'Twas 'Christ is all in all'

(new article tomorrow) 

A great old hymn from 1873, "Christ is All," includes the stanzas,

1. I saw a martyr at the stake,
   The flames could not his courage shake,
   Nor death his soul appall;
   I asked him whence his strength was giv’n;
   He looked triumphantly to Heav’n,
   And answered, “Christ is all.”
2. I saw the gospel herald go
   To Africa’s sand and Greenland’s snow,
   To save from Satan’s thrall;
   Nor home nor life he counted dear,
   Midst wants and perils owned no fear,
   He felt that “Christ is all.”
3. I dreamed that hoary time had fled,
   And earth and sea gave up their dead,
   A fire dissolved this ball;
   I saw the church’s ransomed throng,
   I heard the burden of their song,
   ’Twas “Christ is all in all.”
4. Psalm 90 begins, [1] LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

[2] Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
[3] Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
[4] For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
[5] Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
[6] In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

" 'Everlasting to everlasting'--what's that?" says Richard Jordan. "Like a weaver's beam. It's like going to sleep, waking up, a third of my day's gone. It's just ffttoo, gone. It's like a flood coming, sweeping it away. Before I can get up, I'm gone.

"It's like grass growing and then, boom, the heat comes and kills it--in a day! That's a strange thing in that illustration. He doesn't even give the grass time to grow in the field for a month. It just sprouts out and then the heat comes and whoosh. He's talking about the brevity of your life.

"Verse 10: [10] The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

"That's where the song 'I'll Fly Away' came from. It's talking about death. That's why we change the words in that song from, 'When I die,' to 'When I rise,' because we don't fly away at death. We think of that song as talking about the resurrection at the Rapture and that doesn't take place at death; that takes place when the Lord comes.

"Verse 12: [12] So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

"We need to count one by one and live every day like it's the last day. That's in essence the issue here. Make everything out of every day you can.

"Verse 13: [13] Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.

"That's that tribulation cry found in Revelation 6: [9] And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:

[10] And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

"Go through all the Book of the Psalms, and if you look for that phrase 'how long' and find the text where it's found, you'll be finding a tribulation Jew, a member of the little flock, crying out to the Lord for deliverance from the tribulation into the kingdom.

"When he says, 'Return, O Lord,' here's the faithful remnant looking for the Lord to come and deliver them. 

" 'How long is it going to go on? Let it repent thee concerning thy servants.' I love that. In Jeremiah 18 they go to the potter's house and the Lord tells Jerry, 'Look at what's going on with the potter. He makes the vessel in his hand and it's marred and he pushes the clay back down and makes another vessel.'

"It's made, it gets marred and then he mends it. He takes that same lump of clay and reshapes it into another vessel. He says, 'That's the way I treat you; the way I treat Israel. If you obey my voice, I'll bless you. If you don't, well then I'll reshape you into a vessel of destruction. But if you come back, I'll reshape you into a vessel of mercy.' That's the illustration Paul uses in Romans 9.

"So when it says, 'Let it repent thee,' in other words, 'You planned wrath but we're going to believe. So change your mind about the destruction. We're returning.'

"Here's what they're crying for; they're asking the Lord to do what He intended to do. Jesus taught His disciples to pray, 'Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.'

"That's in essence what these guys are praying: 'You've got a plan for the earth; bring it on! We want to be a part of it!'

" 'Satisfy us early with thy mercy.' Don't wait! Come on, we're looking for you to come.' "

*****

“Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth,” advises Paul in Colossians 3. “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

“Time is rapidly fading away, the things of the earth and of the natural are sinking out of sight and becoming as shadows," writes Cora Harris MacIlravey in her 1916 commentary on the Song of Solomon. "There is a glory falling upon our union with our Lord, which is shining more brightly as the days go by.

"It seems that there are only a few more mileposts to pass, only a little more time in which to perfect our relation to Him and our separation from all else, and then shall we rise to meet Him in the clouds; and thus be forever with the Lord . . ."

From verse 2:16 (“My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies”), she writes, "Her heart is filled with rest because He is hers; she is apprehending that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate her from the One who died for her, and from His love.

“In deep settled peace, she rests in the assurance that, though she is unworthy and many times unfaithful, He abideth faithful for He cannot deny Himself. As she recalls all He has done for her, she comforts and strengthens herself in Him and His undying love. She rejoices that, whether together or separated, whether seen or unseen, her Beloved is hers and she is His. Literally: ‘My Beloved is for me and I am for Him.’

“There is nothing so precious as to apprehend that our Beloved is ours and we are His. There is such joy and sense of holy possession in the thought that our Beloved is ours. . . He is ours that we may let Him fill our lives and hearts, that we may draw upon His strength at every step. His beauty and attributes are for us that we may put them on. . .

“The bride rejoices not only that her Beloved is hers, but that she is His. She is His because He created her, because He has redeemed her, because He has loved her with an everlasting love . . . 

"She is His to protect and defend. No harm can befall her, no evil can come nigh her when His banner, ‘Love,’ is over her, and marks her out as His own possession. She is His that He may fight her battles; she is His to correct and chasten, to mold and shape; she is His that He may perfect that which concerneth her and make her more than conqueror. 

“Let us lay our wills down at His feet, that His will may more closely encompass us. Let us yield that He may purify and fashion us into His own glorious image. Only as we abandon ourselves to Him without reserve, can we enter into this relationship. . . Every power and every faculty—all, all must be His and for Him alone; for Him to use as He pleases.”