391 – Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me

SEMESTER 6

391 – Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me

BIBLE INSTITUTE OF CORRESPONDENCE

COURSE: ECCLESIOLOGY VI (HYMNOLOGY) LESSON # 91
THE DOCTRINES AND EFFECTS OF CHURCH MUSIC – JESUS, SAVIOR, PILOT ME

Read: Mat. 8:23-27

INTRODUCTION:

1. This hymn was written by Edward Hopper, the minister of a small church in the New York harbor area.
2. That church ministered to sailors in an age of fear of the perils of sailing.
3. This song is one claiming faith in and enjoining faith in divine providence.
4. It was written anonymously, and the author was revealed nine years after publication.
5. The original poem included three more verses. I will read two more of the six. (Hear on tape.)
6. Let us consider the content of the three popularized in our hymnals.

I. TO US OUR LIFE IS LIKE AN UNCHARTED SEA (JAMES 4:13-15)

1. This verse aptly likens our lives to a tempestuous sea. (An accurate metaphor)

III: To a sailor in a troubled sea, this is a one line sermon and it often became a prayer.

2. Indeed, our life is filled with rocks and shoals, covered with waves of darkness.
3. Is there a chart for this sea or a compass that gives any real direction? Yes!

III: “Whatever will be, will be,” terrifying thought with­out faith in divine prov­idence.

4. To each is wisely appointed some storms, and hidden rocks lie in each of our paths.
5. No wise Sailor deliberately tried to complete a strange voyage without a pilot.

III: By ships going in and out of the New Orleans waterway. (They need pilots.)

III: By the ferries and tour boats going through Alaska’s Wrangle Straits.

6. Are you trying to sail through life without a pilot? What danger you face!
7. Do you know my Pilot? Can you expect peace as you negotiate life’s storms?

II. OUR PILOT IS ACTUALLY IN CONTROL OF LIFE’S OCEAN (JOB 1:12)

1. “As a mother stills her child.” Yea, even more control has He over life’s oceans.

III: How in the Caribbean Sea I was amazed at the depth of harmless peaceful swells.

2. But casual swells can soon turn into boisterous waves, and smooth sailing into terror.

III: How different things looked when the sky and water turned dark and the waves angry.

3. We cannot foresee, control, or know the unbelievable power of life’s storms.
4. But Jesus, the “Wondrous Sovereign of the sea,” can perfectly do all this.
5. He is my Pilot. May I be given faith to trust Him in all of life’s troubles?

III. NOT ALL OUR STORMS ARE IN OUR PAST LIFE (JOH. 21:18)

1. “When at last I near the shore, And the fearful breakers roar…” O yes then, too!

III: By the night-long, pounding roar of the surf on the California shore.

2. In later life, we may need the lighthouses and buoys of Scripture as never before.

III: How many ships and lives were lost within mere yards of the New England shore.

3. As our bodies grow weak, there are roaring breakers we have not yet seen.
4. If we were then left to wisdom or fate, how desperate our plight would be.

III: By people dashed to death upon the shores of islands they thought were their hope of life.

5. May I then lean upon His breast and hear Him say, “Fear not, I will pilot thee”
6. Do you know my Pilot? Have you reason to expect peace at the time life ends?