The ‘pop stars’ will cry out?

Justin Bieber in concert. Photo: Il Fatto Quotidiano/Flickr/Creative Commons

As Jesus road into Jerusalem on a donkey on His final trip into the fabled city, thousands of Jews gathered to watch Christ’s entrance and began crying out ‘Hosanna’ (Luke 19:28-40).

But there were pharisees in the crowd, and shocked by this display of affection they yelled out to Jesus to tell His disciples to shut up (v 39).

There will always be those who will try to shut believers down. They will try to intimidate and cause Christians to keep quiet. Sometimes it may even work.

Turning to the pharisees in the crowd that day, Jesus replied:

“I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!” (Luke 9:40 NASV)

Though I know God is quite capable of making rocks cry out Christ’s name, I suspect what Jesus was really saying is that if Christians are silenced, God will have the Gospel proclaimed in unusual, unexpected and even shocking ways.

Today many are trying to quiet Christians. Atheists are using the courts to force Christians to take down crosses. They are trying to stop prayer in public schools in Missouri. They are demanding Broken Arrow, OK remove the name of a Baptist Church off the city’s water tower. The name is on there because the church donated the land to the city for the tower.

Sometimes through the courts they may even succeed.

When that happens God says fine, I will have the rocks cry out, in this case a rock star or more accurately one of the world’s great pop stars — Justin Bieber.

I have watched with fascination the past few months how God has been moving on the Canadian pop star. After going through months of constant problems with the police, Bieber, with the help of pastors from Hillsong church, seems to be genuinely turning to God.

It has not been a perfect journey, there have been a few bumps along the way, but I believe the pop star’s faith is genuine.

Earlier this month on his Instagram account, where he has 64.3 million followers, Justin sent out a post stating:

“Remember there is God that loves you and is for you. Be still in his presence He will give you rest.”

This post also included an image with the words of Psalm 46:10 on it, “Be still and know that I am God.”

The post received one million likes and in the comment section thousands of followers thanked Justin for the words of encouragement.

But it is not just Instagram, all of Justin’s social media accounts have millions of followers.

With 78.7 million followers, Justin has the second most Twitter followers in the world. He also has 76.6 million likes on his Facebook page.

But perhaps even more significantly, Justin is sending God’s message to the youth of today. His tens of millions of followers are teens and young adults.

Justin Bieber praying with Hip Hop artist Kayne West. Photo: Justin Bieber Instagram account

In early January, he promoted a very popular devotional entitled Jesus Calling and then in March an image circulated of Justin praying with prominent Hip Hop and rap singer Kayne West.

I also see a maturity showing up in the pop star’s life. In a recent interview with The Mirror, Justin told his followers not to treat him like God.

He said:

“Don’t put your faith in me, because I am going to disappoint you every time. Yeah, it’s scary. But I want them to know that I’m not going to be able to solve their problems… I am not that higher power.”

He adds, “I will never be perfect. I’ve made so many mistakes. I just want to get to a place where…. I just want people to know humans aren’t meant to be worshiped, this is dangerous. Cause it does nothing but give you pride.”

Despite his failures, there is a God transformation taking place in Justin.

A few months ago as we saw Justin Bieber facing court charges for egging a neighbor’s house in California and drag racing in Florida, who would have believed then, what we see happening today?

Is he one of those surprising rocks shouting out Jesus’ name?

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