All right, so we're gonna sing Blessed Assurance. Welcome to the Sunday School Hour, glad that you're here. Blessed Assurance, that's a Fannie Crosby song. We're gonna talk about her today, so. Oh, here we go. ♪ Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine ♪ ♪ Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine ♪ ♪ Heir of salvation, purchase of God ♪ Philippi Spirit, stand in glory. This is my story, this is my song. Praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story, this is my song. Praising my Savior all the day long. All right, so let's all stand. I've neglected to ask you to stand. Let's all stand for the next two verses. This is my story. This is my song. This is my story, this is my song, and you're my savior. Notice it says in that second verse we just sang, visions of rapture now burst on my sight. If you know anything about Fanny Crosby, she was blind. And yet she oftentimes wrote in there about sight. And my Savior, first of all, seeing my Savior first, things like that. She often said things in her songs, put things in her songs about her sight, and yet she couldn't see. I think, really, she had more light in her soul than often us that can see fine. Amazing lady. Anyway, the last verse. Perfect submission, all is at rest. I have my Savior, I'm happy and blessed. Watching and waiting for the King above. Filled with His goodness, I'll sleep with my love. This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior, This is my story. This is my song. This is my Savior. Oh, good day, Lord. Amen. Let's go ahead and pray. Father, I ask that you bless this Sunday school hour. We need your help. We need your presence, as we always do. Meet with us now in Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. You can be seated. And let's see here. We're going to see if I can find the song we're going to sing. All the way, my Savior leads me. Another Andy Crosby song. All the way, my Savior leads me. What have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy? Who through life has had my guide? Heaven and peace revive His cross. Jesus, with all things well. For I know what e'er befall me, Jesus, with all things well. For I know what e'er befall me, Jesus, with all things well. All the way, my Savior, May steps may falter and my soul thirst may be Gushing from the rock before me, low a spring Gushing from the rock before me, low a spring of joy I see He was promised in my father's house above. This my song to endless ages. Jesus, let me home away. This my song to endless ages. Jesus, let me home away. Let's pray. Father, we love you and thank you for your love to us. Thank you for your salvation. And Father, we pray, Lord, this morning that if there's anyone in this house and on this property that doesn't know Jesus as their Savior, they have to be saved this morning. Father, be with the sick among us, Lord, and those that have illnesses, Lord, that we're contending with. As you put your healing hand upon them and your blessings upon them, pray for our pastor and his wife, and for the blogger, Karen, and others, Lord, that we may not know who they are, Lord, this morning, but you do. They're your children, and you take care of them, Lord, and we thank you for that. Father, we ask this morning you'd be with our nation. It's a little discomforting, Lord, to see what's going on around us. Father, we pray you bless our president, and vice president, and our governor, and those in the places of authority, Lord, and leadership, and have a bearing on what we do and how we live. Father, we know that you have control in all these things. Father, we know we want your will to be done. Father, we're limited in what we know and what we think. We just know, Father, what we see and we feel like we need to be praying forward. So we pray for those things. Father, we certainly want your will to be done in all these things. Father, be with our police officers and all those, Lord, that perform the emergency services that help us on a daily basis. Be with our missionaries, Lord, and take care of them and help them to do what they've been called to do, Lord, in reaching the people of the gospel. Forgive us where we failed you now, Lord, and guide in all we do today. Bless these services in Jesus' name we ask. Amen. and it's good to have brother Perry back by the way y'all keep him in your prayers as well as his wife and then for Deanna his daughter God never moves without purpose or plan, when trying is so vain, and molding a man Give thanks to the Lord, though your testing seems long, in darkness He giveth a song. Rejoice in the Lord, He makes no mistake He knoweth the end of each breath that I take For when I am tried and purified I shall come forth as more Now I can see testing comes from above. God strengthens his children and purges in love. My father knows best, and I trust in his care. Through purging, more food I will bear. Rejoice in the Lord, He makes no mistake. He knoweth the end of each path that I take. For when I am tried and purified, I shall come forth as gold. I shall come forth as gold. Amen. All right. We're going to be looking at John chapter 8 this morning. This is, by the way, did everybody