The Lord’s Day
Evening
November 23, 2008
Hymns of the
Faith - (6)
(Based on Psalm 104)
“ Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder”
Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III
The Hymn of the Faith we’re going to be studying tonight is by John Newton, and you’ve just sung the first four stanzas. One of the repeated phrases in this great hymn that we’ve just sung is that He has washed us with His blood, and brought us nigh to God. The first part of that phrase pretty clearly comes out of the book of Revelation. Now let me ask you to turn with me to Revelation 1; and if you look at verses 5-6, those verses constitute a doxology. You remember the book of Revelation has a series of doxologies or praises to God, and it also has a series of benedictions. The first benediction is mentioned in verse 3; the first doxology appears here in verses 5-6, and in verse 5 in particular that doxology has language which is repeated several times in the song Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder. So let’s pray and read God’s word, and then consider this truth in this hymn together.
Heavenly Father, thank You for Your love for us in Christ Jesus, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for the ungodly, washing us with His blood, cleansing us from sin, bringing us nigh to God. We pray this thanksgiving in Jesus’ name, and ask that by Your Spirit You would open our eyes to behold wonderful things in Your word. Amen.
Hear the word of God:
“To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood and made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father, to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
Amen. Thus ends this reading of God’s holy, inspired, and inerrant word. May He write its eternal truth upon all our hearts.
You see at the beginning of that doxology the words “to Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood,” and that phrase occurs in a slightly modified form repeatedly in the great hymn Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder: “He has washed us with His blood.” And then the phrase is followed by the sentence, “He has brought us nigh to God,” or something like that. It’s said in different ways in different stanzas – the idea of being brought near to God. And of course that is one of the great themes of the book of Hebrews, that the work of Jesus Christ as our high priest has served to enable us to draw near to God; that is, because He has removed the barrier of our fellowship with God, through Him we are able to draw near to God. And the biblical picture of drawing near to God is a way of picturing the glory of the relationship of communion and fellowship that we have with God through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. And this is something that was exceedingly precious to John Newton.
Now, you know that John Newton, the author of this hymn, is also the John Newton who is the author of Amazing Grace, and so many of John Newton’s hymns are reflections on his realization of the lavish love of God to him, a sinner. And to fully appreciate that you need to know just a little bit about John Newton, and so I want to tell you just a little bit about him.
John Newton was born in London, England, and he died in London, England. He was born in the first quarter of the eighteenth century…he was born in 1725, and died in 1807, so that gives you some sort of a picture of the time frame in which Newton lived. He was the son of a shipmaster, and his mother was a very godly woman and taught him the Scriptures from his earliest days, but she died when he was seven years old. So when he was seven, having lost his mother, he was sent away to school (to Latin school) to study, and he studied there for two years and then he went to sea with his father. Now you can imagine that some of the things that he saw and heard in the eighteenth century on a British sailing vessel would have been substantially more mature than what a normal nine-year-old boy would have seen and heard and experienced, and no doubt that grew him up quickly and not always in the best way. And indeed, he went to sea first with his father, and then he was “impressed.” You remember that doesn’t mean that he was amazed and astounded by something. It means that he was forced into service on a British man o’ war, a British battleship, where he served as a teenager.
Now he attempted to desert from the Royal Navy. That was not uncommon. And he was caught and he was flogged, and this was very disappointing to his father, who was a shipmaster himself. And not only was he flogged, he was degraded – he was demoted from the rank that he had earned on that sailing vessel. Eventually he took to service on a slave trading ship that made its way back and forth from England to Africa, going to pick up slaves and to bring them back to England and then to other parts of the British colonies to be sold into servitude.
Now at some point in his life, around 1748, studying (interestingly) Thomas a` Kempis’ book, The Imitation of Christ, he came to faith in Christ. He would have been just short of – what? – 25 years old?…around 23, when this happened, and he was serving on a slave ship. You’ve heard Derek tell the story before. He was on a ship that was foundering…it was filling up with water, and he thought he was going to die. And he had repeatedly gotten drunk, so he was chained up in the bowels of this ship, and he thought he was going to go down with the ship. He couldn’t get away. And it was there (having just read, interestingly, Thomas a` Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, and having remembered Scriptures and truths that his mother had taught to him as a little boy) that he came to faith in Christ. But he continued serving on slave ships for several years after his conversion. In fact, he became the captain of a slave ship during the course of those first few years after his conversion. But he got sick in 1754, and could no longer sail, and so he worked as a port master and a tide surveyor in Liverpool, England.
