How lovely is Thy dwelling place

1
How lovely is Thy dwelling place!
Within Thy courts I long to be;
Thy presence, Lord, my spirit craves,
For this my heart cries out to Thee.
2
At Thy burnt-offering altar, Lord,
And at Thine incense altar blest,
Even the sparrow finds a home,
And swallow there prepares her nest.
3
Men, as the sparrow, frail and small,
When living in Thy house find rest,
Relying on the altar’s blood,
Enjoying there the incense blest.
4
How blessed are those men indeed!
Trusting in Thee they are made strong;
Highways to Zion in their hearts,
The way they care not, rough or long.
5
Passing the weeping valley they
Make it a place of springing wells;
The rain with blessings covers it
And in the way God’s mercy tells.
6
From strength to strength they go, and all
Before the Lord in Zion meet;
Thus ever seeking Thine own self,
They need Thy care and grace replete.
7
Better a day within Thy courts
Than days a thousand I would tell;
I’d rather at Thy threshold stand
Than in the wicked’s tents to dwell.
8
Thou art a sun, Thou art a shield,
Thou grace and glory wilt supply;
Thy presence and Thy very self
My need in fulness satisfy.
9
Not one good thing wilt Thou withhold
From those who walk in uprightness;
Bless’d is the man that trusts in Thee
With grace and glory measureless.

Copyright Living Stream Ministry. Used by permission.

5
Angelica

Rovereto, Trento, Italy

Godo La Tua chiesa, O Signore Benedicila in questi giorni La Tua grazia su di lei!


Annabel Cabiara

Valencia, Bukidnon, Qatar

This song I really love how lovely we are if we are in our spirit living exercising walking like Enosh.


Javier Sanchez

Katy, TX, United States

We are those blessed men indeed. May the Lord build highways to Zion in our hearts and we don't care the way whether rough or smooth. May our mingled spirit be His dwelling place...Amen.


Sister J

United Kingdom

Sang this hymn for the first time this Lord's day. God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is my abode, Amen. The God-man in me, Amen, for God's economy, the New Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!


Zoe

Singapore

I love this mutual abode: we're His dwelling place in spirit and we live in Him. It is where both God and man could find rest and be satisfied. Amen.

Another similar hymn is Hymns, #851, which says,

How lovely is Thy dwelling-place!

Within Thy courts I long to be;

Thy presence, Lord, my spirit craves,

For this my heart cries out to Thee.

This hymn of nine stanzas was written according to Psalm 84, and these two hymns, composed in 1961, are poetic expressions of a saint's love for the church. Although the Brethren wrote many hymns concerning the church, they wrote few if any hymns concerning the attraction of the church. I greatly treasure these two hymns, and whenever I sing them, my heart is stirred up to love the church. I believe that when the saints in the Lord's recovery sing these two hymns, they have a sweet sensation within because they have the full knowledge of the church and practically participate in the church life.

Nothing is more precious among the truths in the Bible recovered throughout the ages than the recovery of the truth concerning the church. According to church history, the Brethren in England, under the leadership of Darby, recovered the church life in a fuller way than the recovery with Zinzendorf. Brother Nee emphasized, repeatedly that the sign of the church in Philadelphia recorded in Revelation 3 was fulfilled among the Brethren in England. The condition of these believers in the initial period of less than fifty years was wonderful. They received much light from the Lord, much of which concerned the truth of the church. They also unlocked almost all the types and prophecies in the Bible. Actually, our interpretation of the types in the Old Testament was helped very much by what the Brethren saw. Prior to the Brethren, some believers gradually and progressively received light concerning the types, but it was not until the time of the Brethren that almost all the types became unlocked. Nevertheless, much of what they saw was objective doctrine; they often neglected the subjective truths.

In Psalm 26:8 the psalmist said, "O Jehovah, I love the habitation of Your house,/And the place where Your glory abides." To abide means to remain for manifestation. When the people of Israel raised up the tabernacle and when they built up the temple, the glory of God descended upon the tabernacle and the temple to abide there, to remain there, to be manifested to the people. The psalmist told the Lord that he loved the habitation of His house and the place where His glory abode, remained, to be manifested to His people.

We have to say, "O Lord, I love Your church, and Your church is Your habitation. Your church is the place where Your glory abides to be manifested today." Psalm 84 expresses the psalmist's love for the house of God, which is the kind of love we should have for the church today. We have a hymn in our hymnal based on the psalmist's expression in Psalm 84 of his love for God's dwelling place (see Hymns, #851).

In the Old Testament, the tabernacle and the temple are types of the church as God's dwelling place. In Psalm 84 the psalmist tells us that he longs, even faints, for the courts of Jehovah, which are the dwelling place of God. The function of God's dwelling place is not only for God's rest but also for His people's rest. It is based upon this psalm that Hymns, #851 was written. In the Old Testament time, the children of Israel sang of the dwelling place of God in psalms. This indicates that they had the subjective experience of the holy temple as God's dwelling place.

Piano Hymns