Some of you will never know what it’s like to be stripped of everything you ever believed in, and be left alone on the outside of the things that you held dearest to your heart, living in The LORD’s House and doing His work.

David said there was one thing that he desired, that he would dwell in the house of The LORD forever and see the glory of God (Psalm 27:4)

Never, never did I dream it wouldn’t happen, that something might come along that would separate me from His people and His Church.

My music was all I had — it was the only peace I knew. No matter what things I suffered at the hands of others, I could go to His house, close my eyes and lift up my voice and heaven came down, and for a little while I could forget everything and everyone and be safe and warm in His presence.

There is nothing like The Spirit of The LORD coming upon you. It is a depth and refreshing that nothing else can compare to.

Satan may have a lot of counterfeits, but that is one thing he can not even come close to. I learned that what they said was true…”once you have tasted of that heavenly gift — you will never be the same again!”

There is a reason why I get so frustrated with arrogant musicians and singers, those who seem to take for granted their talent and ministering in God’s house.

Just how would you feel if suddenly tomorrow, you could no longer sing or play instruments in the House of The LORD? It’s over, finished!

What if it would be years before you ever sang again in His Tabernacle, much less see God’s people stirred as you ministered to the only righteous One of us all?

What about you, Sunday School teachers, Bible teachers and preachers? How would you feel if you could no longer do your work — not preach a sermon, or teach a lesson?

It’s easy to criticize someone and say they disqualified themselves, because they fell into sin or they were weak. You don’t know what you’re saying.

A person never knows what may come their way and just how one will respond. Why can’t we hear the apostle Paul saying that he feared that after all the mighty ways God had used him, and all the things he had taught others that he, the great apostle, could become a castaway?

The messenger of Satan to buffet him. Some of our people have absolutely no idea what that is about and they likely never will, because they have become satisfied with being average.

You can get the big head when God’s using you and you’re flying high. God knew Paul better than we do. I’m getting off my subject.

Oh, does anyone out there really know about how the Israelites hung their harps upon the willows, “we cannot sing our song in a strange land!” (Psalm 137:4)

I sang the songs of Zion in other places, but hear me when I tell you, it is not the same thing as standing before the congregation in The House of The LORD, blessing and being blessed.

I had no idea what the writer meant when he said, “Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel,” (1 Corinthians 9:16).

Preachers, what if you couldn’t preach another sermon — whether you failed in some way, or your place was taken away by the Church authorities who had much less compassion?

Remember the “preacher’s itch?” Can you imagine what it must be like to be so full of desire, but there’s no pulpit or people to hear you?

And don’t you for one moment think that it goes away. It doesn’t. Oh you may go through your denial and in anger think that you don’t want any part of it anymore. It doesn’t work!

What was born in you and placed there by the Almighty, does not go away. Some may scoff at this, but it’s only because they haven’t experienced it and they simply do not know what they’re talking about.

I will share one point and that’s enough. Consider this. You’ve failed, you know your life’s a wreck, you’re an outcast, shunned by family and most of all, your Church.

You’re finished, washed up and you’ve decided to accept your lot. Then, all of a sudden, one night in deep sleep you slowly come to be awakened and realize you are speaking in tongues and magnifying The LORD.

For a moment you forget where you are and what you’ve done. You bask in the beautiful and precious Spirit of The LORD.

To you who scoff, it doesn’t matter to me what you think. I am reaching out to those who know exactly what I’m talking about.

The Spirit is reaching out to those who feel it, that stirring, the thing you thought was dead — but is still alive.

We are living in an unprecedented time. We think because we have been in Church all of our lives we know so much about God and the way He works.

But we know almost nothing of His ways and we never will. His ways are past finding out.

I suppose I was just as gifted and studied as most and maybe more than some, well traveled and all that stuff and in Church since I was was a child and yet I knew little. I still know only a little and that’s just fine with me.

LORD… off the subject again, but see what I mean. The preacher in you just comes out; the songster in you just bubbles up and the notes seem to come out by themselves. You can’t help it!

And then you weep! You cry because you remember you failed and you are no longer ordained, licensed, registered or whatever else we labeled ourselves.

Then those times come when you get mad with God. You stomp out in anger and you grit your teeth and you argue with God.

You try to reason, asking to be left alone and just let you find peace somewhere and somehow. You don’t even phase Him, not in the least.

Jonah got a second time, David got a second time and so did Moses and I wonder how many others gave up on themselves because they thought God had given up on them.

You may think this is easy. I don’t know if I’m even getting across what I wanted to say.

I was weeping hot, bitter tears when I first started writing this, because I heard a minister on Facebook saying to all of us listening to him, that God was not through with us yet! That no matter how broken we have been and no matter what has happened, that God could put us back together again because He still had a work for us to do.

Quite a number have said that to me and I almost believe it. I have almost mustered enough hope together to think it’s true.

Don’t you see? I had to start singing again! I couldn’t stand it any more! I had to buy a piano and start playing again.

Do any of you remember that old chorus, “It’s all over me and it’s keeping me alive, keeping me alive….. it’s down in my feet, in my hands…Jesus is keeping me alive.”

LORD have mercy, I could just get up and dance and have Church all by myself. I pray that some of you never know what it’s like to sit in a denominational Church where the music is dead, the people are half dead and you want to sing, you want to preach and you can’t.

Don’t you see, you sang a solo in almost every service you were ever in, or in the choir, or played an instrument, or just gave a testimony. And don’t tell me to get right. If I ain’t right now, I never will be.

I’m not telling you that I love God today more than I ever have in my whole life. You don’t believe that. So what? By the way, I never got to the place in God where I wanted to be, when I was so active in the Church.

There was so much more that I wanted in Him, deeper places in the Spirit that I hoped to attain. Some might think that those of us who were out of the Church were not watching what was going on in the Church after we left, but they’re wrong.

We watched it get weaker. You can like that, or not. There are those who snubbed, looked down their noses, shook their finger at us and literally walked away from the supernatural, the gifts of the Spirit and the deeper things of God we had sought so hard for, and took for granted the things they had in the house of The LORD, and we cried and we hurt.

You wouldn’t let us do His work anymore and you didn’t have the drive or the fortitude to do it either, claiming to be what we were not.

We tried coming back, more that once. I won’t go there. And even now we’re trying to love you and show you a good spirit. Only God in somebody can do that, reach a hand out to those who despise you, put you down, ridicule, wag their heads… those whom I’m trying to reach, know exactly what I’m talking about.

Who’d have thought I’d ever preach on Facebook? Can you believe it? A door when there was no door.

I only wanted to make some music videos and put them on YouTube. I didn’t even know there was a Facebook.

I beat myself up over everything I write. I read and reread and pray and ask the Spirit to help me and I worry to death that I might have said something to hurt someone, or spoke in the wrong way, or with the wrong spirit.

Why? I can’t tell you what it’s like. God, when you’ve preached on street corners, in jails, sung and played under tents and in every back Church you can think of, camp meetings, conferences…. you miss it.

And you won’t ever stop missing it. And you weep, and you cry, and you forgive some more people and you try harder to let your words be fitly spoken, and stretch toward kindness, because, who knows…. one day the phone might ring, and it’s The LORD and He says, “I got this little job I need done and I was wondering if you might me interested?”

First published: May 29, 2019.

~ Robert Blackburn

---

Robert Blackburn

 

 

Back to Top