Scripture Verse

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised…Glory and honor are in His presence; strength and gladness are in His place. 1 Chronicles 16:25–27

Introduction

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Ralph P. Merrifield (1957–)

Words & Mu­sic: Ralph P. Mer­ri­field & Le­on­ard E. Smith, 1993 & 1996. Ar­ranged by Lou­is Webb (🔊 pdf nwc).

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Leonard E. Smith (1942–)

I or­ig­in­al­ly wrote Splen­dor and Ma­jes­ty in 1993…and mo­di­fied it while na­vi­gat­ing bum­per-to-bum­per com­mut­er traf­fic on Route 128 (just south of Bos­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts)! Brent­wood Mu­sic in Nash­ville showed an ear­ly in­ter­est in the song, but they didn’t have any pro­jects in the works that matched the style.

In the Spring of 1996, Len­ny Smith called to see if I’d like to do some co-writ­ing with him (New Hope and New Je­ru­sa­lem Mu­sic hap­pened to be next to each other al­pha­be­tic­al­ly in the CCLI Pub­lish­ers List!) Af­ter list­en­ing to all my re­cord­ings, he asked per­mis­sion to re­shape the lyr­ics and me­lo­dy of Splen­dor and Ma­jesty, and that is how it came to have its cur­rent form.

Ralph Merrifield

Lyrics

Splendor and ma­jes­ty are be­fore You!
Strength and joy are in Your dwell­ing place!
Mercy and kind­ness, full of for­giv­eness!
Great are You, Lord, hon­ored and wor­thy of praise!
Splendor and ma­jes­ty! Hon­or and Glo­ry!
Holy are You, O, Lord, Lamb of God!
Your love ex­ceeds our fond­est dreams,
Your pow­er con­quers ev’ry­thing.
Grace and truth flow from Your throne—
Awesome God! Awe­some God!

Repeat