Waking The Fallen (2003) "I Won't See You Tonight Part 2"

[reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]
As performed by A7X

Come back to me, this is unconceivable
Breaking apart the ones you love
Hate runs deep for what you've done to us
Left alone through suicide...suicide

I just want to die, take away my life
lay by your side, please:.

Look at my face you pierce with a blank stare
No dream could prepare a heart for a lifeless friend.
He's gone. Nothing will take back time.
I need him back, but nothing will take back time.
(take back time)

I can see just fine, you in my life,
there by my side as it starts to fade
I know this can't be right, stuck in a dream
a nightmare full of sorrow
Nightmare - full of pain

I look back and see the twisted road
Best friends and despair took its toll
Take away

You can't be replaced
I'm left alone with you
in spirit and the words
you wrote to me

Sorrow, sank deep inside my blood
all the ones around me, I cared for
and most of all I loved
but I can't see myself that way
please don't forget me
or cry while I'm away

The heart of this poem, after the screams of impotent rage, of enraged grief, horror and the growing realization of what's happened, is the quiet inner mourning

You can't be replaced
I'm left alone with you
in spirit and the words
you wrote to me

For the person staring at the bottles of perscription drugs, or the glint of the razor, or the swirling waves so far beneath the bridge, standing on the ledge watching the ants of cars and people scurry back and forth in the distance, watching the rope hang softly from the hand that holds it...feeling such depths of suffering and an almost elated anticipation of peace just a few moments away, if only I swallow these pills, or cut these wrists, or take two small steps off this precipice, or kick this chair away....

It seems a distant prospect to think of what will be left behind, the train wreck of grief and devastation that everyone else will endure as they try to make sense of suicide.

The hope for relief seems to overshadow any love, any sense of faithfulness on the part of the one contemplating taking his or her own life. But underneath that hypnotic craving for peace is also anger, and suicide is the ultimate take-back, the ultimate last word.

How do you pick up the pieces? How do you get beyond the heavy load of guilt -- if only you had said more, or done more, or been there for this person during those crucial last moments? If only your love had been stronger, if only...

Look at my face you pierce with a blank stare
No dream could prepare a heart for a lifeless friend.
He's gone. Nothing will take back time.
I need him back, but nothing will take back time.

And therein lies the key. King David knew what it was to lose someone to death -- to meaningless death. His soul brother, the friend of his heart, two spirits woven into one, had died in a battle that everyone knew was doomed. But King Saul, who later fell on his own sword when he knew the battle was lost, was obdurate. A man of faithfulness, Jonathan fought by his father's side, knowing he would die that day.

David had to move on. He was king. The nation looked to him for leadership on that tragic day. Heavy with grief, the king wrote a warrior's dirge for his beloved friend. That experience would prepare him for an even more painful wrestling with death years later.

King David's love child lay sick and dying and he was desolate. He stopped eating, he stopped bathing, he stopped being king of his country. Instead, day and night, he lay in a miserable heap, begging God to spare the baby's life. He was just a tiny innocent soul. It was not his fault that he had been conceived in sin.

But God gathered the little one to Himself, taking him back only days after he had been born.

What could the stricken king do? Wearily he pushed himself up off the ground, and went to the table to break his fast. Then he washed himself, put back on his robe and crown, and went out to face his country which needed him.

What can you and I do when someone else betrays us? Because yes, that's what suicide is, the ultimate betrayal of love and life. We mourn, and then we move forward in life. We stop the rings of pain from getting wider by choosing life, and choosing love, again. King David comforted his wife, and she bore another son. That son became Israel's wealthiest and wisest king.

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

Waking The Fallen (2003) "I Won't See You Tonight Part I"

[reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]
As performed by A7X live; or for a crisper rendition

Cry alone, I've gone away
No more nights, no more pain
I've gone alone, took all my strength
But I've made the change,
I won't see you tonight

Sorrow, sank deep inside my blood
all the ones around me,
I cared for and loved

It all built up, inside of me
A place so dark, so cold,
I had to set me free
Don't mourn for me,
you're not the one
to place the blame
As bottles called my name,
I won't see you tonight

Sorrow, sank deep inside my blood
all the ones around me,
I cared for and loved
most of all I loved
but I can't see myself that way
please don't forget me
or cry while I'm away

Cry alone, I've gone away
No more nights, no more pain
I've gone alone, took all my strength
But I've made the change,
I won't see you tonight

So far away, I'm gone.
Please don't follow me tonight.
And while I'm gone,
everything will be alright.

