Occasionally, when I add a hymn to the Hymns page I note it here, particularly if it is a hymn that really ought to be considered as to the message it contains. The hymn, “Himself” is a hymn worthy of just such notice.
This hymn is a contrast, and what a contrast it makes! It contrasts the difference between the “hope so, maybe so, I had an emotional experience” salvation, to the real salvation that is in Christ Jesus. Perhaps this is why it was dropped? After all, how many people out there who profess Christ as Savior also tell of a “I had an emotional experience” salvation? How many, when pressed about their assurance of salvation, cannot be absolutely certain that Christ saved them utterly? How many only think, saying “I think I’m going to heaven. I hope I make it.” that they are truly going to be with the Lord when they die? How many experience no change at all at “salvation” and are just like they were before they were “saved?”
You know, if your salvation was one of those “I had an emotional experience” events, and your assurance consists of “I hope I’m going to heaven,” then I invite you to truly learn of the Lord Jesus Christ, and come to know Him personally. You will never meet a more gracious, more lovely person. He is, as the Song of Solomon says:
His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. (Song of Solomon 5:16)
And, after you come to know Him, place all, not some, but all without reservation, your trust in Him as the full payment for your sins; knowing that His shed blood on the cross paid for your sins once for all. Trust totally that He was raised from the dead the third day, as the Scripture says. Trust totally that God the Father sent Him and His offering to God is a fully sufficient, acceptable sacrifice for sins, once for all. Trust completely that all the Old Testament testifies of Christ to come, as the Lord Jesus Christ explained in rebuking His disciples on the road to Emmaus:
Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:25-27)
If you do know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, I pray that you are blessed by the hymn “Himself” and the rest of the hymns on the Hymns page. May you be strengthened in the Lord, and walk steadfastly in Christ.
*”Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity; thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native country, to be overruled as well as to rule, and set upon the throne; and being oppressed thou hast reason to know now hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give up thyself to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation. Against which snare, as well as the temptation of those who may or do feed thee, and prompt thee to evil, the most excellent and prevalent remedy will be, to apply thyself to that light of Christ which shineth in thy conscience and which neither can, nor will flatter thee, nor suffer thee to be at ease in thy sins.”- Barclay’s Address to Charles II.