We're Cooking Now!

Linda Chappell, from UA County Extension, provided a workshop for FCC members and visitors on July 28th, at First Christian Church Berryville. Participants learned how to prepare and safely can various tomato based foods. All of the ingredients used came from local gardens, including the FCC's All Natural Community Garden. Many thanks to Linda Chappell for a fun and productive workshop!

Busy participants slicing, dicing, and preparing ingredients for tomato sauce, salsa, and stewed tomatos.

Alicia Keever superintends the making of a fine new Salsa soon to be on shelves everywhere: "Alicia's All-Natural FCC Salsa!"

Salsa Underway! We used the recipe provided on the back of the Mrs. Wagers' Salsa package which is commonly available at all local grocers. The recipe called for tomatoes, onions, peppers, and cilantro--all from local gardens!


Canned tomatoes from the garden! What a satisfying conclusion to a terrific and practical workshop. Thank you, Linda Chappell and Carroll County Extension!

We've Spent $1,104.00

So far, the cost of starting and operating the First Christian Church Natural Community Garden has been $1,104.00 in cash money or in "in-kind" donations for items like mulch, tilling, steel posts, straw, composted manure, and so on. The actual amount invested is probably greater since we have not accounted for the cost of water and "quiet" donations by folks who show up after hours to re-install fencing, cut the grass, and design and paint signs.

.

As you can see, it costs a lot to live simply. The good news is that, over time, the costs will go down because our initial investments for things like tomato cages and rain barrels will not be required again...but Mama Mia, stuff costs a lot.

.

What has been the return on our investment? A rough estimate is $625, which includes the value of produce taken out of the garden by families, the value of produce donated to Loaves and Fishes, and sales of cut flowers at the Berryville Farmers' Market. Since we still have 1/3 of the gardening year ahead of us it looks like we might break-even by the end of the season.

.

One return on our investment that is harder to assess is the social and spiritual capital we gain by doing a right thing and reflecting on it. The moments I spend beneath the cross at the far end of the garden have become special to me. They are certainly teachable moments. I learn first hand that the Apostle John was not just a holy man, but an experienced man as well who certainly must have spent time gardening. "I am the vine; you are the branches," he writes authoritatively. Thinking about John 15:1-10 now makes me feel good in a way that is richer than at any time before.

Jesus: Our One Foundation

Sabine Baring-Gould

Samuel J. Stone

Cecil Frances Alexander

Joseph Scriven

Matthew 16:13-23

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you." But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man."

What Makes Us Christian?

Our text suggests that we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God because the Holy Spirit has revealed this truth to us, not because we have learned it from the human perspective. On the other hand, we fail to grasp the necessary, saving significance of Christ’s vulnerable, self-giving love because we think from the human perspective rather than from the divine perspective. The question is how we can put ourselves in position to hear from God and not merely from our own reasoning.

What does it mean to become a Christian? Surely it means that we have faith in the good news that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Savior of all who trust him, Lord of all who obey him. Further, it means not being in the process of being conformed to this world, but rather being in the process of being, degree by degree, transformed by the renewal of our minds in keeping with the perfect will of God that has been revealed in Jesus.

In defining a Christian, I am not judging the salvation of any person. Jesus is the only Savior; he is also the only Judge. He knows the motives of our hearts and the confusions of our minds better than we know our own, let alone what we know of the hearts and minds of our neighbors. It is not our position to judge ourselves or others; it is Jesus’ business, and no one could be more for us than he! I am just talking about what it means to become his follower, to let him be the one friend who most counts through all our lives.

The Enlightenment and Christian Faith

From the mid-17th through the early 19th centuries, a period sometimes called the Enlightenment, the grounds for a crisis of faith were being laid in Western culture. The Enlightenment was a strong movement to base our concept of reality on our observations and theories of physical cause and effect. The Enlightenment certainly brought many good things to our culture, but it also weakened the foundations of faith in divinely revealed truth and in supernatural reality.

Before the period of the Enlightenment concluded, many leading thinkers, most of whom admired the ethical guidance of Jesus, were questioning the doctrines of the virgin birth of Jesus, the atonement achieved by Jesus on the cross, and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead—indeed, questioning anything that involved prophecy or miracles, the supernatural working of God, or even the personal existence of God.

In the years 1835 to 1860, Charles Darwin’s work on the evolution of the species emerged to challenge human understanding of how and whether God had created life. In the years from 1840 to 1860, the work of Karl Marx emerged to claim a material/economic/social class basis for all human ideologies and to suggest that religion was simply a way that economic elites manipulated poor people to keep them from claiming their power as workers. As the Nineteenth Century unfolded, academic criticism of the Bible began to say things such as that Moses had little to do with creating the first Five Books of the Bible, but that these books and most other Bible books, including the Gospels and Letters of the New Testament, resulted from a long cultural process and from ongoing, politically motivated editing. Some preachers were soon backing away from the biblical and historic claims of Christian faith. They put forward re-imaginings of Jesus that matched the social ideals of their time, which look really pitiful now, just as our current-day re-imaginings of Jesus will look in a few decades. This is what happens when we set our minds on human reasoning and not on the ways of God. The battle was on.

Let me be clear. 1. I am not preaching against science. Science helps us in many ways, and, given enough time, science will correct most of its own errors. 2. I am not preaching on behalf of reactionary religion that condemns science without understanding it in order to defend traditional worldviews which are not the point of biblical revelation in the first place. 3. I am not judging the hearts of the religious leaders who surrendered major Christian doctrines. Many of these leaders were compassionate for the poor and forgotten, and were reacting against less compassionate teachings of other religious leaders who claimed to be Bible-based. It was sometimes with good intentions combined with unawareness that they threw out the baby with the bathwater. 4. What I am preaching is that, when the teachings of some portion of the church do not match the compassion of Jesus, we should practice discernment and throw out faulty human interpretations, not the scriptural truth itself.

Many of us tend to think that the battle for biblical truth is something that has happened in our own lifetimes, but this is not true. The battle has been going on for a long time. It came to a head in the 1860’s when faithful Christians made response in two well-known hymns to the heresies and schisms then being spread through the church. “Onward Christian Soldiers” in 1864 and “The Church’s One Foundation” in 1866 may not seem like similar hymns, but their authors had a similar concern that shows up in verses that are seldom sung today.

Onward Christian Soldiers

Sabine Baring-Gould was a wealthy heir of an aristocratic family, a Cambridge-educated Anglican priest, an educator, and much more. He was one of the most brilliant and eclectic minds of Victorian and Edwardian England. He spoke six languages, and he wrote about 150 books, in­clud­ing 30 nov­els and a mam­moth 16-vo­lume Lives of the Saints. His work cov­ered a huge range of top­ics: the­ol­o­gy, so­cial com­ment­ary, trav­el, his­to­ry, geography, linguistics, archaeology, architecture, art, folk tales, folk songs, and so on. He was something of an eccentric. He once taught a class with his pet bat perched on his shoulder. He was a friend of figures as varied as the authors Arthur Conan Doyle, who was anything but orthodox, and George Bernard Shaw, who was a vigorous opponent of Christian faith, and it has even been suggested that Baring-Gould was one of the inspirations for their most famous literary characters: Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Shaw’s Henry Higgins. Like Holmes, Baring-Gould had an impressive array of detailed and seemingly trivial information always in mind for surprising applications. Like Higgins, Baring-Gould arranged for the education of a much younger woman from much lower social class to be his beloved wife. By the way, they had fifteen children, and when his wife died, Baring-Gould put on her gravestone the words, “Half My Soul.” Who would have guessed that a character as eccentric as Baring-Gould, with interests so broad, with friends so diverse, with behavior so unconventional, would be the writer of “Onward Christian Soldiers”?

