Hymns4Him

Originally published as #71, this study has been revised and republished as #169. -ed

“God’s works of providence are His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions.”  So reads the answer to question number 11 in the Westminster Shorter Catechism.  What a wonderful truth this is!  It is what we find throughout Scripture and throughout history, and even our own lives. How many examples can we recall where we may not have seen it at the time, but now that we are looking back on events we can recognize that God was at work, controlling what was happening and all according to His perfect and complete plan?  In retrospect, we can see His fingerprints in what has occurred. That reassures us that whatever may be happing in our lives and in our world at any moment, it is all working out exactly according to plan … according to His plan, Him who “works all things according to the design of His will” (Ephesians 1:11).

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What greater theme can there be in our hymnody than the greatness of God?  That is the central truth in this hymn by the British hymn-writer Timothy Dudley-Smith, a retired evangelical bishop of the Church of England.  Author of more than 400 hymns, he was born in 1926 in Manchester.   He studied math and theology at Pembroke College, Cambridge.  After graduating in 1947, he began his ordination trained at Ridley Hall, Cambridge and was then ordained a deacon in 1950 and a priest in 1951.  That theological college was named after Nicholas Ridley, the sixteenth century bishop martyred during the reign of “Bloody Mary,” it is an evangelical training school for Anglican clergy.

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One of the lingering practices of the revivals and crusade meetings in recent centuries (like those of Charles G. Finney, Dwight L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and others) was the invitation hymn at the end of the service.  Best known among those, perhaps, was “Just As I Am,” sung at the conclusion of every one of Billy Graham’s crusades across the world.  In many churches with a revivalistic heritage it is expected that every service will conclude with an evangelistic invitation, and a hymn as people are encouraged to come forward to signify their decision to receive Christ as Savior.

While every true church is committed to evangelism and to inviting unbelievers to respond to the gospel, not every church is comfortable with this particular practice.  That is especially so when the words spoken by the pastor give the impression that the act of coming forward is proof that the person has been born again.  That is evident in the way in many such situations the person who has come forward is baptized on the spot and is immediately enrolled as a member of the church.  But rather than telling them that they are now saved (“and don’t ever doubt it!”), those churches in a Reformed tradition will prefer to describe such a person as “a hopeful convert,” needing time to see if they have truly understood the gospel and are showing evidence of growing in that conviction and the new lifestyle of the redeemed as they are discipled.

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One of the ways a Christian’s funeral service can testify to the promise of the gospel is through the hymns that are selected for congregational singing.  If we choose to do so, every one of us has the ability to testify to our faith in the Lord by meeting with our pastor and family members to plan our funeral service ahead of time.  That would include not only the location and leadership, and the scriptures to be read and persons to speak and the theme of the message, but also the hymns to be sung.  The best choices will not merely be songs that have been our favorites, but songs that best communicate the faith that has sustained us on our journey toward glory, hymns that are valuable, not because of their sentimental value, but because of the glorious truths we want everyone to remember, and especially that communicate the gospel that unbelievers need to hear.

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Mercy is one of the attributes of God.  And the Bible has much to say about showing mercy to those in need.   One of the best-known passages about this is Micah 6:8, “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (KJV).  How challenging to see that He has said that not only are we to “do” mercy, but actually to “love” mercy!  As an attribute of God, we see it in the way He acts with such patience and kindness to those in need.  Mercy is not only a divine quality that is at the very heart of God in His grace; it is also a quality which we should be cultivating.  For example, think of the way Isaiah so often points to the treatment of the widow and the orphan as evidence of the way He expects His people to respond to those who are hurting.  And in Hosea 6:6 we read that without a heart of mercy, our rituals of worship are displeasing to the Lord.  “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”  And we read the same thing in even stronger terms in Isaiah 1:13-15.

