If you want to, you can open up your Bibles to the book of Matthew and chapter number three this afternoon. Matthew chapter number three. We actually preached from this very text last Sunday. And I'm going to do something different this afternoon. I do this every once in a while. And we're really not going to dig much into a text this afternoon. Just every so often I do this. I enjoy, I hope you enjoy it, where we'll take a hymn and learn something about the history of that hymn or the hymn writer. This afternoon, if you want to, you can also grab your hymnal and look at hymn 313, hymn number 313, which is Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. And for this afternoon, we are going to study a little bit about the history of the author of this song, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. There is a verse of the song that is a very good verse that is not included in most of our hymnals. Any newer hymnal doesn't have this verse in it. And in fact, some of the language that is used in this copy of the song is different than many newer versions. You hear a lot of newer versions. Some of the wording is different. I know I'm an old fuddy-duddy, but I like the old language that we find here in this hymn and the words that it gives. And I know it's a little bit different than what we normally do. But we're going to play a version of this song. I want you to listen to it, and then we're going to get in to this song this afternoon. OK, Miss Grace, you're up. Come thou fount of every blessing, turn my heart to sing thy praise. Streams of mercy never ceasing, ♪ Call for songs of loudest praise ♪ ♪ Teach me some melody of sonnet ♪ ♪ Sung by flaming tongues above ♪ ♪ Raise the mount I am fixed upon it ♪ ♪ Mount of thy redeeming love ♪ That's pretty. Here I raise my Ebenezer Here by thy great help I've come And I hope by thy good pleasure Safely to arrive at home Jesus saw me when a stranger Wandering from the fold of God I think this is the missing verse going on. I shall see thy lovely face. Clothed then in blood washed linen, now I'll sing thy song of grace. Come, my Lord, no longer tarry. Take my ransomed soul. Send thy angels now to carry me to realms of endless day. Oh to grace how great a debtor Daily I am constrained to be Let Thy goodness like a fetter Bind my wandering heart to Thee Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it Here's my heart. Oh, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. Here's my heart. Oh, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. I wish I could sing like that. I know y'all do, too. Amen. If you'll notice here in your hymnals on page 313, the author of this song up at the top left-hand page, a man by the name of Robert Robinson, did some history on the life of this man. It's really interesting, his story. Let's see. Yeah, they have his age listed there, 1735 to 1790. living over in England this young man had a sort of a rough life really his father died when he was about eight years old he was headstrong stubborn little boy mother just could not handle him so she sent him to London they were living in England she sent him to London to apprentice at a barber shop she had lined up something for him to try and get some direction in his life but 16, 17 year old boy, rather than him finding a foundation, he found alcohol and he found gambling. And 16, 17 years old, he began to hang around with the wrong crowd, began to drink a lot, began to gamble, got involved with gangs back in. Yeah, they had gangs back then. And, um, just had made up with a bunch of little hoodlums, just running the circuit, being a bad guy. One Sunday, he and his little posse, his little group of miscreants, went to see a fortune teller. And they got her inebriated. I'll use the pretty language for that. They got her drunk. and begin to mock her and ridicule her as then they told her, forced her, you need to, we want you to tell our future. And the things that she said to them, they just laughed at her and they mocked at her, but she pointed her finger right at this author, Robert Robinson, and said to him, I see in your future, you're gonna see your children and your grandchildren. That sort of disturbed him, he wasn't, young boy wasn't thinking about children or grandchildren and all it sort of bothered him. So later on that day it was a Sunday when this happened later on that day he convinced his boys he says let's go to church this evening and he told them he said what I want us to do is I want us to get in there and let's make fun of the preacher and when he preaches we'll mock him while he's preaching but Truth was, he was really doing some soul searching, and he didn't know what was going on. So they all agreed to go to church on this Sunday evening, but they didn't realize whose church they were stepping into that Sunday night. It was a man by the name of George Whitfield. I don't know if any of you have ever heard a whole lot about George Whitfield, but he was a preacher. When I say that, he was a preacher's preacher. It is said of him that his voice was part foghorn and part violin. He was preaching in Delaware, next to the Delaware River, and people two miles down river could hear him preaching. In his lifetime, George Whitefield preached, listen to this, over 30,000 sermons He traveled back and forth between the England and US and One time