Lyrics (click here to hear instrumental)
1 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 God’s unchanging love!2 Here I raise my 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,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.3 O to grace how great a debtor
Robert Robinson (1758)
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, 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.
The History Behind the Hymn
It is an unfortunate turn of events when a young boy is forced to grow up without a loving father. Thus was Robert Robinson’s fate. His dad passed away when he was only eight years of age. Robert was born on Sept. 27, 1735, to Mary Wilkin and Michael Robinson, a customs officer, in Swaffam in the county of Norfolk, a market town and civil parish in the English countryside.
To make Roberts’ circumstances much more difficult, his maternal grandfather, Robert Wilkin, a wealthy man, who had never reconciled himself to his daughter’s lowly marriage, disinherited his grandson and provided an inheritance for him of only ten shillings and sixpence.
As soon as Robert was old enough, he secured a job as an apprentice to a barber. Even in his youth he endured the hardship of having to be the bread winner for his widowed mother and himself. His formal education was limited. However, his knowledge was varied and extensive because he spent many hours in study. There was an adult-like quality deeply ingrained in him, and it allowed him to accept the responsibilities of adulthood, even as a teenager.
As he grew older, he came under the influence of the famed evangelist, George Whitfield. On Dec. 10, 1755, Robinson could not push from his mind a particular phrase used by Mr. Whitfield in one of his sermons: “Oh, my hearers! the wrath to come! the wrath to come!” He was wondrously converted and became a minister of the gospel; first, in a Baptist church, then in a Methodist church, and later in other denominations.
In one location his congregation grew to 1,000 in attendance.
Unfortunately, and for some unexplained reason, he became altogether unstable and unhappy. His Christian beliefs and training seemed of little importance to him.
On one occasion, years later, he found himself the fellow passenger of a young lady on a stagecoach. It is reported that she began to sing to break the monotony of the trip. And what did she sing? Come, Thou fount of every blessing!
As she finished singing the young woman asked Roberts what he thought about the song. His startling reply was: “Madam, I am the unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago; and, I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, if I could feel now as I felt then.”
https://www.cocdiscipleship.org/middle-ages/story-behind-the-song-come-thou-fount/
A Lesson for Me
Hebrews 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Some hymns penetrate the heart and move the soul to repentance. Other hymns, encourage the believer to press on. Today’s hymn doesn’t find the author living according to the verses he penned. He sadly finds himself having come to the end of his race and whatever it was that “beset him” afflicted his soul. Mr. Robinson had the same Bible you and I have. What happened to him? The history says, “Unfortunately, and for some unexplained reason, he became altogether unstable and unhappy. His Christian beliefs and training seemed of little importance to him.”
O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, 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.
Message for today
The message I got out of this was that even though we are born again and train under the best of the best in the Scriptures, we can be the victim of ending up last in the race of our spiritual life. Or we can even be a close second, or not even finish the race at all. It is very sad that this man’s Christian beliefs seemed of little importance to him. It appears as though the Gospel seed fell on thorny grounds. He had the excitement of a “new found faith” but the seed didn’t bury deep into the rich soil of his heart. Jesus spoke of this in Matthew 13. The Parable of the Sower is a popular one and it gets down to the nitty gritty of salvation.
Mr. Robinson wrote about the Lord’s help in the second verse and it is surprising that he didn’t live by those words. The word he used was “Ebenezer,” which is a Hebrew word that means “stone of help.” God helped Israel against the Philistines and they overcame! Are you overcoming the Philistines of your life, believer? Is God your stone of help, your Ebenezer?
1Sa 7:12 Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us.
David knew who his Ebenezer was. He lived that life and he finished his race, much like Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Tim. 4:7! We don’t want to end our hymn of life like Mr. Robinson’s. We want to be able to end our life singing with joy that we finished our course!
Here I raise my 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,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.
Friend, if you’re a believer and you’re at a point in life where you feel disillusioned with the Christian walk, start over – go back to square one and settle your salvation once and for all. Then move on … finish your course for Christ. Don’t be like Mr. Robinson and end your course with great regret.
If you are not truly born-again, there is coming a time when it will be too late for you to repent and be saved. It is no coincidence that God has placed you here for such a time as this so that you may be saved if you are not already. Please click here and the link will open up in a separate tab You Can Be Born Again and Know It!
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