get slips this morning? Can we get slips passed out? And go and fill those out. This is for the campaign. This is Hymns of the Faith, like all the stuff says. Hymns of the Faith. And this is Fannie Crosby Day, number one. She had a long life and did a pile of things. And we're gonna look at her life mostly today. We'll look at her ministry next week, focus more on her ministry next week. As a blind person, she had a thriving ministry on top of all the songs she wrote. Hello? Okay, there we go. They must have went out for a smoke, you know. I'm glad they're back in there. Anyway, Fannie Crosby had a wonderful life. Fill the cards out print, please, so I can read it. Last time I did this, two weeks ago, someone filled those out and they did not get counted. So how come? Because I could not read their name. I had no idea who it was. So write, print your name out legibly. If you brought a visitor, put that on there. When you fill it out, you filling it out lets me know you were here. And put the date on it today. And we'll get those all handed out and picked up. We may get done a little early today. I don't know. I was looking at it as I was putting this together. I got quite a few pages, but it may go pretty quick. So you might even get out a few minutes early today. No promises. All right, so John chapter eight and verse 12. We'll start with this verse. Again, as we mentioned earlier during the song service, Fannie Crosby had more light. in her than most of us that have sight. 12. John 8 says, Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world. 13. He that fowleth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. And if anybody ever had the light of life in their songs, it would be Miss Fanny Crosby. 14. So anyway, she was born with the name of Francis. 1820. So, it's been a few years. And she passed away February 12, 1915, almost 95 years. Just a few months short of 95 years. She later on got married. Most people don't know that she had gotten married. Her name turned to Frances Jane Van Alstyne. Frances Jane Alstyne, more commonly known as Fannie Crosby, was an American mission worker. a poet, a lyricist, and composer. She was one of the most prolific hymnists in history writing more than 8,000 hymns and gospel songs and more than 100 million copies printed despite being blind from shortly after birth. Now, some say she put out about 8,000, some say 6,000, some say as many 9,000. I'm not sure exactly how many thousands of hymns that she put out, but she put out a lot. I mean, a lot of songs. And by the way, if I say something decent or something good, you should say amen. I don't know if I'm preaching tonight or Wednesday, but one of those two days I'm preaching and I'm talking about my COVID stay in the hospital, but part of that's gonna be about shouting to the Lord. And so if something comes up, if I say something like that, she wrote a lot of songs. Somebody ought to say, amen. I mean, she wrote a lot of songs that we sing. They're in our books still today. But before we get too far, we want to look at her life and we'll continue on looking at her life throughout the lesson and try to build some lessons we can learn from her. As mentioned, she was born in 1820. Medicine was not as refined as it is today, at least mostly. And I got a chuckle on there because as my wife and I talk about often, these doctors are still practicing. medicine. Anyway, if you come to the COVID message, you'll hear more about that. At six weeks old, she had a cold, flew something that got congestion going on, and it actually inflamed her eyes. The areas around her eyes were a little bit inflamed and swelled up. The regular physician that they normally went to is not available. They found another doctor. Now, if you read about her life, I read several different accounts of her life. In her autobiography, she says that this doctor apologized and was just, you know, was really, this bothered him for the rest of his life. Most of the people I read behind said this guy was never seen again. I mean, he kind of went off the scene and never seen you. You say, well, how come he did that? Well, he prescribed a mustard plaster for her eyes and through this, because she put the stuff on her eyes, through that, she became blind for the rest of her 94 years. Again, Fannie said this in her autobiography. She wrote an autobiography, she's blind. We'll talk about a minute she couldn't write. Now, she could write a little bit, but she wrote in big letters. We'll mention that in a minute. But she couldn't write. She wrote an autobiography. It's pretty long. It's 160 pages long. She had heard that the physician in question never ceased in his apologies and regret about the occurrence. But again, in other places I read about that occurrence, he went away and no one ever heard of him again. It was that bad that she went blind. We'll say more about that point in particular in a minute. But anyway, lesson one. Lesson number one out of her life is, tried and true is better than guessing and groping. Tried and true is better than guessing and groping. Now, I'm gonna use somewhat of a personal illustration. One of the fellows in here remembers this