I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

 There is a wonderful old tradition that is hardly done any more, the ringing of the church bells on Christmas Eve. The tradition was that at midnight they would start ringing the bells in a slow, mournful rhythm. This was to represent the death of Satan’s hold on us. Then dramatically the rhythm would change to a quicker, more joyful sound. This would be the announcement of Christ’s birth.  

The ringing of the bells on Christmas was a great comfort to one of America’s great poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. On the Christmas Eve of 1963, the slow mournful cadence of the start of the ringing of the bells inspired Henry to write, “I heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” (See words below)

Henry’s public life was great; he was a college professor in Boston. He had become America’s most outstanding poet by writing, “The Song of Hiawatha,” “The Courtship of Miles Standish,” and the “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.” He was invited to England and given an honorary doctorate from Oxford and Cambridge plus a visit to Windsor Castle to visit Queen Victoria. 

Henry’s personal life was not going as well. His first wife died within a couple of years of them getting married and he mourned her greatly, it took him seven years before he married again. They had five children. However, tragedy struck again in 1961, his second wife died while lighting a fire in the kitchen, she was burned up along with the kitchen. Then later that year the civil war broke out. Henry was very much against the war and wrote many articles against it. The last straw was when his oldest son Charles was injured during a battle. He was sent home to his father’s house to recover. While sitting at his son’s bedside that Christmas Eve in 1963 he heard the local church bells ring that slow mournful sound. This touched his heart.  This is one of the few Christmas carols that is not upbeat, which can be understood from the circumstances behind it. However, look at verse 4, he has hope, and he puts his trust in God. That is all God asks even when we do not understand, we are to put our trust in Him.

 1. I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

2. I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

3. And in despair I bowed my head
'There is no peace on earth,' I said,
'For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.'

4. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
'God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.'

5. Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I’ll be Home for Christmas

During the Christmas season of 1942, Kim Gannon, who lived in Brooklyn, noticed that this Christmas was quite different. It was the War, World War II. Once America was in it, the people thought that they would go over there and kick out the Nazis and be back home. However, they were realizing that it was not going to be that easy. People hung on every scrap of news about every battle and prayed that their loved ones were not there. The people also held their breath and said a little prayer as the telegraph boy went by, praying that the news of a dead relative was not in his pouch. They also mobbed the postman in hopes of a letter from their loved ones. With the news of all the loss and destruction, the American people had doubts that they could win this war.

Another thing was that 100 of thousands of fathers, who could not go to war, had moved to the New York and New Jersey areas to work in the factories that were producing war material. They had left the farms and rural areas because the depression of the years before had left very few jobs available and when the factories re-tooled for war, there were jobs again. Thus, there were all these families torn apart by the war.

Mrs. Gannon personally saw some of these scenes play out before her very eyes. That is what made her come up with this simple prayer poem where she captured the thoughts of the whole nation. She showed the poem to a few people and they got her in contact with a fellow New Yorker, Walter Kent, who had recently written the song “White Cliffs of Dover.” Mr. Kent could feel the mood of the song and quickly wrote the score for it. 

In Sept of 1943, Bing Crosby’s record company bought “I’ll be home for Christmas” and recorded it in October. They were look for another Christmas hit for Bing because the year before Bing had came out with the hit “White Christmas.” “White Christmas” was the number one selling record of all time until “Candles in the Wind” by Elton John after Princes Dianna’s death. However, during the war years, “I’ll be home for Christmas” was the number one requested song of that time, over “White Christmas” also the USO reports that next to “God Bless America,”  “I’ll be Home for Christmas” is the number one requested song at USO shows still today.

We Three Kings of Orient Are

You would never guess but this carol’s background comes from Santa Clause. It is true, Clement Clarke Moore, who wrote “Twas the night before Christmas,” was also the son of an Anglican Bishop. Clement was a land developer in New York City and wrote the famous poem after a sleigh ride trip from his home. The poem made him very famous and wealthy. 

The Anglican Church had voted to start a Seminary in America and Clement, being a famous Anglican, was sought out by the church for this project. Clement owned a large estate on the wooded North end of Manhattan, which he gave a portion of for the start of the Seminary. 