No more breath inside
Essence left my heart tonight (x2)

Some know this pain that saturates the soul, a sense of sorrow so complete that it seems only death can offer relief. Torture becomes peace, agony turns into tranquility, thinking that as life ebbs, so does unbearable suffering.

Five hundred years ago Martin Luther gathered a young boy in his arms who had hung himself and vowed to the boy's parents that he would be buried in holy ground ~ something the church, at that time, denied to suicides. "The devil murdered this boy," Luther cried out to everyone gathered around, as he slammed his shovel into the ground, digging the boy's grave.

Do you think God doesn't know the depths of despair in this song? Do you think He doesn't understand the heavy waves of hopelessness sweeping over the despondent one, or the quiet desparation of the soul that feels like silent drowning? Among some such desolation is called the dark night of the soul.

Jesus knew what it was to cry tears of anguish, to be utterly alone, to be abandoned, betrayed, to seem a complete failure.

It's so hard to get perspective when a person is inside such intense misery. But maybe this will help:

Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death

“God, please get me through this suffering.” Unfortunately there is no short and tidy answer for why you are suffering. There is no formula for feeling better. Sometimes the ready made phrases we say to each other, when we mean well, actually make things seem worse –

“I know just what you’re going through” sounds empty sometimes, when what you’re going through is devastating. “Don’t worry, it’s all for the best” doesn’t help when it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. “It’s God’s will” makes you want to feel angry and bitter towards God, and “You’ve got to stop crying and start living again” doesn’t sound encouraging, it sounds kind of heartless, like there’s a statute of limitations on hurting.

Though all these things may be true, they just don’t help when you’re experiencing emotional agony. When you’ve been in a car accident, you don’t need your doctor to explain to you why you’re bleeding everywhere, or to assure you that you won’t miss that arm after a while. You need your doctor to stop the bleeding, sew you up and help you heal.

God understands. Very often the last thing God will do when you and I are suffering is to explain the reasons why we’re suffering. That’s something He saves for later, sometimes much later. What He will always do, however, is help us to endure the terrible pain, and make it through in one piece.

God says yes to all who come to Him for help and comfort, when they are in the middle of something hard. He may not stop the suffering, or prevent it from happening in the first place, or alleviate the situation in any way. This maybe is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to faith there is, but you and I need to face it head on – God allows a lot of terrible things to happen. Just look what happened to our Lord Jesus Christ. He knew very well the pain He was about to suffer, and prayed “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup be taken away from Me.” At the eleventh hour, the Son pleased with the Father. But He also added “Yet not as I will, but as You will.”

No matter what kind of suffering you have to endure, God will give you a way through it. Not a way out of suffering itself, but out of the hopelessness that suffering often leads you to. The apostle Paul said God will not let you be tested beyond your strength. With your trial, He will also provide you with a means of escape, so that you will be able to endure it (1 Cor 10:13)

The Father sent His son an angel to help Him. God will also help you, and provide for you, to console you, help you and fortify you through whatever you are going through right now.

Death and suffering are not a normal part of life. They may be facts of life, but they are not “good” or “normal” in any way. Something went terribly wrong at the beginning of human history. Life was never meant to be this way, but because of what happened in the Garden of Eden, you and I suffer today.

But God, in the Lord Jesus Christ, suffered, too. He knows, intimately, what it’s like to experience what you’re experiencing, and because of the cross, He can make His power available to you, and to me. When you say “God, please get me through this suffering” He will actually walk with you through the pain and get you to the other side.

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

Waking The Fallen (2003) "Radiant Eclipse"

[reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]
As performed by A7X

Two nights ago I was shot
A bullet sunk straight through my skull
A friend pulled the trigger that silenced me
No pain as I awoke, but dead
Seeing the face of the man
The time as he lays down his gun
I knew this was going to take place
White silence, so peaceful, so numb

No one knows the time they're changing
No one will see through:

You're all gone to me, (gone to me)
I've been pulled out to watch from my eternal sleep
Intuition and a warning to believe (I will believe)
Something was wrong and though I felt I had to stay
Moving on seemed to be somber bliss
Without one goodbye
I watch my Mother shed tears
(and taste the blood she cries
and taste the blood she cries)

No:This gun has stopped time in its tracks
Has altered the course of my fate
Destiny is shattered and timeless
Closed eyes feel the cold winds embrace

I'll watch you call, calling for me,
you can't bring back time...
Close your eyes or look away,
fate exposed and won't let me stay
Hope will fall tonight with broken wings,
descending entity in me

My voice has been taken from me.
The more I listen, the more I have to say

Like a ballad, the poet sings a tragic tale of life cut short. Betrayal comes through a friend ~ we almost hear Caesar's famous words to his beloved nephew, "Et tu, Brutus?"

