Elisabeth Elliot: "Whatever Happened to Hymns"

Elisabeth Elliot (born 1926), famed as a great Christian writer, missionary and the widow of Martyred missionary Jim Elliot (1927-1956), wrote this little article in her newsletter back in 1999.  I think it says a lot about our contemporary style of worship and what we may have lost in some respects.  I hope you find it a blessing as I did.  Albie

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HYMNS?

Many of the churches my husband Lars and I visit on our travels seem to know nothing of the great old hymns that have instructed, comforted, and enriched the church for centuries. Hymns constitute a crucial part of worship, but not by any means the whole. In churches which use almost exclusively what are called "praise songs," that part of the service is usually referred to as "Worship," as though prayer, preaching, offering, and listening were something else. May I lodge a plea to those who use overhead projectors to make sure that some great hymns are displayed in addition to the praise songs? Hymns will get you through the night.
In January of 1956, when five women were waiting with bated breath to find out whether our husbands were dead or alive, I lay in bed in Nate Saint's home, my little daughter Valerie sick in a crib beside me. The hymn "How Firm a Foundation," with those magnificent words taken from Isaiah 43:1-2, sustained me, especially stanzas 2, 3, and 6, memorized when I was a child in our daily family prayer time:

"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, omnipotent hand.
"When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be with thee thy trials to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
"The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake!"

Everywhere I go I try to point out what a tragic loss is the disappearance of these powerful aids to spiritual stamina. A true hymn has rhyme and meter, a logical progression from the first verse to the last, and I feel like jumping up and down and "hollering" to get my message across, but I try to keep it to merely begging and imploring folks to get their hands on a good hymnbook. Where to find them? they ask. Perhaps they are moldering in the church basement. More than likely they've long since been dumped - "Young folks don't like hymns," we're told. But of course they don't like them - they don't know them. Alas!

May I suggest that you keep a good hymnal with your Bible wherever you've arranged your quiet time?



Elisabeth Elliot

"Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." Eph. 5:19

COOL STUFF FROM LIBRARY BOOKS: Entry #5: "The Story Of Daniel Nash"

Daniel Nash--Prevailing Prince Of Prayer

 

By J. Paul Reno

Daniel Nash pastored a small church in the backwoods of New York for six years, and traveled with and prayed for a traveling evangelist for seven more years until his death. As far as we know, he never ministered outside the region of upstate New York during days when much of it was frontier. His tombstone is in a neglected cemetery along a dirt road behind a livestock auction barn. His church no longer exists, its meetinghouse location marked by a historical marker in a corn field; the building is gone, its timber used to house grain at a feed mill four miles down the road.



No books tell his life story, no pictures or diaries can be found, his descendants (if any) cannot be located, and his messages are forgotten. He wrote no books, started no schools, led no movements, and generally, kept out of sight.



Yet this man saw revival twice in his pastorate, and then was a key figure in one of the greatest revivals in the history of the United States! In many ways he was to the U.S. what Praying Hyde was to India. He is known almost exclusively for his powerful prayer ministry.


The great evangelist, Charles Finney, left his itinerant ministry for the pastorate within three or four months after this man’s death. Finney never counted on his theology, messages, preaching style, logic, or methods to save souls. He looked rather to mighty prayer and the resulting powerful work of the Holy Spirit to sweep in with great conviction on his audience, that his conversions might be thorough. This may well explain why 80 percent of those converted in his meetings stood the test of time. Years later Moody followed a similar pattern but without such a prayer warrior. He saw perhaps 50 percent of his converts last.



Today, a well-known evangelist (well-financed and highly organized) recently stated that he would be delighted if 20 percent of his converts were genuinely converted. In this day of apostasy with many decisions but few true conversions, with many programs but little prayer, with much organizing but little agonizing, we would be wise to learn lessons from the past. One of our godly forefathers whose life can teach us such is Daniel Nash....

Nash’s labors did not take the form of personal evangelism or of evangelistic preaching. Instead he began one of the greatest ministries of prayer evangelism recorded in history. This rejected and broken former preacher gave himself to a labor that would influence praying people to this day.



