STAND UP FOR JESUS hymn....story behind it.

Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus

George Duffidd, Jr., 1818-88

Stand up, stand up for Jesus, Ye soldiers of the cross; Lift high his royal banner, It must not suffer loss. From victory unto victory His army shall he lead, Till every foe is vanquished, And Christ is Lord indeed.

In 1858, three years before the outbreak of the Civil War, revival swept the city of Philadelphia. People responded particularly to the hard-hitting messages of Dudley Tyng, a young, vivacious, abolitionist Episcopal priest.

In March at a noontime, weekday YMCA gathering of five thousand men, Tyng let it rip, basing his sermon on Exodus 10:ll: "Go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord" (KJV). As he spoke, he acknowledged that his radical call for repentance was potentially offensive. He hoped his audience would not take umbrage at his challenge, but, he continued,'! would rather that this right arm were amputated at the trunk, than that I should come short of my duty to you in delivering God's message."

That afternoon more than a thousand men enlisted in the Lord's army. And Tyng returned home newly challenged to lead the charge, lift high the banner. Little did he know the impending twists of fate.

A week later, studying in his home office, Tyng took a break. He walked out to the barnyard to encourage a mule—whose circular plodding fueled a corn-shelling machine. Alas. Patting the mule, Tyng caught his billowy sleeve in the wheel cogs. Tyng lost his arm. And within days his life.

At his son's deathbed, Tyng's father asked if he had a message for his colleagues. Tyng's last words proved to be his most memorable: "Tell my brethren of the ministry, wherever you meet them, to stand up for Jesus."

That message, relayed at Tyng's funeral, gripped a friend, Rev. George DufEeld. The next Sunday at Philadelphia's Temple Presbyterian Church, DufEeld preached on Ephesians 6:14, a Pauline challenge couched in military language: "Stand firm," wearing the whole armor of God. Duffield ended his sermon with a poem he had penned that week: "Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus . . ." (Am I perverse to wonder if there is hidden meaning in the lines: "The arm of flesh will fail you, Ye dare not trust your own"?)

A parishioner printed the poem in leaflet form. It was picked up by a magazine and within a few years sung heartily around Union army campfires.

And still is sung today.

Our church organist played its familiar tune. The congregation joined in. A stooped, old man sitting behind me sang lustily. And as the last chord died out, he whispered loudly, spontaneously, as if he'd forgotten he was in church: "That was a good one!"

I smiled.Was he a veteran of a great war? I expect so. After church he slipped out the door before I could ask. The song struck something in his spirit. A call to take courage and stand for his Lord—even as his years and life slipped from him.

A musician tells me this song is a favorite at nursing homes, especially among men and women confined to wheel-chairs—people who can't physically stand. What does the song mean to someone whose options are limited?

In search of an answer I went scrounging for a haunting article I'd clipped some years ago. Richard Mouw writes: ""We are called to be obedient where we are located, with the resources that are available to us, and in the light of our present' understanding of God's will."

Mouw continues, relating an eye-opening exchange between him and sociologist Peter Berger. When a younger, harsher Mouw had suggested "that every Christian is called to engage in radical obedience to God's program of justice, righteousness, and peace," Berger had challenged Mouw's grandiose view of obedience.

Somewhere in a retirement home,. [Berger] said, there is a Christian woman whose greatest fear in life is that she will make a fool of herself because she will not be able to control her bladder in the cafeteria line. For this woman, the greatest act of radical obedience to Jesus Christ is to place herself in the hands of a loving God every time she goes off to dinner.

Radical obedience. Standing firm."What does it mean for you?

Stand.up, stand up for Jesus! The trumpet call obey ... Ye that are [his] now serve him Against unnumbered foes; Let courage rise with danger, And strength to strength oppose.

Lord, give me courage to stand firm, for your kingdom and for your sake.

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From the book: "Spiritual  moments  with  the  Great  Hymns"

by Evelyn Bence

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AH  YES,  MUST  SAY  THIS  IS  ONE  OF  MY  FAVORITE  HYMNS,  AND  LOVE  TO  SING  IT  WITH  POWER  AND  ALL  MY  VOICE  CAN  GIVE,  WHEN  SINGING  IT  WITH  A  CONGREGATION  OF  PEOPLE.

Keith Hunt