Hello OCBC family,
“Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!’” (Isaiah 6:2-3).
This passage is the call of the Lord to Isaiah to be a prophet, but the call is a majestic scene that Isaiah’s answer is, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

In this passage we can see the revelation of God to Isaiah, but also a call to share his message, and this was the call that Reginald Heber had in his own life.

Reginald Heber was born on April 21, 1783, to a minister and his wife in an English village. He was a very smart child, and able to translate poetry from Latin into English. After his graduation from Oxford College, he became the vicar of the same church where his father used to be the pastor and served there for many years. But his desire was to do mission work. His desire was to go places where the gospel did not arrive yet.

He became bishop of Calcutta, India in 1823, and serve there preaching and visiting people and sharing the gospel with those who were in darkness. While he was in Calcutta, he prepared a 16-month tour to visit his diocese, and during that time, on April 3, 1826, he preached to a large crowd in the hot sun, and afterward plunged into a pool of cold water. He suffered a stroke and drowned.

After his tragic death, his widow found several of his hymns and one of them was a hymn that he wrote to be sung on Trinity Sunday, according to the England Church’s calendar. The name of the hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty.”
“Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!”

The second stanza is based on the book of Revelation 4:8, “And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.” (KJV).
“Holy, holy, holy! all the saints adore Thee,
casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
cherubim and seraphim, falling down before Thee,
which wert and art and evermore shalt be.”

But this glorious hymn is incomplete without the glorious melody composed by John B. Dykes. He was born in England in 1823, the same year that Heber was appointed as bishop of Calcutta. He learned to play violin and piano when he was very young, and when he was 10 years old, he became the organist where his father was the pastor. He composed many melodies, but he is very popular for this one.

As the lyrics of the hymn has a name, “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty” the melody has a name as well. John B. Dykes named his composition “Nicaea” after the church council of Nicaea, on 325, where the church defended the doctrine of the Trinity against heresies that denied the divinity of Jesus.

“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; from thence he shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets. In one holy catholic and apostolic church; we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.”
Nicaea Creed as altered in 381

OCBC, if you use this hymn as part of your quiet time, use it as a sound doctrine document, and rejoice that now we have access to the throne of grace, because the Triune God called us from darkness into a new life, because of the death of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

“Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy name, in earth and sky and sea;
Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!”
​
In His service,
Israel

Hello OCBC family,

“To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Timothy 1:17).

What a powerful and beautiful passage this is. This is Paul talking to the young pastor, Timothy, about his own work, and making clear that the glory is for God alone, Paul is just a sinner saved by grace and the only example that he can give is that God had patience with him, saving him to preach that, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (v. 12).”

This same passage was used by Walter Chalmers Smith to create his famous hymn, “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.” Walter Smith was born on December 5, 1824, in Aberdeen, a port city in Northeast Scotland. He attended grammar school at the University of Aberdeen, and after that he went to New College, Edinburgh. In 1850, he was ordained as a minister in the Free Church of Scotland, a Calvinist denomination.

He pastored several churches, but in 1874, he became pastor of the Free High Church (Presbyterian) of Edinburgh, until his retirement in 1894. During this pastorate, Smith created a hymns collection called “Hymns of Christ and the Christian Life.” For this collection, he wrote the hymn “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.”

1 Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
in light inaccessible hid from our eyes;
most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, Thy great name we praise.

2 Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,
nor wanting, nor wasting, Thou rulest in might;
Thy justice, like mountains, high soaring above
Thy clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love.

3 To all, life Thou givest, to both great and small;
in all life Thou livest, the true life of all;
we blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,
and wither and perish–, but naught changeth Thee.
​
4 Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,
Thine angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight.
All praise we would render; O help us to see
'tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee!

The tune that we are very familiar with is a Welsh hymn with a very simple pattern (AABA), easy to learn and sing. The name of the tune is ST. DENIO, and perhaps is after Saint Deiniol (died 572), traditionally the first Bishop of Bangor in the Kingdom of Gwynedd, Wales.

This hymn is rich in sound doctrine and very useful for any season in the life of the church and/or believers. Please, use it as part of your quiet time and worship our God, who is our King, who is immortal, who is invisible, who is wise.

In His service,
Israel

Hello OCBC family,
“The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” (Psalm 24:1).

This is one of my favorite verses in the psalms about creation; the whole universe belongs to our Lord. And this verse is the base for a wonderful hymn that we love to sing, “This Is My Father’s World.”

“This is my Father's world,
And to my list'ning ears,
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
This is my Father's world,
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.”

The author of this hymn is Maltbie D. Babcock, and he was born in Syracuse, N.Y., Aug. 3, 1858, went to college is Syracuse and became a presbyterian minister. On October 4, 1882, he married Katherine Eliot Tallman, and they had two kids, but sadly, both children died in infancy.

