Revival and Hymns of the 1800s: A Reflection on Psalm 85

Revival and Hymns of the 1800s: A Reflection on Psalm 85

This evening, I'd like to turn together to Psalm 85. As we continue in our study of American hymnity, English hymnity coming over into America, the United States, we want to look at Psalm 85 this evening in verse 1 beginning to the chief musician of Psalm for the sons of Chora. Lord, thou hast been favorable unto thy land. Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people. Thou hast covered all their sin, Cilah. Thou hast taken away all thy wrath. Thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thy anger. Turn us all out of our salvation and cause thy anger toward us to cease. Will thou be angry with us forever? Will thou draw out thy anger to all generations? Will thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee? Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation. I will hear what God the Lord will speak. For he will speak peace unto his people and to his saints. But let them not turn again to folly. Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him that glory may dwell in our land.

In the context here, it's obvious that this is referring to Israel, but I couldn't help but think about our own heaven-rescue land as we think of the United States of America and how you cannot help but look back over the early history of our country and see that it was nothing but the hand of divine providence. God's miraculous work even allowed this nation to be formed in the first place; he could have squashed it from the start if he didn't want to allow this experiment we call America to become a reality. That is not to say that we've ever truly been a thoroughgoing Christian nation, but we've got a lot of Christian influences, we can say that. We've been greatly blessed by God because of those Christian influences and Christian roots in many aspects of our culture and our country.

Now tonight, I want us to, and this is not typical of me as we normally break down the passages of Scripture, but I wanted to read Psalm 85 verses 1 through 9. I'm not going to expound on every verse of this passage, but my heart was drawn especially to verse 6: "Will thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee." Tonight, I want to speak to you about 19th-century gospel hymns of the 1800s, the gospel hymn that came to the forefront and truly became the American hymn, the American song of the church.

We noticed that we talked about the First Great Awakening the other week, and now we're moving into really the timeframe of the Second Great Awakening from the very latest years of the 1700s right on up to about 1840 or so, something like that. The first half, basically, of the 1800s would be the time period in which God was moving in the Second Great Awakening. This was a time that was following what church historians would call a period of deterioration, spiritually speaking. New England was slipping quickly into apostasy and heresy after many good things in the early days. I know I've talked about the Halfway Covenant that came in with the Puritans in church and how they were just baptizing people in the church just because they were their children, but they weren't even born again. I mean, we see the influences of even the French Illuminati, you've got a lot of the French, you know, Liberté, Égalité, and all of that, that the French Revolution was coming over and some of that was washing over to the shores, even of a place like Yale College in the early days.

This is something that Timothy Dwight, who would be a major figure in the beginning of the Second Great Awakening, had to confront on the college campus. There was just debauchery going on and, I mean, just great sinfulness and great influence of that kind of thinking that was quickly coming over into the New World and infecting the minds, especially even of the young people. The Voltaire kind of thinking, if we can say it that way, coming over from France, that atheism laid the groundwork for the French Revolution's bloody reign of terror in the late 1700s. Some 30,000 to 40,000 people were beheaded; they got rid of one group and then said, well, they need to go, and they need to go. It was not the same kind of liberty we were looking for here in the United States. Those terms, liberty over in France, it was the idea of freedom, but not freedom to obey God, freedom to exercise the right to do whatever seems right in your own eyes. The equality, the equality of outcome or equal amount of stuff, not equality in the eyes, you know, God has created all men equal like our Founding Fathers said. And the fraternity, that was the idea of the government, you know, the government believes you have too much stuff and the government can take your stuff away and kill you if they want to.

