O God Our Help In Ages Past Hymn

Dear Lord, thank you for You. You our our help, our hope, our promise for the untold ages to come. How faithful you are. Let us remember your goodness today and forever.

A Prayer of Moses the man of God. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

Way back in college in the mid 1980’s there was a radio station which regularly played a version of this hymn. Knowing almost nothing about real Christianity, and surrounding myself with enthusiastic members of Jim McCotter’s legalistic and Pharisaical Great Commission Church, I was a mess. Yet each time it played, this song calmed and comforted me. I know now that the power was in the efficacy of the Word – the Holy Spirit always present and working when the Word of God is spoken, preached, or sung. For this hymn is the Word - Psalm 90 arranged and set to music.

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Lyrics O God Our Help In Ages Past by Isaac Watts

  1 Our God, our help in ages past,
  Our hope for years to come,
  Our shelter from the stormy blast,
  And our eternal home.
  
  2 Under the shadow of Thy throne
  Thy saints have dwelt secure;
  Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
  And our defense is sure.
  
  3 Before the hills in order stood,
  Or earth received her frame,
  From everlasting Thou art God,
  To endless years the same.
  
  4 Thy Word commands our flesh to dust,
  "Return, ye sons of men:"
  All nations rose from earth at first,
  And turn to earth again.
  
  5 A thousand ages in Thy sight
  Are like an evening gone;
  Short as the watch that ends the night
  Before the rising sun.
  
  6 The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
  With all their lives and cares,
  Are carried downwards by the flood,
  And lost in following years.
  
  7 Time, like an ever rolling stream,
  Bears all its sons away;
  They fly, forgotten, as a dream
  Dies at the opening day.
  
  8 Like flowery fields the nations stand
  Pleased with the morning light;
  The flowers beneath the mower's hand
  Lie withering ere 'tis night.
  
  9 Our God, our help in ages past,
  Our hope for years to come,
  Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
  And our eternal home.