Talk About – Songs & Hymns: At the Cross

Published On: October 23, 2017

Overview

This month we looked at Alas! And Did My Saviour Bleed (Watts, 1707) and No Longer I (Redman & Yates, 2015); both of these focus on Jesus sacrifice and His love for us, and how we should let God guide us in everything.

Questions

All the lyrics and questions are found in the booklet but you can get the questions in PDF form HERE!

Background

Isaac Watts was a particularly clever child, he learnt Latin, Greek, French and Hebrew by age 13 and often spoke in rhymes. At 19 he returned to his father’s parish, he thought that church music was uninspiring and monotonous, he was challenged to write something better; this was received so well that the church requested a new hymn every week. He mostly wrote his hymns as poems and they were sung to a variety of tunes; Alas! And Did My Saviour Bleed, became very well-known across Britain and America and Ralph Hudson added the chorus we sing today (Celebrating Holidays, 2016).

Video 1

Alas! And Did My Saviour Bleed

Video 2

Matt Redman & Ian Yates: No Longer I

Summary

Both songs are celebrating our salvation and worshiping and thanking God for His love. As Christians it’s really important to thank God and praise Him (as written in Psalm 136) for the amazing things He does for us, and to share that with everyone we meet.

“1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
His love endures forever.” – Psalm 136:1

We were encouraged to go out and not be afraid of the Gospel, but to share it with whoever we could, as Paul encouraged the Romans in his letters:

“16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” – Romans 1:16

Finally, we shared the Lord’s Prayer together:

“9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from the evil one.” – Matthew 6:9-13

 

References

  • Bible (n.d.) NIV Bible. Bible Gateway [online]. Available at: https://www.biblegateway.com (Accessed: 7 September 2017).
  • Celebrating Holidays (2016). Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed? Celebrating Holidays [online]. Available at: http://www.celebratingholidays.com/?page_id=11343 (Accessed: 7 September 2017).
  • Watts (1707), Alas! And Did My Saviour Bleed
  • Redman & Yates (2015), At the Cross