Much later, a young man named John Hopkins went to this seminary then named, General seminary. He later became the Music professor for the seminary. The school had a tradition that they would perform a Christmas pageant every year, and John was in charge of the music. In 1857, John wrote “We Three Kings of Orient Are” for the annual pageant. The carol quickly caught on and was published in a Caroling book in 1867. John wrote many other carols and hymns but none is remembered like this one. It all goes back to Santa Clause and the night before Christmas song.

Silent Night

I can not do a series of Blogs on Christmas traditions without including Christmas Carols, and the most famous one of all; Silent Night.  The word “Carol” was given to a popular dance of the 14^th century.  As time went on the dancer would sing to the rhythm of their movements.  As time continued the word carol become more associated with the songs they sang than the dance.  Some of the older carols have the same rhythms as they used to dance to such as “Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly,” and “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.”

“Silent Night” was written by a Lutheran village priest in Germany.  What happened was the priest was informed that the church organ was broken on Christmas Eve afternoon.  He was all upset because there would be no music for the Christmas Eve service that evening.  He remember he had an old guitar, and with the help of the music minister they came up with a melody for guitar and four verse that they used in their Christmas Eve services that evening.  When the organ repair man came to fix the organ he asked them what they had done for music on their Christmas Eve service and they explained they had written a song for guitar and played it for him.  He loved the song an asked for a copy of it, which they gave him.  Being an organ repair man he went to a lot of different churches and would talk with the churches about what had happened and then would give them a copy of the song.  Needless to say the song quickly spread and has become the most beloved Christmas carol. 

Another tradition that goes along with “Silent Night” is ending the Christmas Eve Service with lighting candles and singing “Silent Night.” This comes from a Catholic Church service, usually performed in Monasteries, called Vespers.  It was more informal than the other services they held throughout the day, with some Bible reading and songs.  Many of the people of the area would come to this service and it was very popular.  To end the service a Monk would light a large white candle and all the Parishioners would then bring a small candle and light them.  After all the candles were lit they would sing a song and leave.  The big White candle was to represent Jesus Christ and that He was the light of the world.  All the small candles were to represent the individual soul that Christ had saved, and them leaving with the light was to represent taking Christ to the world.  As time went on “Silent Night” became the traditional song to sing.  This is a beautiful tradition that most people love, but do not know the reason why it is done.

O Little Town of Bethlehem

“O Little Town of Bethlehem” was written by Phillips Brooks one of the most famous preachers of his time. His nickname was the” Prince of the Pulpit.”  He had many publications, from sermons to helps for young pastors, but is most known now for his Christmas Carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”

The song was inspired by a trip he took as a young pastor to the Holy Land. On Christmas Eve 1865, Brooks took the short horse ride from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. He rode through the quiet streets of Bethlehem then took a short jaunt out to the fields where it is believed the angels told the Shepherd’s about Jesus. From there he rode back to the traditional site of Jesus’ birth and attended the Christmas Eve services. 

In 1868, Brooks was back pastoring his church in Philadelphia. He wanted a new carol for the children to sing for their Sunday School Christmas program. Unable to find anything he liked, he penned the words for “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” The poem was greatly influenced by his Christmas Eve three years earlier, as seen in his words. 

Brooks gave the words to his organist and Sunday School Superintendent Lewis H. Render and asked him to write a simple, easy tune so the children could learn it easily and remember. Render struggled for a long time to come up with the perfect tune for the carol because he knew it was something special. The night before the program he was woken up and quickly got up and composed the present melody. Render always insisted that the tune was a gift from Heaven. Needless to say, the carol was an instant hit with both the children and adults. 

O Holy Night

“O Holy Night” is a French carol written by an almost unknown man, Cappeau de Roquemaure. He was a wine missionaire for a small town in France. He was most known for his poetry, but had poor church attendance. That is why it surprised everyone that the local priest asked him to write a poem for the Christmas Mass. 

Cappeau was much honored to be asked to write a poem for the church and he wanted to do his best. He wanted to make sure it was religious and focused on the Christmas story. He studied Luke’s account of the Nativity story. On one of his trips to Paris to order wine, he imaged what it would be like to be a witness of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem so many years ago. By the time he had reached Paris, he had the poem finished. 