when he was in Philadelphia now you got to understand this was before microphones One time in Philadelphia. He preached to over 10,000 people at one time He went for an average of preaching and listen I gripe and bellyache some I do Not so much about preaching, but all the prep that goes into preaching. This man preached on average of over a thousand sermons a year. 18 to 20 times a week. Sometimes he preached several times a day and would do that for weeks on end. And when he got in the pulpit, he wasn't playing games. You understand it wasn't jokes and These band of miscreants walked into that church building this evening, some of them thinking they was gonna cause trouble. They didn't realize whose church they were walking in. You understand, it's Lord's Church, if you will. But they didn't know the man was getting that man behind the pulpit could shout them out the front door, you understand? So anyway, they went in there to cause trouble. This group of troublemakers went in. George Whitefield opened to Matthew chapter three, began reading verse number seven, but when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? I like that. Don't you? This little group of troublemakers come showing up for church George Whitfield gets up, preaches, said, you bunch of snakes, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? I think it's God, the Holy Spirit, amen, working in this. And this group of boys, turns out, they didn't mock the preacher at all. In fact, they sat there quietly. They didn't say anything. Robert Robinson, our author here, our songwriter, he said later on, as he wrote on that experience, he said, I know George Whitfield was preaching to me. His building was full of people, but I know that he was preaching to me. Now God did not save him that night, but God used that message to plant a seed in his heart that a few years later he would use it to save him. George Whitfield, and this is what I think, we need so much in our preaching. George Whitfield stood in the pulpit, read his text, literally burst out with tears and cried out to his audience and said, the wrath to come, the wrath to come. Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? This message, this message haunted Robert Robertson and Some few years later, about two or three years later, in fact, what I read, it says, the boy wandered in darkness for three more years until arrested by the gospel in December of 1755 at age 20. God saved him. Just very, very soon within two or three years after his conversion, he felt the call of the ministry and he began to preach. And he began actually pastoring and listen to this. How these things go together sometimes, and I know all of you may not get this, but he began pastoring at the Calvinist Methodist Chapel. Put those together, would you? The Calvinist Methodist Chapel. I don't understand how that goes together, but anyway. And there, one Sunday, he was going to preach a message on God pouring out His blessings on His people. And to accompany his sermon, He wrote this poem that we know of, as come thou fount of every blessing. And this was a poem written to accompany the message and simply it was by his own writing, Robert Robinson's own writing, it was asking God, the Holy Spirit, to fill the hearts of his hearers with adoration and praise that they would sing songs to bring glory to God the Father. And I want you to just notice with me from this hymn, the words of it. And every time I do one of these, it's a little series I plug in every once in a while called Songs in the Night. But every time we do one of these, I try to remind you all that So often we get up and we say these words, particularly some of us could sing this hymn and not even have to crack the book because we sing it so much. Sometimes we don't know what we're saying. We don't necessarily understand the language, especially some young people. And then other times our heart's not in at all what we're saying. Our minds are off while our lips are recanting the words. And so I just wanna encourage you Give thought to this. Give thought to what the songwriter is saying. And again, it's just like anything else. When you begin to study it, you see a new richness in it that you haven't seen before. But in this first verse, the author is calling upon God. Come thou fount of every blessing. And in this, the author is acknowledging that every blessing comes from God. Right? Come thou fount. Who is the fount or the source? The fountain or the source of every blessing? God is the source of all of that. So he is calling upon God. He says if we're going to receive anything, spiritual blessing at all, it'll have to come from the fount or the source, which is God Himself. Tune my heart. And that language, just as simply as some of you who play music, you know what it means to tune an instrument, to get it in tune. Yesterday, I shouldn't say this, but I'm jealous of preachers that can play and sing. I don't like it, it ain't fair. It just ain't fair to the rest of us. There are some preachers who can play and sing, but this church that I visited this weekend, Their pastor can sing and play, their son, young boy, 14-year-old boy Caleb Bryant can sit down at the piano and just play. Just sit down and just play anything. I named a song and he just picked it out and just started playing it. It's just not fair to the rest