July 29, 2016 Show with Jason Truby, Christian Guitarist Extraordinaire

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's.

Our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday, and this is an absolutely broiling hot day today, a hot July day here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on the 29th day of July, and we are thanking God that we're in an air-conditioned studio right now to conduct an interview with somebody that I have been urged to interview, and when I listened to his music, I couldn't agree with that recommendation more.

His name is Jason Truby. He is former lead guitarist for Living Sacrifice, a former member of POD, and a performer with Phil Keggy. He's got a new CD out that we're going to be talking about, and he actually is the guitar instructor to the son of a very close friend of mine.

For those of you who listen to Iron Sharpens Iron regularly, you know that one of my dearest friends on the planet Earth is Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. His son Joshua is being trained in the guitar by our guest, Jason Truby, and Joshua is quite a remarkable young man in his own right, having a high-level belt, perhaps even a black belt by now, in the Israeli martial arts, but it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron,.

Jason Truby. Hey, Chris, thanks for having me, man. I love the intro to the show and.

Really look forward to talking with you. And let me right off the bat let our listeners know of our email address here if they'd like to listen to the program. I mean, if they'd like to participate in the program with a question of their own for Jason, the email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Those of you who tuned in at four o 'clock, you recognized that there was something else playing for about 11 or 12 minutes. That's because we had once again experienced overseas technical difficulties with our server, and I'm not even sure what that means.

I don't know if a waiter in Bangladesh was having a problem at a foreign server. I'm not really sure what that's all about, but I'm just glad that the Lord has us working again, has the technical problems resolved, at least for now.

And I am just delighted to have you on, brother. I've been listening to your music and been very blessed by it. In fact, this proves the fact that James White loves your music. It proves that he has far more sophisticated taste in music than he does in food.

I don't know if you know James, but he basically doesn't get much far beyond Taco Time and McDonald's as far as his taste buds go.

But maybe it'll kind of shockwave into the food world a little bit.

Well, before I even start with our interview, I want our listeners to have their appetites whetted by hearing at least one of your songs to start with. And this is acoustic guitar that Jason is basically a master in.

I know he may be embarrassed by me saying that, but I just want to give our listeners a little taste of what Jason is doing, and hopefully that will even get you more sales in regard to your songs. Thank you.

But here we go, and Be Thou My Vision performed by Jason Truby. If you've just tuned us in,.

Jason Truby's Hymns Album and His Musical Background

Jason Truby is former lead guitarist for Living Sacrifice, former member of POD, and performer with Phil Keggy, and he has a new CD out called Hymns. And before we play more of his music, I would like to have Jason give us your testimony, the upbringing you had, the religious background you were raised in, and that kind of thing.

Yeah, I'd love to. Real quick, I don't know if you knew this, but that song...

No, I did not, but I always thought that it had a minstrel flavor to it.

Yeah, it was written in the 8th century, and I'm not sure of the author, and then it was translated by Eleanor Hall. In the transition time, you know, you kind of go as a kid, and you go through what you're taught, and your way of life is your way of life.

Oh yeah, I remember Dallas Holmes in the 80s when I became a born-again believer in Christ. He was one of the brethren that I used to listen to, and I think I may have even seen him perform live at the Smithtown Tabernacle.

Yeah, well, we happened to, like,.

And here we are at this show, and all Jesus, and many, many, many years ago. And then he had an invitation at the end of this, which was a little bit foreign to me, but, you know, then as a kid, it was like, hey, this is, he did this so you can know him, you can come and invite him into your life.

I understand the magnitude of it, but I know that going down at that moment, and I truly believe that. Now, there was music for me. Getting into a public Sunday leave, you know, my journey at that point was real, and it just brought me to a lot of, like, I'm on the negative side of it.

And I think just knowing that, like, I knew the truth, and I believed the truth before we walked through the door, or that I was missing a very dear friend from Daniel, and look where he threw that prophecy to, but he did continue to unfilter.

Amen. Let me backtrack a little bit about when you first picked up an instrument, and how quickly did you discover that you really had some kind of an innate talent for the instrument, and perhaps it wasn't even the guitar that you first picked up, I don't know, but tell us about.

That. Well, it was the guitar. I mean, I always had an affinity for music, because I thought, excuse me, you know, I wasn't able to get any training, and I would detune it incorrectly to do the things I wanted to do, because I didn't have a teacher, and then as a teenager, I still had to play.

And he's missing at least one finger, isn't he? Yeah, he's missing a finger on his right hand. But I still, being a little bit of a, and I knew that, okay, no, I wasn't going to play live, but I still think I'm doing it right.

And so, but just dealing with that whole thing.

And how did Living Sacrifice come about, and your participation in it?

Well, it's kind of, you know, a funny story. They came, I was surprised, but they showed, we did our little show, and they came up afterwards. We just kind of hit it off, and I said, well, we're just kind of going serious here.

So we tuned together and scraped up, and the singer in the band at that time was really good with PR, like sent it out.

Well, praise God. And where were you, again, mentally and spiritually in regard to the Lord at that point? Were you mainly a nominal believer, would you say, that was interested, but not yet, perhaps, born again?

Or where were you in your life, do you think?

I think we were really, like, I think initially when we got together, we were all very, and we got together and played because we didn't want to go to the rest of the parties that everybody else was doing.

So like, well, maybe if we get together and like jam, and it wasn't like we were hiding, but you remember, we were teenagers. And so, and we did like what you play. And so even at that point, I think we were not being what we had seen Christian music be, and all due respect to, we didn't fit that template.

And so we just kind of threw all that out and said, you know what, maybe if it's not in a church, then okay. So I think we were, you know, studying, we probably did read more than most 16 or 17 year olds would do.

So yeah, it's a tough one to pin down, Chris. I know that, and I think the fact now.

Well, one of the reasons I even asked the question was years ago, I had an interesting phone conversation with Pete Orta. I don't know if you know Pete, but he is a guitarist and singer and was with Petra, one of the premier Christian rock bands.

And Pete told me years later, obviously after not being with Petra anymore, he told me that he is certain that he was not a born again Christian during those years. And he said that he even was not a Christian personally.

I'm not talking about the rest of the band. He doesn't even believe he was a Christian or a born again Christian when he came out with a solo album called Born Again.

Oh, wow.

But he had some interesting things to say about his disappointments in the Christian music industry and the things he witnessed and so on. And perhaps one day, God willing, we'll have Pete on as well.

But I want to go to another one of your songs from the CD. This is All Creatures of Our God and King.

Oh, another good one.

And we hope that you enjoy this, ladies and gentlemen. That was the shortest version of.

That. Let's see if we get, let's see if it works right this time, because I'm not sure.

Why it started. All Creatures of Our God and King performed by Jason Truby on his new CD,.

Hymns. And we're going to be going to a station break right now. And we do have several people already anxiously waiting to have their questions answered by our guests. So we thank you for your patience.

We'll get to your questions as soon as we can after the station break. But if you'd like to join them as well on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA. And we look forward to hearing from you, whether you're a Christian, whether you are Jewish, whether you are Muslim, whether you are agnostic, whether you're atheist, whether you're Swedenborgianist.

We hope that anybody listening with a question for Jason sends us an email. And I have a quiz. I'm going to give Jason a quiz, and he can answer my question possibly when we come back from the break. But my question is, what famous, he's not really that famous, but he's a very well, highly respected rock guitar player from the 70s, 80s, perhaps even spilling into the 90s, who is no longer with us.

But he, when I was a teenager, was one of my favorite rock and roll guitarists. And his guitar is actually in the background of this ad that I'm about to play from one of our sponsors, World Magazine.

So I want to see if Jason can pick up who this is. I'm just dying to find out. Perhaps Jason has never even heard of this guitarist, but I think that he probably has, but we'll find out in a little bit after we return.

But here's a word from our sponsors, World Magazine. Hi, I'm Chris Arnsen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a Christian perspective.

Try World at no charge for 90 days and get a free copy of R .C. Sproul's book, Relationship Between Church and State. I rely on World because I trust the reporting. I gain insight from the analysis, and World provides clarity to the news stories that really matter.

I believe you'll also find World to be an invaluable resource to better understand critical topics with a depth that's simply not found in other media outlets. Armed with this coverage, World can help you to be a voice of wisdom in your family and your community.

This trial includes bi-weekly issues of World Magazine, on-scene reporting from World Radio, and the fully shareable content of World Digital. Simply visit wng .org forward slash iron sharpens to get your World trial and Dr. Sproul's book all free, no obligation with no credit card required.

Visit World News Group at wng .org forward slash iron sharpens today. Thriving Financial is not.

Your typical financial services provider. As a membership organization, we help Christians be wise with money and live generously every day. And for the fourth year in a row, we were named one of the world's most ethical companies by the Ethisphere Institute, a leading international think tank dedicated to the creation, advancement, and sharing of best practices in business ethics.

Contact me, Mike Gallagher, financial consultant at 717 -254 -6433. Again, 717 -254 -6433.

To learn more about the Thriving Difference. Finances and generosity. That's the Thriving Story. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries. The New American Standard Bible is perfect for.

Daily reading or in-depth study. Used by pastors, scholars, and everyday readers, the NASB is widely embraced and trusted as a literal and readable Bible translation. The NASB offers clarity and readability while maintaining high accuracy to the original languages which the NASB is known for.

The NASB is available in many editions like a topical reference Bible. Researched and prepared by biblical scholars devoted to accuracy, the new topical reference Bible includes contemporary topics relevant to today's issues.

From compact to giant print Bibles, find an NASB that fits your needs very affordably at nasbible .com. Trust, discover, and enjoy the NASB for yourself today. Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com.

Tired of box store Christianity? Of doing church in a warehouse.

With all the trappings of a rock concert? Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship? And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in-depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.

Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word. And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you.

Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times. 631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us. That's wrbc .us. Welcome back. This is Chris Zarnes. And if you just tuned in to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, our guest today is Jason Truby, former lead guitarist for Living Sacrifice, former member of POD, and performer with Phil Kege.

And if you'd like to join us on the air, we are accepting questions via email at chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. And we do have several of you waiting, whom I will get to momentarily.

But do you have an answer to my question? I don't know if how clearly you heard the background guitar.

It was hard to, yeah, Chris, it was hard to hear. Can you give me a band name? Well, that would give it away. Okay. Yeah, I couldn't hear. It was because of the phone. It was staticky. Okay. If I have, I don't, yeah, you're going to have to tell me, man.

And I'll have to send you a CD if you haven't heard this. But that was Ronnie Montrose. Oh, yeah. Okay. The late Monty Montrose. He passed in 2012. Well, he was a good one, man. Yeah. He was one of my favorites as a teenager, that's for sure.

But anyway, let me go to a couple of our listeners who have been waiting patiently. Or as my frequent co-host Reverend Buzz Taylor says, how do you know they're waiting patiently? You can't see them.

But we have a listener from Kinross, Scotland. And perhaps Dr. James White can let me know if I'm mispronouncing that city. Kinross, it's just spelt phonetically, K-I-N-R-O-S-S. But he says, with regard to use of musical instruments, is there ever a dividing line between worship and entertainment?

And if so, where would we find it?

Worship, Entertainment, and the Difference Obedience Makes

That's a poignant question. And I'll do my best to attempt to answer my opinion of that. I do have a connection with Scotland. My brother was a missionary in Stirling for about eight years. You know, a quick answer for that, personally, I believe the truest form of is obedience.

And if we're obedient, had it come up before, what we use just wouldn't be. If you're in obedience in your heart, and everything I'm going to do for you, even if I'm writing a song, and the music is letting my wife know how much I love her.

And so I think it comes down to, in the moment, to do something or am I doing something to be noticed? That being said, and I didn't get this young man's name.

Murray. His name is Murray. That's a first name from...

Murray?

Yes. Kinross. And we don't know if he's young. He could be 90.

Yeah, we go assuming again. What's wrong with it? Well, Murray, I think it's really difficult to judge anyone else's. There are times when people pay me to entertain them musically, and I might be slapping harmonics and running arpeggio scales.

The Lord still made that format. And even though it might razzle. And, you know, other than that, and I will say this, you learn the language so well, so that in the moment, you can speak freely. And that's why we study the music.

I used to study it freely through it. And it might be in a jazz moment with a friend, but in the moment, it's the holy phrase, something. I'm not sure any of it's true.

And we do have Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, and he is using some pretty strong language here. I'm not sure. I don't mean by that vulgarity or profanity, but he is he's asking, what do you why do you think so many Christians use heretical worship music, such as Jesus culture, which is rooted in the damnable New Apostolic Reformation theology?

I've heard that phrase, but I don't know much about New Apostolic Reformation theology, but I have heard of heard about it and from some people who I respect who are very, very concerned about it. But anyway, do you have any comments on that?

Ah, yeah. Wow, that is that's. I think the lean on what I need to be responsible for and what I've been compelled to do by the Holy Spirit and then what what other. You know, in my case, in front of me and and do my best to be obedient in the moment or any dogma.

And you moved on from living sacrifice eventually to become a member of P .O .D. What does P .O .D. stand for? Payable on death, which is actually a banking term. But the guys picked that for that name because that was.

Well, it's a heavy name. And tell us about your experiencing experiences there. And I understand from our conversation earlier, that's when you became acquainted with the son of my dear friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, his son, Joshua, who is a deadly instrument now, deadly weapon, a living, a living deadly weapon, having become a martial arts expert.

I don't know what the Krav Maga equivalent to a black belt is, or perhaps that is the same thing. Maybe it's.

A black belt. Do you know the the Krav Maga? I do not. I know that it's. It's like a lethal.

That's what I'll go with lethal. And I know that I think the CIA and the some of our American military are trained in this Israeli form of the martial arts. Yeah. But he but I know that that's where Joshua became familiar with who you were.

But if you could tell us about POD and.

You're meeting Joshua. Yeah, well, you know, we were touring in the early days with the first band. And when we were out in the West, when you miss meals with people, you know, and anyway, I made a kind of a musical impact on them.

And then after I had came back to Little Rock, started teaching music and really wasn't sure if I was going to be doing band or live music anymore three year. And they had the opportunity as a band to write the title track to the Matrix Reloaded movie.

And their primary thought and they asked if I were it got accepted and made the challenging and rewarding but very prepared for but, you know, kind of went in with high hopes and you kind of figure things out.

But anyway, we first album, I cannot remember the in one of the meet and greets. Please teach me and I do some stuff to me and he said his martial arts teach. I'm like the same concept, but he's doing really good.

I'm proud of him.

Well, praise God for that. Let's play another one of your songs from the hymns album. This is certainly no stranger to the vast majority of people I think living on the planet Earth,.

Even those that are not Christian. Here is Amazing Grace. That is beautiful.

Thank you. That's a sweet little tune.

Oh yeah. Amazing Grace as performed by our guest today, Jason Truby. And that's from his new CD hymns. How many CDs do you actually have? Because I saw that you had some things that you actually cooperated with Phil Keggion and other things.

Yeah, the album is of my own. Probably, let's see, one, two, three, and I think some of them are just interest. Seven or eight albums. Oh, great. And one thing I want to make as a part of.

My regular prayer life is I want, God willing, for you to meet and do a little jam with my older brother Andy. My brother Andy, who is 69, is sitting right now in a nursing home in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, nearby where I live.

He had a stroke a number of months ago which left him paralyzed on his left side completely. And unfortunately, there's no noticeable improvement in that regard. But Andy was the most phenomenal and gifted guitar player that I had ever heard.

