MUSIC MOMENTS

MUSIC MOMENTS

Yesterday our Call to Worship was an older hymn which has been sung since at least 1787. (Side note: Art Ferris, one of our trumpeteers, said it has been around since the 1800’s.) According to hymn-charts.com Albert Bailey, a hymn scholar, says “How Firm a Foundation” came to the United States from England via one of the editions of John Rippon’s “A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors, 1787.”

“How Firm a Foundation”
How firm a foundation, ye saints of The Lord,
Is Laid for your faith in His excellent Words!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

“The soul that on Jesus hath leaved for repose
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
That soul, thought all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake!”

This hymn is a song that previously touched the hearts of Andrew Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Theodore Roosevelt as they recalled it. Mr. Bailey recounted that both the North and South sang it during the United States Civil War.

On Christmas Eve in 1898, Lieutenant-Colonel Curtis Guild, Jr. is said to have heard it during the Spanish-American War when his men had bedded down for the night near Havana, Cuba. What started out as one lone American soldier singing “How Firm a Foundation” turned into a whole regiment joining together and finishing the song. Once again, God used “How Firm a Foundation” to remind soldiers of His Faithfulness.

Maybe . . . Just maybe, it is time for us to remember: “Fear not.” Isaiah 41:10 “It is He Who goes before us; He who is with us; He who will not fail us or forsake us.” Deuteronomy 31:6, 8 “Fear Not!”

Love y’all,
Billy & Pam