Waking The Fallen (2003) "Chapter Four"

[Reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]

(give me your hand,
blood is spilt and man will follow
infernal man, punishment too great to bear)
Conceived and born was one of light
Rain and dark, the other born black night

Raise your head and taste the courage
(the one of light)
Fall from grace, unholy night
I've come here to kill you,
won't leave until you've died
Murder born of vengeance,
I closed my brothers eyes tonight...

Its cold tonight as the clouds turn grey
and from my hands to my brothers grave
You took his side, you took his gift,
feel the power of a fallen man, crestfallen man...

Far away in this land I must go,
out of the site of the One.
A punishment sent from his hand
a hardship no one should know
Now go out of the site of the One,
away in this land you must go.

Where has he gone? What have you done?
A voice commands from high above this earth.
From the soil I hear his blood cry out to me
Murder, liar, vengeance, deceit.

Abel, the one born of light; and Cain, the one born black as night. It didn't seem that way to anyone else. Cain was the firstborn, the son of promise, the one Eve poured all her ambition into, her hopes and dreams, her great expectations. Cain's name meant "The One Gotten by God."

Abel, on the other hand, was a frail little guy, the also-ran, his name meant "nothing." Nobody expected very much out of him.

But Abel loved God, and pleased Him. Cain knew he had to deal with God, but there was no love lost there. Cain was, in a sense, full of himself, so there wasn't much room in his heart for anyone else. He felt entitled to God's respect and favor, so when he not only didn't get it, but Abel became the favored one of God...well, there would be hell to pay.

God had "taken Abel's gift, and taken Abel's side," you see. That was the tipping point for Cain. He raised his hand in vengeance against his brother and murdered him. Now, in death, Abel became a prophet whose voice would cry out from the ground down through the centuries so that even Jesus would talk about it. Cain, on the other hand, became a fallen man, an outcast for all eternity.

At first Cain thought that he had accomplished his dark deed in secret. So he must have felt his hair stand on end when he heard God's voice speak over his shoulder,

God said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?"

He said, "How should I know? Am I his babysitter?"

His insolence is incredible. He lied to God, and there is a hint of sarcasm – in the Hebrew there is a play on words to the effect of, “I don’t know where Abel is. What?! You expect me to shepherd the shepherd?!”

God said, "What have you done! The voice of your brother's blood is calling to me from the ground.

Cain thought he had acted in secret, but God had seen it all. Later the ancient Hebrew writer said "the blood of Jesus speaks of better things than the blood of Abel," The blood of Jesus is crying out before God for forgiveness, crying constantly for mercy, for grace to all who come under it. But the blood of Abel was crying out to God for justice. God continued,

"From now on you'll get nothing but curses from this ground; you'll be driven from this ground that has opened its arms to receive the blood of your murdered brother. You'll farm this ground, but it will no longer give you its best. You'll be a homeless wanderer on Earth."

God didn’t take Cain’s life, but He did take Cain’s means of livelihood. Cain was a farmer, a man of the soil, who found great pride and satisfaction in his work. But now that he had poured the blood of his brother out on the ground, God cursed him in the area of his strength and sin. The ground was already cursed on account of Adam; now Cain was cursed from the ground. Cain, in other words, had lost his "green thumb." The ground would no longer release its fruitfulness to him; for Adam farming was difficult; for Cain it would be impossible. He would be forced to wander from place to place as the crops failed wherever he went, unable to make a living.

Cain said to God, "My punishment is too much. I can't take it! You've thrown me off the land and I can never again face you. I'm a homeless wanderer on Earth and whoever finds me will kill me."

The extent to which sin had already consumed Cain is seen in how self-centered his response was to God’s justice – complaining, maybe blaming God for the whole situation. In a spirit of bitterness, he thought God was being overly severe. There is no indication that Cain was sorry he had murdered his brother, only regret that he had gotten caught and was now to suffer some consequences. Cain deserved death for taking a life. But even though his punishment was less than he deserved, he still complained about it.

Cain was afraid that other people would treat him as he treated Abel; either his brothers would take vengeance, a life for a life, or he would be killed for being such an obvious outcast, not favored by God.

God told him, "No. Anyone who kills Cain will pay for it seven times over." God put a mark on Cain to protect him so that no one who met him would kill him.

