Feedburner

Subscribe to the Requiest

Get the latest updates delivered via email

Author Archive for The Unfettered Monk – Page 2

May
16

Funeral Hymns

by The Unfettered Monk

I’ve been working on a list of hymns I want sung at my funeral. Of course if you guys sing them all (assuming you aren’t out golfing or something and actually have the time to come to my funeral) it could be a very long service. Perhaps you should stay home after all… oh well… this particular hymn jumped straight to the top of the list after we sang it this past Sunday.

How Sweet and Awful Is the Place – Issac Watts

1. How sweet and awful is the place
With Christ within the doors,
While everlasting love displays
The choicest of her stores.

2. While all our hearts and all our songs
Join to admire the feast,
Each of us cry, with thankful tongues,
“Lord, why was I a guest?”

3. “Why was I made to hear Thy voice,
And enter while there’s room,
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?”

4. ‘Twas the same love that spread the feast
That sweetly drew us in;
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perished in our sin.

5. Pity the nations, O our God,
Constrain the earth to come;
Send Thy victorious Word abroad,
And bring the strangers home.

6. We long to see Thy churches full,
That all the chosen race
May, with one voice and heart and soul,
Sing Thy redeeming grace.

Public Domain

Here’s a link to hear the tune. Some modernist PC type who just doesn’t get it changed the title from Watts original but the tune is wonderful.

0 Categories : ramblings
May
11

A hymn of Alfred’s

by The Unfettered Monk

For the sake of posterity I add this hymn to the internet so that those who search for it may find it.

To God all is present
both that which was before,
and that which is now,
yea and that which shall be after us;
all is present to Him
His abundance never waxeth, nor doth
it ever wane. He never calleth aught
to mind, for He hath forgetten naught
He looketh for naught, for He knoweth
all. He seeketh nothing, for He hath lost
nothing. He pursueth no creature, for
none may flee from Him; nor doth He
dread aught, for none is more mighty
than He. He is ever giving, yet He
waneth in naught. He is ever Almighty,
for He ever willeth good and never evil.
He needed nothing. He is ever watching,
never sleeping. He is ever beneficient.
He is ever eternal, for the time
never was when He was not, nor ever
shall be.

0 Categories : hymn
May
10

For the sake of my brethren

by The Unfettered Monk

I found an article recently that indirectly deals with a major concern of mine. The article has to do with the way we dress in church. It’s called Dressing Like A Tourist. The author of it moderates his comments so the commenting appears to be all one sided at this point. I decided to keep the commenting going here at the Requiest.

The major concern of mine has to do with immodesty in the church and with the exhortation of Romans 14 as applied to immodesty.

The Bible has a lot to say about clothing. As a matter of fact if it wasn’t for sin I imagine clothing would not even be necessary.

Now aside from the people who judge us based on what we are wearing we must first begin with a judgment of ourselves based on the principles of Romans 14. Perhaps what I’m wearing does not cause me a conscience issue as far as my relationship with God is concerned but ought I not at least ask the question is what I’m wearing placing a stumbling block before my brothers and sisters especially in the context of worship?

To be more blunt does my clothing reveal that which it was intended to conceal. What was the original purpose of clothing? Adam and Eve discovered they were naked and they sought to be clothed…. to be honest I don’t quite understand this however God’s remedy was not to say “Don’t worry about it I only look on the inside”… He put clothes on them.

I’m not as concerned about sloppy verses neat… I’ve seen some folks dressed to the nines in their finery who were immodestly provocative in the way they were dressed … my concern is for those in the congregation who perhaps because they are weaker are made to stumble by the freedom some feel with regard to the clothing (or lack thereof) they permit themselves to wear. How would Paul respond to this? Would he say “I won’t wear belly button rings, halter tops, less than opaque skin-tight shirts or spandex slacks for the sake of my brethren!”

How are we in the church to address this issue without being labeled judgmental legalists on the one hand while not being wimpy about exhorting, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness on the other?

1 Categories : rants
« Previous Page
Next Page »

Gallery

P1010302 P1010167 100_0314 P1010330 000_0002 DSC_0161