He was in a band for probably most of the first half of his life and left that scene when he realized that drugs and other things were consuming his life and the music itself performing in all parts of the country was taking him away from his wife and children and destroying his marriage.

So he gave it up professionally but had the gift until he had the stroke. And I just hope that one day that he has the opportunity to pick up a guitar and sit down next to you and just do a little playing in his living room or wherever he may be at the time.

Yeah, Chris, we should talk about figuring out a way to make that happen.

I would love that.

Yeah, maybe some listener wants, I hate to hear, it's all you need for a good jam.

He also tragically had to, when he fell into serious financial hardships, sold every single one of his guitars even before he had a stroke. And he had a really beautiful collection of guitars. Oh, that's too bad.

And I'm sure they were guitars. See, I don't know anything about musical instruments because I'm not a musician at all, but they were definitely guitars I think that you would have recognized and.

Probably would have drooled over if you saw them. Well, I'm sure he used them well while he had the opportunity to and maybe even if it just went up. But yeah, man, be praying about that.

Now, I don't know if you're feeling better to stick around for the second hour because you were claiming earlier. When I say claiming, I don't mean you were making it up. You were saying that you weren't feeling well before.

That's a strategy, Chris.

You informed me before the show that you didn't feel well enough to do two hours because of the sickness you're going through. I don't know if that's...

No, I've got a little chest cold, but I've got... I think I can try to stick around a little bit longer if you would like. If you're okay with me hanging around, even if I had to sneak out a little early, let me see if I can do the whole thing.

Oh, that's great. That's fine with me. And let me now... Well, first of all, let me also repeat our email address if anybody would like to join us on the air. That is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA. And we would love to hear from you, even if you are not a Christian, whatever your walk in life happens to be right now, whether you're a musician or not.

But I want to play another excerpt from your CD, Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past.

The Healing Power of Hymns and the Stories Behind Them

Yeah.

And we hope that you sit back, those of you listening, and enjoy the music. If you're driving, please don't close your eyes and drift off into another realm. But here we go with Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past.

At the end as well, bud.

Yeah, I can kind of tell that. That's interesting, brother. Well, I don't know why that happened again. James White is laughing right now if he's listening, because he knows how atechnical I am. So hopefully this is going to play from the beginning, and now I have it at zero, so...

There you go.

Uh, here we go. Well, for some reason, let's see if we can get it to start again. For some.

Reason it stopped, brother. But what we heard... Oh, there we go. Well, I don't know what's the matter with the MP3. I'm not sure what's happening with the MP3, but what we heard was absolutely gorgeous.

And we assure you, those of you listening, that on the CD, that's not going to.

Happen.

It won't stop.

And I am going to give a shout out now that I dedicated that song to Jeremy Volo. Jeremy Volo, who used to be a professional soccer player with the San Antonio Scorpions, who's been a guest on my program, is now a pastor in Laredo, Texas, and he had me record recently the opening announcements for a new radio program that he hosts, and his favorite hymn is, Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past, and that was the theme music that we played.

Not yours, because I wasn't even aware of your existence at the time, but we did use an instrumental version of that hymn, because that is Jeremy's favorite hymn.

It's a beautiful hymn by...

Now, have you done a lot of study on the lives of the hymn writers of the songs that you play, of the hymns that you play?

Well, for this, I was aware of some of the details, but the original idea, you know, I'll do some of these finger styles and use a looper, and my wife kind of mentioned one day that, what if you did a full album of nothing but hymns but did it more as a therapy for people that are sick, healing, and then one of the secondary reasons for being instrumental is people that aren't believers.

Wow.

Yeah, it's really cool.

Yeah, praise God for that.

So anyway, in that process, I thought, well, I'm going to pick, I'm going to narrow it down to 10 hymns, because there's a lot, and in that research format, he's fully poignant. I come back, found that, man, these people, reminders that, and then even St. Francis, you know, he wrote All Creatures, but yeah, looking at the stories, a lot of it came through.

Grief.

They find out that they all, I mean, it's phenomenal.

