Few people have impacted the world for Jesus as quickly as Keith Green did. His life on this earth was only a brief 28 years, but when he was born again, he used his platform as a well-known Christian singer to win lost people to Jesus and fire up believers. Many of you know about Keith, but many young people don’t. Let’s look together at his life of no compromise and introduce Keith Green to a new generation.

Keith Green was born in 1953 in a Jewish family, but his parents raised him in the Christian Science religious denomination. Keith jokingly remarked that it was neither Christian nor science. As a boy, Keith was a natural musician, learning to play the ukulele, guitar, and piano by age seven. He quickly gained the attention of music producers and was signed by Decca Records. Moreover, he was such a talented and handsome young man that he was being prepared to be a rising teenage heartthrob. Because so many other young men were crowding the industry at the time, his rise to fame failed to materialize.

As he progressed through his teens, with his dreams of a music career on hold, he began a search for deeper meaning and truth. Keith said he grew up reading the New Testament and called the mixture of being Jewish and learning about Jesus an odd combination that left him open-minded but deeply confused and unsatisfied.

He ran away from home several times and left permanently in his late teens. He started experimenting with marijuana, psychedelics, meditation, yoga, and various Eastern religions. Keith said, “I thought they were going to satisfy me, and they did sometimes for hours and days, but I’d always come down and say, no, that didn’t do it.” He also said, “I always knew when I found true happiness and peace, it would last.” He said that it was during this time that he was praying and searching with his whole heart.

It was around this time that Keith met his future wife, Melody, who was also Jewish. Melody said, “Being Jewish, I knew there was a God, but he felt so distant.” She was also involved in the hippie drug culture in her late teens and early twenties, but her biggest quest was her genuine search for the God she believed must be there.

On the day Keith met Melody in early 1973, when she was working at a production company, he made the following entry in his journal: “Went to the Matrix Image, talked to Melody. I’m attracted to her. She’s a musician-songwriter-singer-creator. Very challenging lady, interested.” Melody says that Keith chased her like crazy and that their spiritual search brought them together. The couple quickly fell in love and were married in December that same year.

Keith said he came to realize Jesus was the truth in 1972. He said, “In 1973, I started praying to Jesus, but for the next two years, it was another trip; Jesus was another guru. In an interview, Keith was asked what put him over the edge and was the deciding factor about Jesus. Keith said, “In 1975, when I came to the acceptance that Jesus is God, that’s when I was born again.”

Melody explained that she had a tougher time coming to faith in Jesus because of her strong Jewish identity and had to put the pieces together. She said, “Jesus was Jewish, the disciples were Jewish, he came to the Jews, I can do that and still be Jewish.”

Around this time, Randy Stonehill, who was a good friend of Keith and Melody and a great Christian musician, invited them to a Bible study in another part of Los Angeles. They went to the Bible study, and that’s where everything clicked spiritually for Melody, and it was from this time that Keith and Melody went head and heart first into ministry.

For the next few years, the Greens opened their home to the destitute, addicts, bikers, the addicted, pregnant young women, and others of the least of these. It got to the point where they bought the house next door and then five other homes to be able to house, feed, and disciple those in need. At this time, Keith poured himself into his music and songwriting, along with Melody, who wrote songs as well. His career took off, and he became one of the most popular and best-selling contemporary Christian artists of the time.

As I listened to many interviews and read articles, it became clear that Keith and Melody weren’t comfortable with the whole mass commercialization and financially lucrative business that much of Christian music was identified with. They decided they weren’t going to let their music or ministry be cost-prohibitive and began a pay-what-you-can policy for their music. Oftentimes, they gave away their tracts, music, and materials for free, numbering in the hundreds of thousands of items.

The ministry quickly outgrew the confines of Southern California, so the Greens and the group they cared for moved to a large ranch property in Texas. They formed Last Days Ministries there, which consisted of distributing Keith’s music, a popular magazine, and a housing and training center for young people. Keith was traveling to do concerts often during this time and would concentrate on writing articles for the magazine, teaching young people, and equipping them for what the Lord was calling them to.

The ministry flourished for nearly three years and was touching people worldwide. Tragically, on July 28, 1982, Keith, along with two of his small children, Josiah and Bethany, and other family friends, died in a small plane crash near the Last Days Ministry property. Keith is survived by his wife, Melody, and their daughters, Rebekah and Rachel. Melody continues to head Last Days Ministries with the same purpose she and Keith started it with, of making Jesus known.

As we conclude this introduction to Keith Green, I want to move beyond a fascinating look into the life of a famous Christian musician and briefly focus on what made Keith Green a man of no compromise.

As I read numerous articles and watched many interviews about Keith, one thing becomes very apparent. He had a heartfelt desire to make Jesus known and reach lost souls with such a sincere love and boldness that is only found in people who are truly sold out to God and filled with His Spirit. Moreover, for all of Keith’s talent and fame, he was consumed with making sure to never take credit for his ministry but that God alone would receive the glory.

