Double-pager Feast hymn. Usually reserved for the Feast of Trumpets or Pentecost.
Lord, teach me that I may know of the way where I should go;
For to Thee I lift my soul, set me free from all my foes.
Unto Thee I flee to hide me, teach me now Thy will to do;
For Thou Eternal, art my God. Lead me by Thy spirit good!
Lead me to the land of refuge, and for Thy mercy’s sake
Cut off all my foes, destroy them, they which do afflict my soul;
O Thou Eternal, righteous God; for I am Thy servant, Lord.
The instrumental parts of the hymn were usually only expanded when there were instruments available, as on one of the seven annual sabbaths. The isolationism and xenophobia is strongly hinted at, in the first verse, with a sense that the member was hiding from “the world”, which was always viewed as the dominion of the devil and its minions.
The “spirit good” mentioned at the end of the first verse obliquely references the binitarianism that Worldwide, and most of its Armstrongist descendants to this day, believe in. The theology of the holy spirit was lifted originally by Armstrong from his Holiness Quaker upbringing, and posits that “the holy spirit”, viewed by trinitarians as a “person” (due in large part to the canonical christian texts of the new testament), is actually reflected most accurately in the old testament, as “ruach hakodesh”, a power, a force, “god’s breath” if you will.
Armstrong’s theology discredited the fact that adherents of Judaism post-70AD, believe that “ruach hakodesh”, mentioned in the old testament, in fact died out, after the “prophets” Haggai, Malachi, and Zechariah did. Yet another divide, between the two branches of Abrahamic religion, that Armstrong sought to connect, via proof-texting and re-assembling “the bible jigsaw” — which was in reality, a farce.
The final verse is more of the same. Anticipation of the in-our-lifetime kingdom, xenophobia and isolation from “the world”, and “the worldly” who “afflicted” and “persecuted” us for our beliefs. More often than not, the persecution and affliction was more likely to come from within. Either at the hands of fellow members, looking to “prove” other members to the ministry, or from the ministry themselves, who were instructed quite firmly in the intimidating art of crowd control, as most, if not all of them, ruled from their pulpits with an iron fist.
“Lead me to the land of refuge” is an oblique reference to the church’s belief that, prior to the commencement of Armageddon, the special chosen elect of god would “flee” to Petra, Jordan, where we would live for the three and a half years of the apocalypse, for our “final training” to be old testament overlords in the returned kingdom of god.
The xenophobia and superiority to “the world” and “the worldly” is painfully apparent from the “cut off all my foes, destroy them” stanza.
Tags: armageddon, cult control, feast hymn, isolationism, xenophobia