So Timothy Dwight wrote on July 4th, 1798, right at the end of the 1700s. He says in societies, and I'm shortening this some here, but in societies of Illuminati, the being of God was denied and ridiculed. He says the possession of property was pronounced robbery. Chastity and natural affection were declared to be nothing more than groundless prejudices. We think about today, philosophies and ideas sweep through the world quickly on this device right here. But think about a college, on a college campus that was supposed to be founded on Christian values, he could see quickly how atheism was starting to take hold, and he addressed the problem at the root of the issue. He said adultery, assassination, poisoning—Timothy Dwight, and I've failed to mention that he was the fourth president of Yale College. He was also, by the way, the grandson of Jonathan Edwards. He said that adultery, assassination, poisoning, and other crimes of the like infernal nature were taught as lawful, provided the end was good, right? As long as, you know, the end justifies the means kind of thinking. He went on and expounded on that, but he would say where religion prevails, illumination, talking about the French kind of illumination, cannot make disciples. He said, a French directory cannot govern, a nation cannot be made slaves nor villains nor atheists nor beasts. To destroy us, therefore, in this dreadful sense, our enemies must first destroy our Sabbath and drive us from the house of God. And he called the student body to repent and turn to God and repent of their sins and see that the great deceiver was at work. Without a doubt, and of course, this is a bird's-eye view of all of this here, but God moved on that campus and God moved in many places. The Second Great Awakening was not limited, though, to the college campus.

We saw, I mentioned briefly by way of introduction last week, that in the South, primarily, there were a lot of camp meetings that were held in outdoor places, but these were all tentacles, not in the bad sense, but tentacles of the same work, the same work that God was doing in other places, branches if we want to use that word, of what God was doing, outworkings in different places of how God was moving upon the nation. So these camp meetings were a major expression of the awakening. It is said that the camp meetings would last from anywhere from four to nine days. People would move in with tents and wagons. They would come from far and wide. They would set up the whole family, and they would be there for the duration of that camp meeting. Circuit-riding preachers were prevalent in this day. Itinerant ministers were greatly used. There was a great increase in the black churches during that same time, coming from even freed slaves. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church—we still hear the term AME Zion that was started back during that time. I'm afraid, like most churches, it is far different than it was even in the early days, but the black man such as Charles Albert Tindley, who lived from 1851 to 1933, would write some good hymns during that time. In fact, I remember him well; I finally remember that hymn, "Nothing Between My Soul and the Savior," he would write. "Stand by Me," when the storms of life were raging, "Stand by Me," he would write, "Leave It There," and some others.

But literacy would increase during this time. The McGuffey Readers, in 1828, and we know Webster, Noah Webster, had his unabridged dictionary completed at that time, the first printing of it in 1828. This was the time, you know, when you see God working, there's always lots of wonderful side effects that come from the roots of that working. As a result of the Second Great Awakening, there was really an increased push for the freeing of slaves, the abolitionist movement. There was the temperance movement against alcohol and drunkenness. There was the increase of world missions, missionaries being sent out not only from England but then the United States. Great blessings came out of these awakenings. But of course, we're not talking about all of that tonight, but that's the groundwork I want to lay.

In that environment, and while God is continuing to be merciful to our country, we have other men besides Timothy Dwight, we have Lyman Beecher, Nathaniel Taylor, and Asahel Nettleton, and many others. But out of that timeframe, there would also be great hymn writers that would come forth like Philip Paul Bliss, Fannie Crosby, Robert Lowry, Eliza Hewitt, James Deck. We won't be able to go into all of these tonight. I want to, I've picked out a couple to look at: John Wilbur Chapman, Avis Christiansen, Ira Sankey, Daniel Whittle. Those are the names that we would say from about the mid-1800s right on up, and a number of them lived on into the early 1900s, but they were in their prime in the mid to latter part of the 1800s. The things they wrote were direct results of what God was doing in the nation during that time when they were coming up and coming along; they witnessed God's working through that Second Great Awakening and the things that He was doing in the nation.

There was a man, I mentioned Daniel Whittle; he fought in the Civil War, he was actually, I forget his exact rank, but he fought in the Northern Army. But he would say this, he said in speaking of his hymns, he once said this, and I like this: I hope that I will never write a hymn that does not contain a message. There are too many hymns that are just meaningless, a meaningless jingle of words. To do good, a hymn must be founded on God's word and carry the message of God's love. He also felt that the dignity of the gospel hymn deserved the best he could give, not only in material but in construction, and no rules of meter or rhythm were disregarded. He admired the great hymns of the faith like Watts and Wesley and all those that had gone before him. And he was really a great contribution to hymnody in the 1800s.