incident very well, I am sure. He could come up here and tell you about it, I'm sure. There's a fellow that operates this company called Anchor Construction. He probably knows exactly what I'm gonna say. They were hired to paint the inside of her house, which included some molding work on the inside. And we wanted to try to get it done quickly, because we had, I think it was my mother and father coming in from out of town. So we wanted to do it quickly, and he didn't have a worker to do it at the moment, so he hired this extra. And this guy come in and started putting, you're laughing yet? I can't tell, because your mask is on. Do you remember this? Oh yeah. So anyway, he come in and when he started putting the, you know, if I did this, it's okay. But this guy is a professional, right? He puts molding in and it's all crooked and stuff and he's filling in the spots and stuff. And I'm like, man, this doesn't look right. So I call him and ask him, am I paying for a professional job? And he said, yes. I said, well, it's not looking good. He came over. He spent the entire Sunday pulling all that stuff off that that guy put it on. Let him go. And we had to wait for his worker. I believe his name is called Sal. Is that correct? You still use him? And so the lesson he learned from that was, if it can't be done by Sal, we're just going to have and we'll get it done eventually. So tried and true is better than guessing and groping. Now, again, her being blind turned out to be a real blessing to you and I with all these songs, all these hymns that she wrote as well as some poems, but it turned out a blessing for us. And not just her, but her parents. What a tragedy. Now, so lesson number one is tried and true is better than guessing and groping. I'll give you lesson number two, then we'll go in and describe it. And I've heard Brother Nichols say this, and someone wrote it in a song similar, we'll read that song lyrics in a minute. But you may not always be able to trace God, but you can always trust God. Mike can't always trace him, but you can trust him. Fannie's family was incredible. Most of us would gripe and moan and complain and bellyache about what happened. Can you imagine the lawsuits today? I mean, her name would no longer be Fanny, her name would be Sue, because they'd be suing the pants off somebody. They didn't do any of that. The parents and grandparents, they were attempting to live for the Lord, and this tragedy came upon them, but even so, they continued to serve the Lord, and they actually encouraged Fanny to move on, and they became some of her strongest advocates. Now, it was not good for her to go blind, not personally, but what a help and a blessing and encouragement she has been to millions. I read this about her. Frances Jane Crosby was born in 1820, lost her eyesight in infancy. While most families would be devastated by such a crippling disability, Fannie's family saw the loss as a divine act of providence. Her mother, Mercy Crosby, that's an interesting name, and her grandmother's name was Eunice, or Eunice, if you want to say it in Bible terms. Her mother, Mercy Crosby, taught her that sometimes providence deprived persons of some physical faculty in order that the spiritual insight might more fully awaken. The family knew God as their source of true pleasure and believed that all they had, meager or abundant, came from God's hand. That was her mother. I mean, the mama. That's a mouthful. Let me read what she said just one more time. Her mother, Mercy Crosby, taught her that sometimes providence deprived persons of some physical faculty in order that the spiritual insight might more fully awaken. The family knew God as their source of true pleasure and believed that all they had, meager or abundant, came from God's hand. What an amazing mama. What an amazing mama. You got some type of ailment. You got some type of physical shortcoming. It didn't take God by surprise. It didn't take God by surprise that Fannie Crosby lost her sight, but God did give her much grace in other areas in her life to make up more than make up for it. I have a disability. Mine is I'm way too short for my weight. Now, then he says amen, close to me. My wife can say amen, but the rest of y'all just laugh. Anyway, so, and she did not write hymns early on in life, but she wrote countless poems. Let me read you one of them. This is a poem she wrote as an eight year old child. She's eight years old. Oh, what a happy soul I am, although I cannot see. Just stop right there. Oh, what a happy soul I am, although I cannot see. What a blessing in a person's, an eight-year-old's life. Now, the reason she could say that is because her mama, and we'll talk about her grandma in a minute, but because her mom and her grandmother were there as her greatest supporters and advocates, they taught her things about the Lord Jesus and about the Bible and about God, and she was able to overcome this, what we would call a devastating disability. Oh, what a happy soul I am. Although I cannot see, I am resolved that in this world contented I will be. How many blessings I enjoy that other people don't. To weep and sigh because I'm blind, I cannot and I won't. And an eight-year-old child wrote that. some of the greatest musical compositions we have to this day come from people that had great hardships great troubles great obstacles thrown upon their lives and out of these obstacles came these songs another songwriter put it this way it's a tremendous song at least the words are troubled times Encharted waters, a storm is moving in. Fear has stolen my heart where peace once had been. You're the savior of the hurting to the disheartened you are near. Lord, show me the reason I am here. Then a still small voice whispers in my ear. I calm the raging waters. and I caused the blind to see. There will never be a mountain impossible for me. By faith, keep on believing. I'll be sure to do my part. For when you cannot trace my hands, child, trust my heart. Trust my heart. Another still famous musician, a brilliant musician, you've probably heard of him before, Ludwig van Beethoven. You ever heard of that guy? several things in his early life that would have stopped most of us. It would have stopped most of us from doing anything. He had five siblings. So there were six of them. He had five siblings. Four of them died in infancy. Only two of them made it out. So that's the first thing that would be against him. He had five brothers or sisters and four of them died when they were very young. His father was his first music teacher and he was a brilliant composer and a brilliant music teacher, but he was also drunk. a bad drunk, and if Beethoven made an error, his father would beat him. And not only would he beat him, he'd throw him in a cellar for a while, give him some time out after he'd beat him. Most people think that the beatings that he took as a child probably contributed to his deafness later on. And again, the most devastating thing in his life in his 20s, this is a composer, this is someone that does music. What's the most important thing about music so you can hear it? I mean, it brings joy. It brings peace. It calms the very soul of a person. Oftentimes, this music, it just does something for our entire body, our entire being. And yet, this guy in his 20s began losing his hearing. And it wasn't long after that, he became totally deaf, communicated by writing because he couldn't hear anymore. Things were far from perfect. I read this about him in 1820. That was the year Fanny was born. When he was almost totally deaf, Beethoven composed his greatest works. These include the last five piano sonatas and the Ninth Symphony with its chorale final. If I played it, you'd recognize it. I read this about Beethoven. He composed this thing called Ode to Joy in 1824, and the final movement of his last and arguably most famous symphony, Symphony No. 5, the premiere took place in Vienna on May 7, 1824. Now, at this point in Beethoven's life, he hadn't led any music group. He hadn't led any symphony for a long time. It'd been probably 10 or 15 years since he led a symphony, but this was his first time with this music coming out, and so he did it. At the end of the performance, though some say it could have been after the second movement, it was said that Beethoven continued conducting. Even though the music had ended, he couldn't tell. One of the soloists stopped him and turned him around to accept his applause. The audience was well aware of Beethoven's health and hearing loss, so in addition to clapping, they threw their hats and scarves in the air so that he could see, because he couldn't hear it, so they could see his overwhelming approval. just trying to let you know that sometimes folks go through some bad things, and yet even in those bad times, good things can come out of it. I'd say Beethoven wrote some pretty good music, even after he was deaf. God gave him that gift. All right, so back to Fanny. So she's a six-week-old blind girl in the 1820s. Then before her first birthday, Before her first birthday, her father, John, passed away from pneumonia in his mid-20s, leaving Fanny and her mother, Mercy, to fend for themselves. At that point, Mercy moved in with her mother, Eunice, or, you might say, Crosby, Fanny's grandma. Never underestimate the influence of grandma. she was quite a grandmother. 50s Fannie's family believed strongly in Christianity as part of everyday life. The family altar, a time of prayer and Bible reading was a central part in their home. Since Fannie couldn't read, her grandmother helped her to memorize scripture starting in earnest about the age of 10. Now, again, you just have to think about this. Grandma was gonna help her memorize scripture. She cannot see it. So somebody's gonna have to read it to her over and over and over and over again so she could memorize it. Fannie later commented, it was grandma who brought the Bible to me and me to the Bible. She said the stories of the holy book came from her lips and entered my heart and took deep root there. Never underestimate the influence of grandma. Now, you say, well, did she memorize much? Well, you know, she was blind. And she had to have someone read it to her for her to hear it the first time. Patty memorized five. You ready for this? Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and many of the Psalms. What an amazing memory. Fanny did this as a blind lady, unable to read for herself, and fully dependent on memorizing scripture by hearing the words and not seeing them. This meant a great deal of work for whoever was helping her, reading the scripture over and over until Fanny had them committed to memory. I'm told, I'm getting a little ahead, but I'm told that when she wrote music for, or when she wrote words for music, she would sit and she would write it in her mind. The entire song, I mean, several verses, the entire song, the chorus, everything. The refrain, however you want to call it, she wrote it all in her mind. And then she would tell somebody, she'd spew it out for someone else to write down. They call it technically a manuensis or a secretary or someone that would write it down. Oftentimes it was her grandmother. When she got married it became her husband and others but they would write these songs down and sometimes she would have them write down as many as five songs at the same time. She put it all in memory first and then spewed them out. What an amazing memory she had. Now, her music is saturated with the Bible. No doubt this had much to do with Grandma, because Grandma was the one that read her most of the Bible she got. Eunice had a great effect on the most famous hymn writer in history. Next, here's at the New York... six weeks she lost her dad in her first year they moved in with grandma just so they have a place to stay and she learned scripture again by the time she's 15 she memorized like 10 books of the Bible They had been trying to get her into school, and because she was blind, no one would accept her, but her mother's hard work of trying to find someplace finally paid off. Shortly before her 15th birthday, Crosby was sent to the recently founded New York Institute for the Blind. which would be her home for the next 23 years, 12 as a student, 11 as a teacher. Now, one of the areas that Fannie really progressed and really was talented for was this area of poetry at the beginning. In fact, her principal kind of discouraged her from reading out loud. I read this about her. She initially indulged in her own poetry and was called upon to pen verses for various occasions. In time, the principal asked her to avoid such distractions in favor of her general instruction. We have no right to be vain in the presence of the owner and creator of all things, he said. I think what he was trying to tell her is he didn't want her to get big head. I mean, they came to her and she wrote stuff. About any type of occasion came up, she was the one that could write a poem for it and wrote many poems and became very famous. We'll talk about how famous she became in just a minute. It reminded me a little bit of some verses in the Bible. 1 Samuel 17, I'll just read a couple of them for sake of time. I said I was gonna let you out early, I guess not. Remember David and Goliath? And remember David's father sent him out to see how the battle's going? By the way, one of the things he did while he was out there is he shouted for the battle. He let everybody know whose side he was on. But he got out there and he was looking to see what was going on. And Eliab, his eldest brother, this is 1 Samuel 17, 28. Eliab, his eldest brother, heard when he spake unto the men and Eliab's anger was kindled against David. Now, at this point, the giants come down there and ask for somebody to come and fight him. and challenged the armies of Israel and challenged the God of Israel and bring somebody down so I can fight. Well, all the soldiers were, you know, like this. I mean, the guy was huge. They were scared of him. Well, David inquired about it and he laughs. Anger was kindled against David. Here's the guy that's shaking his knees in anger at David for asking about this guy Goliath. And he said, why camest thou down hither and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride and the naughtiness of thine heart for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle. Well, first off, that wouldn't be such a bad thing because he came down and shouted for the battle. But here he was trying to cover up his own insecurities by trying to tell somebody else they're just too filled with pride. Well, that's I think what the principal of the school was trying to tell Fannie. You need to kind of step back a little bit from this writing all these poems and try to put yourself into your work, your real work. But later on, there was a fellow that came along and talked to her about it. And here's what he said about her. Here is a poetess. Give her every possible encouragement. Read the best books to her and teach her the finest that is in poetry. You will hear from this young lady someday. Boy, did they ever. So he then began encouraging him. Almost humorous, you know, she wrote all this poetry. I'll read you one in just a minute. It's a very short one, but it's kind of humorous. Her first obstacle in the education field was not English. It was that thing that people don't like, the dreaded math, dreaded math. She wrote this, the first obstacle that I found standing in the way, looming up like a great monster, was arithmetic. She said, I