Stand up for Jesus

As we left Tremont Temple after the Noon hour yesterday (our 41st Wednesday), Alex commented that each hour has its own personality. Some have periods of profound slence. In some, God gives us a burden to pray for the intercessors around the city, or for the young prayer warriors assaulting the walls of America's intellectual Jericho, etc.
Yesterday, there was a sense of personal need in the sanctuary. We started off singing many of the old familiar refrains from 30 years ago. And then we sang, "Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus" after reflecting on the origins of that hymn.
Our Noon hour is modeled on the New York Noon hour of 1857. As you know, that one became a full-scale, big-R Revival, which rapidly spread to every major city in America. (A shoe salesman named D. L. Moody took it to Chicago.) On March 30th the following spring, in Philadelphia, some five thousand men gathered in the largest hall available, to hear a young Episcopal rector named Dudley Tyng, who had just been ousted from his church for his stand against slavery. Under his anointed exhortation, a thousand men gave their lives to Christ. A few days later, he lost his arm in a terrible farm machinery accident. As he lay dying in the hospital, his friend, Presbyterian minister, George Duffield, came to see him. Did he have any word to send to the next prayer rally? "Only this: Have the men stand up for Jesus." George did, and then wrote the hymn that became the signature hymn for the Great Prayer Revival of 1857-58.
Please pray for Sandy Emerick, who has just lost her husband, after a long illness.
And join us next Wednesday, if you can. And be sure to reserve the evening of Friday after Easter (April 21, 7:30 to 9:00, Tremont Temple), when the Noon hour goes prime-time.

-David Manuel