No music that goes up to the Throne of God is sweeter in Jehovah’s ears than the song of suffering saints. They shall praise Him upon their beds and sing His high praises in the fire! To go right through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and sing all the way. To climb Hill Difficulty and to sing up its crags—to pass by Giant Grim and even by the Castle of Giant Despair and through the Enchanted Ground and still keep singing—and to come to the river’s brink and descend into it still singing is lovely in a Christian! May the statutes of the Lord be our songs in the house of our pilgrimage till we mount to sing above!
You have safety, also, for in the ways of the Lord all His servants are protected from danger. On the king’s highway “no lion shall be there, neither shall any ravenous beast go up thereon.” You shall be “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” in the ways of the Lord. Well may that traveler sing who is perfectly safe! He holds his tongue if there are thieves about and robbers likely to pounce upon him. But when he feels that he is under the guardian care of the Lord of the Ways who has given His angels charge over him to keep him—yes, when he feels that the Lord, Himself, is round about him like a wall of fire—he must sing in the ways!
Strength and safety are ours & therefore, let us sing! We will sing of the ways of God in the application of Redemption to us, His people—how He convinced us of sin and led us to the Savior—and how, since then, He has led us by a right way, helped us, comforted us, chastened us, directed us, opened all His rich treasures to us, communed with us, told us the very secret of His soul, wiped our tears away, removed our fears, charmed our hearts! This is a long, long story, and each Believer sees a new phase of it in his own experience. Surely, the mere hints I have given are enough to show that we may well sing of the ways of the Lord! And you never need be ashamed to sing of those ways.
Strength and safety are ours & therefore, let us sing! We will sing of the ways of God in the application of Redemption to us, His people—how He convinced us of sin and led us to the Savior—and how, since then, He has led us by a right way, helped us, comforted us, chastened us, directed us, opened all His rich treasures to us, communed with us, told us the very secret of His soul, wiped our tears away, removed our fears, charmed our hearts! This is a long, long story, and each Believer sees a new phase of it in his own experience. Surely, the mere hints I have given are enough to show that we may well sing of the ways of the Lord! And you never need be ashamed to sing of those ways.
The saddest saint is, after all, happier than the most glad sinner! The best house in the City of Destruction, where all is to be burnt with fire, is not equal to the poorest shanty on the road to Heaven, where, if the pilgrim fares hard, he is on the way to Glory! When we think of where we used to be—of the city from where we came. When we think of Egypt and the iron furnace, the bondage and the slavery from which God has brought us out with a high hand and an outstretched arm—why, we ought to sing in the ways of the Lord!
That is the point about all God’s people. We know where we are going and we can sing in the ways of God because we know where the road ends. Unconverted men and women, every step you take, you are a step nearer Hell. It is a very solemn thought, but I want you to remember it. Every hour that you unconverted people live, you are an hour nearer to the pit that burns with the wrath of God! Oh, I pray you, think of that! But the man who is a Believer is on a road which brings him, every step, nearer Heaven! I do not know a sweeter hymn than that which we sometimes sing—
“And nightly pitch our moving tent
A day’s march nearer Home.”
A day’s march nearer Home.”
And what a Home it is! Oh, if our way Home lay through 7,000 Hells, yet the end would be worth it! If we had to pass through deaths as many as the hairs of our head, yet five minutes with Christ would make up for all our pain! I am sure that it is so! Let us, therefore, press forward singing, because we are getting nearer to the place where song shall be our element forever.
THOSE WHO SING IN THE WAYS OF GOD ALSO SING OF THE LORD OF THE WAY. “They shall sing the ways of the Lord.” And then some read it, “That great is the glory of the Lord.” That is the subject of their song. When they sing about the Lord of the Way, this Psalm supplies us with the points of their song. Kindly open it and keep your eyes upon it. “I will praise You with my whole heart. Before the gods will I sing praise unto You.” What for? “I will worship toward Your holy temple and praise Your name.” What for, David? “For Your loving kindness.” God is kind, but He is more than that. It is loving kindness. A man breaks a leg and the surgeon sets the bone. That is kindness. But suppose the man’s mother could set the bone? Oh, how she would do it with loving kindness! When the surgeon’s own son is under his hand and the surgeon is dealing with a broken bone, it is not only kindness, but loving kindness—the sweetest of the sweet—the kindest of the kind!
Now, that is how God has dealt with us. Oh, how tenderly! “Your gentleness has made me great.” He has abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. Was there ever a God so good to anybody as God has been to us? I reckon myself to be the darling child of His Providence and I think I hear many of you say, “And so are we!” Some of you, perhaps, have had more whipping than others—not so much because you deserved it but because, “Whom the Lord loves He chastens.”
