Logos Alethias

General Curtis Guild, Jr., has told in The Sunday School Times how this hymn, “How Firm a Foundation,” was sung on a famous Christmas morning.

Robert E. Lee

The Seventh Army Corps was encamped on the hills above Havana, Cuba, on Christmas Eve of 1898—a beautiful tropical night. Suddenly a sentinel from the camp of the Forty-ninth Iowa called, “Number ten; twelve o’clock, and all’s well!”

A strong voice raised the chorus, and manly voices joined in until the whole regiment was singing. Then the Sixth Missouri added its voices, and the Fourth Virginia, and all the rest, ’til there, as General Guild said, on the long ridges above the great city whence Spanish tyranny once went forth to enslave the New World, a whole American army corps was singing:

‘Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed;
I, I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

The Northern soldier knew the hymn as one he had learned beside his mother’s knee. To the Southern soldier it was that and something more—it was the favorite hymn of General Robert E. Lee, and was sung at that great commander’s funeral.

Protestant and Catholic, South and North, singing together on Christmas day in the morning—that’s an American army!

—Amos Wells

How Firm a Foundation

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you he hath said,
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand.
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotennt hand.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply:
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose
I will not, I will not desrt to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake!

Use this information each week during your family devotion times to prepare your hearts for the teaching of God’s Word on the upcoming Lord’s Day.

• Read the scripture text together.
• Meditate on the scripture passage.
• Sing the hymns and songs.
• Pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
• Ask God to make your heart supple and receptive when the Word is preached from the pulpit Sunday morning.

This Sunday’s Text:
Acts 17:1-16

This Sunday’s Sermon Title:
TBD

This Sunday’s Music:

Last night, in Pastor Mike’s Bible study, he was talking about Judah in the book of Isaiah.  Mike brought up a very interesting question.  He asked us what God wanted from his people and from King Ahaz in order for him to take care of them.  Was it sacrifices?  Was it a feast?  A celebration?  A prayer?  A tithe?  The answer wasn’t remotely like any of those.  I’m sure God was/would have been pleased with those offered to him, but that wasn’t what he had desired.  God wanted his people to trust him.  Isaiah 7:9b states, “If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.”

Now, I don’t want the title of this post to be misleading.  I don’t want to imply that it is easier to love God than to trust Him.  In fact, I’d rather not touch that statement right now.  What I do want to point out (from my own life), is that I sometimes struggle with trusting Him more than loving Him.  I’m one of those people that constantly questions my own motives and answers to questions like “do I really love God?”  But I have realized, that for me, the answer to “do I love God?” is much clearer than “do I trust God?”  The Bible is filled with passages regarding not worrying and trusting God (Matt 7 and Phil 4 are probably the most popular).  When I’m struggling financially, or sick, or have a relative that is sick, or just having a bad day…am I trusting God?  My answer normally ends with…intellectually, I think I do trust him, but I don’t always FEEL like I do, or ACT like I do.  How would you answer that?

Use this information each week during your family devotion times to prepare your hearts for the teaching of God’s Word on the upcoming Lord’s Day.

• Read the scripture text together.
• Meditate on the scripture passage.
• Sing the hymns and songs.
• Pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
• Ask God to make your heart supple and receptive when the Word is preached from the pulpit Sunday morning.

This Sunday’s Text:
Acts 16:16-34

This Sunday’s Sermon Title:
How to Overcome Circumstantial Christianity

This Sunday’s Music:

Turning to the young Robert Robinson, a bleary-eyed gypsy fortune-teller pointed a quivering finger and said, “And you, young man, you will live to see your children and your grandchildren.”

Robert Robinson suddenly paled and said, “You’re right. She’s too drunk to know what she’s saying. Leave her alone. Let’s go.”

Robert Robinson

But her words haunted him the rest of the day. “If I’m going to live to see my children and grandchildren,” he thought, “I’ll have to change my way of living.”

That very night, half in fun and half seriously, he took his gang to an open air revival service nearby where the famous evangelist, George Whitfield, was preaching. “We’ll go down and laugh at the poor deluded Methodist,” he explained

Two years and seven months after hearing that sermon, 20-year-old Robert Robinson made his peace with God, and “found full and free forgiveness through the precious blood of Jesus Christ.”

Joining the Methodists, and feeling the call to preach, the self-taught Robinson was appointed by John Wesley to the Calvinist Methodist Chapel, Norfolk, England. And there, for the celebration of Pentecost (Whitsunday), in 1858, three years after his marvelous conversion, he penned his spiritual autobiography in the words of this hymn.

—Ernest K. Emurian

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above;
Praise the mount—I’m fixed upon it—
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I’m come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wand’ring from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
Bind my wand’ring heart to Thee:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it;
Seal it for Thy courts above.

Use this information each week during your family devotion times to prepare your hearts for the teaching of God’s Word on the upcoming Lord’s Day.

• Read the scripture text together.
• Meditate on the scripture passage.
• Sing the hymns and songs.
• Pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
• Ask God to make your heart supple and receptive when the Word is preached from the pulpit Sunday morning.

This Sunday’s Text:
Mark 10:35-45

This Sunday’s Sermon Title:
A Ransom Paid

This Sunday’s Music:

One Sunday morning Elvina Hall was sitting in the choir section at her church, Monument Street Methodist Church, in Baltimore, Maryland. She wasn’t exactly bored with the sermon that Pastor George Schrick was preaching, but while he spoke about Jesus, Elvina’s mind drifted to what Jesus had done for us and realized that Jesus had truly paid the entire price for our sins. The words to our hymn “Jesus Paid It All,” were born that morning and the only thing Elvina had to write the words on was the inside cover of her hymnbook. Later, when she gave the words to her pastor she found out that the organist had just written a tune and both words and tune fit perfectly together. The hymn was published in 1879.

I hear the Savior say, “Thy strength indeed is small!
Child of weakness, watch and pray, find in Me thine all in all.”

Lord, now indeed I find Thy pow’r, and Thine alone,
Can change the leper’s spots and melt the heart of stone.

For nothing good have I whereby Thy grace to claim-
I’ll wash my garments white in the blood of Calv’rys Lamb.

And when before the throne I stand in Him complete,
“Jesus died my soul to save,” my lips shall still repeat.

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain-
He washed it white as snow.

Use this information each week during your family devotion times to prepare your hearts for the teaching of God’s Word on the upcoming Lord’s Day.

• Read the scripture text together.
• Meditate on the scripture passage.
• Sing the hymns and songs.
• Pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
• Ask God to make your heart supple and receptive when the Word is preached from the pulpit Sunday morning.

This Sunday’s Text:
Acts 15:36-16:15

This Sunday’s Sermon Title:
Divine Guidance

This Sunday’s Music:

Rev. Billy Graham

In January of 1936, the Southern Baptist songwriter B. B. McKinney was leading the music at the Alabama Sunday School Convention which was held that year in the town of Clanton.

The featured speaker was the Reverend R. S. Jones, McKinney’s friend of many years, who because of ill health had recently returned from missionary service in Brazil.

The two men were visiting over dinner one evening when Mr. Jones revealed to Dr. McKinney that his physicians would not allow him to return to South America.

When asked about his future plans the missionary said, “I don’t know, but wherever He leads I’ll go.”

The words stuck in Dr. McKinney’s mind, and before the convention’s evening session began, he had written both the words and music of this song.

At the close of Mr. Jones’ message, Dr. McKinney related this story and sang “Wherever He Leads I’ll Go” to the congregation.

—Billy Graham

“Take up thy cross and follow me,”
I heard my Master say;
“I gave My life to ransom thee,
Surrender your all today.”

He drew me closer to His side,
I sought His will to know
And in that will I now abide
Wherever He leads I’ll go.

It may be through the shadows dim
Or o’er the stormy sea
I take the cross and follow Him
Wherever He leadeth me.

My heart, my life, my all I bring
To Christ who loves me so;
He is my Master, Lord, and King
Wherever He leads I’ll go

---

Wherever He leads I’ll go,
Wherever He leads I’ll go,
I’ll follow my Christ who loves me so,
Wherever He leads I’ll go.