MANY people, old and young, big and little, are fond of singing hymns. The tunes are often so very sweet, and the words so beautiful, that we cannot much wonder at this; but, then, you know it is always a very wrong thing to say what is not true, and still worse to mock God by telling Him what is false, for when we sing hymns we are singing to God. Now, suppose you do not love Jesus and were to sing,
“Jesus, the name I love so well,
The name I love to hear;
No saint on earth its worth can tell,
No heart conceive how dear.”
would you not be telling a great falsehood? Yes, of course, you would; and, to make it as bad as possible, you would be telling it to God Himself, who sees your heart.
When St. Paul wrote about singing, he said, “I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.” We may be quite sure he would not have sung anything he did not understand and know to be true. Nor should we; for, if we sing what we do not know to be true of us, we, for the moment, play the part of a hypocrite, and, if we sing what we do not understand, we are no better than a parrot, and you need not to be told what we should be were we to sing what is not true. Now, we do not seek to discourage singing, for those who know the love of Jesus are told to sing and make melody in their hearts to the Lord, but we do want our dear young friends to consider what they sing. We should all fear to go on our knees, and in prayer say a lot of things to God that were not true, and we ought not to do so in our hymns and songs.
How very much people are taken up just now with “Safe in the arms of Jesus.” The children of many Sunday-schools have been taught it. We may often hear it sung at the corners of the streets, and the newspaper boys whistle it as they deliver their papers from house to house. We could wish that all who sing it were really safe in His arms; but many of them are not. Only three or four weeks ago the writer and a friend were walking quietly home one evening from a preaching service in the open air, when our attention was drawn to two young men coming in an opposite direction, and who were singing loudly enough to be heard some distance off―
“Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast;
There, by His love o’ershaded,
Sweetly my soul shall rest.”
We stood still, and when they were close to us my friend put out his hands, and asked them to stop.
You can easily suppose how surprised they were to be thus stopped by a stranger, and at first they seemed disposed to pass on and take no notice. “Stay one moment,” said my friend, “if you are ‘safe in the arms of Jesus,’ I may not be, for aught you know, and surely you will not mind spending a minute or two in speaking to me of Him”?
“But you look as if you were,” said the foremost of the two.
“Ah,” was the reply, “it does not do to judge by a person’s looks. A Christian on the way to glory ought to have a happy face, for no one has a right to be so happy as he. But it is not always so. Tell me, however, are you ‘safe in the arms of Jesus?’”
They felt a little awkward, as perhaps you would have done at a question of this kind. It was plain, they were not prepared for it, but at length they said, with some hesitation, “We hope so, and are doing our best to be.”
“You hope so, and are doing your best to be,” replied my friend, with some surprise. “But did I not hear you sing just now, ‘Safe in the arms of Jesus?’ So, after all, you do not know whether you are safe or not; and, if I were to ask you when you were born again, you probably could not tell me”?
“No,” was the answer; “and, besides, the new birth is a gradual thing; so it would not be possible for anyone to tell when that great change had actually taken place.”
“I cannot agree with you in that,” said my friend, “although I know that every Christian could not remember the exact moment when he was born again. God might work for some time in the souls of both young and old, to break down everything that keeps them from realizing their lost condition; but there must have been a point in the history of all who are saved when their eyes were first opened, when they were ‘turned from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God;’ when they received forgiveness of sins, and a hope of glory through faith in Christ (Col. 1:55For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel; (Colossians 1:5); 1 Peter 1:33Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, (1 Peter 1:3)). St. Paul, when standing before Agrippa, declared that the Gospel, did all this, as you may see for yourselves by looking at Acts 26:18,18To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. (Acts 26:18) and it takes place when we believe in Christ.”
The two young men could not but own the truth of this, but still they were not quite satisfied; so, wishing to maintain their ground, they said, “But we do not always feel alike; sometimes we feel safe, and at other times we do not.”
“I know full well that our feelings often change,” replied my friend, “but, then, remember that our salvation depends on Christ, and the knowledge of it can only be had from God’s Word. Now, you can clearly see that no change of feelings could change the work which Jesus did more than eighteen hundred years ago. The blood of Jesus is equally precious in God’s sight, whether we feel happy or miserable. If you are sincerely trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, then you may indeed believe, without presumption, that you are forgiven and saved. The death of Jesus has cleared away all your sins. God says, in Hebrews 10:17,17And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. (Hebrews 10:17) that your sins and iniquities He will remember no more. Is not the written Word of God always the same, and will your changeful feelings make it say one thing today and another tomorrow? Oh, no, it is like Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. God says He will remember your sins no more. He remembered them once, and laid them all on Jesus, and to have peace you must believe what He says. Do not trust your feelings, but believe God’s Word. And do not forget that, if you are ‘safe in, the arms of Jesus,’ His words in the 10th chapter of John apply to you: ‘I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.’”
All these things seemed new to those young men who had been singing “Safe in the anus of Jesus.” So you see they had been singing what they could not have known to be true. They did not mean to sing untruths to God, and perhaps really thought it was very nice to be religious, but a Christless religion is worse than no religion at all, because it is so deceiving. Satan often uses it to keep the conscience quiet, and to hide from the sinner’s eyes that he is LOST. It is better to have one’s eyes opened to one’s real condition; is it not?
It may be that you have often sung this song of which we have been speaking. If so, do not forget that only a Christian is “safe in the arms of Jesus.” He indeed is safe, but no other. And by “a Christian” we mean a person who is saved, whose sins have been atoned for by the blood of the Lamb, who has everlasting life, whose Father is God, whose Saviour is Christ, whose Guide and Comforter is the Holy Spirit, and whose home is in heaven. Ah, my young reader, is there a voice within which tells you that, if a Christian is such a person, then you are not one? If so, be entreated to come to Christ at once. Do not rest satisfied until you know Him as your own Saviour, who loved you and died for you, and who soon, will come for you to receive you to Himself. Then you may truly, loudly, joyfully sing―
“Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast;
There, by His love o’ershaded,
Sweetly my soul shall rest.”
Will you learn from this simple incident to pause, and ask yourself these three questions whenever you are singing: ―Do I understand what I sing? Do I believe what I sing? And is it true of me?