Babcock was a prolific author and loves to write poems and hymns. Yes, we know his most famous hymn, “This Is My Father’s World” but he has more hymns as well. “Gaily the bells are ringing”, “O blessed Saviour, Lord of love”, “Shining Sun, shining sun”, “Rest in the Lord, my soul”, “Be strong: we are not here to play.”

“This is my Father's world,
The birds their carols raise;
The morning light, the lily white
Declare their Maker's praise.
This is my Father's world,
He shines in all that's fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.”

This hymn was not originally written for children, but it became very popular to teach doctrine to little ones.

Babcock was in Italy in 1901 after visiting the Holy Land, and he wrote this hymn, and sadly a few months after, Babcock passed away. He was 42 years old.

The melody is a traditional English folk melody, and it is called TERRA BEATA, Latin for “beautiful world.”

We are living in a world where people call the earth “our mother” and we have the “Earth Day” forgetting who the real Creator is, the Triune God. Let us not forget to praise God and give thanks to Him for this creation.

“This is my Father's world,
O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father's world,
The battle is not done;
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and heav'n be one.”

Please, use this hymn as part of your personal time with God, and rejoice in our God the Creator.

In His service,
Israel

Hello OCBC family,
“In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.” (Psalm 95:4).

The creation of the whole universe is in Genesis 1, and you are very familiar with this passage. This part of the Scripture is great to teach kids about God as the creator of the animals, plants, mountains, rivers, and man, Adam and his wife, Eve. This passage is great for deep theological studies: God creating everything from nothing, the Trinity involved in the whole process of creation, and many other topics. But also, this passage is a call to worship our God as the Creator and the source of life.

Isaac Watts was born on 17 July 1674, son of a schoolmaster. He was very smart since childhood, learning Latin when he was 4 years old, and able to write poems when he was 7. Let me share a little story about how good he was to create poems from an early age.

“Watts displayed a propensity for rhyme from an early age. He was once asked why he had his eyes open during prayers, to which he responded:
A little mouse for want of stairs
ran up a rope to say its prayers.
He received corporal punishment for this, to which he cried:
O father, father, pity take
And I will no more verses make.”

At home, his family was part of a congregationalism church, and Watts himself became a minister of this Calvinist tradition.

Being Calvinist, Watts learned to worship God using the psaltery, metrical psalms, but his desire was to clothe the psalms with Christian robe, and he created hymns using Psalms with a New Testament language.

After this introduction, I want to share that Isaac Watts used the first chapter of the Bible to write a lovely hymn, “I Sing the Mighty Power of God.” In this hymn, we extol the power, wisdom, and goodness of God as seen in the created order. We recognize that it is God who has made all these beautiful wonders, and that it is He who keeps the world in order through His ever-present care.

“I sing the mighty power of God
That made the mountains rise,
That spread the flowing seas abroad,
And built the lofty skies.
I sing the wisdom that ordained
The sun to rule the day;
The moon shines full at His command
And all the stars obey.”

This hymn was written for children, but it is good for adults as well, because it has sound doctrine. It can be used for quiet time, praising the Lord for his creation.

“There's not a plant or flower below
But makes Thy glories known;
And clouds arise and tempests blow
By order from Thy throne;
While all that borrows life from Thee
Is ever in Thy care,
And ev'rywhere that man can be,
Thou, God, art present there.”

“31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
    may the Lord rejoice in his works,
32 who looks on the earth and it trembles,
    who touches the mountains and they smoke!
33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
    I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
    for I rejoice in the Lord.” (Psalm 104:31-34)

Enjoy creation but worship the Creator.
​
In His service,
Israel

Hello OCBC family.
“My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing to You, and my soul, which You have redeemed.” (Psalm 71:23).

“Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee,
opening to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness;
drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
fill us with the light of day!”

These lovely lyrics are from that very well know hymn, “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.” This hymn is an explosion of praises to God the Father, and His Son Jesus Christ, and the author is Henry van Dyke.

Henry van Dyke was born in Pennsylvania in 1852 and as a young man, he became the pastor of the Brick Presbyterian church in New York City. Then he became an English literature teacher at Princeton. During this time, he wrote many essays, poems, books, and hymns. Among his books, a popular one is “The Other Wise Man.”

In 1907, Hendy van Dyke was invited to preach at Williams College in Massachusetts. During the breakfast, he handed to the president of the college a piece of paper with a poem, and he said, “Here is a hymn for you. Your mountains were my inspiration. It must be sung to the music of Beethoven’s ‘Hymn of Joy.’”

