The Prayer of Jesus

I invite you to turn with me to the Gospel of John and to the seventeenth chapter and follow along as I read from there:

“When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

“‘I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

“‘I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you[’ve] given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’”

Amen.

Father, we essentially have sung our prayer: that as we turn to your Word, the Bible, that it might be your voice that we hear, and that in hearing what you say, that we will be enabled to trust and believe it and to live in the light of it. Help us to this end, we ask. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, as you know, we concluded last time our “Truly, truly” studies in John’s Gospel. We set that as a mechanism for listening to the words of Jesus, having studied in other parts of the Bible, and had decided it was time to return to a Gospel. But what do we do when we now finish the “Truly, trulys”? I found myself very loath, actually, to leave the Gospel of John behind. I thought about the possibility of going right back to the beginning and starting at the first verse, and then I thought I might not live long enough to make my way all the way through John. I had toyed with the possibility, as I mentioned to you in passing, of making a prolonged study in the eleventh chapter of John but for a variety of reasons have settled on John 17, which is the prayer of Jesus. We refer to the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples as the Lord’s Prayer, which is really the disciples’ prayer as guided by the Lord. But this prayer fits exactly as the prayer of Jesus.

This morning, what I want to do is provide, if you like, a preview of John 17. We’re familiar, I think, all of us, with movie trailers. You can watch the trailer. It gives you a selection of shots that are there in order to encourage you or discourage you from going on to view what is there in the entire film. And I want us to approach John 17 in that way this morning.

There are about twenty-one prayers of Jesus that are recorded in the Gospels, and in each of them save one, he begins by addressing God as his Father. The prize will be given to someone who’s able to tell me the exception, and it’s not much of a prize. In fact, I’m not doing a prize, ’cause it could cost me. The exception is Matthew 27, from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”[1] That is a prayer of Jesus.

We have seen, actually, in our studies in John 11 one of those short prayers—John 11:41: “And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I [know] that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.’” And then, in 12:27, you will perhaps recall Jesus prays, “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.” So, there are a number of prayers that we could consider, but John chapter 17 is the only long prayer, continuous prayer, that we have of Jesus.

Prayer obviously played a huge part in the life of Jesus. If, as John says at the end of his Gospel, all the things that we know of Jesus were to have been recorded, then the material would have been extensive, almost exhaustive.[2] And for very clear purposes, the Holy Spirit has recorded for us this particular prayer.

And you will notice that the prayer comes after “Jesus had spoken these words”: “When Jesus had spoken these words…” What are “these words” that he has spoken to the disciples? Well, all of the words that he has spoken to the disciples, but particularly chapters 14, 15, and 16, where Jesus has been teaching his disciples, preparing them for the fact that he’s going away, promising them that the Holy Spirit will come and that although they are naturally fearful, they need not be, because of the ministry of the Spirit to them, among them, and through them. And having spoken these words, provided his instruction, it is now completed in anticipation of his crucifixion, which awaits him. And, intriguingly, in his own awareness of the impending desertion on the part of his disciples, in that context, Jesus “lifted up his eyes to heaven.”

We’re not going to pause and consider the various postures in prayer, but it is interesting that he “lifted up his eyes to heaven.” We can bow in prayer, we can kneel in prayer, and so on. The psalmist has that picture often, doesn’t he? “I lift my eyes to the hills. But where does my help come from? Well, my help comes from higher than that. My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”[3]

It is one thing to sow the Word of God. It is another thing to mingle it with our prayers and, in praying, to look to God to actually fulfill what he has purposed in his Word.

So, here we actually stand on holy ground. It’s one thing to listen in to a conversation just between two individuals. We’re not supposed to do that if you’re in a restaurant. We sometimes do. But to listen to the prayers of an individual—and, in this case, this prayer—is to stand on holy ground. Archbishop William Temple said this is, “perhaps, the most sacred passage in the four Gospels.”[4] And what we discover is that having spoken to his disciples about God, he now speaks to God about his disciples. Calvin says, “Jesus here shows teachers an example.” Teachers—vacation Bible Camp teachers, Sunday school teachers, teachers of all kinds and sorts. He “shows teachers an example that they should not only occupy themselves in sowing the word, but, by mixing their prayers with it, should implore God’s help that His blessing should make their work fruitful.”[5]

Now, there’s a real word of challenge there to us all. Why do we get together monthly? Why do we pray routinely in our classes? Why are we saying to one another, “Let us bow our hearts in prayer”? Because we’re seeking to take seriously this: that it is one thing to sow the Word of God; it is another thing to mingle it with our prayers and, in praying, to look to God to actually fulfill what he has purposed in his Word.

