Salvation

"In God is my salvation and my glory, the rock of my strength, and my
refuge, is in God." Psalm 62:7

Lo ! where amid appalling dangers dread,

The rock undaunted lifts its welcome head;

Tho ship of commerce gayly sail'd along,

All hands were merry with their evening song;

When lo ! they scud before a sudden blast,

The sails are shiver'd, broken is the mast;

The ship is wreck'd, the storm rolls wildly round,

The sinking sailors have no footing found.

In drowning plight, stunn'd by the wave's rude shock.

The lightning kindly points them to the rock;

The Rock they grasp, and raise themselves on high,

In conscious safety bid the storm pass by.

So when mankind were wreck'd on Eden's shore,

Loud was the tempest, loud the thunder's roar.

Earth, sea, and skies affrighted were, and toss'd,

Tumultuous all. Shall man be saved, or lost?

In that wild ocean of despair and dread,

The Rock of Ages lifts his lofty head;

The sinner, sinking, stunn'd by Sinai's shock,

By Sinai's lightning, now beholds the Rock;

With glad surprise, more clear his moral sight,

He sees besides, a cross of heavenly light;

The Rock he clambers, to the cross he clings,

And saved from danger, of Salvation sings.

       A SHORT time since, and that vessel was sailing calmly and securely over the soft, blue wave. The voice of song arose, and mingled its melodies with the light air around. Home, sweet home, was the theme which gladdened every heart. But ah! thou treacherous sea! Thou deceitful wind! How changed the scene! The voice of song is departed, joy and gladness are no more. Instead of the music of soft symphonies, are heard the clamors of despair, the thunder's mighty roar-old ocean's harsh sounds, and the howling of the storm. The ship is driven fiercely before the gale, sails are rent, one of the masts is gone by the board, ruin steers the ill-fated ship; she strikes upon a reef, the billows roll over her, the crew are washed overboard. Night thickens around with his stormy horrors; manfully the drowning wretches buffet the waves; the lightning flings its lurid glare around, and shows them their awful condition; again it lightens, and they descry a rock, lifting its head above the billows, and promising a place of safety. Hope revives--they swim for the rock, soon "they make it," See! they have got upon it. Now they are safe!

       The vessel, sailing joyfully and securely before the gale began, may represent the safe and happy condition of our first parents before they were assailed by the storms of temptation; the drowning mariners denote the deplorable state of mankind since the fall, who are sinking midst the waves of guilt and wo; the tempest overhead denotes the storm that howls over the head of every sinner, in consequence of the violation of Jehovah's law. Sinai thunders forth its curses, and flashes its lightnings around the sinner's path, in order to show him his weakness, his guilt, and his danger. As the lightning points the drowning sailor to the rock, so the law directs or opens the way to Christ, that the sinner might be justified by faith in the atonement.

       The rock, rising in the troubled ocean, affording a shelter from the shipwreck, represents Christ, the Rock of Ages, who has borne all the fury of the storm for man, and who, by his cross, giveth life and light to a dying world. The penitent sinner, feeling himself sinking in the mighty waters, and tremblingly alive to the dangers of the tempest above, and to the more fearful dangers of the rolling waves beneath, escapes to the Rock, embraces the cross, and is safe, i. e., he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, and is saved.

Jesus, lover of my soul,

Let me to thy bosom fly,

While the nearer waters roll,

While the tempest still is high,

Hide me, O my Savior, hide,

Till the storm of life is past,

Safe into the haven guide,

O receive ray soul at last. 

Third Day "Your Love Oh Lord"