loathe, abhor, it makes me sick to hear the word arithmetic. Well, she just hated math, but she did get through and she graduated. And so now, she started that school around age 15. By the time she was 23, it didn't take long for people to know who she was and the poetry she wrote. By age 23, Crosby was addressing Congress. and making friendships with presidents. In fact, she knew every president in her lifetime and met every president and talked to them by themselves in her lifetime, especially Grover Cleveland, who served as secretary for the Institute of the Blind before his election. Her name, Fanny Crosby, became famous long before she became a famous hymnist. So you see this young girl, she was blind, she lost her dad, she moved in with grandma, she learned all this Bible, she wrote all this poetry, memorized all this stuff in her head. And then she ended up getting married. The guy that she married was an Alexander Van Alstyne. He also was blind and went to the same school and became a teacher at that same school, that Institute for the Blind. In 1855, the New York Institute for the Blind hired another sightless teacher, Mr. Alexander Van Alstyne, who is a gifted composer. and musician. He was considered one of the finest organists in the New York area. Alexander and Fanny Crosby's personal relationship blossomed into love and despite the fact that when they were married in 1858 she was 38 and he was 27. She robbed the cradle. Now she didn't start writing hymns until she was 40. All these hymns that we sing, she didn't start that till she's 40. She wrote a lot of poetry in her younger years, but she didn't write hymns until later on. Folks would come to her and she'd write poetry about anything that was going on in their lives. And pretty soon her notoriety was so big, musicians would come with pieces of music and say, can you put some words to this music? Now many times what happens is somebody writes a poem and then someone else comes behind them and writes the music for those words. But in her case, almost every time what happened was the folks would write this music and they wouldn't have words to it. And they'd come to her and she would pen or she would dictate words for that song. One day, musician William Doan dropped by her home for a surprise visit, begging her to put some words to a tune he had recently written, which he was to perform at an upcoming Sunday school convention. The only problem was his train to the convention was leaving in 35 minutes. So she had 35 minutes. He sat down at the piano and played the tune. She had 35 minutes to write a song, to write the words to this song. Now, something else is going on in her life at this time. Most people don't know this. Her and her husband had a child. The child died in infancy. It was just before this Mr. Doan showed up for her to write this music. Just before this, her child had died. And so she listened to the music and she said, your music says safe in the arms of Jesus. I just have to think she was thinking about her child, safe. in the arms of Jesus. You say, what does the song say? Safe in the arms of Jesus, safe on His gentle breast. There by His love o'ershadowed sweetly my soul shall rest. Harked is the voice of angels born in a song to me over the fields of glory, over the jasper sea. She did this in 35 minutes. safe in the arms of Jesus, safe from the corroding cares, safe from the world's temptations. Sin cannot harm me there. Free from the blight of sorrow, free from my doubts and fears, only a few more trials, only a few more tears. Jesus, my heart's dear refuge, Jesus has died for me, firm on the rock of ages ever my trust shall be. Here, let me wait with patience. Wait till the night is over wait till I see the morning break on the golden shore and the refrain goes safe in the arms of Jesus safe on his gentle breast there by his love o'ershadowed sweetly my soul shall rest I dare say most of us couldn't write anything like that if we had our lifetime to put it down She did it in 35 minutes. Again, this was just shortly after this child had died. I don't think I'm gonna be able to get too much further. The next point's a little long. So lesson one is tried and true, better than guessing and groping. Lesson number two, you may not always be able to trace God, but you can always trust Him. And I think we can see that in Francis's or Fanny's life that although God allowed her to become blind, He gave her extra gifts in other areas in His acts of providence. And she left us songs that we still sing today. I guess her most famous song is Blessed Assurance that we sang this morning. What a tremendous lady, what an amazing life she lived and left us a whole pile of songs that we sing. All right, let's go ahead and pray, and then we'll be finished. Father, I ask that you bless what's been said, and we're talking about Fannie Crosby. The Lord, you were the one that was behind the scenes putting all this together. We're thankful for your providence and how you set things up in our lives, help us to follow. Bless the services to come, in Jesus' name I pray, amen. God bless you, thank you for coming. And thank you all out there in TV land watching.