Acts 4:13-22
Now when [the rulers of the people] saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, saying, "What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name." So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard." And when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened. For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old. (ESV)
The truth gets blamed for all manner mischief. If people could just keep their mouths shut about the truth things would be better in the world and the church. Modern politicos want to vilify truthful talk by blaming the truthful speech for all manner of wickedness, such as violence, unkindness, and even sedition! You don't have to deal with the truth if you can tar and feather it with the blame for the real or imaginary bad behavior of others. It would be like blaming a good Samaritan who takes the car keys from a raging drunk about to get behind the wheel for the rage of the drunk. The Samaritan is just trying to do a kindness for the person who will possibly hurt himself and others. He is telling the truth about the drunken state of the person from whom he took the keys. Yet he is blamed for the drunk's anger.
Those who insist on preaching the gospel of Christ to poor sinners are often berated for preaching the truth. They are called the disturbers of Israel (1 Chron 2:7) because they presume to proclaim that sinners need saving from their sin. They are hated because they teach that Christ alone is the Savior of the world, and none other. They are despised because they decline to accept that competing truth claims are actually the truth. This is the divine truth, not heresy. It is not mere opinion, but saving truth. Yet the world reviles it and calls it the cause of the world's problems.
The world is offended by Christianity for no good reason, by taking offense at the truth. There is a great difference between giving and taking offense. Yes, we are to blame if we are the cause of offense. If I bring the gospel into disrepute by living and acting as though the gospel didn't matter, then, yes, I would be giving offense. But if I am proclaiming the truth, then if the world takes offense, that is the world's problem. Taking offense is a modern cottage industry. Almost any criticism can be mocked and avoided if the person who is being criticized can squeal:
"I am offended. How dare you!" But the divine Word has a prior claim to the truth beyond our easily bruised ego. God has every right to criticize our life or faith.
He can call us to reform what we are doing and what we are believing. That is what it means to be God, to have the completely independent right to be critical of the world and those who live in it. He is the truth itself and thus has the right to give us the truth.
This is why the apostles declined to be silenced by the governing authorities. They didn't want to overthrow the government, but they weren't about to be silenced by the threats made by the government. Legitimate earthly government has nothing to fear from Jesus, but if the government tries to silence Christ, squelching the speech of the church, government will place itself in the morally perilous position of trying to silence the truth. For our part, we may not be silent about the truth, because the stones themselves will cry out, if we are (Lk 19:40).
The truth will stand on its own, but let's stand with it.
Martin Luther
"Today we are forced to listen to the same thing to which Paul and the other apostles were forced to listen then: that from our Gospel there have arisen many troubles, sedition, war, party spirit, and endless offenses. Whatever upheaval there is today is blamed on us. But surely we do not plant heresies and godless dogmas, but we preach the Gospel about Christ; that He is our High Priest and Redeemer. In addition, if our opponents want to be truthful, they are obliged to concede this much to us, that by our doctrine we have not given any occasion for sedition, upheaval, or war; but we have taught by divine commandment that government power is to be honored religiously and revered. Nor are we the originators of offense; but when wicked people are offended, this is their own fault, not ours.
"We have the commandment of God to teach the doctrine of the Gospel without any regard for offense. Our opponents are irritated by this doctrine because it condemns their doctrine and their idolatry. Therefore they produce offenses on their own; in the schools this is called 'taking offense,' which neither should nor can be avoided. Christ preached the Gospel without being hindered by the offense of the Jews. He said, 'Let them alone; they are blind guides' (Mt 15:14)."
Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians, loc. cit.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, help us to confess your name as the only saving name, even when we face opposition. Amen.
By Rev. Scott Murray
MemorialMoments.org
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Monday, April 26, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
What part of God's Word is less the Word of God than another?
As one hears and believes the Word of God, it can only be heard, believed and followed as a whole.
What part of God's Word is less the Word of God than another?
Is Christ, the Word made flesh, divided?
Those who would believe one part of God’s Word in the living of the faith and overlook or reject others, do not so much submit their living to the Word of God, as they save and gratify the living of their own pleasures and fancies about what God would have them believe and live. Such people submit themselves to Word and will of God only so far as it pleases them to do so.
Surely the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, described such buffet believers when He answered this question:
“‘Lord, will those who are saved be few?’
And he [Jesus] said to them, ‘Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’
then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’
Friday, April 9, 2010
QUOTES FROM PASTOR DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
Pastor Bonhoeffer was executed on April 9, 1945 by the Nazis for his role in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Many thanks to Pr. Mark Schroeder's Blog http://wittenbergtrail.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?user=1av6t6sfa3ojz for these qoutes from Pastor Bonhoeffer.
“Jesus calls men, not to a new religion, but to life.”
“God alone knows our good works; all we know is His good work.”
On the Two Types of Love:
“Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ’s sake.”
“…spiritual love does not desire but rather serves, it loves an enemy as brother. It originates neither in the brother nor in the enemy but in Christ and His Word. Human love can never understand spiritual love, for spiritual love is from above; it is something completely strange, new and incomprehensible to all earthly love.”
“…this spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ.”
“We are bound together by faith, not by experience.”
From Life Together - On Being Pious:
In matters of piety, the “I will” can cause the greatest harm…”
On Being a Pastor:
The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren. Not in the former but in the latter is the lack. The Church will place its confidence only in the simple servant of the Word of Jesus Christ because it knows that then it will be guided, not according to human wisdom and human conceit, but by the Word of the Good Shepherd.
The question of trust, which is so closely related to that of authority, is determined by the faithfulness with which a man serves Jesus Christ, never by the extraordinary talents he possesses. Pastoral authority can be attained only by the servant of Jesus who seeks no power o his own, whom himself is a brother among brothers submitted to the authority of the Word.
From Life Together - On Life Experience:
“How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to thy word. It is very presumptuous and wrongheaded to think that a man has to become entangled deeply in the guilt of life in order to know life itself, and finally God. We do not learn to know life and guilt from our own experience, but only from God’s judgment of mankind and his grace in the cross of Jesus Christ.”
On Marriage:
In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal – it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. As you first gave the ring to one another and have now received it a second time from the hand of the pastor, so love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God. As high as God is above man, so high are the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of marriage above the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of love. It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
From “A Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell”, May 1943, Letters and Papers from Prison
On Confession and Absolution:
In confession the break-through to community takes place. Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community. In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart. The sin must be brought into the light. The unexpressed must be openly spoken and acknowledged. All that is secret and hidden is made manifest. It is a hard struggle until the sin is openly admitted. But God breaks gates of brass bars of iron (Ps. 107: 16).
From Life Together - On Building up the Church:
“It is not we who build. [Christ] builds the church. No man builds the church but Christ alone. Whoever is minded to build the church is surely well on the way to destroying it; for he will build a temple to idols without wishing or knowing it. We must confess—he builds. We must proclaim—he builds. We must pray to him—that he may build. We do not know his plan. We cannot see whether he is building or pulling down. It may be that the times which by human standards are times of collapse are for him the great times of construction. It may be that the times which from a human point of view are great times for the church are times when it is pulled down. It is a great comfort which Christ gives to his church: you confess..., bear witness to me and I alone will build where it pleases me. Do not meddle in what is my province. Do what is given to you to do well and you have done enough. But do it well. Pay no heed to views and opinions. Don’t ask for judgments. Don’t always be calculating what will happen. Don’t always be on the lookout for another refuge! Church, stay a church! But church, confess, confess, confess! Christ alone is your Lord; from his grace alone can you live as you are. Christ builds" (No Rusty Swords, [New York: Harper and Row, 1965] 216-217
On the Cross and the Bible:
“Either I determine the place in which I will find God, or I allow God to determine the place where He will be found. If it is I who say where God will be, I will always find there a God who in some way corresponds to me, is agreeable to me, fits in with my nature. But if it is God who says where he will be, then that will truly be a place which at first is not agreeable to me at all, which does not fit so well with me. That place is the cross of Christ. And whoever will find God there must draw near to the cross in the manner which the Sermon on the Mount requires. That does not correspond to our nature at all; it is, in fact, completely contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible, not only the New Testament but also the Old. (Is. 53!) In any case, Jesus and Paul understand it in this way — that the cross of Jesus fulfills the Scriptures of the Old Testament. The entire Bible, then, is the Word in which God allows himself to be found by us. Not a place which is agreeable to us or makes sense to us a priori, but instead a place which is strange to us and contrary to our nature. Yet, the very place in which God has decided to meet us.”
From Meditating on the Word
“God is completely other than the so-called eternal verities. Theirs is an eternity made up of our own thoughts and wishes. But God’s Word begins by showing us the cross. And it is to the cross, to death and judgment before God, that our ways and thoughts (even the ‘eternal’ ones) all lead. Does this perspective somehow make it understandable to you that I do not want to give up the Bible as this strange Word of God at any point, that I intend with all my powers to ask what God wants to say to us here? Any other place outside the Bible has become too uncertain for me. I fear that I will only encounter a divine double of myself there.”
