SPARED TO SING

 A monthly feature on a hymn of the faith.

Since this is the weekend that many hurry to finish their income tax returns, it might be worth mentioning that one of history's most famous Gospel-song musicians, Ira Sankey, had ties to the Internal Revenue Service. But just briefly. President Abraham Lincoln had appointed his father, David Sankey, as “Collector of Internal Revenue.” The younger Sankey joined his father in government service after his own stint in the Union Army where a song saved his life.

The story was told in the Dec. 24 entry for Mrs. Charles Cowman's classic devotional compilation, Streams in the Desert, Vol, 2. That entry shared the story of a night in 1862 when Sankey, then a Union Army member, was on military watch duty. Unknown to him, out in the darkness, a Confederate soldier had aimed his musket right at Sankey, a sure target. Unaware of this danger, Sankey had looked to the sky—the heavens—and began singing the 1836 hymn, “Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us,” in his rich baritone voice. The enemy put down his musket, thinking he'd let Sankey finish singing the hymn. But the hymn's words and music gripped the would-be killer:

We are Thine, do Thou befriend us,/ Be the guardian of our way.

The man never fired his weapon at Sankey. And he never forgot that moment.

As time went on, Sankey finished his commitment to military service. He married, worked briefly in government service (the early “IRS”), but soon came to the attention of evangelist Dwight Moody, who needed a song leader for his crusades. Moody challenged Sankey: “Come join me.”

From then on, Sankey built a reputation as a Gospel singer (accompanying himself on a little reed organ) through Moody's evangelistic campaigns throughout United States and two tours to Great Britain. In London, Queen Victoria and statesman William E. Gladstone heard Sankey sing. He also compiled a hymnal, “Sacred Songs and Solos,” that sold extremely well, and introduced the Christian public to emerging Gospel poets and songwriters, like the prolific Phillip Bliss and Fanny Crosby.

But here's the rest of the story of “Savior Like Shepherd Lead Us.” On Christmas Eve, 1875, he was traveling on a steamboat up the Delaware River. Passengers gathered on deck asked if he would sing. He intended to do a Christmas song, but instead obeyed an impulse to sing “Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us.” That hymn, the words by Dorothy Thulip and music by William Bradley, was long a favorite. It was also the song he had sung on his lonely Civil War guard watch thirteen years earlier.

Afterwards, a man with a rough, weather-beaten face came up to Sankey and asked if he'd ever served in the Union Army. Sankey said yes. The man probed further: “Can you remember if you were doing picket duty on a bright, moonlight night in 1862?”

To Sankey's surprised affirmation, the man revealed he almost killed him that night, but the song caused him to put down his weapon. Especially convicting were the lyrics, “We are Thine, do Thou befriend us, Be the guardian of our way.” Stricken by the hymn's message, the man asked Sankey to help him “find a cure for my sick soul.” That night, Sankey's former enemy became a Christ-follower.

As Sankey aged, the intense pace of crusade and singing ministry strained his voice and compromised his health. Moody and Sankey conducted their last campaign together in Kansas City, just a month before Moody's death the end of 1899. Sankey's own health suffered more after solo campaigns to Egypt, Palestine and Britain. He lost his sight to glaucoma, finally dying in 1908 just short of age 68. By one report, just before he slipped into unconsciousness, he was singing an 1891 hymn by his contemporary, blind hymnist Fanny Crosby:

Some day the silver chord will break/And I no more, as now, will sing;
But oh! The joy when I awake/Within the Palace of the King!

*Among the hymn texts (by others) for which Sankey wrote the tunes were: “Am I a Solider of the Cross,” “Beneath the Cross of Jesus,” “God Will Take Care of You, “Under His Wings,” “There Were Ninety and Nine, “Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne,” “Hiding in Thee.”

Here's a rare recording of Sankey playing and singing: Bing Videos

BENEATH THE CROSS OF JESUS

This cross sits on a bluff between the towns
of Omak and Okanogan in north-central 
Washington state. See footnote for a
You-tube telling its history.