God assured Cain that while human life meant little to him, God valued it highly, and vengeance belonged solely to the Lord. Note that God did not speak to Cain, but to whoever else was there at that point, maybe the extended family had gathered around by this time.

We don't know what this mark was. In the next poem in this cycle the poet suggests it was a tattoo of some kind. It could have been a visible mark, or it may have been some kind of event that confirmed to Cain that God would not allow him to be killed. The point is, even the guilty person is still God's property! God drew a circle of protective love around Cain and said "Yes, he is guilty. He's a murderer -- but he is still Mine, and don't forget it in your dealings with him."

Cain’s mark was not a mark of shame, as though he were branded in the eyes of others as a terrible murderer. It was a mark of grace, as one protected by God, a mark of God’s longsuffering love towards him, giving Cain time to think and to repent. While there is life there is hope, God extends mercy and an invitation to everyone, even Cain.

But Cain didn't see it that way. He saw it as a punishment sent from his hand a hardship no one should know, in the words of the poet.

God first appealed to Cain’s conscience with a question about his feelings. God promised that He would accept Cain if only he would do what he already knew was right. God showed Cain that the root of his problem was sin, and that confessing the sin would set him free from its power. Otherwise, God warned Cain, he would reach a point of no return.

God could have prevented Cain’s crimes, but what God wanted was the development of his character, and the free flow of his love -- which only happens when God permits the exercise of human free will.

Conviction is not a pleasant feeling, that unmistakable sense that I've done wrong, but it’s also a gift of God. The right response is to confess. Be specific in naming your sin...and do it quickly.

But the human tendency is to run away from God rather than try to seek Him out. When killing Abel didn't satisfy, Cain left God forever.

Cain wasn't banished. He could have repented and stayed. But in the hardness of his heart, he chose to leave. Perhaps the poet is right. Perhaps, as is our tendency, Cain made up a different story in his heart to justify his own hardness. Maybe he told himself he had to leave, that God wanted him out of His sight. Maybe Cain projected his own guilty conscious onto God and condemned himself.

Whatever he told himself, he left forever.

Cain left the presence of God and lived in No-Man's-Land, east of Eden.

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment and join the conversation

Waking The Fallen (2003) "Unholy Confessions"

[Reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]
A7X Official Video

"I'll try," she said as he walked away.
"Try not to lose you."
Two vibrant hearts could change.
Nothing tears the being more than deception,
unmasked fear.
"I'll be here waiting" tested and secure.

Nothing hurts my world,
just affects the ones around me
When sin's deep in my blood,
you'll be the one to fall.

"I wish I could be the one,
the one who won't care at all
But being the one on the stand,
I know the way to go,
no one's guiding me.
When time soaked with blood turns its back,
I know it's hard to fall.
Confined in me was your heart
I know it's hurting you,
but it's killing me."

Nothing will last in this life,
our time is spent constructing,
now you're perfecting a world...
meant to sin.
Constrict your hands around me,
squeeze till I cannot breathe,
this air tastes dead inside me,
contribute to our plague.
Break all your promises,
tear down this steadfast wall,
restraints are useless here,
tasting salvation's near.

One of the themes running through this poem is sin, sin that runs deep in the poet's blood, sin that is the world's destiny, no matter how carefully we try to build it up, it will all fall. The poet describes a turning point in his life. Before this point there were vibrant hearts given with promises, hope for the future. Then there is blood which soaks the fulcrum and every moment after is sin.

The poet knows what he has done. In his mind salvation is getting away from the people and place that's holding onto him. Whoever or whatever is holding onto him at this point is suffocating. Is it his sin? Is it the one who loves him? Is it his old life that no longer fits him? Is it a way of living that he now rejects?

If I overlay this poem of words and music over the story of Cain's life, something interesting happens.

Time passed. Cain brought an offering to God from the produce of his farm. Abel also brought an offering, but from the firstborn animals of his herd, choice cuts of meat.

There are two things to see here: First, this phrase "Time passed" is, in the Hebrew, “At the end of days,” suggesting there was a prescribed time to make offerings. Maybe it was once a year, “at the end of days,” indicating, for example, at the end of the growing season, when harvest was about to begin. The phrase “brought to” makes it seem that Cain and Abel went to a place with their offering – they were to bring it before the Lord, maybe a place where they were to appear in the presence of the Lord. Some have suggested that place might have been where God had set the cherubim and flaming sword at the gateway to Eden -- Paradise.

