HAIL! Sovereign Love; which first began
That scheme to rescue fallen man!
Hail, matchless, free, eternal grace,
Which gave my soul a Hiding Place.
Against the God who built the sky
I fought with hands uplifted high;
Despised the mention of His grace,
Too proud to seek a Hiding Place.
Enwrapt in thick Egyptian night,
And fond of darkness more than light,
Madly I ran the sinful race,
Secure without a Hiding Place.
And thus the eternal counsels ran,
“Almighty Love, arrest that man!”
I felt the arrows of distress,
And found I had no Hiding Place.
Indignant Justice stood in view,
To Sinai’s fiery mount I flew;
But Justice cried with frowning face,
“This mountain is no Hiding Place.”
On Jesus God’s just vengeance fell,
Which would have sunk a world to hell;
He bore it for a sinful race,
And thus became their Hiding Place.
Should sevenfold storms of thunder roll,
And shake this globe from pole to pole,
No thunderbolts shall daunt my face,
For Jesus is my Hiding Place.
A few more rolling suns at most,
Shall land me on fair Canaan’s coast,
Where I shall sing the song of grace,
And see my glorious Hiding Place.
ANDRE.
These lines were written by Major Andre, a few days before he was executed as a spy, during the Revolutionary War in the United States.
Reader, if you cannot from your heart say “Jesus is my Hiding Place,” remember it is your own fault, for He (Jesus) says, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
We must all someday stand before our God, with our sins either on us or washed away through faith in Jesus Christ, who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the cross. Let me ask you in love to your never-dying soul, How will you stand in that all-important day? Now is the day of salvation, God says, NOW.
T. S. E. W.