O Lord, Look Down from Heaven, Behold
Martin Luther, 1523 to the tune Ach Gott vom Himmel ("Enchiridion," Erfurt, 1524)
O Lord, look down from heav'n, behold
And let Thy pity waken;
How few are we within Thy fold,
Thy saints by men forsaken!
True faith seems quenched on ev'ry hand,
Men suffer not Thy Word to stand;
Dark times have us o'ertaken.
With fraud which they themselves invent
Thy truth they have confounded;
Their hearts are not with one consent
On Thy pure doctrine grounded.
While they parade with outward show,
They lead the people to and fro,
In error's maze astounded.
May God root out all heresy
And of false teachers rid us
Who proudly say: "Now, where is he
That shall our speech forbid us?
By right or might we shall prevail;
What we determine cannot fail;
We own no lord and master."
Therefore saith God, "I must arise,
The poor My help are needing;
To Me ascend My people's cries,
And I have heard their pleading.
For them My saving Word shall fight
And fearlessly and sharply smite,
The poor with might defending."
As silver tried by fire is pure
From all adulteration,
So thro' God's Word shall men endure
Each trial and temptation.
Its light beams brighter thro' the cross,
And, purified from human dross,
It shines through every nation.
Defend Thy truth, O God, and stay
This evil generation;
And from the error of its way
Keep Thine own congregation.
The wicked everywhere abound
And would Thy little flock confound;
But Thou art our Salvation.
Martin Luther, 1523 to the tune Ach Gott vom Himmel ("Enchiridion," Erfurt, 1524)
O Lord, look down from heav'n, behold
And let Thy pity waken;
How few are we within Thy fold,
Thy saints by men forsaken!
True faith seems quenched on ev'ry hand,
Men suffer not Thy Word to stand;
Dark times have us o'ertaken.
With fraud which they themselves invent
Thy truth they have confounded;
Their hearts are not with one consent
On Thy pure doctrine grounded.
While they parade with outward show,
They lead the people to and fro,
In error's maze astounded.
May God root out all heresy
And of false teachers rid us
Who proudly say: "Now, where is he
That shall our speech forbid us?
By right or might we shall prevail;
What we determine cannot fail;
We own no lord and master."
Therefore saith God, "I must arise,
The poor My help are needing;
To Me ascend My people's cries,
And I have heard their pleading.
For them My saving Word shall fight
And fearlessly and sharply smite,
The poor with might defending."
As silver tried by fire is pure
From all adulteration,
So thro' God's Word shall men endure
Each trial and temptation.
Its light beams brighter thro' the cross,
And, purified from human dross,
It shines through every nation.
Defend Thy truth, O God, and stay
This evil generation;
And from the error of its way
Keep Thine own congregation.
The wicked everywhere abound
And would Thy little flock confound;
But Thou art our Salvation.
13 comments:
Pastor C;
Thank you once again for pointing to the main purpose -- The Cross.
With all Luther withstood(with God's help) how can we not do the same. because we have the same help.
I also want to thank you and all
others that have been faithful to
God ,their vocation and in catechizing their congregation to know what is God's Words and what are man's teachings.Too many congregations want men they can mold instead of letting God through the man he has chosen teach the people what God wants ;
That's why we have so much trouble
in so many churches today.
Congregations need to encourge and support God's Shepherds when they
are faithful........we don't do that enough.
Blessings on your ministry
and all those who do the same
My congregation is one of the very few that met the call to "update" to the new LSB by voting the change down - not once, but twice! We will remain a TLH congregation for the foreseeable future.
Dr. Heidenreich, your blogger profile sums up the outworking of the evangelical faith beautifully. Without the forgiveness of sins, it is impossible to truly love our neighbor. You remind me of F. Pieper's section on sanctification and how good works that save us are not good works. Forgiven, we are free to serve those God has placed before us. Amen!
We sing the hymns of all three of our hymnals and the two supplements that came out in between.
The whole lot and a whole lot more is the way of the Gospel (as the good Dr. Norman Nagel would say of such things).
And our worship is all the richer for it.
Oh another old irrelevant song and sad and gloomy tune!! Thank God we have replaced it with Twila Paris. Ha. But seriously, This is definitely a Kernlied and is in my miniscule personal pocket hymnal. So nice to see it in big print here though!
Then, and still now, I continue to be amazed at how few of Luther's hymns are to be found in Lutheran hymnals. Even if one leaves aside the obvious verbal and historical connection, and accounts for the occasional poor translation (or the challenge of rendering poetry from one language to another), one is still left wondering why the sturdy, practical, straight-forward and memorable poetry of Luther would be eschewed in favor of what are clearly "lesser options."
Amen to that.
At least the trend is in the right direction. Here is the Luther hymn count:
The Lutheran Hymnal (1941) - 21
Lutheran Worship (1982) - 25
Lutheran Service Book (2006) - 27
The winner is the ELS' Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary with 28.
HT: http://cyberbrethren.typepad.com/cyberbrethren/2006/10/martin_luther_h.html
We like.
And we sing.
This worthy and ageless hymn has been selected as our choral offering for our church's anniversary next fall.
What Luther endured for the sake of the church, we all must endure.
Except for that burning-at-the-stake stuff.
(btw: we use LSB exclusively, unless you're in the choir. There, we also select--selectively--from LBW )
Susan in Tupelo
Is there another hymn in LSB that has the same tune as this one?
Two hymns in LSB are set to the tune Ach Gott vom Himmelreiche (LSB 514 and 642). Is that the same as Ach Gott vom Himmel?
Robin - No, these are quite different tunes, thanks be to God. The tune to the posted hymn is not exactly one of those Reformation rousers.
Tastes vary, but those near and dear to me know that while I love and cherish Luther hymn texts, I'm no fan of those 16th century tunes.
Give me the 17th century any day.
I'm glad it's a different tune. I thought LSB 514/642 was too upbeat to carry the weight of this text.
In my mind, I hear "Christ Jesus Lay in Death's Strong Bands" when reading the hymn you posted (except I have to add "Alleluia" at the end of each stanza, which doesn't make sense to the text).
KFUO’s Sharathon begins today.
David Strand will portray every dollar given to KFUO as a vote in favor of his decision to cancel Issues, Etc.
http://adelphoitouchristou.typepad.com/savethelcms/2008/04/kfuo-sharathon.html
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