As John Calvin once put it, “The human heart is a perpetual idol factory.” The psalms and hymns we sing this morning encourage us to flee from all forms of idolatry and to focus our worship on the triune God alone. We are called into worship with the classic hymn Praise To The Lord, The Almighty, in which we are encouraged to draw near to His temple and to sound forth praise and adoration. Not Unto Us (Psalm 115) presents the folly of giving worship to created things rather than the Creator, warning us that “like them shall those that make them be”—a warning echoed in the Galatians reading, that “whatever one sows, that will he also reap.” We look to God’s grace in Take My Life And Let It Be and When I Survey The Wondrous Cross, asking the Lord to make our days flow in praise and to make our hearts His royal throne, while promising to sacrifice the “vain things that charm [us] most.” The two communion hymns, At The Name Of Jesus and From Babel To Zion, look forward to Christ’s final victory over idols (“every knee shall bow,” and “[Babel] is fallen, and it shall rise no more”) and urge us to subdue all that is not holy within us and to “cling alone to Jesus.” We conclude the service with Be Thou My Vision, singing to God that no riches or earthly glory is worthy of our worship: “naught be all else to me save that Thou art.” He then sends us out with a blessing from Psalm 19, that even the meditations of our hearts (those idol factories) might be acceptable in His sight. —Henry C. Haffner
Posted by Henry Haffner
Categories: Worship Notes