Tuesday Hymns: “All People That on Earth Do Dwell”

November 10, 2009 at 10:53 AM (Church History, Hymns, Psalms)

William Kethe was a Scottish pastor (at least most believe he was a Scot) who fled the persecution of Queen Mary I (daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon) of England during the 1550s. He was involved in the translation of the Geneva Bible in 1560 and contributed twenty-five psalms to the 1561 Genevan Psalter, one of which is our Tuesday Hymn, All People That on Earth Do Dwell. Loys “Louis” Bourgeois, a French music teacher, who was responsible for many of the tunes in that early Psalter, wrote this tune which has become one of the most well known tunes in all of Christendom: Old Hundredth. This hymn is a paraphrase of the 100th Psalm, calling upon everyone on the earth to offer the worship due their Creator, Sustainer, and, for His elect, their Redeemer.

All people that on earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. Him serve with mirth; His praise forth tell; Come ye before Him and rejoice.

Know that the Lord is God indeed; Without our aid He did us make. We are His folk; He doth us feed, and for His sheep He doth us take.

O enter then His gates with praise; Within His courts your thanks proclaim; With grateful hearts your voices raise to bless and magnify His name.

Because the Lord our God is good, His mercy is forever sure; His truth at all times firmly stood and shall from age to age endure.

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Never Give In!

November 6, 2009 at 1:18 PM (Grace, Sanctification, Sovereignty of God)

In my preparation to preach at the Federal Prison this week, I came across Winston Churchill’s speech to the Harrow School in 1941 during some of the darkest days that Great Britain had faced in her long and storied history. One phrase from that speech has been quoted (and misquoted) often during the last seventy years:

Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

While Churchill’s call to duty and sacrifice helped rally that nation to victory during the Second World War, we as Christians are called to duty and sacrifice because of the grace that has been given to us through Christ. Paul commands us to “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” (Rom. 12:12) No matter what devices the world, the flesh, and the devil may use to tempt us to give up the “fight of faith,” we must not turn our hand away from the plow. God is building His kingdom and will succeed with a high hand, even though from our perspective all may seem lost.

Make the words of the prophet Habakkuk your theme during any dark days that may come your way and trust that God will be faithful to all of His promises:

17 Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls,  18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.  19 GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places. (Habakkuk 3:17-19)

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The Danger of Following One’s Heart

November 4, 2009 at 11:01 AM (Doctrine, The Holy Scriptures)

In conservative Christendom, many know the answer to the first query of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” However, it is sad to realize that most do not know the second question and answer of the catechism, because it tells us how to accomplish the first: “What rule has God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him? The word of God, which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.”

Where do we find direction in glorifying and enjoying God? We find that direction in the Word of God. We do not find it in subjective holy hunches, or in asking “What would Jesus do?” or in quivers in our livers; we can only discover God’s will in His Holy Word. We live in a world which puts much stock in “following one’s heart” yet the Bible tells us that a man’s “heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9)

Don’t follow your heart! It may advise you to leave your wife (or husband) and run off with your “soul mate.” It may tell you that no harm comes from gazing at seductive images on the internet. It may tell you that going to worship with God’s people is not really important since you are “spiritual” but not “religious.” Or, it may tell you that if you try really hard, and are sincere, that you can attain eternal life.

God’s Word tells us not to follow our heart, but to look to Christ. The crowds asked Jesus, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” And Jesus answered them by saying, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” (John 6:28-29) We are able to glorify God and enjoy Him only by resting in what Christ has done on our behalf. Now is the time to stop trusting in your heart, and start trusting in His grace. He is the One who has made provision for our justification, and He has given us His Word and Spirit in order to make possible our sanctification. Therefore, find the guidance for your life in the only place you can trust, in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, [for it] is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.”