The poet sees all, the treachery of his friend, the shredded grief of his mother spilling tears of blood, the shattering of his destiny, the desparate cries of his friends trying to call him back to life. But nothing can change the finality of his death.

Now that he is in this spirit realm he senses peace, silence, numbness, the promise of somber bliss. He watches as broken hopes and broken dreams coalesce in his body, stilled by the cold embrace of death. What keeps him here, gazing down on this awful scene, is the wrongness of it. He's been pulled out of what would be his eternal sleep to stay in this strange halfway place.

Now as he listens he realizes, poignantly, that he has something important to say, a warning to believe...but death has taken his voice from him.

How do you feel about the poet's claim that fate can be altered? Who is in control in this story? Not even the poet, but the betrayer, who lays down his smoking gun, having now silenced the voice he no longer wanted to hear.

Where was God? Why would He allow the destiny of anyone to be destroyed? How could any good come from such ruin? How could this tableau be anything different than what we are given to see, the young hero lying in the widening pool of his own blood, his mother kneeling beside him, wracked with sobs, the betrayer shadowed in the background, wails rising from his stunned and devastated friends?

Change the picture only a little and there is Jesus, dead in His mother's arms, John and the others ravaged by grief, dark Judas slipping quietly away.

In the physical earthly realm passersby saw a man shredded by flogging, naked, hanging on a cross between two known felons. His crime was posted over his head, “King of the Jews.” Not much to report, just another sordid crucifixion brought to you by the Roman empire.

But in the spiritual heavenly realm a vast transaction was taking place, immeasurable in size. In fact, what was happening on the spiritual plane finally affected the earthly realm to such a degree that all the light was sucked out of the area, and darkness completely blanketed the crucified Lord. That was heavily indicative of what it cost God to redeem His people from sin and death.

“Redemption” was originally a technical term, used in the ancient near east, in the world of commerce. It was used specifically in connection with the buying and selling of slaves. A person being sold as a slave could be purchased to own, or could be “redeemed” for the express purpose of being set free. The price of redemption was called a “ransom.”

In Jesus’ day slavery was pretty commonplace. You could offer yourself as a slave, which people routinely did in order to pay off debts or provide for their families, and that’s what Adam and Eve originally did, they freely entered into sin’s employ. Your parents could sell you as a child into slavery, and in a sense that happened with the whole human race, since Adam and Eve consigned all their descendants to sin’s slavery. Finally, you could be born a slave of slave parents, and that is exactly what happened with you and me, and all people. We were born slaves to sin.

When you belong to sin, all sin will give you, in the end, is increasing wickedness, corruption and death and there is no way out except to be redeemed by someone who doesn’t belong to the same master. We could never have redeemed ourselves, because everything you and I might have tried to lay claim to by way of payment already belonged to our master, sin.

In order to purchase a slave, something of value had to be exchanged, whether the coin of the realm or some other product that could be used as cash. Peter said that Jesus paid with something that was even more valuable than silver or gold, which, after all, as precious as it is, is still perishable.

Without Jesus you and I would have been condemned to a life of sin ending in death. Jesus did more than dig into His treasure to pay a ransom for us, to rescue us from our cruel master of sin. In order for Jesus to pay what would be recognized by God as the coin of the realm, He had to become a man, He had to have a life that He could live perfectly, without one sin, without one way that sin or death could have a hold on Him.

Jesus substituted Himself for us, He took the penalty for us. In a way the ransom He had to pay, the only ransom that would be accepted, was to give His life in our place, to take all the sin into Himself and to allow the wrath of God to consume our sin in Him. Jesus redeemed us from our empty lives with His own blood, the blood of a perfect sacrificial lamb.

Jesus actually redeemed people to set them free, to give people the choice again to live in righteousness, and to have eternal life. The Apostle Paul said, “You were bought with a price...Therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s”. There is no way we could ever repay the Lord, and what He has given to us is of such incredible value, incalculable value, there is nothing less that we could give back in gratitude except to devote our whole selves to Him.

God has a purpose in the darkest, most awful moments in your life. What is that purpose? Take a risk. Ask Him expecting an answer.