As an interesting aside, depictions of enormous winged creatures were often used to guard the gates of ancient cities and buildings in the middle east, and when God gave the pattern to Moses for the ark of the covenant, on the lid were two cherubim with their wings over what God called the mercy seat.

Once a year, at the high point of the Day of Atonement the high priest would bring into the Holy of Holies, to the mercy seat of God, the blood of a lamb sacrificed for all the people. Maybe the writer of Genesis was laying down groundwork for explaining later about blood sacrifice, and the sprinkling of the mercy seat, with this earliest scene of Adam and Eve and their children coming once a year to the gateway of Eden, with an offering for the Lord.

God liked Abel and his offering, but Cain and his offering didn't get his approval. Cain lost his temper and went into a sulk.

The offerings Cain and Abel brought to God reveal a significant difference between the two men. Cain's offering of fruit was instantly rejected; but Abel's offering of a lamb was instantly accepted. The writer doesn’t say how God showed His acceptance of Abel’s offering, but in Judges, when Gideon made an offering up to God, a supernatural fire came from heaven and consumed it instantly; the same thing happened later for Elijah in 1 Kings. Whichever way God showed His favor to Abel and His disfavor to Cain, it was obvious. Cain knew it, and Abel knew it.

The ancient Israelites would have immediately recognized the problem with the Cain’s offering. Even though there were grain offerings and wine offerings, they understood that a person could not approach God without the shedding of sacrificial blood. Whether Cain understood this is conjecture. What was really more wrong with Cain was not what he offered, but the condition of his heart when he offered it. God was not pleased with Cain because unrepentant sin was already in his life.

Cain’s character was revealed in his offering. He gave only “some” of what he had, there’s no sense of his offering being from the best of what he had, or that it cost him anything. Instead it seemed like a casual approach to a chore, as though Cain brought what was convenient, so indifferent towards God, that he brought the Lord the leftovers.

Everyone of us falls short of God's standards. The self, not God and His word, becomes the only measurement by which something is deemed good or bad, desirable or undesirable. Cain thought giving God some of his own good deeds would suffice -- he didn't even give the best and first of himself. So often, instead of judging whether something is right or wrong by God’s standards, you and I would rather decide whether something works or doesn't work for us. Sin has affected our morality just as much as it affected Cain's.

Abel’s offering revealed love, the best portion of the best animal, the first of his flock, and the fat portions, the best part. What you and I offer up to God reveals what’s in our hearts.

Later on an ancient Hebrew writer talked about this story, explaining that "by faith, Abel offered a better sacrifice." Faith came first. Abel knew God, and he knew what would please God. And Abel wanted to please God. Abel was all about love.

Thousands of years later, when the rescuer came, He knew what was necessary. Nothing else would do than to give Himself up for the people He loved. God died for the people He intended to rescue.

God’s rejection of Cain and Cain’s response showed a bitterness that already existed in Cain’s heart. Cain felt angry that God’s favor and acceptance, which he felt should have been given to him, went to weak, frail, meaningless nothing Abel, instead. Cain felt he deserved much better and yet here he was getting the kind of poor treatment and disfavor that he felt he certainly didn’t deserve. He was angry at God...and furious that Abel's offering was accepted

Cain felt sorry for himself."How could God do a thing like this? Why would God let this happen to me?" Note God's grace:

God spoke to Cain: "Why this tantrum? Why the sulking? If you do well, won't you be accepted, won't you be smiling?"

Read those words with tenderness. God knew the answers to these questions, but He was giving Cain a chance to talk about his thoughts and feelings

Cain knew what God meant when He said “If you do well, won't you be accepted, won't you be smiling?” In other words, “Cain, I love you as much as I love Abel. I’m ready to show favor on you, if only you would do what’s right. If you were doing well, wouldn’t you be lifting your face to Me? Wouldn’t I be showing favor on you?” It’s not that Cain didn’t know what to do, it’s that he didn’t want to do it. He wanted God’s approval, but he wanted it on his own terms, not on God’s.

God continued:

"If you don't do well, sin is lying in wait for you, ready to pounce; it's out to get you, you've got to master it."

It’s as though God was telling Cain, "Don't treat jealousy or resentment lightly, if you brood over it you will find yourself in the grip of a power greater than you can handle; sooner or later you will say or do something that you didn't intend to. You will go farther than you ever thought you would go.”

