Devotions from History 7/20 Isaac Watts - Preacher's kid extraordinaire

bjbjD Hi! This is DFH with Ruthie Oberg. Some of the most interesting people in the world have a unique thing in common People like Nat King Cole, Frederick Neitzche, Alice Cooper, Jessica Simpson, Franklin Graham, Malcolm X, Denzel Washington, Carl Jung, Condeleeza Rice and many other great and colourful characters are all the sons and daughters of preachers including Isaac Watts. Isaac was born in 1674 while his father was jailed for being a non-conformist minister he refused to follow the method of conducting services prescribed by the Church of England. Some of that pluck carried over into Isaac. One of the things Isaac was not impressed with in his father s church was the music. One day he complained to his father that the songs they sang in church just were not very good. His father said to him, Well, before you criticize our songs you should see if you can do any better. So Isaac sat down with pen in hand to attempt to do so. Over 600 hymns later, Isaac was the author of the hymns Joy to the World O God Our Help in Ages Past At the Cross re Marching to Zion , and one that Michael W. Smith recently brought back into vogue, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. After trying to find his place in the world with his writing, Isaac finally accepted that God had called him into the same line of work as his father s and it was on this day, July 20, 1698 that Isaac Watts preached his first sermon in London. And that wasn t the only way he followed his father he was also a dissenter and so when he died was denied a church burial in the cemetery of the Church of England and so the Father of English Hymnody is buried on the outskirts of London in the Dissenters Cemetery near some of the other rejects of the established church, including a few other preacher s kids like Susannah Wesley and her son, John. This is DFH with Ruthie Oberg. For more info, check out DFH.org :pj{ Ruthie Oberg Normal.dot Ruthie Oberg Microsoft Office Word Title Microsoft Office Word Document MSWordDoc Word.Document.8