Yeah.

So the stories, and then it helps me, not that there's, I mean, there's great, I don't mean anything negative. It just seemed to be a clear marriage of melody and lyric, very much that they're dealing with, and that's kind of why I picked them.

Praise God. We do have a listener, Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, which providentially, that is actually a town where James White spent a lot of his childhood and was baptized.

Oh, wow.

In Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, but Harrison asks, do you think that anyone can learn an instrument, or do you think that it is a God-given gift that you have especially? Well, I guess anybody could learn it, but could you learn it very, very well?

I mean, just like, you know, people can learn the basics of a sport or something.

Yeah.

Well, you just hit my analogy right on the head. As a teacher, and I've got quite a few students, I think helping people understand their capacity for music and to be able to reach their potential in it, and that's relatively easy.

I do think that it is given, but at the same time, I don't think we ever arrive. As far as instruments, pick it up, and you're passionate about language of the soul. Everybody would have the passion. If I wanted to be a linebacker in the NFL, I could have the passion for it all day long and work and work and work, but if somebody, you know, coached me into my potential, then I could be really good for whatever the feeling of my potential is.

Right.

So, yeah. So, I think Harrison, I think you go for it, man, and you pick up if you just feel like it.

Well, perhaps Harrison was trying to persuade his ungifted child not to be playing so he wouldn't have to waste money on the instrument.

You're like, yeah, I'm thinking, Jason, give me a better answer.

Well, I'm going to play.

I hope it plays all the way through, and I'm not sure why we were having difficulty before, but a song that has become my favorite hymn that I'm not sure when it was written if it had this melody, but I love the melody as well, but a number of years ago in New York City, I was at a Bible conference, and they sang Before the Throne of God Above, and I had never before heard it.

For some reason, it's not in the Trinity hymnal that many Reformed churches have, and I had never seen it in any of the hymnals of my previous churches before we had the Trinity, and I have just fallen in love with this hymn.

When I first heard it, I began uncontrollably weeping.

Oh, it's great. Well, you know it was written by a woman.

Yes.

Charity Lees Bancroft, yeah, and it is an absolute... I'm with you on this one. The original title was...

Okay.

No, I didn't know that.

Yeah, it was written in 1863. Yeah, I really, really like this tune. It's a good one.

Well, let's hope that this plays all the way through.

Yeah, me too.

That was a beautiful version of that hymn, which is my favorite hymn, Before the Throne of God Above, by our guest Jason Truby on his CD, Hymns. Just out of curiosity, Jason, was that last part intentionally sounding Asian?

Because it did have an A.

Okay.

Very good, actually.

Good ear.

I actually, like over my travels and touring, and I told you earlier that I find instruments that I like along the way, and two instruments I used on that. One is a koto, which is a Japanese plucked stringed instrument.

I had it for lunch, actually.

Oh, nice. It goes good with teriyaki sauce. And then it's a hard one. It's a shakuhachi, is how you say it, but it's a wood flute, and I used that wood flute at the end of that song because I just thought it's neat from time to time to incorporate culture.

Well, if you don't mind, I just want to, as quickly as I can, read the lyrics to that hymn so that our listeners know why this was such a profound hymn to me. In fact, I discovered it providentially after leaving alcohol rehab.

I went to a Christian alcohol rehab in Boone, North Carolina. I had been sober for 18 years after becoming a born-again Christian, and after that 18-year period, I tragically slotted back into alcohol abuse and signed into that ministry and have not touched a drop of alcohol since leaving there.

And I understand that many of my brethren have the liberty to moderately partake in wine and so forth, but I know I can't. But anyway, when I left that place, and providentially was at a Bible conference in Manhattan when I heard that hymn, God uncorked a river that just started flowing down my face and onto my chest, and the lyrics go like this.

Before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea. A great high priest whose name is love, who ever lives and pleads for me. My name is graven on his hands. My name is written on his heart.

I know that while in heaven he stands, no tongue can bid me thence depart. When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there who made an end to all my sin.