[It's possible the poet was writing about more than an ordinary person]

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

Waking The Fallen (2003) "Second Heartbeat"

[reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]
As performed by A7X

Gone...
We keep writing, talking and planning, but everything's changing.
We all know what to do but know one does it.
Now this time has passed and full of regret.
Two in my heart have left me a while, I stand alone.
When they get back, it won't be the same.
My life, you've always been there.
Now you're gone and my heads spinning.
Left the childhood, left the memories, left the good times in the past.
Moving on your time has run out.
Wishing the clock would stand still, the world can wait.
Wasting away once again, once lived as friends.

As time passes by, regrets for the rest of my life.
The ones who I confide were gone in the black of the night.

Never will I forget you, and all the memories past.
So rarely I get to see your face.
Growing I looked to you in guidance.
We knew that time would kill us, but you're still so close to me.

To me you were my life.
To me you were my soul companion.
Now you are so far away.
Nothing can take away the time and the memories we had.
Come back - to the days when we were young
Come back - to the days when nothing mattered.

Written in dedication to the death of someone close to the poet, but also written in dedication to another kind of death, the death of a close relationship, he mourns

Two in my heart have left me a while, I stand alone

The poem begins with one heart wrenching word,

Gone

and ends with the broken hearted plea,

Come back

One person can never come back, having gone forever into the darkness of death. The other person keeps writing, talking and planning but it never comes to anything, they're just empty words, "Let's do lunch some time," "I'll give you a call."

We all long for permanency, for faithfulness, especially in relationships, yet so often we give each other goodbye instead. Who among us doesn't carry the ache of an ended relationship that isn't really over in our hearts? We knew that time would kill us, but you're still so close to me

What are the excuses? I fell out of love. We grew apart. I met someone else. I'm not that person anymore. I got tired of taking their stuff. Sometimes a person's heart takes a beating early in life, and then the door is closed to deeply trust and love again. Then infidelity becomes a safety hatch from ever loving like that again, and also ever getting hurt like that again.

One of the deepest relationships ever known is found in the ancient record of King David's life. His friend, King Saul's son Jonathan, loved him as life itself

To me you were my life

And in the words of that thousands of years old story, "the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul"

To me you were my soul companion

They covenanted with each other to love each other for all their lives, to take care of each others' families and always have each others' backs. When Jonathan died with his father Saul in battle, David, the composer of half the Psalms in the Bible, wrote this lament

O my dear brother Jonathan,
I'm crushed by your death.
Your friendship was a miracle-wonder,
love far exceeding anything I've known—
or ever hope to know

David had married Jonathan's sister Michal. But Saul had become insanely jealous of David's popularity and was afraid that the people would depose him and make David their king, thus toppling not only Saul's reign, but thwarting his dynasty in bypassing Jonathan. So he tried to kill David, causing David to run for his life. Michal chose to stay behind, and eventually remarried.

These two deaths, the death of his beloved soul-brother, and the death of his marriage, cut deep into David's spirit. He tried to get Michal back, causing the breakup of her second marriage. But Michal only criticized David, and never bore children to him. David found Jonathan's son Mephibosheth, and brought him into his home to live with him as his own son. But Mephibosheth was only the shadow of his father...

When they get back, it won't be the same

Like the poet, David was crying out "Come back!" But the days of the past can't be brought back.

David began adding wives to his household, falling in love, trying again to find that deep intimacy he had known in his youth. But what he didn't do was be faithful. Faithfulness must have seemed too risky. Being true to only one person left a person open to abandonment of either death or rejection. David's faithlessness came full circle when, even though he could have had any woman he wanted, as King of Israel, he took the wife of a friend who was loyal to him, who was out fighting David's battles while King David stayed home at his palace, dallying with Bathsheba.

When she got pregnant, David sent his loyal friend out to the front lines with secret instructions to his general to make sure Uriah was killed...

Broken marriage, death of a faithful friend.

How can there be healing when the wound runs that deep, cuts through even the bone and sinew and leaves a person so broken inside?

Here's the poem David wrote when he was finally ready to talk about it with God, to admit to what he had done, the way he had worked out the terrible hurts he had experienced,

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.

Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.

Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will turn back to you.

Save me from bloodguilt, O God,
the God who saves me,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.

O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.

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

Waking The Fallen (2003) "Eternal Rest"

[reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]
As performed by A7X

Black enchanting eyes,
cut through my heart
with no regret or sign of life
They tear apart my pride
and cold runs through my veins
I feel their stare from miles
haunting every step
and they won't stop hunting me down
I know the time will come,
when all around me's burned
and you'll still see me there
Asking where you went too
and what person brought you here
And why you left the burning children
cold out in the night
and calling for you all alone...

