George Matheson had a night of struggle with God one evening, and God decided to reassure him by giving him a song, a hymn of profound truth about the love of God that still has the ability to stir the faith of the singer.

A pastor in Scotland for the latter part of the 19th Century, Matheson's eyesight gradually declined to the point of blindness, but thanks to the help of his sisters, he excelled, and armed with an exceptional ability to memorize, he maintained a successful and fruitful ministry from the pulpit. Often those who heard him preach for the first time did not even realize that he was blind.

From Matheson's own recollection, we are told how O LOVE THAT WILT NOT LET ME GO was born.

My hymn was composed in the manse of Argyleshire, Scotland on the evening of the 6th of June, 1882, when I was 40 years of age. I was alone in the manse at that time. It was the night of my sister’s marriage, and the rest of the family were staying over night in Glasgow.

Some thing happened to me, which was known only to myself, and which caused me the most severe mental suffering. The hymn was the fruit of that suffering. It was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life. I had the impression of having it dictated to me by some in ward voice rather than of working it out myself.

I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any re­touching or correction. I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring from on high.

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

 

 

All the Levites who were musicians......stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets.

The trumpeters and singers joined in unison, as with one voice, to give praise and thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, they raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang:
      
"He is good; his love endures forever."
     
Then the temple of the LORD was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.

2 Chronicles 5:12-14

That must have been a thrilling moment in the history of God's people. Who would question that God designed music in part to glorify Him in worship? But there is a danger, a presumption that must be checked. Listen to C. S. Lewis from his essay entitled ON CHURCH MUSIC:

When it (music in the church) succeeds, I think the performers are the most enviable of men; privileged while mortals to honor God like angels and, for a few golden moments, to see spirit and flesh, delight and labor, skill and worship, the natural and the supernatural, all fused into that unity they would have had before the Fall.

But I must insist that no degree of excellence in the music, simply as music, can assure us that this paradisal state has been achieved. The excellence proves 'keenness'; but men can be 'keen' for natural, or even wicked, motives.

The absence of keenness would prove that they lacked the right spirit; its presence does not prove that they have it. We must beware of the naive idea that our music can 'please' God as it would please a cultivated human hearer. That is like thinking, under the old Law, that He really needed the blood of bulls and goats.

To which an answer came, 'Mine are the cattle upon a thousand hills', and 'if I am hungry, I will not tell thee.' If God (in that sense) wanted music, He would not tell us. For all our offerings, whether of music or martyrdom, are like the intrinsically worthless present of a child, which a father values indeed, but values only for the intention.

James Trott, in his second edition of hymn texts entitled A SACRIFICE OF PRAISE, includes a text by William Austin (1587-1634) that reveals the ongoing problem that church musicians in all ages have faced.

The poem is titled TO A MUSICIAN, and Trott states, "Many musicians are more out of order than their instruments; such as are so, may by singing this Ode become reprovers of their own untunable affections: they who are better tempered, are hereby remembered what music is most acceptable to God and most profitable to themselves.

What helps it those,
    Who skill in song have found,
Well to compose
    Of disagreeing notes,
By artful choice,
    A sweetly pleasing sound,
To fit their voice,
    And their melodious throats?
What helps it them
    That they this cunning know,
If most condemn
    The way in which they go?

In other words, musicians can sing and play with the finest of talent and artistry, but if others can see the inconsistency of their lives, and the fact that they don't subscribe to what they sing about, or try to live out the truth, then we have a problem.

What will he gain
    By touching his lute,
Who shall disdain
    A grave advice to hear?
What form the sounds
    Of organ, fife, or lute,
To him redounds,
    Who doth no sin forbear?
A mean respect,
    By tuning strings he hath,
Who doth neglect
    A rectified path.

Therefore, O Lord!
    So tuned let me be
Unto Thy Word,
    And Thy ten-stringed law,
That in each part
    I may thereto agree,
And feel my heart
    Inspired with loving awe;
He sings and plays
    The songs which best thou lovest,
Who does and says
    The things which Thou approvest.