Hymns4Him

Most people are very diligent when it comes to guarding the health of their hearts, especially as they age.  Regular checkups with their primary care physician, and maybe also their cardiologist, will sometimes lead to medications, exercise routines, and perhaps even surgery for ablations, valve replacements, or pacemakers.  But are we as diligent when it comes to guarding the health of our spiritual hearts?

Our spiritual forefathers, the English Puritans, made this a matter of top priority in the Christian life.  A favorite text for many sermons and books was Proverbs 4:23, “Guard the heart, for from it flow all the issues of life.”  In our day we discuss this dimension of sanctification under the title of “Spiritual Formation.”  It has become the subject of conferences and even of required courses in seminaries.

Speaking of doctrine, this is a good place to re-emphasize how important are both doctrine and life.  Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 4:16, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.  Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”  All of us, not just pastors and teachers, need to be on guard, watching out for our own personal heart health (spiritual formation) – which involves sanctification, as well as watching out for the doctrines we embrace and teach – which involves especially justification.  The late J. I. Packer was a Christian author, theologian, and expert on the Puritans.  Someone asked him once in reference to what those Puritans thought, “Should one preach about doctrines?” to which Packer answered, “They would say, ‘Why, what else is there to preach?”’

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We are more dependent on the Lord than we will ever realize.  How wonderful that out of His great love, He provides for us in so many ways, and so much of the time when we’re not even aware of it. The Bible encourages us to call on the Lord continually to show His sovereign fatherly care for His children.  He loves us so much that He wants to bless us by entering into our lives to make our days full of joy.  His desire is more than just to save us from our sins and give us eternal life in heaven.  He wants for us to see each day that He is the one who finds great joy in meeting our every need.  Such is His glorious infinite goodness. We honor Him when we recognize that we need Him and therefore trustingly call on Him to meet those needs in our lives.

When it comes to hymns, we have ample resources to provide us the words to sing such longing musical prayers to Him.  We would immediately think of hymn phrases like “I need Thee, O I need Thee,” “guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,” “all I have needed Thy hand hath provided,” “all the way my Savior leads me,” and countless others.  They find great support in the many Psalms that remind us that God hears and answers prayer, such as in Psalm 34:17-18, “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

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The doctrine of election is one of the most wonderful, foundational, and widespread teachings in all of the Bible.  There are several words commonly found throughout the scriptures which express the concept. When translated into English, these include not only elect/election, but also predestined/predestination, foreordained/foreordination, called, and chosen. A quick search in any concordance will show numerous passages where these terms are found in God’s Word.  Even the word grace, when understood properly, points to this truth.  That is reflected in the way we often speak not merely of grace, but more particularly of sovereign grace.

Even when any of these words are absent, the twin central truths of human depravity and divine sovereignty in salvation permeate all portions of the Word of God.  Because we are dead in our sins and enslaved to our old nature (as Paul taught in the opening verses of Ephesians 1), our  only hope is that God would change our unwilling and undeserving hearts to enable and motivate us to reach out to Him.  We need to be born again, as Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3.  But as human beings cannot cause themselves to be born physically, neither could any of us cause ourselves to be born again spiritually.  We read in 1 Peter 1:3, “according to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again.”

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Fear was not part of God’s creation as first established in the Garden of Eden.  Harmony existed between every part of the created order, each with the other and also with the Divine Designer.  There were no storms in nature to cause fear.  Since death only came after the fall, we assume there was no fear among animals, terrified at the possibility of being eaten by predators (who were apparently all initially vegetarians).  And there was no fear on the part of animals toward Adam, as he named them.  There was no fear between the initial human couple toward one another. And there was no fear (other than the healthy attitude of reverence, sometimes called “fearing the Lord”) in the hearts of Adam and Eve toward the Lord.

But, oh how sin has changed all that!  Ever since the fall, there has been fear throughout creation: fear about the destructive powers of nature’s floods, earthquakes, volcanos, and tornados; fear between the large predators and small prey in the animal kingdom; wild animals fearing the approach of human beings; fear of residents about criminal elements threatening them and their families; people fearing the potential harm from diseases like cancers and strokes; as well as fear caused by the ravages of war, from bombings and starvation and tyrannical dictatorships.  Fear is an inevitable result of the terrible effect of sin on God’s perfect creation. 

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Most hymnals today have a topical section called “morning” and also the next called “evening.”  This includes hymns like “All Praise to Thee, My God, This Night,” “Abide with Me, Fast Falls the Eventide,” “Savior, Breathe an Evening Blessing,” “Now the Day Is Over,” “The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended,” “Day is Dying in the West,” and “Softly Now the Light of Day.”  These were familiar to those of us who grew up in a day when most evangelical churches had a worship service on Sunday evenings.  This was usually a more informal service, sometimes called a “vesper service,” with more hymns being sung (often as people requested “favorites”), prayer requests fielded and offered, perhaps a testimony, and always Scripture and sermon.

How ironic that this section continues to be included in hymnals today, when it has become rare to find a church that still has a service on Sunday evening.  For some, this loss is regarded as a sad sign of the times when “the Lord’s Day” has become merely “the Lord’s morning.”  Historically, Sunday evening services were an emotional and psychological as well as spiritual joy for the covenant people of God, as the day began and ended in the Lord’s house.   Some noted that it is significant that after the first and second Psalms (the first describing Jesus as that blessed man who sought the Lord whole-heartedly, and the second celebrating Jesus’ sovereign power over the rebellious kings of the earth as the begotten one anointed by the Father), the next two point to the beginning and ending of a day in worship.  Psalm 3:5 reads, “I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me,” a Psalm for the morning.  And the next one is a Psalm for the evening, as we read in Psalm 4:8, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.”

