Lord’s Day, Vol. 4 No. 22
(1) Rock of Ages
– In the Fury of a Storm
Augustus Toplady, born in 1740, was converted in a barn in an Irish village at age sixteen after listening to a sermon. He became a minister and editor of The Gospel Magazine.
Toplady was in a field in England in 1776 when suddenly a violent storm broke out. He was far from town and shelter, but saw a large rock and hurried to it to find some relief from the brunt of the storm’s fury. In the rock, he found a crack into which he could fit. He entered it and was sheltered.
While waiting out the storm, Toplady reflected how Christ who is called our Rock of Salvation, was broken that we might find in him shelter from the coming judgment. On a card he found at his feet, he wrote the poem that began with the words, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.”