Thou Son of God, Whose Flaming Eyes - Wesley

Thou Son of God, Whose flaming eyes
Our inmost thoughts perceive,
Accept the grateful sacrifice
Which now to Thee we give.

We bow before Thy gracious throne,
And think ourselves sincere;
But show us, Lord, is everyone
Thy real worshiper?

Is here a soul who knows Thee not,
Nor feels his need of Thee;
A stranger to the blood which bought
His pardon on the tree?

Convince him now of unbelief,
His desperate state explain;
And his fill his heart with sacred grief,
And penitential pain.

Speak with that voice that wakes the dead,
And bid the sleeper rise,
And bid his guilty conscience dread
The death that never dies.

Extort the cry, “What must be done
To save a wretch like me?
How shall a trembling sinner shun
That endless misery?

“I must this instant now begin,
Out of my sleep to wake,
And turn to God, and every sin
Continually forsake.

“I must for faith incessant cry,
And wrestle, Lord, with Thee;
I must be born again, or die
To all eternity.”

- Charles Wesley

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/t/s/g/tsgwfeys.htm

“I must this instant now begin,
Out of my sleep to wake,
And turn to God, and every sin
Continually forsake.

“I must for faith incessant cry,
And wrestle, Lord, with Thee;
I must be born again, or die
To all eternity.”

Powerful. My pastor always says, those old hymns are sermons in themselves. So true. No one writes anything like this anymore.

This is wonderful. Note how this hymn describes the progression of the work of the Spirit in calling us to Christ; Awakening, conviction, repentence, new birth! Beautiful.

In Christ,

Ron

No one writes anything like this anymore.

I won't argue with that. We have nothing today that can rival Watts and Wesley and the holy majesty they were able to capture in their Spirit-breathed verse. Praise God that thousands upon thousands of these inSpired gems survive. It's almost as if God knew the the downward apostate spiral that 'praise and worship' would take in the following centuries. I thank the Father for the old hymns. They lift my spirit into the lofty portals of God's glory.

Bro. Paul