During that time his religious convictions continued to grow, and he began as a disciple to grow more and more in the faith, and he decided to pursue the gospel ministry. And in 1764, he became a minister in the Church of England.
Now during this time, he was assigned to a little church in Olney, and there was a poet in that congregation named William Cowper, who was reckoned the finest poet of his age in that particular era in Britain, and Newton and Cowper wrote hymns together. They together produced some of the finest hymns of that whole era in Britain. It was said of him that “he never, any more than St. Paul, lost the sense of amazement and gratitude of what Christ had done for him, and his hymns are never happier than when he sings about his Savior.” And that’s the case in this hymn. You get it in Amazing Grace and you get it in this hymn, Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder. The man never forgot what he was before Christ changed his life, and so he never got tired of singing about the glory of being saved.
You remember what Jesus said to the disciples when they were criticizing the woman who was bathing His feet with tears and anointing Him with oil, and the disciples criticized her: ‘Well, that perfume could have been sold and ministry could have been done by it!’ You remember what Jesus said. “Those who have been forgiven much, love much.” And she was showing her love to the Lord Jesus Christ, and so also John Newton showed his love for the Lord Jesus Christ in the words and the hymns that he wrote. It is said that his autobiography “is as vivid as Robinson Crusoe or Peter Simple, and he has a passion for religious earnestness which one does not look for in either a Daniel Defoe or a Marryat.”
In 1779, he left Olney and he became the minister of St. Mary Woolnoth in London, and that is where he finished his ministry. He remained there until his death. In 1805, his eyesight got so bad that he could no longer read his sermon. It would have been very common in those days for ministers simply to get up with their manuscripts and read their sermons to their congregation, and he lost his eyesight. And one of his friends said, “Well, John, are you going to leave the ministry now that you can’t read your manuscript anymore?” And he said, “While this old blasphemer from Africa can speak, he will preach the grace of Christ.” And so he continued to preach even though he couldn’t read his manuscripts – his preaching probably got better! – for two more years, until the Lord took him home in 1807.
I’ve recorded – I’m not sure whether it’s recorded in the bulletin tonight, but I’ve recorded for you his epitaph on many occasions, but it’s worth reading to you again. You can still see it there in London. It reads this way:
“John Newton, Cleric.”
[That means he was a minister…cleric…the word that is being referenced there.]
“John Newton, Cleric.
Once an infidel and libertine…”
[By the way, it was said that the only thing that restrained his debauchery was when he was 17 years old, he had fallen in love with a girl named Mary Catlett, whom he eventually married. She was a godly young woman, and that was the only restraint on his debauchery as a young man growing up, his affection for this young woman. By the way, young ladies, what a testimony that is to her that that was a restraining influence on him. It didn’t restrain him enough, but it restrained him from some of the things that he could have gotten into! So when he calls himself an infidel and a libertine, he means it.]
“…A servant of slaves in Africa,
Was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, and pardoned,
And appointed to preach the faith that he had
Long labored to destroy.”
That’s his epitaph. That’s the little plaque there in London to his memory.
One thing that I want to say about Newton before we look at the glorious text of this hymn is this: Newton became the pastor of many of the influential leaders of the Clapham Sect. Now some of you who are fans of British history know that the Clapham Sect included a man named William Wilberforce, who labored for years and years first for the abolition of slave trade and then finally for the abolition of slavery, and it was in John Newton’s study that he gained the early impetus for that work. Now what I want to bring out of that is simply this. In our day and age there are many people who are saying that if you want to work for true justice in society, you have to abandon classic Christian doctrine. Well, I want you to know that what has been reckoned by historians as the most heroic act of any nation – and one reason they say this is because historians love to find ulterior motives for why countries do things that seem to be moral – and they have studied and studied, and they can find no advantage that Britain gained by abolishing the slave trade and slavery. There was no economic incentive for the empire of Britain to abolish the slave trade and slavery, and yet they did it anyway. And that started through the influence of a man who was bedrock solid on the classic Reformation teachings on justification by faith alone, so if anybody ever tells you that justification by faith alone is an individualistic doctrine that begets a piety that doesn’t care about justice in society, you tell them they need to go read the story of John Newton and William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect. That doctrine of justification by faith beget one of the most amazing social transformations in the history of the Western world, and John Newton was right at the center of that.
