When Isaac Watts put his pen to paper in 1719, he had no idea that he would be writing one of the world’s best-loved and most-sung Christmas songs. Isaac’s passion for sound music started when he was just a boy. Being raised with age-old liturgy and time-worn songs, Isaac complained to his father that the songs they sung in church lacked genuine meaning and substance. With severity, Isaac’s father reprimanded him: “If you don’t like the hymns we sing, write better ones!”
Isaac Watts did write better ones. One of his projects was to take some of the psalms and put them to music. The words of “Joy to the World” were inspired by Psalm 81—“Sing aloud unto God our strength: make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob.” Although Watts’s composition was not written for Christmas, the words are relevant and meaningful during the season we celebrate Christ’s birth:
Joy to the World, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.
The final verse is triumphant in its look ahead to the ultimate reign of Christ:
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.
Sharefaith would like to wish you a Merry Christmas. We are committed to spreading the joy to the world through attractive media and appropriate Christmas messages. As you serve and worship Jesus Christ, keep in mind that the Lord has come, that he is our King, and that our heart must prepare Him room.