As you look at the hymns from that era, especially some of the names I just mentioned, you look at those hymns. This is the century, especially when Ira Sankey comes along, and you know, Fanny Crosby's gonna be one of the ones that's gonna work hand in glove with Sankey and others. But as you look at the thing, especially as we move into the latter part of the 1800s, the distinctive hymn will be the gospel hymn that some have even called the gospel song. But it comes forward in the latter part of the 1800s, and yet that doesn't mean that there aren't hymns, good hymns, solid hymns, doctrinal hymns also being written. But the gospel song, when we tend to talk about it more as a gospel song, the gospel song would be a simpler message, not as heavily freighted, doctrinally speaking, more subjective, more experiential, not light necessarily in the sense of trite, but maybe somewhat repetitive, lilting, energetic, a little longer even in length of the song. Oftentimes, the song would be longer than a traditional hymn would be. Many of these gospel songs, they were evangelistic songs, and they were written with that purpose in mind. Certainly, Ira Sankey works with Dwight L. Moody; I'm going to get to that in just a moment. But these songs, many of them, were crafted for evangelistic campaigns that Moody and others would be involved in at that time period. You'll also notice in the hymnody of this period, there's also a good mixture; in addition to the gospel song, the evangelistic songs, there is a mixture of also a desire for personal holiness, and a number of the hymns that were written during that era as well show you what God was speaking to these folks about, even during that time period, about their own personal needs before the Lord as Christians. And really, it was reflective, I guess we can say, of what God had been doing through the awakenings, through those camp meetings, through those moves on the college campus or whatever it was. God was reviving saints and saving sinners. Both of those things were going on, even at the same time in many cases. People getting right with God and with each other, but also souls being saved during that timeframe.

There were waves; certainly, the devil was never rested, even though he didn't have cell phones and televisions and radios back then. He was busy, actively at work, trying to pollute the minds of men and particularly the up-and-coming generation; he certainly wanted to do that. But during this timeframe, we've got to talk about Fannie Crosby this evening. I think of how her pen was like a fountain. It is said that she wrote some possibly 8,000 hymns, I believe it was. I don't want to misquote that; I think that's what I had read. It was multiple thousands anyway. And we know she was born in 1820 and she died in 1915, lived to the ripe old age of 95 years old. She was born in Putnam County, New York, in the southeastern part of New York, I believe, on March 24, 1820. When she was six weeks old, she suffered the loss of her sight through what appeared to be an unfortunate doctor that misdiagnosed the situation. He was trying to treat a slight cold and ended up causing inflammation in her eyes with a treatment that he gave her, and it ended up blinding her.

Years later, when she was speaking about this matter, she said, but I have not for a moment in more than 85 years, towards the end of her life, felt a spark of resentment against him, for I have always believed that the good Lord in His infinite mercy, by this means, consecrated me to the work which I am still permitted to do. When I remember how I've been blessed, how can I repine? Darkness may throw a shadow over my outer vision, but there is no cloud that can keep the sunlight of hope from a trustful soul. She was, when she was 15 years old, made the journey to the New York Institution for the Blind. She remained there 23 years, first as a pupil, as a student, but later as a teacher. It was there, when she was in New York City, that she met Alexander Van Alstyne, who would be her husband. She kept the name Fanny Crosby because she was already widely recognized by that time for her poetry, which she wrote. But it wouldn't be until she was, interestingly enough, 43 years old that she started writing hymns. She wrote poetry, but she was 43, of course, when she lived to 95 years old, but she didn't start writing until she was 43. And this came about when she met William Bradbury, William B. Bradbury. He's the one who invited her to write words to some melodies that he had composed. And so she first wrote for him a hymn called "There's a Cry from Macedonia." That was, understand, the first gospel hymn that she wrote.

