Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy -- Joseph Hart, Fernando Ortega, John Andrew Schreiner

 

He was a 47-year-old confessor (in 1759), who’d only a few years earlier finally ‘found himself’ while worshipping at a Moravian Church in London (see its flag here). The year 1757 was indeed a pivotal year for Joseph Hart, a rather obscure language teacher who admitted that he was not a very ardent believer. And then, he heard a message from long ago, one that was intended for another church far away. Somehow, what an isolated apostle on a lonely island said to another body of believers centuries earlier spoke to Joseph, compelling him to admit who he was before his Creator. The time for delay was over. It was an admission through which Joseph found a release, a freedom from the gnawing feeling in his gut that he was missing something. Joseph’s feeling and the poem-song he composed are not worn-out, useless relics, since others have taken up his thoughts and added their own to them centuries later. What Joseph felt and said is always fresh and relevant for those who are willing to look inside themselves, and see who they really are.

 

Joseph Hart had been on something like a spiritual roller-coaster in the first half of the 18^th Century in London, though he would have been the first to say that the peaks of that ride had not been very high; instead, he’d spent most of his adult life feeling at odds with his faith, thereby occupying the lower levels of a faith commitment. He was bouncing between loose convictions and repentance – a repeating pattern that left him with guilt, obviously. So, sleepless at times, he searched for tranquility and a path to a more solid commitment, a state he finally found after hearing a sermon on Revelation 3:10 at a Moravian church (Fetter Lane, in central London). He’d found hope in the Apostle John’s brief exhortation to the ancient Philadelphia church (in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey). From that moment through the next few years, Joseph wrote a large number of his most well-known hymns that affirmed his new devotion, including ‘Come Ye Sinners…’. His words echo with the former condition in which he’d wandered for so long, and an urgency he wanted hearers to embrace. You are ‘poor and wretched’ (his original words, v.1), so do not ‘tarry till you’re better, (or) you will never come at all’ (v. 3); another verse pair in his poem (vv. 2 and 6) carries the same thoughts – you’re guilty, but don’t let that stop you from getting what you need from Him. Two of Joseph’s verses (vv. 4 and 5) also have us focus on Jesus – in a way, echoing the condition of the sinner and a redemptive opportunity that he poses in the other four verses. Jesus is convicted, then risen to glory where ‘hallelujahs’ are the overriding reaction of the once-condemned, now-saved. It’s a theme that hasn’t grown old, and never will as long as human beings are made from the same mold.

 

It's not any mystery that contemporary musicians and songwriters have found Hart’s poetry still affecting. Fernando Ortega and John Andrew Schreiner, two of those who have borrowed Joseph Hart’s song, are singing and promoting what was first written some 250 years ago. Other versions with varying words (like the Zoe Group, see link below to their rendition) are still being born, really a tribute to how meaningful are Hart’s original words, and more so how true is the Healer-God to whom they all sing. ‘He is able’, one of the contemporary versions exudes. That is what Joseph Hart finally figured out in 1757, when he was middle-aged. (Actually, Hart was in the last 11 years of life when he finally, fully devoted himself to God – so well past middle-age for him.) That should say something to anyone who thinks faith acceptance happens only for the young, before life’s events weigh one down. God is patient, accepting anyone, anytime. You and I are His anyones, and this is anytime.    

 

See here for biographic info on the original author: J. Hart | Hymnary.org

 

See more information on the song story here: 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 here for original words, and a second version the author wrote: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/c/o/m/e/y/comeyspn.htm

 

Come Ye Sinners, Poor And Needy - YouTube  (Zoe Group version)

 

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You Are My King (Amazing Love) -- Billy James Foote

 

It was his third song. Billy James Foote remembers that much, though he admits there wasn’t a big story otherwise when he prayed “You Are My King (Amazing Love)” one night in 1997. The poetry Billy wrote pretty much says all that he thought was important. Something about the key phrases in the song’s first few lines just kept occupying his thoughts, and so Billy did what songwriters – even ones who’ve written only a handful of songs – do. He listened to what was in his thoughts, and scribbled the words onto a piece of paper. A friend’s opinion and how he affirmed Billy’s song once he heard it (at the Passion Conference that premiered that year in Austin, TX [see its flag/seal here]) helped this songwriter’s confidence, something that would be crucial for Billy just a few years into the future. His own singing voice would fade, but his songwriting has continued to be his way of expressing musically what cannot be said with mere words. God can use you and me, even in a musical role, despite what human limitations seem to be saying.

 

In short, Billy Foote says the song he wrote in 1997 summed up all the things that he’d been taught since childhood, and which the Spirit persuaded him to acknowledge all over again in the few lines of poetry that kept running through his mind. Something told Billy that juxtaposing the sinner’s saved condition with Jesus’ death sentence was how to begin saying ‘thank you’. ‘…Forgiven…forsaken’, and ‘accepted…condemned’ were words and phrases that Billy says he couldn’t seem to shake, so he wrote them down, with music that that seemed to arise at the same time. Sounds like something special was in progress, doesn’t it? The poem Billy wrote also has some words (in the chorus) that echo those of an old hymn (Charles Wesley’s And Can It Be That I Should Gain), but whether Billy intentionally borrowed from that older hymn is unclear. This ‘gift’, as Billy described what he had received, was something he still shared with some others, including one friend (Sam Perry), to get their opinions. What transpired at the Passion Conference in Austin and at a summer camp where Billy shared the song initially told him all he needed to hear. Its phrases and sentiments resonated with those who heard it, as Billy suggests, because of the basic truths the song expresses. He died. He rose. His spirit inhabits me. He did all this for me, because He embodies an amazing love that draws me. I don’t have to try to comprehend everything about what motivated such a God to do this. Billy admits that much with a question mark (?) in his chorus. I can only honor Him in response. And, even if a person loses his voice -- as Billy could not have imagined would happen to himself three years hence – the message and the song are not stilled. This amazing-love God is still King.

 

They killed Him over two thousand years ago – completely, so they thought, except this convict didn’t stay dead. It’s really difficult sometimes to fathom how those people could have seen and heard about Jesus, suspected that He was someone special, and decided that He was too dangerous to be left alone. But, He really would not have gone silently, peaceably – this God said He did not come to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34). Jesus wanted a confrontation. Perhaps that helped embolden his disciples, particularly those who wanted the despised Romans ejected from Israel. But how would they have responded if they had foreseen that another sharp weapon, a spear, would instead end up in this God’s side (John 19:34)? And, that that was part of the plan He came to fulfill, that this plan was history’s fulcrum point – to save the lost creation from themselves. And, still more…He’d leave a part of Himself inside each person. What!? Unbelievable, incredible, absolutely nuts, if you hadn’t seen it happen. That’s what the apostles could testify to, and die to say over and over again. And, it’s still being repeated two thousand years later. It’s amazing, but true.

  

 

Read the song’s story here in the following book: I Could Sing of Your Love Forever, by Lindsay Terry, Thomas Nelson publishers, 2008.

 

See information on the song here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Are_My_King_(Amazing_Love)

 

Read a review of the song’s lyrics here: https://www.thebereantest.com/billy-james-foote-you-are-my-king-amazing-love

 

Read about the Footes here, including some brief, but key information about the song: https://www.billyfootemusic.com/

 

Information about the venue/s where the song was first sung. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion_Conferences

 

Image of the flag:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Austin,_Texas.svg    This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1928.