He was so moved by the poem that he knew it needed to be more than just a poem. Therefore, he got a friend, Adolph Charles Adams a master musician, to write the score. Adolph was a Jew and was quite moved by the lyrics of the birth of Christ and felt complied to write the music for this holiday that he did not celebrate. He worked quickly and the priest was quite pleased. The song was performed three weeks later for the Christmas Mass. The carol was a huge success and quickly a staple of Christmas masses all over France. It was later found out that Adams was a Jew and Cappeau had poor church attendance due to his socialistic view. The Catholic Church banned the carol from being sung in service again.

Not until John Sullivan Dwight found the coral again in French and translated into English was it sang again. John was trained at Harvard Divinity School and even took a job as minister in Cambridge, Ma. However, John had one major problem; he started to get physically sick during every sermon. The panic attacks became worse to the point that he could not even go out into public. Therefore, John took to writing and publishing music. It was during his studies is when he found “O Holy Night”

One final item of note, in 1906 Reginald Fessenden the former chief chemist for Thomas Edison, used a new generator and microphone and broadcast the first human voice over the air waves (at this time the radios were used to send different codes of dot and dashes). He read the Luke version of the Nativity then he picked up the his violin and played “O Holy Night” Thus the first song ever played on the radio was “O Holy Night”

Joy to the World

The story behind “Joy to the World” is that it took almost one hundred years to be completed by two of the most influential music writers of their day. The first writer is Isaac Watts who was born in England in 1674. Isaac’s father was a reformer for the Protestant church and was often jailed and persecuted for his stance against the Church of England, in fact his father was in prison for his birth. Isaac also was a reformist, but in the form of church music. The songs of the church in Isaac’s day were limited to chants of the Psalms. Isaac’s father challenged him to write more modern hymns using less archaic language. Isaac took this challenge to heart and wrote over 600 hymns in his lifetime and many more poems. Many of the hymns are still sung in churches today.

Early on in his hymn writing, Isaac met with great resistance. He finally got a job at a church in London and quickly moved up the ranks to the head pastor. Here is where his hymns were finally meet with approval. While studying Psalm 98, which says, “Make a Joyful Noise,” Isaac was inspired to write a 4-stanza poem called “Joy to the World.”     

Forty-four years after Isaac Watts’ death, Lowell Mason was born in New Jersey. He was trained in classical music with a love of Hayden and Handle. He stayed for a while in the New Jersey area as church choir director and music teacher but decided that was not a way to make a living. Therefore, he moved to Savannah, Georgia and became a banker by day and on weekends a church choir director and composer. He composed several classical music arrangements and sent them off to a publisher in Boston. They were rejected at first, but in 1827, a publisher printed his music and the Hayden and Handle society ordered 50,000 copies. He quickly moved to Boston where he was the toast of the town for over 20 years. He was also a revolutionary, like Watts, Mason wanted to get music to the youth so they would appreciate it, but was running into all kinds of walls. Therefore, he took his own money and started the first public school music program. Like Watts, he also wrote more than 600 hymns. 

While reworking parts of Handel’s Messiah, Mason wrote a tune he called Antioch that had no words to fit the tune. It took three years for Mason to finally use Watt’s Poem “Joy to the World.” The carol did not become popular until in the infancy (1911) of records. Victor’s recording produced a record with the Trinity Choir singing “Joy to the World,” and the rest is history.

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Charles Wesley was born in England, the youngest of eighteen children. He grew up to be England’s premier Christian Poet and hymn writer, writing more than three thousand hymns. Many of which are still sung today, such as “Jesus Christ has Risen Today.” 

In 1737 during his quiet time, Wesley wrote the first line “Hark! How all the welkin rings, glory to the King of Kings.” The new song quickly came together. Welkin is a word that means literally, heaven makes a long noise. Alternatively, heaven makes a long pronouncement. Wesley titled his new song “Hark! How all the Welkin Rings” Wesley used a tune of his own and started using it in his own church. It quickly spread across England. 

