Train in a Distance:

She was beautiful as southern skies
The night he met her
She was married to someone
He was doggedly determined that he would get her
He was old, he was young
From time to time hed tip his heart
But each time she withdrew
Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks its true

Well eventually the boy and the girl get married
Sure enough they have a son
And though they both were occupied
With the child she carried
Disagreements had begun
And in a while they fell apart
It wasnt hard to do
Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks its true

Two disappointed believers
Two people playing the game
Negotiations and love songs
Are often mistaken for one and the same
Now the man and the woman
Remain in contact
Let us say its for the child
With disagreements about the meaning
Of a marriage contract
Conversations hard and wild
But from time to time
He makes her laugh
She cooks a meal or two
Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks its true
Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks its true

What is the point of this story
What information pertains
The thought that life could be better
Is woven indelibly
Into our hearts
And our brains

So what do you think?  What are the biblical applications of these sociological truths?  Is it any wonder that the Scriptures tell us there is great gain in godliness with contentment?  What is your Train in the Distance?

The title is all I will say on the phone call.  I had several posts I intended to write today.  They will have to be written another day.  For now I am reduced to posting the lyrics of a Sovereign Grace Hymn.   (it is not my pain, but feeling the pain of another)

Shall I take from Your hand Your blessings
Yet not welcome any pain
Shall I thank You for days of sunshine
Yet grumble in days of rain
Shall I love You in times of plenty
Then leave You in days of drought
Shall I trust when I reap a harvest
But when winter winds blow, then doubt

Oh let Your will be done in me
In Your love I will abide
Oh I long for nothing else as long
As You are glorified

Are You good only when I prosper
And true only when I’m filled
Are You King only when I’m carefree
And God only when I’m well
You are good when I’m poor and needy
You are true when I’m parched and dry
You still reign in the deepest valley
You’re still God in the darkest night

So quiet my restless heart, quiet my restless heart
Quiet my restless heart in You

Last night at Prayer Meeting we looked briefly at Psalm 62.  Stuart Townend and Aaron Keyes have teamed up to write a beautiful rendition of this Psalm and we hope to learn it as a congregation in the upcoming weeks.  Here is a sample so you can wrap your head around the melody.

This song is available on Stuart Townend’s newest CD, There is a Hope, or you can buy the MP3 download on Aaron Keyes website for $1.   I love the new Townend CD, and would encourage anyone who likes the newer hymns to try and buy it (it is contemporary with guitars and drums and Irish whistles but wonderfully done). 

A pastor in Louisville has re-written the words to ‘Amazing Grace’ in order to point out how many inside Christianity view salvation.

“We must not water down God’s truth. Eternity is at stake for the unbeliever. And, God’s grace is at stake of becoming something weak and no longer meaningful. The gospel is robbed of it’s power to transform lives and GRACE, GOD’S BEAUTIFUL GRACE IS MADE INTO NOTHING MORE THAN SOMETHING THAT IS ALRIGHT, pretty cool, possibly needed for the heathen. And we might come together and sing the following:

Lackluster Grace (Now sing with me, the words will be up on the screen)

Lackluster grace, how mediocre the sound
That helped a pretty good person like me;
I was slightly off track, but now I’m walking perfectly fine.
Was slightly near-sighted with a partial astigmatism, but now I have 20/20… vision.

We are studying through the Lord’s Prayer on Wednesday evenings and in study today I was reminded of an old hymn we used around our table growing up a few times. The words are by John Cennick and the tune is the doxology tune.

Be present at our table, Lord;
Be here and everywhere adored;
Thy creatures bless, and grant that we
May feast in paradise with Thee.

We thank Thee, Lord, for this our food,
For life and health and every good;
By Thine own hand may we be fed;
Give us each day our daily bread.

We thank Thee, Lord, for this our good,
But more because of Jesus’ blood;
Let manna to our souls be giv’n,
The Bread of Life sent down from Heav’n.