Dark in their hearts,
I can feel it burn inside of me
Tormented young with no souls, haunting me
Pain in their lives all they know is misery
Take these chains away that are holding me down

They'll find you alone
and your desperate and villainous ways
Turning their hearts into stone
they seek more then vengeance
Look in their eyes your pain is their satisfaction
Look in their eyes and see the darkness take hold
Burn for the rest of time

Hear the haunting words
lost children with no heart are crying
and your the lost mother their calling
I hear them crying at night
outside when the planets are falling
They want to feel and know you hear them

Go now / Run and hide
Eternal Rest / In time

The poet now moves from the life of Cain to the lives of those who have died and await the Apocolypse (when the planets are falling), the end of time when all the dead will be resurrected and will stand before the Lord to give an account of their lives on earth.

According to one A7X fan, the poet sings of children abandoned by God who burn with the desire to enter heaven. The poet's understanding of the Bible is that it speaks of children who are born to die, whose lives are meaningless.

Evidently some lyrics are sung in this piece which did not come with the published song cycle:

Look in their eyes your pain is their satisfaction.
Look in their eyes and see the darkness take hold.
Waiting for...)
(Lives consumed by faith, signs of their pure reign,
No sign of fair chance.)
Burn for the rest of time.

According to the cited interpretation, These burning ones have spent their lives worshipping God only to be rejected by Him. They are torn by the desire for revenge yet cry out for God's acceptance. They plead for God to loosen the chains which hold them in death so that, at the end of time, they can finally be rejoined with Him.

What, in the Bible, could have prompted such an interpretation? Who are these burning and tortured children, held captive in agony?

There are two possible passages that might be helpful; however, the Bible boldly proclaims that whoever loves and worships God is also affirmed and swept up into intimate communion with Him. There may be times when a person is estranged from the God he or she has been so joined with, but that connection can never, ever be severed. In fact one of the most tortured men in the Bible, wracked with a sense of his own personal guilt and horror of his crimes, shouted with victory

The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death

If God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms.

It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!

If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger?

The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

NOTHING — nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

If you want to know what the Bible has to say about it, then that's it. God never EVER rejects His own. You worship God, you're in, no matter who you are, what you've done, where you come from, or who else may hate you and want to take you down.

So where DID this idea come from that there may be those who love and worship God, but God kicks to the curb? Two possibilities.

1) The first one might be found in Matthew 7 when Jesus said that not everyone who called Him Lord would enter the kingdom of heaven. Seems like a raw deal, right? But Jesus uses a very important phrase in that passage, go look and see. He says "I never knew you."

Knowing Jesus means being in a relationship with Him that is so intimate He actually has taken up residence within you. This isn't about paying lip service, this is about genuine love.

Jesus spends a little more time on this concept in Matthew 25, giving three stories that show the difference between those who are in this relationship with Him and those who aren't. You and I can maybe fool each other, but we can't fool Him.

2) The second possibility might be found in a very famous passage in Romans 9. Be careful with this passage! At first pass God comes off sounding arbitray and capricious, but if you know God's character, then you know that can't be right. So what's really going on in this chapter?

If you have a Bible, open it up to Romans 9 because it is this section which probably gave the poet the idea that God turns His back on some people.

The fact is, this chapter is about love and mercy, not about judgment. It is God's desire, He says elsewhere in the Bible, that not anyone should pay the penalty of sin. He's taking His time bringing about the judgment of the world because He wants everyone to have as many chances as possible to hear the good news that rescue is available.

So God shows mercy on everyone He wants to show mercy on. Nobody is too low, too awful, too brutal, too horrifying in His eyes. He only sees the broken little girl or boy who needs love and cherishing.

Does God harden some people? This scripture here says yes. Does God have mercy on everyone? Ultimately the answer is no. Yet do people freely choose to reject God? Scripture answers yes without explaining how these truths fit together. God is the sovereign ruler of history, shaping it for His own purposes. There is no power that can resist God. He knows that people make choices for or against the gospel, and all who come to God are accepted by Him.

Why should we be blamed, or any person be blamed, for unbelief if in fact God makes the final decision in our destinies anyway? God’s got the whole story pre-written, why do we even need to show up? Why should we be held accountable if we don’t have any say-so in our destinies anyway?