It was first published by on old college rival of the Wesley brothers’ John Whitefield. The Wesleys started the Methodist moment in England; however, John Whitefield was a staunch Calvinist. Their theological differences drove a wedge between them. When Whitefield published the hymn, he changed the name and the lyrics to what we know today. This infuriated Wesley, that Whitefield changed words with out his permission or his knowledge. As long as Wesley was alive, he never sang the Whitefield version.

Later, (1855) William Cummings, a tenor in Felix Mendelssohn’s opera company, changed the tune of Wesley’s carol to one of Mendelssohn tunes and used the Whitefield version of lyrics. This is the version we still sing today.  

2011 Christmas / Caroling

2011 Christmas

 

Our church is doing a Christmas play this year that has a lot of old Christmas carols in it. While we were practicing it, several questions came up about the origin and meaning of several of the carols. Well, as most of you know, that is one of my most loved hobbies, so I looked up all the songs in the play and now I have several Christmas carols I want to share with you for my Christmas blog. Since I have several, I will post one every few days (or I should say Sharon will post one every few days). Please enjoy them and have a wonderful Christmas season. 

 

Caroling

 
First, I know I told you a couple of years ago where the word carol came from, but it bears repeating. Carol referred to a popular dance that had a certain cadence back in the 14th century. As time went on the dancers were starting to sing to the different songs. Eventually the word “Carol” became more associated with the music than the dance. Examples of songs that were from the original carols are “Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly” and “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” 
 

Songs about the birth of Jesus have been around since the first century AD. The Bishop of Rome, or what we call the Pope, encouraged the priests to sing these songs around Christmas day. In fact, you may recognize one of the songs the Roman Bishop asked for personally, “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” which means Glory to God in the Highest. The only problem with this was only the priests were allowed to sing them and they were only in Latin which most of the common people did not understand or get very excited about. 

 

In 1223, St. Francis of Assisi, sometimes called the Father of Caroling, would go around to the different towns and villages during Christmas time, and set up dramas about the birth of Jesus and use the common people as the actors. In these plays, he would use simple songs to help teach the Christmas story and he taught the people in the play the songs. After the play was over, the actors would teach the songs to their friends and then they would wander through the neighborhoods knocking on doors and singing the songs they had just learned. People were so excited because they could now sing songs about Jesus their Savior that they traveled from house to house singing about their Jesus.  

 

By the 16th century, they had wandering minstrels that traveled from town to town accompanying themselves with bagpipes, drums, and fiddles, playing and dancing to the different Carols. They would repeat the concert nightly from Christmas Eve to the feast of Epiphany (Jan 6). This shows that Caroling became very popular quickly. The problem with this is the common man did not have a Bible. It was not until Martin Luther, in the 16^th century, wrote a German language Bible that the common man could even read the Bible, because up until then the Bible was in Latin and only Priests had access to it. Therefore, non-Biblical literate people were writing songs that were not telling the true story of Jesus. The other problem is the church did not like the idea that they were taking common tunes usually used for drinking in the taverns and putting lyrics to them. Because of these reasons, the Church worked very hard to stop all caroling. In fact, in England and early America it was illegal to sing carols, you could be placed and jail or the stocks for singing them. 

 

The one real hold out was Martin Luther, he supported carols and hymns. He also used the idea of the drinking songs and changing the words. He in fact, wrote many hymns like this one you might know, “The Church is one Foundation.” He wrote it using an old drinking song. From this influence, you see several carols come from this era from Germany and the influence of Martin Luther, the most memorable is “Silent Night” (check out my blog from two years ago on “Silent Night”). It was not until the 1840 and Queen Victoria did carols become acceptable. Queen Victoria was the cousin of Prince Albert of Germany, (that had all the wonderful carols at Christmas time) and Victoria loved the sound of the carols at Christmas time. The fact that Victoria loved the Christmas carols was published in the London newspapers. The people of England responded to this by coming to Windsor Castle and serenading the queen. In just a few years after this, caroling was wide spread in England again. These carolers were more sedate compared to the middle century carolers. The picture on Christmas cards with the Victorian Caroler is more like what they had become.

 

Caroling has lost its popularity in the last fifty years in large part to our busy lives and recorded music. I would love to encourage your family or your church choir to go do some caroling this year.

God Tells Jeremiah Not to Pray

Last week talking about questions from kids reminds me of this article I wrote almost 20 years ago about a true story from my life when a youth set me in my place with a simple question.

When I was a young cocky youth pastor, I thought I know the whole Bible inside and out. I would sometimes play a game with the youth at the end of youth group if we finished early, call “Stump Brad.” I told them they could ask me any question about the Bible or where something was in the Bible and I could find it or answer their question. Talk about setting your self up for failure. Well of course, a few boys would enjoy finding the most obscure verse or crazy question to ask. I did pretty well at it until the one-day one smart boy asked, “Why did God tell Jeremiah not to pray?” I told him he must have read it wrong for God always wants us to pray to Him. Well of course, he knew chapter and verse, and we had to look it up. Jeremiah 7:16

  ¹⁶Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.

They all had a good time at my expense, well deserved I might say. I was back peddling and fumbling with words because I had just put my big size 11 foot in my mouth. After a second, I got my composure and read the verse in context. 

If you read the whole chapter, God 1^st told Jeremiah to go preach in the city gate how the people of Judah have turn away for God and they need to repent. However, the people did not listen and that is when God tells Jeremiah to not pray for the people because he had decided to punish the people to pull them back to Him. Therefore, God did not want Jeremiah to pray outside His will. Just as we see, Jesus says in his prayer on the Mount of Olives. 

Matthew 26:39
And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

In the Book of Ecclesiastes, it says there is a time for everything.

 Ecclesiastes 3:1
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

In addition, we just learned that there is a time to pray and time not to pray. What a profound lesson I learned that day. I was humbled by my youth, which I needed, and that God has a time for everything even prayer.

Bible Translations - King James Bible

First, we need to realize that the King James Version of the Bible is also a translation. I once had a woman say to me when I was talking about versions of the Bible that “All I need is the King James version. If it was good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for me.” I had to inform her that the Bible Jesus used was written in Hebrew, it was many scrolls, and the New Testament was not even written while Jesus was alive and it was written in Greek. Well, she thought I was a communist or a space alien.

I would like to explore some of the things I would have liked to teach this woman if she would have stayed and listened. The King James Version was published in 1611 because King James wanted an English translation of the Bible. Before that, the only other translation was the Vulgate, which was used by the Catholic Church. King James wanted people to convert and stay Protestant and he hoped that by having a Bible that the common people could understand he could accomplish this.

I am not doing this justice, I am trying to cram into a few sentences a very big controversy, and the start of what is called Protestism. I love the way my seminary church history professor put it: in those times, Theology was the blood sport of the times. Let me try to explain all this. Up until 1517, there was only one church and it was the Catholic Church. On Oct 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses asking the church to debate him on what he saw as problems in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church would not debate him and through a long series of events, the Catholic Church with a price made him an outlaw on his head. This is why non Catholic Churches are called Protestant churches, because they were in protest against the Catholic Church. The Prince of Germany of the time liked Martin Luther and arranged for Luther to be kidnapped and hid in a tower to protect him. While Martin Luther was in that tower, he took copies of the Greek New Testament and Hebrew Old Testament and translated it into the German Language. Martin Luther believed the people should be able to read the Bible for themselves. This is the first widely distributed non-Vulgate Bible.

While this was going on in Germany Henry VIII was in England. At first, he was against what all was going on in Germany, but later on Henry wanted to divorce Ann Bolin. The Catholic Church would not give him the divorce so he decided that England would separate from the Catholic Church. Henry set up the Anglican Church, which is sometimes called the Church of England, with himself as the head of the church. Then he let himself have his divorce. When Henry died, he had no male heir so Mary, the daughter of Ann Bolin was the oldest and made queen. Mary was Catholic so she wanted everyone to turn back to the Catholic Church, the common people did not want to do this so there were many uprisings and Mary put them down very violently and that is how she got the name as Bloody Mary. This goes back to what my church history teacher said. When Mary died young, she left the country to Queen Elizabeth I. Elizabeth wanted to have a peaceful Kingdom, so did not take sides in the two church debate and allowed them both to be in the country. When she passed, it was left to King James. Protestantism had greatly grown in England, especially Scotland, with the influence of a man called John Knox. King James was greatly influenced by him and others and wanted to pull more people into Protestantism. That is why he authorized the writing of the English version. I hate to inform some of you when it says in the King James Bible that it is the Authorized Version; it is not authorized by God as many say, but authorized by King James. This is how we got the King James Version of the Bible.

