Sunday's Hymn

This morning we sang this hymn at my dad’s little country church.

Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken

Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God!
He, whose Word cannot be broken,
Formed thee for His own abode.
On the Rock of Ages founded,
What can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded,
Thou may’st smile at all thy foes.

See! the streams of living waters,
Springing from eternal love;
Well supply thy sons and daughters,
And all fear of want remove:
Who can faint while such a river
Ever flows their thirst t’assuage?
Grace, which like the Lord, the Giver,
Never fails from age to age.

Round each habitation hovering,
See the cloud and fire appear!
For a glory and a cov’ring
Showing that the Lord is near.
Thus deriving from our banner
Light by night and shade by day;
Safe they feed upon the manna
Which He gives them when they pray.

Blest inhabitants of Zion,
Washed in the Redeemer’s blood!
Jesus, whom their souls rely on,
Makes them kings and priests to God.
’Tis His love His people raises,
Over self to reign as kings,
And as priests, His solemn praises
Each for a thank offering brings.

Savior, if of Zion’s city,
I through grace a member am,
Let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in Thy Name.
Fading is the worldling’s pleasure,
All his boasted pomp and show;
Solid joys and lasting treasure
None but Zion’s children know.

—John Newton

See it played by an organist at Trinity Reformed Church, Abbotsford, BC.

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Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• Lord’s Day 7, 2009 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Beloved, Let Us Love at The Happy Wonderer
• Sexagesima at Nova Scotia Scott
• Your Weekly Dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs: Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility
• I Love Thy Kingdom Lord at Hiraeth
• Maker and Sovereign Lord at joythruChrist
• Rejoice the Lord Is King at Fieldstone Cottage
• Update: Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah at Tapestry of Graces

Have you posted a hymn today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar and I’ll add your post to the list.

My Desktop Photo 45

Photo by Andrew Stark
(click on photo for larger view)

Like Hebrew Words

From In Christ Alone by Sinclair Ferguson, on what Ferguson calls “Flavel’s Law”—Puritan John Flavel’s frequently quoted statement, “The providence of God is like Hebrew words—it can be read only backwards.”

…Flavel’s words have often comforted me and helped me to readjust my myopic spiritual perspective. They have reminded me to fix my mind and heart on God’s wise, gracious, and sovereign rule, and on the assurance that He works everything together for His children’s good, so that I do not inquire too proudly into why I cannot understand His sovereign purposes.

Of course, one occasionally meets Christians for whom the Lord’s purposes are “all sewn up.” They convey an attitude of knowing exactly what He is doing and why He is doing it. Such comprehensive wisdom is difficult to dislodge, but is is often the precocious wisdom of the immature Christian who has not yet learned that while “those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children,” there are also hidden and secret things that “belong to the Lord our God” (Deut. 29:29).

God’s ways and thoughts are not ours. We never have them “taped.” As William Cowper knew well, God “plants his footsteps in the sea.” We can no more read in detail God’s secret purposes for our individual lives than we can see footsteps in water or understand Hebrew if we try to read it from left to right. To imagine we can is to suffer from a form of spiritual dyslexia.

One great reason for this principle is to teach us to “Trust in the Lord with all [our] heart, and lean not on [our] own understanding’ (Prov. 3:5). So perverse are we that we would use our knowledge of God’s will to substitute for actual daily personal trust in the Lord Himself.