Music can be a great power for good; yet we do not make the most of this branch of worship. . . . Those who sing are left to blunder along, and the music loses its proper effect upon the minds of those present. Music should have beauty, pathos, and power. Let the voices be lifted in songs of praise and devotion. Call to your aid, if practicable, instrumental music, and let the glorious harmony ascend to God, an acceptable offering."—Evangelism, p. 505. "Singing is a part of the worship of God, but in the bungling manner in which it is often conducted, it is no credit to the truth, and no honor to God." —Ibid., p. 506. These are strong statements and should cause us to study our whole worship program.
We opened our devotion this morning with a lovely doxology. There are a number of doxologies. We are familiar with some, but this is one of the finest. "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; . . . world without end." A more correct translation would be "from generation to generation." This is the oldest hymn in our hymnbook. It goes back to the second century and is possibly even older than that. They could have been singing it in the days of the apostle, because we find a phrase of it in Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, as we find in his writings other phrases that were evidently taken from their hymns. The words "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be" were added during the Arian controversy concerning the nature of Christ. Arius, who arose to prominence in the fourth century, taught that Christ was not God from all eternity but was the first of the created beings. There are certain groups that still believe that way—for example, the Jehovah's Witnesses.
How fortunate we are to have a hymnbook like ours. Not every generation has had such a book. And our hymnal should be the best loved and best known of all the books in our library outside of the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy writings. I say it ought to be, but I am afraid it is not. The hymnbook is not only a source of inspiration; it is really a commentary on the life and experience of the church. We can trace the growth of spiritual concepts in these hymns. That is why a hymnbook should have the date of both the writer of the verse and the composer of the tune, as we have in our present book.
We had a little of that Arian controversy in our own denomination, for a few of our forefathers came out of Arian groups, and so they changed the words of such a glorious hymn as, "Holy, Holy, Holy." Because a few influential men disagreed with Bishop Heber's lines—"Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty! God in three Persons, Blessed trinity," they changed the hymn to read, "God over all who rules eternity!" to the disgust of a number of hymnbook compilers. They say, "Why do you Adventists have to change a word like that and spoil the original hymn?" Of course, our changed version is also doctrinally correct, but it is not the way Reginald Heber wrote it.
We have changed other hymns also to suit some of our ideas. For example, Watts's great Christmas hymn "Joy to the world, the Lord is come" we tried to make into a Second Advent hymn; so we sing, "Joy to the world, the Lord will come." But it is definitely referring to the first advent.
The doctrinal views of denominations have led to a number of changes in hymns they wanted to use. Even these changes become an interesting commentary on church growths and concepts.
Ambrose of Milan, born about A.D. 340, was one of the leading hymnists of the Christian church, and he was a great spiritual leader. It is claimed he wrote at least a hundred hymns, but most have been lost during the centuries, except for a few fragments. Like many another great Christian leader his influence spread, not only by his preaching but by his musical leadership.
As the curtain goes up on the great American drama we hear the sound of praise to God. When Columbus and his men caught what they thought was the first sign of land, on October 12, 1492, they burst out in that great hymn of the Catholic Church, "Gloria in Excelsus Deo." They sang it in Latin, the crews of all three ships joining in. It was a burst of praise.
Columbus, as we know, was more than a navigator; he was a deep student of the Word of God. In the latter part of his life he went into a monastery where he wrote a book on the prophecies. From his studies he became convinced that the world was coming to an end and that he had had a part in opening up unknown lands to the gospel, which he believed to be a fulfillment of prophecy. Columbus did not know what this new land looked like when he set out on his journey, but he was convinced that it was there. As far back as the tenth century the Vikings had sailed ships across the Atlantic and established settlements on the coast of New England. Columbus believed he was fulfilling Matthew 24:14, as is clearly shown in his prayer to God as he sighted the New World. That, of course, is all by the way. When at last new colonies were established in North America, they had a strictly religious bias. There were many restricted ideas in their theology, such as "limited atonement," "unconditional election," and "irresistible grace." We noted that briefly previously. Calvinist theology molded the pattern of their worship. Isaac Watts was the first hymn writer to break through. One of his great hymns was written in 1709 (No. 440). It is taken from Matthew 24. "'Go, preach My gospel,' saith the Lord; 'Bid the whole world My grace receive.'" No limited atonement here! "'He shall be saved who trusts My word, And they condemned who disbelieve.'" That is a wonderful hymn. The third stanza says," 'Teach all the nations My commands; I'm with you till the world shall end.'" One of Watts's greatest hymns is:
"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more."
I regret that this one was omitted from our present Church Hymnal. It is a fine missionary hymn. It is really a paraphrase of Psalm 72. He looked at the psalm prophetically and related it to Jesus. This was, of course, one of the great Hebrew songs. The seventeenth verse states, "His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun." An ancient Jewish translation renders it: "Before ever the sun was, Messiah was." That takes us back to the dateless beginning of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was always with the Father.
