Musical Notes

Hello OCBC family,
 “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” 1 Jon 3:1. What a wonderful passage about the love of God toward us. The love of God has been the inspiration for many hymns and worship songs through centuries, and I want to share with you about a wonderful and very familiar hymn that uses the love of our Heavenly Father as a theme; “The Love of God.” 

This hymn was written by a German American pastor, Frederick M. Lehman, born in Pasadena, California. He became a Christian when he was eleven years old, and eventually, Frederick entered the ministry and was a faithful pastor in churches in the Midwest; but his greatest love was gospel music, and he created five songbooks.

Later, his finances were bad, and he found himself working in a packing factory in Pasadena, moving thirty tons of lemons and oranges a day. It was during this time that some lyrics came to his mind.

“The love of God is greater far
than tongue or pen can ever tell;
it goes beyond the highest star,
and reaches to the lowest hell.
The wand'ring child is reconciled
by God's beloved Son.
The aching soul again made whole,
and priceless pardon won.”

And then,
“When ancient time shall pass away,
and human thrones and kingdoms fall;
when those who here refuse to pray
on rocks and hills and mountains call;
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
all measureless and strong;
grace will resound the whole earth round--
the saints’ and angels’ song.”

After work, he went home and sat at the piano and started to compose the melody that we know these days. But he has a “problem.” During that time, it was a norm that every hymn must have three stanzas. Then he remembered a poem that he heard in a sermon, and he used it for the third stanza of this hymn.

“Could we with ink the ocean fill,
and were the skies of parchment made;
were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill,
and ev’ryone a scribe by trade;
to write the love of God above
would drain the ocean dry;
nor could the scroll contain the whole,
though stretched from sky to sky.”

But who wrote this stanza? According to Frederick, he heard that these lyrics were found on the wall of an insane asylum by an unknown inmate. Maybe someone did find it there, but now we know that these words were part of a eleven-century Jewish poem, and its author was Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai.

This wonderful hymn, like I always say, is wonderful to use as a part of your quiet time. Worship the Lord, because of His love now we can be called children of God.
“O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure--
the saints’ and angels’ song.”
​
In His service,
Israel