![\"\"](\"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/a-landmark-hymn-in-cim-omf-540x360.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
There are two hymns that are invariably sung at official OMF functions including our Thailand field conference: Jehovah Jireh is His Name and How good is the God We Adore.<\/p>\n
The latter was written by an English preacher named Joseph Hart (1712-1768):<\/p>\n
How good is the God we adore!
\nOur faithful, unchangeable friend:
\nhis love is as great as his pow\u2019r
\nand knows neither knows measure nor end.<\/p>\n
For Christ is the first and the last;
\nhis Spirit will guide us safe home;
\nwe\u2019ll praise him for all that is past
\nand trust him for all that\u2019s to come.<\/p>\n
Unlike most hymns which have four stanzas or more with a chorus in between, Hart employs just two stanzas but packs no less than six attributes of God into the first stanza. \u00a0In the second stanza, he centers in on Christ and His eternal nature, the guiding presence of the Spirit and ends with praise for God\u2019s past benevolence and affirmation of trust for the future. The reference to the past reminds CIM\/OMF of its reliance on Ebenezer (Memorial Stone of Help in 1 Kings 4) and trust for the future (Jehovah Jireh in Genesis 22).<\/p>\n
As a younger man, Joseph was an unlikely candidate to write such a hymn due to his stance as a professed libertine who wrote,\u00a0The Unreasonableness of Religion<\/em>, in an effort to convince\u00a0John Wesley<\/a>\u00a0to simply believe in God and not worry about doing good works. Wesley may not have impressed the young Hart, but an older Hart sat under the powerful preaching of George Whitefield and was soundly converted. Hart went on to write over thirty hymns, including the well known \u201cCome, Holy Spirit, Come\u201d and \u201cCome Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy\u201d but his most famous hymn remains the one that OMF adopted, a hymn that was even sung at Westminster Chapel at the funeral service of Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones. Joseph Hart died at only 56 years old and at his funeral, tens of thousands of admirers gathered and could read on his tombstone what he had instructed to be engraved: \u201cJoseph Hart was by the free and sovereign grace and Spirit of God raised up from the depths of sin, and delivered from the bonds of mere profession and self-righteousness, and led to rest entirely for salvation in the finished atonement and perfect obedience of Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are two hymns that are invariably sung at official OMF functions including our Thailand field conference: Jehovah Jireh is His Name and How good is the God We Adore. The latter was written by an English preacher named Joseph … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=927"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1026,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927\/revisions\/1026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}