Well, welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history.

Today is December 25, so it's Christmas.

And I thought for our Christmas episode,

we would talk about a great Christmas hymn,

Joy to the world, and about its author, Isaac Watts.

Isaac Watts was born in 1674.

He was born into a family of independence or non-conformists.

We tend to call them Puritans. And these non-conformists, we tend to call them Puritans.

And these non-conformists would not conform to the Church of England,

and this opened them up to persecution. In fact, Isaac Watt's own father

was jailed on two different occasions because of his Puritan beliefs.

Well, Watts was a very smart young man, very gifted young man, and he had hoped to go to

Cambridge or go to Oxford, but because he was a non-conformist, he wasn't allowed to go.

He still made the best of his education, and from an early age he showed that he was quite

poetic. In fact, Isaac Watts did something very

quickly. He turned his whole name into an acrostic poem. Can just read that to you very quickly. He said,

I am a vile polluted lump of earth. S, so I have continued ever since my birth.

A, although Jehovah Grace doth daily give me,

A, as sure this monster Satan will deceive me.

C. Come, therefore, Lord, from Satan's claws relieve me.

W. Wash me in thy blood, O Christ.

A. And Grace divine impart.

...