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 old hymns.
Today’s song is Search Me, O God from 1936.
1 Search me, O God, and know my heart today;
try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray.
See if there be some wicked way in me;
cleanse me from ev’ry sin and set me free.
2 I praise Thee, Lord, for cleansing me from sin;
fulfill Thy Word and make me pure within.
Fill me with fire where once I burned with shame;
grant my desire to magnify Thy name.
3 Lord, take my life, and make it wholly Thine;
fill my poor heart with Thy great love divine.
Take all my will, my passion, self, and pride;
I now surrender, Lord— in me abide.
4 O Holy Spirit, revival comes from Thee;
send a revival– start the work in me.
Thy Word declares Thou will supply our need;
for blessings now, O Lord, I humbly plead.
I do remember singing this one. In the YouTube instances, it seems to be quite slow – but perhaps that matches the lyrics, where you ask God to search you for sin. Why does God need to search you? Doesn’t He already know all about you? Maybe the hope is that God would help you to search yourself and discover anything that might be hindering your relationship with God. And that’s something that shouldn’t be rushed.
It’s very much a revival hymn. And it’s often said that revivals begin with churches repenting and individuals repenting. Then, God’s power is manifested through them.
The Irish composer of this hymn, Edwin Orr, had a deep interest in revivals. I remembering hearing him speak at a special meeting in London back in 1983, when I did a year with London City Mission as a voluntary evangelist. Most people in my circles was interested in revivals. But when things that seemed like revivals happened, they tended to happen in more modern, trendy, or silly churches 😀. Some would see them as false revivals. Others would argue that we’re all a little silly in God’s eyes, but where people truly repent and reach out to Him in faith, He responds. And sometimes older churches can be a little too passive or steeped in their tradition. We might believe that God prefers our church to the newer ones, but God is more interested in our faith and attitude to Him than our church culture or tradition.
People often point out that the revivals of the past also involved movements that conservative Christians at the time regarded as silly or sinister. And as time goes on, such movements mature. Or some of the people who come to Christ during the revival might eventually make their way to more conservative churches. So, if I’m in a little Baptist church of 20 people in a city, the “revival” might happen in a charismatic church or a “megachurch”, but some of the new people might soon populate my church, or the “silly” church might become more like my church. And then a newer sillier church might have a revival 😀. People often see growth in new church movements as simply a fad. But even if there’s a “fad” element to it, and all the false believers eventually fall away, it might be left with plenty of true believers. So if my little Baptist church has 20 people, and the new church has 100, after a few years, I might find that the new church is still double our size, even when all those who were caught up in the fad move away. Wouldn’t it have been better if God just revived our little Baptist church? But we can’t control or dictate how God works. Life is full of surprises.
I’ve heard, and had, various opinions on such issues over the years. I pray that God will send genuine revivals, wherever they happen. And even though it’s fine to scrutinize, and maybe even criticize, new movements, I don’t think it’s good to utterly despise them or look down your nose at them. When I do that, I sometimes feel like the Scribes and Pharisee in the New Testament. It makes more sense to focus on my own faults, and today’s hymn helps me to do just that.
I sometimes see similar trends in the secular world. Often, sensible people are happy to be cautious. Then some silly or sinister person comes along and starts a business or a rock group or whatever. And to our surprise, they have a huge impact. Maybe the church, as well as the world, needs different personality types. I like being me, but I wonder what the world would be like if everyone had always been like me. Maybe we’d still live in the stone age 😀.
You can find some traditional resources on revivals in the Revival topic on Monergism.com. And here are two lists of revival songs, traditional (left) and modern (right):
And here are some other versions of today’s hymn:
