How Sweet and Awesome Is the Place
Isaac Watts, 1707; Old Irish hymn melody
How sweet and awesome is the place
With Christ within the doors,
While everlasting love displays,
The choicest of her stores.
While all our hearts and all our songs
Join to admire the feast,
Each of us cries, with thankful tongue,
“Lord, why was I a guest?
“Why was I made to hear your voice
And enter while there’s room,
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?”
‘Twas the same love that spread the feast
That sweetly drew us in;
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perished in our sin.
Pity the nations, O our God,
Constrain the earth to come;
Send your victorious Word abroad,
And bring the strangers home.
We long to see your churches full,
That all the chosen race
May, with one voice and heart and soul,
Sing your redeeming grace.
I'm beginning to understand something that I've always tried to grasp. Some of you may know the whole "debate" about whether someone chooses Christ or whether Christ chooses him? There are so many people at one extreme or the other, including myself at one point. I grew up knowing that I choose Christ. I have the power to reject Him, and it is through my Sinner's Prayer that I accept Him. And then He kind of takes over from there, but it's still up to me to get rid of the sin in my life and not to backslide, etc.
Then when I went to college, I was introduced to the God of predestination, who seemed a lot bigger because He has the power to decide who should be saved and who should not be saved. To turn people's hearts for or against. Seemed cruel for Him to NOT choose someone, but if I truly trusted God, then I knew that HE knew best and just like a parent of a naive child, He knows all the facts to make the best decision and I can't possibly.
Well, since then, actually since Saturday morning, I'm beginning to put the two together. I'm still working this out in my heart and head, so please bear with me. I never understood how some of my friends could do this, and I wanted to understand, so I pretended. Here's the basics of what I believe the Holy Spirit revealed to me through the book of Jeremiah and journaling: God chooses to bring back some of us from the dead, spiritually, and then once we are confronted by His goodness in the face our death-smelling sinfulness, we cannot do anything but choose Him.
I was confronted by His goodness on Saturday morning. It finally clicked for me and I'm still struggling to put words to it. It's His kindness and love for us, and Him pursuing us as a Lover would that wins us over. At least I know this is PART of His nature. There's many other facets to Him, and I have eternity to explore Him!
Consider these passages from Jeremiah 32:
1 While Jeremiah was still confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the LORD came to him a second time: 2 "This is what the LORD says, he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it—the LORD is his name: 3 'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.' 4 For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says about the houses in this city and the royal palaces of Judah that have been torn down to be used against the siege ramps and the sword 5 in the fight with the Babylonians [a] : 'They will be filled with the dead bodies of the men I will slay in my anger and wrath. I will hide my face from this city because of all its wickedness.
6 " 'Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security. 7 I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity [b] and will rebuild them as they were before. 8 I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me. 9 Then this city will bring me renown, joy, praise and honor before all nations on earth that hear of all the good things I do for it; and they will be in awe and will tremble at the abundant prosperity and peace I provide for it.'
10 "This is what the LORD says: 'You say about this place, "It is a desolate waste, without men or animals." Yet in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted, inhabited by neither men nor animals, there will be heard once more 11 the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the LORD, saying,
"Give thanks to the LORD Almighty,
for the LORD is good;
his love endures forever."
For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were before,' says the LORD.
I hope this wasn't too much for you to read at one time, but it's really hard to understand what I saw without the context. Have a great day worshipping the Lord!!
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