Envy did grow in Cain. He envied Abel receiving God’s favor in such a public way. He was bitter that God had rejected his own sacrifice in such a public way. His whole vision of himself and his destiny had been publicly attacked and wounded. He couldn’t stand to look at Abel or suffer him to live. He disregarded God's warning, he refused to repent, he nursed his jealousy and after a while he came up with a way to even the score. "Brother, let's go out into the fields and talk..." there would be no witnesses.

Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go for a walk." And when they were out in a field, Cain killed him.

Often people won’t understand the gospel even when it’s explained. Cain had developed such a habit of self-centered thinking that he failed to recognize God's kindness and love towards him, he failed to heed God's warning about his own pride and sin.

Cain ignored God, because he wanted to serve his own interests. Every time he ignored his conscience, his heart got harder.

So then, in this poem, imagine Eve finding out what Cain has done and what God's judgment is. As Cain walks away, Even calls out ~

I'll try not to lose you

Cain had been her golden boy, her son of promise. But her dreams for him, and her promises of his grand future were all baseless. What could Cain count on from her anymore?

Sin was deep in Cain's blood. It succeeded in devouring him. As he turns his back on Eve, on the gates of Paradise, permamently locked against him, on the grave of his brother whose blood cries out against him from the field where he was murdered, he claims the suffering is more his than anyone's.

Eve's false visions of granduer for him set him up for this fall. Her expectations of him became a stranglehold. He views salvation as leaving Adam and Eve, murdered Abel and God all behind him. Making his own way, don't hold him back.

[This is the poet's bitter lament that love, in his view, won't last]

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment and join the conversation

Waking The Fallen (2003) "Waking The Fallen"

[Reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]

Wake the ones and rise tonight
Fallen souls we shine so bright
Rise now and ever
forgotten memories
No one can touch us

In order to prepare for this poem cycle I needed to review the story of Cain, found in the first book of the Bible, close to the beginning of human history, Genesis chapter 4. Cain's parents, Adam and Eve, had begun their lives in Paradise. But at some point an ancient enemy of God's found an opportunity to undermine Eve's confidence in God's love for her, and the sense of His best intentions towards her and Adam. This enemy's insinuations found fertile soil in her mind and heart.

First Eve and then Adam came to distrust God, putting their trust instead in what they thought was their new best friend, and made a fateful decision that altered the course of human history for all time.

Within a few moments they realized what they'd done, utterly corrupting themselves and the world around them. God put them outside of Paradise before they could make it even worse for themselves by becoming immortal, and thus having to exist for all eternity in their dead and decaying condition.

But now life was no longer the sweet joy it had been. Adam and Eve's decision in Paradise had changed them...deep down, to the core...their very natures became corrupt. They might not have realized it right away, but their corrupted natures were hereditary...it's the only nature Adam and Eve would now be able to pass on to their children, and on down the line to you and me and everybody.

Not only that, their corruption was swiftly infecting the entire planet, so that everything -- life, work, relationships -- would involve blood, sweat and tears. In fact, the very earth itself would groan under the burden of all the death and decay Adam and Eve had ushered in.

Yet God gave them a flame of hope in amongst all the gray haze above the rubble of what their lives had become. Someday, He told them, a rescuer would come who would crush what they now realized was their common enemy with God. When that crushing was accomplished, humanity would be freed from the awful slavery they had sold themselves into. Until then, they would have to live under the heavy weight of corruption, death and decay that they had brought upon themselves.

God left some hints about who that rescuer would be.

"He'll be born of a woman," God said, indicating that neither Adam nor any of his sons would be the father. Only Eve or one of her daughters would be involved.

"He'll be an enemy of the one who deceived you," God continued. That should have been a clue, millennia later, to who God's real enemies were when the rescuer finally did come.

"Our common enemy will make the first strike," God warned. "But in the end your rescuer will crush our enemy."

That brings us to the birth of Cain.

Adam slept with Eve his wife. She conceived and had Cain. She said, "I've gotten a man, with God's help!"

This name is probably to be understood as a play on words. The significance of the name is that it reflects Eve’s faith, it sounds similar to the Hebrew word, Qanah, which means ‘to get’ or ‘to acquire.’ In today’s vernacular this son would probably have been named ‘Gotten.’ Eve literally said, “I have gotten a man, even the Lord,” referring to God’s promise of a rescuer.

