Perry Lent

March 2006

Just a Closer Walk When We All Get to Heaven

Frank Johnson…Ford 8N. Toolbox. Losing eyesight. So much of our spiritual experience has been based around the hymns we grew up with. First song we played.. Just a Closer Walk.. the origin of the word “jazz.”

Hymns…. From the Greek “hymnos”…Catholic: Latin and scripture only. Martin Luther… Isaac Watts, John and Charles Wesley “the feel good movement” In America: African Spirituals, the Methodist Church, and the Salvation Army. A good example: African in origin, adopted by the Methodists and played by the Salvation Army…. Joshua….

Written 1885 by Carl Boberg, a Swedish member of parliament .. (Coming home during a storm.. took shelter in a small cave..in hour’s time saw the majesty of God’s handiwork.) Swedish folk tune. Made popular in America when George Beverly Shea started singing it in the Billy Graham Crusades. How Great Thou Art

Grandma and Grandpa… Holy Roller Church.. Wild music.

March, 1812, C. Austin Miles was sitting in his dark room where he kept his photographic equipment and his organ. .John 20… didn’t change a word. That night he wrote the melody. Jacksonville connection. Homer Rodeheaver, Billy Sunday. In the Garden In 1929 Albert Brumley ..Springfield, Missouri…was picking cotton singing, “If I had the wings of an angel,” Stamps Quartet. A highway in MO named after him. I’ll Fly Away

John Newton…a sailor on a slave ship.. once known as “The Great Blasphemer” Mother used to sing hymns to him and prayed for him. Became a minister and for 47 years became a minister and one of the leading advocates for the abolition of slavery. Amazing Grace

Fanny Crosby, the blind hymn writer, over 9000 hymns…publisher: pseudonym .. $2 each..donated to the poor. played for General Grant’s funeral… was visited by her friend, Mrs. Joseph Knapp one day in 1873. Played the song for her and said, “What does it say to you?” Died at age 95. Her tombstone in Bridgeport, Conn. “Aunt Fanny.” Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine Blessed Assurance

Eddie Franklin…. Prison: Berlin. Prison: Yemen.. Paul Findley. Wrote on walls…scriptures from S.S. and hymns. A song Eddie often sang in his prison cell: What a Friend

Hymns from audience:

Dave and my favorite: Victory In Jesus (Albert Brumley)

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