The words of many of her hymns were composed to suit the tunes that were supplied to her, just like it was with Bradbury. She wrote one hymn, "Safe in the Arms of Jesus." We know that one, played by Dr. W. H. Doane, the composer. He played it on a small organ, or the melody was played on a small organ by him, yes. On another occasion, Dr. Doane came to Fanny Crosby and requested her to write a hymn about "every day and hour." He just said, I want you to write something on the subject of every day and hour. And she responded with these words, "Savior, more than life to me, I am clinging, clinging close to thee. Let thy precious blood applied, keep me ever, ever near thy side. Every day, every hour, let me know thy cleansing power. May thy tender love to me bind me closer, closer, Lord, to thee." She wrote "I Shall Know Him." The composer of that music was Mr. John Sweeney. There's no way we can cover that many tonight out of all that she wrote. But here's a few examples. He also, Mr. Sweeney, composed a number of Ira Sankey's favorite hymns that he would use in the evangelistic campaigns. But Mr. Sweeney sent a melody to Fanny with the request that she might write something tender and sympathetic. I prayed, she said, that appropriate words might be given me for the music. Well, that's a good thing to write the words first and then write the music afterwards to go with it. But she wrote this, I pray that the appropriate words might be given me for the music. She wrote then, recalling the story, she said, in the train of thought led me to the sweet consciousness that I shall know my Savior by the print of the nails in His hand. And so we know the words of that hymn, right?

She was 72 years old. She had been in a little prayer meeting. It was asked to write a hymn on grace. She was a gifted writer, obviously, very gifted. She said that she had almost a perfect memory. She could remember just about everything. And she tried not to be redundant in what she was writing and remembered well many of the things that she had already written in the past. But she wrote, when she was asked to write that, she wrote, "Someday the silver cord will break, and I no more as now shall sing. But oh, the joy when I shall wake within the palace of the King. And I shall see Him face to face and tell the story saved by grace." It is said that one day a well-intentioned preacher said, "Fannie, I think it's a great pity that the Master did not give you sight when He showered so many other gifts upon you." And she responded, "Do you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I was born blind," knowing what she knew then. "Because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior." And may we have that same contentment with whatever the Lord appoints for our lives as well.

Fannie saw her life as belonging to the Lord. She worked well with Ira David Sankey, who was a man who worked closely with Dwight L. Moody. Let me give you a little background on him briefly. And just remember as we're going through Mr. Sankey, remember this is a man and this is a timeframe as we're talking tonight where God is working and souls are getting saved. But there also is a lot of dark philosophies that are coming in and, in fact, in the minds of men as well. So there is a burden to see souls saved. We see that Dwight L. Moody had a burning desire for that. Ira David Sankey was born in Edinburg, Pennsylvania. He enlisted in 1860 in the 12th Pennsylvania Regiment. And while he was in the army, he frequently led the singing and religious services. It is said that he had a really good voice; they didn't have tape recorders as far as I'm aware back in that day. But in 1863, he married Miss Fannie V. Edwards, and she was a great help to him in his life. It was in 1870 he went as a delegate to the YMCA convention at Indianapolis, Indiana, and that's where he met Dwight L. Moody.

He said the singing had been rather poor at that event. I guess they didn't have really good singing. For some reason, Mr. Sankey was asked to lead in the singing. He began singing the familiar hymn, "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood Drawn from Immanuel's Veins," and after the service was over, Mr. Sankey was introduced to Mr. Moody. Sankey related, writing, describing that meeting with Moody, he said, as I drew near, Mr. Moody, he stepped forward and, taking me by the hand, looked at me in that keen, piercing fashion of his, as if reading my very soul. Then he said abruptly, "Where are you from?" "Pennsylvania," I replied. "Are you married?" "I am." "How many children have you?" "Two." "What is your business?" Sankey said, "I am a government officer." "Well, you'll have to give it up." I was too much astonished to make any reply as he went on as if the matter had already been decided. "I've been looking for you for the past eight years. You'll have to come to Chicago and help me in my work." In 1871, after a delay of several months and much urging on Mr. Moody's part, Sankey consented to spend a week with him in Chicago, and the rest, I guess we can say, was history after he joined him there.

The expression "singing the gospel" was an expression that was attributed to Sankey by Reverend A.A. Rees of Sunderland, England. Singing the gospel, that's a good way to put it. He was singing the gospel to those in those evangelistic meetings; God greatly used him, getting Moody together as a team. When he was in Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, it's interesting because we've talked about the Psalter, right. They're still singing, almost exclusively, they were still singing much of the Psalter there when Moody went to Edinburgh, Scotland, to evangelistic meetings there. They called anything other than the singing of the Psalter "human hymns," is what they referred to it as. But evidently, Sankey and Moody's meetings won the hearts of the people over to the hymns as they were there and ministering in that way. Evidently, also, Dr. Horatius Bonar, we probably remember seeing his name in the hymnal, a Scotsman. He actually attended the meetings when Moody was there, and he wrote the words "Yet There Is Room," which Sankey put the music to, I understand. And that was a joint effort of what they did while they were in Scotland. "The 99," "The Cross of Jesus," "Room for Thee," "A Shelter in the Time of Storm," "Hiding in Thee," so many that he wrote that we cherish in our hymnal today.

And all of this was obviously, if you think about even in the library, I picked up, not too long ago, this past few months ago, I picked up a book about how God was working some in the Northern armies and revival and speaking to people in the Northern armies, but we certainly have books like "Christ in the Camp." This is in the 1860s, how God's working in the Civil War. There was a lot of the same burdens among evangelists that were ministering to Civil War soldiers during that timeframe of debauchery and things that were going on, and God greatly and miraculously saved quite a number of souls in both armies during that time period. So God was evidently at work. God was working, and there were still aftershocks, I guess we can say, that were continuing on from the work of awakening that had gone on in the earlier part of that century.

So in all that we've said tonight, I want to just say that the common theme, even though the style may have changed some, you see there's a heartbeat and desire for holiness in the hymns that they're writing of Christians and the salvation of souls. We don't just want to sing gospel songs. There's a lot of great doctrinal truth that we miss out on if we don't sing some of the other hymns as well. I think it would be good for us to sing, maybe we can put in some inserts and sing from some more of the Psalms at times as well. But I think the Lord makes it very clear when He revives hearts, there is a desire to sing. "Will thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee." Where did all this, where did the impetus, what was the impetus for all this mission work? What was the impetus for all of this hymn writing, this explosion of hymn writing and gospel songs that were being put out? What was the motivation? What was behind these various positives and good things coming out, like a Bible-based unabridged dictionary being written? And all of this, it was the work of God in the hearts of people that was producing this desire: revive us, so we may rejoice, and that we may rejoice in thee. If God had not been merciful to our nation like He's been, we wouldn't even be here today. But we're here, and we hold in our hands the preserved words in English. We hold in our hands a hymn among many that are available. I think I looked recently on hymnary.org, and I think, and I'm not recommending all these hymnals, but I think there was something like 6,000 hymnals you can access on there. It's just so many hymnals that are available. It's just mind-blowing. But all of that is God's grace; it is throughout even in our own country's history to make this a possibility. May we cherish the hymns of the faith, but may we thank God for how He worked in and through the lives of men and women in the 1800s to give us these treasures in song.

Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for how you worked in the lives of Daniel Whittle and Dwight L. Moody and Fannie Crosby and Ira Sankey and Avis Christiansen and different ones of that time, O Lord, and brought through their pen and out from their hearts and their lips these words and this music, Lord, that is the direct result of your work of grace in their hearts in saving and calling as willing vessels in your hand these various individuals. We pray, Lord, that we likewise would have a desire for you to repair our altars and revive our hearts that we may rejoice in thee, and we may be a people that sings from the heart as unto the Lord. Help us, Lord, to know a closer walk with thee, even this remainder of this week. May we see thee more clearly and love thee more dearly and follow thee more nearly each and every day. We pray and ask in Jesus' name, Amen.