Eve understood the rescuer would be conceived by God in a woman, not by way of a human father [literally fulfilled in the conception and birth of Jesus]. She had no idea how long it would be before this promise would be fulfilled. So when her first child was born a boy she must have thought “He’s the one!”

Then she had another baby, Abel.

Not much press on Abel, his name meant “frail, emptiness, nothingness, meaningless.” Adam and Eve saw the difference in their two boys right away. In their eyes Cain was the chosen one; Abel was the also-ran. It would have been natural for them to favor Cain as the firstborn, maybe the one to fulfill God’s great promise. If there was favoritism, it would help explain what happens later in this chapter. It's an easy temptation to favor one child over another isn't it? Looks, talent, personality.... But it's very destructive...it can tear a family apart.

Now the scene shifts to a much later time,

Abel was a herdsman and Cain a farmer

Did Adam and Eve tell the boys how wonderful it had been in Paradise? But now Adam and Eve had to work by the sweat of their brows, farming and taking care of domesticated stock, since that was God’s command to them back when they did live in that beautiful garden spot. When the boys grew up they had to support themselves, Cain went into the agricultural end of the family business, and Abel went into the ranching end of the family business.

I don't know if all the poems in this set have to do with Cain, but they could. I'll follow the next part of his story with the next piece.

In this introductory quintuplet the poet references the end of time, when finally all the dead will rise.

Wake the ones and rise tonight

Spirits of those who died in their corruption, rather than accept the rescuer's offer of love and new life, stand out above everything else. They awaken and will stay awake forever...

Fallen souls we shine so bright
Rise now

...bringing back the forgotten memories of those who were lost.

and ever
forgotten memories

Because they are dead, there is not a single person who can place them back into their graves.

No one can touch us

[Many thanks to an anonymous A7X fan whose penetrating insight is borrowed in the paragraph above]

Cain brings in the first generation of those who have only known corruption all their lives. You and I don't really know what we lost, eons ago, at the dawn of human history. But Adam and Eve did. They carried that grief inside them all their lives. Who knows how heavy the weight of their broken dreams and longing expectations for regaining paradise rested on their son's shoulders. His is a tragic story that has carried through time and will continue to until all stand before God at long last on that dark and terrible day of accounting.

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment and join the conversation

Sounding The Seventh Trumpet (2001) "Shattered By Broken Dreams"

[Reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]

I see you fading away from us.
I'll miss you very much.
Room with empty bottles, broken dreams, and pride still running high, always on your side.
But I wanted more for you.
You can't go on this way.
And now I see it all fall through.
We pray for better days.
Stuck alone and scared.
Throw your life away and now choking on your pride may be the only way.
I don't want to see you like this.
We all tried to save you but missed.
I still feel the hope on your road.
Now come back to us like the days of the old.
I still feel you there, trying to get on top.
You'll always have my support, in my heart.
People you've hurt.
Friends that you've lied to.
But we understand, and that s not (you) can see the end of the road,
I can see it too, for you, I'm scared, if I lose you, I'm not prepared.
This time, if you die.
I watch you, right before my eyes.
Just trust me, and listen.
You have no self control.
This will take your life.
Overdose and then indulge until you die.
Pondering, we all ask the question why.
Broken home, and then abandoned by your dad.
And we are left the only family that you've ever had.
Help you see it through.
Fight this me and you.
Reaching deep inside.
Problems not just you is what we find.
Our friendship makes it mine.

Many of us have lived this poem, watching someone we love very much destroying their life. There are always reasons, aren't there. Broken home, abandonment, pride that won't admit there's a problem, broken dreams that turn the hopeful idealist into a bitter cynic who would rather numb the pain with a drink, or a toke, or a hit.

How do we love each other through something like this?

My friends, you were chosen to be free. So don't use your freedom as an excuse to do anything you want. Use it as an opportunity to serve each other with love. All that the Law says can be summed up in the command to love others as much as you love yourself.

If you are guided by the Spirit, you won't obey your selfish desires.

God's Spirit makes us loving, happy, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. There is no law against behaving in any of these ways. And because we belong to Christ Jesus, we have killed our selfish feelings and desires. God's Spirit has given us life, and so we should follow the Spirit.

