Young4vr

Isaac Watts
1674-1748
Composer of “Joy to the World”

Said Watts, “to see the dull indifference, the negligent and thoughtless air that sits upon the faces of a whole assembly, while the psalm is upon their lips, might even tempt a charitable observer to suspect the fervency of their inward religion.” Couldn’t we say the same today in many of our congregations regarding our treatment of the hymns? Isn’t the singing of a hymn supposed to be a prayer unto God?

Watts was the son of a nonconformist (his father was imprisoned for refusing to join the Church of England), and therefore came by his lack of fear to go against the grain quite naturally. His mother was fond of repeating tales of nursing her children on the jail steps; these tales created a great amount of respect in Watts for his father’s courage — courage he would also need later in his own life.

Watts began to show his genius at an early age, learning Latin at the age of 4, Greek at 9, French at 11, and Hebrew at 13. But Watts began complaining of the lethargy with which the church approached its worship through song as a young teenager. His father challenged him to write something better. The following week, he wrote his first Hymn, “Behold the Glories of the Lamb.”

Considered by many as a rebel at best and a heretic (which, in those times, was punishable by death) at worst, Watts advocated moving away from singing only metrical psalms. He wanted music in the church to be more passionate, saying “They ought to be translated in such a manner as we have reason to believe David would have composed them if he had lived in our day.” While colleagues and professors of religion of the time claimed they could not even recognize David’s psalms in Watts’ work, calling his work “flights of fancy,” or “Watt’s whims,” Watt was one who believed the scriptures were to be likened unto our own day and circumstances, or they are of little use to us. How blessed we are because of this. Watts was the contemporary Christian musician of his time. We might even call him the first real CCM artist. And here I thought artists like Amy Grant and Larnelle Harris were the true trailblazers of contemporary Christian/Gospel music.

We owe a continued debt of gratitude to those who have gone before us, who have sought reforms and stood their ground despite considerable and often deadly pressure from both church and state.

JOY TO THE WORLD
(Based on Psalm 98)

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.