We actually do have a say-so in our destinies. Yes, God elects, but we are also responsible to respond in faith. You might ask: "Well, look, if I can't believe until God chooses to work in me, then why does He condemn me for not believing?"

Paul answers as follows (look down the passage till you see the number "20")

Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn't talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, "Why did you shape me like this?"

Paul goes behind that question to show its true character; he shows that it is really an attempt to put all the blame on God, and, thus, to make the creature more righteous than the creator, so that you and I, the human beings end up more just than God. Paul is saying that, in effect, this question elevates human values and human standards and human insights above God and saying: God, You used Your sovereignty in an unwise, unrighteous way.

God is a sovereign being. Sovereignty means "the right to do what you will without giving an answer or reason to anybody." Without sovereignty God isn’t God! This question is really saying, or even demanding, that God submit Himself to humankind's will, which would make humankind God. This is the original great lie that the serpent introduced in the Garden of Eden -- that human beings could be God.

Isn't it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans?

There’s no need to take this analogy any farther than Paul intended it. All it is saying is that there is a profound difference between the thinking creator and the clay from which the creator brings forth his creations. What’s the difference between you and a lump of clay? We laugh! Clay has no brains, no heart, let alone eyes, ears, hands, a mouth... That’s how vast the difference is between us and God. We have no more ability to comprehend the totality of God’s mind and God’s purposes than a lump of clay would have to comprehend you or me.

You and I are always wanting to be God ourselves, or at least God of our own lives and destinies. We don’t like that someone else should have that position – Adam and Eve’s original sin. God has given you and me the ability to at least in part understand, accept and believe what He reveals about His purpose in our lives, and we need to be content with that. Only God sees the whole, and from His perspective what may seem “unjust” to you or me will finally be revealed as God’s perfect, beautiful, awesome grace overall.

If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn't that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people.

The phrase above, "designed to show His angry displeasure" is actually more correctly rendered “prepared for destruction.” However, it is actually written in a tense in Greek that can’t be easily translated into English. What it means is “in the process of preparing itself for destruction.”

Who are these people who are preparing themselves for destruction? To begin with, this describes everyone. All of us are born with a sinful nature, with a bent towards sin. All of us start out in life seeking after what we most want, which is self-rule. We all of us were preparing our selves for God’s wrath. Yet Scripture says that God is long-suffering and compassionate, slow to anger.

God’s long-suffering patience reveals the tension between what pleases Him and what He sovereignly wills to do. God takes no delight in death, yet God wills, or decrees, the death of the wicked. God has said He is patient because He does not wish that any one should perish. Yet many will perish, in eternity.

God gives chance after to chance to everyone. Many people hear the gospel and reject it. God’s patience is long-suffering. But it still has an endpoint.

God's purpose was to reveal His power in destroying sin, in being even more powerful than the ultimate oppressor of humankind, Satan himself, enemy of God and people. God's purpose was to show He is able to free His people, you and me, from slavery to that cruel oppressor, and his dominion of sin and death. God’s glory is brilliant and pure, breathtaking in its magnificence, nothing can overcome God and nothing can prevent God from lavishing His mercy and His compassion.

The Old Testament prophets really got it -- here's what a couple of them said:

Hosea put it well:

I'll call nobodies and make them somebodies;
I'll call the unloved and make them beloved.
In the place where they yelled out, "You're nobody!"
they're calling you "God's living children."

Isaiah maintained this same emphasis:
If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered
and the sum labeled "chosen of God,"
They'd be numbers still, not names;
salvation comes by personal selection.
God doesn't count us; he calls us by name.
Arithmetic is not his focus.

Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth:
If our powerful God
had not provided us a legacy of living children,
We would have ended up like ghost towns,
like Sodom and Gomorrah.
How can we sum this up? All those people who didn't seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives.

I wish I could tell the poet today that there is no one, and never was anyone, who loved and worshiped God who ever, EVER, got the back of His hand. Thanks to the Rescuer, God Himself, Jesus Christ, everyone -- and I mean EVERYONE -- has a chance.

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Waking The Fallen (2003) "Desecrate Through Reverance"

[reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]
As performed by A7X

Hard news, taken harder, don't look to me
Disappointed, we don't agree, I don't need your praise...
(don't look my way for help,
from the beginning you came to me)
Never asked you to like me,
I don't want your praise (we won't play your games)
Look down on me, spit in my face,
you're nothing to me:not to me

Darkened eyes you'll see,
there is no hope, no savior in me
(don't look this way, don't breathe this way,
don't stare this way, anymore)
Learned from years gone by, no one will care,
what happens to me
(don't look this way, don't breathe this way,
don't stare this way, anymore)

My presence won't be ignored, no not today
Don't walk in my direction, turn the other way
(don't look my way for help,
from the beginning you came to me)
Asking questions, predetermined answers,
you won't find them here (we don't want your opinion)
And I don't want you, I won't let you think,
compromise is near. 'Cause it's not near.

