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My favorite Hymn is "Come thou Fount". I love David Crowder Band's remake of it. Here is the story behind the hymn and David Crowder's video below (sorry the sound quality is not great). What is your favorite hymn?
Hymn Story:
Robert Robinson, following the tradition of ministers of the time, wrote "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" as a hymn-poem for the conclusion of his sermon for Whitsunday, 1758. He was 23 years old at the time. It was published the following year in A Collection of Hymns used by the Church of Christ in Angel Alley, Bishopsgate (1759). There has been some speculation that it was written by the Countess of Huntingdon, but it is generally agreed to be the work of Robinson.
Originally "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" had four stanzas. The fourth stanza was omitted by Martin Madan in Psalms and Hymns, 1860 and has not been used since.
The statement in stanza two, "Here I raise my Ebenezer" refers to I Samuel 7:12, "Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and called its name Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far the LORD has helped us." Ebenezer is the Hebrew for "Stone of Help." Israel had suffered defeat because of its sin. But the people had repented of their sin, God had helped them and they were victorious. Samuel placed the stone to remind Israel that God had them, their victory was because of Him.
In stanza three, Robinson speaks of being "prone to wonder, prone to leave the God I love". This seems to be a forecast of his later life, when he lapsed into sin, unstableness and involvement with Unitarianism. There is a well-known story of Robinson, riding a stagecoach with a lady who was deeply engrossed in a hymnbook. Seeking to encourage him, she asked him what he thought of the hymn she was humming. Robinson burst into tears and said, "Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then."
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1 comment:
that is MY favorite hymn too! i LOVE LOVE LOVE the last verse and the line "prone to wander, Lord i feel it. prone to leave the God i love..."
one year we sang the first couple of verses at the end of a challenge worship service but we didn't sing the last verse. and after the service i was lamenting how we didn't sing the last verse and how that was my favorite verse and was the story of my life because i felt that God's kindness had always fettered me to Him and so a couple of the college students surprised me by busting out and singing that last verse for me. it made me cry.
i can't listen to the hymn without hearing them singing it to me. such a wonderful memory of how much of a blessing you all are to my life!
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