Travel back in time with Dr. Dobson as he revisits a cherished episode revolving around the life-changing power of hymns. With inspiring anecdotes from Johnny Erickson Tada and her camaraderie with esteemed friends, this episode delves into how hymns transcend linguistic barriers and unite hearts globally. Experience stories of harmony and hope, anchored by deep-rooted theology and powerful melodies that have endured through the centuries.
Well, hello, everyone. You’re listening to Family Talk, which is a division of the James Dobson Family Institute. I’m James Dobson, and you’re in for a treat today. I want to take you back to the year 2000 when we recorded what has become one of my favorite programs of all times. It occurred on a day when three very good friends came to be my guests in the studio. They were Robert and Bobby Wogermuth. Bobby has gone on to be with the Lord in 2014. She had a beautiful voice. You’re going to hear that on the program today. Robert has gone on to remarry Nancy DeMoss, and Nancy has her own ministry called Revive Our Hearts. The centerpiece of this interview was Johnny Erickson Tada, who, as most of you know, became a quadriplegic when she was 17 years of age in a diving accident. And she took this tragedy and gave it to the Lord and has been an advocate and an encourager for disabled people ever since. Okay, let’s get right to the interview. So enjoy the Ministry of Hymns. Johnny, this idea originated in your head. Explain where it came from.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I grew up with hymns, and hymns were a way that my mom and my dad connected me and my sisters to the historic faith. And so for me, whether I’m in an elevator or sitting around in a lobby in my wheelchair in Biden time or in the airport or… Wherever, I love to be singing a hymn. And for me, it’s a way of witnessing. And I could be on the platform of a convention such as I was a few years ago at Christian Booksellers Convention, Doctor. And I’ve spotted Dr. John MacArthur in the front row. And I said, John, get on up here and let’s sing a hymn together. Well, he looks to his left and his right and very nervous. And he comes up. I’ve done this to him before. I have put him on the spot. And so there, just the two of us launched into a wonderful old hymn. And I think it was a delight to the people in the audience. And, of course, in the audience, there was the publisher of Crossway Books who, boing, a light bulb went on.
SPEAKER 04 :
Always looking for a new book. Right. Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
And he approached me afterward and he said, you really do know hymns. Because I was talking a lot about my favorite hymns from that platform. John and I were bantering back and forth. I just love singing. And I love singing these wonderful old hymns, Dr. Dobson. And so that’s how the book idea was given birth.
SPEAKER 04 :
And so it gives the history of the individual hymns and some of the lyrics. And then there is a CD with it where you all actually recorded the music.
SPEAKER 03 :
We’re people who love music, but we certainly don’t have record companies waiting at our doors to sign us to contracts. Well, after today, you might. I don’t know.
SPEAKER 05 :
But Dr. John MacArthur gives the theological context of each hymn, and he does a great job. And I give a bit of a contemporary devotional vignette along with either Robert or myself. And then Bobbi, bless her heart, the hymnologist among us.
SPEAKER 04 :
The church lady. Bobbi, music has been a good part of your life.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, a passion for music. really, and in our family, to talk to the girls as they were little about what does this hymn mean? And the theology, Robert has said it’s like a bird’s nest on the ground. It’s Theology 101 in four verses, and it’s such good theology focusing on God. And so, really, some of the stories behind the hymns, I did the research on, and it was so fun to find out who wrote them and why.
SPEAKER 04 :
We went to the inauguration of George W. Bush together, and we were in a rented van with a driver. There were about eight or nine of us, and we were singing these songs.
SPEAKER 03 :
It was just wonderful. It binds people together. Whether you’re speaking this language or another language, Johnny has traveled the world, and hymns bind people together regardless of their language. Their nationality.
SPEAKER 05 :
I was in Romania once, and I was on the third floor. We were delivering wheelchairs over there with Wheels for the World. And we were conferring with some of the people there, a few people from Poland, several from Romania, one or two from Bulgaria, a couple of Germans, myself, an American. And neither of us spoke each other’s language, and there weren’t enough interpreters. But somehow we landed on the fact that we all loved hymns. So we started singing A Mighty Fortress is Our God. In everybody’s different language. And it was awesome to just have that unity of the brethren right there in that little room with that bare dangling light bulb and on the third floor of that dingy hotel. Slories to the Lord because of our mutual love for hymns.
SPEAKER 04 :
Didn’t Luther write that?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, he did.
