He Hideth My Soul

Okay, children, you've been listening for a long time, and this time I have chosen a song which most of you know. Oh yeah, you know the name of that person whose picture is up there? We have a little girl in this church who's named after her. Her name is Fanny Crosby, and the song we are going to sing, I think most of you know that song. It starts like this, A wonderful savior is Jesus my Lord, and the chorus goes, He hideth my soul. Now Fanny Crosby, from this picture you can see there's something different about her face. Can you guess what it is? She's wearing some glasses to cover her eyes. You know why that is? Yes, she's blind. She was blind. She was blind from the time she was a baby. She lived about a hundred years ago, 1820. She was born in 1820 and she died in 1915. When she was a baby, something happened to her. Some people say that some wrong medicine was put in her eyes, but I don't know what it is. But something happened to her and she became totally blind. And when she was six months old, her dad died. But she had a loving mom and a loving grandma. Isn't it good to have good moms and good grandmas? Yes. So they took care of her and she was a very happy child. Can you imagine if you can't see anything? Everything is dark outside, but you can still be happy. And you know what? She could play all the games that other children played. She could play tag. She could play hide and seek. She could ride her pony. That's what I read. And she could climb trees. How did she do that as a blind person? And you know when she was eight years old, she wrote a poem. Let me read that. When she was eight years old. How many children are eight and below? Yeah, I can see a lot of children eight years and below. You know what she wrote? Can you try and write something? Maybe you can write something. Something nice which this eight-year-old girl wrote. She knew she was blind, but she wrote, Oh, imagine eight-year-old girl is writing this. Oh, what a happy soul am I. Although I cannot see, contented I will be. How many blessings I enjoy that other people don't. To weep and sigh because I'm blind, I cannot nor I won't. For an eight-year-old to write that, she was so happy in spite of the fact that she was blind. And all her life, I read that she never had any resentment that she was blind. You know sometimes as we grow older, we say, Why am I like this? Why am I having this problem? Why can't I play games like other children? Why do I have to wear glasses? Why do I have this thing or that thing? So many children have complaints like Why am I not like my brother? Or why am I not like this other girl or my friend who has this thing and I don't have? Why does she have such a good house and I don't have? Why does she have such a good yard? But you know Fanny, I heard that she was content with whatever she had. Another thing about her, throughout because I think because of her loving mom and grandma and she found Jesus as a friend. She came to love Jesus and she became secure in him. You know blind people, if you can imagine if you're sitting somewhere and you're blind, you don't know what's happening in front of you. Suppose there's somebody really cruel man coming to hit you on your face or something and a blind person cannot see that but she found security in God. That's why she wrote this hymn, He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock. Can you imagine children, suppose you're playing out somewhere in the woods somewhere and then some big bully comes to catch you and chasing you and chasing you and chasing you and then you have a nice friend who says come come I'll show you a place where you can hide and that friend shows you a big rock where there's a gap in that rock and said you hide there you know that bully won't catch you and he stands in front of that rock and covers me so that that bully doesn't catch me. That's what the song is about and you know who's the bully who tries to catch us all the time? Satan, bad guy, always wants to catch us and pull us down but Jesus, he says a place, he says I am the rock. You know when Jesus died what happened in the temple? Can anybody say what happened to the curtain? It got ripped into two that means it was cleft, it divided into two and what the meaning we older people we know the meaning of that is because that curtain was ripped we can go straight to God's presence before that we couldn't go to God there's punishment but because as we heard Jesus died for our sins when he died on the cross that curtain got ripped and we can go straight to God that's why we have that song rock of ages cleft for me let me hide myself indeed. We come to Jesus and we come to him and we find a place there and we find security there. Security means nobody can harm us nothing can harm us because we are hiding in that cleft that Jesus made for us and another thing about her was she got married to another blind guy. Okay when she was in school she was sent to a special school called New York Institution for the Blind. She lived in the east coast so that was a good school for her to study when a lot of blind people were there and she lived with them. Can you imagine if you have to live all your life you have to feel your way around you have to go down the stairs go up find your cup and see if it is hot everything you have to do get up clean your brush your teeth take a shower everything as a blind person and the teachers were also blind she married another blind guy and they must have helped each other like that and they had a baby unfortunately that baby died very soon and they lived together and finally she died when she was 94 years old she had some sickness towards the end of her life she was bedridden for a long time and she died but you know in that life although she was blind she did a lot of things I read to you the poem that she wrote when she was eight years old she wrote lots and lots of poems she had a gift God gave her that gift you know God gives us the gift when he sees we are not complaining if we are a person type of person who always complains God says oh I don't want to give that person this gift but if a person who's always rejoicing and want to know God God will give you a gift you can make some poems you can write you can sing you know how nice it is to sing when you feel sad and you feel like doing something and you hear a nice song or somebody sings a song to you or you sing it brightens you up so she even though she was blind she made she composed so many songs and she wrote the music for those songs and more than that