“Onward Christian Soldiers” is a much misunderstood hymn. It is not at all about participation in the military; it is not about marching to war; it is about marching as to war. Bottom line: it is about standing up for the truth of Jesus. The initial version was written for school children. But the completed six verses have a message that seems better suited to adults. We seldom sing all six verses, but I will read verses 3, 4, and 5 now:

3. Like a mighty army moves the Church of God;Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.We are not divided, all one body we,One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.

4. What the saints established that I hold for true.What the saints believèd, that believe I too.Long as earth endureth, men the faith will hold,Kingdoms, nations, empires, in destruction rolled.

5. Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,But the church of Jesus constant will remain.Gates of hell can never ‘gainst that church prevail;We have Christ’s own promise, and that cannot fail.

What I value about Baring-Gould is that he proves that you do not have to be stupid, boring, narrow, or uncompassionate to defend orthodox faith; nor do you have to shun unorthodox or unbelieving friends.

The Church's One Foundation

“The Church’s One Foundation” was written by an Oxford-educated Anglican priest, Samuel John Stone, who succeeded his father as the rector of St. Paul’s Church, Haggerston, a poor section of London. Samuel Stone arranged special daily prayer services and space for reading and resting in order to benefit poor commuting workers, many of them young women working as domestic servants. He helped build numerous churches to serve the poor, earning him the title, “the poor man’s pastor.” His hymns have been described as “rhythmic, vigorous, and scriptural.” He was greatly concerned that the criticism of the Bible emerging in his time would undermine the faith and mission of the church. Again, I will read the seldom sung middle verses:

The Church shall never perish! Her dear Lord to defend,To guide, sustain, and cherish, is with her to the end:Though there be those who hate her, and false sons in her pale,Against both foe or traitor she ever shall prevail.

Though with a scornful wonder men see her sore oppressed,By schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed:Yet saints their watch are keeping, their cry goes up, “How long?”And soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song!

There Is One Way

We have heard the work of Cecil Frances Humphreys Alexander once before this summer. She was the translator from Gaelic of the much older hymn known as “St. Patrick’s Breastplate” that our Opera of the Ozarks guest sang the Sunday we focused on Celtic hymns. Some of her other hymns you may know are: “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” from which the line, “All Creatures Great and Small,” comes, “There Is a Green Hill Far Away,” “Once in Royal David’s City,” and the hymn we will sing today, “Jesus Calls Us O’er the Tumult,” which urges us to choose Jesus and his mission over any worldly distraction.

Cecil was British, but was born in Dublin. She married an Anglican clergyman who later became a Bishop and Archbishop in Ireland. She used money from her publications to found and fund charitable missions for the deaf and mute. She was heavily influenced by the Oxford Movement and its concern for the loss, in its culture and even in its church, of Bible-based faith. Here are a few verses from one of her lesser known hymns expressing this concern as it speaks of Jesus as the Way, the Truth, the Life:

There is one Way, and only one, out of our gloom, and sin, and care,To that far land where shines no sun because the face of God is there.
There is one Truth, the Truth of God, that Christ came down from Heav’n to show,One Life that His redeeming blood has won for all His saints below.
O Way divine, through gloom and strife, bring us Thy Father’s face to see;O heav’nly Truth, O precious Life, at last, at last, we rest in Thee.

This concern for upholding biblical faith is not a mere academic problem. Sometimes life is hard and cruel. What will we do in such times if we have not a faith that is greater than our own passing ideas and fancies, if we have not a Savior whose love is faithful and sure in all circumstances?

Why Our One True Friend Is So Important

Consider the life of Joseph Scriven, who like Cecil Frances Alexander was born of a prosperous family in Dublin, Ireland. He graduated from Trinity College there. At age twenty-five, two things happened that drove him from Ireland. His religious views alienated him from portions of his family. His fiancé drowned the night before their scheduled wedding. Isolated and in grief, Scriven moved to Canada. In Canada, a second fiancé also died, this one of pneumonia.
From that time, Scriven developed a totally different pattern of life. He began to take the Sermon on the Mount literally. It is said that he gave freely of his limited possessions, even sharing the clothing from his own body. A man who, seeing Scriven in the streets of Port Hope, Ontario, with his woodcutting equipment, asked, "Who is that man? I want him to work for me." The answer was, "You cannot get that man; he saws wood only for poor widows and sick people who cannot pay." Upon learning of his mother's serious illness and unable to be with her in far-off Dublin, he wrote a letter of comfort enclosing the words of a poem he had written for her. Sometime later when he himself was ill, a friend who came to call on him chanced to see the poem scribbled on scratch paper near the bed. The friend read it with keen interest and asked Scriven if he had written the words. Scriven, with typical modesty, replied, "The Lord and I did it between us." Although not great literature, the poem expressed clearly the heartfelt comfort Christians may draw from prayerful trust in Jesus. It has become one of the favorite hymns of all time, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

“What a Friend We Have in Jesus” reminds us why it is so terribly important to hold onto the biblical Jesus reported to us in the inspired Scriptures. If we continually re-imagine Jesus to fit our changing likings, we will not have left to us in our times of need a real and faithful friend who is unfailingly able to connect us to our Creator. If we want to have something to offer the world that is better than the musings of television talk shows and of the self-help shelves at the bookstore, we had better get something that comes from God, the authentic gospel of Jesus Christ as recorded in the sacred Scriptures by the Apostles.

Jesus: Lamb and Shepherd

Reginald Heber

James Montgomery

Charlotte Elliott

Sermon by John Turner

Based on Revealtion 4:1-11; 5:1-14; 7:9-17; 21:1-4, 22-27; 22:1-5

July 12, 2009

Setting for the Lamb and Shepherd Imagery of Early Nineteenth Century Hymns

I do not know why, but the hymns of the early 19th century contain within them frequent references to Jesus as Lamb and Shepherd, some of these hymns relating to or even drawing directly on the Lamb and Shepherd imagery of the Revelation to John.

The background setting for this imagery is in Revelation, Chapter 4: John is invited in the Spirit to view the heavenly throne room. There he sees spiritual beings praising God with the words, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty. When the spiritual beings so sang, John saw 24 elders falling before God’s throne, casting down their crowns, and saying, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” This is the setting in which the Lamb appears in Chapters 5 and 7.

Reginald Heber

Reginald Heber turned this passage into one of the top English hymns of all time: "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty" praises God’s perfection, but also notes the dilemma that the eye of sinful humanity cannot enter into the divine presence to see such perfection.

Heber wrote another hymn addressing this dilemma: "Bread of the world, in mercy broken, wine of the soul, in mercy shed, by whom the words of life were spoken, and in whose death our sins are dead."

Heber was born in 1783 in Great Britain, into a family of wealth and culture; he became a great scholar, poet, and clergyman. Though he possessed unusual literary gifts and was a friend of Britain's leading men of letters, one of his strongest ambitions was to improve the hymn singing in his local church. When Reginald Heber accepted the post of Bishop of Calcutta in 1823, it was the realization of another longtime, deep-seated interest in foreign missions. For three years he traveled tirelessly from place to place in India, using his remarkable gifts to advance the work of the church.

On April 3rd, 1826, Heber preached on the evils of the caste system before a large audience. Afterwards, he went to cool off in the swimming pool at the home where he was staying. Some time later, he was found drowned, the result of a stroke. At the age of forty-three his brilliant life was ended far from the life of ease and acclaim that could have been his. I trust that he found, in this life as well as in the next life, something better than ease and acclaim.

The Lamb Is Introduced

In Revelation, Chapter 5, John, still in the Spirit in the heavenly throne room, sees a sealed scroll. I believe the scroll held the secret of how the dilemma of God's holiness and human sin was to be resolved, of how God was to reconcile his holy perfection with his persisting love for sinful human beings.

