Sung during the Sunday worship at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London (Spurgeon’s).
Hymn 1 version 2 (based on Psalm 1) from our hymn book, Psalms & Hymns of Reformed Worship.
I ONCE despised and scorned the name
Of my Creator God,
Believing every boastful claim
Of those who spurn His Word.
I walked in bondage to the ways
Of this lost world below,
And spent my strength and passing days
In selfishness and show.
Now in His Word my soul has found
All knowledge, truth and light;
Diffusing all my wondering mind
With unsurpassed delight.
Secure in Christ, He keeps me by
A living stream of grace,
And turns the sorest trial or sigh
To fruitfulness and peace.
Without His pardoning love would I
No place in Heaven find,
But be condemned, at death, to fly
As chaff before the wind.
I’ll trust His never-failing love
Who knows and keeps His own;
He guards my way to realms above
And watches from His throne.
Author: Evangelical Psalter (1991)
Tune: Sunrise
Composer: Christopher Laws (b.1946)
(This tune is published in ‘Worthy the Lamb’, a recently-produced book of new tunes for Reformed worship, which is available for purchase here: https://bit.ly/2Dv6yEl)