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When we read or sing any of the Psalms, one of the things people most often fail to see is their theological and historical and redemptive connection to the Lord Jesus.  There are three things about Jesus that people ought to recall before they begin to speak or sing the words of any Psalm.  First, Jesus is the “scribe” who authored each of these inspired biblical texts.  As the second person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus is the source of the truths and the words.  He speaks to us through the work of the Holy Spirit who inspired the human authors, including David. Second, Jesus is the “subject” of each of these biblical Psalms.  In some they, they all reveal something about Him, His character and work, and how His redemptive work benefits those who place their trust in Him.  And third, Jesus is the “singer” in each of these Old Testament songs.  During His earthly ministry, growing up in a Jewish home and educated (almost certainly) in a local synagogue where He learned to sing the Psalms, vocalizing each of them numerous times during His thirty-three years on earth.  To sing a Psalm today, thinking about what it meant to Jesus as He sang it, opens up a huge new perspective to the mind and heart of a contemporary worshiper.

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When our culture celebrates Father’s Day each year in June, we who know the Lord are happy to join in expressions of gratitude to our earthly fathers for all they have done for us.  This is certainly one way in which we keep the fifth commandment: “Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother.”  In addition to giving pleasure to our parents, such honor pleases the Lord when we show our gratitude for the love they have shown to us, the care they have given to us, the guidance they have offered to us, not to mention the material provisions that we have enjoyed from their sacrificial generosity, whether from food and clothing over the years or the financial help for schooling and in the early years of our careers and marriages.

But what a great opportunity to renew our gratitude, and indeed our joyful praise, toward our heavenly Father.  In the sixth chapter of Matthew’s gospel (in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount), the word Father is used of God ten times!  In the Old Testament, God was known as the father of Israel, of His chosen people.  But when we come to the New Testament, there is a change.  We find that believers are taught to address God in a more individual and personal way, we could even say in a more intimate way.  This has become the normal manner of private prayer, as each of us begins by addressing Him with the affectionate title, “Father …”

The title “Father” is used of God in every New Testament book with the exception of the tiny epistle of Third John. In nearly every one of his letters, Paul’s opening salutation refers to “God our Father.” The name represents both His authority over His children (exercised in disciplining them), and His loving care and guidance of them. There is a limited sense in which God is the Father (i.e. the Progenitor) of all, in that He is the Creator of all. But our particular and personal relationship to Him as our Father comes when we are born again into the family of God, through faith in Christ. It’s then, as His blood-bought children, that the indwelling Spirit of God awakens in us a sense of that new relationship and we cry, “Abba, Father” (an affectionate expression meaning something like “dearest Father”).

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When we come to the Lord’s Table, our pastors encourage us to give careful thought ahead of time about the seriousness and magnificence of all that is represented in this sacrament. Our colonial ancestors typically held a communion preparatory service before communion Sunday.  It was a service devoted to a rehearsal of what Jesus accomplished by His atoning sacrifice and the need for self-examination to make sure those who approach the table do so with renewed repentance and faith, and a fresh commitment to obedience.  At that preparatory service, it was customary to distribute pewter “tokens” to each adult.  On communion Sunday, when the elements were served, often at tables set up in the church yard, one needed that token, like a ticket, in order to be allowed a seat at the table.

While we no longer see such valuable services and practices today, the need is still there to examine one’s self before partaking of the elements.  This is evident in Paul’s instructions about the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:28-29.  “Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.”  This is why in Reformed churches there is the mandatory “fencing of the table,” when the pastor reminds attendees that the table is open to all, and only, who have repented of their sins and placed their trust in Christ, and whose profession of faith has been deemed credible by virtue of their being members in good standing of an evangelical church.

As part of the liturgy in coming to the Lord’s Table, it is typical in our churches to sing a hymn that prepares our hearts for this wonderful blessing of communion with the Lord, when our souls are nourished by feeding on Jesus’ body and blood by faith.  Among the hymns that help us do that is Isaac Watts’ hymn, “How Sweet and Awesome Is the Place.”  Written in 1707, its lyrics give eloquent expression to the attitudes and understanding that should dominate our thinking as we come to the Table.  It is a much-appreciated and often-used hymn at communion services.

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During the summer months, most denominations hold their annual national meetings.  These can be times of great joy and celebration as reports are shared about the progress of the gospel through their church planting, foreign missions, and discipleship ministries. In addition to the “business” of the church that is conducted, these are also pleasant times of renewing friendships with colleagues and former school classmates, almost like a homecoming school reunion.  And for some, a highlight are worship services as thousands join their voices in singing great hymns of the faith, and hear sermons from some of the finest preaches of our day.

Sadly, in some denominations, these are painful times where liberal theology and unbelief increase their influence, leading denominations further and further away from their historical and biblical roots. Increasingly such denominations follow the “progressive” views and priorities of our culture, not only in rejection of foundational doctrines (such as biblical inerrancy, Jesus’ virgin birth, and substitutionary atonement), but also in opposition to long-standing principles of morality (such as the homosexual agendas, abortion support, and gender identity), with a shift away from the mission of evangelism and church planting to the early 20^th century substitute of social justice.

When the focus remains on the gospel, people can rejoice in a fresh commitment to the church as the bride of Christ, seeking to renew a commitment to Him and to the work to which He has called us, aiming at making His bride more and more beautiful, adorned with the fruit of the Spirit, and leading lost souls to the giver of eternal life.  We have a rich treasury of hymns about the church which we can sing at such meetings, and in our local churches as we pray for God’s blessing on His church, the body of Christ as well as the bride of Christ.

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