what’s behind the
famous Christian hymns?

IF YOU'VE BROWSED the hymn lyrics featured in Hymnscript artwork, you’ve read some powerful words.

WHO WROTE THESE HYMNS? The writers of these classic Christian hymns were regular people—teachers, mothers, insurance salesmen, cabinet makers. Many were people who had known the worst of times.

The writer of this hymn, Fanny J. Crosby, was blinded in infancy, the result of medical malpractice. She wrote:

I will bless the Lord, whose tender, loving care
Has been with me all my days;
He has filled my life with blessings ever new,
And merciful are all His ways.

“I Will Bless the Lord” (1896)

Robert Robinson, once a gang member, wrote this lyric:

Jesus sought me when a stranger wand’ring from the fold of God;
He to rescue me from danger interposed His precious blood.

“Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” (1758)

After losing his wife and three sons in a fire, Luther B. Bridgers penned these words:

All my life was wrecked by sin and strife.
Discord filled my heart with pain;
Jesus swept across the broken strings,
stirred the slumb’ring chords again.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus—sweetest name I know,
fills my ev’ry longing, keeps me singing as I go.

“He Keeps Me Singing” (1910)

HOW COULD OLD HYMNS mean anything in today’s world? The age of many of these lyrics would qualify them as true antiquities. Yet they are as fresh today as the day they were written.

Why? Because these hymns talk about the one, true, living God who was, and is, and is to be, for aye the same! (“The God of Abraham Praise,” 1770).

About the God who, as the hymn says, created hill and vale, and tree and flower, sun and moon, and stars of light (“For the Beauty of the Earth,” 1864).

The same God who made you and knows your name. Who shelters you under his wings, yea, so gently sustaineth. (“Praise Ye the Lord, the Almighty,” 1680).

The God who yearns for you to know him.

BEHIND THE ART OF HYMNSCRIPT is the hope that the words of these beautiful hymns will point you to the Living God. If you don’t know Him, I encourage you to start asking some questions. Get some good information. Talk to someone who knows the God behind these classic Christian hymns.

Here are some wonderful places to start:

How to Know God
Harvest Christian Fellowship
http://www.harvest.org/knowgod/

Steps to Peace with God
Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
www.billygraham.org/believe/stepsToPeace.asp

This is all my hope and peace—nothing but the blood of Jesus;
this is all my righteousness—nothing but the blood of Jesus.
O precious is the flow that makes me white as snow;
no other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

“Nothing but the Blood,” Robert Lowry (1876)