Nehemiah 11-13

Here’s the story: On the coast of Lake Erie near Cleveland, Ohio, an inner harbor had been created as a safe haven where ships could flee when the sudden and dangerous Lake Erie storms arose. Despite the great lighthouse beacon, a ship would be dashed to pieces without the little lights to lead them through the narrow, rock-lined passage. For whatever reason, the lightkeeper had failed to light “the lower lights,” and a ship that was trying to make the safety of the harbor was dashed on the rocks and destroyed. A young man named Philip P. Bliss read, with horror, the headlines, but it was only when he heard D. L. Moody use it in a sermon that it struck Philip Bliss to the heart. Moody ended his stirring sermon with: “Brethren, the Master will take care of the great lighthouse; let us keep the lower lights burning.”

As Philip told a friend afterward, “When I heard Mr. Moody use it as an illustration in his sermon that night, I cried out in my heart, ‘Bliss, you are just as guilty as the man in the story. As a Christian, you are to be one of the lower lights shining brightly so that some poor soul tossed about on the sea of life may find safety and everlasting life in the haven that God has prepared.’”

Within a week Bliss had written “Let the Lower Lights Be Burning.” And now you know the story.

Brightly beams our Father’s mercy
From His lighthouse evermore,
But to us He gives the keeping
Of the lights along the shore.

Let the lower lights be burning!
Send a gleam across the wave!
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
You may rescue, you may save.

Dark the night of sin has settled,
Loud the angry billows roar;
Eager eyes are watching, longing,
For the lights along the shore.

Trim your feeble lamp, my brother!
Some poor sailor tempest tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor,
In the darkness may be lost.