Then Sings My Soul Book 3: The Story of Our Songs: Drawing Strength from the Great Hymns of Our Faith

Introduction

The largest creatures known to have inhabited our planet—the size of Boeing jets with hearts as big as Volkswagens—are still prowling our globe today. Bigger than the dinosaurs of old, these monsters weigh about 150 tons each. That’s comparable to twenty-three elephants glued together; and, in fact, just the tongue of one of these creatures weighs as much as a grown elephant. Fifty people could line up on it.

Though endangered, about ten thousand of these creatures—Giant Blue Whales—still roam the oceanic lanes of earth. And they are always hungry. Each of these leviathans eats five tons of fish a day (they love shrimp). They glide open-mouthed through the seas, taking in as much as fifty tons of water in a single gulp.

Since whales are mammals, Giant Blues give birth to their young; and one newborn will guzzle about fifty gallons of mother’s milk a day. During the first several weeks of life, these little balls of blubber gain ten pounds an hour.

And you thought your child was growing fast!

Most amazing to me, these denizens of the sea are the operatic superstars of the oceans. Just as birds fill the skies with their songs, Giant Blues do the same in the deep. I recently listened to an almost-giddy scientist who unexpectedly eavesdropped on Blue Whales singing off the coast of New York City. He could hardly describe the thrill of hearing them through his sonar equipment. Giant Blue Whales have a unique series of very low, very long notes, and their voices reverberate mysteriously through the ocean. They sing with greater decibels than a jetliner taking off, and the sound of their voice travels up to five hundred miles through the water.

Learning that, I couldn’t help thinking of Psalm 148:7, which says:

All Creatures of Our God and King

Praise the LORD from the earth,

you great sea creatures and all ocean depths.

Psalm 148 is one of my favorite passages because it calls on all creation to sing praises to the Lord—in the air, on the land, beneath the seas. The angels are commanded to sing. The sun and moon, the stars of light, fire and hail, snow and clouds—all are made for God’s glory. Mountains and hills, fruitful trees and cedars; beasts and cattle; creeping things and flying fowl—let them praise the name of the Lord.

And us too!

Kings of the earth and all peoples;

Princes and all judges of the earth;

Both young men and maidens;

Old men and children.

Let them praise the name of the LORD,

For His name alone is exalted;

His glory is above the earth and

heaven. (verses 11–13 NKJV)

This is the psalm that inspired Saint Francis of Assisi to compose his great poem Canticle to Brother Son (Cantico Di Frater Sole) which is paraphrased into English as All Creatures of Our God and King. It’s among my favorite hymns, because, like the psalmist, St. Francis exuberantly calls on all creation to sing God’s praise:

All creatures of our God and King

Lift up your voice and with us sing,

Alleluia! Alleluia!

Thou burning sun with golden beam,

Thou silver moon with softer gleam!

O praise Him . . . !

Thou rushing wind that art so strong

Ye clouds that sail in Heaven along,

O praise Him . . . !

Thou flowing water, pure and clear,

Make music for thy Lord to hear,

O praise Him . . . !

Dear mother earth, who day by day

Unfoldest blessings on our way,

O praise Him . . . !

Let all things their Creator bless,

And worship Him in humbleness,

O praise Him . . . !

What St. Francis could not have realized in his medieval era is that scientists have now catalogued approximately 5,400 species of singing animals. Some creatures even show the capacity of learning songs, improvising melodies, and composing new tunes.

There’s an unusual strain of wild dog in New Guinea famous for its singing. The New Guinea Singing Dogs, one of the rarest breeds on earth, weren’t discovered until the 1950s. They’re noted for their unique howling vocalizations. When they sing, they do so with different tones and pitches, filling our ears with harmonies like a barbershop quartet.

God created this universe with a capacity for song, from the tiny cricket to the massive Blue Whale, and all creation is designed to sing His praises. I don’t want to be left out; and I don’t want us to leave out the great hymns of the faith—that vast two-thousand-year repertoire of music that reverberates through the ages, for God inhabits the praises of His people.

This book—the last in the Then Sings My Soul trilogy—is designed to keep the story and the songs of our Christian hymnody alive for the next generation. The first two installments, Then Sings My Soul and Then Sings My Soul Book 2, contain the stories of our timeless and best-loved hymns. This volume provides an overarching span across the centuries of Christian song. Here you’ll find the rest of the story—how God has kept us singing from the Red Sea to the return of Christ. (The first biblical hymn is in Exodus 15, when the Israelites were delivered from Egypt; the last is in Revelation 19, at the moment of Christ’s second coming.)

My deepest thanks goes to all the hymn-lovers who have paved the way for this volume—and to Thomas Nelson Publishers. I’ve had a publishing relationship with Nelson since 1996. Few authors are privileged with such a long history with the same company; and I’ve had nothing but happy relations with all my friends and colleagues there. Matt Baugher at Nelson conceived the idea for this edition of Then Sings, and I’m honored to work with him and his blue-ribbon team. The senior editor for this project, Adria Haley, is the best!