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Tuesday Hymns: “Come, Thou Almighty King”

November 3, 2009 at 10:08 AM (Hymns)

We Presbyterians are often chided because we like to sing all the verses of the hymns during corporate worship. Growing up as a Baptist it was not unusual to leave out a verse of a hymn, usually the third, prompting comedian Grady Nutt to once remark, “I am as lonely as the third verse in a Baptist hymnbook.”

Our Tuesday Hymn is a prime example of why leaving out a verse is not necessarily a good idea. Come, Thou Almighty King is a great hymn of praise to the Triune God. Verse one praises the “Father, all glorious,” verse two praises “Thou Incarnate Word,” verse three praises the “Holy Comforter,” and the last verse praises the “Great One in Three.” How many times in our churches has the Holy Spirit been left out of this great hymn of praise to save an extra 30 seconds?

We do not know who wrote this hymn (no, it was probably not Charles Wesley) but I will be forever grateful for his succinct and direct hymn praising the Triune God. It is sung to the tune, TRINITY.

Come, Thou Almighty King, help us Thy name to sing, help us to praise. Father, all glorious, o’er all victorious, come and reign over us, Ancient of Days.

Come, Thou Incarnate Word, gird on Thy mighty sword, our prayer attend. Come, and Thy people bless, and give Thy Word success; Spirit of holiness, on us descend.

Come, Holy Comforter, Thy sacred witness bear in this glad hour. Thou who almighty art, now rule in every heart, and ne’er from us depart, Spirit of pow’r.

To the great One in Three eternal praises be, hence evermore. His sovereign majesty may we in glory see, and to eternity love and adore.

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Happy Reformation Day!

October 31, 2009 at 9:48 AM (Church History, Humor)

492 years ago today Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church, unknowingly becoming the catalyst for the Reformation. Robert Gebel has written this song to commemorate that pivotal event in history. A special thanks to Mark Gibson for finding this in cyberspace.

The Reformation Polka
by Robert Gebel

[Sung to the tune of "Supercalifragilistic-expialidocious"]

When I was just ein junger Mann I studied canon law;
While Erfurt was a challenge, it was just to please my Pa.
Then came the storm, the lightning struck, I called upon Saint Anne,
I shaved my head, I took my vows, an Augustinian! Oh…

Chorus:
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let’s start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

When Tetzel came near Wittenberg, St. Peter’s profits soared,
I wrote a little notice for the All Saints’ Bull’tin board:
“You cannot purchase merits, for we’re justified by grace!
Here’s 95 more reasons, Brother Tetzel, in your face!” Oh…

Chorus:
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let’s start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

They loved my tracts, adored my wit, all were exempleror;
The Pope, however, hauled me up before the Emperor.
“Are these your books? Do you recant?” King Charles did demand,
“I will not change my Diet, Sir, God help me here I stand!” Oh…

Chorus:
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation -
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let’s start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

Duke Frederick took the Wise approach, responding to my words,
By knighting “George” as hostage in the Kingdom of the Birds.
Use Brother Martin’s model if the languages you seek,
Stay locked inside a castle with your Hebrew and your Greek! Oh…

Chorus:
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation -
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let’s start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

Let’s raise our steins and Concord Books while gathered in this place,
And spread the word that ‘catholic’ is spelled with lower case;
The Word remains unfettered when the Spirit gets his chance,
So come on, Katy, drop your lute, and join us in our dance! Oh…

Chorus:
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation -
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let’s start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

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Mid-life Crisis?

October 28, 2009 at 10:52 AM (Personal)

A man was at a party and jokingly said that he was going through a “mid-life crisis” and his wife quickly retorted, “Mid-life crisis! Who do you know that lived to be 110?” I now relate to that old story since yesterday I turned fifty-five (for those of you who went to public school as I, that’s one-half of 110).

I realize that statistically speaking I will never become a centenarian (unless the Lord should will it) so I have come to grips with the fact that my life on earth is more than half over. I am not complaining, for if I have learned anything in my fifty-five years on earth, it is that every day that I live is a gracious gift from God.

