There won’t always be an England

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head?

Of course you have.

Last Wednesday evening, on the way home from our weekly Discipleship class, Mrs. RWP and I stopped at our local Waffle House. Our local Waffle House is a really upscale establishment, with a jukebox and everything. While we were there, the boyfriend of the night-shift waitress decided to illustrate what a big-time spender he is and parted with 25 cents to play some music for his beloved.

As a result, this song (2:29) threatened to become stuck in my brain, which would have been a fate worse than death, in my opinion.

But “Yellow Submarine” did not become stuck in my brain because another song was already stuck there. It still is. I have been replaying one particular song mentally for about two weeks now.

Oddly enough, it isn’t “There’ll Always Be An England” as performed by Tiny Tim on the Isle of Wight in 1970 (1:17).

No, the song stuck in my head is a Southern Gospel song, written in 1948 by a man named Vep Ellis. I do not know why it is stuck in my head; it just is.

Readers, this is your lucky day. I have decided to share this song with you in a performance by the Gaither Vocal Band in 2002. As often happens with Southern Gospel quartets, there’s some silliness at the beginning, but I choose to overlook that in the spirit of Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do and I hope you will too. But these guys -- David Phelps (high tenor), Guy Penrod (lead tenor), Mark Lowry (baritone), and Bill Gaither (bass) -- can really sing. Here is Vep Ellis’s “There’ll Always Be the Love of God” (5:42).

There is one thing in that song that bothers me, though -- Snowbrush, take note -- and it’s this: the last two lines of the chorus do not appear to be Scriptural. Although there is a lot of truth in that song in my opinion, and the tune is downright catchy, when Vep Ellis wrote, “When all this earth shall pass away there’ll always be the love of God” he was misquoting Scripture. The New Testament tells us (three times, in fact, in Matthew 24:35, Mark 13:31, and Luke 21:33) that Jesus said these words: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”

I know; picky, picky. But they’re not the same thing at all.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke used the Greek words λόγοι μου, logos mon, which is “my words” in English.

If Vep Ellis had written his song in Greek, he would have used the Greek words ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ, agapē ton Theos, which is “love of God” in English.

Two different concepts altogether.

Or maybe not. The Gospel of John opens with, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot extinguish it.” So if the Word is God, and if, as we’re told elsewhere, God is love, maybe they’re not different concepts after all. And we certainly mustn’t forget all those instances in the Old Testament where we read, “his love endures forever.” Hmmmm....

Be that as it may, and I mean no disrespect whatsoever toward the Beatles or England or even Tiny Tim, if one of the songs in this post gets stuck in your head, I hope it is Vep’s.

Almost as ubiquitous as the phrase "Oh, My God"...

(which we discussed at length in this post) is a single word that continues to emanate from the mouths of Generation X, Y, and Z'ers everywhere, even though most of them should have long since left behind the ranks of the terminally impressionable and entered adulthood, taking their rightful places in the world of consumerism, materialism, and participation on such television programs as Color Splash and My First Place and Extreme Home Makeover: Home Edition and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader? that distribute goodies, monetary and otherwise, to which they feel entitled.

What was I saying before I so rudely interrupted myself?

Oh, yes. A word. That word is: "Awesome!"

Absolutely everything nowadays, it seems, is awesome.

An iPhone is awesome.
The dollar menu at McDonald's is awesome.
Your new recliner is awesome.
The color of your neighbor's new car is awesome.
Twitter is awesome.
Your parents being old enough to qualify for Medicare is awesome.
Those new shoes you bought today are awesome.
Being able to get away to the beach this weekend is awesome.
The fact that hot dogs were on sale at the supermarket is awesome.
Your favorite carbonated beverage is awesome.

Are you kidding me?

Let's start a campaign to reserve the word "awesome" for things that truly deserve it. Here are a few candidates for your consideration:

A sunset.
A brand new baby.
The ________ Mountains. (fill in range of your choice)
The Grand Canyon.
The night sky filled with stars.
Thunder and lightning.
Niagara Falls.
The Great Barrier Reef.
The Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou beside me sitting in the wilderness.

Someone is saying, "Well, maybe not that last one."

Hold on there. Not so fast. The author of the Biblical book called Proverbs had some definite thoughts on the subject:

"There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four things which I know not: the way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid." (Proverbs 4:18-19)

Now, those are awesome.

My English blogger friend, Mr. Yorkshire Pudding, recently traveled from his home in Sheffield, Leeds, halfway 'round the world to visit Chile, Argentina, and Rapa Nui (Easter Island to you) and fulfilled a lifelong dream of his. Undoubtedly he has added a few new items to his list of things that are truly awesome, like moai and Aconcagua. And, unlike most of those Generation X, Y, and Z'ers I mentioned earlier, he is right. [A correction: I should have said "Sheffield, Yorkshire" and not "Sheffield, Leeds" -- thanks to YP himself for pointing this out in a comment. --Yours for accuracy in media, RWP, 17 Nov 2009]

But I want to suggest to you, my faithful readers, that the most awesome thing of all is the love of God. I know some of you don't believe this, but I must say it anyway; it is part of the contract. Probably the most well-known verse in the Bible is John 3:16; the evangelist Billy Graham used to quote it all the time: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Trust me, that is awesome. Why should God love us? Some of us are real stinkers. Some of us do far more harm than good. Some of us kill one other and boast about it. But God loves us enough that His Son died to save us, voluntarily. The best human analogies I can come up with are organ and tissue donors, who give part of their own bodies to save others, and firemen, who go into burning buildings to rescue the human beings inside. They are awesome, and ought to inspire eternal gratitude in the rescued. But Jesus Christ gave Himself to be crucified to save us, and Father God brought about his Resurrection as a stamp of approval.

It isn't even Sunday, and here I am preaching. Some would say I've quit preaching and gone to meddling. Please forgive me. Here's a group singing a song that says what I'm trying to convey better than I possibly could.

The Gaither Vocal Band

What do you know! Here they are again!

And some of you may be asking, "Why should I love God? What has He ever done for me?"

Keep thinking. It will come to you.