Ibid
From Pr. Bonhoeffer’s Poem, “Who am I?”, the last stanzas (Letters and Papers from Prison):
“Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am Thine.”
“Jesus calls men, not to a new religion, but to life.”
“God alone knows our good works; all we know is His good work.”
On the Two Types of Love:
“Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ’s sake.”
“…spiritual love does not desire but rather serves, it loves an enemy as brother. It originates neither in the brother nor in the enemy but in Christ and His Word. Human love can never understand spiritual love, for spiritual love is from above; it is something completely strange, new and incomprehensible to all earthly love.”
“…this spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ.”
“We are bound together by faith, not by experience.”
From Life Together - On Being Pious:
In matters of piety, the “I will” can cause the greatest harm…”
On Being a Pastor:
The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren. Not in the former but in the latter is the lack. The Church will place its confidence only in the simple servant of the Word of Jesus Christ because it knows that then it will be guided, not according to human wisdom and human conceit, but by the Word of the Good Shepherd.
The question of trust, which is so closely related to that of authority, is determined by the faithfulness with which a man serves Jesus Christ, never by the extraordinary talents he possesses. Pastoral authority can be attained only by the servant of Jesus who seeks no power o his own, whom himself is a brother among brothers submitted to the authority of the Word.
From Life Together - On Life Experience:
“How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to thy word. It is very presumptuous and wrongheaded to think that a man has to become entangled deeply in the guilt of life in order to know life itself, and finally God. We do not learn to know life and guilt from our own experience, but only from God’s judgment of mankind and his grace in the cross of Jesus Christ.”
On Marriage:
In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal – it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. As you first gave the ring to one another and have now received it a second time from the hand of the pastor, so love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God. As high as God is above man, so high are the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of marriage above the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of love. It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
From “A Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell”, May 1943, Letters and Papers from Prison
On Confession and Absolution:
In confession the break-through to community takes place. Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community. In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart. The sin must be brought into the light. The unexpressed must be openly spoken and acknowledged. All that is secret and hidden is made manifest. It is a hard struggle until the sin is openly admitted. But God breaks gates of brass bars of iron (Ps. 107: 16).
From Life Together - On Building up the Church:
“It is not we who build. [Christ] builds the church. No man builds the church but Christ alone. Whoever is minded to build the church is surely well on the way to destroying it; for he will build a temple to idols without wishing or knowing it. We must confess—he builds. We must proclaim—he builds. We must pray to him—that he may build. We do not know his plan. We cannot see whether he is building or pulling down. It may be that the times which by human standards are times of collapse are for him the great times of construction. It may be that the times which from a human point of view are great times for the church are times when it is pulled down. It is a great comfort which Christ gives to his church: you confess..., bear witness to me and I alone will build where it pleases me. Do not meddle in what is my province. Do what is given to you to do well and you have done enough. But do it well. Pay no heed to views and opinions. Don’t ask for judgments. Don’t always be calculating what will happen. Don’t always be on the lookout for another refuge! Church, stay a church! But church, confess, confess, confess! Christ alone is your Lord; from his grace alone can you live as you are. Christ builds" (No Rusty Swords, [New York: Harper and Row, 1965] 216-217
On the Cross and the Bible:
“Either I determine the place in which I will find God, or I allow God to determine the place where He will be found. If it is I who say where God will be, I will always find there a God who in some way corresponds to me, is agreeable to me, fits in with my nature. But if it is God who says where he will be, then that will truly be a place which at first is not agreeable to me at all, which does not fit so well with me. That place is the cross of Christ. And whoever will find God there must draw near to the cross in the manner which the Sermon on the Mount requires. That does not correspond to our nature at all; it is, in fact, completely contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible, not only the New Testament but also the Old. (Is. 53!) In any case, Jesus and Paul understand it in this way — that the cross of Jesus fulfills the Scriptures of the Old Testament. The entire Bible, then, is the Word in which God allows himself to be found by us. Not a place which is agreeable to us or makes sense to us a priori, but instead a place which is strange to us and contrary to our nature. Yet, the very place in which God has decided to meet us.”
