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

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

All right, this evening I'd like to turn together to Psalm 85, please. Psalm 85, and as we continue in our study of American hymnody, English hymnody, coming over into America, the United States, and we want to look in Psalm 85 this evening in verse 1 beginning. To the chief musician, a psalm for the sons of Korah. O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease. Wilt thou be angry with us forever? Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? Wilt 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-rescued 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 that even allowed this nation to be formed in the first place. He could have squashed it from the start if he didn't want it 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 had a lot of Christian influences. We can say that. And we've been greatly blessed by God because of those Christian influences and Christian roots in many, many aspects of our culture and our country.

Now, tonight I want us to… and this is not typical of me, as we… Normally I'm breaking down the passages of 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. Wilt thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee? Tonight I want to speak to you about 19th century, the gospel hymn of the 1800s, the gospel hymn that came to the forefront and truly became an 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 time frame of the second Great Awakening from the very latest years of the 1700s right on up to about, what would it be, 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. And this was a time that was following what church historians would call a period of deterioration, a period of deterioration, spiritually speaking.

New England became a place where the church was moving into apostasy and heresy after many good things in the early days. I know I've talked about the halfway covenant that came in in the Puritan church and how they were just baptizing people in the church just because they were their children, but they weren't even born again. And we see that the influences of even the French Illuminati, you've got a lot of the French, you know, Liberté, you know, what are the French Illuminati? You've got a lot of the French, you know, Liberté, the words there, egalite and all of 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.

And this is something that Timothy Dwight, who would be a major figure in the beginning of the Second Great Awakening, had to confront that on the college campus. There was just debauchery going on and 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, 40,000 people were beheaded.

They got rid of all this group and then they said, well, they need to go and they need to go. And it was not the same kind of liberty we were looking for here in the United States. Now, those terms, liberty, over in France, it was the idea of freedom, but not freedom to obey God, freedom to exercise the right to freedom, but freedom to obey God. And that was the idea of freedom. And to do whatever seems right in your own eyes, the equality, egalite, 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 that the government, you know, the government believes you have too much stuff, then 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, you know, 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 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, and he, he, he addressed the problem at the root of the issue. He said, adultery, assassination, poisoning, Timothy Dwight. And I've failed to mention tonight that he was the fourth president of Yale college. He was also, by the way, the grandson of Jonathan Edwards, who was greatly used in the first great awakening.

But this man, Timothy Dwight, fourth president of Yale college, he said that adultery, assassination, poisoning, and other crimes of the like infernal nature were taught as lawful, provided the end was good, right? Longest, you know, the end justifies the means kind of thinking. He, he went on and expounded on that, but he would say where religion prevails, illumination, talking about the French illumination kind of illumination, cannot, 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 seduce us from the house of God. And he calls the student body to repent and turn to God and repent of their sins and see that the great deceiver was at work. And without, and, and, and, and of course, this is a bird's eye view of all of this here, but God moved on that, the campus and God moved in many places. Uh, the, the, the, the great awakening in the second great awakening was not limited though, to the college campus.

We saw a mentioned briefly by way of introduction last week that in the South, primarily there were, 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, uh, the same work that God was doing in other places. Uh, branches, if we want to use that word of what God was doing out workings in different places of how God was moving upon the nation. So these camp meetings were a major expression of the awakening.

Uh, it said that the camp meetings will last from anywhere from four to nine days. People would move in, in, in 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. Um, circuit riding preachers were prevalent in this day. Itinerant, itinerant ministers, um, were, were greatly used. The, the, there was a, a great increase in the black churches during that same time.

Um, coming from even freed slaves, the African Methodist Episcopal church, the African, African Methodist Episcopal Zion church, the, you know, we still hear the term AME Zion. That was a, that was a, that was a, that was a, that was a, that was a, that was a, I started back during that time. I, I'm afraid like most churches, it's far different than it was even in the early days, but the black men such as Charles Albert Tindley, uh, who lived from 1851 to 1933, uh, would, would write some good hymns during that time.

In fact, he, I remember him well. Uh, I finally remember that hymn, nothing between my soul and the savior. He would write, um, standby. Me when the storms of life are raging, stand by me. He would write, leave it there. Um, and, and some others, but literacy would increase during this time. The McGuffey readers 1828, that was in the 1930, 1830, sorry. In, in 1828, we know Webster, Noah Webster had his unabridged dictionary completed at that time.

The first printing of it in 1828, this was a time, you know, when you, when you see God working, there's always lots of wonderful side effects that come from that fruits, uh, of, of that working. Uh, we have, uh, as a result of the second great awakening, there was really an, uh, an increased push for the freeing of, of slaves, the abolitionist movement. There was, uh, the temperance movement against alcohol and drunkenness. There was, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, the increase of world missions, missionaries being sent out from not only from England, but then the United States, uh, great blessings that came out of these awakenings.

