Hymns4Him

The times in which we live can be very unsettling.  We not only read about things that disturb us.  We also experience them that have their origin in our own hearts.  Whether it’s worries about our kids or job pressures, financial woes or health fears, relationship breakdowns or job losses, concerns about future threats from hostile foes or car repair bills, they all leave us feeling very out of control and filled with insecurities.  A common symptom in such times is a feeling of insecurity and helplessness.

So where do we turn?  The world turns to drugs or alcohol, to distractions or denial.  But none of those things will deliver us from the deep-seated sense of uneasiness that confronts us.  We have a sense that Jesus is the answer (isn’t He ultimately the answer to every question, in some sense?), but how does He set us free?  The answer lies at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.  It is trusting Him, not just as a vague sentiment, but deeply and closely abiding in Him and seeking to live in obedience to His will.

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This is a replacement for the old #122 which was recently replaced as #246 – ed

Christians love the Bible’s account of creation in Genesis.  It is an absolutely magnificent literary work. As God-breathed Scripture, it is not only true and beautiful, but also life-giving to the soul. Among the great oratorios of history is “The Creation,” composed between 1796 and 1798 by Franz Joseph Haydn.  While not as well-known as other large choral works like Handel’s “Messiah,” it is a magnificent work for choir and orchestra, considered by many to be one of his greatest masterpieces.  Perhaps the reason “The Creation” is not as well-known as “Messiah” is that Haydn’s masterpiece is not associated with any of the annual Christian holiday seasons.

The libretto (the words) from an unknown author was given to Haydn. He turned it over to Baron Gottfriend van Swieten, a Dutch born Austrian diplomat who, as an amateur musician, was a patron to several composers, including Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Swieten produced the finished version, translating it into German, but using the English King James Version of Bible for scripture quotations.  It is based on the biblical account in Genesis, select passages from the Psalms, and John Milton’s massive work, “Paradise Lost.” It generally takes an hour and 45 minutes to perform the entire work.

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Is peace possible in the midst of difficult circumstances?  In Isaiah 26:3, God promises it.  “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because He trusts in You.”  This hymn study is being written on February 24, 2025, the third anniversary of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.  As the country enters a fourth year of war, the national government in Kyiv has designated this day, today and in the future, to be the “National Day of Prayer” for Ukraine. Our hope for a lasting, just peace cannot be based on negotiating skills of political leaders.  It is based on God’s love, faithfulness, goodness, and sovereign power.  This is the God “who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever” (Ephesians 3:20-21).

That’s why it’s possible to have peace in our hearts even where this is no peace in our land.  That’s not just true today for Ukraine.  It’s been true for believers in every age in history in areas where “wars and rumors of wars” persist, as Jesus said they would do (Matthew 24:6).  Think of periods of biblical history where believers were forced to live in wartime conditions, from ancient Israel facing Philistine attacks and Babylonian conquest to New Testament Judea under Roman military occupation and apostles in prisons. 

The primary need for peace for human beings, of course, is peace with God.  And we have that already, according to Romans 5:1.  The wrath of God has been satisfied on our behalf though the propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus Christ as our substitute.  When we sing, “Jesus paid it all,” we are celebrating with joy the fact that our debt has been paid in full.  We will never experience the wrath of God, either in this life or the next. We will benefit from His loving discipline as His adopted children, but never His anger as His enemies.  This is the peace that has come as a result of our having been reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:18-20), and it is the peace that we can offer as peacemakers in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:9).

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This is an updated version of a previous review (#122). A new hymn study will be released shortly to replace #122 – ed.

Almost everyone is familiar with question and answer number one in the 1645 Westminster Shorter Catechism.  “What is the chief end of man?  Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”  But not as many are familiar with the first question in the 1563 Heidelberg Catechism.  The Westminster Catechism was written in London by English pastor/theologians, and has been part of the confessional standards in Presbyterian churches, especially in Scotland and America.  The Heidelberg Catechism was written by German pastor/theologians in Heidelberg, Germany and has been part of the confessional standards of Reformed churches, especially in the Netherlands and in America.

The Heidelberg Catechism is one of the “Three Forms of Unity” for Reformed churches with a Dutch heritage today.  It was first published in 1563, about eighty years before the English Puritan Westminster Confession of Faith.  The series 129 of questions and answers are divided into 53 sections, one for each Lord’s Day, so that pastors had this structure to use for their preaching through key doctrines each year, something that many American Reformed churches have done in their Sunday evening worship services.  It continues today to be probably the most frequently read Reformed confessional text worldwide.

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One of the most wonderful words in a Christian’s vocabulary is “grace.”  It thrills us (and honors the Lord) to remember what God has done for us … and why.  He has taken on Himself, through His Son, the punishment for our sins, thereby satisfying divine justice, so that He is both just and the justifier of the ungodly (Romans 3:26).  And this has been accomplished apart from anything we have done.  We were incapable of doing anything to earn or achieve, or even maintain, this standing of being forgiven sinners and adopted children of God.