Charles Finney’s labors in evangelism began in the region of Evans Mills, New York, and here Daniel Nash headed to start his special prayer ministry. When he arrived, Finney stated, "He was full of the power of prayer." The two men were drawn into a partnership that was ended only by Daniel’s death seven years later. Their goals were stated simply in a letter as follows:



"When Mr. Finney and I began our race, we had no thought of going amongst ministers. Our highest ambition was to go where there was neither minister or reformation and try to look up the lost sheep, for whom no man cared. We began and the Lord prospered...But we go into no man’s parish unless called....We have room enough to work and work enough to do."



This evangelistic team operated on the basis of prayer being essential for the preparation of an area for evangelism. This idea was so strong that Finney often sent Nash to an area to prepare the place and people for his coming. Often it would take 3 or 4 weeks of prayer to get the area ready. Let us examine a little more closely just how such a thing was accomplished.



When God would direct where a meeting was to be held, Father Nash would slip quietly into town and seek to get two or three people to enter into a covenant of prayer with him. Sometimes he had with him a man of similar prayer ministry, Able Clary. Together they would begin to pray fervently for God to move in the community. One record of such is told by Leonard Ravenhill:
 "I met an old lady who told me a story about Charles Finney that has challenged me over the years. Finney went to Bolton to minister, but before he began, two men knocked on the door of her humble cottage, wanting lodging. The poor woman looked amazed, for she had no extra accommodations. Finally, for about twenty-five cents a week, the two men, none other than Fathers Nash and Clary, rented a dark and damp cellar for the period of the Finney meetings (at least two weeks), and there in that self-chosen cell, those prayer partners battled the forces of darkness."


Another record tells:

"On one occasion when I got to town to start a revival a lady contacted me who ran a boarding house. She said, ‘Brother Finney, do you know a Father Nash? He and two other men have been at my boarding house for the last three days, but they haven’t eaten a bite of food. I opened the door and peeped in at them because I could hear them groaning, and I saw them down on their faces. They have been this way for three days, lying prostrate on the floor and groaning. I thought something awful must have happened to them. I was afraid to go in and I didn’t know what to do. Would you please come see about them?’


"‘No, it isn’t necessary,’ Finney replied. ‘They just have a spirit of travail in prayer.’

"Charles Finney so realized the need of God’s working in all his service that he was wont to send godly Father Nash on in advance to pray down the power of God into the meetings which he was about to hold."


Not only did Nash prepare the communities for preaching, but he also continued in prayer during the meetings. "Often Nash would not attend meetings, and while Finney was preaching Nash was praying for the Spirit’s outpouring upon him. Finney stated, ‘I did the preaching altogether, and brother Nash gave himself up almost continually to prayer.’ Often while the evangelist preached to the multitudes, Nash in some adjoining house would be upon his face in an agony of prayer, and God answered in the marvels of His grace. With all due credit to Mr. Finney for what was done, it was the praying men who held the ropes. The tears they shed, the groans they uttered are written in the book of the chronicles of the things of God."


It is said of Finney that "his evangelistic party consisted of prayer partners, who went before him and sought the Lord in some secluded spot. And when Finney was preaching, Father Nash and Mr. Clary were hidden away somewhere praying for him. No wonder cities were stirred and a vast harvest of souls reaped." This concept of an evangelistic party made up of praying men has nearly been lost in these days of organizers, promoters, big names, etc. Such praying men not only sustained Finney’s ministry, but explain the power in preaching and long-lasting results....



Oswald J. Smith explains the importance of such strivings in prayer during Finney’s ministry: "He always preached with the expectation of seeing the Holy Spirit suddenly outpoured. Until this happened little or nothing was accomplished. But the moment the Spirit fell upon the people, Finney had nothing else to do but point them to the Lamb of God. Thus he lived and wrought for years in an atmosphere of revival...."



Praying with Others



As has been mentioned previously, Nash customarily sought for a few others to help carry the load in each of the places he went to minister in prayer. Many times he had as a partner Abel Clary who was gifted and exercised in a similar fashion. This praying together multiplies prayer power: "One [shall] chase a thousand and two [shall] put ten thousand to flight" (Deut. 32:30). The efforts of several with such a burden for victory greatly increases the power of prayer.



Focusing in Prayer
 Strong praying must be effectual praying. There must be a desired effect. This effect must be definite and clear to the one praying. This effect will fill the mind of the saint and be a focus of thought, concern, and prayer. Scattered praying in general directions is of little value. A list is a starting point in this matter, yet the items on the list must be focused on one by one if we are to expect results. Hear Finney tell of Nash’s way in this matter:


"I was acquainted with an individual who used to keep a list of persons for whom he was especially concerned; and I have had the opportunity to know a multitude of persons, for whom he became thus interested, who were immediately converted. I have seen him pray for persons on his list when he was literally in an agony for them; and have sometimes known him call on some person to help him pray for such a one. I have known his mind to fasten thus on an individual of hardened, abandoned character, and who could not be reached in an ordinary way."


