Everything that can be shaken will be shaken from within
Better have your house in order when the shakin’ begins
I’m so old I got a metal slinky for Christmas, remember the U.S. bicentennial celebration (barely), and had to choose between Carter and Ford in an elementary school mock election. As was typical of a Christian teenager in the 1980s, I was a fan of Petra, the band many consider the pioneers of Christian rock music. My first Petra album was actually on vinyl, the subsequent ones were all on cassette. While I haven’t listened to many of these songs in decades, I can still remember many of the lyrics. One Petra song that has been floating around in my head of late is Shakin’ the House from the 1986 album Back to the Street.
It seems the song is even more appropriate today than it was thirty years ago.
There’s a rumble, in the distance
A trembling in the air
It’s uncertain in direction
Does is come from here or there?
It’s approaching by the minute
Does it lead you to despair?
Feel it shakin’ your foundation
When you haven’t got a prayer
The people today who don’t have prayer are feeling the effects of the chaos we see around us in today’s headlines. Despair is common as people search for answers and try to find footing in the shifting sands of culture. The answers do not lie in any man-made institution, they are found only with those who know the truth. As Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified”, the answers are found in Him.
You examine your foundation
Does is stand on rock or sand?
When the smoke clears does it bring fears
When the houses fall or stand
In the fire of refining with flames too high to douse
You remember someone saying
It’s beginning in the house
Matthew 7:24-27 relates Jesus’ parable of the men who built their houses on the rock versus the sand. Increasingly our culture and its ever evolving morality is slipping off the slippery slope of complete moral relativism where there can be no right or wrong. 1 Corinthians 3:11 tells us “For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Paul saw in his day the human desire to try to base life on our own thoughts or desires rather than His.
Psalm 46 is a great reminder that God makes Himself available as a place of refuge and strength during times of trouble. We don’t need to fear, even though the earth changes. When everything looks as unstable as the roaring ocean, our immovable God gives strength and stability.
Hebrews 12:25-29 tells us to expect the shaking.
25 See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, i]much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven. 26 And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.” 27 This expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us j]show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; 29 for our God is a consuming fire. [NASB]
God intends to remove those things that can be shaken, leaving only Himself the unshakable as a viable foundation. If you are not firmly planted on Him and His word, decide now to plant your feet firmly on the rock of revelation that tells us that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. You have the answer and are duty bound to reach out to those around you treading through perilous sand. Resolve today to be influential for His kingdom.
But don’t fear when it comes near
And you see the raging fire
If you hold fast it will all pass
Til your heart has His desire