“Thou art giving and forgiving,
ever blessing, ever blessed,
Wellspring of the joy of living,
ocean depth of happy rest!
Thou our Father, Christ our brother,
all who live in love are Thine;
Teach us how to love each other,
lift us to the joy divine.”

You are very familiar with the melody of this hymn, and it’s based on a major work by Ludwin van Beethoven. Beethoven, German composer, wrote nine symphonies, and his last one (which he composed when he was completely deaf) is called “Choral” because it is his only symphony that ends with a choir and soloists. The lyrics that Beethoven used for his work are from a secular poem by Friedrich Schiller. But now we can give thanks to God for a man like Henry van Dyke, who gave us a poem for God’s glory, and we can sing it during our worship services using the majestic music of Beethoven.

“Mortals, join the happy chorus,
which the morning stars began;
Father love is reigning o’er us,
brother love binds man to man.
Ever singing, march we onward,
victors in the midst of strife,
Joyful music leads us sunward
in the triumph song of life.”
​
In His service,
Israel

Hello OCBC family,
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Galatians 1:3-5).

Today, I want to share the story behind a very popular hymn, “To God Be the Glory” whose author is Fanny Crosby. She was born on Putnam County, NY, 1820 and died on Bridgeport, CT, 1915. You know that Fanny Crosby has a talent for writing poems that became hymns, and you know that she was blind from childhood. When she was a little girl, she had some problems in her eyes, and a “doctor” tried to help her, just making her completely blind for the rest of her life.

She went to a school for blind people, and after her graduation, she became a teacher of the same institution.

She was very proud of her reformed heritage, and you can see through the words of her hymns about her security of salvation in Jesus Christ.

This hymn is different from other gospel hymns, because its focus is not on the personal experience of the believer, but the attention is on God’s glory and God’s work of redemption. Read the first stanza,

“To God be the glory, great things He hath done,
so loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
who yielded His life an atonement for sin,
and opened the life-gate that all may go in.”

God so loved the world that he gave us his Son to make atonement for sin. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16).

Second stanza says,
“O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
to ev'ry believer the promise of God;
the vilest offender who truly believes,
that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.”

All who believe in Christ will receive pardon. “To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” (Acts 10:43).

And the third stanza declares,
“Great things He hath taught us, great things He hath done,
and great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son;
but purer, and higher, and greater will be
our wonder, our victory, when Jesus we see.”

We will rejoice now and through all eternity because of the "great things he has done.” “The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad.” (Psalm 126:3).

What a wonderful thought, just to have the assurance that our salvation depends on the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Please, use this hymn as a part of your quiet time, read it, sing it, pray it, and give to God the whole glory.

“Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
let the earth hear His voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
let the people rejoice!
O come to the Father through Jesus the Son,
and give Him the glory, great things He hath done.”
​
In His service,
Israel

Hello OCBC family,
 “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!” (Psalm 100:1-2).

This is a very powerful psalm, no doubts about this. Even classical composers used this psalm for many of their compositions. Felix Mendelssohn, Heinrich Schütz, and Leonard Berstein created wonderful pieces of this psalm to bring glory to God, to be thankful for his faithfulness.
But let us focus on the setting that we are more familiar with. The hymn that we know very well is “All People That on Earth Do Dwell” by Willaim Kethe.

William Kethe was from Scotland, but we do not know the year of his birth or the date of his death. What we know from history is that he left the island to go to the continent because of the hard persecution that Queen Mary had in England in the late 1550s. Kethe was protestant, and his life was in danger.

He spent time in Geneva, where he works as one of the scholars that created the English-language Geneva Bible (1560). But also, he wrote many psalms in metrical form. Let me share with you what a metrical psalm is.
According to the dictionary, “A metrical psalm is a version of a psalm from the Bible that has been rewritten into rhyming, metered verse, typically intended to be sung as a hymn. Essentially, it's a way of adapting the prose of the psalms into a form that's suitable for congregational singing.”

This form of worship style was very popular among reformers and Calvinist tradition, and William Kethe started his own collection of metrical psalms, and the first one that he wrote was the 23rd Psalm. But his most popular one is the metrical version of Psalm 100.

“All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;
Him serve with fear, His praise forth-tell;
Come ye before Him and rejoice.”

The melody was composed by Louis Bourgeois, a French musician. He went to Geneva while Calvin was living there and Louis became the cantor of St. Pierre and St. Gervais, which is to say he was music director there under the pastoral leadership of Calvin. He prepared choristers to teach the congregation new tunes of psalms. The popular melody that we know is called, “The Old 100th” because is related to the lyrics of William Kethe, and even if this melody is used for another psalms setting or even for the popular Doxology, we still call this melody “The Old 100th.”

Let us praise our Lord with this Psalm, from the version in your Bible or singing Kethe’s metrical setting.

