Jay Hall
[Originally published as Does your Hymnbook Teach Creation?]
Does your fellowship sing songs glorifying the Lord as Creator of the cosmos? Do your hymns mention creation In six days? Are there choruses that speak of the fall and the curse? What about the flood or the tower of Babel? Consider these selections that highlight creation and the early chapters of Genesis:
All creatures of our God and King
Lift up your voice and with us sing,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou burning sun with golden beam,
Thou silver moon with softer gleam!
~St. Francis of AssisiAdvertisement Below:
I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath,
and when my voice is lost in death,
praise shall employ my nobler powers;
my days of praise shall ne’er be past,
while life, and thought, and being last,
or immortality endures.
~Isaac Watts
A number of psalms emphasize creation, and so do many hymns. Possibly the most popular song at creation conferences is “How Great Thou Art.” Consider these selections from Gadsby’s Hymns:
The spacious earth and spreading flood
Proclaim the wise, the powerful God;
And thy rich glories from afar
Sparkle in every rolling star. (#18)
When Adam by transgression fell,
And conscious, fled his Maker’s face,
Linked in clandestine league with hell,
He ruined all his future race:
The seeds of evil once brought in,
Increased and filled the world with sin. (#89)
Father, how wide thy glory shines!
How high thy wonders rise!
Known through the earth by thousand signs,
By thousands through the skies!
Those mighty orbs proclaim thy power;
Their motion speaks thy skill;
And on the wings of every hour,
We read thy patience still. (#207)
All creatures to his bounty owe
Their being and their breath;
But greatest gratitude should flow
In men redeemed from death. (#834)
The rolling sun, the changing light,
And nights and days thy power confess:
And the blest volume thou hast writ
Reveals thy justice and thy grace. (#1147)Advertisement Below:
Noyes Fludde (Noah’s Flood) is a 15th-century “mystery play,” and in 1957, Benjamin Britten turned it into an opera:
The Thirde Pageante of Noyes Fludd
I, God, that all this world hath wrought,
heaven and yearth, and all of nought,
I see my people in deede and thought
are sett fowle in sinne. …
Man that I made will I distroye,
beast, worme, and fowle to flye;
for on yearth the doe mee noye,
the folke that are theron. …
Therfore Noe, my servante free,
that righteous man arte as I see,
a shippe sonne thou shalt make thee …
O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens! Psalm 8:1