The disciples understood this clearly, by the time we fast-forward to the Acts of the Apostles and when, as things were getting established, there was a bit of a contretemps over who was getting the Meals on Wheels and who wasn’t, and they had to restructure things in such a way that the practical necessities of life would be cared for. But the apostles, you will remember, they say, “It is not right for us to leave the teaching of the Word in order to serve tables.” They weren’t saying, “Serving tables is above us.” They were saying, “That was not our assignment.” And then remember what they said: “We will give ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.”[6] And that is why I say to you regularly that the same sermons from the same lips will carry far greater weight when they are prayed home by the congregation. Spurgeon was living proof of this at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and so we long to see it more.

Now, the prayer, structurally, is straightforward. In the first five verses, Jesus is praying for himself. Then, from verse 6 to verse 19, he is praying for his disciples. And then, as I hope you will have noticed as I read it, he goes on from verse 20 to the end to say, “I’m not just praying for the disciples that are here, but I’m also praying for all those who will believe in me through their word.” In other words, he says, “I’m praying for the believers in all time.” Therefore, if you are a believer this morning, you should be aware of the fact—we should together be aware of the fact—that Jesus in this High Priestly Prayer prayed for us. Prayed for us.

Now, we will work our way through it in detail in the coming Sundays, but for now, just an overview. Let me give you five words that I wrote down to help me: mystery, security, sanctity, unity, glory. Mystery, security, sanctity, unity, and glory.

Mystery

First of all, then, mystery.

When you read this prayer—and I read it; I tried to do it carefully—as you read it through on your own, you will notice that it is fairly plain and straightforward. There are no big words in it. And yet, you cannot read it but become immediately aware of the fact that it is full of deep and profound expressions. Ryle says, “The wisest Christian will always confess that there are things here which [we] cannot fully explain.”[7] Some of us tie ourselves up in knots because we want always to be able to give some kind of linear progression of thought that understands exactly what is being done. But we already acknowledged mystery, didn’t we?

’Tis mystery all! Th’Immortal dies!
Who can explore [this] strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine. …

Amazing love! How can it be?[8]

Your mother’s love for you—you don’t map that out in an equation, do you? In fact, you’d have difficulty really articulating it. So there is mystery in this—a mystery that is revealed in the intimacy between the Son and the Father. Here we have words spoken by one member of the Trinity to another member of the Trinity. The second person of the Trinity, Christ, addresses the first person of the Trinity, the Father. Is this not mystery: God addressing God?

Now, this, of course, takes us to the very heart of the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. One being eternally exists in three persons, all equally God, knowing and loving and communicating with each other from all of eternity. Should I say that again? One being—one being—eternally exists in three persons, all equally God, knowing and loving one another from eternity to eternity.

And you will notice that the Father is personally distinct from the Son, even as the Son and the Father are distinct from the Holy Spirit. If your Bible is open, as mine, you will see that chapter 16 is there before you, and Jesus says to his disciples, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he”—not “it”—“he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”[9]

So, we’re confronted by the fact that from all of eternity, within the Godhead, there was love, and there was communication. Look at verse 5, for example. Hear the words of Jesus: “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” We sang about it: “He left his Father’s throne above, so free, so infinite his grace.”[10] Christ now, the second person of the Trinity, in his earthly ministry, prays to his Father about his preincarnate reality. Verse 24 reinforces this: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me”—listen—“because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” It’s a profound mystery. It’s a profound truth.

And it’s well for me to say what I’ve said on previous occasions: namely, that the teacher of the Bible—whether it’s the pastor or the Sunday school teacher—the teacher of the Bible is not charged with the responsibility to explain what is inexplicable but simply to say to one another, “Present difficulties, present complexities, present apparent irregularities will not be irregular, they will not be difficult, they will not be complex in the light of heaven.” And God Almighty knows how much we can handle and provides us with everything necessary for our life and for godliness[11] in the Scriptures that we are able to assimilate.