of the world, but that is the way it is. But I started messing with his guitar and he said, don't mess with it, you'll get it out of tune. And our hearts get out of tune, don't they? We get to where we're not grateful, we're not appreciative. And the songwriter here says, tune my heart, get me in tune that I may sing, here in the first verse, that I may sing of thy grace. And dear friends, a lot of times we can sit in a church service, we can be here when our hearts are far from God. We need to get tuned in to worshiping God. You can sit for hours. I'm sorry, streams of mercy never ceasing, streams of mercy never ceasing. So vivid is this, again, making back an illusion, God being the founder of the source, the streams of mercy that never cease. Right down the road here, there is a creek runs down here. Many of you know this. You can go right down there, sit down at that creek, and sit there all day, all night, all day, all night, and it's just gonna keep on flowing, right? It's just gonna keep on flowing. And what the author is telling us right here is that's how God's mercy is. It's just like a stream or a river that just keeps on flowing, it just keeps on flowing. But there are streams of mercy that come from the fountain, the source of God that come down to us never ceasing. And these call for songs of loudest praise. Because all spiritual blessings come from God, and because they keep coming from God, an endless source of mercy from God. Don't you need an endless source of mercy from God? I know I do. Because of that, it calls for songs of loudest praise, that you and I would use our voices. Wonderful, wonderful message preached. Yesterday or day before on the parable of the talents on using what God has given you for his glory Not hiding it not Squirreling it away, but using lifting your voice. Whatever that it is what God has done in his endless stream of mercy calls for songs of loudest prayers And then he says teach me some melodious sonnet If I asked most young people today what that meant, they'd say, I don't know what that means. And that's all right. That's what we do here. We teach. So teach me some pleasant, harmonious, melodious ballad, song, verse. Teach me a beautiful song to sing, is what he is asking for. Teach me some beautiful, harmonious song to sing. Even, as it says here, sung by flaming tongues above, even teach me to sing like those who are in your presence right now. If you stop thinking about this one of these days, and this is if you're saved, it ought to fill your heart with some joy. One of these days, there's going to be a countless group of Number that no man can number of men women saved by God's grace gathered together with one united voice Singing praises to God Almighty in a glorious harmony and also All of us will be able to sing then, won't need oxygen, and won't have raspy voices, and won't be off tune. All of us will be able to sing. And what the songwriter is saying, I know I don't have it all right now, but would you teach me to sing like the people in heaven are singing right now? By flaming tongues above, even as the angels, those fiery angels cry out, holy, holy, holy, before the very presence of God, teach me to sing like they do. I'm telling you, a lot of times we get right through these psalms and we don't pay much attention to what we're reading, right? Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon it. He makes reference now to the steadfastness, the enormity, the constancy of God's redeeming love. Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon it. What mount, what mountain is he talking about? This mountain of God's redeeming love. He likens God's love to a mountain. Huge, vast, steadfast, unmovable. That's what God's love is. A constant, eternal love for us. Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon it. Aren't you fixed upon that mount of God's love? Are you happy to be there, fixed, stayed there on that mount of God's love? Yes, my brothers and sisters. Verse 2, here I raise mine Ebenezer. Anybody want to jump in right there? Some of you probably could. No, it's not a character from a Christmas carol. Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge, that's not what he's talking about. Here I raise my Ebenezer. In fact, if you're interested, you write it down and go look at it. He's making reference back to 1 Samuel chapter 7. It won't take just a second. Just roll back there and you'll see this. This way you'll know it for the future. Look back to 1 Samuel chapter 7. We won't read the whole narrative and explain everything that's going on, but we'll just look at a piece of it real quick. Again, how many times do we sing these songs? Really, to be quite frank, we don't even know what we're saying. 