On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand

The Apostle Paul, alluding to our celebrated boulder says, “That Rock was Christ,” and he calls it “that spiritual Rock that followed them,” and of which they “drank.” A more perfect description of Christ’s immutable character, His life giving and cleansing efficacy, His overshadowing and comforting grace, His offensive and defensive impregnability, His saving and sanctifying power, cannot be formed in words. He is our “munitions of rocks,” our Fortress and Refuge; “the Rock that is higher than I,” the “great Rock in a weary land,” “the Rock of Ages cleft for me,” and out of whose pierced side flowed the fountain of blood and water, in which we wash, and drink. It is our life and cleansing power. Augustus Montague Toplady writes, Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee and Edward Mote, On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.

Like the thunder and lighting of the centuries have played in harmless fury about the summit of Mont Blanc, so unfaithfulness fights against Christ. There are no forces enough in nature combined, unless supernaturally employed, to knock down the peak of Chimborazo; and no powers of earth and hell united can chip a fragment from the Rock of Ages.

The storms have raged for eons of untold tumult and opposition but the hills and mountains remain with unshaken confidence. The clouds and tempest come and go, but there they stand in majestic defiance; so it is with Christ, the eternal Rock, who remains grander and loftier from every conflict with error and falsehood. Who ever fought God and prospered?

Christ stands before His church and His people in the progressive, resistless, and immutable march of Truth eternal, and the house of God, regardless of its faults and malfunctions, can never fall nor fail in His overshadowing power.

The preacher preaching the simple and powerful assertion of the gospel is its best defense against the world. Let the light shine, let the Sun of righteousness beam out in full-orbed glory, and the moles and bats of unbelief will hide away into the friendly atmosphere of their midnight habitation and associations. Preach the word and practice the life and wear the character of Christ, and there will be but little need for airing the unfaithful. Let the Son shine, and the plants and flowers of Christianity will spring up, bloom, and grow in spite of all the dark clouds and storms of infidelity and atheism and agnosticism and all other “isms.” Trust God and be guided by His wisdom.

There are two kinds of leadership not of God. Those who fanatically imagine God could not get along without them and those who wrap themselves up in a bundle of eccentricities in the name of Jesus and set out to build for themselves. I believe the true leader, raised up by God, is the greatest, when he or she is least and becomes the servant of all. True leaders, like Paul, are servants of Christ and servants of humanity for Christ sake.

We thank God that the Rock will stand regardless of whoever presumptuously opposes or defends it, and it will stand whether it have any defense or not, against all the opposition of this world.

“How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up? For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.” Deuteronomy 32:30-31.

There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God. 1 Samuel 2:2.

He is the “Rock of our salvation” and of our “defense,” and while we do stand up for the Rock in offense and defense, yet we need more the protection of our Rock than the Rock need us. In our defense of the Rock, we know that we are sheltered in Him as our strong tower and fortress, and we realize that our defense results from the very protection by which we are sheltered from the darts of the enemy. We stand up for Jesus by standing in with Jesus, and if we ever imagine that we are standing up for Him, independent of His defense, we become as foolish as the a small child trying to move a huge boulder.

What the enemies of Christians do not realize is that this Rock is a Rock of offense. Jesus tell us that whosoever stumbles or falls upon this Rock shall be broken to pieces, and upon whomsoever this Rock shall fall he shall be ground into powder. “He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.” Matthew 21:44. What a terrible and awful catastrophe to a lost and ruined soul. The evil shall call, in that great and notable day, for the rocks of the hills and mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the face of an avenging God. These rocks will not answer their call, and even if they did, they could not hide the sinner from God’s all burning eye. There is a Rock, that will fall upon them, not to hide them, but to crush.

We have seen people crushed in this life. We have seen melancholy and woe settle down upon the unfortunate, the discouraged, and the hopeless; but we can have no conception of the crushing wretchedness and despair of lost souls in punishment.

And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? Revelation 6:16-17.

The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. Revelation 14:10.

Nothing is as offensive as human love misused and abused, and nothing can be so fatal and damning as divine love and mercy trampled on through life and finally and forever spurned by the impenitent and unbelieving sinner. Think of God’s last overture rejected, His last loving appeal scorned, His last cry of mercy unheeded. Then comes the wrath of the Lamb. Then come the crushing fall of the mighty Rock of Ages that will grind to powder every enemy of the cross.

The Solid Rock

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness seems to hide His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my Hope and Stay.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh may I then in Him be found.
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

Edward Mote

On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.