I ran across this hymn today in my study. By reading it, it appears John Newton was not a big fan of the winter. Maybe he even got a case of the winter blues as many do. I hope this will encourage those of you who are starting to feel such blues. It is also a great hymn for cheering one’s soul with the presence of Christ when outward circumstances are gray and bleak.

How tedious and tasteless the hours
When Jesus I no longer see;
Sweet prospects, sweet birds and sweet flowers,
Have all lost their sweetness to me;
The midsummer sun shines but dim,
The fields strive in vain to look gay.
But when I am happy in Him,
December’s as pleasant as May.

His Name yields the richest perfume,
And sweeter than music His voice;
His presence disperses my gloom,
And makes all within me rejoice.
I should, were He always thus nigh,
Have nothing to wish or to fear;
No mortal as happy as I,
My summer would last all the year.

Content with beholding His face,
My all to His pleasure resigned,
No changes of season or place
Would make any change in my mind:
While blessed with a sense of His love,
A palace a toy would appear;
All prisons would palaces prove,
If Jesus would dwell with me there.

Dear Lord, if indeed I am Thine,
If Thou art my sun and my song,
Say, why do I languish and pine?
And why are my winters so long?
O drive these dark clouds from the sky,
Thy soul cheering presence restore;
Or take me to Thee up on high,
Where winter and clouds are no more.

Greg Gilbert has a very thought provoking article over at Church Matters on music in churches. He is not coming down on one form of worship or another but calling Christians, particularly 20 somethings, to re-examine what they are looking for in “worship”. He recalls his own experience of coming home from college, where there were big worship bands and teams, to a worship setting of 30 people and few instruments.

But then I went back to New Haven, Connecticut. The praise bands were gone, I didn’t have a group of people who’d gone with me and shared that experience, and the churches had a piano and thirty people singing Isaac Watts hymns. That forced me to learn how to stoke the fires of worship with truths and words, and not just with excellent music. I’ve learned how to be emotionally affected by the excellent words of hymns whether they’re played and sung “excellently” or not.

There’s a whole generation of young people out there now, though, who aren’t emotionally affected by words, whose fires are only stoked when those words are accompanied by great rhythms, skilled instrumentation, and a certain well-recognizable mood that typically accompanies Christian “praise-and-worship.” And the result is that you have young people church-hopping around town, and one of the main criteria of their shopping is “the worship,” by which more often than not they mean “the music.” You have young Christians feeling discouraged because—despite the fact that they sit under faithful preaching of the word Sunday after Sunday—they say they haven’t “felt close to God” in so long. Maybe there’s something important going on there. But there’s also a good chance, I’d argue, that they just haven’t had a good endorphin rush since the last conference they attended.

I am really afraid that we’ve managed to create a generation of anemic Christians who are spiritually dependent on excellent music. Their sense of spiritual well-being is based on feeling “close to God,” their feeling close to God is based on their “ability to worship,” and being able to worship depends on big crowds singing great music.

The picture shows Stuart Townend on the left and Keith Getty on the right. Stuart has an upcoming album on which he has re-recorded “Every Promise.” For those of you at Edgewood, I am sure this is a hymn we will be learning at some point this year. Jump over to the Getty’s website and familiarize yourself with it. Here are a few quotes about the song “Every Promise”.

Every Promise of your word is a song that reminds us of the rich promises in God’s word which are more than sufficient for our every circumstance.

This can be used as a congregational song or as an answer and response, where the congregation simply sing - ‘and I stand on every promise of Your word’

Paul Tripp on Every Promise

Why hope in the Word? Why stand on its every promise? Why heed its guidance and reach out for its grace? The answer is simple, it is the only place where life can be found. There is no firmer place to stand. There is no more reliable place of hope. There is no more trustworthy place of comfort. The story, the mirror, the scalpel, the map, the drink, the key, and the portrait all call me to come and rest again and hope again and stand again at the only place where life, real life, eternal can life be found.