O holy, holy Lord

Authors:
Themes:
Scriptures:
  • Psalms 15:1-2
  • Psalms 24:3-4
  • Psalms 51:17
  • Isaiah 57:15
  • Isaiah 6:1-3
  • Isaiah 66:2
  • Isaiah 66:5
  • Matthew 12:50
  • Matthew 19:26
  • Matthew 7:21
  • Mark 10:27
  • Mark 3:35
  • Mark 9:23
  • Luke 1:37
  • Luke 18:27
  • John 3:3-8
  • Acts 14:15
  • Ephesians 1:22
  • Ephesians 5:2
  • 1 Thessalonians 1:9
  • Revelation 1:4-8
  • Revelation 4:8
Book Number:
  • 188

O holy, holy Lord,
the high and lofty King,
in solitary might enthroned,
to you all praise we bring.
Eternal, pure as light,
O sinless majesty,
who was and is and is to come,
and shall for ever be.

2. How can I gaze on you?
For sin my sight has robbed!
Yet things that man can never do
are possible with God!
You bring us to new birth,
your Spirit stirs the dead,
we turn from sin and enter in
to Christ, our living head.

3. Lord, keep me humble still —
though pardoned, I do fall:
give me a contrite, lowly heart
that looks to you for all;
that stands in awe of God,
that climbs your holy hill,
and trembles at your holy word,
and does your holy will.

4. So shall I walk in love,
so shall I see my God,
so shall my days be spent in praise
of him who shed his blood.
So shall I serve aright,
so shall my life accord
with the presence of eternal light,
O holy, holy Lord.

O holy, holy Lord; O holy, holy Lord;
O holy, holy Lord.

© Author
Peter Ninnis

Approaching God - Adoration and Thanksgiving

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Tune

The story behind the hymn

This is a further Peter Ninnis text from the 1990s (cf 186. note), drawing on Bible chapters such as Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4, but setting out the way into the presence of God in the spirit of Binney’s Eternal Light! Eternal Light (243). Other Scripture references include Psalm 15:1 and Isaiah 66:2. It is not enough to be terrified by God if we do not also tremble at his word.

The tune O HOLY HOLY LORD, composed by the author and wedded to this text, also makes its first appearance here, as arranged for Praise! by Pandina Lam.

A look at the author

Ninnis, Peter James

b Croydon, Surrey 1948. He was raised in ‘a chapel-going but not overtly Christian’ family. Trinity Sch of John Whitgift, Croydon; followed by training for the horticultural industry (Advanced Nat Cert in horticulture). Converted in a small Gospel Standard chapel at Grove, Oxfordshire, he then trained for Christian ministry at the S Wales Bible Coll, and from 1983 served full-time in a Reformed Baptist Ch in Watford, Herts. In 1996 he moved to the Grace Baptist Ch at Basildon, Essex, and after a short break to Truro Evangelical Ch, Cornwall (FIEC), in 2001. His hymnwriting began in 1988 with no.543 and ‘has continued in gentle fashion ever since’—PJN. He has texts and tunes in print, all for the first time in Praise!; others are arriving. Nos.144, 149, 186, 188, 543, 1143, 1198. 1143*, 1198*