NASHVILLE – Getty Music, OMF International, International Justice Mission, and Blue Letter Bible are joining together to promote the 3rd Annual Gospel Hymn Sing on Sunday, February 25, 2018. The theme and hymn this year is “Jesus Shall Reign.”
The annual event, an attempt to help evangelicals understand the need to reach over two billion unreached who have never heard the message of Jesus Christ and His love. The movement is hoping for a total of one million believers singing the hymn throughout the day around the world. The latest numbers available indicate over 700,000 people in 3,300 churches in 68 countries will be participating.
The hymn, originally penned by Isaac Watts in 1719, gained a renewed interest in 1925 when Eric Liddell, the Olympic Gold Medal winner whose story was featured in “Chariots of Fire,” explained to the press as he left Edinburgh to become a missionary to China, the land of his birth:
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun does its successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore till moons shall wax and wane no more.
Other verses of the beloved hymn underscore and expand the theme of reaching all the people of the world for Christ.
People and realms of every tongue dwell on His love with sweetest song,
And infant voices shall proclaim their early blessings on his name.Blessings abound where’er He reigns: the prisoners leap to lose their chains,
The weary find eternal rest, and all who suffer want are blessed.Let every creature rise and bring the highest honors to our King,
Angels descend with songs again and earth repeat the loud ‘Amen’.
More information about how to participate is available at The Global Hymn Sing.
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