Music Notes from Denise, October 25, 2025

This Sunday we will read in 2nd Timothy 4: The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Our Processional hymn will be O God, our help in ages past. This text was written by Isaac Watts in 1714, shortly before the death of Queen Anne of England. This was a time of great crises and turmoil, as the successor of Queen Anne was as yet undetermined, and the fear of a monarch who would reinstate the persecution of Protestants was great. King George I prevented such persecution, but the fear before Anne’s death was great. This was the context in which Watts wrote his powerful text, now lauded as “one of the grandest in the whole realm of English Hymnody” (Bailey, The Gospel in Hymns, 54). And as Isaac Watts writes so powerfully in this hymn, our God is everlasting, and will be our help through all of our years. The first verse gives us every assurance we need: God is our help, our hope, and our home. This does not blithely dismiss our fears and troubles. They are, and always will be, very real. But it does assure us that even if we cannot feel the immediate comfort, or even when all we can do is lament, we have a God that withstands the storms of the life and the tests of time, and who protects us and hears our cries. (Laura de Jong, hymnary.org)

Our Sequence hymn will be How lovely is thy dwelling place. It is a paraphrase of our Psalm 84: How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts! My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God. It was originally taken from the Scottish Psalter (1650) and has been updated by Carl P Daw Jr for our Hymnal 1982.

     The Offertory will be a lovely arrangement of Ruth Duck’s 1994 song, Spirit, open my heart to the Irish tune Wild Mountain Thyme and arranged by Alfred V Fedak. The song calls on each of us to allow the Spirit into our lives in all aspects and supports Jesus’ words in Luke 18: God, be merciful to me, a sinner!

       Spirit, open my heart to the joy and pain of living.

       As you love may I love, in receiving and in giving. Spirit, open my heart.

       God, replace my stony heart with a heart that’s king and tender.

       All my coldness and fear to your grace I now surrender. Spirit, open my heart.

       Write your love upon my heart as my law, my goal, my story.

       In each thought and word and deed, may my loving bring you glory. Spirit, open my heart.

       May I weep with those who weep; share the joy of sister, brother.

       In the welcome of Christ, may we welcome one another. Spirit, open my heart.

(Copyright 2016 Birnamwood Pub. MorningStar Music Pub. All rights reserved. Used by Permission)

Our Communion hymn will be Come thou fount of every blessing. In 1752, a young Robert Robinson attended an evangelical meeting to heckle the believers and make fun of the proceedings. Instead, he listened in awe to the words of the great preacher George Whitefield, and in 1755, at the age of twenty, Robinson responded to the call he felt three years earlier and became a Christian. Another three years later, when preparing a sermon for his church in Norfolk, England, he penned the words that have become one of the church’s most-loved hymns. Using imagery of Christ as the giver of living water and the shepherd gathering his sheep back into the fold, this hymn reminds the worshipper of the ever bountiful grace of God. Like Robinson, we too are “prone to wander,” and are quick to seek redemption through our own power. But God continues to bring us back from our wandering, until, songs of praise on our lips, we dance forever before the mount of His redeeming love. (hymnary.org)

Our final hymn will be How firm a foundation. It's a hymn that for over two centuries has assured believers of the faithfulness of Christ and the certainty of hope. The first verse acts almost as an introduction to the rest of the text, giving us cause to stop and ponder the Word of assurance that God has given us, described in greater detail in the next four verses. Those four verses are in fact paraphrases of Scripture passages: Isaiah 41:10, 43:2, Romans 8:3-39, Hebrews 13:5, and Deuteronomy 31:6. In the words of this hymn then, we carry with us the Word from God, and the call to trust in that Word. But God’s Word is expansive and not limited to letters on a page - the fifth verse moves us to a trust in the Word made flesh in Jesus Christ. Thus we are assured by the words we sing, the Word we are given, and the Word made flesh, of the steadfastness of God and His unfailing love. (hymnary.org)