Self-examination is one of the most valuable dimensions of spiritual health. Psalm 139 concludes with the request that God would search our hearts. When we make that request, it implies that we will embark on such an examination ourselves, trusting that He would guide us to see what He sees. What are the things we should be looking for? Like a doctor diagnosing a patient, we should be alert to the negative side (our shortcomings) as well as the positive side (our progress). What sins are we still struggling with? What dimensions of the fruit of the spirit are we seeing increase? What deeds of the flesh do people still see in us? What marks of godliness are we consciously cultivating?
But certainly the most important thing for us, is to do all of this with the desire that the Lord would show us what He sees within our hearts. We are too prone to look too shallowly and just see things on the surface. We are too prone to excuse ourselves and think too highly of ourselves. We are too likely to deceive ourselves and to accept the kind words others say about us as fully trustworthy and sufficiently accurate. But the Lord sees us as we truly are. Of course, that knowledge can be quite painful. But it brings the sorrow that leads to further and deeper repentance.
What’s wonderful about all this is not only that He sees deeply and correctly, including all the faults and failures we try to cover up, but that He loves us in spite of all those blemishes, and is ready to help us overcome them and make more progress in lives of holiness. As Dane Ortlund has written so helpfully in his marvelous book, “Gentle and Lowly” (as he reflects on the book by the Puritan author, Thomas Goodwin), Jesus is the physician who doesn’t turn away the sick until they heal themselves, He is the physician who is glad to heal when they come to Him. Satan tempts us to think that Jesus would be angry at us when we sin, and so we feel too embarrassed to come to Him in that condition. But that’s exactly when He most wants us to come and most lovingly and helpfully welcomes us when we do.
And so it is a good thing for us to ask God to search our hearts. We do that when we sing the hymn, “Search Me, O God,” drawn directly from Psalm 139:23-24, expanding on the theme laid out in the opening verses of that Psalm, as it tells us that the LORD has searched us and known us. The hymn was written in 1936 by a Baptist evangelist, James Edwin Orr (1912-1987). He wrote it at the age of 24 following an Easter campaign in New Zealand. During that campaign, revival fell on the people of New Zealand. Midnight services had to be added to accommodate the crowds. Many people were converted. Revival fire spread across the island nation. The key to this revival was the public confession and reconciliation of believers. As hearts were cleansed, the Holy Spirit moved in power. As Orr was set to leave New Zealand, four Maori girls came to him and sang him their native “Song of Farewell” (“Po Atu Rau”). He was so impressed with the beauty of this Polynesian melody, and especially the tune, and still stirred by the revival he had witnessed there, in less than five minutes he scribbled some verses on the back of an envelope while he was waiting in the post office of Ngaruawahia, New Zealand.
Orr was born on January 15th, 1912 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the son of an American jeweler, just three months before the sinking of the Titanic. He was later converted, married, and ordained on that same date, though in different years. It was at the age of nine that he was born again. After his father and older brother died, he had to leave college and work in a bakery to feed the family. At age 19 he became involved in street evangelism. This led to the call of God when he set off on his bicycle on a two year evangelistic trip of Britain with no money in his pockets. Within a few years he was travelling Europe, America, and the world. On one trip he hitchhiked across Korea, China, and India to Cairo. Another time he held evangelistic meetings in 48 states in America in a period of three months. In his lifetime he visited 150 countries to preach the gospel and for a portion of this time he was accompanied by his wife, who was from South Africa.
In 1937 he married Ivy Carol Carlson, and they had a daughter, Eileen. After their marriage, the Orrs evangelized in Australia, China, Canada, South America, and the U.S. In 1939 he enrolled at Northwest University, and in 1940 was ordained into the Baptist Christian ministry at Newark, New Jersey. He received a MA from Northwest University in 1941 and a ThD from Northern Baptist Seminary in 1943. During WW II he served as a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force in the Pacific region. During these years he also wrote several accounts of his preaching tours. After the war he continued his studies and took his PhD at Oxford University in 1948, with his thesis on the second evangelical awakening in Britain. In 1949 he and his wife made the U.S. their permanent base and continued to travel the world promoting church revival and renewal. Having initially studied at the College of Technology, Belfast, Ireland, in 1966 he became a professor at the School of World Missions, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California. In 1971 he received his EdD degree from UCLA. He remained at Fuller until 1981, and as professor emeritus thereafter. He also received honorary degrees from an Indian seminary and the university of South Africa.