1 Samuel chapter 7. In 1 Samuel chapter 7, there's a battle ensuing between the Israelites and the Philistines. A lot of times there was battles going on between the Israelites and the Philistines, which goes back to them not possessing the land like they should, which we've been studying, you know, on Sunday nights. This battle goes back and forth and back and forth, and finally Israel wins. Look at verse 11. And the men of Israel went out of Mishpah and pursued the Philistines and smoked them until they came unto Beth-char. Then Samuel took a stone, verse 12, 1 Samuel 7 verse 12, and set it between Mishpah and Shinn, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. That's what the songwriter's making reference to. When he says, here I raise mine Ebenezer, he's reaching back into this account of this battle that took place between the Israel and the Philistines, where Samuel takes this huge stone and he sets it up to be a reminder, a memorial stone for Israel to say to them, the only reason we're here is because God brought us here. The only reason we have victory over our enemy is because God gave us victory over our enemy. You and I should have in our own lives our own Ebenezers. How many of us can look back or even right now, raise up an Ebenezer, take a memorial stone and say, the only reason I made it this far in life is because God's brought me here. The only reason I've had victory over any of my enemies is because God gave me victory over my enemies. Here I raise mine Ebenezer. You hear these words, hither by thy help I am come. That's what it's about. I'm only here. I'm only where I am because of God's grace. And you ought to be able to put that same Ebenezer stone out, right? I'm only here by God's grace. That's what this songwriter, how many times have we sung this? How many of you may have sung it since a kid and don't know that's what it is, but that's what it's about. And then he writes in verse two, and I hope by thy good pleasure safely to arrive at home. So the songwriter says, I've only made it this far by God's grace. And I hope to make it home, but if I do, it too will be by God's grace. And I hope, by thy good pleasure, safely, if I make it, and when he's talking about home, he's not talking about London, England, you understand. It don't matter when he gets to his heavenly home. I've only got this far because of God, and if I get that far, it'll only be because of God. I hope by God's good pleasure, and that's the only way we'll accomplish anything in this life, safely to make it home. Jesus sought me when a stranger. Who sought who? A little bit of doctrine mingled in that song. Jesus sought me when I was a stranger. Wandering from the fold of God, when I was far from Him, an enemy of His, a lost sheep, Jesus sought me. He came to me. He left the ninety and nine and came after me. Jesus sought me when I was a stranger. He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood. Most of the newer versions you hear of that song, and even in some newer hymnals, they take out that word interposed. I know it's a big word. I know probably been a long time since you used that word interposed, right? Probably the last time we sang this song was the last time you used the word interposed. But the word just simply means to place between. I think it's a good word. I like that word rather than changing. It took me a little while to find a version of that song. It still had the word interposed in there. I like that. Not that the other ones aren't okay, but I like this. I like it when we use words that teach, okay? He offered His blood as an appeasement for our sin. That's what the songwriter's teaching us. To rescue me from the danger of eternal hell, He interposed His blood. Put between me and God, His blood. The songs that we sing ought to promote doctrine and preach the gospel. One of the songs they sang yesterday, forgive me for making reference to it, but one of the songs they sang yesterday was I Believe, or We Believe, and I didn't know the song. It was a newer, more contemporary song. But it talked about we believe in God the Father, we believe in God the Son, we believe in God the Holy Spirit. We believe in the crucifixion, we believe in the atonement, we believe in the resurrection. I mean, that song was just full of Christ and full of the gospel. That's why we ought to sing songs like this. A lot of newer songs are all about how good God is and never say anything else. That's good, but why is He good to you? Because of what Christ has done for your behalf. He, to rescue me from danger, interposed, interrupted, came between, offered His blood for our sins. In verse 3, one of my favorite verses of all time of any song. Is it alright I have a favorite? I do. Oh, to grace, how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. Oh, how much we owe to grace. Oh, how indebted we are to grace. The debt we owe to God was so great we can't pay it, but grace came in and paid it for us. I like that verse. I love it. I love the way it goes on. Oh to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. I'm not going to speak for you. I'll speak for me. I'll just say this. I need God's grace daily. Hourly. Moment by moment I need God's grace. I am literally every single day indebted. You and I not speak for you, but if you're If you're saved, you know this, you are literally every single day indebted to God's amazing grace. I sin daily, I need grace daily. Let thy goodness like a fetter, like a chain. Let thy goodness, thy grace, let it keep me. That word fetter, And it's a good word. It paints a mental image of someone being chained. If you could imagine back many, many years ago, they would catch a wild beast, an animal, and either they would chain it or they would cage it. They'd put a chain on it to bind it or they would cage it. And what he is saying here is, Lord, I want your goodness to serve as a chain to keep my wandering heart from leaving away from you. The author says, listen