The question was: Who would be worthy to open the scroll to reveal the answer? As it became apparent that no one seemed to be worthy to open the scroll of redemption, John began to weep. Then he heard, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of Judah, the Jewish Messiah, has conquered so that he can open the scroll.”

Hearing this, John looked up through his tears, but, instead of a Lion, he saw a Lamb, standing as though it had been slain, but filled with the Spirit and with power. Then he heard the spiritual beings and the 24 elders who in Chapter 4 had sung “Holy, Holy, Holy,” now singing a new song, a song to the Lamb, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on earth.”

James Montgomery

James Montgomery saw the significance of this passage and expressed it in a hymn:

“Come, let us sing the song of songs—the angels first began the strain—The homage which to Christ belongs, “Worthy the Lamb, for He was slain!

Slain to redeem us by His blood, to cleanse from every sinful stain, and make us kings and priests to God, “Worthy the Lamb, for He was slain!”

To Him who suffered on the tree, our souls, at His soul’s price, to gain, blessing, and praise, and glory be, “Worthy the Lamb, for He was slain!”

Long as we live, and when we die, and while in heaven with Him we reign, this song our song of songs shall be, “Worthy the Lamb, for He was slain!”

Montgomery, born in 1771, was brought up in Scotland, Ireland, and northern England. He was the son of a Moravian minister. When James was seven, his parents were sent to the West Indies as missionaries, and James was left behind to attend a church school in England. He did not thrive academically. He was then apprenticed to various practical jobs where he also did not thrive. A would-be poet, he was 21 when he found his career as a journalist. He was a strong advocate for the poor and forgotten, for righteousness and justice, and he twice spent time in prison for his exercise of freedom of the press. It seems likely that he had some resentment to overcome against the church, regarding his separation from his parents at so early an age, for he was 43 years old, the same age as Heber died, when he at last joined the Moravian Church and began the most important part of his life.

Montgomery became a strong advocate of Moravian principles: personal holiness, Bible study and prayer, close and supportive fellowship, evangelization of the unchurched, compassion for the poor, and world missions. He wrote 400 hymns; probably something like thirty of his hymns can still be found scattered among modern hymnals. His best known hymn, the Christmas carol, “Angels from the Realms of Glory,” is in nearly every hymnal. His “O Bless the Lord, My Soul,” was selected for use in the Broadway musical Godspell. We sang his “Stand Up and Bless the Lord” at the beginning of today’s service. We use his “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed,” on appropriate occasions, and some of you may know his Lord’s Supper hymns. Some of his hymns are printed as a sep0arate blog entry.

The Moravians to whom Montgomery belonged had a profound understanding of the Lamb in Revelation 5. Their motto is, “Our Lamb has conquered; let us follow him.” Montgomery’s goal for the last 40 years of his life was to follow the Lamb.

The Lamb Is Our Shepherd

But he knew something else as well, something that shows up in Revelation 7:9-17. John says, "After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!' And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, 'Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.' Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, 'Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?' I said to him, 'Sir, you know.' And he said to me, 'These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their Shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.'"

Montgomery knew that the Lamb was also the Shepherd. He wrote a Lord’s Supper hymn, “Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless Thy chosen pilgrim flock with manna in the wilderness, with water from the rock. Hungry and thirsty, faint and weak, as Thou when here below, our souls the joys celestial seek which from Thy sorrows flow. We would not live by bread alone, but by Thy Word of grace, in strength of which we travel on to our abiding place.”

Jesus Reigns for All the Earth

Montgomery understood that the Lamb who died for us is also the Shepherd who rules over us, not just for us, but for the whole world. Montgomery looked back to hail the time when Jesus’ reign began: “Hail to the Lord’s anointed, great David’s greater Son! Hail in the time appointed, His reign on earth begun! He comes to break oppression, to set the captive free; to take away transgression and rule in equity.” And he looks ahead to the time when Jesus’ reign will be complete, when as in Revelation 21-22, the reign comes to fulfillment as a new heaven and new earth, and the angels and saints must hail the consummation of history, “Heaven and earth must pass away! Songs of praise shall crown that day! God will make new heav’ns and earth; songs of praise shall hail their birth.”

How will this be? The beginning of the glorious end for all creation is anticipated wherever the Holy Spirit prepares the way for the Christian gospel to be effective. Montgomery wrote in his hymn, “O Spirit of the Living God,” “Give tongues of fire and hearts of love to preach the reconciling Word, give power and unction from above, whene’er the joyful sound is heard. O Spirit of the Lord, prepare all the round earth her God to meet; breathe Thou abroad like morning air, till hearts of stone begin to beat. Baptize the nations; far and nigh; the triumphs of the cross record; the Name of Jesus glorify, till every kindred call Him Lord. God from eternity hath willed all flesh shall His salvation see: so be the Father’s love fulfilled, the Savior’s sufferings crowned through Thee.”

Montgomery had the picture that the gospel of salvation must reach the whole world. It does so through the Spirit-led conversion of one unbelieving sinner at a time.

Charlotte Elliott

Charlotte Elliott was born in Great Britain in 1789. As a young person she lived a carefree life, gaining popularity as a portrait artist and writer of humorous verse; at this time of her life, she was agnostic and resented evangelists. In other words, she was one unbvelieving sinner.

By the time she was thirty, however, her health began to fail rapidly, and soon she became a bedridden invalid for the remaining years of her life. She was despondent and bitter; her wit turned to vinegar. In 1822, when Charlotte was 33, a noted Swiss evangelist, Dr. Caesar Malan, visited the Elliott home in Brighton, England. While seated at supper, the minister said he hoped that she was a Christian. She took offense at this. Dr. Malan said that he was sorry if had offended her, but that he hoped Miss Elliott would some day become a worker for Christ. When they met again three weeks later, Charlotte told Dr. Malan that ever since he had spoken to her she had been trying to find her Savior, and that she now wished him to tell her how to come to Christ. The evangelist replied, "You must come just as you are, a sinner, to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world."

Throughout the remainder of her life, Miss Elliott celebrated every year the day on which her Swiss friend had led her to a personal relationship with Christ, for she considered it to be her spiritual birthday. Fourteen years after her conversion experience, at age 47, she set Malan’s counsel in verse to the title, “Just as I Am” with a repeated refrain, “O Lamb of God, I come, I come.” It has been estimated that no other hymn has been associated with the bringing of so many people into the kingdom of God, and this from the pen of a woman who began as an agnostic and then became an invalid before coming to the Lamb and the Shepherd, as the source not only of her salvation, but also of her sustenance and satisfaction.

Though Charlotte Elliott lived to be eighty-two years of age, she never regained normal health, and she often endured seasons of great physical suffering. She daily awakened herself to activity by repeating Christ’s invitation, “Take up your cross and follow me.” She wrote, “God sees, God guides, God guards me. His grace surrounds me, and His voice continually bids me to be happy and holy in His service just where I am."

In her hymn, “Jesus, My Savior, Look on Me,” Elliott says that Jesus is “my Rest, my Strength, my Light, my Refuge, my Rock, my Life, my All.” When our lives are shepherded by Jesus, no losses can take away the final victory, nor can they take away the meaning of each passing moment that we live for the praise of his glory.

Meanwhile, West of the Atlantic

So much for Great Britain. What was going on across the waters in America in the early 19th century? Writer Ray Palmer and composer/arranger/editor Lowell Mason teamed up to encourage us to look with trust and prayer to the Lamb of Calvary by means of the hymn, “My Faith Looks Up to Thee.”

Editor Dorothy Thrupp published and possibly wrote the otherwise anonymous, “Savior, Like a Shepherd, Lead Us.” Hear these words addressed to the Lamb Jesus: “Thou hast promised to receive us, poor and sinful though we be; Thou hast mercy to relieve us, grace to cleanse and power to free.” And these addressed to the Shepherd Jesus: “We are Thine, do Thou befriend us, be the guardian of our way; keep Thy flock, from sin defend us, seek us when we go astray.”

This is the era of our own Restoration Movement founders, Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell. No one considers Stone a great hymn-writer, but he had several hymns of passable usefulness for their time. Stone's great emphasis in his ministry and in his hymns is that we are invited into the transforming presence of God by the Lamb Jesus' sacrificial, redeeming love--by that and by that alone. He also believed that we were challenged, empowered, and supported by the Shepherd Jesus to go forth in daring mission on behalf of his redeeming love. Here is one of his hymns:

1. The Lord is the fountain of goodness and love, Thro' Eden once flowing in streams from above, Refreshed every moment the first happy pair, 'Til sin stopped the torrent, and brought in despair,

2. O wretched condition! What anguish and pain! They thirst for the fountain, but cannot obtain; To sin's bitter waters they fly for relief, They drink, but the draught still increases their grief.

3. Glad tidings, glad tidings! No more we complain, Our Jesus has led opened this fountain again: Now mingled with mercy, enriched with free grace, From Zion 'tis flowing on all the lost race.

4. How happy the prophet, how pleasant his road, When led down the stream by the angel of God! Tho' shallow at first, yet he found it at last, A river so boundless it could not be passed.

5. Come sinner, poor sinner, 'tis boundless and free, You're welcome, take freely, 'twas open'd for thee: The Spirit invites you, the bride calls you too, Come, call all your neighbours, they're welcome with you.

6. Come all ye dead sinners, here life you will find, Come all ye poor beggars, ye halt and ye blind; This water has virtue to heal all complaints, Come drink, ye diseased, and rejoice with the saints.

7. Say not "I'm a sinner, and must not partake," For this very reason, the Lord bids you take; Say not "too unworthy, the vilest of all;" For such, not the righteous, the Lord came to call.

8. Make not your complaints an excuse to delay, Let not your transgressions affright you away; Tho' bad your condition, you're welcome draw near, Come, come on, dear sinner, and cast away fear.

9. Come, Christians, let's venture along down the stream, The shallows are pleasant, but O, let us swim; Let's bathe in the ocean of infinite love, And wash, and be pure as the angels above.

10. Too long have we dreaded to launch the great deep, And loved near the threshold of Zion to keep; But Jesus now calls us: arise, let us go, O glory transporting - 'tis heaven below.

Okay, so now you know why Stone was not a great hymnwriter, but he was a good and faithful man who was worthy of the leadership to which he was called. The message is one of redeeming love in daring mission. This is the message on which our movement was founded. With this good news as our message and mission, Stone challenges us to venture forth into deep waters to serve our Lamb and Shepherd, our Savior and Lord.

As we reflect on early 19th century hymns, we are called upon to trust Jesus to be our Savior and our Lord, our Lamb and our Shepherd. We are called upon to trust him today, tomorrow, and for eternity. We are called to trust him in hard times and in good times, in apparent defeat as well as in apparent victory, always with the understanding that he is the only one qualified to determine what is actually defeat and what is actually victory. Trusting him means that we obey him in his call to us to come to him and in his call to us to serve him. The patterns of such trust in this life may be quite varied. The patterns include short lives such as Reginald Heber’s and long lives that did not get on track until in their middle years such as James Montgomery’s and Charlotte Elliott’s. But the patterns of faith in Jesus, Lamb and Shepherd, have the same ending in eternity, for nothing, nothing, nothing, can separate his faithful ones from his love. That goes for you and for me as well as it does for hymn-writers.

James Montgomery and Charlotte Elliott Hymns

James Montgomery's most widely printed hymns are, "Angels from the Realms of Glory" and "Stand Up and Bless the Lord." Charlotte Elliott's most widely printed hymn is "Just As I Am." Here are some others that may assist in your devotional life.


Songs of Praise the Angels Sang (Montgomery)

Songs of praise the angels sang, heav’n with alleluias rang,
When creation was begun, when God spoke and it was done.

Songs of praise awoke the morn when the Prince of Peace was born;
Songs of praise arose when He captive led captivity.

Heav’n and earth must pass away! Songs of praise shall crown that day!
God will make new heav’ns and earth; songs of praise shall hail their birth.

And can man alone be dumb, till that glorious kingdom come?
No: the church delights to raise psalms, and hymns, and songs of praise.

Saints below, with heart and voice, still in songs of praise rejoice,
Learning here, by faith and love, songs of praise to sing above.

Borne upon their latest breath, songs of praise shall conquer death;
Then amidst eternal joy, songs of praise their powers employ.

Hymns of glory, songs of praise, Father, unto Thee we raise;
Jesus, glory unto Thee, with the Spirit, ever be.

Come, Let Us Sing the Song of Songs (Montgomery, based on Revelation 5)

Come, let us sing the song of songs—the angels first began the strain—
The homage which to Christ belongs, “Worthy the Lamb, for He was slain!”

Slain to redeem us by His blood, to cleanse from every sinful stain,
And make us kings and priests to God, “Worthy the Lamb, for He was slain!”

To Him who suffered on the tree, our souls, at His soul’s price, to gain,
Blessing, and praise, and glory be, “Worthy the Lamb, for He was slain!”

To Him, enthroned by filial right, all power in Heaven and earth proclaim,
Honor, and majesty, and might, “Worthy the Lamb, for He was slain!”

Long as we live, and when we die, and while in Heaven with Him we reign,
This song our song of songs shall be, “Worthy the Lamb, for He was slain!”

Go to Dark Gethsemane (Montgomery)

Go to dark Gethsemane, ye that feel the tempter’s power;
Your Redeemer’s conflict see, watch with Him one bitter hour,
Turn not from His griefs away; learn of Jesus Christ to pray.

See Him at the judgment hall, beaten, bound, reviled, arraigned;
O the wormwood and the gall! O the pangs His soul sustained!
Shun not suffering, shame, or loss; learn of Christ to bear the cross.

Calvary’s mournful mountain climb; there, adoring at His feet,
Mark that miracle of time, God’s own sacrifice complete.
“It is finished!” hear Him cry; learn of Jesus Christ to die.

Early hasten to the tomb where they laid His breathless clay;
All is solitude and gloom. Who has taken Him away?
Christ is risen! He meets our eyes; Savior, teach us so to rise.

Shepherd of Souls, Refresh and Bless (Montgomery, for the Lord’s Supper)

Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless Thy chosen pilgrim flock
With manna in the wilderness, with water from the rock.

Hungry and thirsty, faint and weak, as Thou when here below,
Our souls the joys celestial seek which from Thy sorrows flow.

We would not live by bread alone, but by Thy Word of grace,
In strength of which we travel on to our abiding place.

Be known to us in breaking bread, but do not then depart;
Savior, abide with us, and spread Thy table in our heart.

Lord, sup with us in love divine; Thy body and Thy blood,
That living bread, that heav’nly wine, be our immortal food.

According to Thy Gracious Word (Montgomery, for the Lord’s Supper)
According to Thy gracious word, in meek humility,
This will I do, my dying Lord, I will remember Thee.

Thy body, broken for my sake, my bread from Heaven shall be;
The testamental cup I take, and thus remember Thee.

Gethsemane can I forget? or there Thy conflict see,
Thine agony, and bloody sweat, and not remember Thee?

When to the cross I turn mine eyes, and rest on Calvary,
O Lamb of God, my sacrifice, I must remember Thee;

Remember Thee, and all Thy pains and all Thy love to me;
Yea, while a breath, a pulse remains, will I remember Thee.