Security

But we’ll leave mystery and go on to security. To security. I just picked these. You could have chosen maybe another five words as part of the trailer.

But you’ll notice how the disciples are described in verse 6: “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.” Now, hopefully there’s at least one person who is saying to himself, “Well, we dealt with that back in chapter 6.” It’s probably a lady, actually; they usually pay more attention. But 6:37. This is 6:36:

But I said to you that you have seen me and yet [you] do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. … And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

And after he had said these things, in the hearing of the disciples, who would remember that he had said this, he now says what he says in prayer to his Father. “I am praying for them,” he says in verse 9—the security of the prayers of Jesus for his own. In verse 11: “I[’m] no longer in the world.” He says this proleptically. “I[’m] no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name.” By verse 14, he says they are “hated.” They are “hated”: “The world has hated them because they[’re] not of the world.” We’ll see that more in a moment when we come to our next word. They’re “hated” in the world—verse 14. But notice in verse 13: “I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves”—filled with the joy that comes by the means of the work of the Holy Spirit within the life of the child of God and at the same time hated by the world.

You shouldn’t be surprised that people don’t like you. You shouldn’t be surprised when you say that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity. You shouldn’t be surprised when, in addressing your Muslim friends, you point out that this is a radically different perspective—that the idea that all roads lead to heaven like they lead to Timbuktu cannot be substantiated from the Bible. And when that becomes the prevailing notion of a Western culture, as it increasingly is, then the person who’s prepared to stand out and say, “No, Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life,’ and no one comes to the Father except through him”[12]—don’t expect people to stand and applaud. They hate that! It challenges core convictions that have become increasingly embedded in our culture.

But “blessed are you, joy-filled are you, when you are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, when people say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be glad”[13]—a security that doesn’t mean we are just navigating our way through the universe in a sort of tranquil state. No! We’re involved in opposition to the things that we hold dear, opposition to the one whom we hold dear, and yet our joy is fulfilled.

We’ve been reading through the Psalms for a while now, and back in Psalm 11, the psalm begins about praising God, and the psalmist says, “Why do you say to me, ‘Flee like a bird to your mountain’?”[14] “Flee like a bird to your mountain.” And someone says, “You know, if we could only get out of here”—which, of course, goes all the way back to the ’60s and to Eric Burdon: “We gotta get out of this place if it’s the last thing we ever do,”[15] right?

Now, if I listen carefully to some of you speaking—and you tell me you watch the news a great deal—I feel so bad for you as you fall asleep at night singing, “We gotta get out of this place if it’s the last thing we ever do, but there’s nowhere to go.” “Why do you say, ‘Flee like a bird to your mountain’?” Where would you go? Where would you ever want to go, save in the arms of Jesus? “In the Lord I take refuge. Why do you say to me, ‘Flee like a bird to the mountain’?” Security.

Sanctity

Thirdly, sanctity. Sanctity.

Verse 17 can be our starting point here: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” Preceded by verse 16: “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” Because once we are united to Christ, and Christ is not of the world, then we are not of the world. If you’re reading M’Cheyne, you’re working your way through Deuteronomy as part of the readings. And this morning it was very, very clear. God is speaking to his people, and he’s saying to them, “I have chosen you as a people for my very own possession. You’re not like anybody else. You’re not like the surrounding nations. You are radically different.”

Now, Jesus is making the same point: “Sanctify them.” How, then, is sanctification to take place? Well, he tells us that the means of sanctification… How is a man or a woman separated from the sin that is so appealing to me? How is it that my life may become dedicated to righteousness, which often seems like the far harder way to go through your day? How does that happen? Well, the answer is, it happens by means of the Word of God: “I have given them the words that you gave me.” “I have given them the words that you gave me.” Go all the way back through this Gospel, and that’s what he’s referring to. John chapter 8, for example: “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”[16]

Notice that both our security and our sanctity are by means of the Word of God. By means of the Word of God—that God’s Word is a lamp to our feet, it is a light to our path,[17] it calls us up short, it stabilizes us when we’re shaky, it encourages us when we’re faltering, and all to the end that we might be seen to be the very children of God.

