Jesus: Our Commander

Robert Lowry

Horatio Spafford

Philip Bliss

Daniel Whittle

James McGranahan

Jesus: Our Commander

Sermon by John Turner

August 2, 2009

Matthew 28:16-20

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The Great Commission

As promised, the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples in their former mission field of Galilee and gave them a mission for the whole world. They were to know two things and to do three things:
Here is what they were to know: (1) All authority in both the material and the spiritual realms had been given to Jesus, Lord of heaven and earth. (2) The risen Jesus would be with them in their service to him at all times and places, until he brought all things to fulfillment. Here is what they were to do: (1) They were to go forth to make disciples of people from all nations. (2) They were to baptize the new disciples in the name and identity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (3) They were to teach the new disciples to observe and obey all the commandments of Jesus, most specifically loving God, loving neighbor, and loving fellow believers as Jesus has loved us. We call this passage of scripture the Great Commission. The late 19th century emphasis on the Great Commission took place on three fronts: world missions, large evangelistic crusades, and Sunday schools. I am going to illustrate that emphasis by talking of two men who, so far as I know, never wrote a hymn.

Dr. Livingstone, I Presume

Scottish Congregational medical missionary, Dr. David Livingstone, served in Africa most of the time from 1841 until his death in 1873. Livingstone’s missionary endeavors are variously evaluated today, but, whatever his flaws, he was a man of faith and of heroic proportion. In the scale of news coverage, and in that way alone, David Livingstone was the Michael Jackson of his day. His endeavors captured the public imagination, especially in Great Britain and North America, greatly fueling missionary enthusiasm in the late 19th century.

Dwight Moody

Dwight Moody was raised in an impoverished family, under tough circumstances, with little formal education, little religious upbringing and little encouragement. Due to a change of jobs at age seventeen, he became an evangelical Christian. He moved to Chicago and started a Sunday school for poor children of all races and ethnic backgrounds. He was still barely literate and had to skip over a lot of the words as he read the scriptures to the children. He learned as he went and soon had the biggest Sunday school in the world. Moody’s heart was in reaching large numbers of people for Jesus Christ, and he pursued that goal in many directions with extraordinary discipline, dedication, shrewdness, love, and prayer, prayer, prayer. In a short time, he was the world’s most famous evangelist and head of a mammoth organization that still thrives today.

The Church’s Loss of Nerve

Much of the Christian music of the late 19th century, the kinds of hymns that we are singing in today’s worship service, partook of the enthusiasm for world missions and evangelism. By the time I was in seminary in the 1970’s, some mainline seminary professors, apparently more interested in academic fads and cultural snobbery than in spreading the gospel, were embarrassed and appalled by such hymns. They called them triumphalistic and insensitive to the complexities and injustices of life. Those seminary professors helped create ministers and churches without enough confidence to stand for anything, and it should not be surprising that the churches with those ministers are for the most part dying. The cause of Jesus Christ is a great cause, and we need to be proud to stand for Jesus. We will not endure and do not deserve to endure if we are ashamed of the gospel for which Jesus died.

Counter-Example

Critics frequently charge that late 19th century missions were tied in with the imperialistic greed of powerful nations desiring to exploit poor nations and that they were insensitive to the needs of poor people. Sometimes those charges were true, but not predominantly so. As a counter-example, consider the so-called Clapham Sect, an informal group of mostly evangelical Anglicans who met in the London suburb of Clapham and sought to apply Christian values to social life, advocating against slavery, child labor, animal cruelty and many dozens of similar causes, and advocating for world missions and evangelism precisely because of their concern for the poor and forgotten. The most famous and influential member of the first generation of the Clapham Sect was William Wilberforce who may have done more for social justice than any Christian in history. Katherine Hankey, born into a prosperous titled family about the time Wilberforce died, was a late second generation Claphamite and was dedicated to their causes. She organized and taught Sunday schools for the poor in London. She traveled to South Africa as a medical nurse to assist her brother in his missions work. During a prolonged illness, she wrote a lengthy poem from which the verses for two hymns have been selected and set to music: “Tell Me the Old, Old Story,” and “I Love to Tell the Story.” I fail to see the evidence of anything triumphalistic or insensitive about her. Although Katherine Hankey was from privileged background, her hymns connected with the hearts of real people from all walks of life helped them find meaning and purpose in serving Jesus.