“O enter then his gates with praise,
Approach with joy his courts unto;
Praise, laud, and bless his name always,
For it is seemly so to do.”
​
In His service,
Israel

Hello OCBC family,
“Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts! Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!” (Psalm 148:1-4).

About this psalm, we don’t know who the author is or when it was written, but we know that the Holy Spirit, the real author of the psalm, is encouraging us to praise the Lord, not just to us, humans, but for the whole creation.

This psalm is the base for a very popular and very familiar hymn, “All Creatures of Our God and King.” The author of this hymn is Francis of Assisi. We know that he was born in 1182 in central Italy, son of a rich merchant. He received some education, but he joined the army and was captured in war. After his release, he became Christian, and his desire was to preach the gospel, to every creature. Here is where legends and fiction started. Some people say that he took this commandment very seriously and literally, that he even preached to birds on the field.

“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, O praise Him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!”

Before his death in 1225, he wrote a hymn called, “Cantico di fratre sole” – “Song of Brother Sun.” This hymn exhorts all creation to worship God. The sun, the moon, the birds, the whole earth, the man, must praise God the Creator.

The first English version that we have is from William H. Draper in 1919. He translated this hymn to be used in a children’s festival for Pentecost Sunday, fifty days after Easter Sunday.

Some people might say that Francis of Assisi was a catholic man, and it is true, but because of his life, his service, his ministry, and his desire to serve and love the Lord, Francis could be an evangelical Christian in our time.
The last stanza has a deep theological true; the God that we praise is a Triune God.

“Let all things their Creator bless,
And worship Him in humble-ness,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,
And praise the Spirit, Three in One!
O praise Him, O praise Him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!”
Halleluiah! Praise the LORD!
​
In His service,
Israel

Hello OCBC family,
“Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.” (Nehemiah 9:5).

“Stand up and bless the Lord,
All people of His choice;
Stand up and bless the Lord your God
With heart and soul and voice.”

The passage of Nehemiah was the inspiration for this hymn, “Stand Up and Bless the Lord.” The author was James Montgomery, who was born in Scotland in 1771, son of Moravian parents. They were missionaries in West Indies while James was in boarding school.

Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He wrote against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries.

This hymn was written for a special meeting, the Sheffield Red Hill Wesleyan Sunday School Anniversary, held on Mar. 15, 1824. Became very popular and a year after this hymn became part of “Christian Psalmist.”

“God is our strength and song,
And His salvation ours;
Then be His love in Christ proclaimed
With all our ransomed pow'rs.”

He was not just a fervent missionary, but also he supported the British Bible Society. It is very clear that his parents’ influence on missions was strong. Also, Moravians were popular for their love for music and wonderful poems, always singing metrical psalms, that is why James Montgomery wrote over 400 hymns. He published three hymnals. He died in Yorkshire, England, 1854.

“Stand up and bless the Lord;
The Lord your God adore;
Stand up and bless His glorious name,
Hence-forth forevermore.”

Please, use this hymn as part of your quiet time, use it as a prayer, and stand up and bless the Lord.”

“And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.

And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.

Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.” (Revelation 15:2-4).
​
In His service,
Israel

Hello OCBC family,
“For you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.” (Isaiah 63:16).

This week, during my quiet time, I read this passage, and this verse has a powerful message: God never abandons us. God will be with us during our trials, troubles, problems, and hard situations. Today’s hymn makes an echo of this passage, “We Praise Thee, O God, Our Redeemer.”

The author of this hymn is Julia Cady Cory, from New York. She was born in a Christian home, and her father was an architect and a Sunday school superintendent. He was an amateur hymnologist, and he was Julia’s influence to write hymns. She was a member of a Presbyterian Church in Englewood, NJ.

Her hymn teaches us how faithful is God in the present, past, and future of the believer. Read the first stanza, a humble call to praise our God.

“We praise Thee, O God, our Redeemer, Creator;
In grateful devotion our tribute we bring;
We lay it before You; we kneel and adore You;
We bless Your holy name: glad praises we sing.”

The second stanza tells us how good God has been to us.
“We worship you, God of our fathers and mothers;
Through life's storm and tempest our guide you have been;
When perils o'ertake us, you never forsake us,
And with your help, O Lord, our battles we win.”

The last stanza is painting a wonderful picture of our glorious future with our God and Savior.
“With voices united our praises we offer,
And gladly our songs of thanksgiving we raise.
With You, Lord, beside us, Your strong arm will guide us.
To You, our great Redeemer, forever be praise.”

The melody is a Dutch Folk melody, and we are very familiar with it, because we sing this tune with the hymn “We Gather Together.”

Are you in deep trouble? Trust in the Lord, because He is faithful.

“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6).
​
In His service,
Israel