Such praying required mental effort to aim at the proper effect with true soul struggle. To move from real burden to solid faith often requires the path of soul agony. We are too committed to cop out with fatalism, unconcern, or shifting the responsibility to the lost. It may require a wrestling in prayer until we obtain the desired blessing. This is on a far higher plane than the physical. These struggles of soul and spirit may produce more than weariness in the physical realm. But the body agony is but a result of such prayer, and not an integral part. Some would counterfeit this soul struggle by physical manifestations. They may fool man but such hypocrisy is of no help in the courts of Heaven.



Prayer of Faith


Nash was convinced that we have a responsibility for the destiny of souls. He felt that God has committed great tools to us, and the use or disuse of them was a serious matter for which we would have to give an account to God. His ministry of prayer had this as a basic premise.





Copyright 1989, Revival Literature, Asheville NC 28816 U.S.A.

POEM by Dave Hunt: "Love In Sandaled Feet"

"Love in Sandaled Feet"

Love invaded space and time and history,
Hung the stars in place, stooped down a man--O mystery!


Chose no palace, but a stable for his lowly birth:
Love in sandaled feet had come to walk this earth.


Strange new words were spoken by a bearded Jew:
"Do unto others as you'd have them do to you.


Love your enemies; and you must be born again."
Love in sandaled feet had come to talk with men.


Love in sandaled feet, sweaty, muddy feet,
God and man at last could meet,


Having been so long, so very long apart.
Tired legs, a throbbing human heart,


Stagger up a lonely hill to die.
Pounding nails and quivering flesh--a cry!


"Forgive them, Father, no one understands."
Love in nail-pierced feet and bleeding, outstretched hands.


Those who fled in fear returned to say, "He lives!"
Millions hear, receive the life and peace He gives.


Hate is turned to love and enemies are brothers--
Love in sandaled feet lives now in many others.

--Dave Hunt

I like this poem by Christian apologist and writer Dave Hunt (born 1926).  I saw this great man of God speak at a Baptist church in Mesa, AZ in about early 1998.  He was powerful, dynamic and humble all at once.  He shared that his favorite book, besides The Bible itself, was Absolute Surrender by old time preacher Andrew Murray (1828-1917).  I believe Brother Dave has been so blessed for so many years in a difficult and under-valued type of ministry [what you might call "apologetics" or perhaps "discerment of falsehood"] because of this personal surrender to The Lord Jesus Christ.

Hunt is an inspiration who makes me want to do better things with my own life. I hope that his poem is a blessing to you.

"Lord, I believe... help thou mine unbelief!"

COOL STUFF FROM LIBRARY BOOKS, Entry #4: "BLOOD COVERS THE SPEAR!"

I love finding great truths in dusty old books! Dig the following insight recorded by Emma Moody Fitt in THE D.L. MOODY YEAR BOOK, first published back in 1900:




"Not without blood." (Hebrews 9:7)

"Look at the Roman soldier as he pushed his spear into the very heart of the God-man. What an awful deed! But what was the next thing that took place? Blood covered the spear! Oh, thank God, the blood covers sin! The very crowning act of sin brought out the crowning act of love; the crowning act of wickedness was the crowning act of grace..."

MOODY

COOL STUFF FROM LIBRARY BOOKS, Entry #3: POLYCARP and Child Evangelism... by R. A. Torrey

 POLYCARP-- A Child Convert

by R.A. Torrey 

From the book ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
by R. A. Torrey, first published in 1907