And when these failing lips grow dumb and mind and memory flee,
When Thou shalt in Thy kingdom come, Jesus, remember me.

O Bless the Lord, My Soul (Montgomery, based on Psalm 103)

O bless the Lord, my soul! His grace to thee proclaim!
And all that is within me join to bless His holy Name!

O bless the Lord, my soul! His mercies bear in mind!
Forget not all His benefits! The Lord to thee is kind.

He will not always chide; He will with patience wait;
His wrath is ever slow to rise, and ready to abate.

He pardons all thy sins; prolongs thy feeble breath;
He healeth thine infirmities, and ransoms thee from death.

He clothes thee with His love; upholds thee with His truth;
And like the eagle He renews the vigor of thy youth.

Then bless His holy Name, whose grace hath made thee whole,
Whose lovingkindness crowns thy days! O bless the Lord, my soul!

O Spirit of the Living God (Montgomery)

O Spirit of the living God, in all Thy plenitude of grace,
Where’er the foot of man hath trod, descend on our apostate race.

Give tongues of fire and hearts of love to preach the reconciling Word,
Give power and unction from above, whene’er the joyful sound is heard.

Be darkness, at Thy coming, light; confusion, order in Thy path;
Souls without strength inspire with might; bid mercy triumph over wrath.

O Spirit of the Lord, prepare all the round earth her God to meet;
Breathe Thou abroad like morning air, till hearts of stone begin to beat.

Baptize the nations; far and nigh; the triumphs of the cross record;
The Name of Jesus glorify, till every kindred call Him Lord.

God from eternity hath willed all flesh shall His salvation see:
So be the Father’s love fulfilled, the Savior’s sufferings crowned through Thee.

Hail to the Lord’s Anointed (Montgomery, based on Psalm 72; three verses deleted)

Hail to the Lord’s anointed, great David’s greater Son!
Hail in the time appointed, His reign on earth begun!
He comes to break oppression, to set the captive free;
To take away transgression and rule in equity.

He comes in succor speedy to those who suffer wrong;
To help the poor and needy, and bid the weak be strong;
To give them songs for sighing, their darkness turn to light,
Whose souls, condemned and dying, were precious in His sight.

He shall come down like showers upon the fruitful earth;
Love, joy, and hope, like flowers, spring in His path to birth.
Before Him, on the mountains, shall peace, the herald, go,
And righteousness, in fountains, from hill to valley flow.

Kings shall fall down before Him, and gold and incense bring;
All nations shall adore Him, His praise all people sing;
For Him shall prayer unceasing and daily vows ascend;
His kingdom still increasing, a kingdom without end:

O’er every foe victorious, He on His throne shall rest;
From age to age more glorious, all blessing and all blest.
The tide of time shall never His covenant remove;
His Name shall stand forever, His Name to us is Love.

Jesus, My Savior, Look on Me (Elliott)

Jesus, my Savior, look on me, for I am weary and oppressed;
I come to cast myself on Thee: Thou art my Rest.

Look down on me, for I am weak; I feel the toilsome journey’s length;
Thine aid omnipotent I seek: Thou art my Strength.

I am bewildered on my way, dark and tempestuous is the night;
O send Thou forth some cheering ray: Thou art my Light.

I hear the storms around me rise, but when I dread th’impending shock,
My spirit to the Refuge flies: Thou art my Rock.

When Satan flings his fiery darts, I look to Thee; my terrors cease;
Thy cross a hiding place imparts: Thou art my Peace.

Standing alone on Jordan’s brink, in that tremendous latest strife,
Thou will not suffer me to sink: Thou art my Life.

Thou wilt my every want supply, e’en to the end, whate’er befall;
Through life, in death, eternally: Thou art my All.

O Holy Savior, Friend Unseen (Elliott)

O holy Savior, Friend unseen, the faint, the weak on Thee may lean,
Help me, throughout life’s varying scene, by faith to cling to Thee.

Blessed with this fellowship divine, take what Thou wilt, I’ll ne’er repine;
E’en as the branches to the vine, my soul would cling to Thee.

Far from her home, fatigued, oppressed, here she has found her place of rest
An exile still, yet not unblest, while she can cling to Thee.

What though the world deceitful prove, and earthly friends and joys remove,
With patient, uncomplaining love still would I cling to Thee.

Though faith and hope may long be tried, I ask not, need not aught beside;
How safe, how calm, how satisfied, the souls that cling to Thee!

Blessed is my lot, whate’er befall; what can disturb me, who appall,
While as my Strength, my Rock, my All, Savior, I cling to Thee!

William Cowper Hymns for Your Encouragement

God Moves in a Mysterious Way

God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines of never failing skill,
He treasures up His bright designs and works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; the clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain.

O for a Closer Walk with God

O for a closer walk with God, a calm and heavenly frame,
A light to shine upon the road that leads me to the Lamb!
Where is the blessedness I knew, when first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul refreshing view of Jesus and His Word?

What peaceful hours I once enjoyed! How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void the world can never fill.
Return, O holy Dove, return, sweet messenger of rest!
I hate the sins that made Thee mourn and drove Thee from my breast.

The dearest idol I have known, whate’er that idol be
Help me to tear it from Thy throne, and worship only Thee.
So shall my walk be close with God, calm and serene my frame;
So purer light shall mark the road that leads me to the Lamb.

Heal Us, Emmanuel, Hear Our Prayer (originally Heal Us, Emmanuel, Here We Are)

Heal us, Emmanuel, hear our prayer; we wait to feel Thy touch;
Deep wounded souls to Thee repair, and Savior, we are such.
Our faith is feeble, we confess; we faintly trust Thy Word;
But wilt Thou pity us the less? Be that far from Thee, Lord!

Remember him who once applied with trembling for relief:
“Lord, I believe,” with tears he cried, “O help my unbelief!”
She, too, who touched Thee in the press and healing virtue stole,
Was answered, “Daughter, go in peace; Thy faith has made thee whole.”

Concealed amid the gathering throng, she would have shunned Thy view,
And if her faith was firm and strong, had strong misgivings too.
Like her, with hopes and fears we come to touch Thee if we may;
O send us not despairing home; send none unhealed away.

What Various Hindrances We Meet (The “mercy seat” represents a place where sinners sense the presence of God and can pray with the awareness that God hears. For Christians, this “place” is wherever two or three gather in the name of Jesus for prayer)

What various hindrances we meet in coming to a mercy seat;
Yet who that knows the worth of prayer, but wishes to be often there.
Prayer makes the darkened cloud withdraw, prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw,
Gives exercise to faith and love, brings every blessing from above.

Restraining prayer, we cease to fight; prayer makes the Christian’s armor bright;
And Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees.
While Moses stood with arms spread wide, success was found on Israel’s side,
But when through weariness they failed, that moment Amalek prevailed.

Have you no words? Ah, think again, words flow apace when you complain,
And fill your fellow creature’s ear with the sad tale of all your care.
Were half the breath thus vainly spent, to Heav’n in supplication sent,
Your cheerful song would oft’ner be, “Hear what the Lord has done for me.”


Jesus, Where’er Thy People Meet

Jesus, where’er Thy people meet, there they behold Thy mercy seat;
Where’er they seek Thee Thou art found, and every place is hallowed ground.
For Thou, within no walls confined, inhabitest the humble mind;
Such ever bring Thee, where they come, and, going, take Thee to their home.

Dear Shepherd of Thy chosen few, Thy former mercies here renew;
Here, to our waiting hearts, proclaim the sweetness of Thy saving Name.
Here may we prove the power of prayer to strengthen faith and sweeten care;
To teach our faint desires to rise, and bring all Heav’n before our eyes.

