Hymns: A Thousand Hallelujahs

I’ve been exploring some of the very modern worship songs as an old guy 😀. But now, I’ve decided to alternate between very modern hymns, old hymns, and in-between hymns, namely the worship songs from the 60s to the 90s that feature in hymnbooks such as Mission Praise. Today it’s the turn of the very modern hymns.

Today’s song is A Thousand Hallelujahs from 2022.

The title is memorable, but why not a million or billion hallelujahs or a hundred hallelujahs? t 😀 Well, I like the world “thousand”. I think of the old hymn “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing“. It’s all about worshiping and delighting in God for eternity – and about expressing our love for God.

Why would God care about whether we love or worship Him, given that He’s so much greater than us? Because He loves us. And He’s a loving God. You sometimes hear God described, in philosophical terms, as someone who just created the world and left it to itself. It almost presents him as some sort of a geeky scientist who can’t engage in relationships. But that’s not the biblical picture of God.

But are we creating God in our own image to make Him like us? No – He created us in His image to resemble Him, but God is much greater than us, in all kinds of ways. A little plastic toy soldier resembles a human, but there’s a lot more to a human than a little plastic soldier. And there’s a lot more to God – yet, He loves like we do, but infinitely more. And He is also a just and holy God, which is why He punishes sin. But we need not be afraid, if we trust in Jesus our Saviour, who bore our sin on the cross. The cross is mentioned in the hymn:

Who else would die for our redemption?
Whose resurrection means I'll rise?
There isn't time enough to sing of all You've done
But I have eternity to try

And I think of the thousands worshipping Jesus in the Book of Revelation:

Revelation 5:11-12
¹¹ Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. ¹² In a loud voice they were saying:
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
    to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
    and honor and glory and praise!”

Here are some other versions of today’s song: