Chorus:
Rescue the perishing,
Care for the dying;
Jesus is merciful,
Jesus will save.
Hymn writer Fanny Crosby, though she was blind, loved to visit rescue missions in New York City. One hot summer night, she was talking to a group of working men at a mission. "I made a pressing plea," she said, "that if there was a boy present who had wandered from his mother's home and teaching, he should come to me at the end of the service. A young man of eighteen came forward and said, 'Did you mean me?'"
A few days before, Fanny Crosby had been given the suggestion to write a hymn on the theme, "Rescue the Perishing," taken from Luke 14:23, where the master in one of Jesus' parables tells his servant to go out into the highways and byways and bring them in. That evening, Crosby could think of nothing else but the line, "Rescue the Perishing, care for the dying," and after returning home from the mission, she wrote this hymn.
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Jude 1:22-23, TLB
Try to help those who argue against you. Be merciful to those who doubt. Save some by snatching them as from the very flames of hell itself. And as for others, help them find the Lord by being kind to them, but be careful that you yourselves aren't pulled along into their sins. Hate every trace of their sin while being merciful to them as sinners.
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Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
Weep o'er the erring one, lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save.
Though they are slighting Him, still He is waiting,
Waiting the penitent child to receive;
Plead with them earnestly, plead with them gently,
He will forgive if they only believe.
Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter,
Feelings lie buried that grace can restore;
Touch by a loving heart, wakened by kindness,
Chords that are broken will vibrate once more.
Rescue the perishing, duty demands it--
Strength for thy labor the Lord will provide;
Back to the narrow way patiently win them,
Tell the poor wanderer a Savior has died.
Fanny Jane Crosby (1820-1915)
[The ONE YEAR Book of Hymns, 365 Devotional
Readings Based on Great Hymns of the Faith]