SPEAKER 03 :
Talk a little bit about that, Bob.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, just the fact that a mighty fortress is our God was the battle cry for the Reformers. And the world was changed because Martin Luther believed that next to the Word of God, a hymn and theology in music was the way to totally change the mind of the people and get them to focus on truly who God is and to have biblical knowledge inside of their life in such a passionate way. In fact, he often would say that If he said the devil would flee before the sound of praise and his whole thing was getting the people to praise God and then giving them something to hang on to. Remember that these people were being burned at the stake if they read the Bible in their own German tongue. And often they said the people that were taken to the stake, they had a hymn on their lips as they were dying.
SPEAKER 04 :
Many of the old hymns were written by theologians or by ministers, weren’t they? Charles Wesley and John Wesley and so on. The reason that I love the hymns is because of the theology, the poetry, and, of course, the music. Exactly. And I’m going to reveal my biases and, okay, take your best shot.
SPEAKER 03 :
Here we go. 18 more years of male.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m going to be banned again for another 18 years.
SPEAKER 05 :
When I was in Young Life back then in the 60s, we sang hymns. And one of the songs was a hymn, Man of Sorrows. What a name for the Son of God who came. And Dr. Dobson, shortly after those Young Life experiences was when I dove into that shallow water and broke my neck back in 1967. And I was languishing for a year in bed in that dark, depressing hospital room, so discouraged. And I’ll never forget, one night long after visiting hours were over, lights were out, the nurses were on break, my high school hockey buddy, a young girl named Jackie, had hid behind the sofa in the visitor’s lounge. And while the nurses were on break, she crawled on hand and knee into my room, a six-bed ward, and very quietly came past my sleeping roommates. And when I saw her form next to me in the darkness, I just said, Jackie, what are you doing here? If they catch you, they’re going to kick you out. To which she proceeded to be quiet and lowered the guardrail of my hospital bed. And as high school kids will do, climbed into bed with me. And in the darkness, she held my hand and held it up so I could see it. I could not feel her fingers. And in my pain and anguish, she touched my heart. In the only way that it could be touched back then, she started to softly sing in the dark, Man of sorrows, what a name for the Son of God who came. And her singing of that hymn did more to calm my restless spirit. And interestingly enough, Dr. Thirty-some-odd years later, I received a call from the chairman of my high school reunion committee. I was so excited to see all my friends and to think that I might see Jackie. But the chairman of the reunion committee told me on the phone that morning, Oh, but Johnny, you need to understand, there was a horrible incident. Jackie’s son died. He committed suicide just yesterday, and it was so… So I took my breath away, and I tried to get a hold of her on the phone, couldn’t reach her, and so I wrote her a letter. And in the letter, I said pretty much, Jackie, if I could be with you right now, I would do what you did with me 30 years ago. I would hold your hand and look it into your eyes and sing that song, Man of Sorrows. I have nothing else to say. There are no answers for this kind of tragedy except to point you, as you once pointed me, to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of joy, but the man of sorrows who knows our pain.
SPEAKER 06 :
Man of sorrows, what a name. the son of god to reclaim hallelujah what a savior And scoffing mood, in my place condemned he strewed. Sealed my pardon with his blood. Hallelujah, what a Savior.
SPEAKER 07 :
Guilty, vile, and helpless we, spotless Lamb of God was He. O atonement that gave me, Alleluia, what a Savior!
SPEAKER 1 :
Amen.
SPEAKER 07 :
All His ransomed throne to bring, Then a new day’s song we’ll sing, Alleluia, what a Savior!
SPEAKER 03 :
The music that you’re hearing isn’t just John MacArthur and Bobby and Johnny and me, but Dr. Paul Plew, the director of the chorale at the Masters College, came and spent the time in the studio with us and brought 50 of their college students. And it was an incredible experience, partly because these are young people. who know these hymns. And so it was so encouraging to us that there is a generation of college age students who also know these hymns and count them very dear. So those are the wonderful voices that you just heard.
SPEAKER 04 :
As has every generation of believers for a hundred years or more. Robert, you asked me earlier to share the story of my mother. You all experienced it with Shirley and me. I would like you to tell it. Would you explain what happened on that day?
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure. It was a Sunday afternoon. And, Bobby, you can jump in on this. It was a Sunday afternoon. Your mom was in Pasadena. You folks lived in Arcadia. And you said, let’s go over and see Myrtle. And Bobby and I had known and loved Myrtle for a number of years.
SPEAKER 02 :
And we had sung around the dinner table at the Dobsons, especially New Year’s Day. And Myrtle loved him. So we knew that. And we were going to go sing with her or sing to her.
SPEAKER 03 :
Beans and hush puppies, right, Jim?
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. A traditional meal. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
So we went to visit Myrtle, and as we were walking, getting ready to walk into the room, Jim said to Bobby and me, now, she may not know who you are, so you better be ready for that because some days she’s lucid and some days she’s not.
SPEAKER 04 :
She had Parkinson’s disease. She was in the latter stages of the disease, and she really didn’t know very much at that time. I think two or three days later, she didn’t even know me. So I didn’t expect her to respond to you all at all.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, we came in and you said, do you know Robert and Bobby? And she kidded you. Of course, Myrtle. Yeah, she had a great sense of humor. She did. And like she called you a nut or something for thinking that she wouldn’t know who we were. So we sat down on the bed. We hugged her and sat down on the edge of the bed. In fact, we have a photograph right here in the studio of that very day sitting on the edge of the bed. And so Bobby’s like Johnny. She says, let’s sing. I don’t think of it. Bobby thought of it. She said, let’s sing. Well, we knew that Myrtle loved to sing because we had sung with her before. And so we started to sing. And the first hymn we sang was O Worship the King. Mm-hmm. And Myrtle seemed to know where we were and follow along, but just smiled. She didn’t speak. We got to the fourth verse of O Worship the King. Frail children of dust and feeble as frail, in thee do we trust, nor find thee to fail. Now we’re sitting on the edge of the bed of a very frail woman. But guess what? She sang along. Her lips began to move. And then she didn’t just remember the words, but she sang an alto. She was a great alto. And so we sang. We finished that song in three-part harmony. And boy, that got us rolling. And we sang and sang and sang. And as I recall, you were sitting over.
SPEAKER 04 :
And this is the lady who had not expressed an original thought in probably a year. And here she is singing the fourth verse in perfect. Do you remember how that affected you?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. How did that affect you?
SPEAKER 04 :
I bawled like a baby. That’s what. Do you remember that? I could not get control of myself because I’d heard her sing beautifully like that when I was young and she was much younger.
SPEAKER 02 :
And those tracks in her mind were so deep. The fact that she remembered every word to every hymn after that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, this is what part of our dream for the Worship the King project is that people would take their children And push them ahead 60 or 70 years and realize that what they’re doing is making an investment in their own children so that when their children’s grandchildren are sitting on the edge of the bed, these will be the things that really control their subconscious mind. It’s a powerful and wonderful thing.
SPEAKER 05 :
Or if their child has a disabling injury, such as I had at the age of 17. Dr. Dobson, I was so confused and so despairing and depressed, but the memory of those wonderful texts, such as, “‘Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night.'” Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke the dungeon flamed with light. And just to rehearse a verse of a hymn like that when you’re facing a life of paralysis, it’s the biblical insights, as we’ve shared already, the theological richness of these texts.
SPEAKER 04 :
There is a place for praise choruses, but there’s nothing that will replace what you just sang. That’s right. The incredible theology.
SPEAKER 05 :
That was Charles Wesley. Yes, it was. And you’re right. It’s all theology. And at a time when I was doubting the goodness of God, doubting my salvation, doubting God’s sovereignty, I had a hymn that I could rehearse in my head and sing in the quiet of the night when my roommates were asleep and And I think it was God’s way of taking his gentle hand and impressing those truths deeper and deeper into my heart that made the huge difference. And as Robert has said, that’s our hope for parents, for their children with this project of Worship the King.
SPEAKER 03 :
There wouldn’t have been a Charles Wesley without…
SPEAKER 02 :
Susanna Wesley. That’s right. And what a mother. She had the children. She had 19 children and homeschooled them. And every day she would get up and the kids would start. Before breakfast, they had to sing a psalm. And that’s how the boys started with getting all these beautiful lyrics and meter in their mind. And so the combination of music and lyric… does something, it goes so deep into your heart. It envelops your spirit. And I think if I had two textbooks to give to my children, I would say a Bible and a hymn book. So it’s not just in church to sing these, but to have these for your own personal devotions to take these, as Johnny does, written on a card in front of her all day. I think to take them with you in your purse or your briefcase.
SPEAKER 05 :
When I travel, I memorize my friends who travel with me, whether it’s my husband, Ken, or girlfriends. We pick a hymn for a trip. And when we were in China, we picked, all the way my Savior leads me. What have I to ask beside? And we memorized all four verses. And these Chinese looked at us, some of our Christian friends over there, you people sing a lot. But when we got to the Great Wall of China and my husband, Ken, was lifting me up. I don’t know how many steps, Dr. Dodson. It must have been 120. Dear Ken, he lifted me up to the top of the Great Wall of China. And I’m singing, love lifted me. Love lifted me. And it’s a way of witnessing. We are to be Christians who exude the joy of the Lord Jesus. And little wonder the Bible tells us to have a melody in our hearts when we wake up in the morning, to ask the Lord Jesus to give us one of his melodies to sing throughout the course of the day, that it be the witness, that it be the testimony, that people might look at us and say, something’s awfully different about you. And 1 Corinthians 5.17 says, pray without ceasing. Well, when you’ve got a hymn on your heart, when you’re memorizing scripture, such as Bobby and I were just talking about, it is a way of praying without ceasing. If we can be singing a hymn during the course of the day, we are offering unceasing prayer. And that is so exciting.
SPEAKER 04 :
Johnny, I would think that It Is Well With My Soul would be high on your list of favorite hymns, sitting in a wheelchair since you were a teenager. Does that mean a lot to you?
SPEAKER 05 :
It is well with my soul. The beautiful story behind that hymn, and perhaps quickly you can share it, Bobbi.
SPEAKER 02 :
The man that wrote it had already experienced in Chicago the loss of his business and the loss of his son, and he sent his wife and four children on to Europe. to be a part of Dwight Moody’s crusade and while they were going across another ship hit them and his wife went on and sent a wire to him and said saved alone and he quickly got on another ship and went over and they paused at the place where his four precious daughters had drowned and he wrote it is well with my soul
SPEAKER 06 :
When peace like a river attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll, Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is with my soul it is well with my soul And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight. The clouds be rolled back as a scroll. The trump shall resound and the Lord It is well, it is well, with my soul, with my soul. It is well with my soul.
SPEAKER 04 :
That is beautiful. Isn’t that beautiful? Well, it is well with our souls, isn’t it? There is a place for praise choruses in churches today, certainly, because I know that’s the style of language and music that younger churchgoers typically enjoy. I just hope we can all agree that no matter what style of music we sing, if our heart is focused on God, then we’re on the right track. And I’ve really enjoyed interacting with you all today. In fact, Johnny and Robert and Bobby, I appreciate you being with us today. And I know that you have to leave. But we’re just going to go on talking and singing today. And we’ll record that and let our listeners hear what takes place tomorrow. There’s something good going on here. I’m being ministered to. And if you all don’t mind, we will just continue talking and recording. Again, thanks for being with us today. We’d love to. Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. They’ve been talking about Johnny Robert and Bobby’s book called, Oh, Worship the King, Hymns of Assurance and Praise to Encourage Your Heart. If you’d like to learn more about our special guests or the books they’ve written, go to drjamesdobson.org forward slash family talk. And that’s also where you’ll find the audio for the complete broadcast of today’s program. Well, this coming Thursday is May the 1st. It’s the first Thursday in the month of May, and that means it’s a very special day for our nation, the annual National Day of Prayer. You’ll recall that for 25 years, our own Shirley Dobson served as the chair of the National Day of Prayer and helped to spread the good news of the gospel through prayer on the first Thursday of May for a quarter of a century. In honor of this momentous occasion, I encourage you to download an excellent free resource from the James Dobson Family Institute. that traces America’s rich heritage of prayer from the Continental Congress to today. This beautifully designed guide shares inspiring historical accounts, presidential proclamations, and practical ways to pray effectively for our nation during these challenging times. Go to drjamesdobson.org to download your free copy. And while you’re reading it, you’ll also discover how prayer has shaped America’s history and how you can be a part of this living legacy. To receive your free National Day of Prayer guide, go to drjamesdobson.org and also be on the lookout for a special link for the National Day of Prayer event that will be live streaming on our website this Thursday, May the 1st. Well, that’s all the time we have for today. I’m Roger Marsh, and on behalf of Dr. Dobson and all of us here at the JDFI, thanks so much for listening. Join us again next time as we continue our conversation with Johnny Erickson Tata and Robert and Bobby Wolgamuth right here on Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk. the voice you trust for the family you love. This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
SPEAKER 04 :
This is James Dobson again. As we close today’s program, I just want to thank so many of you out there who make this broadcast possible with your contributions. And I want to tell you how much your generosity is appreciated.