From Meditating on the Word
“God is completely other than the so-called eternal verities. Theirs is an eternity made up of our own thoughts and wishes. But God’s Word begins by showing us the cross. And it is to the cross, to death and judgment before God, that our ways and thoughts (even the ‘eternal’ ones) all lead. Does this perspective somehow make it understandable to you that I do not want to give up the Bible as this strange Word of God at any point, that I intend with all my powers to ask what God wants to say to us here? Any other place outside the Bible has become too uncertain for me. I fear that I will only encounter a divine double of myself there.”
Ibid
From Pr. Bonhoeffer’s Poem, “Who am I?”, the last stanzas (Letters and Papers from Prison):
“Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am Thine.”
Church Father's Thoughts on Psalm 118
Psalm 118:1 “For he is good.”
“The praise of God could not be expressed in fewer words than these, ‘For he is good.’ I see not what can be more solemn than this brevity, since goodness is so peculiarly the quality of God, that the Son of God himself when addressed by the rich man as ‘Good Master,’ by one, namely, who beholding his flesh, and comprehending not the fullness of his divine nature, considered him as man only, replied, ‘Why do you call me good? There is none good but one, that is God.’ And what is this but to say, ‘If you wish to call me good, recognize me as God.’” - Augustine.
Psalm 118:1 “His mercy endures forever.”
“What the close of Psalm 117 says of God’s truth, viz., that it endures forever, the beginning of Psalm 118 says of its sister, ‘his mercy or loving-kindness.’” - Franz Delitzsch.
Psalm 118:5 “I called upon the LORD.”
“You must, learn to call, and not to sit there by yourself, and lie on the bench, hang and shake your head, and bite and devour thyself with your thoughts; but come on, you indolent knave, down upon your knees, up with your hands and eyes to heaven, take a Psalm or a prayer, -and set forth your distress with tears before God.” - Martin Luther.
“The praise of God could not be expressed in fewer words than these, ‘For he is good.’ I see not what can be more solemn than this brevity, since goodness is so peculiarly the quality of God, that the Son of God himself when addressed by the rich man as ‘Good Master,’ by one, namely, who beholding his flesh, and comprehending not the fullness of his divine nature, considered him as man only, replied, ‘Why do you call me good? There is none good but one, that is God.’ And what is this but to say, ‘If you wish to call me good, recognize me as God.’” - Augustine.
Psalm 118:1 “His mercy endures forever.”
“What the close of Psalm 117 says of God’s truth, viz., that it endures forever, the beginning of Psalm 118 says of its sister, ‘his mercy or loving-kindness.’” - Franz Delitzsch.
Psalm 118:5 “I called upon the LORD.”
“You must, learn to call, and not to sit there by yourself, and lie on the bench, hang and shake your head, and bite and devour thyself with your thoughts; but come on, you indolent knave, down upon your knees, up with your hands and eyes to heaven, take a Psalm or a prayer, -and set forth your distress with tears before God.” - Martin Luther.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
HE SATISFIES THE LONGING SOUL ...
“For He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul He fills with good things.” Psalm 107:9
So great is the lacking of satisfaction that it leads one into a deep sense of aloneness and separation.
So deep is this sense, that the longing one is not able to adequate ascend from his depths by thoughts, words or deeds to attain his desired satisfaction.
So distant is this sense of separation for one who is lacking that which satisfies his soul, that no matter his longing of thoughts, words or deeds, he cannot adequately bridge the gap his lack as brought him.
It is in this solitude that one finds himself in the belly of the whale with Jonah.
It is at such a time and place that one is confronted with the end of themselves and one begins to despair.
In such longing one surely thirsts, but it is not until one has reached the end of themselves that he begins to thirst for that which is not of himself or the earth. It is when one realizes that things earthly cannot satisfy his thirst, that he is stewarded to the heavenly supply.
So he goes with petitions to the Lord in confession and prayers, asking for divine grace and mercy so that his soul’s thirst may be satisfied, and be at rest.
For the one who thirsts in faith, He gives him the Water of Life for satisfaction, and for his hunger He fills him with the greatest good – the Bread of Life.
In both cases the need is more than met, there is abundance in the supply which the Lord does provide.
No one will come up lacking of what they need where he receives the provision of the Lord.
For what the Lord sends to one so alone in their sin is not the common fare of this world, but goodness Himself, the Son of God.
How should one who has been so abundantly met in their solitude of lack and need respond?
“Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man!” Psalm 107:8, 15, 21, 31.
So great is the lacking of satisfaction that it leads one into a deep sense of aloneness and separation.
So deep is this sense, that the longing one is not able to adequate ascend from his depths by thoughts, words or deeds to attain his desired satisfaction.