Behold at Thy commanding word, we stretch the curtain and the cord*;
Come Thou, and fill this wider space, and bless us with a large increase.
Lord, we are few, but Thou art near; nor short Thine arm, nor deaf Thine ear;
O rend the heavens, come quickly down, and make a thousand hearts Thine own!

* “we stretch the curtain and the cord” = “we enlarge the worship/prayer space” (Isaiah 54:2)

By Whom Was David Taught

By whom was David taught to aim the deadly blow,
When he Goliath fought, and laid the Gittite low?
Nor sword nor spear the stripling took,
But chose a pebble from the brook.

’Twas Israel’s God and King who sent him to the fight;
Who gave him strength to fling, and skill to aim aright.
Ye feeble saints, your strength endures,
Because young David’s God is yours.

Who ordered Gideon forth, to storm th’invaders’ camp
With arms of little worth, a pitcher and a lamp?
The trumpets made His coming known
And all the host was overthrown.

Oh! I have seen the day, when with a single word,
God helping me to say, “My trust is in the Lord,
”My soul hath quelled a thousand foes
Fearless of all that could oppose.

But unbelief, self will, self righteousness, and pride,
How often do they steal my weapon from my side!
Yet David’s Lord, and Gideon’s Friend,
Will help His servant to the end.

A Glory Gilds the Sacred Page

A glory gilds the sacred page, majestic like the sun;
It gives a light to every age; it gives, but borrows none.

The Spirit breathes upon the Word and brings the truth to sight;
Precepts and promises afford a sanctifying light.

The hand that gave it still supplies the gracious light and heat;
His truths upon the nations rise; they rise, but never set.

Let everlasting thanks be Thine for such a bright display.
As makes a world of darkness shine with beams of heavenly day.

My soul rejoices to pursue the steps of Him I love,
Till glory breaks upon my view in brighter worlds above.

God of My Life, to Thee I Call

God of my life, to Thee I call; afflicted, at Thy feet I fall;
When the great water floods prevail, leave not my trembling heart to fail!

Friend of the friendless and the saint, where should I lodge my deep complaint?
Where but with Thee, whose open door invites the helpless and the poor!

Did ever mourner plead with Thee, and Thou refuse that mourner’s plea?
Does not the Word still fixed remain that none shall seek Thy face in vain?

That were a grief I could not bear, didst Thou not hear and answer prayer;
But a prayer hearing, answering God supports me under every load.

Fair is the lot that’s cast for me! I have an Advocate with Thee;
They whom the world caresses most, have no such privilege to boast.

Poor though I am, despised, forgot, yet God, my God, forgets me not;
And he is safe, and must succeed, for whom the Lord vouchsafes to plead.

Links to Newton and Cowper Websites:

http://www.mkheritage.co.uk/cnm (The Cowper and Newton Museum)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olney_Hymns
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Newton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cowper
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/newton/olneyhymns.html

JESUS: POWER TO SAVE

William Cowper

John Newton

Sermon by John Turner

Based on Ephesians 2:1-10

July 5, 2009

By Grace, Through Faith, for Good Works

Paul, in his Letter to the Ephesians, wrote what most scholars believe was a circular letter addressed to a general audience of primarily Gentile Christians. To those who would hear his letter read in public, he said, as I paraphrase, "You were once spiritually dead because of the sins in which you lived. You followed the devil who rules over the disobedient of this world; you were living for your own pleasure. Like all people, you were therefore children of wrath, destined for destruction. But God loved you so much, even when you were lost in sin, that he intervened by sending his Son Christ Jesus to die for your sins and to be raised and exalted so that you might follow him instead of the devil, so that you might share Christ's glorious inheritance instead of the devil's destruction. This is not something you deserved. This is a gift. You cannot buy this gift. You cannot earn it. You can only receive it through faith. You do not have and cannot have enough good works to claim this gift on the basis of your merit, but believing in this gift will put you on the path of gratefully serving God. You are saved by grace, through faith, for good works."


I do not know of any two people whose lives better illustrate this passage of scripture than John Newton and William Cowper of late 18th century Great Britain.

John Newton

Through some embittering experiences, Newton had become a hard young man. He was a drunkard, a blasphemer, a sea captain, a slave-trader. He neglected the well-being of his slave cargo to the point of being morally guilty of gross manslaughter. He raped women slaves whenever he chose, finally taking one as a common-law wife and then deserting her. At the point of deepest darkness, there was not much good about him. During a terrible sea-storm, he became desperate enough to commit his life to the Lord. He did not become a saint overnight, but, after some years of spiritual ups-and-downs, he became by degrees a good and faithful husband to a Christian woman, an honest and decent citizen, a priest in the Church of England, a quiet opponent of slavery, a mentor to an incredibly gifted and widely influential younger generation of evangelical Christians, the pastor, friend, and caretaker of one of England=s great but emotionally fragile poets, and a hymn-writer and editor. By his life's end, he was considered a gentle and loving man, a model Christian who had for many years lived a nearly unblemished life.

Amazing Grace

We know him best for one Hymn that he wrote. He titled the hymn, "Faith's Review and Expectation," meaning that it reviewed the emergence of his faith and looked ahead to the expected rewards. We know this hymn as "Amazing Grace." It is probably the most popular hymn in Christian history. Newton wrote six verses of the hymn.



If I were a betting man, I’d wager that most of you can say the first verse with me without looking. Let’s try it: "Amazing grace! how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”


I would also wager that, if I asked you to quote Newton’s last verse to this hymn, most of you would start in, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years….” That would be wrong. Newton did not write those words.


My third wager would be that most of you do not know the last verse that Newton did write: “The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine; but GOD, who called me here below, will be forever mine.” We will sing it later just so that you won’t go through life without it.


Viewed against the history of Newton’s conversion, “Amazing Grace” is indeed a remarkable hymn. When Newton published the song, he placed with it a reference to 1 Chronicles 17:16-17: "Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and said, AWho am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? And even this was a small thing in your sight, O God; you have also spoken of your servant=s house for a great while to come. You regard me as someone of high rank, O Lord God!"



Surely, Newton, now the beloved priest, was identifying with that great sinner David, whom God had elevated beyond all deserving. Amazing grace!

Waves of Influence

Anyone who saw the dramatic change in Newton’s life knew that he had indeed been lost and then found, and that, as a result, he had an effective passion for reaching others who needed to be found by the amazing grace of God, and for influencing those who were spiritually awakened to pursue great Christian work. Among the next generation of British leaders on whom Newton had profound influence were:

• the great missionaries William Carey and Henry Martyn,
• the great political reformer William Wilberforce who would certainly be a nominee for the greatest political reformer in history,
• the great social and moral reformer Hannah More,
• the great pulpiteers Charles Simeon and William Jay,
• the great Bible scholar Thomas Scott, and
• the great poet William Cowper.

The people Newton influenced were instrumental in reforming the dead and decadent Church of England, founding Sunday schools, invigorating hymnody, ending slavery, campaigning against all manners of social, cultural, and moral ills, promoting the humane treatment of animals, establishing foreign missions, advancing education for the working poor, deepening Bible scholarship, and on and on. And many of them had their own circles of influence on succeeding generations. It is not just when we sing “Amazing Grace”; the waves of influence that flow from Newton’s conversion have not stopped in 250 years, and those waves touch us in far more ways than we know. One conversion can make an immense difference in the course of history.

We could take it back a step further. When John Newton was a boy, his mother had patiently and ardently prayed for his Christian faith and even for his future vocation as a minister of the gospel. She died when he was seven or eight years old, but even in the depths of his sin, I believe that God was preparing the answer to her prayers. One person’s prayers can change the world.

Salvation First, Transformation Follows

As a mature adult, Newton was an opponent of the slavery from which he had once made his despicable living, but a largely quiet opponent. He did publish a booklet confessing and deploring his involvement in slavery, and he certainly, alongside John Wesley, encouraged his protégé William Wilberforce to fight in Parliament for abolition of the slave trade and finally of slavery itself. But Newton understood that his calling was not politics. His calling was bringing people to Jesus. He did not let his opposition to slavery stand in the way of his calling to bring even slaveholders to Jesus. He trusted that Jesus could change their hearts and lives better than he could. Salvation comes first, transformation follows. The church today needs to understand that priority. Salvation comes first, transformation follows.

That theme of the priority of salvation was evident throughout Newton’s mature years. As Newton got older, he began to have memory problems. A close friend approached him suggesting that his forgetfulness was reaching such an extent that it might be good to consider retiring from the pulpit. Newton replied something to the effect, “I may not have the memory that I once had, but I still remember that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior. What more need I remember?”


Newton wrote over 200 hymns, most of them not very good as hymns or poems, although well worth reading as rhyming devotionals, but a few stand out as quite good. We still sing "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken" and “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds.”

William Cowper

One of Newton's greatest works was his aid to the poet William Cowper. Cowper was a great poet, sometimes called the first Romantic poet, whose secular work is often still published in anthologies. He was on his best days funny and loving, remarkable to his friends for his great love of animals. But he was given to bouts of severe depression in which he became convinced that he was lost, and in which he contemplated suicide. Today, he would probably be diagnosed with and treated for bipolar disorder. Newton was for several years Cowper's frequent companion and encourager. He first provided and then arranged for Cowper’s care. He would take Cowper along on pastoral calls to get his mind off his own problems. He busied him editing and publishing their combined hymns. He remained Cowper's encouraging correspondent even after duties separated them. I believe we might never have heard of Cowper without Newton's efforts.

Cowper's best-known hymn is "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood." For most people today, the hymn is a bit challenging to their aesthetic sensibilities; all that flowing blood imagery grosses them out. The Newton-Cowper hymnal heads the song with a reference to Zechariah 13:1: "In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness." Cowper interprets Christ's death as providing that cleansing fountain. He affirms that Christ's redeeming love has been his theme since he first beheld it and will be till he dies. He also affirms that he will sing the song of Christ's power to save better by far in heaven than in this life. We need to remember that Cowper’s hymn is true whether it appeals to our sensibilities or not.

I am most fond of the songs in which Cowper counters his own depressive tendencies with affirmations of hope. One such hymn is, "Sometimes a Light Surprises." We will sing it to the tune of “The Church’s One Foundation.” But turn to it and let us read it aloud now so that we will be ready to sing it with meaning: "Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings; it is the LORD who rises with healing in his wings. When comforts are declining, He grants the soul again a season of clear shining to cheer it after rain. In holy contemplation, we sweetly then pursue the theme of God's salvation, and find it ever new. Set free from present sorrow, we cheerfully can say, ‘Let the unknown tomorrow bring with it what it may.’ It can bring with it nothing but He will bear us through; who gives the lilies clothing will clothe his people too. Beneath the spreading heavens, no creature but is fed; and He who feeds the ravens will give his children bread. The vine, nor fig-tree neither their wonted fruit should bear, though all the fields should wither, nor flocks nor herds be there; yet God the same abiding, His praise shall tune my voice, for while in him confiding, I cannot but rejoice."

Help with Discouragement

If you face depression or even just plain discouragement, you may find Cowper hymns that help you fight the battle. I have printed eight more such hymns as a bulletin insert. In these hymns, prayer, worship, scripture, and fellowship are the keys that sustained Cowper; in his 60 or so collected hymns, one can find each of “The 9 Ways of Spiritual Growth” providing help for him.

I wish I could say that such help and insight forever cured Cowper's depression. They did not. To the end of his life, he struggled. But the very fact that he did struggle gives hope to us all that, whatever weaknesses we have, we can nonetheless dedicate our lives to the glory of God. And, even when God does not heal us in the way we would choose, he will see us through to the glorious perfection that awaits in the next life.

God's ways are often surprising, even shocking to our hearts and minds, but God has a way of providing what is most needed, often in great contrast to the situation with which we struggle: beauty for ashes, strength for fear, gladness for mourning, peace for despair. When we are sorrowing and suffering, he offers wholeness and healing. When we are lost and bound, he causes us to be found and set free. He takes the mess we have made of ourselves and makes us instead forgiven, righteous, and a display of divine splendor.

God takes the spiritually dead and gives them life. He took a monster like Newton and a depressive like Cowper and from their lives drew forth greatness and through their lives revealed his glory! If he could do that with Newton and Cowper, he can surely work with the likes of us. To his amazing grace we must entrust our lives. “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound!”

Farmers' Market Sold Out!

Kari Keever, shown above with customer Christie Lee, sold out of flowers by 10:00 AM on her first outing at the Farmer's Market this past Saturday, July 10th. Kari grossed $107 in sales.

The Keever Family, representing the First Christian Church Natural Community Garden, are the newest vendors at the Berryville Farmers' Market. Congratulations to Alicia (L), Dad Eddie, and Garden Manager, Kari Keever.

These beautiful flowers, purchased at the Berryville Farmers' Market make a bold and gracious statement at the home of Shelley and Dave Buttgen.

Preserving Your Summer Tomatoes

Learn how to can tomatoes and make salsa
Tuesday, July 28, 5:30-8:00 PM
at First Christian Church

Our church will be hosting this event for ourselves and for the community. Linda Chappell, from Carroll County Extension, will lead this "hands-on" demonstration. Bring your garden tomatoes and an apron. Bring jars and lids, if you have them. Take home tomatoes you can enjoy all winter.
Please let Judy Turner know if you plan to participate.

Jesus: Liberator of the Heart

Charles Wesley

John Wesley

Sermon by John Turner

based on Romans 5:1-11

Our Transformation in Christ

The apostle Paul, in his great Letter to the Romans, says that:
1. since we have been justified by faith in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
2. since we are even now receiving into our hearts the outpouring love of God through the Holy Spirit, and
3. since we are involved in a process of gradual transformation into Christlikeness so that even our sufferings are turned toward good ends,
we may rest assured that we will indeed share the glory of God in a perfected new creation.

Note the process:
1. faith in the saving good news of Jesus Christ, bringing the forgiveness of our sins,
2. receptivity to the Holy Spirit, who enables us to experience our faith in our hearts, and
3. perseverance in the ongoing transformation of our lives, restoring us by degrees to the image of God.

The Moravians: In the Forefront of Evangelical Pietism

This is the precise process rediscovered by the 18th century Moravians under the leadership of Nicholas von Zinzendorf and transferred by them to the Methodists under the leadership of John and Charles Wesley.

First a little bit about the Moravians: The Moravians descend from the religious reform movement of the 14th and 15th century, well before the 16th century Reformation led by Martin Luther. The leader of what became the Moravian movement was a martyr named John Hus in what is now the Czech Republic. Nicholas von Zinzendorf was an 18th century German count who offered sanctuary on his land to Moravian refugees and soon became their spiritual leader The Moravians combined their commitments to (1) their own personal transformation into Christlike people, (2) spiritual renewal in existing churches of all denominations, (3) evangelization of unchurched peoples, and (4) deeds of compassion for the poor. The Moravians emphasized close fellowship among their members and tended to settle in tightly knit communities such as they established in this country at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Although they never became a large church, they made a tremendous impact on the world. They were the catalysts for the Great Awakening, the world evangelization movement, and the stirring of social concern that began in the 18th century. There is hardly an aspect of life that they did not change for the better.

