Sep | 13 | An Old Anacreontic Song For Some New Poet Prophets

Dream Word – FREEDOM


2 Kings 3:14,15 And Elisha said,"As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not look at you, nor see you. But now bring me a musician." NKJV 

An Old Anacreontic Song For Some New Poet Prophets

What good is poetry? What good is a poet and an amateur one at that? In an age where words multiply like maggots on a corpse, you can be sure that these are two valid questions.


I remember the first time I started writing poetry. I was not angry when I picked up the pen, I was fuming, I was furious! I was a festering foulness ready to explode. On previous occasions when this sick and angry madness had overtaken me, I had broken things. No, I had smashed things, obliterated them, crushed them, indeed our refrigerator at the time still had a large dent in the door that fit the shape of my boot. I remember the first time I started writing poetry, it was emotional vomiting, spewing black words on white paper. It was a wise money saving adventure and sure beat the heck out of breaking things! The writing of poetry for me then, began for me as an emotional outlet, giving me a chance to pick through the written emotional debris on the page and see what was going on.

This puke-picking practice, revealed patterns in the writing. Rhythmical expressions, which when pursued led to disclosure, led to sometimes even closure, but always led to light! Poetry then became for me a discovery tool, an internal and external communication tool, a looking glass both for me and for anyone who chose to ride with me on the rhythm of the words, weaving in out of the complexities of life.

But really, what good is poetry? What good is a poet and an amateur one at that? In an age where words multiply like maggots on a corpse, these you can be sure that these are two valid questions.

James McHenry, a Scots-Irish immigrant to the Americas, functioning as a surgeon-soldier and Secretary of War under Washington, became so famous that the fort built to defend the Port of Baltimore was named after him. Tonight in 1814, that same fort would see action both for the first and last time as the British Navy would begin a 25 hour bombardment in the Naval part of the Battle of Baltimore. During the attack on Fort McHenry, four Americans were killed and twenty-four wounded. Frankly, though more people are sacrificed on a single one of our highways each week of the year, this fort and this night, looms large in American History and may I say, world history at that. The reason for this is that an amateur poet, negotiating the exchange of prisoners on board the British Flagship, would be detained until the morning whilst the British action began, and then continued through the night.

On the morrow, Francis Scott Key, this lawyer and amateur poet negotiating the release of prisoners, would pen a poem commemorating the ‘The Defense of Fort Henry’ and call it just that! It was Key’s brother in law, Judge Joseph H Nicholson, who would take the poem, put it to a well known British drinking song tune, publish it and popularize it. Over the next hundred years the poem and tune, the popular song it now encapsulated, would slowly rise to such national fame, that in 1931 the opening lines of “Oh say can you see..” would be enshrined forever in the American National Anthem, the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’
I first call upon my American friends tonight, to be gracious to me as I handle some of their most precious words. Taking the last Stanza of this moving poem I would like to draw your attention and all our attention to the last eight lines:

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our Trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

As I write these words, in this year of our Lord, 2007, all Christians must read those ancient words from an amateur poet and weep. The ‘Heav’n rescued lands, praising The Power that preserved them and brought them to plenteous both freedom and pleasant pastures because their trust was in God,’ are on both sides of the pond and all sides, being over-run and decimated with a darkness that comes on ever stronger.

No earthly banners may long lick the wind of freedom’s breezes unless they reflect the glories of heaven and the glories of the Man from Heaven in particular. Our nations are being stolen out from under God before our very eyes and I tell you tonight, that the unless the indifference of God toward us, can be turned to a passionate hotness once more by our own sincere repentance and a hot and holy ardour FOR HIM, and honour OF HIM, our flags of freedom are coming down! Unless our love for Him, begins to glow red hot again in our hearts, in our houses, in our churches, in our schools and in our legislators, I tell you my freedom loving friends, it is Christ Himself who shall puke us out of His mouth, and should this happen, then there shall be little left to pick through.

We need some new music, that the prophets of old may speak once more.

Listen:- You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any stranger who dwells among you (for all these abominations the men of the land have done, who were before you, and thus the land is defiled), lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you. NKJV

Pray:-
Holy words long preserved
For our walk in this world,
They resound with god's own heart
Oh, let the ancient words impart.

Words of life, words of hope
Give us strength, help us cope
In this world, where e'er we roam
Ancient words will guide us home.

Ancient words ever true
Changing me, and changing you.
We have come with open hearts
Oh let the ancient words impart.

Holy words of our faith
Handed down to this age.
Came to us through sacrifice
Oh heed the faithful words of christ.

Holy words long preserved
For our walk in this world.
They resound with god's own heart
Oh let the ancient words impart.

Ancient words ever true
Changing me, and changing you.
We have come with open hearts
Oh let the ancient words impart.
(Michael W. Smith - Ancient Words Lyrics)