The Solid Rock - Part 2

The Solid Rock

Vs 1:  My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

Chorus:  On Christ the Solid Rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.

Vs 2:  When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace.  In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.

Vs 3:  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.

Vs. 4:  When He shall come with trumpet sound, O then in Him may I be found!  Dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.

At the end of my last post, I set myself the task of dealing with verse four in this one.

When He shall come with trumpet sound, O then in Him may I be found!  Dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.

Quaker Psalm 15:

Sound, sound abroad you faithful servants of the Lord, witnesses in His name, prophets of the Highest, angels of the Lord!  Sound you all abroad in the world to awaken and raise the dead out of the grave to hear the voice that is living – for the dead have long heard the dead, the blind long wondered among the blind, and the deaf among the deaf.  Therefore, sound sound, you servants, prophets, angels, you trumpets of the Lord that you may awaken the dead, them that are asleep in their graves of sin, death, and hell, sea and earth, who lie in the tombs.  Sound, sound abroad, you trumpets, raise up the dead, that the dead my hear the voice of God’s Son, the second Adam’s voice, the voice of the Light, the Life, the Power, the Truth, the Righteous, the Just.  Sound!  Sound the pleasant melodious sound.  Sound, sound you the trumpets, the pleasant melodious sound abroad, that all the deaf ears may be opened to hear the trumpet’s pleasant sound to judgement and Life, condemnation and Light.  Sound, sound, you trumpets all abroad, you angels of the Lord, sons and daughters, prophets of the Highest, that all that are dead and asleep in the graves, who have long dreamed and slumbered, who long have heard the beast’s voice, may wake and hear the Lamb’s voice, the Bridegroom’s, the bride’s, the great Prophet’s, the great King’s, the great Shepherd’s voice.  Sound, sound it all abroad it all abroad you trumpets among Adam’s dead, for Christ is come, that they might have life, yes have it abundantly.  Awaken the dead, awaken the slumberers, the dreamers, awaken them out of their tombs, sepulchers, seas.  Sound, sound abroad, you trumpets, that they may all hear and they that hear may come to the Life, God’s Son.  He’s risen from the dead.  The grave could not hold him, nor could all the watchers of the earth with all their guards!  Sound, sound you Trumpets of the Lord – to all the seekers of the living among the dead in the graves that the watchers keep -- that He’s risen, He’s not in the grave.  He’s risen!  There’s that under the grave of the watchers of the outward grave which must come to be awakened and come to hear His voice that they might live.  Therefore, sound abroad, you Trumpets of the Lord, that the grave might give up her dead, that hell and the sea might give up their dead and all might come forth to judgement according to their works.  (See Works, volume II, pages 88 and 89).

This is Terry Wallace’s poetic rendering of Fox’s clarion call to those at work in the ministry.  I believe that Edward Mote had two passages of Paul’s epistles in mind when he wrote verse four of the hymn, I Thessalonians 4:13-18 and I Corinthians 15:50-58.  These passages are well known and loved for their promise of the resurrection from the dead.  I think George Fox had these same passages in mind as well.  He saw and we have found that the ministers of the Gospel are the Trumpets calling us out of the graves we and the world have dug that prevent us from hearing and heeding the Voice of the Son. 

The passages from Paul’s epistles are often read in isolation, without heed to his call to come into the Kingdom of the Son and out of the death of sin.  George saw and we have experienced “No Cross; No Crown.”  We would not be among those who thought they were in Christ but rejected (see Mathew 25: 31-46).  This is the storm that destroys the houses not built on heeding the Voice of the Son.  There must be an inward coming from death to life before there can be real hope of an outward. 

“O then in Him may I be found!”  The searing, cleansing, scrubbing work of the Light is to prepare us to be the home of Christ and God.  Just as the outward temple was to be cleansed before God’s spirt would rest there, so must the inward.  The Trumpets herald the coming.  Like Elijah and John they are the voices crying in the wilderness to prepare the Way, that the King of Glory may come in.  He in us and in Him we are found because The Way and the Truth have brought us into the Life and the Life into us.  We hear His voice; it purifies us and dresses us in the white robes of the Saints.  It is His righteousness, not our own.  We can stand before the throne because the throne is set up within and among us.  Christ is come in and we can sit down in the heavenly places for the feast of Truth, Just judgement and boundless Mercy.  So, the One who speaks, is also the Foundation Rock on which the Temple is built, not with human hands but whose Architect and Builder is the Teacher in our midst.