The Wesley Brothers: Unlikely Leaders of a Great Revivial

Now, on to the Wesley brothers: In England in the 1730's, while attending Oxford University, the brothers Charles and John Wesley were deadly earnest about their religion, but their religion was legalistic, demanding, argumentative, and they set off negative reactions in people around them. Although they had some followers during their student days at Oxford, they had more critics by far. They failed miserably on their missionary efforts to the colony of Georgia across the Atlantic. They returned home in deep depression and apparent disgrace. You could hardly have picked anyone less likely to make a positive impact on the world.

But on their crossings of the Atlantic in both directions, while in Georgia, and finally in their return to England, they had encountered Moravian missionaries whose heart-felt religious practices attracted their admiration. They found some Moravians in London with whom they could continue the contact. They soon discovered that the key to the Moravian religious experience was a deep impression of the grace of God offered through Jesus Christ on the cross, an impression enlivened by the work of the Holy Spirit on the heart of the believer. In all their religiosity, the Wesley brothers had not discovered the most basic realities of Christian experience. A person who had undergone such an experience could be transformed, born anew, given a new heart of love, set on a path of gradual perfecting of the heart.

On Pentecost Sunday of 1738 Charles Wesley had such an experience. A few days later, under his influence with the help of the Moravians, John Wesley also had such an experience. Almost overnight, the impact of their ministries changed. Under their leadership, one of the greatest revivals in history began, a revival leading to the renewal and growth of the church in England and America, and to the eventual emergence of the Methodist, holiness, and ultimately Pentecostal churches. Their influence extended beyond those who shared their doctrines. George Whitefield, the greatest preacher of the day on either side of the Atlantic, although he differed in important regards, was deeply dependent on their experiential religion. A couple of generations later, so was Barton Stone, founder of the Christian Churches on the American frontier. Today, more than 270 years after their awakening, the influence of the Wesley brothers remains strong even here in Berryville in churches as divergent as the United Methodist, the Nazarene, and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

The heart of the Moravian/Wesleyan revival is as follows:
1. salvation is through Christ's gracious saving work alone,
2. we receive the saving grace by faith alone and not through our own efforts, good deeds, or accomplishments,
3. the evidence and assurance of our salvation comes through the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts,
4. the Holy Spirit enables us to live in community with other believers undertaking missions of love to the whole world.

John Wesley did just that. The churches in England in Wesley’s day were entrapped in elitist formality and dead spirituality. Wesley took his awakened heart out of the church buildings and into the streets, reaching out to the common people that the church had forgotten, the miners, the factory workers, the farm laborers, the domestic servants, the unemployed. The elite detested him for taking the church to the riff-raff, for not making the riff-raff like the church as it existed, and for, to the degree that he did bring the riff-raff to the existing church, for bringing in “people who aren’t like us.” But I have heard the claim that his ministry may have saved England from a violent revolution. His critics should have been thanking him that they did not have to face the guillotine as they might have in neighboring France.

Charles Wesley's Hymns

Although John Wesley was the better known preacher, administrator, theologian, and editor,

Charles Wesley, recorded the main emphases of the Wesleyan movement in the songs he wrote. Whereas Isaac Watts, the father of English hymnody, wrote around 700 hymns, Charles Wesley wrote around 7,000. Even non-Christians recognize “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,” and “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today.” He also wrote all the hymns that we sing today. Many hymnals have more songs by Charles Wesley than by any other writer. Even Baptist hymnal editors, who tend to resist Wesleyan theology, have him right up there with Isaac Watts and Fanny Crosby as the big three of hymnwriters.

What is important today is to see what these hymns say about the new heart that changed Charles and John Wesley. From “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” verse 2, the basic Wesleyan aspiration:

“Breathe, O breathe Thy loving Spirit, into every troubled breast!
Let us all in Thee inherit; let us find that second rest.
Take away our bent to sinning; Alpha and Omega be;
End of faith, as its Beginning, set our hearts at liberty.”

In more detail from “ O for a Heart to Praise My God”:

“O for a heart to praise my God, a heart from sin set free,
A heart that always feels Thy blood so freely shed for me.

A heart resigned, submissive, meek, my great Redeemer’s throne,
Where only Christ is heard to speak, where Jesus reigns alone.

A humble, lowly, contrite, heart, believing, true and clean,
Which neither life nor death can part from Christ who dwells within.

A heart in every thought renewed and full of love divine,
Perfect and right and pure and good, a copy, Lord, of Thine.

My heart, Thou know’st, can never rest till Thou create my peace;
Till of mine Eden repossessed, from self and sin I cease.

Thy nature, gracious Lord, impart; come quickly from above;
Write Thy new name upon my heart, Thy new, best name of Love.”

Charles Wesley wrote his great hymn, “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing," to celebrate the first anniversary of the Pentecost awakening of his heart. The 1989 Methodist hymnal prints 17 verses of it. Permit me to quote three verses that are seldom published today:

“Then with my heart I first believed, believed with faith divine,
Power with the Holy Ghost received to call the Savior mine.

I felt my Lord’s atoning blood close to my soul applied;
Me, me He loved, the Son of God, for me, for me He died!

I found and owned His promise true, ascertained of my part,
My pardon passed in heaven I knew when written on my heart.”

And from “And Can It Be” the results of the process:

“Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray--I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.”

Assurance and Empowerment in Spite of...

What both the Apostle Paul and the Wesley brothers would tell us is that we can have assurance of our salvation through the spiritual renewal of our hearts, and that this experience can bring deep peace and satisfaction to our lives and make us effective in joyful service to the Lord.

When we hear of the Wesleys, we usually hear something about their teaching of the possibility of our going on to perfection in this life. Now, I would not fool you. The Wesley brothers alike sought to have their hearts perfected in love, and alike they experienced tremendous transformations. But these changes did not mean that they became easy to get along with.

Take a look at their pictures at the top of this blog. One need only glance at these pictures to know that they would have faced some challenges in getting along with each other: here is elegant Charles and plain John. Even after their parallel transformations, like many brothers before and after, they fought with each other throughout their lives. Their heartwarming experiences made them effective servants of God, but did not remove them from human foibles. Their heartwarming experiences broke the chains of both legalism and sin that had encased their hearts; they were no longer controlled by sin, but this does not mean that they never again sinned.

From the outside looking in, I would say that perfection of the heart was for them a useful aspiration, but never an accomplishment. What was an accomplishment for them was assurance of the heart. Their faith was well-placed because it rested on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and on the inspired word of God; the saving truth they received in their hearts was not different from what was recorded in scripture; it was merely enlivened and pressed home. It became real for them. That spiritual and emotional awakening to the gospel and to the God behind the gospel is what they would share with us.

How About Us?

I want to place the question before you today: has the truth of the gospel and the reality of the God behind the gospel been pressed home to your heart? Have you given the Holy Spirit permission to accomplish this work in your life? Have you asked, sought, knocked for this good gift that the Father wants to give you through the Son and the Spirit? Can you point to the time or time period in your life when the chains fell off, when your heart was free, so that you could simply follow Jesus, with peace and confidence, on the both hard-and-easy road to glory? If you have not, I suggest that you make it a priority now to ask, seek, and knock.

Real Freedom

In this country, we speak of ourselves as free. That may be true, to some extent, politically, economically, and culturally. We celebrate that freedom this week. But, we are not truly free so long as we are slaves either to sin or to self-righteousness. We are truly free only when we have opened our lives to Jesus, our Savior and Lord, and to the Holy Spirit, our Purifier and Counselor. Our other freedoms will neither satisfy nor endure until we have been set free in our hearts, free to live out the love of Jesus Christ for all humanity. Have you been set truly free? If you have not, or to the degree that you have not, I suggest that you make it a priority now to ask, seek, and knock. The greatest revival in history began when two cantankerous brothers did just that. Surely something good will happen if we follow their example.