Why We’re Releasing A New Worship CD Based On Isaac Watts Hymns

We’re all familar with the stereotypes in contemporary worship music:

• Seven-eleven Songs: Seven words repeated eleven times
• Jesus-is-my-boyfriend Songs: How creepy is that?

and everything described in this hilarious satire by The Talking Mirror: Writing Contemporary Worship Music - A Webinar (thanks, Chris Vacher).

We’ve tried to travel a different path in our past albums like Before The Throne and These Things I Remember, and have learned much from the psalms and from the treasure of classic hymnody.  For our upcoming CD Over The Grave: The Hymns Of Isaac Watts, Volume One, we wrote new songs adapted from — or inspired by — both.  Isaac Watts is known as the “Father of English Hymnody,” and he is also the man who rewrote the psalms of David in metered hymn fashion.

We liked the fact that Watts didn’t shy away from the full spectrum of biblical teaching.  He wrote, first and foremost, about the cross of Christ and its place as the defining moment of history.  He also wrote of sin and judgment, God’s wrath and His grace, of resurrection and Last Things, of God’s full sovereignty over time and creation, of false piety and our overwhelming need for a perfect High Priest and spotless Lamb.

Here are some of the lyrics on Over The Grave that, we feel, are needed in the music of today’s church.  By no means do they represent the totality of the message presented on this CD — or even of the songs from whence these lyrics come.  But hopefully they will whet your appetite for what’s to come when we release Over The Grave:

From “Warrior”:

Earth and sea will give up their dead/ the nations gather before Him

A day of glory, a day of dread/ no one dares now ignore Him

From “Living Faith”:

Mistaken souls that dream of heaven/ and make their empty boast

of inward joys and sins forgiven/ while slaves to greed and lust

From “How Long (Psalm 13)”:

Seems the devil is winning every battle/ his arrows, they pierce me, and my eyes grow dim

if You tarry much longer You will miss my last breath/ and my foes will triumph in my decay

From “Only Your Blood Is Enough”:

Lord, create my heart anew (Father come and make us wise)

Only You are pure and true (Lead us away from our demise)

Lord, You are the remedy (For only Your blood can set us free)

Only Your blood can set us free.  Only Your blood can set us free.

We’ll present more updates, sound samples and lyrics over the next month here on sojournmusic.com.  To catch up on anything you might have missed, simply visit our brand new Over The Grave page in the Music section.  And as producer Neil Robins says, soon you’ll be tasting this music with your ears.