A monthly feature on a hymn of the faith.

We often think of hymn writers as older or mature people, especially when they compose verses about the most sacred event of our faith: the crucifixion of Christ. Not so with this hymn, “Beneath the Cross of Jesus.” Its author, Elizabeth Clephane, was a frail young woman born to a Scottish sheriff's family. A quiet little girl, she was always composing verse and absorbed in books, and the top scholar in her class at school. Despite her chronic ailments, she reached out to those who were suffering and impoverished. Her compassion for the needy led to her nickname as “The Sunbeam of Melrose,” Melrose being a suburb of Edinburgh. One time she and her sisters sold their horse and carriage to raise money for a needy family. She wrote only eight hymns in her short lifetime before dying at age 39. But they reflected her diligent study of the Bible through her Presbyterian roots.

Her poems could have faded into history after her death—but here the story picks up momentum with the evangelistic campaigns of two Americans: Dwight L. Moody and his song leader Ira Sankey. About five years after her death, Moody and Sankey were traveling between crusade events in Scotland. Sankey stopped to buy a newspaper before they boarded the train. As he idly flipped through it, he noticed her poem titled “The Ninety and Nine.” He tried to interest Moody in it, but the evangelist was too busy preparing his sermon. So Sankey cut out the poem and put it in his pocket.

That evening, Moody spoke from Luke 15 about Jesus as the Good Shepherd. When he finished, he turned to Sankey and asked him to sing an appropriate solo. Sankey's mind went blank. Then he remembered the little poem in his vest pocket. He pulled it out, placed it on his little folding organ, and quickly prayed for divine help. Striking a chord, he began to sing, with the entire song coming to him note by note. When he finished, Moody was in tears. Sankey was in tears. The Scottish audience was visibly moved and many responded to the call of Christ. There's more: during Moody and Sankey's campaign in Scotland, two of her sisters were in the audience. Imagine their surprise and gratitude to hear how their late sister's poem had become a powerful evangelical musical tool.

Besides “The Ninety and Nine,” she is also remembered for her lyrics for “Beneath the Cross of Jesus.” Although she wrote it a year before her death, it wasn't published until four years later. Her diligence in Bible study is reflected in the hymn's Biblical allusions:

*”The Mighty Rock”--Isaiah 32:2

*”The weary land”--Psalm 63:1

*”A home within the wilderness”--Jeremiah 9:2

*”A rest upon the way”--Isaiah 28:12

*”Noontide heat”--Isaiah 4:6

*”Burden of the day”--Matthew 11:30

Unlike the spontaneous way the music was written for “The Ninety and Nine,” the tune to “Beneath the Cross of Jesus” was by Frederick Charles Maker, one of the outstanding organists of his day and a contributor to a Scottish hymnal of his times.

Two things to note in the lyrics of “Beneath the Cross of Jesus”:

*The references to the sunshine of Christ's face—no doubt remembering her nickname as the local “sunbeam”

*The two wonders she confessed: Christ's redeeming love and her unworthiness.

Sing along:

Beneath The Cross Of Jesus - YouTube

Guy Penrod, The Nelons - The Ninety and Nine (Live) - YouTube

The story behind the hilltop cross in photo at top of blog:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ8v0NUx5zk&ab_channel=ChristiansinAction

TRUST/OBEY

Blossoms spent, leaves wilted--winter coming

I felt spent…depleted…confused. Someone for whom I’ve prayed for years—that they’d make a U-turn from abusive actions and words and toward righteous and gracious behavior—made a very negative decision.  I’ll leave it at that. But I know my disappointment was almost physical: that deep-down ache inside of a soul in grief. As I wrapped up winterizing chores several weeks ago and noticed this wilted hydrangea plant, I thought, “Yes, this is a picture of me.”

