TITLE: I See The Lord (Pt. 2 w/Matthew Ward) <br> <br>Who we is formed on where we’ve been and Christians also have a mysterious element of Christ living in us. Telling The Great Story; I'm Charles Morris and welcome to Haven Today for part two of a time with Christian musician Matthew Ward called I See The Lord. In the next few minutes you'll not only get to hear more if Matthew's life story like with his sisters forming Second Chapter Of Acts. You will also get to hear music from a wonderful project called My Redeemer you can have a copy of that CD and I'll tell you how later. Now, let's begin with Endless Praise: <br> <br>Song: Endless Praise <br> <br>We’re back again with Haven Today normally coming to you from Southern California but today we're coming to you from Colorado Springs and KGFT radio. I'm Charles Morris and with me in the studio is Matthew Ward who was with us yesterday and Matthew welcome back to Haven Today. <br> <br>(M. Ward) <br>Thank you Charles, it's wonderful to be here. It’s a little warmer today, did you notice that? <br> <br>(C. Morris) <br>You never know what it’s going to be like in the Rockies. There actually was a snow storm that hit just before I got here. <br> <br>You just happen to have a few songs that you and your sisters have sung that just keep on ministering to people over and over again. Do you find when you go out to churches and you go to concerts and things that people have two or three favorites that they just kind of know you by and they've come up and they say are you going to sing this Matthew? <br> <br>(M. Ward) <br>Yes that does happen but it’s funny because it depends on what generation you are talking about. I think if just depends on who knows you from where. <br> <br>(C. Morris) <br>If someone knows you from the Second Chapter of Acts days they will know certain songs. <br> <br>(M. Ward) <br>Yes, it would be songs like Mansion Builder and Easter Song and so on. Some people don't know me at all for being in Second Chapter of Acts which I find really interesting; they only know me as a solo artist. It just depends on where people are coming from and where they have heard you. <br> <br>(C. Morris) <br>There is one song that you have on the My Redeemer project; I guess for anyone who didn't listen to the program yesterday, and you can get a copy of that from us too along with Matthew’s album My Redeemer, you lost your parents when you were young and you were the youngest of nine and had left all the kids although your sister Annie had just gotten married – she hadn’t been married too long I guess at that point but then run the clock forward a few years and you get cancer yourself with your own family and you must've been thinking Lord is the same thing happening again that happened to me in my life? <br> <br>(M. Ward) <br>I definitely went through that, but of course I was a lot younger than my dad was when he went through his ordeal, but there was definitely that going on in the back of my mind. I didn’t know how serious it was going to be or what I would have to go through to tackle it and conquer it but fortunately there is not a big history of cancer in my family believe it or not, it’s very rare, it just happened. Yeah, I had the Lance Armstrong thing, the same kind of cancer; in fact I was a distance cyclist at the time so it was probably brought on by the same set of circumstances his was. I was fortunate enough to catch mine earlier than he did, he let his progress and I got on top of mine pretty quick. <br> <br>(C. Morris) <br>When you were going through the cancer and you were worried about the Lord taking you home; you were a believer obviously at the time, there must've been many days where you just were so down that you just probably couldn't even do anything - not because of the physical side but just the emotional side. <br> <br>(M. Ward) <br>There were days I had questions about stuff of course but I pretty much purposed in my heart right off the bat that, this is going to sound so pat, sorry, but this is how I felt, I had to make up my mind in the early stages of that that whether I lived or died I was going to live or die for the Lord. So it didn’t matter, I was hoping not to suffer a lot because I’ve seen people suffer like my mom and my dad and I didn’t want to go through that but I was willing to go through that if that's what God had for me and if that was the path that I had to take then I was willing to do it. I’m not saying that I understood all that because I didn’t. Some of it I still don’t understand. <br> <br>(C. Morris) <br>What about your wife, how was she handling this? It must have been hard for her, did she talk about it, could she talk about it? <br> <br>(M. Ward) <br>She was a trooper. She really stepped up to the plate and she literally took some nursing courses so that she could administer chemo-therapy at home. I had to do two of the chemo’s I was on as an outpatient but one was actually mailed to my house and she gave me shots. She kept my line clean, you know you have to keep things sterile, she did all this and she had to take the classed to be able to do that. That fact that she would actually be willing to do that and not just send me to the local hospital and let them do it was brilliant, it really helped me. <br> <br>(C. Morris) <br>There is a song that is coming on right now and it is on this album My Redeemer, who wrote this song? <br> <br>(M. Ward) <br>Actually it was Keith Green’s wife Melody, and of course he recorded it and made it famous. Everybody thinks he wrote it just like everybody thinks I wrote I See The Lord which a friend of mine from Australia wrote it. <br> <br>(C. Morris) <br>Well let’s listen to the song right now; There is A Redeemer <br> <br>Song: There is A Redeemer <br>Written by: Melody Green <br>Sung by: Matthew Ward <br> <br>There’s a song that most of us know There Is A Redeemer written by Melody Green but sang for us by Matthew Ward. Matthew I am just so glad that you could join us. I understand that at your concerts you are actually going to talk about loosing your parents, and talk about having cancer, it’s kind of a no-holds-bar. Some Christians in general have trouble talking about hard times like that. You don’t have a hard time talking about it, why is that? <br> <br>(M. Ward) <br>Well, I think because I’ve learned so much about what the Father heart of God is toward me through those times when I suffered. I look at the life of Christ and what he went through in his sufferings. The church in general, in America, has a real hard time looking at the face of what it really means to suffer. Because we are like “Oh we’re the Kings kid” “Jump in the lap of God” “Abba Father”, I think we have become real familiar with God to a fault. To me, I think God is someone whom we should fear and I think we have lost that fear in this country. When you look at the scripture that reference the fear of the Lord, it ranges everywhere from wisdom, knowledge, long