The challenge is to learn to appreciate every day that one has been given and live it to the glory of God. And, not only live it to the glory of God by desiring to do all that God has commanded in His Word, but to take the time to enjoy Him as you do so. May give us all the grace to live to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.

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Tuesday Hymns: “Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness”

October 27, 2009 at 9:26 AM (Church History, Hymns)

I spent last week in central Texas with the family on vacation; thus, there was no Tuesday Hymn on my humble blog to peruse. Now, however, I am back in the saddle again, ready to get back into my daily routine of ministry. Sunday, I stayed home with the boys from corporate worship (see earlier post) because of bronchitis (theirs, not mine) and the hymn we sang as we gathered to worship in our living room was Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness, which is our Tuesday Hymn for this week.

Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, a Lutheran pietist from Germany, wrote the words to this hymn in 1739. He was a nobleman who allowed a group of Moravians to settle on his land, building a village called, Hernnhut, meaning “the Lord’s watch.” He spent his life ministering, not only to those settlers, but to others, by sending missionaries out into the world from Greenland to South Africa. A later missionary, William Carey, admitted using Zinzendorf’s model in the founding of his English Baptist Missionary Society which sent him to India in 1793.

The hymn speaks of the Christian’s hope in the finished work of Christ for his eternal salvation. It is Christ’s keeping of the Law of God on our behalf that provides for the forgiveness of our sins, and our being declared righteous in God’s sight through faith in Him. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism states (Q. 33): “Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.”

As J. Gresham Machen telegraphed to his friend, Professor John Murray, right before his death, “So thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.” The hymn is normally sung to the tune GERMANY. 

Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness my beauty are, my glorious dress; ’midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head.

Bold shall I stand in Thy great day; for who aught to my charge shall lay? Fully absolved through these I am from sin and fear, from guilt and shame.

When from the dust of death I rise to claim my mansion in the skies, ev’n then this shall be all my plea, Jesus hath lived, hath died, for me.

Jesus, be endless praise to Thee, whose boundless mercy hath for me—for me a full atonement made, an everlasting ransom paid.

O let the dead now hear Thy voice; now bid Thy banished ones rejoice; their beauty this, their glorious dress, Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness.

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Musings from Home on the Lord’s Day

October 25, 2009 at 10:56 AM (Culture, Gospel Worship, Ordinary Means of Grace, The Church, The Fourth Commandment)

Here I am sitting at home on the Lord’s Day instead of worshipping with God’s people. It seems so strange, and I confess quickly that I do not like hate it. We were on vacation and our youngest son came down with acute bronchitis in Austin (everyone should spend a couple of hours at an urgent care facility in a city far from home), so we packed up and headed for Pine Ridge. Since I am technically still on “vacation” and was not expected to be at worship anyway, I volunteered to stay home with the sick boys (the other one has a red throat and is coughing now) and let Dixie (my wife) go to church (since she is the one who always has to miss when someone is sick).

In a few minutes the boys and I will stop and spend some time reading God’s Word, maybe sing a hymn or two, work on catechism questions, and pray. It will do, and is necessary in our present condition, but it can never substitute for the time spent worshipping a holy God with God’s people.

It is amazing to me that some people do this on purpose (stay at home on the Lord’s Day) simply to sleep in, go to a soccer or softball tournament, watch football (and I love football), or any number of other earthly pursuits. One misses out on so much to gain so little. God has given us one day in seven to gather with God’s people, to hear His Word read and proclaimed, to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, to pray, and to take advantage of the sorely needed sanctifying means of grace in our lives. The writer of Hebrews spoke well when he wrote, 

23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;  24 and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,  25 not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:23-25)

God actually gave us two reasons why remembering His Day is so important for our spiritual well-being. The first is that God set this “one day in seven” pattern at His creation of the heavens and the earth: 

8 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.  9 “Six days you shall labor and do all your work,  10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.  11 “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20:8-11)

Secondly, this day has been set aside because we have been delivered from our life of sin under the wrath of God:

12 ‘Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you.  13 ‘Six days you shall labor and do all your work,  14 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.  15 ‘And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:12-15)

So, when sickness or some other providential hindrance strikes, do the best you can to “remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy,” but if at all possible, take advantage of the means of grace that God has provided for your sanctification on this day of “rest and gladness.”