Sometimes God answers my “why” questions through simple words, and this time it was “trust and obey.”  I recalled an interview with Christian author Elisabeth Elliot in which she was asked the secret to walking with Christ. Those three words—made famous by an old hymn—were her answer. Elliot, whose first husband was missionary martyr Jim Elliot, died in 2015 at age 88. But throughout the six decades of her very public life as a writer and speaker, she lived out those three words. In her website, www.reviveourhearts.com, author Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth remembered her this way:

Elizabeth steadfastly demonstrated what it meant to simply “trust and obey.” Because she viewed God as being altogether sovereign, faithful, wise and good, even when she could not fathom His plan or His purposes, she knew He could be trusted. The appropriate response was to obey Him.

Observing that today’s typical view of God is as a “cosmic dispenser of their comfort, wishes and needs,” Wolgemuth contrasted Elisabeth Elliot’s message: that “God doesn’t exist to meet our needs.  Ultimately, He is God; He is worthy of our obedience, our worship, and our surrender to Him as Lord.”(1)

Beautiful blue bloom from another year

HYMNED
It’s a profound concept, yet simple enough for a new believer. The hymn, “Trust and Obey,” in fact, came from something said by someone who’d recently become a Christian. It happened back in 1886, at a crusade where D.L. Moody was preaching. His song leader, Daniel Towner, asked people to share how they had been saved.  One young man stood and said, “I am not quite sure, but I am going to trust, and I am going to obey.” That statement moved Towner, who wrote a friend, John Sammis, who had left the business world to train for the ministry. Sammis wrote the hymn text, Towner came up with a tune.  Millions have sung:
When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way,
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.


(1) https://www.reviveourhearts.com/true-woman/blog/she-trusted-and-she-obeyed-a-tribute-to-elisabeth-/

Think tank: "virtue"

Rhododendron--a short-lived beauty in our climate, but oh! How amazing!

Returning to a series on Philippians 4:8.

We tend to clothe the word “virtue” in high-collared long dresses with lots of buttons and lace that a household of maids kept mended and ironed. Really, it’s not a Victorian thing that’s gone the way of suffocating corsets and other indignities of long-ago fashion.Virtue is very contemporary.  It’s a total expression of a godly lifestyle. Dwight L. Moody, the great 19^th century evangelist, once said, “A holy life will make the deepest impression.  Lighthouses blow no horns, they just shine.” Biblical “virtue” is moral excellence. 

Virtue starts with our standing for Christ, and proceeds with His standing beside us. The first is salvation; the second is what some term “sanctification.”  It’s the growing process of becoming Christ-like in what we do and say. 

In his book How to Reach Your Full Potential for God (Nelson, 2009), Charles Stanley identifies that progression. He noted that research has determined that our minds process about 12,000 thoughts a day.  That’s 4.4 million thoughts a year.  We determine what thoughts will become action. As Christians we need to take charge of our thoughts and choose to dwell on those that honor Christ and His call on our life.  Stanley suggests:

*Thinking about what Christ has done for us by dying on the cross: forgiveness of sin, freedom from guilt and shame.
*Contemplating our future home with Him in Heaven.  That’s all and everything “virtuous” in one amazing package!
 

Besides these good and hopeful thoughts, Stanley warns against choosing dark, negative thoughts:

Impure, demeaning, angry, bitter, resentful, lustful, manipulative, and greedy thoughts are not part of who you are in Christ.  Don’t relive your hurtful experiences. Avoid bringing them up from your memory to chew on them again.  Ungodly thinking doesn’t fit the profile of a godly person, so turn off any ideas that could take root and lead you astray. (pp. 82-83)

If there be any virtue…we surely find it in the Bible’s composite of a godly woman, the “Virtuous Woman” of Proverbs 31. Busy lady! But the verse that always stands out to me is the one describing how her thought life and her mouth reflect virtue:

She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. (Proverbs 31:26)
This lady knew how to live honorably and weigh her words!  If there was any virtue, she thought on those things…then spoke golden words.

 Anyone up for a Proverbs 31 review?

 

Next: "any praise"