So distant is this sense of separation for one who is lacking that which satisfies his soul, that no matter his longing of thoughts, words or deeds, he cannot adequately bridge the gap his lack as brought him.
It is in this solitude that one finds himself in the belly of the whale with Jonah.
It is at such a time and place that one is confronted with the end of themselves and one begins to despair.
In such longing one surely thirsts, but it is not until one has reached the end of themselves that he begins to thirst for that which is not of himself or the earth. It is when one realizes that things earthly cannot satisfy his thirst, that he is stewarded to the heavenly supply.
So he goes with petitions to the Lord in confession and prayers, asking for divine grace and mercy so that his soul’s thirst may be satisfied, and be at rest.
For the one who thirsts in faith, He gives him the Water of Life for satisfaction, and for his hunger He fills him with the greatest good – the Bread of Life.
In both cases the need is more than met, there is abundance in the supply which the Lord does provide.
No one will come up lacking of what they need where he receives the provision of the Lord.
For what the Lord sends to one so alone in their sin is not the common fare of this world, but goodness Himself, the Son of God.
How should one who has been so abundantly met in their solitude of lack and need respond?
“Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man!” Psalm 107:8, 15, 21, 31.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
LIKE THE GOLDEN SUN ASCENDING
Like the golden sun ascending, Breaking through the gloom of night,
On the earth His glory spending So that darkness takes to flight,
Thus my Jesus from the grave And death’s dismal, dreadful cave
Rose triumphant Easter morning At the early purple dawning.
Thanks to Thee, O Christ victorious! Thanks to Thee, O Lord of Life!
Death hath now no power o’er us, Thou hast conquered in the strife.
Thanks because Thou didst arise And hast opened Paradise!
None can fully sing the glory Of the resurrection story.
Though I be by sin o’ertaken, Though I lie in helplessness,
Though I be by friends forsaken And must suffer sore distress,
Though I be despised, contemned, And by all the world condemned,
Though the dark grave yawn before me, Yet the light of hope shines o’er me.
Thou hast died for my transgression, All my sins on Thee were laid;
Thou hast won for me salvation, On the cross my debt was paid.
From the grave I shall arise And shall meet Thee in the skies.
Death itself is transitory; I shall lift my head in glory.
Grant me grace, O blessèd Savior, And Thy Holy Spirit send
That my walk and my behavior May be pleasing to the end;
That I may not fall again Into death’s grim pit and pain,
Whence by grace Thou hast retrieved me And from which Thou hast relieved me.
For the joy Thy advent gave me, For Thy holy, precious Word;
For Thy baptism, which doth save me, For Thy blest communion board;
For Thy death, the bitter scorn, For Thy resurrection morn,
Lord, I thank Thee and extol Thee, And in heaven I shall behold Thee.
Words: Thomas H. Kingo, 1689
Translated from Danish to English by George A. Rygh, 1908.
On the earth His glory spending So that darkness takes to flight,
Thus my Jesus from the grave And death’s dismal, dreadful cave
Rose triumphant Easter morning At the early purple dawning.
Thanks to Thee, O Christ victorious! Thanks to Thee, O Lord of Life!
Death hath now no power o’er us, Thou hast conquered in the strife.
Thanks because Thou didst arise And hast opened Paradise!
None can fully sing the glory Of the resurrection story.
Though I be by sin o’ertaken, Though I lie in helplessness,
Though I be by friends forsaken And must suffer sore distress,
Though I be despised, contemned, And by all the world condemned,
Though the dark grave yawn before me, Yet the light of hope shines o’er me.
Thou hast died for my transgression, All my sins on Thee were laid;
Thou hast won for me salvation, On the cross my debt was paid.
From the grave I shall arise And shall meet Thee in the skies.
Death itself is transitory; I shall lift my head in glory.
Grant me grace, O blessèd Savior, And Thy Holy Spirit send
That my walk and my behavior May be pleasing to the end;
That I may not fall again Into death’s grim pit and pain,
Whence by grace Thou hast retrieved me And from which Thou hast relieved me.
For the joy Thy advent gave me, For Thy holy, precious Word;
For Thy baptism, which doth save me, For Thy blest communion board;
For Thy death, the bitter scorn, For Thy resurrection morn,
Lord, I thank Thee and extol Thee, And in heaven I shall behold Thee.
Words: Thomas H. Kingo, 1689
Translated from Danish to English by George A. Rygh, 1908.
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