Where shall you find a rock?
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(Samuel Davies, "Jesus Christ, the Only Foundation" 1757)
"The present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men! The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be burned up!" 2 Peter 3:7, 10
The fiery deluge of divine vengeance, which has been gathering and swelling for thousands of years; but has been, as it were, restrained and kept within bounds by divine patience-shall then rise so high as to burst through all restraints, and overwhelm the guilty globe, and turn it into a universal ocean of liquid fire! This resistless torrent shall sweep away all the refuges of lies, and those who trusted in them-into the gulf of remediless destruction!
Well my friends, where shall we find a support to bear us up in this tremendous day? Where shall we find a rock to build upon, that we may be able to stand the shock, and remain safe and unmoved-in the wreck of dissolving worlds? What can uphold us-when this vast machine of our world, formed with so much skill and strength by the hands of a divine Architect, shall be broken up and fall to pieces?
Now, now is the time for us to find the refuge; it will be too late when all created supports are swept away, and this solid globe itself is dissolved beneath our feet into a sea of fire!
And where will you look? Where will you turn? This earth, and all its riches, honors, and pleasures-will prove to be but a quicksand in that day! Your friends and relations, were they ever so great or powerful-can then afford you no support! Therefore, think-where shall you find a rock on which you may build a happiness that will stand the shock in that dreadful day?
Everything else besides Christ . . .
is sliding sand,
is yielding air,
is a breaking bubble!
In that dread day . . .
wealth will prove to be a vain shadow,
honor will prove to be an empty breath,
pleasure will prove to be a delusive dream,
your own righteousness will prove to be a spider's web!
If we rely on these, disappointment and doom are inevitable!
Nothing but Christ, nothing but Christ, can stably support us in that dread day!
"He alone is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress-I will never be shaken!" Psalm 62:2
His righteousness is infinitely perfect, equal to the highest demands of the divine law-and therefore a firm, immovable ground of trust. We may safely venture the weight of our eternal all-upon this rock! It will stand forever, without giving way under the heaviest pressure; without being broken by the most violent shock. Let thousands, let millions, with all the mountainous weight of guilt upon them, build upon this foundation, and they shall never be moved!
The firm foundations, the stately columns, the majestic buildings of Nineveh, Babylon and Persia, and all the magnificent structures of antiquity, though formed of the most durable stone, and promising immortality-are now shattered into ten thousand fragments, or lying in ruinous heaps!
But here in Christ, is a foundation for immortal souls-a foundation that will remain the same to all eternity! His righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, His strength an everlasting strength, and Himself the everlasting Father. He ever lives to make intercession for His people, and therefore he is able to save to the uttermost, to the uttermost point of duration-all who come unto God by Him!
Millions and millions of depraved, wretched, ruined creatures-have always found Him perfectly able, and as perfectly willing . . .
to expiate the most enormous guilt;
to deliver from the most inveterate corruptions;
and to save to the very uttermost!
Ten thousand times ten thousand, have built their hopes upon this rock-and it has never failed so much as one of them! Manasseh, Paul, and Mary Magdalen, and thousands more atrocious sinners-have ventured upon this all-sufficient rock with all their load of sin upon them, and found it able to sustain them!