Some things just don't need updating. The Mona Lisa doesn't need more modern clothing. Graffiti looks not so good on the Statue of Liberty. Just as the oceans are destroyed by the trash thrown overboard from cruise ships, beautiful hymns are destroyed by the removal of integral verses and the addition of repetitive, simplistic, unmusical worship choruses. It's like inserting the diet Coke jingle into the middle of Handel's Messiah.
O For A Thousand Tongues is my most favorite hymn. It makes me cry. The David Crowder band version makes me cry too-- in agony over the destruction of something beautiful.
Added:
So come on and sing out
Let our anthem grow loud
There is one great love
There is one great love, Jesus.
Removed:
Hear Him, ye deaf
His praise, ye dumb
your loosened tongues employ;
ye blind, behold your savior come
and leap, ye lame, for joy.
Luke 7:19-23:
Summoning two of his disciples, John sent them to the Lord, saying, "Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?"
When the men came to Him, they said, "John the Baptist has sent us to You, to ask, 'Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?'"
At that very time He cured many people of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits; and He gave sight to many who were blind.
And He answered and said to them, "Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM.
"Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me."
Isaiah 29:18-19
On that day the deaf will hear words of a book,
And out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.
The afflicted also will increase their gladness in the LORD,
And the needy of mankind will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
Isaiah 35
The wilderness and the desert will be glad,
And the Arabah will rejoice and blossom;
Like the crocus
It will blossom profusely
And rejoice with rejoicing and shout of joy
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
The majesty of Carmel and Sharon
They will see the glory of the LORD,
The majesty of our God.
Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble.
Say to those with anxious heart,
"Take courage, fear not
Behold, your God will come with vengeance;
The recompense of God will come,
But He will save you."
Then the eyes of the blind will be opened
And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.
Then the lame will leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy
For waters will break forth in the wilderness
And streams in the Arabah.
The scorched land will become a pool
And the thirsty ground springs of water;
In the haunt of jackals, its resting place,
Grass becomes reeds and rushes.
A highway will be there, a roadway,
And it will be called the Highway of Holiness
The unclean will not travel on it,
But it will be for him who walks that way,
And fools will not wander on it.
No lion will be there,
Nor will any vicious beast go up on it;
These will not be found there
But the redeemed will walk there,
And the ransomed of the LORD will return
And come with joyful shouting to Zion,
With everlasting joy upon their heads
They will find gladness and joy,
And sorrow and sighing will flee away.
Charles Wesley and Carl G. Glaser and Lowell Mason got O For A Thousand Tongues exactly right back in the 1700s.
Posts
