San Francisco Central Seventh-day Adventist Church

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22 God Is Our Song

Our Hymn of Praise is #22, God is Our Song. The words will be unfamiliar to most of us, but the tune is well known. John Wilson, a contemporary hymn-writer, in 1976 wrote the words, based on Psalm 118:14(RSV) - The Lord is my Strength and my Song, and He has become my Salvation.

The words were written specifically to go with a tune by Gustav Holst; but our hymnal has set it to OLD 124TH, one of the great hymn tunes tune for Psalm 124 in the Genevan Psalter of 1551. At that time, Geneva was the city of John Calvin, and Calvin's idea was that only Psalms should be sung in church—consequently, the “Psalter,” a hymn-book in which Biblical Psalms were set to music. Louis Bourgeois, who edited the Psalter, was jailed in Geneva because he had made changes in some of the tunes, unauthorized by the religious authorities. The authorities who jailed Bourgeois, however, failed to remove his changes from the Psalter, and they still remain today.

God is our Song, and every singer blest
Who praising Him finds energy and rest.
All who praise God with unaffected joy
Give back to us the widom we destroy,
Give back to us the widom we destroy.

God is our Song, for Jesus comes to save;
While praising Him we offer all we have.
New songs we sing, in ventures new unite,
When Jesus leads us upward into light,
When Jesus leads us upward into light.

This is our Song no conflict ever drowns;
Who praises God our human wrath disowns.
Love knows what rich complexities of sound
God builds upon a simple common ground,
God builds upon a simple common ground.

God is our Silence when no songs are sung,
When ecstasy or sorrow stills the tongue.
Glorious the faith which silently obeys
Until we find again the voice of praise,
Until we find again the voice of praise.