E-Hymn:
"Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing"
Brothers and Sisters,
Robert Robinson (1735-1790), the author of "Come, Thou Fount,"
knew what it was to be "prone to wander." As a teenager, Robinson
went to a George Whitefield meeting with the purpose of ridiculing him.
Instead, Robinson was converted and later entered the ministry. The text of
this great hymn was written when he was only twenty-three years of age while he
ministered at the Calvinistic Methodist Church in
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
Here I raise my *Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I've come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I'll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.
*In 1 Samuel 7:12, Saul
erected a stone as a memorial to God which he named "Ebenezer"
because, he said, "Hitherto hath the LORD helped us."
Years later, Robinson began to "wander." He was out of the ministry.
While in this condition, he once sat by a lady in a stagecoach who was humming
the hymn, "Come, Thou Fount." When asked by her what he thought of
it, he said, "Madam, I am the unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years
ago, and I would give a thousand worlds to enjoy the feelings I had then."
May this remind us that as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Cor. 10:12, "Wherefore let him that thinks he
stands take heed lest he fall." Let us always be ready to raise our
"Ebenezer" in recognition that it's only by God's help that we've
come this far. And let us long for "that day when freed from
sinning," we shall see His lovely face and sing of His sovereign grace!
To God Alone Be The Glory,
Steve Weaver, pastor
Lenoir City