 Painting: POLYCARP THE MARTYR by Peter S. Ruckman

A CHILD can be a true Christian. Some people do not believe that. Some people think a boy or girl must grow up until they are twenty or twenty-one, or at least until they are fifteen or sixteen before they can understand what it means to be a Christian. This is a great mistake. Boys and girls that can understand anything can understand that Jesus died for them and that He rose again and is able to help and keep them day by day, and they can take Jesus and trust Him as their own Saviour.
      Long, long years ago over in Western Asia, there was an old man ninety-five years of age with long beard hanging down upon his bosom, and long white hair hanging down upon his neck. His name was Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. A new Roman governor came to Smyrna who bitterly hated Christianity and determined to stamp it out of his province. His councilors said to him, " If you are going to stamp out Christianity, you would better deal with Polycarp, for he is the best and most influential Christian in Smyrna." Polycarp was away from Smyrna in the country at the time but the governor sent for him and had him dragged to Smyrna.
      When Polycarp was brought before the governor, he said to him, "Are you a Christian?"
      "Yes, I am a follower of Jesus."
      "But," said the governor, "you must renounce Jesus and sacrifice to the idols or I will throw you to the lions and they will tear you limb from limb." But Polycarp refused. The governor grew more angry and said, "Unless you renounce Jesus, I will have them burn you at the stake."
      Polycarp replied, "These eighty and six years have I served my Lord and He never did me any harm, and I cannot deny my Lord and Master now."
      They took old Polycarp out and tied him to the stake. They piled the fagots around him and they came with a torch and touched the light to the wood. Hotter and hotter grew the flames and Polycarp's flesh began to burn, but the aged saint stood there triumphant, rejoicing to suffer for the name of Jesus.
      He was ninety-five years old when he died. He had been a Christian, according to his own testimony, eighty-six years. Polycarp must have been converted when he was nine years of age.
      It is plain that a boy can be a Christian and a good one too. It is also plain that the good children do not all die young. Ninety-five years of age is not very young to die.

COOL STUFF FROM LIBRARY BOOKS, Entry #2: D.L MOODY: "LET THE LOWER LIGHTS BE BURNING"

LET THE LOWER LIGHTS BE BURNING

[Here is the original sermon illustration from D.L.Moody that was later the basis for the great hymn of the same title, a great song recorded by Johnny Cash and many others.  What a great truth it presents!... Albie]

A few years ago, at the mouth of Cleveland harbor, there were two lights, one at each side of the bay, called the upper and lower lights; and to enter the harbor safely by night, vessels must sight both of the lights.

These western lakes are sometimes more dangerous than the great ocean. One wild, stormy night, a steamer was trying to make her way into the harbor. The captain and pilot were anxiously watching for the lights. By and by the pilot was heard to say, "Do you see the lower light?"

"No," was the reply: "I fear we have passed them."

"Ah, there are the lights," said the pilot;" and they must be, from the bluff on which they stand, the upper lights. We have passed the lower lights, and have lost our chance of getting into the harbor."

What was to be done? They looked back, and saw the dim outline of the lower lighthouse against the sky. the lights had gone out.

"Can't you turn your head around?"

"No; the night is too wild for that. She wont answer to her helm."

The storm was so fearful that they could do nothing. They tried again to make for the harbor, but they went crash against the rocks, and sank to the bottom. Very few escaped; the great majority found a watery grave. Why? Simply because the lower lights had gone out.

Now with us the upper light is. all right. Christ himself is the upper light, and we are the lower lights, and the cry to us is, Keep the lower lights burning; that is what we have to do.

 

PEACE

SOUPY SALES now on JLTV!!

God bless the good folks at JLTV [Jewish Life Television, channel 366 on DirectTV] for now airing re-runs of classic episodes of THE SOUPY SALES SHOW!  I dig JLTV anyway [no, I am not Jewish, but I am definitely what you might call a "Zionist," or avid supporter of the state of Israel, and JLTV provides a fascinating, alternative-media look at middle eastern issues] so I found these airings as soon as they started running them.

As far as showtimes, they seem to be airing them rather erratically, but if you have DirectTV you can set the DVR and never miss it! [gotta love technology... sometimes, anyway...:) ]

What's really cool is that they are showing BOTH the old black and white '60s shows and the '70s color shows [called at the time THE NEW SOUPY SALES SHOW] alternately.  While I am too young to remember the classic original series I definitely remember the later shows.  In fact... just today I saw one I distinctly remember seeing back in the day... sadly, I only remembered it because of the guest stars: The  Hager Twins of HEE HAW fame, singing a song entirely about -- I kid you not--  their love of Pizza!! [HUH??!?]

Anyway, whether you remember the late great Soup or not, check it out!  It's classic, clean, hip, Comedy Americana as its finest and coolest!

REST IN PEACE [or PIES], SOUPY! 

 [1926-2009] 

You were an American Original!