Dylan is still asking: “When You Gonna Wake Up?”

Here is the final video from Dylan’s 1979 SNL appearance. And how timely is this song! Say what you want about Dylan’s voice, the genius in his music is its lasting quality, it’s prophetic edge, it’s ability to speak for a generation and for future generations. Do you think anybody will be singing or thinking about Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable,” which is #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 list today.
Give me a break.

Why is Dylan prophetic?
Two more Colorado churches have experience moral failures after news of Ted Haggard’s sins became front page news over a month ago. A youth pastorin Greenwood Village was arrested after it was discovered that he “sexually involved” with a 16 year old girl.

And more recently, Paul Barnes, senior pastor at Grace Chapel in Englewood resigned from his position after 28 years admitting that he has had sexual relationships with men and that “I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a 5-year-old boy….I can’t tell you the number of nights I have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away.”

oh boy….God help us…

When I was talking with a friend about the Ted Haggard situation, he reminded me that Jesus came with both grace and truth (John 1:8). My response to moral failure continues to be grace and truth. On the side of grace, I have stones to throw. My heart does break for the men, their families and the churches when these thing happen. I was tempted to email one of the churches, just to send them a word of encouragement, like Paul did any many of his epistles. It seems that what is trying to tear the church a part is not persecution and false doctrine that attacked to apostolic church, but sin within church leadership.

I can hear Dylan ringing in from 1979’s Slow Train Coming. Look at how prophetic these words are. Will we ever wake up???

When You Gonna Wake Up?
Bob Dylan

…Adulterers in churches and pornography in the schools,
You got gangsters in power and lawbreakers making rules.

When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?

Spiritual advisors and gurus to guide your every move,
Instant inner peace and every step you take has got to be approved.

When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?

Do you ever wonder just what God requires?
You think He’s just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires.

When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?

There’s a Man up on a cross and He’s been crucified.
Do you have any idea why or for who He died?

When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?

Dylan is a bard in the truest sense. [Bard: noun: poet-prophet, declaimer of epic or heroic verse] He is able to go deep and “rip off the lid before its time.” It would seem to me that Dylan’s question is still being asked: When are we gonna wake up and see that God is not there just to satisfy our desires? When are we gonna wake up and see that the way to freedom is through the cross?