But of course we're talking, we're not talking about all of that tonight, but that's the groundwork. I want to say that in that environment and we, God is continuing to be merciful to our country. We have other men besides Timothy Dwight. We have Lyman Beecher, Nathaniel Taylor, Asahel Nettleton, many others that were, um, preachers during that time. But out of that timeframe, there would also be great hymn writers that would come forth like, uh, Philip Paul Bliss, Fanny 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 Christensen, Iris Sankey, Daniel Whittle. Those are the, 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. But the, the things they wrote were direct results of what God was doing in the nation during that time when they were in the middle of the 1800s.

And so, you know, I think that's, I think they were coming up and coming along. They witnessed God's working through that. So second great awakening, the second great awakening and the things that he was doing in the nation. There was a man, um, I mentioned, uh, Daniel Whittle. He was, he was, uh, he fought in the, the civil war. He was actually a, I forget his exact rank, but he was, he fought in the Northern army. Um, and he would, 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 a good hymn must 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. Um, he admired the great hymns of the faith like Watts and Wesley and all those that had gone before him.

And, um, he was really a great contribute. He made a great contribution to him to the, in, in the 1800s. Uh, as you look at the hymns from that area, especially some of the names I just mentioned, as you look at those hymns, this is the century, especially when Ira Sankey comes along and you know, Fannie Crosby is going to be one of those hymns that are going to be one of the most important hymns in the history of the nation. The ones that's going to work hand in glove with Sankey and, and others.

But, um, as you look at the, the thing, especially as we move into the latter part of the 1800s, the distinctive hymn will be the gospel hymn that some, some have even said 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 hymn and the gospel song, when we tend to talk of it more as the gospel song, they were, the gospel song would be a simpler message, not as heavily freighted, doctrinally speaking, more subjective, more experiential, more, uh, not light necessarily in the sense of trite, but maybe somewhat repetitive, lilting, uh, energetic, a little longer, even in length of the song that the song would be oftentimes longer than a traditional hymn.

Would be, uh, it would, many of these gospel songs, they were evangelistic songs and they were written with that purpose in mind. Certainly Iris 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, uh, that, that Moody and others would be involved in that time period. But you'll also notice in the hymnody of this period, there's also a good mixture, in addition to the gospel songs, the evangelistic songs, there is a mixture of also a desire for personal holiness in a number of the hymns that were written during that era as well, that, that 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, and really it was a, it was a reflective, I guess we can say, of what God had been doing through the awakenings, what, through those, camp meetings, through those moves on the college campus or whatever it was. God was reviving saints and saving sinners. God was, there was a, there was both of those things were going on, even at the same time, in many cases, uh, people getting right with God and with each other, but also souls being saved during that, during that timeframe. Uh, there were, uh, waves, certainly the devil has never rested, even though he didn't have cell phones and televisions and radios back then, he was busy, uh, actively at work, trying to pollute the minds of, uh, of men and particularly the up and coming generation.

He certainly wanted to do that. But during this timeframe, we, we've got to talk about Fannie Crosby this evening. I think of how her pen was like a fountain. It was, uh, it said that she, 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, and, and we know she was born in 1820, uh, and she died in 1915, lived to the ripe old age of 95 years old. Um, she was born in Putnam County, uh, New York. This is the Southeastern part of, uh, New York, I believe on March 24th, 1820.

When she was six weeks old, she suffered the loss of her sight through what appeared to be an unfortunate, uh, a doctor that misdiagnosed the situation. He, he was trying to treat a slight cold and ended up causing inflammation in her eyes with the treatment that he gave her. And it ended up blinding her. Um, 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. Her life felt a spark of resentment, 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. Um, she was, uh, she, 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 Alstine, who would be her husband. She kept the name Fannie Crosby because she was already widely recognized by that time for her poetry.

Um, and she was a great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, which she wrote, but it wouldn't be until she, interestingly enough, until she was 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, she didn't start writing until she was 43. And it was, this came about when she met William Bradbury, William B. Bradbury. Uh, uh, uh, he's the one who invited her to write words to some melodies that he had composed.

Uh, and so she first wrote for him a hymn, uh, 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, with Bradbury. Um, she wrote one hymn safe in the arms of Jesus. We know that one, don't we? Safe in the arms of Jesus. She wrote it in less than half a century. She wrote it in less than half a century. She wrote it in less than half an hour.

Um, after hearing the melody played by Dr. W. H. Doan, uh, the composer, he played it on a small organ or, or, or the, the melody was played on a small organ by her, by, by him. Yes. Uh, on another occasion, Dr. Doan came to the, uh, came to Fannie 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, uh, 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.

Um, she wrote, I shall know him. Uh, composer of those were those, that music was Mr. John Sweeney. Um, no way we can cover that many tonight, uh, out of all that she wrote, but here's a few examples. Um, he also, Mr. Sweeney also composed a number of, um, Iris Sankey's favorite hymns that he would use in the evangelistic campaigns. But, but, um, she, he's, but, but Mr. Sweeney sent a melody to her. She wrote 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 pray for.