I hope you read your Bible. I hope you read it. “Make the Book live to me, O Lord.”—morning prayer. “Show me yourself within your Word, show me myself, … show me my Savior, … make the Book live to me.”[18] Now I have to go to the office. Now I have to go to the school. Now I have to deal with her. Now I’ve got to deal with that. Your Word. “Sanctify them.” Jesus prays to the Father for his followers, that we might be what he desires for us to be, and the means for attaining to this is through the Word of God.

I sat for a while in thought about a man that I only heard briefly when I came here in the early ’80s. Some of you will have remembered him for longer. He was born in 1901 in the Carolinas, and he died on the twelfth of August 1986. I heard him in the three years that I had before he died. He was a wonderfully endearing teacher of the Bible, and he said memorable things. The one I want to mention to you I’ll mention in a moment, but here is another one, and it fits: “If you are a Christian, you’re not a citizen of the world trying to get to heaven. You are a citizen of heaven making your way through the world.” That’s good. So in the morning, I say, “I am a citizen of heaven making my way through the world. This world is not my home—just passing through.”

But here’s the quote that I went looking for. I wish I could do it in his accent, but I won’t: “Sin will keep us from this book, or this book will keep us from sin. And it is not the Word hidden in the head but in the heart that keeps us from sin. You can have a head full of Scripture and a heart full of sin. You can backslide with a Bible under your arm.” I say that makes the point.

And to this end, notice in verse 19—and here is a mystery as well—Jesus says, “I consecrate myself.” “I consecrate myself to this end.” “For their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in [the] truth.” When Paul fastened on this, writing to the Corinthians—2 Corinthians 5:15—he says, “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”[19]

Unity

Mystery, security, sanctity, unity, just briefly. Our time passes, but it’s only a trailer.

Verse 11: What is he praying? “That they may be one, even as we are one”; that “they … all” may “be one”—notice verse 21—“just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Twenty-three: “I in them … you in me, that they may become perfectly one.”

Now, we’ll come back to this in detail, obviously, as we work our way through the entire chapter. Just two things to point out.

Number one: this unity is supernatural. It is supernatural. Jesus is not asking for us to create this. He’s explaining that it is a supernatural reality. And that’s why we can pray this morning in the awareness of the fact that Tupelo, who comes from South Africa, and our brothers and sisters in North Africa and the folks that I left behind in the Balkan Peninsula two weeks ago, we are one in Christ Jesus. It’s a supernatural reality. You walk into a world that you’ve never known, meeting people that you’ve never seen, speaking a language that you don’t understand, and you call them brother, you call them sister, and you mean it. It’s not affectation. It’s a reality. Something stirs in your heart. You’re singing the same songs in Dutch, and you’re going, “This is true! This is absolutely true!” What is this unity? Supernatural.

Secondly: evangelical. Evangelical. In other words, it is doctrinal. The reality of the unity about which Jesus speaks is not a structural thing. It is not an organizational thing. It is an evangelical reality. It is grounded in the truth: “Sanctify them in the truth.” What is the truth? It is the truth of who Jesus is, why Jesus came, what it means that Christ has dealt with sin, and so on. In other words, it’s not a unity on the basis of the lowest common denominator, whereby we will sacrifice deep convictions in order to make it look like we all really like one another. I have, as you know, good Roman Catholic friends, and so do you. There are many things that we’re agreed on. But at fundamental places, there are matters of great distinction.

No, this, of course, demands more of our attention, and we will give it. But look at verse 8: “For I have given them the words that you gave me.” “I gave them the words you give me. They have received them, they’ve come to know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.” And so, the basis of our unity is the apostolic gospel. It is that which is laid out for us in the Scriptures.

Glory

Last word: the word glory.

Verse 24: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

“O Jesus, I have promised,” says the hymn writer, “to serve thee to the end.”

O Jesus, [you] have promised
To all who follow thee
That where thou art in glory,
There shall [your] servant be.[20]

John’s Gospel begins—John 1:14—“We have seen his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth in the person of Christ.”[21] The Christian recognizes that we are being transformed from one degree of glory into another. But we recognize, too, that there is still a day to come when the glory which Christ had with the Father is going to be unveiled before our eyes—the revelation of the entirety of who and what God is, the immensity of his love, and so on.