Dear friends, I hope that you will take some time to get acquainted or re-acquainted with Keith Green, his ministry, and the beautiful songs about Jesus that challenged a generation. Suffice it to say that I know you will be deeply blessed and come away with a renewed love for the Lord and lost souls as you reflect on Keith Green and his life, one that he wanted to be a prayer to God.

All for Him,

Howard

Link to our YouTube video, Introducing Keith Green to a New Generation:   https://youtu.be/SSpsJi4OpUM?t=

Link to our deep dive podcast, Introducing Keith Green to a New Generation: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/introducing-keith-green-to-a-new-generation/id1565453348?i=1000703790458

Isaiah 55:8-9: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (ESV – All emphasis is mine.)

John 3:18, John 3:36, John 14:6, 1 John 2:23, and 1 John 5:10-12 all state that if you have the Son, you have the Father. However, no Son, no Father. No matter what false teachers and antichrists are saying, there are not many ways to Heaven, and that our Savior is not needed to be saved. Both are satanic lies.

Besides John 14:6 above, which states that Jesus said He is “the Way and the Truth and the Life,” and only through Him can we come to the Father, Acts 4:12 states, “And there is Salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

A pastor who is much more of a Bible expert than I made a statement the other day that made perfect sense. In 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12, Paul tells us, “The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

His comment was that those who receive the strong delusion are all who heard the word of the Savior but did not choose to receive and accept Him prior to the Rapture. The opportunity was there, but they didn’t take it while they could have. They will follow the will of the antichrist as he will be here on earth, but all true believers up to that point will have been removed. The ones that will call out to be saved during the tribulation will be the ones that, for whatever reason, will not have had the opportunity to learn about Jesus prior to the Rapture. Those who do receive and accept Jesus during that time most likely will be martyred for their faith.

In 2003, Roger Bennett of Legacy Five wrote a song, “I Found Grace.” Consider his message.

1.)  Oh, I found grace at the foot of a rugged cross on Calvary. I found grace with the awesome power to set the captive free. I found grace, sustaining grace; I found grace, redeeming grace. Yes, I found grace, fulfilling, indwelling grace, amazing grace to meet my need.

2.)  I sought for wisdom in the ways of this world, but no wisdom could be found. I sought for meaning in the words of great men, but their words just let me down. Not seeking justice for the things that I’d done, my soul needed mercy, and I found it in God’s Son.

3.) Give up the search; it’s a useless dream you’re chasing. You’ll find no peace until you seek His face. The answer’s right before you at the foot of the cross; you’ll find that it’s a holy place. Confess your sins and lay them all down, pick up your cross and let Jesus turn your life around.

4.) Trying to find grace and mercy through worldly resources is futile. At most, it would be temporary and ultimately a losing prospect. We would have to constantly do more and more works to try and keep ahead.

Roger’s song follows Romans 10:9-13, which tells us to admit and confess we’re all sinners and cannot possibly save ourselves. We need to believe that Jesus is the only way we can receive forgiveness by our confession to Him and asking His forgiveness. All who truly do call on the Savior will be saved. He will send the Holy Spirit to live within us until it’s time for us to leave this earth, either by death or by the Rapture.

All who belong to our Savior’s precious flock will not go through the tribulation. We’re told in 1 Corinthians 15:51-53 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 that in the “twinkling of an eye” all true believers will be taken up to meet our Jesus in the air. Those who were in Christ when they died will rise up first, followed by those who are still alive at the trumpet of God and shout from an archangel. This is further promised by the Father in 1 Thessalonians 1:10, 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10, and Revelation 3:10.

For the skeptics that say there has to be some sort of works or cost that we have to keep up with, there’s Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Our part is to receive and accept the free gift that our Jesus paid so dearly for at Calvary. His suffering should have been ours, yet because of the love our triune God has for us, He did not count it as loss. This is also why the Father will allow us to choose our eternal destination of Heaven or hell.

All who will have Jesus as their eternal Shepherd will attend the Judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10) to receive or lose rewards for what we did while still in human bodies. No matter what, after this judgment, we are still going to be with Jesus in Heaven forever.

On the other hand, all who did not truly have the Son of God as their Savior will attend the Great White Throne Judgment of Revelation 20:11-15. This judgment will be to determine the degree of eternal punishment each person there will receive in the lake of fire. Satan will already be there suffering the worst punishment of all forever. There are no pardons or suspended sentences there. The commitment is forever!

God will force no one as to which eternity they will choose, and those two choices are the only ones that will be. There are no other options, Period!

Consider that this world is getting closer and closer to the end of this age, as evidenced by end-time prophecy being fulfilled. Now, consider which eternity you wish to be in. Today, it would not be too early to call on our Savior to forgive you and to provide a Home in Heaven for you with Him forever. He will prepare a place for each one who truly calls on Him (John 14:1-3).

Your Choice: Know Jesus; Know Rapture; Know Heaven. Or, No Jesus, no Rapture, no Heaven. Choose Wisely!

Shalom!

huebshman46@gmail.com