Orr was a brilliant man who studied revival movements for 50 years, and wrote about them in more than 40 books, often two a year!, with a circulation of more than a million copies in English and a dozen other languages, including a best seller in the 1930’s. He found that revival had its source in two things among God’s people: prayer and repentance. For a number of years, he worked closely with Chinese revivalist Andrew Gih. He was considered the greatest historian on revival in his generation. Of him, Billy Graham wrote, “Dr. J. Edwin Orr, in my opinion, is one of the greatest authorities on the history of religious revivals in the Protestant world.” Orr was influential in Campus Crusade for Crusade for Christ (now known as Cru), and was one of the five original board members of that organization. A young man once interviewed the old Professor and said to him that he was praying for revival but asked “What else can I do?” Orr immediately responded, “You can let it begin with you!”
Set to the Maori melody, Orr’s song was first published in “All You Need, London, England,” later that year. The tune (MAORI) is usually identified as a traditional Maori folk melody. This simple yet challenging hymn calls upon the Lord to see the needs of our spirits and provide for them. It resonates in the hearts of believers, not only in times of widespread revival, but also in the times when we stop to recognize our daily need of cleansing and spiritual revitalization.
In stanza 1, we ask the Lord to search our hearts. The words to this first stanza come straight from Psalm 139:23-24. They have been the text for countless sermons over the centuries, and are regularly a part of the prayer rubrics in worship services. It is because the Lord knows our every hidden thought and motive, every quiet act and every brazen sin, that we can ask Him to make this search. And we can do it without fear of judgment, because whatever wickedness He finds within us, He is ready to cleanse and set us free.
Search me, O God, and know my heart today,
try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray;
see if there be some wicked way in me;
cleanse me from every sin, and set me free.
In stanza 2, we ask the Lord to cleanse us from sin. Since we know we have sinned, we have a wonderful promise in 1 John 1:7-10 that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When He has done that, we further ask that He would transform us from spiritual dullness to brightness. Orr has written a most beautiful prayer here: “fill me with fire, where once I burned with shame.”
I praise Thee, Lord, for cleansing me from sin;
fulfill Thy word and make me pure within;
fill me with fire, where once I burned with shame;
grant my desire to magnify Thy name.
In stanza 3, we ask the Lord to make our lives wholly His. Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20 that we have been crucified with Christ, and yet we live. Yet it is not us as much as it is Christ who lives in us. That’s the prayer of this singing heart. Much of the hymnody of the church is of this nature, surrendering our wills, our passions, and selves, and our pride to be more completely and consistently His, denying ourselves to take up the cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24-26).
Lord, take my life, and make it wholly Thine;
fill my poor heart with Thy great love divine;
take all my will, my passion, self and pride;
I now surrender, Lord, in me abide.
In stanza 4, we ask the Lord to bring revival to our own lives. While the word “revival” conjures up images in our minds of guest evangelists preaching for a week of emotional services in the spring or fall in our churches, or attending large stadium evangelistic meetings, the biblical idea of revival is something even more dramatic. We find it in church history, as Orr studied and wrote about, as times when the Holy Spirit has been poured out, not only to convict of sin and bring about multiple conversions, but also to continue in using those changed lives to fill churches and transform society.
O Holy Ghost, revival comes from Thee;
send a revival, start the work in me;
Thy Word declares Thou wilt supply our need;
for blessings now, O Lord, I humbly plead.
Orr’s concern was that the study of revivals of interest in the Spirit-revealed scriptures would be neglected or have a humanist interpretation of evangelism applied to them instead. Therefore, his work was done with the hope that Bible believers would be stirred to pray for yet another awakening. This hymn helps in this aim by reminding us that true revival can begin only after God’s people recognize their own sin, receive forgiveness, and surrender their wills to the Lord. To participate in this great work, I must first ask the Lord to “Cleanse Me.”
Here is a link to the hymn as sung very worshipfully in a beautifully filmed outdoor setting.