News and Developments

1 – It is time to make your plans to join our mission trip to Nicaragua this July! Our team last summer was the second largest ever. We would love to have you come with us this year. Some are already volunteering and we're inviting you. The exact dates are not in cement, but it will be in the first half of the month. More to come!
2 – It Is Written is in hand! Get your own copy through the website. This is exciting to us, of course, as this is a long awaited moment. This book is an encouragement to learn to use the weapon of the scriptures in our warfare for this world – a conflict in which both sides strategically include every human being. Yes, both the Lord of the Universe and the Usurper, that dragon called Satan, have an intention to include all of mankind in the war. Read this book and make a difference!
3 – "The Best of Psalm of Life" CD is done and available to sell. Go to the website to order your copy.
4 – "Courts of the King" is going to the manufacturers next week. We have completed the mastering and are finishing up the artwork as you read. We have some wonderful liner notes and two new songs to add. By this time in April (on the 15th to be exact) we will have the CD available on the website.
5 – "Be My Refuge" is done and will be ready to release on April 1st. For those of you who don't know, this is a compilation of singles recorded for the Scott Ross Show (featuring the Phil Keaggy Band, Ted Sandquist and Nedra Ross) along with some great tracks recorded by Kenny and Jean Veltz to complete this CD in the very early 80's.
6 - "Far As The Curse Is Found" is finally nearing completion! The CD is definitively declarative and will be a wonderful companion to Ted's book, The Power Of Declaration!
7 - CD's on the way: "Before His Majesty", "Daughter Of Zion" "The War", a retooled "Almighty And Sons" and "The Complete Psalm Of Life Anthology" are in the works and nearing completion, as well as a new album of acousticly accompanied Ted Sandquist and Jon-Mark recording his favorites- maybe some of yours too... Needless to say, we're very busy and on top of it we are planning on building our new studio in the next month or two. We could use your prayers and support!

March 2008 God Views

"The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this." Isaiah 9:7b
"The Lord of hosts has sworn: 'As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.'" Isaiah 14:24

The Lord had a plan for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as far back as the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned for the first time. He knew what it would take and it was His great zeal that saw this all the way from that time to the fullness of time to the coronation of Christ. That took a lot of zeal, but then again, God is zealous. Jesus Christ is now seated at God's right hand until heaven can no longer hold Him and He is released to return to earth. His zeal is still at work even as He waits for the right time. He is passionate for His plans and He means to see them through no matter what man has done or will do. He actually means what He says through to the end.

So what does it mean to be zealous? Of course it means passionate, fervent, enthusiastic and it's opposite of apathetic – something that God never was and never will be. He has no clue what it even feels like to be apathetic, which is dispassionate or indifferent. He is a consuming fire so we know He is ardent about Himself and His plans and we should be most grateful. His zeal for His plans gave us Jesus, a brutal death, and subsequent resurrection that lifted us back to the high place from which we had fallen.

God's zeal to be reconciled with us came through Jesus. God's plans for peace and healing came through Jesus. God's plan for acceptance and not rejection came through Jesus. God's mercy triumphed over judgment through Jesus Christ and these were only a few of God's plans. He has so many more that space will not permit, so read the Bible and see His zeal coming full circle from Genesis to Revelation. We began in a Garden with the water flowing and the Tree of Life growing and we will end in a Garden with the water of the Spirit and the tree of Life whose leaves will be healing for the nations. (See Revelation 21 & 22). When I read those chapters I weep because the Lord's zeal will finally accomplish what He set out to do eons ago. He will finally get HIS heart's desire! I weep for joy for Him and that everything He desired to have, He will finally have.

I thank God for His zeal. I give up if something doesn't happen in a few weeks. There are some things that I have desired for years and I am often on an emotional roller coaster ride of giving up, pressing on, giving up, pressing on. However, our God keeps pressing on and His zeal obviously sustains Him or we wouldn't still be here. He hasn't given up. He has stuck by His plans and purposes and He's not wavering. They will happen.

I want to be like Him in this respect. I cry out for what I call "Omega power" or the power to see things through to the end. Sometimes we understand why people quit but I do believe that right before we are ready to quit, when we finally believe that we can't take it anymore, is when the breakthrough is about to happen. It's a vulnerable point that the enemy knows but so does God. He won't give us what we can't handle, so if it is SO over and we are SO ready to quit, then He will step in. God's View of us is that He knows what we are made of and God's View of Himself is that His zeal will see His plans to the end! Let's pray for His "Omega power" to go the distance with Him!