Bible was not written in English but the languages of the time. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and some Aramaic. The biggest portion of Aramaic is the last few chapters of Daniel where the end time prophecies can be found. Hebrew was the language of the Jews of Old Testament time and English was not around. It just makes sense that it was written in the language of the times. Aramaic is a language that came along later that is a mixture of several languages, one of which was Hebrew. Aramaic is very similar to Hebrew and became the common language of the Jews in Jesus’ time. In fact, we have Jesus using it on the cross Mark 15:33-34 “33 at the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” —which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"” “Eloi, Eloi lama Sabachthani” is Aramaic.

The New Testament was written in what is called Coina Greek, which is a very common or simple Greek. It was the language of the Greek soldiers started by Alexander the Great so all the Greek soldiers could talk to one another. Therefore, in all the lands that they conquered, this from of Greek was the language of business, as English is today. Therefore, it makes sense that if you wanted to tell everybody about Jesus in that day you would put it in the Greek language.

Jerome made the first translation of the Bible and he translated it into Latin, which has been the business language until the last few centuries. One very funny thing about this translation is when Moses came down the mountain from talking with God it says that his face glowed, and he put a veil over his face to keep from frightening the people, but Jerome translated this as horns. Therefore, when Michelangelo made a statue of Moses he included horns.

The Bible was written over a two thousand year period with many different men writing it, but only one author, which is God. 2 Timothy 3:16 says:

16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

What this scripture is saying is that God inspired all Scripture. I love the word Inspiration, it means to breathe in. I like to think of a picture of God giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the writers of the Bible. That is what I think of when I think of God giving us the Bible. Because God gave it to us, it is good for doctrine for reproof and correction and for instruction.

Most Scholars believe the first book of the Bible written is the book of Job. The last book written is believed by most scholars to be Revelation. Job is believed to be written before Abraham and Abraham live roughly around 2000 B. C. Revelation was written in the 90’s A. D. The Old Testament was finished being written in 400 B. C. The New Testament was not started until around the 40’s A.D. Therefore, the whole New Testament was not written until after Christ’s death and took 40 to 50 years to write.

What some other people do not know is that the books we have in our Bible are the result of what is called the canonization process. Back in the 300’s A. D. The Christians were having many problems with a group that was called the Gnostics. They were making books that supported their beliefs and then attributing them to apostles, confusing the people. Therefore, the church fathers of the time got together and decided what should be in the Bible. The Old Testament was easy for them; they accepted the same 39 book that the Jews had decided on a couple of centuries earlier. For the New Testament they went with the books that had been widely accepted in the early church and had good evidence that they were authentic. That is why every few years you see an ad for the lost books of the Bible. It is these books that 1700 years ago the church fathers could not put their faith in to be Holy.

I hope I have not bored you with all of this history, but most people do not know this very important information about the Bible.

Hebrews 10:26

·         CAN ANYONE EXPOUND ON THIS VERSE OF SCRIPTURE?

Hebrews 10:26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,

Here is another question I have received and I really believe that several people may be asking the same question. This verse really scares people because there are preachers out there who say you cannot sin again if you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. This is a pure case of you need to read the verse in context. This is explained much better if you look at a verse just a little further down. Hebrews 10:29

 ²⁹Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?

At the time this was written Christianity had gotten so big in the Roman Empire that they had made a law that any Roman soldier who suspected that you were a Christian could pull you into a Roman temple and ask you to deny Christ and have you bow down to Roman gods. Most of the Christians would not do this and paid the penalty of death. However, a few did bow down to the idols and denied Christ. That is what these verses are really pointing to, the ones who denied Christ. 

