April 9
O LOVE OF GOD
-The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And
reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child
He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.
Refrain
-O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’
and angels’ song.
-When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse
to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and
strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
Refrain
-Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a
quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the
scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
-Words: Frederick M. Lehman: he wrote this song in 1917 in Pasadena, California, and it was published in Songs
That Are Different, Volume 2, 1919. The lyrics are based on the Jewish poem Haddamut, written in Aramaic in 1050 by Meir
Ben Isaac Nehorai, a cantor in Worms, Germany; they have been translated into at least 18 languages.
One day, during short intervals of inattention to our work, we picked up a scrap of paper and, seated upon an empty lemon
box pushed against the wall, with a stub pencil, added the (first) two stanzas and chorus of the song…Since the lines
(3rd stanza from the Jewish poem) had been found penciled on the wall of a patient’s room in an insane asylum after
he had been carried to his grave, the general opinion was that this inmate had written the epic in moments of sanity.
Frederick M. Lehman, “History of the Song, The Love of God,” 1948
-The Lord Jesus Christ has written these words on the walls of our hearts. They are there to be discovered, and to be awakened
to, FOR GOD IS LOVE! He has indeed extended redeeming grace to Adam’s race, and His love does indeed reach to THE LOWEST
HELL!
-WHO SHALL SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF CHRIST?-