The Value of a Great Cause

Some seminary professors were disdainful of Sunday school Christianity; they could not say “Sunday school” without a sneer. Sunday schools were powerful institutions in the late 19th century for putting order and purpose into the lives of unchurched children and adults, many of them poor. Two of the commissioning hymns we are singing today were written for Sunday schools. Priscilla J. Owens, of Baltimore Maryland, wrote “We Have Heard the Joyful Sound (Jesus Saves)” and Ernest Nichol, an Oxford educated British musician, wrote “We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations,” both for their respective Sunday schools. In the latter part of the 19th century, children and adults were being taught in Sunday schools to be dedicated to world missions and evangelism. I wonder if we could learn from that.

Educated Bible-Believers

Some seminary professors scorned Bible-believing Christians such as Moody as ignorant and simplistic. Perhaps they were jealous of Moody’s popular touch; far more people listened to Moody than would listen to them. But there were also well-educated people in the Bible-believing camp; some of them wrote hymns.

Robert Lowry, a Baptist preacher and Sunday school advocate, was also literature professor and chancellor at the University of Lewisburg, now known as Bucknell University. He was one of the most influential hymn-writers, composers, and hymnal editors of the period (“Christ Arose,” “Nothing but the Blood,” “Shall We Gather at the River,” the refrain and tune of “We’re Marching to Zion,” tunes to a handful of Fanny Crosby hymns, and many others)

No one could dismiss R. Kelso Carter as ignorant: college-level professor of physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering, with advanced professional degrees in both ministry and medicine, and a writer, composer, and editor of hymns. He wrote both the words and music for “Standing on the Promises.”

Nor could one dismiss the broad intellect of Francis Rowley. He was a prominent Baptist minister, educated at a respected graduate theological seminary, and dedicated to public causes such as the prevention of cruelty to animals. He was reluctantly persuaded to write a revival poem for his song leader to set to music. His “I Will Sing the Wondrous Story,” still shows up in hymnals today.

Vulnerability Alongside Victory

My seminary professors did not notice that, mixed with bold confidence in the gospel, many late 19th century hymns also have a confessional humility about human weakness. Hear Rowley’s words: “I was lost, but Jesus found me, found the sheep that went astray, threw His loving arms around me, drew me back into His way. I was bruised, but Jesus healed me, faint was I from many a fall, sight was gone, and fears possessed me, but He freed me from them all. Days of darkness still come o’er me, sorrow’s path I often tread, but His presence still is with me; by His guiding hand I’m led.” Rowley proves that education, spiritual honesty, humility, and strong faith can go together.

Nitty-Gritty Faith

My seminary professors seemed to think that enthusiastic hymns were symbolic of a “feel-good” Christianity that would not engage the real problems of life. There is certainly a feel-good Christianity in more recent times of which that charge may be partly true (Norman Vincent Peale, Robert Schuler, Joel Osteen), but it is simply not true that late 19th century Christianity and its hymns were feel-good Christianity, removed from the pains of ordinary life. This point may be illustrated by a chain of events and associations surrounding the hymn, “I Will Sing of My Redeemer.” All of the people in this story—Horatio Spafford, Philip Bliss, Daniel Whittle, James McGranahan--were associated with Dwight Moody and his song leader Ira Sankey.

“When Peace Like a River…”

Horatio Spafford was a wealthy Chicago lawyer and real estate investor who took a deep interest in Moody’s evangelistic enterprises. He lost a four year old son to scarlet fever in 1870; most of his real estate holdings were wiped out in the Chicago fire of 1871. Two years later, the Spafford family had enough resources restored to plan a lengthy vacation to Europe, where they also planned to help with a Moody revival. Some last minute business problems detained Horatio, but his wife and four daughters kept their reservations on an ocean liner. The ship was struck by another ship and sank off the coast of Wales. The four daughters were lost. His wife cabled, “Saved only.” Horatio took ship to meet her and on the way penned the words to “It Is Well with My Soul,” an extraordinary statement of faith in the face of tragedy. The Spaffords had three later children, a son and two daughters, but the second son likewise died of scarlet fever at age four. Of eight children, two daughters lived to adulthood. If anyone needed the “peace like a river” of which Spafford wrote, his family did.

