Bowling Green Covenant Church

I am an apologist for hymns that teach sound theology and stout doctrine. As far as I am concerned you can keep most, if not all the sentimental, romantic hymns of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I do not care to go to the garden alone. And my ego does not need further inflating by singing hymns in which Jesus is said to walk with me and talk with me and tell me I am His own. I should rather think the opposite concern is the more important one. That Jesus is confessed by me as Savior and worshiped by me as Lord would seem more appropriate if not more theologically accurate as well as redemptively needful.

No, give me the hymns of Watts and Wesley, Cowper and Toplady, and just about any hymn written by John Newton. Their hymns were the lyrical equivalent of how I once heard Germans describe their beer— as liquid bread. Stout stuff those old hymns. Lyrical bread that feeds the soul, encourages the heart and inspires the imagination to ponder the glories of our great God and King.

It is not that I am an anti-sentimentalist, but hymns in which Jesus is depicted as a sandal-shod, robe-wearing, soft-treading Savior who knocks gently on the door of my heart, calling me softly and tenderly as He waits helplessly for me to answer is not the kind of Savior who inspires faith, hope and love. Is that the kind of Savior portrayed in the Scripture? Thank God, the answer is no. And our hymns should reflect that.

One such hymn is “Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder,” written in 1774 by John Newton. Newton was born in London, England on July 24, 1725. He died in London on December 21, 1807. As far as the dash in between his birth and his death, Newton, who also penned the hymn “Amazing Grace,” was a sailor, a slave-trader, and a preacher. It is a checkered resume to be sure, but it is one salted with the amazing grace of God. Whereas “Amazing Grace” is an autobiography of salvation by grace, “Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder” expresses how we should then live as those whose lives have been transformed by grace. Since any exposition will not suffice I will simply let Newton’s words speak for themselves.

Let us love and sing and wonder,
Let us praise the Savior’s Name!
He has hushed the law’s loud thunder,
He has quenched Mount Sinai’s flame.
He has washed us with His blood,
He has brought us nigh to God.

Let us love the Lord Who bought us,
Pitied us when enemies,
Called us by His grace, and taught us,
Gave us ears and gave us eyes:
He has washed us with His blood,
He presents our souls to God.

Let us sing, though fierce temptation
Threaten hard to bear us down!
For the Lord, our strong Salvation,
Holds in view the conqueror’s crown:
He Who washed us with His blood
Soon will bring us home to God.

Let us wonder; grace and justice
Join and point to mercy’s store;
When through grace in Christ our trust is,
Justice smiles and asks no more:
He Who washed us with His blood
Has secured our way to God.

Let us praise, and join the chorus
Of the saints enthroned on high;
Here they trusted Him before us,
Now their praises fill the sky:
“Thou hast washed us with Your blood;
Thou art worthy, Lamb of God!”

Hark! the Name of Jesus, sounded
Loud, from golden harps above!
Lord, we blush, and are confounded,
Faint our praises, cold our love!
Wash our souls and songs with blood,
For by Thee we come to God.

Now that is a hymn.

You think about that.

Message given 2-24-2008 See Galatians 5:22-23 (19-26)

 

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O Thou Most High,

It becomes me to be low in thy presence.
I am nothing compared with thee;
I possess not the rank and power of angels,
but thou hast made me what I am,
and placed me where I am;
help me to acquiesce in thy sovereign pleasure.
I thank thee that in the embryo state
of my endless being
I am capable by grace of improvement;
that I can bear thy image,
not by submissiveness, but by design,
and can work with thee and advance thy cause and glory.

But, alas, the crown has fallen from my head:
I have sinned;
I am alien to thee;
my head is deceitful and wicked,
my mind an enemy to thy law.

Yet, in my lostness thou hast laid help
on the Mighty One
and he comes between to put his hands on us both,
my Umpire, Daysman, Mediator,
whose blood is my peace,
whose righteousness is my strength,
whose condemnation is my freedom,
whose Spirit is my power,
whose heaven is my heritage.

Grant that I may feel more the strength of thy grace
in subduing the evil of my nature,
in loosing me from the present evil world,
in supporting me under the trials of life,
in enabling me to abide with thee in my valleys,
in exercising me to have a conscience void
of offence before thee and before men.

In all my affairs may I distinguish between
duty and anxiety,
and may my character
and not my circumstances
chiefly engage me.

—From The Valley of Vision—A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions

Message given by Rev. Malanga 2-17-2007, based on Galations 5:19-23

 

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Holy Lord,

I have sinned times without number,
and been guilty of pride and unbelief,
of failure to find thy mind in they Word,
of neglect to seek thee in my daily life.

My transgressions and short-comings
present me with a list of accusations,
But I bless thee that they will not stand against me,
for all have been laid on Christ;
Go on to subdue my corruptions,
and grant me grace to live above them.
Let not the passions of the flesh nor lustings
of the mind bring my spirit into subjection,
but do thou rule over me in liberty and power.

I thank thee that many of my prayers have been refused –
I have asked amiss and do not have,
I have prayed from lusts and been rejected,
I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness,
Go on with thy patient work,
answering ‘no’ to my wrongful prayers,
and fitting me to accept it.

Purge me from every false desire,
every base aspiration,
everything contrary to thy rule.
I thank thee for thy wisdom and thy love,
for all the acts of discipline to which I am subject,
for sometimes putting me into the furnace to refine my gold and remove my dross.

No trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin.
If thou shouldst give me choice to live
in pleasure and keep my sins,
or to have them burnt away with trial,
give me sanctified affliction.
Deliver me from every evil habit,
every accretion of former sins,
everything that dims the brightness of thy grace in me,
everything that prevents me taking delight in thee.

Then I shall bless thee, God of Jeshurun,
for helping me to be upright.

—From The Valley of Vision—A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions

Message given by Rev. Malanga 2-10-2008 on Galatians 5:16-18

 

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O God of Grace,

Thou hast imputed my sin to my substitute,
and hast imputed his righteousness to my soul,
clothing me with a bridegroom’s robe,
decking me with jewels of holiness.

But in my Christian walk I am still in rags;
my best prayers are stained with sin;
my penitential tears are so much impurity;
my confessions of wrong are so many aggravations of sin;
my receiving the Spirit is tinctured with selfishness.

I need to repent of my repentance;
I need my tears to be washed;
I have no robe to cover my sins,
no loom to weave my own righteousness;
I am always standing clothed in filthy garments,
and by grace am always receiving change of raiment,
for thou dost always justify the ungodly;
I am always going into the far country,
and always returning home as a prodigal,
always saying, Father, forgive me,
and thou art always bringing forth the best robe.

Every morning let me wear it,
every evening return in it,
go out to the day’s working in it,
be married in it,
be wound in death in it,
stand before the great white throne in it,
enter heaven in it shining as the sun.

Grant me never to lose sight of
the exceeding sinfulness of sin,
the exceeding righteousness of salvation,
the exceeding glory of Christ,
the exceeding beauty of holiness,
the exceeding wonder of grace.

—From The Valley of Vision—A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions