Sing To The Lord Of The Harvest
Sing to the Lord of the Harvest
Sing to the Lord of the harvest,
Sing songs of love and praise;
With joyful heart and voices
Your hallelujahs raise;
By Him the rolling seasons
In fruitful order move;
Sing to the Lord of the harvest
A song of happy love.
By Him the clouds drop fatness,
The deserts bloom and spring,
The hills leap up in gladness,
The valleys laugh and sing;
He filleth with His fullness
All things with large increase;
He crowns the year with goodness,
With plenty and with peace.
Heap on His sacred altar
The gifts His goodness gave,
The golden sheaves of harvest,
The souls He died to save;
Your hearts lay down before Him
When at His feet ye fall,
And with your lives adore Him
Who gave His life for all.
FOR AN ANGLICAN minister, John Monsell had a stirring speaking style. Most Anglican preachers of his day read from carefully prepared texts—and put their churches to sleep. But Monsell preached without notes and kept his people on the edge of their seats.
Like Monsell’s preaching, this hymn might have been considered too informal, almost irreverent. What is this about seasons “rolling” and “happy love”? And do we really want to think about the hills “leaping up in gladness” while “the valleys laugh and sing”? But Monsell didn’t care what the critics thought. He knew that the church’s singing needed to be “more fervent and joyous.” If God is as great as we claim He is, Monsell said, we should show it by the way we sing.
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.”
Matthew 9:36-38
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