The Blood Of The Martyrs Is The Seed Of The Church

Today’s service begins with Jesus’ command for His disciples to be His witnesses “in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Right from the start, the elements of worship this morning portray the spread of the gospel—from person to person and nation to nation. Hymns like All Hail The Power Of Jesus’ Name and Psalms like All Nations Clap Your Hands—Psalm 47 declare that “every kindred [and] every tribe” will call Christ their Lord, that “all nations” will shout His praises, and that He will raise up children for Abraham from among the gentiles. The reading from Jeremiah 31 envisions a time when even the “coastlands far away” will be gathered into His flock. We respond with How Sweet And Awful Is The Place, asking God to “send [His] victorious Word abroad and bring the strangers home.” We read the story of the disciples who, though scattered from their homes, nonetheless “went about preaching the word,” (Acts 8:4), and we ask God to help us “spread through all the earth abroad the honors of Thy name.” O Church, Arise presents the “call of Christ our captain” to reach out to those lost in the darkness of sin, and I Waited Patient—Psalm 40 (a psalm setting partially arranged by an actual martyred missionary) encourages us that our Lord hears our cries when faced with opposition. God’s Word will go forth, and “sinners [will] learn to make [our] God their only hope and fear.” —Henry C. Haffner