My friends, you are spiritual. So if someone is trapped in sin, you should gently lead that person back to the right path. But watch out, and don't be tempted yourself. You obey the law of Christ when you offer each other a helping hand.

If you think you are better than others, when you really aren't, you are wrong. Do your own work well, and then you will have something to be proud of. But don't compare yourself with others. We each must carry our own load.

Share every good thing you have

So said the apostle Paul, thinking about Jesus Who loves us through every problem. Because Jesus sings this poem to you and me, we can say to each other

Help you see it through.
Fight this me and you.
Reaching deep inside.
Problems not just you is what we find.
Our friendship makes it mine

[This poem was written about Justin Sane who attempted suicide and suffered severe brain damage. A victim of deep depression, this song describes his desire for help and his fear that he will hurt himself]

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment and join the conversation

Sounding The Seventh Trumpet (2001) "Streets"

[Reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]

You live your whole life staring at a wall, your mind goes blank sooner now you will fall.
You never learned the things you say to know now, but how?
There seems to be a difference, two different types of kids.
The ones who go out and the ones that are taught to live.
One groups taught how and the other group is taught why.
There's no need to tell you what's in my mind, but in the game of life I'm doing fine.
No reason to tell you which way to be.
Cause the streets have opened my eyes to see.
Look what's happening now.
What are the reasons why and how?
And don't you think it sounds stupid when someone's treated
different cause they're not the same as me or you?

Who's better than who? The scholar or the street fighter? The college grad, or the guy who started working at 16 and never looked back? The one with the manual, or the one who goes by intuition?

Secretly, we play the comparison game all the time. We think the way we are is better, that's why we're doing life the way we're doing it. If we thought there was a better way than the one we've chosen, then we'd pick that other way. But guess what. The people over there think they're better than you and me. That's because the way they've chosen is different than ours, and they think it's better. And so it goes.

Two thousand years ago it was all the same thing. The apostle Paul was compared to the apostle Peter and showed up rather poorly, actually. Paul had all the book learning and certificates, while Peter had three years in the streets with Jesus. Who was better?

"You judge by appearances. If any of you think you are the only ones who belong to Christ, then think again. We belong to Christ as much as you do,"

Paul told his detractors in Corinth.

"We won't dare compare ourselves with those who think so much of themselves. But they are foolish to compare themselves with themselves."

Jesus' brother James knew what it was like to be at the bottom of the pile. Until Jesus rose from the dead, James was a hardened cynic. He openly scorned his brother for being touched in the head with illusions of grandeur. After Jesus rose from the dead, James became a believer, and who wouldn't, coming face to face with God in the flesh, dead and now alive.

"You will do all right, if you obey the most important law in the Scriptures. It is the law that commands us to love others as much as we love ourselves. But if you treat some people better than others, you have done wrong, and the Scriptures teach that you have sinned."

James said.

And don't you think it sounds stupid when someone's treated
different cause they're not the same as me or you?

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment and join the conversation

Sounding The Seventh Trumpet (2001) "Thick And Thin"

[Reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]

I don't want to know.
And I don't want to see you in this place.
Your kind is a disgrace as I spit in your face.
And I don't want to hear anymore.
A friend is f****d with while he's having fun on the dance floor.
Get the f**k out of here now.
Come on you kids, stand your ground.
This is your show, it s your family.
All of my friends there for me.
There's four-hundred more of us then them.
So kick them out.
Keep it positive.
Keep it real. Keep it true.
Together with my friends.
I'll be there for you.
Through the problems thick and thin and problems we'll fight through.
This is to my brothers, I ll be there for you.
Through the problems thick and thin and problems we'll fight through.
This is to my family.
I'll be there for you.

As in several of his works, the poet brings in two voices. The first voice is all approbation, the classic pointy-finger. Suddenly, mid-sentence, the other voice takes over, angry, defiant, while he's having fun on the dance floor

On the surface level, this song pits youthful excess against the stereotype of disapproving parents. 400 dancers with their loud music can drown and kick out those finger pointers. Poignantly, however, the disapproving voice has the last say when this poem is sung.

On a deeper level, the poet has shifted allegiance from his genetic family to his spiritual family. Something has brought these 400 together that makes them brothers who are willing to go through thick and thin together, to be there for each other. As the ancient wisdom literature says,

...there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

So it truly is, on the spiritual plane. Some people will say that blood runs thicker than water, and there's certainly truth to that. Yet it is even truer to say that Spirit runs deeper than blood. Those who are spiritually united with each other know the difference.

