Do you think that someone might have said to this author ‘Thank God you were not just “Almost Persuaded”, and let slip away the memory of that sermon that coaxed your poem’? If ever he were asked, Philip Paul Bliss might have responded that the minister whose words rang in his ears deserved some measure of credit for what Philip would write. The minister that sparked Philip’s imagination was preaching to a crowd that was sitting and looking up at him from pews (maybe not too different from these shown here), but he could not have really expected that one of these seats would be the birthplace of a song that very day. Given what he had to say to conclude this sermon, he must have instead hoped that this would be the spiritual birthplace of one or more souls who would be moved by his words – that someone would accept God at that very moment. But even if no one responded to this minister’s plea on that occasion, Philip’s resulting song would have the desired impact more than once in future years. And, it’s a sermon that just keeps preaching, over 150 years later.
Philip Bliss had written enough songs by the time he sat in a church in 1871, that he had probably grown something like musical antennae, and could sense when a special moment was happening, when a song might be emerging. And so, the message he heard from a minister named Brundage resounded in the 33-year-old heart of Philip that day, especially during what we might say was the ‘altar call’ the minister made at his sermon’s conclusion. Perhaps this Minister Brundage had actually heard someone procrastinate to his face with the very words ‘You almost persuaded me’. Was he also perchance preaching about how an ancient king named Agrippa once used similar words to stiff-arm a persistent evangelist like himself (see Acts 26:27-28)? Many accounts of the song’s impact are recorded later, especially those in which Ira Sankey, a fellow songwriter of the time, was present to capture those moments when listeners to a message took action. They weren’t part of the almost crowd. But, tragically, at least one other episode ended with an Agrippa-like outcome – almost, but not yet. How many people wrote or spoke to Philip about these gnawing words, how they pierced the tough, calloused heart of someone? Philip must have had his own memories of one or more malingerers, of those who just had other things more urgent on their agendas. It’s not a ‘convenient day’ (v.1), they might have said, or perhaps they avoided hearing the ‘prayers rise from (other) hearts so dear’ (v.2), or especially did not appreciate that ‘doom comes at last’ with a ‘bitter wail’ (v.3). These sound almost like personal memories, don’t they?
The words of Philip and the minister who first spoke them are like cattle prods, if you are that procrastinator, a postponing kind of person. ‘Get up from that seat!’, Philip would say. Delay no longer! You know deep-down what you should do, so what’s holding you back? If you could just see your future alternatives clearly, perhaps that would be the spur to action. But, God must have your faith, first. And, that means doing this without seeing it, first. That makes this thing something that can be side-stepped, if you’re the kind who demands concrete evidence. Yet, consider this: you’re headed somewhere, to a place that no one has ever returned from with concrete evidence. Will that ever change? This is a sightless adventure, so taking a somewhat blind plunge will be required. And, almost won’t be close enough. Join the rest of us, who’ve been persuaded, and convinced. You won’t be sorry you left almost in the rear view mirror.
See more information on the song story in this source: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006.
See the link here for the story also: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/a/l/m/o/almostpe.htm
See here for author information: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/b/l/i/s/bliss_pp.htm
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