My literary agent, Chris Ferebee, is a dear friend and wise counselor. I don’t know what I’d do without him. Nor could I do without my assistant, Sherry Anderson, who pours her heart into her work for the Lord and His people.

My creative team at Clearly Media consists of dear friends Joshua Rowe, Michael Walker, and Stephen Fox. They maintain my website at www.robertjmorgan.com, where you can contact me and also find additional resources related to this and other books. That’s where you can also find a free planning guide I’ve prepared for churches who want to use this book to celebrate the story of the hymns in a special worship service designed to worship through the hymnal, from ancient to modern times.

My Nashville congregation, the Donelson Fellowship, is a unique group of devoted Christ-followers and music-lovers who have allowed me to preach and write among them for well over thirty years. I’d like to also tip my hat to Dr. Don Ellsworth for his personal encouragement and puissant insights on this project.

And finally, there’s no one like Katrina! Thank you, dear encourager and faithful friend, for all your wifely smiles and songs.

May the Lord give us all smiles. And may He give us songs, both ancient and modern, both now and forevermore, so we can continuously . . .

Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,

And praise the Spirit, Three in One!

O praise Him! O praise Him!

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleuia!

PART 1

THE

HISTORY

OF

HYMNODY

Teach Me Some Melodious Sonnet

About a year into our marriage, Katrina told me she might be pregnant. There were no home tests in those days, and it took awhile to get definitive answers from the doctor. He suggested we come back for the results in a few days. For reasons I can’t remember, Katrina didn’t accompany me on the return trip to the doctor’s office; I went to hear the news by myself. Yes, the nurse said, we were expecting. Yes, we were going to be parents.

Though excited by the prospects, I drove home in a state of nerves. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have health insurance. I had no idea how to support my family. We had been trying to find a church to pastor, but had been turned down a dozen times. How would we get by? Absently I switched on the car radio and heard these words suddenly wafting through the speakers:

Be not dismayed whate’er betide,

God will take care of you!

Beneath His wings of love abide,

God will take care of you!

God will take care of you,

Through every day o’er all the way;

He will take care of you;

God will take care of you.

Civilla Martin wrote that hymn at the beginning of the twentieth century (as well as the words to The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power and His Eye Is on the Sparrow). She died four years before I was born; but her song lived on to calm my spirits on that springtime day in 1977. Listening to the words of that hymn, I knew everything would be fine.

God Will Take Care of You

Have you ever had a similar experience? When in the grip of nervous tension, nothing soothes the soul like the words and melody of one of our beloved hymns. Many such testimonies from around the world fill my filing cabinets, sent in response to the first two volumes of Then Sings My Soul. Nothing can do for us what hymns can, for there’s a part of our spirits that only responds to God’s truth in musical form. Psalm 92:1–4 exhorts us:

It is good to say, Thank you to the Lord, to sing praises to the God who is above all gods. Every morning tell him, Thank you for your kindness, and every evening rejoice in all his faithfulness. Sing his praises, accompanied by music from the harp and lute and lyre. You have done so much for me, O Lord. No wonder I am glad! I sing for joy. (TLB)

As I wrote in my book of hymn devotions, Near to the Heart of God: Hymns are distillations of the richest truths of God, versified, emotionalized, set to music, and released in the mind and from the mouth. They’re miniature Bible studies that lead us effortlessly to worship, testimony, exhortation, prayer, and praise. They’re bursts of devotional richness with rhyme and rhythm. They clear our minds, soothe our nerves, verbalize our worship, summarize our faith, and sing our great Redeemer’s praise.¹

The eminent church historian Philip Schaff wrote, The hymn is a popular spiritual song, presenting a healthful Christian sentiment in a noble, simple, and universally intelligible form, and adapted to be read and sung with edification by the whole congregation of the faithful. . . . They resound in all pious hearts, and have, like the daily rising sun and the yearly returning spring, an indestructible freshness and power. . . . Next to the Holy Scripture, a good hymn-book is the richest fountain of edification.²

Once upon a time, English-speaking Christians owned their own hymnals just as most believers today own their own Bibles. In the 1700s and 1800s, these were small volumes without musical notes, giving stanzas of hymn texts in tiny print. I have quite a few of these little tan volumes in my possession, bound in leather, pages brittle. Worshippers carried these undersized hymnbooks to church each Sunday, then took them home and sang from them in personal or family devotions the rest of the week. Hymnals were, as someone put it, the ordinary person’s systematic theology books—their Bibles in one hand; their hymnals in the other.

For us today, hymns are portable units of praise, capable of being sung in the heart and with the voice, as needed by the soul, seven days a week. In the words of the apostle Paul: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God (Colossians 3:16).