Often the master is hardest with that boy in the school who is getting on best because chiding will make him grow. He will find no fault with a dull, stupid boy-he never - can make much of him - but the very one who does the best is he whom he drives on the most vigorously, for he means to make a senior wrangler of him.
Often the master is hardest with that boy in the school who is getting on best because chiding will make him grow. He will find no fault with a dull, stupid boy-he never - can make much of him - but the very one who does the best is he whom he drives on the most vigorously, for he means to make a senior wrangler of him.
So, perhaps, you, dear Friends, are having more pruning than anybody else because you are a branch that will grow with pruning and will bring forth better grapes. There is more love in the chastening that you get than in the gentler way in which God deals with others. Come, let us bless His name! He is a loving God! Let us sing in His ways and chant the tune of His loving kindness. And what next? “For Your loving kindness and for Your truth.” Ah, that is a blessed thing—a faithful God, a true God, a God that cannot lie—a God that cannot fail His people, a God that never breaks His promise or forgets it. Oh, come, let us sing unto His name while we are in His ways! Let us tell the world that men of high degree are vanity and men of low degree are a lie, but our God is true!
David goes on to say, “In the day when I cried, You answered me and strengthened me with strength in my soul.” Answered prayers make a fine set of hymns! Old prayers make new songs! When God hears prayers, we should let Him hear them again! When He has heard them as prayers, then let Him hear them as praises! We are often faulty here. I am afraid that we go to God with our errands when we are in need, for we have a cupboard love for Him. We are like many a dog to his master— he loves his master for the bones he gives him.
I do not say that we ever rise above that - we love the Lord because He has heard our prayers and our supplications, but let us sometimes go to the Lord wholly to praise Him. Say, “Lord, this time I will not ask anything of You except a grateful heart. And if You give me that, then I will praise You and praise You, and praise You because my soul is wholly taken up with adoring gratitude for what I have received. You may be poor; you may have little talent; you may be quite unknown, but though the Lord is on high, yet has He respect unto the lowly!
He hears the praises of the unknown! Wonderful is the power of “the great unknown.”
He hears the praises of the unknown! Wonderful is the power of “the great unknown.”
When you do not seem to have anything to sing about, today, sing about what is going to be tomorrow! And if there seems to be nothing on earth to sing about, sing about the everlasting future! Soon you shall never be tempted to say, “What shall I eat, and what shall I drink, and with what shall I be clothed?” You shall have no cares to fret you, nor sins to repent of, for you shall be perfect before the Throne of God, clean escaped from all the dangers and the trials of the way! Come, let us sing for what will be! “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me.”
Our singing should be such that God hears it with pleasure—singing in which there is not so much art as heart—not so much of musical sound as of spiritual emotion. They shall sing to the glory of God! Legions of flies are caught by this honey! Many are brought to God by the sweet lives of His people. If we can always rejoice in the Lord, we shall bring many to God who otherwise would have turned on their heels and said, “We will have nothing to do with these dull dreamers. We are too young to lose all our joy in life.”
~ Spurgeon
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This morning in my prayer worship time the Holy Spirit gave me a new song. i hope i can get the opportunity to record it this weekend. i will post the words up now.
Stay tuned in to the recording that will be posted by this time next week. : )
Holy, Worthy, Glory, Honor and Praise
Holy, Yahweh Holy
Your Holy, Yahweh Holy
Holy, Yahweh Father God
Worthy, Yahweh Worthy
Your Worthy, Yahweh Worthy
Worthy of all our praise
(1st Chorus)
You are my Lord, My Father Yahweh God.
Draw me deep into Your Holiness.
You guide me in the Way, without ceasing i will pray. i love You more and more everyday.
Glory, honor and praise
All glory, honor and praise
Are Your's alone Yahweh God
Righteous, Yahweh Righteous
Your Righteous, Yahweh Righteous
You work Your Righteousness in me
(2nd chorus)
You are Alive, You are the Living Word
i hunger and thirst for Your righteousness
You are my daily Bread, by Your Spirit i am fed. You fill and satisfy this longing in my heart.
Highest, Yahweh Most High
Your highest, Yahweh Most High
Yahweh, Your high and lifted up
Sovereign, Yahweh Sovereign
Your Sovereign, Yahweh Sovereign
You reign and rule over my soul
(3rd Chorus)
Your Holy, Abba Father Worthy to receive all glory, honor and praise. Your lifted ever higher, Your my burning desire.
Oh Holy, Sovereign, Majestic, Awesome God
Holy, Worthy, Glory, Honor and Praises, to You Yahweh Father God (Repeat)
Praises to You Yahweh Father God (Repeat)