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Speaker: Glenn Rawson
Hi, this is Glenn Rawson. One of the most powerful ways to share history and heritage is by the telling of stories. We began sharing inspiring stories nearly 30 years ago. Each of those stories is true and was intended to inspire and strengthen faith. Over the years, those stories have reached millions around the world. This podcast is for you to listen, learn and enjoy.
First Story: James Montgomery 00:30
These next two stories, the last two stories I’m going to share with you [this next one], I am so excited about it that I don’t even think I can tell it right. When I found this, I would have told everybody then but I knew I was gonna present it to you and I didn’t want to spoil it. I am not sure that I can convey in words how deeply I feel about this next story, and how deeply it touched me. If ever I felt like I had discovered the rest of the story that every member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter – Day Saints needs to hear, this is it.
James Montgomery was born November 4, 1771 in Irvine, Scotland, the son of a minister. His parents moved shortly before that over to Ireland and got back to Scotland just as James was born. Thus, James would always be proud of his Scottish heritage.
They’re in Scotland, James was sent to school near Leeds, England, not too long after his two brothers came to school at the same place. Then in 1783, the entire family spent three months together just before his parents departed for the West Indies as missionaries.
James would never see his parents again. As they died in the mission field. He would later say of them, “They made the first deep furrows with the gospel plow and fell down dead in them through excessive labor.”
While a student there at Leeds, James came to love poetry, and though secular poetry was forbidden at the school, James frequently found the means to borrow books, and read he said, by stealth, it became a passion to write poetry, albeit one that distracted from his prescribed studies at the school.
By the age of 13, James had filled his first volume of poetry. He was excelling as a poet and a writer but not so much as a student. So consequently, he was put out to work in the community as a clerk in a store.
At the age of 16, James determined that he wanted to break loose, he said, and see the world. So he found employment of his own choosing and devoted his leisure time. Again, you guessed it, reading and composing poetry.
Then in April 1792, James saw and answered an ad for a bookkeeper at a newspaper called “The Sheffield Register”. Politics and divisive issues were the hot fodder of newspaper print in those days. And as James took the position, he found himself drawn in and taking sides, “I entered in the feelings of those who availed themselves the friends of freedom, justice and humanity.”
Because the paper was political in its views, (The Sheffield Register), the editor, a man named Gail, became a target for the opposition, and was forced to flee the country. The editor came to America to escape prosecution. Well, James took over the editor ship and renamed the paper, the ‘Sheffield Iris’.
In the very first issue, James Montgomery published the paper’s lofty motto, “Ours are the plans of fair delightful peace unwarped by party rage, to live like brothers.”
Peace, it was not going to be within two months, James was served with a warrant, convicted and sentenced to three months imprisonment in York Castle on false charges of sedition, treason. You see, his paper had done a favor for a man in printing a song that was deemed seditious. Editor James neither approved it nor set the type. He had nothing to do with it. But he served the time. He was released and went back to work.
But in the routine reporting and [I emphasize routine reporting] of a politically charged riot there in Sheffield, he once again found himself crossways with King and magistrate. This time, James was unjustly sentenced to six months in the Castle at York. James bore his punishment with meekness. And while in prison, his health declined considerably. But his conscience and his convictions remained bright and shining.
Upon his release, he returned to his editorial duties, he continued to write and listen, giving unstintingly of his literary talent for the support of worthwhile religious and humanitarian causes. He became recognized as the friend of the people as a champion of the cause of liberty and freedom. He interceded on behalf of slaves, chimney sweeps, boys being worked too hard widows and the destitute. To the end of his days, James served his fellow men with deeds of philanthropy, championing worthy causes, all the while writing poems, composing hymns and publishing.
In 1849, the now celebrated poet and composer became gravely ill and while listening to some of his own hymns, being son, commented, “As all my hymns embody some portion of the history of the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears of this poor heart. So I cannot doubt but there will be found an accurate vehicle of expression for the experience of many of my fellow creatures, who may be similarly exercised through the pilgrimage of the Christian life.”
In other words, through the experiences I’ve had, and the words I have written, I will express for them the feelings of others, who have so served the master and their fellow man.
On Sunday, April 30, 1854, James Montgomery passed away quietly in his sleep.
“The forges and workshops as Smokey Sheffield were deserted for the public funeral. Thousands of mourners swelled the funeral train, which took an hour to pass any given point. The common man had lost an uncommon friend.”
James Montgomery, patriot, poet, friend of God and man, wasted and wore out his life in service to all. He spoke with hope that his words would give expression to others who shared similar experiences in the pilgrimage of the Christian life. James could not have known, those hopes would be fulfilled beyond anything he could have possibly imagined.
James Montgomery became one of Britain’s greatest poets and composers. You may not recognize James Montgomery’s name, or recognize all that he wrote. But you will surely rejoice at a poem that he wrote in 1826 that he titled ‘The Stranger’ – a poem that was surely autobiographical of the life of James Montgomery. It begins thus.