she could play the organ you know all of us all of you children who are mommies and daddies are telling you to play some instrument that's good can you imagine if you were blind and you're practicing to play the piano and you compose music and you sing and you play the piano how happy people around will be around you will be when you play that music she composed a lot of songs one of the songs is this and another song blessed assurance you know that song we sing that in this church she said because she felt God Jesus is mine what an assurance you can't write songs like that if you're a clever person you have to be you have to know Jesus to write songs which are meaningful it has to come from your heart not from your mind she knew Jesus in her heart so all these songs came out of her heart and she wrote these songs and now let me let's sing the song before that i just want to go through these song words of the song another thing she said was blindness cannot keep the sunlight of hope from the trustful soul leave all the cares of yesterday believe that the morning will bring forth joy what wonderful words don't have any cares in this song we are going to read about sing about those songs and she had such a wonderful heritage first of all she was from a famous family one of her ancestors was the founder of harvard college you've heard of harvard college one of her ancestors founded that college and she when she was in the blind institution she met a lot of people important people and she was a blessing to them and you know she even met the other francis who was in england no she didn't meet she wrote to her and this francis in england could see but she wrote to and said one day we both will meet you can see me she wrote such wonderful things now i'll just read this song we go through this song and then we'll sing it together i'm sure a lot of you know that it says a wonderful savior is jesus my lord she could say jesus my lord we can can you boys and girls can you say jesus is my lord i hope you can say that jesus is my lord not my daddy's lord or not the lord i hear in the church the lord who's sincere nccf but he's my lord a wonderful savior to me and he hided me in the cleft of the rock i was telling you about the cleft of the rock where rivers of pleasure i see one more thing i want to say about the cleft of the rock if you read in exodus all older people we know when we read in exodus chapter 33 moses when he was leading the children of israel those people they committed a very wrong sin you know what they did they made a golden image of a what did they make image of a statue of a calf and they said this is god let's bow down to them and they started worshiping that was very very can you imagine saying that this calf is god so when the people did that moses very sad and he started weeping before god and he said lord these people have done this terrible thing are you going to punish them what are you going to do but lord don't punish them you punish me instead what a great man moses was he said that but but god said i'll take you to a place i'll take you to a rock where there was a cleft that's where this song comes from he said you stand there and i'll cover you with my hand and i'll show you what kind of god i am and he god passed over him and he saw he's a good god although he punishes sin he's a good god that's the what we learn from this and so he god with his goodness he hides our soul in the cleft of the rock all around us is dry and thirsty but near when we come to jesus it's like a fresh river this cool and freshness when you when you're thirsty what what do you like to have best of all when you're thirsty a cup of water yeah when rivers of water jesus when jesus loves he covers me he hideth me in the depths of his love and covers me with his hand then the third verse it says he taketh my burden away all of us have burden children you also have burdens you're worried about can i play today i will i when i'm sick will i become okay and bigger older people have bigger burdens we all have burdens mommies and daddies have burdens daddies have burdens about their job mommies have burdens about nurturing the children and what does the lord say i'll take that burden away you don't have to worry about it i'll take that burden just hand it over to me cast it just throw it at me i'll take that but not just that instead of the burden i'll give you something else i'll give you something called a yoke something very light only thing is it's written on that yoke the disciple of jesus i am a disciple of jesus if you wear that yoke that means you are a disciple of jesus i'm a follower of jesus we want to exchange that burden for a light thing called the yoke yes i want to do that and i i know the many times when i had burdens in my heart and i came to that cleft of the rock i mean came to jesus and i gave my burden to the lord and the lord said i'll take your burden but you continue to be my disciple you take my yoke and follow me and i'll hold you up and you'll give you strength every day according to your days there's a verse which says as your days shows so shall your strength be then the the next verse says he gives us numberless blessings every moment what's one blessing we have every moment can you say what do we do every every time we breathe and god gives us breath can you imagine when people have covid they can't breathe even if they breathe it doesn't get into their lungs what a free gift he has given us air to breathe that's just the smallest thing he's given us but there are numberless blessings each moment he crowns and he gives us his fullness and so in my rapture in joy i say oh glory to god for such a redeemer as mine he say he forgives me and he saves me and you know one day he's going to we are going to meet him we're going to meet him and there are some people who will be so happy you know when daddy comes home from a long trip how do the children feel they run out to see oh daddy's here daddy's here and they welcome him but when our lord jesus comes those who are ready and who have that yoke on their shoulder have given their heart to jesus they come out with joy and they say oh jesus is here lord jesus we're so happy you're here there'll be some people who'll hide they're shamed because they didn't want to follow the lord i hope children all of you will decide if not you haven't done that you can do that today and say lord i want to follow you i want to have that joy when i meet you so let's sing that song together he hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock