Hymns for the Watch-Night (#9)
Come, Let Us Anew

Charles Wesley
(1707-1788)
John Wesley
(1703-1791)

Come, let us anew
Our pleasures pursue;
For Christian delight
The day is too short; let us borrow the night!
In sanctified joy
Each moment employ
To Jesus’s praise,
And spend, and be spent, in the triumph of grace. [click to continue…]

Hymns for the Watch-Night (#8)
Meet and Right It Is to Sing

Charles Wesley
(1707-1788)
John Wesley
(1703-1791)

Meet and right it is to sing
In every time and place,
“Glory to our heavenly King,
The God of truth and grace!”
Join we then with sweet accord,
All in one thanksgiving join:
“Holy, holy, holy, Lord,
Eternal praise be Thine!”

Thee the firstborn sons of light
In choral symphonies [click to continue…]

Hymns for the Watch-Night (#7)
How Happy, Gracious Lord, Are We

Charles Wesley
(1707-1788)
John Wesley
(1703-1791)

How happy, gracious Lord, are we,
Divinely drawn to follow Thee,
Whose hours divided are
Betwixt the mount and multitude;
Our day is spent in [click to continue…]

Hymns for the Watch-Night (#6)
Jesus, Guard Thy Gathered Sheep

Charles Wesley
(1707-1788)
John Wesley
(1703-1791)

Jesus, guard Thy gathered sheep
Who Thy voice begin to know,
Day and night in safety keep,
Help us after Thee to go.
Eyeing Thee with fixed regard,
By Thy word and Spirit led,
Walk we in Thy [click to continue…]

Hymns for the Watch-Night (#5)
Jesus, God of Our Salvation

Charles Wesley
(1707-1788)
John Wesley
(1703-1791)

Jesus, God of our salvation,
Give us eyes Thyself to see,
Waiting for the consolation,
Longing to believe on Thee.
Now vouchsafe Thy sacred power,
Now the faith divine impart;
Meet us in this solemn hour,
Shine in every [click to continue…]

Celebrating the New Year God Has Given

Not surprisingly, everyone seems focused on the fact that a New Year is upon us. We present here some of our favorite New-Year-related poems and articles from the Finest of the Wheat website. God has given you a New Year—use it to His glory!

• The Kernels of Wheat podcast Are You Fulfilling Bible Prophecy? will challenge you on how you spend your New Year.
• Famous divine Robert Murray McCheyne offers a proposal for Reading through the Word of God in a Year.
• Isaiah Reid shares a Heart-Talk for the New Year.
• If you ever desired to have a poetess pronounce a blessing over you, read the benediction of New Year’s Wishes from Frances Ridley Havergal.
• The turn of the New Year offers a special opportunity for re-dedication, as Frances Ridley Havergal exemplifies in Another Year Is Dawning!
• With each passing year, the sense grows on me that I have fewer years of earthly ministry left in the King's service. Thus, hymns in the vein of Charles Wesley's And Are We Yet Alive? remind me to “number my days, that I may apply my heart to wisdom” (Psalm 90:12 KJV).

Speaking of the Wesleys, [click to continue…]

Hymns for the Watch-Night (#4)
I, I Am the Man That Hath Known

Charles Wesley
(1707-1788)
John Wesley
(1703-1791)

I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. — Lamentations 3:1 KJV

I, I am the man that hath known
Distress by the stroke of His rod;
And still through the anguish I groan,
And pine for the absence of God;
The happy in Jesus may sleep,
But O! till in me He appears, [click to continue…]

Hymns for the Watch-Night (#2):
Thou Judge of Quick and Dead

Charles Wesley
(1707-1788)
John Wesley
(1703-1791)

Thou Judge of quick and dead,
Before whose bar severe
With holy joy, or guilty dread,
We all shall soon appear,
Our cautioned soul prepare
For that tremendous day,
And fill us now with [click to continue…]

Hymns for the Watch-Night (#1):
Oft We Have Passed the Guilty Night

Charles Wesley
(1707-1788)
John Wesley
(1703-1791)

Oft we have passed the guilty night
In revelings and frantic mirth;
The creature was our sole delight,
Our happiness the things of earth.
But O! suffice the season passed,
We choose the better part at last.

We will not close our [click to continue…]

Grains from Gutteridge for December:
Holiness: The Preparation for His Coming

Holiness:
The Preparation
for His Coming

We've just released a powerful, unusual, and thought-provoking Advent message by Pastor Percy Gutteridge. Is it really an Advent message? Well, yes — sort of. It was delivered as the last in a series of several Advent messages. But it's about the Second Advent, that is, the Second Coming of Jesus, not the first.

More importantly, it's about what God longs to do for and in us in order to prepare us both for the Coming of Jesus and for dwelling in God's presence forever. What's the key? Holiness: The Preparation for His Coming, episode #27 of our Grains from Gutteridge podcast.

Now I Have Found the Ground Wherein

John Wesley
(1703-1791)
from a translation of the hymn
Wenn kleine Himmelserben
by Johann Andreas Rothe
(1688-1758)

Now I have found the ground wherein
Sure my soul’s anchor may remain:
The wounds of Jesus, for my sin
Before the world’s foundation slain;
Whose mercy shall unshaken stay,
When Heaven and earth are fled away.

Father, Thine everlasting grace
Our scanty thought [click to continue…]

It Is Well with My Soul

Horatio Spafford
(1828-1888)

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll—
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
“It is well, it is well with my soul.”

Refrain:
It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, [click to continue…]

Ashamed of Jesus?

Joseph Gregg
(1720?-1768)

For whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He shall come in His own glory, and in His Father's, and of the holy angels. — Luke 9:26 KJV

Jesus, and shall it ever be
A mortal man ashamed of Thee?
Scorned be the thought by rich and poor:
My soul shall scorn it more and more.

Ashamed of Jesus! Sooner far
May evening blush to own a star!
He sheds the beams of light divine
O’er this benighted soul of mine. [click to continue…]