From the very earliest pages of Scripture, we find God to be a God of grace.  After Adam and Eve sinned by their disobedience in the Garden of Eden, God did not pour out His wrath on them, as they deserved.  Instead, He announced a covenant of grace with His Son by which He Himself would rescue their descendants, who had fallen by virtue of the fall of Adam, their federal head, their representative.  It was grace that prompted Him to do that.  It was grace that led Him to save Noah and his family (“Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD,” Genesis 6:8). It was grace that prompted God to come to Abraham with His promise to make Him the father of a great elect nation, more numerous than the stars of the heavens or the grains of sand on the seashore, as recorded in Genesis 22:17.

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The Bible gives us many words that describe the Lord.  That’s especially evident in the Psalms, where we are told that He is our rock, our fortress, our strong tower, our Savior, our Redeemer, our shield, our hiding place, our keeper, our shade, our refuge, our shelter, and our strength, just to name a few.  But one of the most wonderful privileges we enjoy is that we can call Jesus our friend.  And even more amazing is that He calls us His friends!  This is what we read in the Gospel of John in 15:14-15.  “You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”

We all have people in our lives who are our friends and who would consider us their friends.  Friendship is a wonderful relationship.  Our friends bring us joy as we share experiences together, as we tell one another what we appreciate about that friend, and the things we love to do to bring happiness into their hearts.  Friends accept each other despite their mutual faults and failings, they lift up one another when things don’t go well, and they stand up to defend each other when they or their reputations are attacked.  Friends stand beside us when others reject us. Friends speak the truth to us when we are heading in the wrong direction.  Friends sit with us when we’re hurting physically or emotionally.

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In Revelation 4 and 5, we are privileged to read the actual words that are continuously being sung in heaven by the saints and angels, gathered in concentric circles around the throne of God.  The song, in three slightly different variations, is found in 4:11, 5:9-10, and 5:12. In all three, the common denominator is the word “worthy” as a description of Jesus, the Lamb of God.  The Greek word for worthy, axios, is a word that indicates not only value, but also authority, majesty, and power, as well as of great importance and influence. 

The scroll that the apostle John saw in that amazing Lord’s Day vision was written on both sides, likely symbolizing the full details of all that God has planned from eternity for the history of redemption, both in this life and on into eternity. John observed that it was sealed with seven seals (seven being the number of total fullness), implying that its contents – God’s plans – were sealed, awaiting someone who would be found “worthy” to open its seals, and therefore accomplish these divine redemptive plans.

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In past generations, our ancestors found great joy and benefit in being reminded about heaven’s magnificence.  It’s not the appearance (as beautiful as it will be) or the conditions (as blissful as those will be) that should be most enticing to us.  Neither will it be the loved ones with whom we will be re-united or even just the new condition of our hearts, no longer carrying the guilt and embarrassment of our sinful nature.  No, the best part of heaven will be seeing our Savior, no longer through a glass darkly, but face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12). What a tremendous thing for us to look forward to!

When we review literature of the godly writers of years gone by, even centuries before us, we find them speaking not infrequently about “the beatific vision.”  Put most simply, that means the fulfilment of Jesus’ promise in the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount that the pure in heart will see God (Matthew 5:8).  Sadly, we tend to read that too figuratively, when we should read it more literally: that in some way, we will actually see God!  And since God the Father is a spirit and does not have a physical body, this clearly means that we will see God in the person of the Son Jesus Christ.  As Jesus Himself said to Thomas in John 14:8-9, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father; for I and the Father are one.” 

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The hearts of Christians beat with passion for the Lord Jesus, and for the Great Commission.  In a sense, that passage at the end of Matthew 28 could be called Jesus’ “last will and testament.”  But that wouldn’t be entirely accurate, since He still lives among us and dwells within us. His resurrected, glorified body was received into heaven at His ascension, but He promised that His spirit would be with us to the end of the age.  And in issuing this Great Commission, He assured us that we would not be carrying out that commission in our own strength, but by the power of the Holy Spirit.

One of the marks of a healthy church is that there be a widespread missions mentality.  This means more than simply assigning a portion of the church budget to support for missionaries and mission agencies.  That can and does happen, but then members of the church have little knowledge of it, and receive no encouragement to become emotionally and prayerfully engaged in missions.  In contrast, there are churches that promote missions by having a separate missions budget to which people are regularly invited to contribute, by praying for missionaries by name in morning worship, by including brief missions reports in Sunday announcements and monthly newsletters, by holding a missions conference (annually) with guest missionaries speaking to share their ministry reports and visiting at meals and in members’ homes, and by enlisting members to go on mission trips to spend a week or two with missionaries in the field to experience that foreign culture and see first-hand what church planting is all about.

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