SILENT NIGHT

Christmas 2018 the winter of our discontent. A winter made colder by cynical thin-skinned extremists.  Socio-activists who need to hate everything, attach evil to everything, protest everything and dig up everything.

These cultural leeches suck the enjoyment and color out of every innocent and wonderful thing. They are eternally spoiling for a fight.

Can the song “Baby it’s cold outside” offend you unless you are truly cold inside? Why must you, on the night that a star athlete is winning the Heisman trophy, dredge up things he said as a 15-year-old? And why does USA Today publish that non-story as if it were a noble investigation?

The left seduces impressionable people. They dull their common sense. They disconnect their cord to reason.  They radicalize them in the furnace of artificial outrage. This bacteria of easily triggered anger oozes from the swamp in Washington. When leaders believe government workers should go without pay at Christmas to prove a point! “We believe national security is racist!”

The same deranged fervor, drives them to ban Manger Scenes. This is convenient for Washington.  Because where would they find 3 wise men anyway?

But these irritants are small compared to the convulsions in the world. The rumble of war in the distance. The threat to our way of life from economic uncertainty.

We don’t get a silent night this year…or do we? Should the child of God feel that evil has taken the high ground, the microphone, the power and everything good? Or is there a mighty secret we need to remember about this Holy Day?

The Holy Spirit just gave me a fresh meaning of Christmas. I needed it. I call this blog Silent Night because that is where this revelation hit me.

It was Christmas Eve 1818. The young priest of St. Nicholas parish church in Obendorf, Germany faced disaster. Mice had wrecked the church organ. There was no way to fix it before the service that night.

Father Joseph Mohr refused to give up. He pulled out a poem he had written several years before called “Stille Nacht.” He took that poem to Franz Xaver Gruber—a school master and organist in the next town. The priest asked Gruber to write a melody to go with the poem.

In a few hours it was done, and that night the carol Silent Night was played for the first time.

It hit me. How devastating it must have seemed to them that the organ was broken. But if the organ had been working, one of the greatest songs of all time—a song that has touched millions of souls—would never have been born.

In 1914, the Germans and French agreed to a Christmas truce. Yes, indeed they stopped fighting. They decided they needed to sing. The only Christmas song that both armies knew, was you guessed it, Silent Night.

It is easy for me to get frustrated. We have so many setbacks in soul winning. But I look back and see God making things out of those setbacks. I see breakthroughs that would never be if our original plans had not been ruined.

I look at America and see a moral decay that seems terminal. But millions are praying and have been praying. God will not forget those prayers. God haters beware—The Lord is a mighty warrior with shocking power and wisdom. He can rock this nation at any time. How do I know this?

One night my room grew unusually dark. A stench introduced the evil presence. “I will” the evil one said. “I will have them. I will addict them. I will pervert them. I will kill them.” Satan was talking about our children!

Just as suddenly, the presence of God flooded the room and swallowed the boasts of Satan, “But I will pour out of My Spirit on them and they shall prophesy.” I was awestruck but the presence and power of God. But what really impacted me was the ferocious zeal of the Lord to save America. He is not going let this nation go down without giving the devil the fight of his life. Never forget that on this Silent Night.

This song reminds us that a day that seems to spell disaster may hiding a secret breakthrough. And, the seemingly insurmountable evil of a time still must bow and surrender to the mighty power of God. The world may sink into despair, but the child of God is upheld by the unseen but mighty hand of Almighty God.

Or as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote:

“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

Then rang the bells more loud and deep
God is not dead, nor does he sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

MECHELLE AND I WISH YOU, AND THOSE YOU LOVE, THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER

Posted in American Pastors, American Revival, American Youth, Christmas, Coming youth revival,How Silent Night was writtenTagged Christmas Eve, Father Joseph Mohr, Germany, How Silent Night was written, Mario and Mechelle Murillo, Obendorf, Silent Night