Samuel Rutherford—a Scottish minister and theologian born in 1600, lived for sixty-one years—was one of the commissioners from Scotland at the Westminster Assembly, where the Westminster Confession of Faith was written and placed before the United Kingdom Parliament for its understanding and ratification. What a very different world! Rutherford left behind, of course, many of his letters and many of his writings. In them, he writes to one of his friends, “Your errand,” he says, “in this life is to make sure an eternity of glory for you to see.”[22] That’s your purpose. Of course, the Scottish catechism gives us that: “What is the chief end of man? To glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”[23] There’s nothing else that can satisfy.

The Christian recognizes that we are being transformed from one degree of glory into another. But we recognize, too, that there is still a day to come when the glory which Christ had with the Father is going to be unveiled before our eyes.

You may be here this morning, and most of what I’ve said to you sounds like gobbledy-gook. But understand this: you were made by God. By nature, you turn away from God. We all do. But his love is so great that he pursues even the people that are not even looking for him. And why does he do so? For his own glory, in order that on that day, the glory might be seen to belong entirely to him.

In the nineteenth century, a lady called Anne Cousin took some of Rutherford’s writings and wrote a nineteen-verse poem. And a few of those verses were then excerpted and turned into a hymn which some of you will have sung in your past. But it goes along these lines: “The sands of time are sinking”—which is true—

The dawn of heaven breaks;
The summer morn I’ve sighed for,
The fair, sweet morn awakes.
Dark, dark ha[s] been the midnight,
But dayspring is at hand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land.

I won’t go through the whole hymn. “The King there in his beauty without a veil is seen.” It’s a wonderful poem. It’s not sentiment. “Oh, Christ, he is the fountain, the deep, sweet well of love.” And then, masterfully:

The bride eyes not her garment
But her dear bridegroom’s face;
I will not gaze at glory
But on my King of grace,
Not [on] the crown he giveth
But on his piercéd hands;
[Because] the Lamb is all the glory
[In] Immanuel’s land.[24]

“I pray, Father, that they may see my glory—the glory that I had with you in the preincarnate reality of eternity.” Mystery. Security. Sanctity. Unity. Glory. Welcome to John 17.

A brief prayer:

And when I think that God, his Son not sparing,
Sent him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin,

Then sings my soul…[25]

Lord, may it be out of the fullness of your gracious work in us that we might live in the light of the truth that we discover in such a way that it brings glory to you, the only true and living God. And we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

[1] Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34 (ESV).

[2] See John 21:25.

[3] Psalm 121:1–2 (paraphrased).

[4] Quoted in A. E. Baker, ed., William Temple’s Teaching (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1951), 122.

[5] John Calvin, quoted in Bruce Milne, “Intercession: John 17:1–26,” in The Greatest Story Ever Told: Studies in John 17–21, in Learning Together as God’s Royal Family: Keswick 2002, ed. Ali Hull (Carlisle, UK: Authentic Lifestyle, 2002), 6.

[6] Acts 6:2–4 (paraphrased).

[7] J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: St. John (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1878), 3:171.

[8] Charles Wesley, “And Can It Be, That I Should Gain?” (1738).

[9] John 16:13 (ESV).

[10] Wesley, “And Can It Be?”

[11] See 2 Peter 1:3.

[12] See John 14:6.

[13] Matthew 5:11–12 (paraphrased).

[14] Psalm 11:1 (paraphrased).

[15] Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” (1965).

[16] John 8:12 (ESV).

[17] See Psalm 119:105.

[18] R. Hudson Pope, “Make the Book Live to Me.” Language modernized.

[19] 2 Corinthians 5:15 (NIV).

[20] John Ernest Bode, “O Jesus, I Have Promised” (1869).

[21] John 1:14 (paraphrased).

[22] Samuel Rutherford to Carsluth, Aberdeen, 1637, in Joshua Redivivus (1671). Paraphrased.

[23] The Westminster Confession of Faith, Q. 1.

[24] Anne Ross Cousin, “The Sands of Time Are Sinking” (1857).

[25] Carl Gustav Boberg, trans. Stuart Keene Hine, “How Great Thou Art” (1949).