He Hideth My Soul — Annie Poonen

Okay children, you've been listening for a long time, and this time I have chosen a song which most of you know. You know the name of that person whose picture is up there? We have a little girl in this church who is named after her.

Fanny Crosby's Joy Despite Blindness

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 saviour 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 nice, which this eight-year-old girl wrote. She knew she was blind, but she wrote, Oh, imagine an 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 is 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 that. 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. And another thing about her, throughout, 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 are 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, 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 is 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, yeah, 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 in it.

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.

Fanny Crosby's Faithful Life and Enduring Influence

And another thing about her was she got married to another blind guy. OK, 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 her 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.

Spiritual Gifts Expressed Through Music

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 type of person who always complains, God says, oh, I don't want to give that person this gift. But if you're 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 composed so many songs and she wrote the music for those songs. And more than that, she could play the organ. Now, 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 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 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 when she was in that 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 Frances who was in England. No, she didn't meet. She wrote to her and this Frances in England could see. But she wrote to her 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'll go through the 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 is in NCCF, but he's my Lord.

The Cleft of the Rock in Exodus

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 worshipping. That was very, very... Can you imagine saying that this calf is God?

So when the people did that, Moses was 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 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 God passed over him and he saw he's a good God. Although he punishes sin, he's a good God. That's 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 when we come to Jesus, it's like a fresh river. It's cool and freshness. When you're thirsty, what do you like to have?

Best of all, when you're thirsty, a cup of water. Yeah. Rivers of water, Jesus, when Jesus loves us. 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.

Exchanging Burdens for Christ's Yoke

All of us have burden. Children, you also have burdens. You're worried about, can I play today? When I'm sick, will I become OK? 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, a disciple of Jesus. I'm a disciple of Jesus. If you wear that yoke, that means you are a disciple of Jesus. I'm a follower of Jesus. If you want to exchange that burden for a light thing called the yoke.

Yes, I want to do that. And I know the many times when I had burdens in my heart and I came to that cleft of the rock and we 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 show, so shall your strength be. Then the next verse says, he gives us numberless blessings every moment.

Numberless Blessings and the Hope of Christ's Return

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.

And 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 says he forgives me and he saves me. And, you know, one day we are going to meet him. We are 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 ashamed 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 the joy when I meet you. So let's sing that song together. He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock.