Stan Moody
What wonderful joy has emerged from the past presidential election – not in the results, necessarily, but joy in its impact on the people of God, many of whom have been long exiled from the so-called Confessing Church! God seems to be nudging His exiles, disparagingly referred to within many inner circles as “deconstructionists.”
Please join me in prayer for those Christian Nationalist (CN) friends for whom OPS (Other People’s Sins) has become the defining distinction between belief and unbelief. Some of my CN friends are State legislators, some are preachers and teachers, and still others are simply Christians trolling the Internet for a soundbite. Too many, however, seem to be coasting along deaf to the wondrous love of God and full citizenship in His Kingdom. Is money the missing ingredient?
Can a Wealthy Industrialist Really Find Peace with God?
I awoke this morning with the words of a hymn running through my mind – “It is Well with My Soul.” In particular, it was the 2nd stanza:
My sin – O the joy of this glorious thought –
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more;
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
Most of us are familiar with a popular version of the story behind that hymn. Its author, Horatio Spafford, had been a man of privilege in Chicago. Spafford’s accomplishments were many, especially in real estate. Yet, it was the unraveling of his success that has brought hope to millions. His son, Horatio, Jr., died of scarlet fever at 4 years of age. Then, in 1871, the Great Fire swept through Chicago, leaving Spafford and his business associates virtually bankrupt[1].
On Nov. 15, 1873, Spafford’s wife, Anna, and their 4 daughters set out from NY to Europe on the passenger ship, Villa du Havre. Spafford was to follow after closing a business transaction. On the 22nd, the ship was rammed by a Scottish cargo vessel, the Loch Earn. Anna was saved; their 4 daughters were all lost. Contrary to popular lore, Spafford later may have penned his grief in a poem, put to a hymn of praise through the help of Ira Sankey, Moody’s famous Worship Leader:
“In 1876, I was entertained at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Spafford for a number of weeks. During that time Mr. Spafford wrote the hymn, 'It is well with my soul.' P. P. Bliss composed the music and sang it for the first time at a meeting in Farwell Hall." - Sankey's Story of the Gospel Hymns, 1906[2].
The Story Behind the Story, or Hope Behind the Song?
You will hear the present Church of the CN movement raising their voices in joy to that old hymn of praise. I was introduced to the charitable work of Horatio and Anna when visiting the American Colony Hotel that they had founded in Jerusalem after moving there in 1881. Their work on behalf of disadvantaged Jewish and Palestinian children in Jerusalem and the West Bank is legendary and continues to this day through The Spafford Children’s Center[3].
Yet, to read some of the Christian attacks on the Spafford family would curl a bald-headed Christian Nationalist’s hair. They are accused of being anti-church, Arminian (can lose your salvation), universalist (all will be saved), adulterous, anti-marriage, and promoting a whole list of sinful lifestyles[4].
What should we do? Should we rip the song from our hymnals, or should we interpret the words from our own experience of faith in Christ? If we do the latter, are we then falling victim to the “heresy” of liberalism? These are questions impossible to answer except through the wonder that God consistently works around our sin to His glory. It is not Horatio Spafford we commemorate with that hymn; it must be Christ, or it is no Gospel hymn at all! Whether or not it truly is well with Spafford’s soul is just as exclusively within the province of God as it is with our souls!
My thoughts turn to the biblical account of King Nebuchadnezzar of ancient Babylon, who destroyed Jerusalem, ransacked the Temple, and carried the people of Israel into captivity. Of him, the prophet Jeremiah quotes God as saying, “…now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field also have I given him to serve him” (Jer 27:6). It seems that God may well be in the business of bringing hope out of chaos through the unholy hands of unlikely servants!
My Personal Experience with the Song:
Three instances come quickly to my mind. The 1st concerns a registered sex offender in our congregation who sang the hymn solo one Sunday morning many years ago. He later re-offended. The 2nd concerns the memorial service I conducted last week of another registered sex offender in our congregation who had asked that the hymn be sung at his service.
The 3rd concerns the state of peace that had descended on me as I awoke with that hymn on my heart this morning. For the moment, at least, it truly seemed to be well with my soul. Verse 1 echoes that peculiar wellness:
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll –
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well WITH MY SOUL!
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
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