to this, shackle me, bind me, my wandering heart, bind it to thee. And he's saying this because I think the author knows himself well enough to know he needs God to bind him. Needs and depends on God to keep him. In the second half of verse number three, you read these words, prone to wonder, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. I remember one time I heard a preacher say, he said, that verse doesn't belong in the song. He said, no child of God is prone to wander away from God. And I thought, man, I don't know who you are, but that ain't true for me. I hate to contradict the preacher, but I can tell you one thing. I'm like this songwriter right here. I'm prone to wander. I'm prone to leave the God I love. I'm prone to get away from God. I thought when he said that, I said, well, good for you, sucker, but that ain't me. I'm telling you, I need God to bind me to Him. I like this idea of God's goodness binding me like a chain next to Him, binding my heart to Him. Otherwise, I wonder off. Prone to wonder. Lord, I feel it. Can you not say that's me? Lord, I know it and you know it, and I'm just being honest with you about it. I'm prone to leave the God I love. It's sad, but it's true. That's what the Apostle Paul was writing about in Romans 7. For I know that in me that is in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing. There's a war going on inside of me. The Spirit's willing, but the flesh is weak. What I want to do, I don't do. And what I shouldn't do, that's what I do. I'm prone to wonder from God. Lord, I feel it. You know it. I'm prone to leave the God I love. And then he says, here's my heart. Here's my soul. Here's my spirit. Here's my being. Take it and seal it. Keep it. Preserve it. Listen to this. I don't trust myself, is what the songwriter says. I don't trust myself, and I don't either. I'll just draw a quick parallel. There was a man one time. asked a preacher pretty well-known preacher he asked him they were talking about dating and these kinds of things and he asked him he said would you let your 14 year old daughter go to the movie with a boy alone and he said no are you crazy he said don't you trust your daughter he said no i don't trust my daughter I know some of you may not like it, but that's what he said. He said, No, I don't trust my I don't trust my daughter. I don't trust that boy. And he said, I tell you one thing when I was 14 years old, I certainly didn't trust myself. And I don't trust myself right now. I want God to keep me because I know I'm on my prone to wonder. I'm saying to you, Lord, will you do for me what I can't do, and that is keep me bound to you, seal me, preserve me. You ladies know what it is to seal something, preserve something. That's what he's saying. Keep me close to you all the time. Prepare me, seal it for thy courts above. In other words, he's saying, prepare me for heaven. Prepare me for thy courts above." He's making reference again to heaven. Get me ready right now to live like I'm going to live then. And really that's the heart of Christian life, brothers and sisters, is to live right now how we're going to live when we're there. That's what kingdom living is all about. What a wonderful song this is. That missing verse I'll make reference to in just a minute. What a wonderful song this is. Listen to this. Written when he was 23 years old. This man is 23 years old. What do you know at 23? Well, he knew something to be able to write something like this. 23 years old to write this song. How many people, including yourself, have been blessed by singing this song over the years? 1735 to 1790. Just, he served, just really interesting about getting back to the man here, getting back to Robert Robertson's biography. A couple of years after he wrote this song, he began studying the doctrine of baptism and realized he'd never been baptized, didn't have scriptural baptism. So he went and got baptized by a Baptist and became a Baptist preacher. In fact, he became the pastor of Stonyard Baptist Church for about 30 years. By this time, he's aged 53, 54. Poor health had forced him to resign, and he was invited to go preach for another church. And while he was there visiting with that family, he died quietly in the night. 54 years old, 54 years old when he passed away. But here you have these words written by this man. How long ago was that, 250 years ago, 240 years ago? that we're still singing today, written by a 23-year-old boy, 23-year-old man, asking us as we gather together that we'd say, God, would you fill our hearts? Would you fill our souls with an awareness that all blessings come from you, that we may bring praise to you? Here's that verse. Oh, that day when freed from sinning, I shall see thy lovely face. Clothed then in blood-washed linen. That's rich. I hate that verse is gone out of our song books. Clothed in blood-washed linen, how I'll sing thy sovereign grace. Come, my Lord, no longer tarry. Take my ransomed soul away. Send thine angels now to carry me two realms of endless day. Come thou fount of every blessing. So now when we sing this again, you'll know a little bit more about it. Know a little bit more about the song Writer. And that's really about all he wrote. There was one or two other little hymns that were written by him, but they never gained any real popularity. You wouldn't know anything about them.