closely, I saw something. This praise is different than yahad. This is the praise that has to do with music, instruments, dance (Psalm 150). This is the praise of celebration. The expression of a joy so deep, so all-encompassing...

That we make a fool of ourselves.

I remembered instantly the dance of David. He "danced before the LORD with all his might" (2 Samuel 6:14). He danced so hard that Michal called it "vulgar" (vs 20, NIV).

That was halal. Halal is that place where all you can think is, How great! How great! How GREAT is our God! That place you reach when you don't care what the people around you think; you just want to dance, to sing, to play the strings, the percussion, to shine the grace of God. To celebrate His goodness, the victory over death and sin.

Halal is outward praise. It is dancin with and for God. It is celebrating Jesus with all your might!

Praise Him
Praise Him
Praise Him

~Ken

At the Cross: The Gift of Worship

This is a simply beautiful video found on tangle.com (formerly GodTube). It explores the question: What is worship really about?

Watch, be convicted. And fall to your knees before the cross.

~Ken

The Fire: A Message to the Lukewarm

A friend of mine sent me this video and I was blown away. Nate speaks with a passion you can't ignore. We would disagree on certain points since I do not believe that hellfire is burning now, or that the fire will be ever-buring, but still it is a very good message, and I pray that those who listen are ungulfed by the Spirit's enlivening fire!

~Ken

Vain Repetition

One day, I showed a friend one of my favourite worship songs, Michael W. Smith's Let it Rain. My friend's reaction surprised me. The words used were: "mindless repitition"... "God must be bored." That wit is kinda funny in retrospect, but at the time, I was a bit upset. I definitely didn't react the way I should have, but... The good thing about this is that it propelled me to look deeper into God's word for the answer.

In case you don't know the song, it has only three lines:

Let it rain
Let it rain
Open the floodgates of heaven

On a 2001 album (I think it's called "Worship), Smith has a 5:42 minute track with just these words over and over (along with a short section of praise-talk). I have loved the song for a long while.

The idea is that the repitition is mindless, and goes against what Jesus said in Matthew 6.

But... I don't think so. Jesus made a point of not being like the hypocrites, who repeat in prayer so as to make them long and be seen by others (Matthew 6:5). So, motive is what Jesus was speaking about. It is possible to say "I love You" to God ten times and mean it each time. But if we're doing it just to be seen as righteous by others (and God), then we're doing it for the wrong reason.

Another song by Smith, Agnus Dei (also repetitive), was inspired, I believe, by Revelation 4 and 5. John, in vision, saw the four 'living creatures' around the Lord's throne. He wrote: "Day and night they never stop saying: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.' " (Revelation 4:8, NIV)

Maybe you or I would be bored (and maybe the creatures are, too lol) but I don't think God is. Even if this is purely symbolic, it's clear that God is not against repitition inself (or He would not have given John this vision of angelic praise), and so that is not what Jesus was speaking against.

Reading through the Bible, I'm struck by the diversity of praise. "Clap your hands, all you nations" (Psalm 47:1), "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10), "Shout for joy to the Lord" (Psalm 98:4), "Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker (Psalm 95:4)...

Is it right or wrong to do these things? One person may be fine to "be still" in awe of the mere greatness of our God. But someone else has a deep desire to shout to the Lord. I don't think it should be anyone's prerogative to try to smother someone else's praise just because it's not what we're used to, or want.

And believe me, that's a lesson I'm having to learn myself.

So, I don't believe there's anything wrong with repitition. God sees the heart. And He knows the hypocrites... and the sincere.

~Ken

Guitar: "Holy Spirit Rain Down"

I found this song on Shout to the Lord: The Platinum Collection. I love it and as I learnt guitar, I thought it would go well with Michael W. Smith's "Let it Rain", which I already know in C. But I couldn't find it in C. So, (with a friend's help!) I put in C!!!

So, how this song works in my head is to fingerpick the following during the first 2 lines and then fairly slow single strums for reach of the chords until we get to the second “Holy Spirit rain down”, when we do some mellow strumming, with the song building as you go along. The fingerpick has a very lovely sound that I think sounds well with the gently sung petition that God rain down His Presence. And as the outpour swells, so does the song, as the verses are repeated and it goes into the bridge. My idea is, after singing this song for the desired number of times, to go from the bridge into "Let it Rain". It's very easy to go from "Let it Rain" back into the bridge, too. Hope this is easy to understand. It's great for personal or communal worship.

  rain...            down.            
e|---------0-------|---------0-------|
b|-----1-------1---|-----1-------1---|
g|---2---2---2---2-|---2---2---2---2-|
D|-2---------------|-2---------------|
A|-----------------|-----------------|
E|-----------------|-----------------|

 Rain               down
e|---------0-------|---------0-------|
b|-----1-------1---|-----1-------1---|
g|---2---2---2---2-|---2---2---2---2-|
D|-3---------------|-3---------------|
A|-----------------|-----------------|
E|-----------------|-----------------|

            Am   C
Holy Spirit rain down
G    Dm
Rain down
     C             F
Oh, Comforter and Friend
       C                G
How we need Your touch again
            Am   C
Holy Spirit rain down
G    Dm
Rain down
         C
Let Your power fall
         Am
Let Your voice be heard
         C
Come and change our hearts
      G
As we stand on Your word
     Am Em       C
Holy Spirit rain down


Am               F
No eye has seen, No ear has heard
C                G
No mind can know what God has in store
Am                 F
So open up heaven, open it wide
C                    G
Over Your church and over our lives

"Holy Spirit Rain Down" is is © 1997 Russel Fragar/Hillsong Publishing
This arrangement (chords, etc) is mine, not the lyrics or melody.

If you don't know the song, you can listen to it here:

Be blessed,

~Ken

Praise and Worship

So! My first blog. My first post.

I decided to make this first post be about a topic that is dear to me: worship, praise; what do they mean? I could just go to an English dictionary and just paste the definition and that'd be that. But I think it might be just a bit more meaningful (to me anyway) to go what it means in my Biblical heritage. To keep it simple, we'll just go into these two Hebrew words.

'Worship' (Hebrew shachah) means: "to depress, that is, prostrate (especially reflexively in homage to royalty or God)". [Strong's]

I like that. Worship means I know You're great, awesome, more than I can believe. The weight of Your glory, Your being, brings me to my knees. The core of worship is humbly accepting who you are before the Almighty. 

And then, there's 'praise'. In Hebrew, the word (yadah) has its root in another Hebrew word (yod) that means 'hand'. It's a very interesting word. It literally means "to (that is to hold out) use the hand". It can mean 'to throw', but specifically to this context, it means "to revere or worship (with extended hands)". [Strong's]

Praise is reaching. To be honest, I was surprised to find that the word for praise had this meaning. When I lift hands in prayer, it's out of the idea that my God is so wonderful, I just want to reach out to Him, lift Him high. Lifting hands became almost a metonymy in Biblical Hebrew for petition to God (Lamentations 2:19). Praise says I need You.

It is with that foundation that I start this blog. Exploring worship and praise.

In the name of Jesus my Messiah, I pray lives are blessed and that by this project people (myself included) are drawn closer to the Eternal Father.
Amen.

~Ken