Just a song?! Why not put arsenic in my coffee and tell me to calm down 'cause it's just a drink!? I'll come back to this part of the rant, but first I want to get to the song that's got me heated.
As with the song "Above All", I feel cheated with this song too. I know the song writers probably don't have nefarious intent, but with songs like these I feel like I'm being ambushed. They lull me into complacency by appealing musical arrangements and decent-to-good lyrics. I allow my guard to slip as I attempt to let go and enter into worship. And then they spring the poison on me.
It's like I'm out for a walk in the park with my sweetie and we come upon a quaint horse and carriage ride. The rig is charming and the driver has an honest smile. What the heck, let's do it. We settle in to a very picturesque moment together as the driver takes us to a little traveled section of the park. And just then, in that quiet moment...in that peaceful place...the driver stops the carriage, turns around and flashes us!
Whoa! Unfair, right? All we wanted was a peaceful time of intimacy, and we end up being accosted!
Ok...the song...
The song I want to unfairly pick apart is called, "Come, Now Is the Time to Worship," by Brian Doerksen. It's pretty short, so I'll post the lyrics here in their entirety:
Come, now is the time to worship
Come, now is the time to give your heart
Come, just as you are to worship
Come, just as you are before your God
Come
One day ev'ry tongue will confess You are God
One day ev'ry knee will bow
Still the greatest treasure remains for those,
Who gladly choose You now
Once again, for most of the song I'm being drawn in.
Come, now is the time to worship
Amen.
Come, now is the time to give your heart
Amen.
Come, just as you are to worship
Come, just as you are before your God
Well...God doesn't always want us to come just as we are, if that means we're holding on to our rebellion and hardness of heart. As it says in Joel: "rend your hearts and not your garments". But I can understand where these lines could be coming from.
One day ev'ry tongue will confess You are God
One day ev'ry knee will bow
Amen! We're quoting Phil. 2:10. How can you go wrong with that?
Still the greatest treasure remains for those,
Who gladly choose You now
And there it is. Right here at then end, when we were all worship-ey and Amen-ey. Right after quoting that precious passage of Scripture, the song writer jerks a knot in the song. Do you see what he just told us he believes?!
It's not a little thing! It's so significant that if the song writer really means what he says here, then he has placed himself firmly outside of classical Christian orthodoxy. Put differently, this song is NOT a Christian song. In fact it's not just an un-Christian song, it's an anti-Christian song. It's heretical.
Why? The song writer is taking the truth of the eventuality that every knee will bow before the lordship of Jesus Christ and he is turning it into the heresy of Universalism.
By adding the lines that "still the greatest treasure remains for those who gladly choose you now", the songwriter is saying that ultimately everyone will bow in faith, repentance and adoration before Jesus, but it's just better if you do it now, because you'll receive a "greater treasure". Everyone will be ok and will receive a treasure, but you'll get a greater one if you choose Jesus now.
Compare this with the passage I just read recently in Revelation 1:7, "Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen."
Yes, one day every knee WILL bow, and every tongue WILL confess that Jesus is Lord. But, for the enemies of God this conquering ceremony will not be a happy one. They will WAIL for the horror of it. If you fail to throw down your weapons of rebellion and bow your knee to King Jesus now, you will later bow as a vanquished foe and shortly thereafter be thrown into a lake of fire to be tormented for all of eternity.
I don't have time here to go into how dreadfully this message dishonors God, belittles the cross and misleads sinners. But let me say a word about why I think this matters so much.
God tells us that those who teach should be VERY CAREFUL. He tells us that if a teacher causes someone to go astray that it would be better if a millstone was tied around his neck and he was thrown into the sea (Matt. 18:6). He tells us in James 3 that not many should become teachers because they will be judged more strictly.
But these are just SONGS! Don't be so picky!
Really? I heard a PREACHER say recently that he thought that people retained more of what they got in the song service than what they got from the sermon. Why is one of the biggest books of the Bible entirely made of SONGS? Not to mention that large portions of other books are SONGS.
Let's be honest. Much of the theology that people get nowadays does not come from their rigorous Bible reading and study. People get much of their doctrine these days from SONGS.
So...am I just being picky?
Andrew I think your interpretation. Is off not the song. If the song said what you think it did then you are right but it does not. He squeaks exaclty to the point you think it contradicts. One day Evey knee will bow...but for those that surrender to him in this life they receive the hope of glory. That is exactly what this song says. You have to b careful to not misinterpret language because you think it sounds a certain way. I have heard this song for years and ways thought it spoke to exactly what you think it does not. You sound kind day like a Christian. Who hears that someone meditates and freaks out because many false religions "meditate". Where as we are calls to meditate on Gods word and to be still and know he is God (can be done well through meditation and reflection. I believe the song speaks truth but your fear of it being used or interpreted incorrectly causes you to speak against it. Don't react to fear brother. The Bible has countless verses that get misinterpreted to associate with false teachings...doesn't mean the author worded that wrong either. (Please excuse grammer and spelling mistakes, I'm on my phone)
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ReplyDeleteI disagree, brother. At best it's poorly worded and misleading and not good food for the body. Too often people excuse bad doctrine in songs by saying, "Oh, he was just being poetic. You can't take that literally!"
ReplyDelete{In the interest of fairness, here is an excerpt from Brian's book, "Make Love, Make War: NOW Is the Time to Worship" in which he attempts to explain that he didn't intend for this song to sound Universalistic.
ReplyDeleteI was very unsatisfied by his explanation.}
I have received a few letters over the years from people who have accused me of being a Universalist. This included one man who really hoped I was and thought He found evidence in this song! A couple of other worship leaders said they wouldn’t use the song unless they could change the words. The line they were wrestling with was “still the greatest treasure remains for those who gladly choose you now.” Some believed that because I said “greatest treasure” that there was a lesser treasure awaiting everyone else, hence “Brian Doerksen; the closet universalist”.4
The greatest treasure I am referring to is the “treasure and pleasure of worship; a living, loving relationship with God.” I had no intention of inferring that others who reject God will get a treasure of eternal life as well. After a few years of answering this question I am beginning to see how someone could stretch my words to head in that direction; it just never entered my mind, nor the minds of the theologians that I tested the song lyrics with before it was published.
This is one of the challenges of writing for worship; we want to be theologically accurate, but we only have a few phrases to express an idea. Preachers and authors can take one concept and talk or write about it for quite awhile! Songwriters take a large amount of material and reduce it to a few phrases that one can remember, forming it into poetic and artistic phrases that sing. If we wanted to fully explain each concept with 15 verses, the song wouldn’t make it very far.5
What I was trying to say was that one day everyone will be forced to “worship” God with their bodies by bowing their knee, but some are missing this greatest treasure, the experience of worshipping God willingly in the here and now, knowing and loving God and being loved by Him. Instead of living for God, some spend their days seeking earthly treasure, treasure that will be revealed on that “one day” as worthless. God remains the only treasure that will always be worthy of our pursuit and devotion!
It seems that the “theological concerns” I received were really about who is going to get into heaven? And how exactly is that all going to work? I’m not sure any of us can presume to know those answers.
I can tell you this. Having special needs sons who cannot communicate verbally has tested me on
this point because they can’t pray the traditional sinner’s prayer. What if the deeper, heart-question that God longs for us to ask is: How can I get more heaven into me? and how can we get more heaven into us as the community of God? God alone will be the judge of who enters his presence. And He will be more HOLY than we could ever imagine . . . and more merciful!! So I’m leaving those matters in His hands. He knows our hearts. He will not force us to choose Him. He invites us to choose Him and our response to his invitation to “Come” makes all the difference in this life and the next!