Our “Old Fashion Hymns” service was fantastic. Everyone I talked to said they would like to do it
again … and we will. Those old hymns contrast sharply with the newer ones, as well as the praise
choruses. Not that one is better than the other. Any song that glorifies God and our relationship with
Him through Christ, is a good song. I heard a well-known pastor say that the “older generation” sang
about Jesus and the “newer generations” seem to sing to Him. Absolutely nothing wrong with either.
Have you noticed, though, how many of the older hymns speak of heaven? A lot of hymns about
heaven! I’m sure there are several reasons but, as Richard Sadler would say “in my humble, but
accurate, opinion” I look at it like it’s a product of the times in which the song were written. It was a
different world back then.
One of my grandfathers was a coal miner and the other was a sharecropper. Their life experiences were
vastly different from mine. They got up before dawn and worked extremely hard all day long…often
until after sunset. Their wives were home taking care of kids, cooking (minimal, but delicious meals),
and cleaning. They, too, labored all day and into the night. They would then go to bed and repeat the
process the next day. There were no entertainment venues, malls, fast food joints…or even restaurants,
for that matter. My daddy and Angie’s daddy knew what it was like to plow behind a mule. The times
were simple, but they were tough, hard years.
So what is on your mind when you think about spiritual things? Heaven. Face to face with Jesus. Streets
paved with gold, a mansion to live in. No pain from hours and hours in the mines or hot fields. No
sorrow from losing a child with an illness that was later very curable. “Onward to the prize before us…” I
am looking forward to heaven, I want to see Jesus. I’m ready to see the family that is there. But maybe,
just maybe, I don’t yearn for it quite as hard as those that sang this every Sunday: ‘Some glad morning
when this life is o’er, I’ll fly away; To a home on God’s celestial shore, I’ll fly away.”
Say good things about your Savior.
again … and we will. Those old hymns contrast sharply with the newer ones, as well as the praise
choruses. Not that one is better than the other. Any song that glorifies God and our relationship with
Him through Christ, is a good song. I heard a well-known pastor say that the “older generation” sang
about Jesus and the “newer generations” seem to sing to Him. Absolutely nothing wrong with either.
Have you noticed, though, how many of the older hymns speak of heaven? A lot of hymns about
heaven! I’m sure there are several reasons but, as Richard Sadler would say “in my humble, but
accurate, opinion” I look at it like it’s a product of the times in which the song were written. It was a
different world back then.
One of my grandfathers was a coal miner and the other was a sharecropper. Their life experiences were
vastly different from mine. They got up before dawn and worked extremely hard all day long…often
until after sunset. Their wives were home taking care of kids, cooking (minimal, but delicious meals),
and cleaning. They, too, labored all day and into the night. They would then go to bed and repeat the
process the next day. There were no entertainment venues, malls, fast food joints…or even restaurants,
for that matter. My daddy and Angie’s daddy knew what it was like to plow behind a mule. The times
were simple, but they were tough, hard years.
So what is on your mind when you think about spiritual things? Heaven. Face to face with Jesus. Streets
paved with gold, a mansion to live in. No pain from hours and hours in the mines or hot fields. No
sorrow from losing a child with an illness that was later very curable. “Onward to the prize before us…” I
am looking forward to heaven, I want to see Jesus. I’m ready to see the family that is there. But maybe,
just maybe, I don’t yearn for it quite as hard as those that sang this every Sunday: ‘Some glad morning
when this life is o’er, I’ll fly away; To a home on God’s celestial shore, I’ll fly away.”
Say good things about your Savior.