Sometimes I’m stunned alert to the intentions and efforts of God. This video (below) did that to me.
How can a large group of Hollywood celebrities and music industry chart-toppers sing of the coming wrath of God upon sinners? How?! But that’s what this video is. It’s a virtual sing-a-long to a Johnny Cash song, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down.”
I know there are believers in those industries—whenever I breeze past a Grammy Awards or an Academy Awards show it seems like someone always gives glory to God. And I don’t know that person, so I can’t say what their life is like, or what the other evidence of their love of God is. But I’m skeptical. I’ve seen one too many crosses noosing the neck of a celebrity bad boy or girl to not be suspicious. But since I’m not swimming in that pool of people, I don’t know if praising God is only faddish or genuine.
And, so, this video. It’s crammed-full of bad boys and bad girls. But they’re not singing about the wonder of the gospel of God’s grace to us in Christ—that I would love! Who better to picture the grace of God than those who already picture the need of it? Instead, they’re singing about His coming wrath! Like they’re warning us. They’re doing the very things they’re warning us about.
I don’t know. Maybe the likes of Chris Rock and Johnny Depp and Kanye and Kris Kristofferson and Justin Timberlake and Cheryl Crow and Woody Harrelson and the Dixie Chicks and Whoopie Goldberg and lots of other nasty looking boys and girls I don’t recognize know something…but I don’t know they know it. Seems like a stretch.
I do know that sometimes God’s love for the nasty looks ridiculous, like He’s misplaced it. I want to tell Him to take it back and put it somewhere else where a better reward is waiting. Oops. That would have meant bad news for me back in 1980…
But I sure would like to know what those in the video are thinking as they sing…It boggles my mind.
I don’t know. But He does—and He’s not worried. Have a look at the video.
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For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.
ReplyDeleteFor God didn't send His son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him would be saved.
Hi Ralph, I actually think it is pretty cool! Prophesy usually comes from places where you least expect it, in my experience :-) But I think that is not so much about wrath as it is about running into God. I think the message is much more that whatever you are doing and wherever you try to run, sooner or later you are going to run into God and He will bring into the light what was done in darkness.
ReplyDeleteThe only way to receive His grace is by knowing that you are in need of it. And maybe the people in the video know what they are in need of.
Jesus came to those you call the nasty. Those were the ones He spent His time with, yes? :-) So He must know it is good company. And so should we probably. Maybe it is true what was written on the wall somewhere in the video that sinners make the best saints?
Grace on you
Carla
I think you're right, Carla.
ReplyDeleteOne of my top Bible heroes, Paul, put it best when he wrote that God had chosen him, "the chief of sinners," and further that God's grace is best seen in the likes of him.
And, by the inspiration of the Spirit, Paul wrote that where sin increased, "grace increased all the more,..."
Grace is best seen where it is deserved the least. It stands out! Surely some of those in the video qualify. Wouldn't it be terrific if we heard from some of them, that God had so impressed them that they had received Him?
Imagine the applause for God.
-Ralph