I'm alone in here
No more feelings
Killed my fears
Don't ask
you'll never know
you're left behind and I'll be exposed

Far away, you keep on trying...
Holding me down, breaking away,
trying to distance my life.
Not one in the crowd, but one with the answer
the one that could change your mind

But it's not true, I don't know you
Don't waste your time, and don't waste mine
I'm not your friend, I won't soothe your soul
And in the end you're all dead to me....

Who is the poet speaking to? He has received some devastating news made all the harder as everyone watches him. The onlookers try to pursuade the poet to change his mind about something, to meet them halfway. They hold out affection to him, hoping that some small part of what they hoped for in him will now save the day.

The poet's response ~ a volcano of rage, bitter disgust, absolute repulsion. He has set his way in his heart and there is now no turning back, no compromise is possible, no love will be returned. Underneath the rage is a sense of desolation, the small boy inside who feels abandoned and betrayed, utterly alone. The only way he can see to survive this roiling cauldron of emotions is to become numb to his feelings, all of them, the love that was destroyed, terror of what he has done, horror at the consequences, his soul stripped by shame and humiliation.

I'm alone in here
No more feelings
Killed my fears
Don't ask
you'll never know
you're left behind and I'll be exposed

Something has happened deep inside him. Born into a sin-wracked world, to corrupted parents, the weight of expectations for granduer placed heavily on his dimpled baby shoulders, he grew up with a sense of entitlement and self-importance.

But instead of saving the world, he brought humanity to an even deeper level of decay, now the tortured earth cries out with his brother's shed blood. He is humankind's first murderer. For as Adam, his father, brought death into the world, so Cain brought death to Adam's feet. Every person who walks across the family's field will remember Cain, the blood of Abel soaking into the soles of their sandals.

Now Cain sees the truth about himself. He not only was never entitled to special favors, he never was any different than anyone else. He is just a man, a sinful man. But instead of this truth humbling him, it acts as a forge that hardens his soul

Darkened eyes you'll see,
there is no hope, no savior in me

Instead of turning away from the darkness, he openes his soul to it, becomes saturated with the inky dye of enmity to all that was before: his family, his life, his God.

I don't know you
Don't waste your time, and don't waste mine
I'm not your friend, I won't soothe your soul
And in the end you're all dead to me....

Why did Cain go in this direction? In fact, why do any of us? What is it about darkness that is so alluring, that seems so empowering?

Here's what the apostle Paul had to say at the beginning of his letter to believers who lived in Rome,

People try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into inanity and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives.

They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.

So God said, in effect, "If that's what you want, that's what you get." It wasn't long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us.

Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn't know how to be human either—women didn't know how to be women, men didn't know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.

Since they didn't bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating...

They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives...cruel, cold-blooded. And it's not as if they don't know better. They know perfectly well they're spitting in God's face. And they don't care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!

How could Cain have found a way back from where he found himself? He burned all his bridges to his past life, even his bridge to God. Every day he chose to keep his back towards God and to build his own Paradise. But could he have ever come back to God? Ever?

Yes. There is always a way back. For whatever bridge Cain burned down, God was ready to build another; all Cain had to do was turn back and around and see. For every passionate and aching Cain in the Bible there is another passionate and aching soul who does cry out to God from that terrified and lonely pit of despair "Please rescue me!" That's who the Rescuer has come to save.

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Waking The Fallen (2003) "Remenissions"

[reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]

With this ink in our skin we've sealed our fate,
and the axe comes early
(only naturally) So what does that matter?
There's a bed of skeletons waiting for me,
on the other side
They're waiting for my next move (next fatal breath)
Human lives to me seem so unreal, can't see through the fog
(nothing past a grey wall) see past the stereotype
Belief, structure built up in you.
I'll tear you down and the one who created you

If they didn't have One how would they act?
If we didn't have hope how would we behave?
Would they still feel remorse
if they slaughtered innocent beings?
Or is hope the only thing that keeps you sane?