Well, take your bulletins out – or maybe take your hymnals out beside it, because the bulletin doesn’t have all the text of the lines, but it does have some description of the content of each stanza. Let’s walk through each stanza of this amazing hymn together.
The first four stanzas of this hymn are all exhortations from one believer to another, and we’ve seen this repeatedly in hymnody about how we sing to one another, exhorting one another to praise God. And we’ve seen that this is important because our hearts are sometimes cold, and we need all the help we can get in order to sing and to give the praise and glory to God that is due to His name. So each of the first four stanzas are exhortations from one believer to another, exhorting each other to consider the gracious work of God.
The first stanza calls us to love, sing, and wonder, and then each of the remaining stanzas work out love, sing, wonder. And then they add one more – praise. Let us love, let us sing, let us wonder, let us praise. And the first stanza tells us that we ought to love and sing and wonder because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has “hushed the Law’s loud thunder,” and who has “quenched Mount Sinai’s flame.” Now that is a reference to Jesus Christ’s quitting the wrath of God deserved to us because of our violation of the law of God. And again, because of Newton’s own background, he was keenly aware of what his sin deserved. The Lord had shown him himself and shown him his sin until it was always a matter of wonder and praise for him when he considered the forgiveness of God to him. He knew that he did not deserve the forgiveness of God but he had received it anyway, just like the prodigal son did not deserve to be received back home by his father but his father did it anyway. And so wonder at that shows itself through all of Newton’s hymns, and he repeats this phrase “He has washed us with His blood” in different forms, and “He has brought us nigh to God” over and over throughout this hymn.
The second stanza now takes up the first of those three imperatives (let us love, let us sing, let us wonder). It picks up “Let us love,” and then it says “Let us love,” and then it spells out five things: “Let us love the Lord who bought us” – that is, Jesus Christ who redeemed us. “He pitied us while enemies.” (Romans 5:8 – “While we were yet sinners, He died for the ungodly.”) “He called us by His grace.” (That is, in His effectual calling He drew us out of sin and darkness and bondage, and into His marvelous light.) “He taught us, gave us ears and He gave us eyes.”
This afternoon I was reading one of Newton’s letters. We have a number of Newton’s letters still available to us, and one of his letters is called “Of spiritual blindness” in which he says, “We cannot see until the Lord restores our faculty of spiritual sight.” And so when he loves the Lord because He taught us and gave us ears and gave us eyes, he’s talking about himself: ‘Lord, once…” Well, how does he put it in Amazing Grace – “Once I was blind, but now I see.” And who gets the credit for that? John Newton? No. God. God gave him sight. God gave him ears. God gave him eyes. And so he’s pointing to that reality of spiritual regeneration. “He has washed us with His blood” and He “presents us to God.” That is, He has cleansed us and forgiven us by His blood, and He presents us to God. And each of these thoughts are suitable for kindling our love to God.
You remember this morning how we said, “How is it that creation stirs us up to worship God?” Well, here what Newton is doing is he’s taking different benefits of Christ in the gospel, and he’s using them to do what? Stir us up to worship God. And we’re supposed to speak them to one another because we are so apt to forget them or to discount them, and we need to encourage one another not to forget them but to remember them, and not to discount them but to value them. And so we speak them to one another by way of stirring ourselves up to worship.
Then the third stanza says, “Let us sing, though fierce temptation….” So that first phrase – let us love, let us sing, let us wonder – this one picks up the “let us sing.”
“Let us sing, though fierce temptation threaten
hard to bear us down!
