10/3/2019
How well do we know ourselves? How well do we want to know ourselves? Some mornings when I awake with a particular SIMH, I wonder at the song, the content of the song’s message, what was the initial gathering of that song into my memory bank, etc., and if I dwell on that a few minutes, sometimes I learn something else about how I got “from there to here,” so to speak. Take the song today: “It is Well With My Soul.” This enduring and lovely, peace-filled soul-searcher music was put together by Philip Bliss and Ira Sankey in or around 1876, was not one that I remember from my youth. Perhaps I heard it, I can’t remember. But, when it became a part of my memory was after I was saved.
Somewhere between 1964 and 1972, while Barb and I were singing in the choir at Ridgeview Baptist Church in Danville, IL., this song was practiced and sang in such a manner as to embed in me the reason for my peace. Later, about 1975, after a couple of years of bible study in the correct manner, I learned through a biography of D.L. Moody about Mr. Ira Sankey. I learned he had travelled with Mr. Moody to England to sing in what they both thought was going to be English churches at the behest of an English aristocrat sponsor. As they disembarked from their ship, docked in London, they were informed of the death of their sponsor and that his heirs had no intention of continuing the tour.
Mr. Sankey (it is written) turned to Mr. Moody and asked how shall we be able to continue. Mr. Moody said, “We’ll find permission to do so, and you will sing and I will preach.” They went to a hotel with about enough resources to have a night or two and a few meals. Mr. Sankey ask Mr. Moody how they could formulate a plan and Mr. Moody assured him that he was willing to just trust the Lord. Mr. Sankey wrote down the words to songs he knew and songs he wrote and Mr. Moody (told later to his nephew) prayed the whole night through. The next day, a man who worked at the dock told them they had permission to preach on the dock, but they couldn’t ask for donations. Mr. Sankey sang, Mr. Moody preached. A crowd gathered the second time they did that and some people sang along with Mr. Sankey if they knew the hymn, and some people gave Mr. Moody an offering after his sermon. The dock-man checking to see if Mr. Moody asked for money, listened to the message and was converted.
A few days of doing this brought another interesting development. One of the often listeners to these messages (both in song and sermon) approached the two ministers and offered to be their printer, printing up Mr. Sankey’s songs as well as out of copyright hymns in a book form which, they had learned from the converted dock-man, it was ok to sell the books. They then, “sold” the songbooks for whatever the people could pay and this enterprise provided for the two ministers to stay in the British Isles for more than two years, honoring the Lord and those who believed on the Lord without being a burden———Remind you of anyone in the bible?
After my reading of this biography of D.L.Moody and through it, seeing the beliefs and integrity as it grew in Mr. Moody, I was heartened by it in this manner: We had stepped out of organized religion, believing there was no call on our lives to be a part of or “belonging to” any sect. (If we belonged to the Lord, why would we want to belong to anyone else?) We also came to know the King James Bible is the word of God to today’s English speaking people, as set in comparison with others’ attempts to re-write it called “versions.” Study of such showed them to not be versions, but perversions of no use. We had also learned what was meant by “rightly dividing the word of truth” as we studied God’s word.
I could see in Moody’s biography and through many transcribed words from his messages that he taught the word in sermon form, teaching the salvation by grace through faith which the Apostle Paul preached and wrote. I found out that Mr. Moody would send men from his Chicago “Sunday School” (which he taught on Sunday afternoons—long before football) to Northwestern Indiana to where Mr. John Nelson Darby was teaching in the Plymouth Brethren churches. Mr. Darby was “one of the influential figures among the original Plymouth Brethren and the founder of the Exclusive Brethren. He is considered to be the father of modern Dispensationalism and Futurism.”—wikipedia. Mr. Darby, of course, did not start dispensational teaching, the Apostle Paul did. But, Mr. Darby, through the men sent, did teach Mr. Moody many biblical truths which did enable Mr. Moody to refute and refuse the invitations to either be baptized or join an organization.
Some great notes about some very strong and determined men of God! And a great song to start the thoughts. More than a few influences to who we become may often get tangled in our minds. I’m glad these things came tumbling out of the memory banks this morning. Let’s try to untangle some more.
Thanks for reading, the Elder
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