If they had fully believed in Christ, then as the verse says, trodden it under foot and denied the blood convent, how can they reclaim it again the only way would be to re-crucify Christ. 

This verse has end time significances as well.   

Revelation 13:15-17

King James Version (KJV)

 ¹⁵And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

 ¹⁶And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

 ¹⁷And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

The Beast government in the end times has the same law, if you do not worship the beast or take his mark, the government will kill you. Now notice what God will do if you receive the mark of the beast in the next chapter. 

Revelation 14:8-10

King James Version (KJV)

 ⁸And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

 ⁹And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,

 ¹⁰The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

You see these verses had a warning at the time they were written, but also a prophetic warning for the end times. 

Just to be sure, all your sins past, present and future are forgiven, you cannot lose your salvation. You just cannot deny Christ. 

Do you believe God will call a woman into ministry?

 I have had several good questions by different people come to me to be answered, and if one person is asking, that usually means there are a bunch more people out there asking the same question. Therefore, I am going to repost my answers to these questions with a little more thought and scripture so more people will know the biblical answer.

Do you believe God will call a woman into ministry? My answer is that I can quickly think of one instance where God did call a woman into ministry. This is Deborah in Judges 4:4. 

 ⁴And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, she judged Israel at that time.

God was already using Deborah, but as you read the story; God uses her greatly in the salvation of Israel. Further, on in Judges, you see that God had called Barak to lead an army, but he was reluctant to go, so God sent a message to Deborah to remind Barak of God’s call.

⁶And she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh Naphtali, and said unto him, Hath not the LORD God of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw toward Mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulon?

 ⁷And I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon, Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thine hand.

However, Barak was chicken, as my wife likes to say, and would not go up unless Deborah went with him.
 ⁸And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go.

Therefore, God said he would not get the victory, but a woman would.

 ⁹And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.

To make a long story short, this is exactly what God does. God tells Barak exactly how to attack and from where, plus He gives a rainstorm that makes the chariots are mired in the mud, and they routed them. (Judges 4-5) However, Sisera, the commander, escapes and runs to another women …. 

¹⁸And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle.

 ¹⁹And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him.

 ²⁰Again he said unto her, Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man doth come and inquire of thee, and say, Is there any man here? that thou shalt say, No.

 ²¹Then Jael, Heber's wife took a nail of the tent, and took and hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.

There are many other places in the Bible were God called women into ministry; one of the big ones is where it says women minister to Jesus in His earthly ministry.

Matthew 27:55
And many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him:

What people usually quote when talking about women in ministry is

 1 Corinthians 14:34-35
King James Version (KJV)

 ³⁴Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.

 ³⁵And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

You see, in the example of Deborah, God gave words to give to a man. Therefore, there seems to be a contradiction. Look a little closer at the story of Deborah. You see that in Judges, they were in very apostate times, men were not listening to God, so God used someone whose heart was right, and it happened to be a woman. I think in 1 Cor. Paul is talking about the ideal. God wants to use men to lead the church and minister, but in apostate times, God will use who ever will listen to him. So if you want to get down to it, if God is using women in ministry, (which we know He is, because we see it in the Bible and in modern day.) Then men have hardened their hearts to God. We need a revival of men in the church today. The answer is God does and has used women in ministry.

The Temple continued

Let’s pick were where we left off last week and look at the area behind the curtain.

Behind the curtain was the Ark of the Covent. This area was called “The Holy of Holies,” and was only entered once a year by the High priest in order to offer blood sacrificed for the sins of his people. This blood was offered in the Holy of Holies because God was sitting between the angels on what was called the Mercy Seat.

Ark of the Covent

   The first curtain was made of wood. See below

1 Kings 6:16 (New International Version)

¹⁶ He partitioned off twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the

Most Holy Place

.

