LET LIGHT SHINE OUT OF DARKNESS – Part 2 of 2

“Our concert of praise
To Jesus we raise,
And all the night long
Continue the new evangelical song:
We dance to the fame
Of Jesus’ name;
The joy it imparts
Is heaven begun in our musical hearts.”  
(Charles Wesley in “Hymns for the Watch-Night”)

There could hardly be a better time to preach the gospel of Christ, and surely no better time to sing it. The gospel has always been needed, since it is God’s solution for the human race, but in our day the need is more poignant and more dramatic. Whether one looks at the penultimate threat of nuclear destruction, or the private anguish of the lonely soul in an impersonal society, one cannot imagine a world more starkly in need of a Savior. There could hardly be a more demanding, more exhilarating time to preach the good news of Jesus Christ. We have never been more needed.

But we must have a song to sing. Without a song, we will only add to the dissonance of the times. 

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in “Our First Song: Evangelism in the Hymns of Charles Wesley” (1984)

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