Scripture Verse

Before me was a door standing open in Heaven. And the voice I had…heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, Come up here. Revelation 4:1

Introduction

portrait
Franklin L. Sheppard
(1852–1930)

Words: Ri­chard W. Ad­ams, April 17, 2010 (pub­lic do­main).

Music: Ter­ra Be­ata tra­di­tion­al Eng­lish tune, ar­ranged by Frank­lin L. Shep­pard, 1915; ap­peared in his Al­le­lu­ia (Phi­la­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia: West­min­ster Press, 1916), num­ber 180 (🔊 pdf nwc).

portrait
Richard W. Adams (1952–)

Origin of the Hymn

This hymn was lit­er­al­ly born in a dream. I was re­cov­er­ing from a bad cold and lar­yn­gi­tis, and af­ter fin­ish­ing a te­le­phone con­ver­sa­tion with my daugh­ter Sar­ah in Wash­ing­ton, DC, I lay down for a Sa­tur­day af­ter­noon nap.

As I was drift­ing off, the words For no­thing base or false can live with­in these walls came to me. I thought that was un­us­ual, as I had not been con­tem­plat­ing writ­ing lyr­ics.

Taking it as a sign that God might have some­thing for me, I got up, went to my desk, and felt my slee­pi­ness melt away as I wrote down the rest of the words.

Richard Adams

Lyrics

In my deep­est dream I hear
A dis­tant trum­pet call,
Get up and see, come un­to Me:
I sight a gold­en wall—
Behold, Je­ru­sa­lem!
With an­gels round the throne,
And em­er­ald rain­bow all aglow,
Above a crys­tal sea.

I see the ran­somed saints,
A mul­ti­tude un­told,
So glo­ri­ous bright, with crowns of light,
The vic­tor’s palm they hold;
I hear eter­nal choirs,
Singing praise un­to the Lamb,
Salvation pow­er burst in­to flower,
And ov­er­comes the night.

Proceeding from the throne,
Flows a crys­tal ri­ver pure,
It life be­stows where’er it goes,
And ev­ery ill will cure;
Along the wa­ter’s edge,
Are trees of fade­less bloom,
No more we grieve, for their heal­ing leaves,
God’s love and bless­ing show.

I walk the gold­en streets,
Where no tempt­er can en­snare,
No dark­ness here, no more guilt or fear,
No sha­dow any­where;
For no­thing base or false
Can live with­in these walls:
No sec­ret sin can hide with­in,
No ev­il in­ter­fere.

Too soon the morn­ing comes,
And the veil ob­scures my sight,
But now I see what my goal must be,
That hea­ven­ly ci­ty bright—
The walls whose cor­ner­stone
Is Je­sus Christ our Lord,
By faith in Him, the prize we win:
God’s love eter­nal­ly.