Now the interesting thing is that the curtain was torn from top to bottom at Jesus death. With the curtain torn, this would allow worshipers to go straight to God in The Holy of Holies because of what Jesus did on the cross. The curtain at the time of the Jesus’ crucifixion was the thickness of the palm of a man’s hand, and so heavy that it took 300 priests to move it. The only thing this can mean is no man could do this, only God could tear it and only God could do it from top to bottom. Not only the Bible says that it was torn from top to bottom, but also Josephus, in his Wars of the Jews, and the Talmud. The Talmud says that the curtain was torn from top to bottom from an earthquake forty years before the destruction of the Temple. I love it when we have extra-Biblical proof of God’s miracles.

Now for the real meat of the question, “Was the Ark of the Covent in the Temple when Jesus was crucified.” As I said earlier, I do not believe it was in the temple at that time. I think that it was lost during the exile. My main reasons are that the Ark was not listed in the in the articles take by Nebuchadnezzar or the items returned to Ezra by the Persian King (see below).

2 Kings 24:13 (King James Version)

 ¹³And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, as the LORD had said.

Ezra 1:7-11 (King James Version)

 ⁷Also Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of the house of the LORD, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the house of his gods;
 ⁸Even those did Cyrus king of Persia bring forth by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and numbered them unto Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah.
 ⁹And this is the number of them: thirty chargers of gold, a thousand chargers of silver, nine and twenty knives,
 ¹⁰Thirty basons of gold, silver basons of a second sort four hundred and ten, and other vessels a thousand.
 ¹¹All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up with them of the captivity that were brought up from Babylon unto Jerusalem.

This is an agreement from omission, but being that the Ark of the Covent was the most important article of God, I think it would have been mentioned. 

This leads to two schools of thought. The first school of thought is that the Babylonians found it and destroyed it; like killing the Jewish people’s God. The other school of thought is that the Jews hid the Ark during the invasion by Babylon, and then when the last few Jews in the land rebelled against Babylon and went to Egypt, they took the Ark with them. You find this in Jeremiah 42 and 43. 

This is where Indiana Jones comes in; they take this theory and “Hollywood” it. This however is what I lean toward. In fact, I have an acquaintance, Robert Cornuke, who is called the Indiana Jones of the Bible. You may have seen him on The Discovery Channel or The History Channel as an expert on Biblical archeology. He has found the island in the Nile River that has the remnants of a Jewish temple and utensils for temple sacrifice. Then, on further south, he has found a tribe of Africans that are Jewish and have a compound that they claim has the Ark of the Covent inside. In addition, the High priest is the only one who has seen it. I do not know for sure, but I like the idea

The Temple

I am sorry it has been so long since I have posted, we have had all kinds of problems getting the pictures in the blog to up load into the blog and just generally with the blog site. Then we got a call two Sunday nights ago asking for Sharon and me to help with an evangelism conference starting on Mon. and going the whole week. We had to jump through a lot of hoops, but we were able to do it. Unfortunately, we were getting home so late we did not have time to work on the blog. So here it is, almost a month late, but I do feel it is worth it.

I have received some questions about the Temple and I answered them and thought that if one person had asked, perhaps more people would want to know, so here are my answers to their questions.

There are actually three temples that have been built. The first one is Salomon’s Temple, built after David (Salomon’s dad) died in the very late 900 B. C. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, destroyed it around 586 B. C. The building of this temple can be found in 1 Kings 6-7.

The second Temple is often called Zerubbabel’s Temple because he was the head priest who was in charge when the second temple was built. You can see the rebuilding in Ezra. This temple was finished around 516 B. C.

The third temple is known as Herod’s Temple, because King Herod, the one who tried to kill Jesus at his birth, had repaired and updated Zerrubbabel’s Temple. The Jews point this out to Jesus after he cleanses the Temple

John 2:19-21 (King James Version)

 ¹⁹Jesus answered and said unto them, destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up.
 ²⁰Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
 ²¹But he spake of the temple of his body.

The Romans destroyed this Temple in 70 A. D. This is the Temple that was there when Jesus was crucified.

Now, let us talk about the Temple curtain. The curtain was to separate the Temple into two parts. The first part or “The Holy,” would have the golden lamp stand, table of showbread and alter of incense. The priests would work in this part of the Temple every day, tending the lamp stand that was never to go out and the alter of incense. They also replaced the bread daily.

his should be enough for the first week. There is a lot here to digest. I will continue on next week.