Our appreciation for Christian music skyrockets when we understand the heritage of our hymnody. Studying the annals of our hymnals is like sinking a shaft through the layers of church history until we come to the very core of praise in biblical truth and in biblical times.

In the prior two volumes of Then Sings My Soul, I’ve told the stories of hymns without providing much historical context. In this final volume, I want to devote a few pages to sharing in simple fashion the overarching history of worship and praise from biblical times to our own. Think of it as standing on a scenic overlook and viewing a panorama of praise that stretches back nearly four thousand years and that extends forward to the very throne of God in heaven.

I’m convinced that ordinary, pew-sitting, churchgoing Christians like me need to understand the history of our hymnody. Rather than a chore, it’s an enthralling study, acquainting us with thousands of years of rich legacies, brave heroes, and astounding stories of the faith being passed down by Spirit-filled witnesses from one era to the next. We’re largely unaware of our heritage, of the valor and victories of the great cloud of witnesses who have preceded us. But without knowing the heritage of our past, we’ll leave no legacy for the future.

I believe the history of the church is encoded in her hymns, and the story of Christianity is enfolded in its songs. If you know the hymns of the ages, you’ll know the history of the church. If we lose the hymns, we’ll lose a priceless legacy; and we’ll be the first generation of Christians to ever do so. Every other generation of believers has added its songs to the hymnal without discarding the contributions of earlier eras.

There are some great advantages to the modern technologies that allow us to project words to giant screens. We do it in our church and it enables us to sing tapestries of songs and hymns, both ancient and modern, without having to stop and turn to different pages in a book. But there are some disadvantages too. Without holding these old hymns in our hands, we’re more likely to forget them. Without flipping through the pages of a hymnal, we’re apt to forget its contents.

I think we need to teach, emphasize, and celebrate hymns in our public gatherings; and I’m also an advocate for keeping a hymnbook by our devotional materials for daily singing and personal use. Just today during my morning devotions, I found a much-needed prayer in the stanzas of that old hymn that says, Breathe on me, breathe on me, Holy Spirit, breathe on me. / Take Thou my heart, cleanse every part. Holy Spirit, breathe on me.

A good hymn combines prayer with praise, keen theology with vivid imagery, and the majesty of God with our daily needs.

And to think—there are thousands of hymns ripe for rediscovery, and that’s what this book aims to do. Then Sings My Soul Book 3 isn’t designed to provide an in-depth or academic approach to the history of hymnody. Instead, I’d like to tell a generalized (yes, and oversimplified) story to help you better understand and appreciate the wonderful heritage of our hymnal. The hymnbook is one of the richest treasure troves we have for biographical, theological, historical, and personal enrichment.

For our purposes, I’m going to divide the story of Western hymnody into seven segments:

• Biblical Hymns

• Ancient Hymns

• Medieval Hymns

• German Hymns

• English Hymns

• Gospel Songs and American Hymns

• Contemporary Praise and Worship Music

Charles Wesley exclaimed: O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise! You may not have a thousand tongues, but you do have thousands of hymns and thousands of years of hymn stories. As we turn the page to get started, why not take a moment to pray:

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;

Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

Call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

Sung by flaming tongues above,

Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,

Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Biblical Hymns

My friend Frank Fortunato, international music director for OM (Operation Mobilisation) International, recently gave me an account of what happened when three teams of national Christians tried to take the gospel into the towns and villages of a restrictive African nation. Braving bumpy roads and uncertain receptions, they lugged around portable 16 mm projection equipment sets. Each team showed the JESUS film every night for a month, which amounted to ninety presentations of the gospel in thirty days.

Just as they finished, civil war broke out in the area. The workers had to flee. They were extremely disappointed because they felt their presentations had paved the way for conversions to occur and churches to be planted. But the war made further contact impossible. For six years they prayed and wondered if anything had come from their efforts.

One day a man showed up in the capital asking to see the staff person who had overseen the JESUS film project. He had exciting news. You know, he said, I was with you that month [when] you and your team showed the JESUS film. I watched it every night. In fact, I memorized it.

The man pulled from his pocket a collection of eighteen dog-eared sheets of paper. It was a song he’d written from the words of the film. He had set the life of Christ to music. His ballad covered the birth, life, teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Since this African culture was an oral society, his song was well received in the towns and villages where the film had originally been shown.

The man said, I first taught the song to a few of my people—all eighteen pages. They learned it, and then they taught it to others; it went from person to person and from heart to heart. As a result, forty-eight new churches were planted as the story of Jesus was sung across cultural barriers and through the isolation of a remote and restrictive region.³

That story gives us insight into biblical times. In the ancient world of the Bible, much of the collecting, preserving, and spreading of truth was done through song. The great hymns of the Bible—including the short ones like Psalm 117 and the long ones like Psalm 119—were meant to be learned by heart and circulated through singing, from person to person. Biblical hymns give us the singable version of God’s good news. This is, in fact,