OH, COME THOU FOUNT OF BLESSING

OH, COME THOU FOUNT OF BLESSINGS

My thoughts today are of those who have been in a deep freeze these past few days.  Many are without power and are cold.  And in these times of winter, we can sink into despair and wonder where are help is coming from.  It is dark and cold here also but I know the “Son” is shining behind those clouds.  The rain and snow may fall, but we need to be reminded of our “Fount of Every Blessing.”

Our Fount of Blessing will bring the sunshine after the rain and snow, and Springtime will come again.  A day of hope will spring up again.

The hymn I want to share with you today has become my prayer and I pray that it will also become a song of your heart, a song of praise to your Lord Jesus Christ.  We are all prone to wonder from His loving care.  We have days when we don’t pray as we should or read our Bibles.  Sometimes it is easier to stay home from church than get up on Sunday and gather with other believers.  I want to share the story of the writing of “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”  It is a very old hymn, written in the 1700’s.

“Robert Robinson had always been prone to wander.  Apprenticed to a barber at fourteen, he spent more time reading and playing with friends than cutting hair.  He became the leader of a notorious gang, and he shamed his family so much they practically disowned him.

Then, still a teen, he went to a George Whitfield meeting, intending to ridicule it; instead he almost fell asleep in it.  But then the preacher shouted out a Bible verse: “O generation of vipers; who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come” (Matthew 3:7, KJV).  That evening Robinson was converted.  After his apprenticeship was over, Robinson went into the ministry.  He wrote this hymn at the age of twenty-three as he served at the Calvinistic Methodist Church in Norfolk, England.

Late in life, Robinson did stray from the faith and drifted far from the Fount of every blessing.  One day he was riding in a stagecoach and sitting by a woman who was reading a hymnbook.  She showed him the hymn, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, “saying how wonderful it was.  He tried to change the subject but couldn’t.  Finally he said, “Madam, I am the poor man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds to enjoy the feelings I had then.”  (HYMNS by Petersen).

COME, THOU FOUNT

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 mine Ebenezer, hither by Thy help I’m come; and I hope, by Thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.  Jesus sought me when a stranger, wondering 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 wondering hear to Thee: prone to wonder, 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. (Robert Robinson-1735-1790).

As I read this story, I wondered about this man and if he truly again found “His Fount of Blessing” before he died.  I like to think that maybe that dear lady sitting next to him led back to His Savior.

And our prayer today is calling for Him to “Come” to us.  He is our fount of every blessing.  He has promised to meet all our needs.  He is our Savior, our Healer, our Redeemer, our strength for every day.  I can’t begin to count the many blessings He has poured into my life.  His mercy and grace are like streams that flow into our lives.  And when we remember His mercy and grace we can then worship and praise our God.  He promises to give us songs in the night, and fill our days with never ending joy even in the midst of great trials that may come our way.

“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” I Samuel 7:12.

The Lord had won a great victory for the Israelites over the Philistine army, and the Prophet Samuel had set this stone up as a reminder of the Lord’s help.  And we can raise our cry of help to the “Rock” Christ Jesus.  And the Lord will win the victory over the battles we may face.  Oh, we may go through some tough battles, but He is there, our “Ebenezer” our “Stone of Help.”  And when we were wondering from His fold, He shed His precious blood for our sins, and through His sacrifice, we now have a guarantee to safely arrive “Home” someday.

And our cry is to bind our wondering hearts to Him.  We are indeed prone to wonder, and to drift away from our loving God.  And I cry, and you cry, “Take our hearts and seal them, seal them for our heavenly home, the courts above.

Are you wondering from the folds of God today?  I am reminded of Jesus as our Shepherd who goes out for that one lost sheep.

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?  And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!” Luke 15:4-6.

Come today back into the fold of God, let your Shepherd carry you on His shoulders as all heaven will rejoice in your coming home to your precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

In Jesus' Name,

Pastor Sharon