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They are Precious in His Sight

October 15, 2009 at 10:27 AM (Family)

A friend of mine sent me an interesting video (Thanks, Kenneth) about two families and their experience raising children who have disabilities. It is a segment hosted by Joni Earickson Tada and can be found here. (Disclaimer: I don’t endorse all the theological beliefs of those interviewed but have great admiration for the love they show to their children.)

As I watched the video I was reminded once again that all children, even those who struggle with learning or can’t learn, bear the image of God, and should be allowed to experience life as fully as possible. They may struggle with language, or may need someone to care for them to some degree for the rest of their lives, but they are precious in God’s sight and are able to love and be loved, to experience joy and sadness, and to relate to all those that God has placed around them. God has a loving, holy, and eternal purpose for allowing the struggles that they (and the ones who care for them) face which we may never come to understand on this side of the new heavens and the new earth, but He is God, and we are not.

As the father of a son with autism spectrum disorder, the watching of this video reminded me of two very important truths: what a blessing my son is to me, and how caring my wife is. While I struggle with my son’s learning issues, and wonder about his future; I do so as I go about my daily duties; studying, visiting the hospital, preparing for my Lord’s Day responsibilities, and providing for my family. My wife, on the other hand, is battling his issues face to face with him at home. Thank you, Dixie, for all of the things that you have given up in order to teach him at home. I know that it has not been easy teaching him history, math, and other various school subjects, but you have taught him what matters most: that he is loved by his family, his church, his friends, and, most of all, by his Creator and Redeemer. You have learned well the lesson of Romans 8:35-39:

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 Just as it is written, “For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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Happy 99th Birthday, John Wooden

October 14, 2009 at 9:38 AM (Culture)

Today marks the 99th birthday of basketball coaching legend, John Wooden. In his 27 seasons of coaching the UCLA Bruins he won ten NCAA titles (at one time he won seven titles in a row), and 664 games, eventually becoming known as the “Wizard of Westwood.” (To put this into perspective, coach Mike Krzyzewski has won three and Dean Smith two titles.) One of the amazing traits of his success was that he managed to win all of those ballgames, and national championships without the use of profanity, or allowing his players to use profanity.

In a world in which profanity is now commonplace, and civility rare, Wooden’s deportment seems peculiar at best. One hears (or reads) crude language everywhere: in blogs, on Facebook, on television, in movies, and surprisingly even in pulpits (a la Mark Driscoll and Mark Driscoll wannabes). It all seems to be driven by a desire to be “cool” or to use the newest buzzphrase, “to speak the language of the culture.”

One must understand that I am not advocating a Christianity consisting of “Don’t drink, or smoke, or chew, or run around with girls who do.” People are not made right with God by the things they do, or don’t do, since the Bible tells us “by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” (Gal. 2:16) We are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in the finished work of Christ alone, but because we have been justified, our longing should be, “in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit” to “endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ.” (PCA Book of Church Order, Membership vows)

Included in “living as becomes the followers of Christ,” should be a desire to follow the Scriptural injunction, “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.” (Ephesians 5:4) We should do this not as a legalistic following of a moralism, but out of a sincere desire to bring glory and honor to our Lord. I have no idea whether John Wooden is a believer or not, but our modern culture could learn much from the way this man lived his life with class and respect.

(Side note: For all of you who think Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player who ever lived, please remember that Oscar Robertson averaged a triple-double for the entire 1961-62 season: 12.5 rebounds, 11.5 assists, and 30.4 points a game, and that Bill Russell won the MVP award five times, and won 11 NBA championships in his 13 year career.)

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