You can read widely varying accounts of the emotional and spiritual balance of the Spaffords in their latter years. I have read just enough to conclude that it would take doctoral level research to sort it all out. In the end, Horatio died of malaria in Jerusalem where they had moved to found the perfectionistic, communitarian, benevolent society, the American Colony, which ministered to people in need without regard to their religious persuasion. Horatio Spafford’s own words should be written across the last page of their story: “Tho’ Satan should buffet, tho’ trials should come, let this blest assurance control, that Christ hath regarded my helpless estate, and hath shed his own blood for my soul.”

Introducing Bliss

Spafford’s poem was set to music by Philip P. Bliss, a widely admired and powerful young singer, musician, composer, and poet, a soloist for Moody revivals and the song leader for Moody protégé, evangelist Daniel Whittle, who was also a hymn writer. Bliss composed the tunes for many other hymns. His own words appear in “Wonderful Words of Life,” “The Light of the World Is Jesus,” “Let the Lower Lights Be Burning,” “Hallelujah! What a Savior!” and many more.

The One-Armed Preacher

Daniel Whittle as a young man had shown an interest in religion, but he had never made a real faith commitment. He served in the Civil War, becoming a major before being seriously wounded at the battle of Vicksburg, resulting in the amputation of his right arm. While recovering in a Confederate prisoner of war hospital, he looked for some­thing to read, found a New Test­a­ment, and read until he fell asleep. A hos­pit­al or­der­ly woke him and said a dy­ing pris­on­er want­ed some­one to pray with him. Whit­tle de­clined, but the or­der­ly said, “I thought you were a Christ­ian; you were reading the Bible.” Whit­tle then agreed to go.

He re­cord­ed what took place at the dy­ing youth’s bedside:
“I dropped on my knees and held the boy’s hand in mine. In a few brok­en words I con­fessed my sins and asked Christ to for­give me. I be­lieved right there that He did for­give me. I then prayed ear­nest­ly for the boy. He be­came qui­et and pressed my hand as I prayed and plead­ed God’s prom­ises. When I arose from my knees, he was dead. A look of peace had come over his trou­bled face, and I can­not but be­lieve that God who used him to bring me to the Sav­ior, used me to lead him to trust Christ’s pre­cious blood and find par­don. I hope to meet him in hea­ven.”

The Almost Opera Singer

James McGranahan was a Pennsylvania farm boy with a marvelous tenor voice who had spent some years instructing singing schools for churches, but was tempted to follow suggestions that he should pursue a career in opera. Bliss discussed McGranahan with Daniel Whittle, asked if Whittle thought McGranahan could find an evangelist with whom to work, and got Whittle’s approval of a letter that he was sending McGranahan urging him toward dedicating himself to sacred music rather than opera.

How the Narrative Comes Together

A few weeks later, Bliss and his wife were en route from Pennsylvania back to Chicago so that Bliss could take part in a Moody revival when a bridge in Ohio collapsed under their train and their train fell sixty feet and burst into flame. The Blisses’ bodies were consumed in the fire. The story received major news coverage because of Bliss’ renown.

The day after the wreck both Whittle and McGranahan showed up to sift through the wreckage and ashes of the train. Philip Bliss’ trunk was found unharmed, and in it was an unpublished poem, “My Redeemer.” The poem was entrusted to McGranahan who composed a tune for it. The hymn became very popular. A few decades later, “I Will Sing of My Redeemer” was one of the first songs ever recorded on an Edison phonograph.

Whittle believed that Bliss’ conversations with him about McGranahan had been divinely guided to direct him to Bliss’ own replacement as his song leader. McGranahan was persuaded to heed the advice Bliss had given him a few weeks before his death.

Whittle and McGranahan formed a partnership that produced many hymns of which “I Know Whom I Have Believéd” stands out as declaring a faith that is good in the face of life’s many tragedies uncertainties. The hymn emphasizes that there are many things we do not know, but that we know Jesus who can make all turn out right in the end.

Faith from the Depths of Despair

On his death bed, Whittle was struck by the musical chiming of a bedside clock, and he thought of the bells on the robe of an Old Testament priest that told of his coming. He dictated the poem which you can read in the previous blog entry.

Do not tell me that the faith of these 19th century hymn-writers was removed from the hard challenges of everyday life. Rather, their faith’s triumphs shone most brightly from the depths of human despair.

The hymns of the late 19th century are bold and confident about Jesus, his message, and his mission. They are also honest about human vulnerability and compassionate about human struggles. We do not need to back off boldness and confidence in order to be honest and compassionate. In fact, backing off from the one hope of all the world makes us less honest and less compassionate.