For the Lord, our strong salvation, holds in view the conqu’ror’s
crown…”
So this line asks us to sing to God even though we’re in severe trial. How can you sing in such a time? Well, Newton has an answer for you. You can sing in a time of fierce temptation because our “Lord, our strong salvation, holds in view the conqueror’s crown.” Have you noticed how many times that theme picks up in some of the hymns that we’ve studied? You see it in For All the Saints. You remember how it talks about “when arms are weak, and our faith is wavering,” that “steals on the distance the triumphant song”? Well, the same thing. Christ holds in view His conqueror’s crown, and it strengthens us in time of temptation. So we sing because Jesus will soon bring us home to God, He’ll preserve us in our trials with joy and song because of the future grace of victory, and He’ll bring us near to the Lord.
The fourth stanza picks up with the phrase “let us wonder.” Let us wonder because
“…grace and justice join and point to mercy’s
store.
When through grace in Christ our trust is, justice smiles and asks
no more.”
That may be one of my favorite stanzas of the hymn. It chimes in and asks us to wonder at salvation, to be provoked to awe by the salvation of God. The thought here is that God’s way of redemption involves both grace and justice working together to bring about our salvation. God in His grace freely saves us by His mercy as we trust in Christ, but He also saves us by His justice, meting out on Jesus Christ the punishment due for our sins. And so Newton has us sing “when through grace in Christ our trust is, justice smiles and asks no more.” Don’t you love that phrase?
And that leads us to wonder at the awesome goodness and wisdom and love of the One who has secured our way to God.
Then the fifth stanza introduces a new verb that wasn’t given to you in the first stanza. Let us love, let us sing, let us wonder…now “let us praise.” It begins with this exhortation, ending in a direct address to the Lord Jesus Christ. It goes from “He has washed us with His blood” to “You have washed us with Your blood.” So Newton is calling on us to join the chorus of saints on high. Why? Because they trusted Jesus Christ here before we ever arrived on the scene, and now they are praising in heaven. We’re to move in hope for the day that we will join them, and we’re to praise the Lord now in anticipation of joining them in the future.
So this is the great hymn Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder, and I trust that we’ll sing it with a greater zeal of heart the next time we sing it. After the benediction we’ll have the opportunity to sing the final stanza of it together, this “let us praise” stanza.
So let’s stand, and we’ll pray and then receive God’s blessing.
Heavenly Father, thank You for Your word, and thank You for this vehicle to express our praise to You for Your having washed us with Your blood, the blood of Your Son, and having brought us nigh to yourself through His person and work. Receive our praise. Help us, we pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Now, Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith through Jesus Christ our Lord, till the day break and the shadows flee away. Amen.
[Congregation sings fifth stanza.]
“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 conqu’ror’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:
‘You have washed us with Your blood; You are worthy, Lamb of God!’”
EVENING WORSHIP
Six O’Clock
Senior Minister — The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III
Assisting Minister — The Reverend Mr. William F. Joseph III
Minister of Congregational Care
The Announcements and Words of Preparation (5:50 p.m.)
The Prelude — "As the
Deer".........................................................Martin Nystorm
Yong Wook Kim, Flutist; Dr. David Snyder, Pianist
The Mission Report — Don Ethridge, New Life Ministries
The Call to Worship
‡ The Hymn of Praise No. 363 — "We Gather Together"
‡ The Invocation
The Evening Hymn No. 402 — "Abide with Me: Fast Falls the Eventide"
* The Greetings
The Evening Prayer — Ruling Elder Jim Moore
The Presentation of God's Tithes and Our Offerings
The Offertory — Larry Edwards, Soloist
The Young Children's Devotional
The Hymn No. 219 — "All Praise to Thee, Eternal Lord" (Stanza 1)
The Children's Catechism No. 53
Q. "How did Christ live
on earth?"
A. "He was poor and
suffered."