A poor wayfaring Man of grief
Hath often crossed me on my way,
Who sued so humbly for relief
That I could never answer nay.
I had not pow’r to ask his name,
Whereto he went, or whence he came;
Yet there was something in his eye
That won my love; I knew not why.
That poem would later be set to music by George Coals and retitled. We know it today as ‘A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief’.
Second Story: Caesarea Philippi 09:49
If you’ve been to Israel, this will have significant meaning to you. If you haven’t been there, I hope that it changes the way you read this story. I extend an invitation to come with me to Israel sometime in the next few years.
The Lord never does anything by accident. And as I got into this story, I really began to see for the first time, the Lord’s purpose. Hopefully, as I tell you this next story, it will make an old and familiar story, so much more meaningful.
Caesarea Philippi – and was at the time of the Savior, a Gentile city, about 25 to 30 miles north of the Galilee, up near the Syrian border. It was a center of pagan worship. At the time of Jesus, Caesarea Philippi was associated with the worship of the deities of ball, and the Greek God Pan, pagan deities, Greeks, Romans, Jews, Syrians, and all kinds of other cultures worshiped at Caesarea Philippi. It was something of a profane yet holy city to idol worshipers. It was built up by Herod the Great son Philip, and named for Caesar. And for Philip Caesarea Philippi.
Well, a large and very powerful spring issued forth from a large cave right in that area that became one of the main feeder streams of the Jordan River. In addition, the city of Caesarea Philippi, was built against the backdrop of huge limestone cliffs, into which were carved niches in which the numerous gods were placed the statues.
The large cave where the spring came out, would have built over the front of it, a white marble temple, and was believed to be the entrance to the underworld. The Gates of Hell, Caesarea Philippi would have been considered something of a holy place, and believed to be a place of Revelation and judgment, where people were sometimes thrown into the violent waters of the spring. And if they survived, they were innocent. If they didn’t, they were guilty.
It is said that the waters of Pan – the Greek god Han, half man, half goat, ran continually red with the blood of humans and animals and sacrifice. Moreover, as Caesarea Philippi the religious rights that were practiced there would have shocked and offended the sensibilities of Jews and Christians alike. It was by Christian standards, a very wicked city.
And yet, seemingly by design, Jesus departed Galilee and went into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi. It is said, to be alone in prayer with his disciples. While as they walked, Jesus said to them, “Whom do men say that I – the Son of man am? And they said, most of them say, thou art John the Baptist, some Elias and others, Jeremias are one of the prophets. He saith unto them, “But whom say ye that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Peter’s declaration was firm on equivocating, and probably with great emotion, “Thou art the Promised Messiah”. He had said that from the beginning, but Peter went one step further, you are the Son of the living God.
Consider where he said that we cannot say from the text for certain where Jesus was standing when this discussion took place. But if he was standing anywhere near the cave of Pan, or Banias, as it is called today, then the response of Peter and Jesus is profoundly meaningful and illustrative.
Jesus answered Peter, and said unto him, “Blessed art thou, Simon bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed it meaning who I am unto thee, but my father, which is in heaven.”
In other words, Peter, you have had one of the greatest of all revelations, and I say also unto thee thou art Peter, meaning man of rock, and upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And he went on to say, “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever that shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven. “
Peter, the man of rock, his emotional declaration that Jesus was the Son of the living God, would have been made in the presence and before the faces of a multitude of dead gods, Idols of ball standing in the cliff face, as the apostles looked on at the imposing and I mean, they are imposing limestone cliffs before them, where the worshipers practice their vein rights, or even if the apostles looked over that, to the incredible summit of Mount Hermon, 9000 feet, the highest mountain for 500 miles.
Jesus declared that Peter, the man of rock, had received the precious gift of Revelation, God had spoken to him. And it was upon that rock, the rock of revelation from the living God, that the Savior’s church would be built and still is. The gates of hell will not prevail against this rock. The Saviors’ small group was standing before what the pagan world believed, for the very gates of hell, The Cave of Pan – the gates to the underworld, over which every man of the time and age had no power, in that physical context, in that environment, in that place.
In an unmistakable, undeniable way, Jesus taught that with the power and gift of Revelation, men are born again through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and hell cannot win. Hell cannot claim them in the end, God will prevail, if we are worthy of Revelation.
Moreover, Peter is promised the keys of the kingdom of heaven, by which he and his brethren could open and shut Heaven and Hell, to the ordinances and authority of the temple. It was as though the Savior brought them on a two day journey out of Israel, at the foot of the highest mountain in all the land, and before the cliffs, and the deities of false gods, to teach by demonstration, the eternal and awesome power that they were about to receive. Which power – Peter, James and John brought back in our day to restore Christ’s New Testament Church and give the same authority. The same authority is now among us.
Thank you for listening. Many of the stories you heard today have been published and are archived at glennrawsonstories.com. If you would like more information you can communicate with us there. We will be back again with another podcast next week.
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