life, all kinds of things if we fear the Lord, these things come from that. That’s one thing I learned going through this ordeal of cancer, just some of my struggles, I must have a genuine fear of the Lord and then to really begin to trust him and what that looked like. <br> <br>(C. Morris) <br>I heard that you are writing a book. Are you going to write about this in your book? Here you’ve written music all your life and now you’re going to write a book. <br> <br>(M. Ward) <br>There is a chapter in there where I get in this a bit. <br> <br>(C. Morris) <br>Well good, we will look forward for that coming out. There is a song on this album called My Redeemer, well it’s from the Psalms, in fact most of your music is heavily laden with Scripture and it’s that Psalm that we all know, “Here my cry O God, listen to my prayer, from the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I”. How did that song come to be written? <br> <br>(M. Ward) <br>Oh man, in 1977 Second Chapter was on the road (me and two of my sisters) and we had a day off and I grabbed the keyboard player and we went and found this church that had this wonderful piano in it and I asked this guy if we could borrow this piano. I told him who we were, he had no idea who we were but he said, “Well okay just don't beat it up”. We were in this vain for a few months where we were writing songs together, that’s kind of what we were doing. I would open my Bible up and there it was and he started playing this little riff this little line on the piano and I just started singing over and it and it just came. We were done with the thing in ten minutes it was just ridiculous. We ended up recording it on a live album and of course I was probably sixteen or seventeen at the time, maybe eighteen, scared to death and when we did it live to me it was just like the light at the end of the tunnel; let’s just get through this song. The Lord really prompted me to re-record that song when I did the songs for My Redeemer. It was amazing when I decided to do it I started getting emails from all over the place....Hatti, I mean places that you wouldn’t think that you would get email from, saying, “When you get ready to do another CD, re-record Psalm 61, we think that would great.” I had already decided to do that, so it was neat to see how the Lord has used that song since I was obedient to re-record it. I don’t like to re-record songs I’ve done, I think this is the only time I’ve done that. <br> <br>(C. Morris) <br>This was an important song, it needed to be done. <br> <br>(M. Ward) <br>Yes, it needed to be re-done from the standpoint of what I’d been through since the time that I put the music to it. <br> <br>(C. Morris) <br>You’re on the air in Hatti today by the way. <br> <br>(M. Ward) <br>Oh, good deal! <br> <br>(C. Morris) <br>There are a lot of OMS Missionaries listening to you right now and they are laughing as you are saying that--but it is amazing how the Lord will use something, you have no idea where he is going to take it. You wrote it in ten minutes and you were still a teenager at the time and you've gone through a lot even since then but God used this in your life and now he’s touched the lives of a lot of people around the world and back with it. Psalm 61, Matthew Ward: <br> <br>Song: Psalm 61 <br>Sung by: Matthew Ward <br> <br>Psalm 61 sung by Matthew Ward and it was written in ten minutes we just heard here on Haven Today. I'm Charles Morris in the studio with Matthew Ward. Before we go Matthew I'm going to ask you to pray because you're looking back and sometimes when you've gone through such bad ordeals losing both your parents and then your own cancer struggle that you went through, you kind of have to laugh about it sometimes don't you? We have a lot of people right now listening but probably who aren't laughing too. I am going to ask you to pray and would you pray for people that we can't see that are listening and they’re hanging onto your words and they’ve been hanging on to your music too? <br> <br>(M. Ward) <br>Lord I thank you today Lord, that you listen to our cry just as David cried all those years ago, “Hear my cry O God, give heed to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call to thee when my heart is faint.” David was saying, man, even though I don’t sense what is going on here and I’m fading away please hear me now and Lord I know that there's so many that are listening today that are at the place where they feel like a crying out to you God but you're not responding. Lord I pray that you would gird these people up and that you would remind them that you are faithful that you would begin to work in their behalf, on their behalf, in their lives Lord that the work that you are going to do in the next days and weeks ahead are so obvious that they will look back and see that you are answering their prayers so delightfully and so positively. Lord we thank you for that and I just pray a protection over all the listeners today God that you would grant them your peace and your mercy. I pray that they would begin to seek you in new way and that you’re Holy Spirit would pour out upon all the listeners today in new way that you would stir up their hearts that they would want to seek you more and to know who you are in a deeper way. We thank you for that in your name Jesus, Amen. <br> <br>(C. Morris) <br>Amen. This is Haven Today with Matthew Ward who with his sisters comprised the group Second Chapter Of Acts. A friend of mine told me this that when the word gets around that Matthew is in concert somewhere people will drive many miles to hear him sing and so I'm so thankful that he shared and that you got to hear today part of his life story. This may be the first time you heard some of the Christ honoring music from the My Redeemer album and this is part of our ministry after the program. We have Matthew Ward's album My Redeemer on CD along with a bonus CD of both our interview programs with Matthew as just a way of saying thank you for you praying and for your partnering financially with Haven Today. If you want to see more about the album and read about all the tracks that it contains you can do that and get a copy by making a gift to Haven Today. Just go to our website at haventoday.org, that's haventoday.org or you can call us at 1-800-65HAVEN, that's 1-800-65-HAVEN and I'm serious about asking for you to partner with us to help others see Jesus; telling the great story, that's what were all about. You can write and send a prayer request, we would love to pray for you. Our mailing address is: <br> <br>Haven Today Haven Today <br>P.O. Box 79997 Box 6800 <br>Riverside, CA 92513 Vancouver, BC V6B 4C9 <br> <br>When you get in touch with us please give us the call letters of the radio station that you are listening to. I’m Charles Morris and my thanks for joining Matthew Ward and me – please come back again tomorrow when we worship the Lord together here on Haven Today. <br> <br>