Bring no more vain offerings;
    incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—
    I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
Your new moons and your appointed feasts
    my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me;
    I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands,
    I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
    I will not listen;

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“May Jesus Christ be praised!”  This should be our prayer every day as we awaken, the desire of our hearts that in this and every day, we would think and act and live in such a way that Jesus Christ would be praised.  That’s at the center of the hymn “When Morning Gilds the Skies.”  We sing that request twelve times in the six stanzas found in most hymnals today.  And if your hymnal includes more of the 14 stanzas available, you will sing that phrase 28 times!

The hymn is based on an anonymous German hymn from the 18^th century. “Beim frühen Morgenlicht” (“With the early morning light”) is the opening line of the original German hymn. While we are uncertain of the exact origins of the text, it first appeared in “Catholic Songbook for Public Worship in the [locale of] Biszthume, Würzburg.” It appears in an altered version in an 1855 Franconian collection of folksongs, “Frankische Völkslieder.” Our English versions are not so much a literal translation of the original as they are a new poetic creation based on themes from the original.

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No, not a diet of bones, but of Bonars, Horatius Bonars, that is.  Horatius Bonar’s hymns are some of the most beloved songs that we find in our hymnals and in our repertoire of evangelical singing.  A congregation will be well fed on a diet of the great truths he has so wonderfully expressed in his hymn texts.  In the British Isles and in America, it would not be difficult to identify nearly 100 of his hymns that continue in use today.  These would include “O Love of God, How Strong and True;” “Blessing and Honor and Glory and Power;” “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say;” “Here, O My Lord, I See Thee Face to Face;” “Not What My Hands Have Done;” “I Was a Wandering Sheep;” “No, Not Despairingly Come I to Thee;” “Thy Works, Not Mine, O Christ;” “A Few More Years Shall Roll;” “Go, Labor On;” “Fill Thou My Life, O Lord My God;” “When the Weary Seeking Rest;” and “Thy Way, Not Mine, O Lord.”

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The goal of the Christian life should not just be wanting to get ourselves to heaven.  No, it should be that of honoring God by seeking to be more like Jesus.  That’s clearly what Paul was seeking as he wrote to the Philippians from his Roman imprisonment.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11)

Many regard this as an early Christian hymn because of its literary elegance and poetic rhythm.  It is a major theological statement, as it describes first, Jesus’ humiliation (“even death on a cross”), and then second, His exaltation (“highly exalted Him”).  That is the pattern we can expect in our lives: first being humbled as we struggle with sin in this present evil age, and then second as the Father promises to raise us up in exalted glory in the heavens. 

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Philip Bliss (1838 – 1876) is one of the greatest names in American hymnody, especially in gospel songs, second only to one of his peers, Fanny Crosby (1820-1915).  Every hymnal published in America in the last century will be found to contain numerous hymns by Bliss.  These will include both words and music for “I Am So Glad That Our Father in Heaven,” “Man of Sorrows, What a Name,” “The Light of the World Is Jesus,” “Dare to Be a Daniel,” “Let the Lower Lights Be Burning,” and “Wonderful Words of Life.” In addition to those, he wrote words for “With Harps and with Viols” and music for “It Is Well with My Soul,” all these and more written just during the 12 years before his death.

One of his best-known is the focus of this study” I Will Sing of My Redeemer,” probably the last hymn that he wrote before his tragic death. 

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For many of us, one of the first prayers we learned as little children was after the sun went down, as we knelt with our parents beside our bed, asking the Lord to grant us sleep as He watched over us through the night.  We prayed …

Now I lay me down to sleep.  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

How wonderful to know that while troubles swirl around us, we can trust the Lord to keep us secure under His powerful, watchful care.

In Psalm 4, we call on the Lord to come to our aid when we are in distress.  “Be gracious to me and hear my prayer” (vs. 1).   “Lift up the light of Your face upon us, O LORD!” (vs. 6).  And in the awareness of all the hostile challenges that are arrayed against us, we rest in the confidence that He will care for us as we rest peacefully, trusting in His fatherly care and goodness.  “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety” (vs. 8).

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