My dad sent me an email this week about the hymn “O God, Our Help”. It jogged my memory of this beautiful hymn. A majestic hymn with a stately message.

Written in the early 1700’s this hymn actually has a message and lifts our hearts and souls to God unlike much of the triviality that is being published today. It is Isaac Watt’s musical rendition of Psalm 90.

Our hymnbooks would be much poorer without the addition of Watts hymns. Here’s a very small list of some of the six hundred songs he wrote:

• Alas, and Did My Saviour Bleed
• Am I a Soldier of the Cross
• Come, We That Love the Lord
• Joy to the World!
• When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

Isaac Watts came from strong Christian parentage. His father, a deacon in his church, was several times imprisoned for his beliefs. His mother was from French Huguenot descent.

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

Under the shadow of Thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.

Thy Word commands our flesh to dust,
“Return, ye sons of men”:
All nations rose from earth at first,
And turn to earth again.

A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their lives and cares,
Are carried downwards by the flood,
And lost in foll’wing years.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the op’ning day.

Like flow’ry fields the nations stand
Pleased with the morning light;
The flow’rs beneath the mower’s hand
Lie with’ring ere ’tis night.

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

~ Isaac Watts