After Watts came the Wesleys. They launched into their great work in 1738. John Wesley's slogan, as we have mentioned before, was "The world is my parish." They were men with a great concept. When they were not permitted to preach in the churches, they went out into the fields and preached. And as a result, the narrow ideas of such doctrines as limited atonement were shaken. They opened up the minds of men largely by their hymns.
At the dawn of the nineteenth century the great movement of modern missions began. Reginald Heber, who later became bishop of Calcutta, wrote "From Greenland's Icy Mountains." This is one of our greatest missionary hymns. He wrote it, however, before he went to India. He mentions "India's coral strand." Maybe that stirred in his heart the idea of going there. Carey was one of the first missionaries to carry the gospel to India. And here is something important—Carey got his theology straightened out by hymns of the Wesleys. As a Baptist he was originally a Calvinist. But Wesley's hymns gave him a new concept. Thus the birth of our modern missionary movement was clearly linked with Wesley's hymns.
Take another hymn, No. 454:
"The morning light is breaking,
The darkness disappears;
The sons of earth are waking
To penitential tears."
This you will notice was written in 1832 by Samuel F. Smith, who, by the way, gave us "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." This hymn can be thought of as applying not only to one country but rather to a world opening up for the gospel. He too was a Baptist and later became the secretary of the Missionary Union, which was formed as the result of Carey's influence in the Baptist Church. Smith later went to Burma. It was Judson, however, who first took the gospel to Burma, at least in modern times. He was a Congregationalist missionary and while journeying to his mission field he was impressed by reading the Word that he ought to be baptized by immersion. When he arrived at India he stopped in Calcutta and went to visit Carey, who baptized him. It was certainly unusual for one to change his denominational affiliation while in transit to his appointed field of service. When he reached Burma he began to preach Christ and Him crucified—a strange doctrine to the Buddhists.
Samuel Smith, quite a linguist, having mastered fifteen languages (he began to study Russian at the age of eighty-six), went over while Judson was there, and he witnessed the power of the gospel on human lives. He then wrote:
"See heathen nations bending before the God we love,
And thousand hearts ascending in gratitude above;
While sinners, now confessing, the gospel call obey,
And seek the Saviour's blessing, a nation in a day."
Thus the great mission work, so much a part of our program, got under way.
In my judgment the greatest missionary hymn is one we do not have in our American Church Hymnal. But it is in our English Advent Hymnal and was written about 1840 by Henry W. Fox:
"I hear ten thousand voices singing Their praises to the Lord on high;
Far distant shores and hills are ringing With anthems of their nations' joy—
Praise ye the Lord! for He has given To lands in darkness hid, His light;
As morning rays light up the heaven, His Word has chased away our night."
He speaks of China, on whose "shores I hear His praises," and bids us hear "glad voices" "on Afric's sunny shore." It is a wonderful hymn. I wish it had been included in our American hymnbook. He closes with this:
"Hail to Thee, Lord! Thy people praise Thee,
In every land Thy name we sing,
On heaven's eternal throne upraise Thee:
Take Thou Thy power, Thou glorious King!"
Such hymns began to color the whole concept of the worldwide Christian church.
A more recent trend in hymnody is that which gives voice to what might be called the social gospel—a gospel that touches men in every walk of life. John Oxenham, whose real name was William Guntley, wrote one of our most impressive hymns in this area. Educated to be a businessman, he later became a great hymn writer and poet. Notice these words in hymn 436:
"In Christ there is no east nor west,
In Him no south or north;
But one great fellowship of love
Throughout the whole wide earth."
This gives us not only the setting of a worldwide movement but also of a brotherly movement within the countries themselves. The words "no south or north" are significant. This was written in 1909 when the North and the South were still pretty sharply divided. Strange that Christians could become so concerned about needy people and conditions in Africa and so little concerned about people and conditions under which so many live in their own country. This hymn lifts the curtain and breaks right through such narrow concepts as race and position. Though theology is not too prominent in this hymn, yet without a clear understanding of the gospel of Christ, which declares that "any man" can be a citizen of God's kingdom, this could never have been written.
Yes, our hymnbook is a rich treasure. Let us study the messages of its poetry more carefully, noting when and why the hymns were written. We all have many books in our libraries on the Bible, but I find few possessing even one book on the history and content of hymns. Yet our hymns are vital to real worship. "Sing unto the Lord a new song" says David. But if we do turn to a song that is a bit new, most of the congregation make no attempt to sing it. Let us prepare to sing the new song of victory on the sea of glass by learning now to sing the lovely songs and hymns the Lord has given us here.