Um, I, if, if I, what little bit I've written, I like to write the words first and then write the music afterwards to go with it. But, uh, she wrote, 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 wrote saved by grace. Uh, when she was 72 years old, uh, she had been in a little prayer meeting and was asked to write a hymn on grace.

She was a gifted writer, obviously very gifted. She said that she had an immaculate or not. Maybe that wasn't the word that was used, but she had, almost a perfect memory. She could remember just about everything. And, and she tried not to try 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 core will break. And I know more as now shall sing, but all 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 said that one day a well-intentioned preacher approached her and, and said, uh, Fanny, 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 I, that shall ever gladden my sight will be the one that I will be able to see. And I know that I will be able to see. And I know that I will be that of my savior. And may, may we have that same contentment with whatever the Lord appoints for our lives as well.

Fanny, Fanny saw her life as belonging to the Lord. She worked well with, uh, Ira David Sankey, who was, uh, a man who worked closely with Dwight L. Moody. Let me give you a little background on him briefly. Um, and, and just remember as we're, we're going back to the beginning of the book, we're going back to the through Mr. Sankey. Remember this is, this is a man, uh, and this, this is a timeframe as we're talking tonight where God is, God is working and souls are getting, souls are getting saved. But there also is a lot of, a lot of dark philosophies that are coming in and infecting the minds of men as well.

So there is a burden to see souls saved. We, we see that Dwight L. Moody had a burning desire for that. Um, Ira David, Sankey, uh, was born at Edinburgh, Pennsylvania. Uh, he enlisted in 1860 in the 12th Pennsylvania regiment. And while he was in the army, he frequently led the singing and religious services. Uh, it said that he had a really good voice, really good voice. Um, they didn't have tape recorders as far as I'm aware back in that day. But in 1863, he married Miss Fanny V. Edwards. Um, and she was a great help to him in his life.

In 1870, he went as a delegate to the YMCA convention at Indianapolis, Indiana. And that's where he met Dwight L. Moody. Um, it said the singing had been rather poor at that event. I guess they didn't have really good singing for some reason. And Mr. Sankey was asked to lead in the singing. He began singing the familiar hymn, There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And after the service was over, um, Mr. Moody, uh, or Sankey was introduced to Mr. Moody and Miss and Sankey related rights describing that meeting with Moody.

He said, as I drew near Mr. Moody, he, uh, stepped forward and taking me by the hand, looked at me in that keen piercing fashion, uh, as, as, uh, 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? Uh, 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, he said, I'm going to come to Chicago and help me in my work. On Moody's part, uh, Sankey consented to spend a week with him in Chicago. And, uh, the rest, I guess we can say was history after he joined him there. The expression singing the gospel was a, was an expression that was attributed to Sankey by Reverend A.A. Rees of Sunderland, England. Um, singing the gospel, that's a good way to put it. He was, he was singing the gospel to those in those evangelistic meetings. Guy greatly used him and Moody together as a team.

Um, when he was, when he was in Scotland, uh, Edinburgh, Scotland, uh, it's interesting because we've talked about the Psalter, right? And they still sang almost exclusively. They were still singing much of the Psalter there when, when, when Moody went to Edinburgh, Scotland to, for evangelistic meetings there. And, and, uh, they called the, they called anything other than the singing of the Psalter. They called it human hymns is what they referred to it as, but evidently, uh, Sankey and Moody's meetings won the hearts of the people over to the hymns as they were there and, and, and ministering in that way.

Evidently also Dr. Horatius Bonar. Uh, we probably remember seeing his name in the hymnal, uh, a Scotsman. He, he actually attended the meetings when Moody was there and he wrote the words yet. There is room, uh, which, which Sankey put the music to, I understand. And that was a joint effort of what they did while they were in Scott, uh, over in Scotland, the 99, the cross of Jesus, um, uh, uh, room for the, a shelter in the time of storm. Uh, hiding in the, so many that he wrote that we cherish in our hymnal today.

Uh, and all of this was obviously, you think about, uh, even in the, in the library, I picked up recent, not too long ago, this past, a 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 18th century. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, 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, God was working. Uh, and there were still aftershocks. I guess we can say, that we're continuing on from the work of awakening that had gone on in the earlier part of that century. And 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 a 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 work 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. Wilt 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 positive and good things that were coming out like a Bible-based, unabridged dictionary? A 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 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 hymnal 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, it's mind-blowing. But all of that is God's grace that has worked throughout, even in our own country's history, to make this a possibility.

May we cherish the hymns of the faith, but may we… 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 Fanny Crosby and Ira Sankey and Avis Christensen and different ones of that time frame, Lord, and brought through their… in 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 place in Your heart and have a place in Your heart and 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… 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 thank You for that. And follow Thee more nearly each and every day. We pray and ask in Jesus' name. Amen.