The Scripture — Isaiah 53; Matthew 6:19-21; Mark 8:34;
Luke 2:22-24, 9:58; James 4:13-14
The Meditation ...............................Mr. Brett
Clifton, Student Ministry Assistant
The Prayer
...........................................(The children dismissed following the
prayer)
‡ The Hymn No. 172 — "Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder" (Stanzas 1-4)
The Reading of Holy Scripture — Revelation 1:5-6 (Pew Bible Page 1028)
The Sermon — "The Hymns of the Faith (6):
Let Us Love and Sing and
Wonder"............................Dr. Duncan
‡ The Benediction and Response No. 172 — "Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder"
(Stanza 5)
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:
"You have washed us with Your blood; You are worthy,
Lamb of God!"
The Postlude — "O for a Heart to Praise My God" ........................Henry
Coleman
*The ushers may seat latecomers
‡Congregation standing
A Guide to the Evening Service
Sermon
While Derek is away, we pause in our study of Nehemiah to consider another great
hymn of the faith. This study gives us the unique opportunity to become better
acquainted with the hymns that we sing. The purpose of this study, though, is
not simply more knowledge about the writer of the hymn its background; it is our
hope that this study will aid you in worshipping the living God.
Hymns, Psalms and, Spiritual Songs
Abide with Me: Fast Falls the Eventide
Written by Henry Lyte, this hymn has become one of the best-known hymns time. It
expresses the Christian's hope and security in the face of life's hardships,
most particularly that of death. Lyte died within three weeks of writing these
words. In his final sermon, Lyte wrote: "O brethren, I stand among you today, as
alive from the dead, if I may hope to impress it upon you, and induce you to
prepare for that solemn hour which must come all, by a timely acquaintance with
the death of Christ."
Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder
One of John Newton's fine hymns, put to the rousing tune of "All Saints Old."
The whole focus is praise to God for the cleansing blood of Jesus
Christ and for the varied implications and benefits of it. Each stanza begins
us" thus exhorting one another as believers to worship the Savior for
work. The first four stanzas are an exhortation from one believer to others to
consider the gracious work of God and to respond accordingly.
The first stanza calls on us to "love and sing and wonder" at
the work the Lord Jesus who has "hushed the law's loud thunder." That is, He has
quenched the penalty of the Law, which we deserved, by His death on the cross.
The final thought of this opening line is that Jesus "has brought us to God"—a
theme that will be repeated throughout the hymn in different language.
The second stanza now takes up the first of stanza one's
three imperatives: "Let us love." Here we are focused on the blessed task of
displaying love for Christ. Five things are then mentioned to supply clear
motivation for our appreciation of him: (1) He pitied us when we were still His
enemies [Romans 5:8]; (2) He graciously called us to salvation; (3) He taught us
truth, giving us the ability to understand; (4) He cleansed us by His blood; and
(5) He "presents our souls to God." No doubt, each of these thoughts are
suitable for kindling our love for Him.
Stanza three picks up on the second imperative of the song:
"Let us sing." This line asks us to sing to the Lord even in the midst of severe
trials: though fierce temptation threaten hard to bear us down." How can one
sing such a time? Newton has an answer! "For the Lord, our strong salvation,
holds in view the conqu'ror's crown." Indeed, we must sing because Jesus soon
will bring us home to God." We, thus, persevere in our trials with joy song
because of the future grace of victory and nearness to the Lord.
The fourth stanza then chimes in, calling on us to obey the
third imperative: "Let us wonder." That is, "let your minds reflect upon God,
His truth, His plan of salvation and be in utter awe of what He has done." What
thought provokes this awe? The thought that in God's way of redemption grace and
justice work together to secure our salvation. God, in His grace, freely saves
us by His mercy as we trust in Christ. Simultaneously, He saves by His justice,
in meting out upon His own beloved Son the precise punishment due to us. Hence,
"when through grace in Christ our trust is, justice smiles and asks no more."
What a phrase! This leads us to wonder at the awesome goodness and wisdom and
love of the one who "has secured our to God."
Finally, in the fifth stanza, we begin with a new exhortation
"Let us praise," but this stanza ends with a direct address to the Lord Jesus
"You
washed us with Your blood; You are worthy, Lamb of God." Here Newton calls us to
"join the chorus of the saints enthroned on high." Why?
Because they trusted in Jesus here, before we ever arrived on the scene and they
are praising Him in heaven. Thus, they move us to hope for the when we will join
them, and to praise the Lord now in anticipation of future blessing.
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