Songs of Redemption

And they sang a new song, saying,
Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals,
For you were slain, and by your blood you redeemed people for God
From every tribe and language and people and nation…"
Revelation 5:9

The new song and the song of redemption are one in the same. The new song is the Song of the Lamb and every aspect of the sacrifice, the ransom, the resurrection, the defeat of the enemy, Satan, the liberation of the captives and the future and hope he has released unto us.. It is the song of reconciliation in which the prodigal humanity awakens to the pigpen of his existence and runs home to the open arms of the Father. It is the song of the redeemed as we come boldly before the throne of grace. It is the song of the ransomed, the first fruits and all those who have since heard the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation, and believed in Jesus Christ.

Many musicians have searched for just the right sound to make the music of the new song. While I do believe that the Lord is able to create a new sound in the field of music and that we will be mesmerized by the sounds of heaven, nonetheless, I do not believe that is what the new song is referring to in the scriptures. Who knows, I may be making some people worry about my theology right about now, but that is the least of my worries. It is the incredible newness of the eternal message of the finished work of God in Christ that is the new song to me, and that is the song of redemption! This is the song being referred to in a later chapter of the Revelation of Christ. Let's look there next.

Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him one hundred and forty four thousand who had his name and his Father's written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the one hundred and forty-four who had been redeemed from the earth. Revelation 14:1-3

This account of the song of redemption is just wonderful. Consider the wonder of the sound in eternity – sounding like the roar of many waters, loud thunder and many harpists all at the same time. Or was John hearing these different voices in succession, like they were the way different verses of the song of redemption were arranged. Maybe it was different testimonies of redemption's song that sounded so wonderful. Any way that it was, we know that the song of redemption is wonderful!

Just a note here to keep us all on track. I know that there are numerous interpretations of the above passage that just may make some see this as an example of a very few special people singing what only they may sing and no one else. These 144,000 are said to be redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb in the forth verse. The reference is to the same people that the Apostle Paul refers to in the first chapter of his letter to the Ephesians when he says, "In him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose who works all things after the council of his will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be to the praise of his glory." First fruits are an offering to the Lord of the first of the harvest and so in this reference must mean the first harvesting of believers as the gospel was sown into the world after the resurrection and arrival of the Holy Spirit. No one knows the song of redemption until they are redeemed and the first of those redeemed were singing it!

Now my goal in this encouragement is to get us singing songs of redemption any and every time they are appropriate! That would be most of the time, I'd say. You know I think our lives should be punctuated with worship as though we were writing a psalm with our lives. Don't wait for a meeting to do that which our redeemed lives are naturally and supernaturally equipped – to give him the praise he is due, to declare the love and mercies of the Lord, to tell of the greatness of so great a redemption at any and all times.

The following song lyrics are an example of the song of redemption coming forth when called for in life. Dawn and I were on a retreat together in a somewhat remote place a few years ago. We found ourselves in a time of spiritual warfare and in a place where there had been some satanic spiritual activity in the locality not long before our arrival. In the spirit the time and the place were intense. I wrote this song at that time because it had to be said. It is a song of redemption and I know we need to say thede kinds of things to survive. Sing your song – it must be sung!

OUR REDEEMER IS STRONG

Our Redeemer is strong / Strong enough to deliver
Our Redeemer is strong / He is mighty to save
Our Redeemer is strong / Strong enough to depend on
Strong enough to sustain / In the midst of the fray

We are under his wings / We are safe in the shadow
We are under his wings / On the Rock where we stand
We are under his wings / If perhaps we should stumble
We are under his wings / And upheld by his hand

We are washed in the blood / Of the One who redeems us
We are washed in the blood / All our guilt is erased
We are washed in the blood / All our sins are forgiven
We are washed in the blood / We are saved by his grace

We are kept by his pow'r / On the day of the battle
We are kept by the pow'r / Of his two-edged sword
We are kept by the pow'r / Of his great lovingkindness
We are kept by his pow'r / Holy unto the Lord

We are strong in the Lord / We are warriors together
We are strong in the Lord / Side by side in the fight
We are strong in the Lord / In the clash of the Kingdoms
We are strong in the Lord / And the strength of his might

Our Redeemer is strong / He will lead on in triumph
Our Redeemer is strong / He is mighty today
Our Redeemer is strong / He will never forsake us
He will always remain / In the midst of the fray

We are called by his name / As his own special people
We are called by his name / Kings and priests to our God
We are called by the name / Where we give our allegiance
We are called by his name / Who are servants of God

Copyright 2002 Psalm of Life Music, Ted Sandquist