This is why Jesus offered His life, represented in His poured out blood, so that by rising again from the dead He could join together those who love Him, with His Spirit.

In Jesus' day there were the pointy finger disapprovers, professional religious types, promoting their institutions and hating Jesus for refusing to conform to their rules. They were the few and the powerful, but Jesus sang to the ones who followed Him

This is to my brothers, I ll be there for you.
Through the problems thick and thin and problems we'll fight through.
This is to my family.
I'll be there for you

[the main theme in this song is about the importance of friendship]

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment and join the conversation

Sounding The Seventh Trumpet (2001) "Forgotten Faces"

[Reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]

Forgotten faces.
Lost in yesterdays realm.
Drained with confusion.
Where did it all go?
Look into the past, look into their faces.
Never, the thought of being time f****d.
But now they're all gone and all that's left is this blank faced picture.
Ninety percent, nothing was done, nothing accomplished,
coasting through life didn't seize the day.
No one ever realized that they're already dead.
By the time you realize, you'll be dead too.
Without another chance to save the world, these things they're gone, your gone, forgotten.
Now your face in my picture frame. It's gone, forever.
Right before my very eyes.
And just when I thought I made light of things.
It slips away, into darkness.
My life passes now I see.
Just what this world does hold for me.
It's getting hard, harder to breathe.
Am I out of time is that what this means?
Well that's what it means.
That's what it means, you and me try to breathe.
Now you. Realize.
Your life, flies by.
Now I. Realize.
My life, I die.

As I listened to the poet sing this song, another song interwove with it, in my inner ear. Another poet from ancient times...

Forgotten faces.
Lost in yesterdays realm.
Drained with confusion.

Everything is nonsense.
I have seen it all--
nothing makes sense!
What is there to show
for all of our hard work
here on this earth?
People come, and people go,

Where did it all go?
Look into the past, look into their faces.
Never, the thought of being time f****d.
But now they're all gone and all that's left is this blank faced picture.

No one who lived in the past
is remembered anymore,
and everyone yet to be born
will be forgotten too.

Ninety percent, nothing was done, nothing accomplished,
coasting through life didn't seize the day.
No one ever realized that they're already dead.
By the time you realize, you'll be dead too.
Without another chance to save the world, these things they're gone, your gone, forgotten.

I turned my head and saw yet another wisp of smoke on its way
to nothingness: a solitary person, completely alone—
no children, no family, no friends—
yet working obsessively late into the night, compulsively greedy
for more and more, never bothering to ask,
"Why am I working like a dog, never having any fun? And who cares?"
More smoke. A bad business

Now your face in my picture frame. It's gone, forever.
Right before my very eyes.
And just when I thought I made light of things.
It slips away, into darkness.
My life passes now I see.
Just what this world does hold for me.
It's getting hard, harder to breathe.
Am I out of time is that what this means?

Life is short and meaningless, and it fades away like a shadow.
Who knows what is best for us?
Who knows what will happen after we are gone?

Well that's what it means.
That's what it means, you and me try to breathe.
Now you. Realize.
Your life, flies by.
Now I. Realize.
My life, I die

It's better to have a partner than go it alone.
Share the work, share the wealth.
And if one falls down, the other helps,
But if there's no one to help, tough!

Two in a bed warm each other.
Alone, you shiver all night.

By yourself you're unprotected.
With a friend you can face the worst.
Can you round up a third?
A three-stranded rope isn't easily snapped

The ancient poet thought about the meaning of life, and all the things we think bring life meaning -- changing the world, being remembered, having wealth, working hard and making a lasting monument to ourselves, being powerful...Then I thought about everything I had done, including the hard work, and it was simply chasing the wind. Nothing on earth is worth the trouble.

Both poets, ancient and metal, have come to the same conclusion. Meaning is found in relationship, in the love that brings union, to breathe together, go through life together, and even beyond that, going through death to new life.

Only one Person can breathe this meaning into life, Whose love reaches even beyond death. His breath is His Spirit, and His Spirit is life, light and love.

[The poet intends for us to see that most people waste their lives, but will not truly see it until they look back from the perspective of death]

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