A good friend once told me we are our memory
without it we equal nothing
And all I can see is the place I wanna be
Suddenly my life was so free
Leaves at my feet, blown to the ground
their echoes are reaching my ears
Nights coming fast, suns going down
But keep away from me... keep away from me

(it's hard, to keep me in this place, keep away from me)

We may have created the beginning, mentally
We may have created the beginning, physically
To the end of our human existence...

I see through you
The fear that's in your eyes

A good friend once told me we are our memory
Without it we equal nothing
And all I can see is the place I wanna be
Timeless my life was so free
Leaves at my feet, blown to the ground
their echoes are reaching my ears
Nights coming fast, suns going down - confused
I don't know the answers but neither do you

There is a certain sense of fatalism in this piece. The ink is dry, the axe will fall, the bed of skeletons awaits. Whatever the protagonist does in this life, he knows what expectantly awaits him in the next.

As the poem unfolds, two groups of people are revealed. One group has belief and structure, they have a relationship with the One which affects how they live their lives. The other group of people do not have this One, nor a sensitivity about human life, but they do have a sense of hope.

The protagonist had a connection with that first group, that's his memory. But suddenly he became free of them, and though it is into the darkness that he is going, he does not want them to come after him.

He knows where he wants to be (far away from them), and he knows what he wants to do (tear down that first group and the One who created them).

But at the very end of the poem he wonders to himself ~ is it possible that his actions will one day spell the end of humanity? He's confused, he knows he doesn't have the answers, but he doesn't think the other group does either.

If we overlay this poem on the rest of Cain's life and his legacy, a pattern emerges.

Marked by God (With this ink in our skin we've sealed our fate), cut off from his people (the axe comes early), he was still hungry for a personal sense of significance. Cain determined to build something that would be a lasting monument to himself – a city named after the first fruit of his own flesh, his son Enoch. In the ancient area of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the oldest inhabited cities known to humankind were called, interestingly enough, enoch, which is the earliest word for city in any human language.

The technical brilliance of humankind is highlighted in Cain’s descendants. Here were all the ingredients of modern life -- travel, music and the arts, the use of metals, organized social life, and the domestication of animals. It’s all admirable and progressive, the comforts, luxuries, and advances listed here, but that’s not why this passage is in the account of Cain's life.

Lamech married two wives, Adah and Zillah.

Cain’s descendant Lamech appears to be the first to have departed from the original ideal that God established with Adam and Eve for marriage. One wife was not enough for him so he took two, Adah and Zillah, the first signs of sexual excess. You would think nothing good could come from such a man, but it is from his offspring that great cultural and scientific contributions came. One son became the father of nomadic herdsmen, another was the first of a line of musicians, and another was the first of the great metal workers. Lamech himself penned the world’s oldest song.

The line of Cain was the source of much that is praiseworthy. In examining the names of Cain's first descendants, his grandson's name, Irad, means “City of Witness” -- witness to the glory of humanity.

His great grandson's name, Mehujael, means “Smitten of God”: God can smite me but He can’t stop me from being a success.

His great great grandson's name, Methushael, means “God is Dead.”

And his three times great grandson's name, Lamech means, “Strong and Powerful.” Of Lamech's sons' names, Jabal means “Traveler,” Jubal means “Trumpeter” and Tubalcain means “Metalworker” with a special emphasis on jewelry and ornaments.

All these names, and none of them give honor to the Lord. Only men. What does a civilization without God look like? Activity, growth, progress, technological advancement, all God's grace to mankind, yet without God civilization degenerates.

Lamech bragged to his wives of killing a young man who had just assaulted him; he had a brutal spirit, vengefulness, looking out for Number One. Worst of all, Lamech showed a total disdain and disregard for God’s word:

Lamech said to his wives,
Adah and Zillah, listen to me;
you wives of Lamech, hear me out:
I killed a man for wounding me,
a young man who attacked me.
If Cain is avenged seven times,
for Lamech it's seventy-seven!

God had spoken these words to assure Cain that he would not be killed by the hand of man. He also warned men of the seriousness of such an act. These words were spoken to reveal the fact that God valued human life. Lamech twisted and distorted them as a boast to his violence and aggressive hostility toward man and God.

In the end, all of Cain’s civilization perished in the flood – for all its sophistication, inventions and beauty, none of it was salvageable because of rampant wickedness.

We may have created the beginning, mentally
We may have created the beginning, physically
To the end of our human existence...

Cain's true legacy was godless accomplishment and descendants that degenerated into corruption.

[This song explores the poet's confusion over whether he truly believes in God, heaven and hell]

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