Have you been "born again"?  If you have, you belong to Christ; but without the new birth you cannot be His.  In whom do you trust?  For those who believe in Jesus are the sons of God.  Whose work are you doing?  You are sure to serve your master, for he whom you serve is thereby owned to be your lord.  What company do you keep?  If you belong to Jesus, you will fraternize with those who wear the livery of the cross.  "Birds of a feather flock together."  What is your conversation?  Is it heavenly, or is it earthly?  What have you learned of your master? - for servants learn much from their masters to whom they are apprenticed.  If you have served your time with Jesus, it will be said of you, as it was of Peter and John, "They took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus." 
                                                                                                                                        C. H. Spurgeon   

     King Henry the Fourth asked the Duke of Alva if he had observed the great eclipse of the sun which had lately happened.
     “No,” said the duke; “I have so much to do on earth, that I have no leisure to look up to heaven.”
     Ah, that this were not true of professors in these days!  It is sad to think how their hearts and time are so taken up with earthly things, that they have no leisure to look after Christ and the things that belong to their everlasting peace.
                                                                                                                                          Thomas Brooks

And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.  Psalms 143:2

A servant is one who obeys the will of another.....There were these four ways in which one might come to be a servant, by birth, by purchase, by conquest, and by voluntary engagement.  Some were servants in one of the ways, and some in another.  There were servants who were born in the master’s house, servants who were bought with the master’s money, servants who were the captives of his sword and bow, and servants who had freely engaged themselves to do his work.... In the case of the believer there is something that is peculiar and remarkable.  He is God’s servant by birth.  But he is more.....he is God’s servant by purchase.  And that is not all: he is God’s servant by conquest.  Yes, and by voluntary engagement too.  He is the servant of God, not in some one of the four ways, but in all of them together.                                                                                                                                                               Andrew Gray   

The natural mind is ever prone to reason, when we ought to believe; to be at work, when we ought to be quiet; to go our own way, when we ought steadily to walk on in God’s ways, however trying to nature......And how does it work, when we thus anticipate God, by going our own way?  We bring, in many instances, guilt on our conscience; but if not, we certainly weaken faith, instead of increasing it; and each time we work thus a deliverance of our own, we find it more and more difficult to trust in God, till at last we give way entirely to our natural fallen reason, and unbelief prevails.  How different if one is enabled to wait God’s own time, and to look alone to him for help and deliverance!  When at last help comes, after many seasons of prayer it may be, and after much exercise of faith and patience it may be, how sweet it is, and what a present recompense does the soul at once receive for trusting in God, and waiting patiently for his deliverance!  Dear Christian reader, if you have never walked in this path of obedience before, do so now, and you will then know experimentally the sweetness of the joy which results from it.
                                                                                                                                    George Mueller

They shall go hindmost with their standards.  Numbers 2:31

The camp of Dan brought up the rear when the armies of Israel were on the march.  The Danites occupied the hindmost place; but what mattered the position, since they were as truly part of the host as were the foremost tribes?  They followed the same fiery cloudy pillar; they ate of the same manna, drank of the same spiritual rock, and journeyed to the same inheritance.  Come, my heart, cheer up, though last and least; it is thy privilege to be in the army, and to fare as they fare who lead the van.  Some one must be hindmost in honor and esteem; some one must do menial work for Jesus, and why should not I?  In a poor village, among an ignorant peasantry, or in a back street among degraded sinners, I will work on, and "go hindmost with my standard."  The Danites occupied a very useful place.  Stragglers have to be picked up upon the march, and lost property has to be gathered from the field.  Fiery spirits may dash forward over untrodden paths to learn fresh truth, and win more souls to Jesus; but some of a more conservative spirit may be well engaged in reminding the Church of her ancient faith, and restoring her fainting sons.  Every position has its duties, and the slowly moving children of God will find their peculiar state, one in which they may be eminently a blessing to the whole host.  The rear guard is a place of danger.  There are foes behind us as well as before us.  Attacks may come from any quarter.  We read that Amalek fell upon Israel, and slew some of the hindmost of them.  The experienced Christian will find much work for his weapons in aiding those poor doubting, desponding, wavering souls, who are hindmost in faith, knowledge, and joy.  These must not be left unaided, and therefore be it the business of well-taught saints to bear their standards among the hindmost.  My soul, do thou tenderly watch to help the hindmost this day.
                                                                                                                                   C. H. Spurgeon

Why should I fear the darkest hour,
Or tremble at the tempter's power?
Jesus vouchsafes to be my tower.

Though hot the fight, why quit the field,
Why must I either flee or yield,
Since Jesus is my mighty shield?

When creature-comforts fade and die,
Worldlings may weep, but why should I?
Jesus still lives, and still is nigh.

Though all the flocks and herds were dead,
My soul a famine need not dread,
For Jesus is my living bread.

I know not what may soon betide,
Or how my wants shall be supplied;
But Jesus knows, and will provide.

Though sin would fill me with distress,
The throne of grace I dare address,
For Jesus is my righteousness.

Though faint my prayers, and cold my love,
My steadfast hope shall not remove
While Jesus intercedes above.

Against me earth and hell combine,
But on my side is power divine;
Jesus is all, and He is mine.
                         John Newton


From a Letter by John Newton dated September of 1776 To a Nobleman

My Lord,
.....He cannot be an unaffected spectator of national sins, nor without apprehension of their deserved consequences; he feels, and almost trembles for others; but he himself dwells under the shadow of the Almighty, in a sanctuary that cannot be forced; and, therefore, should he see the earth shaken, and the mountains cast into the midst of the sea, his heart would not be greatly moved, for God is his refuge,—the Lord reigns!  He sees his Saviour's hand directing every dark appearance, and overruling all to the accomplishment of his own great purposes: this satisfies him; and though the winds and waves should be high, he can venture his own little bark in the storm, for he has an infallible and almighty pilot on board with him.  And indeed, why should he fear when he has nothing to lose?  His best concerns are safe; and other things he holds as gifts from his Lord, to whose call he is ready to resign them in whatever way he pleases; well knowing that creatures and instruments cannot of themselves touch a hair of his head without the Lord's permission, and that if he does permit them, it must be for the best.....
                                                                                                                                  John Newton

     Poems/hymns often record the happiness and sorrows of individuals.  However in the 1800’s Anne Ross Cousin, who was a hymnwriter, was so inspired by the life of Samuel Rutherford that she composed a 19 stanza poem regarding his struggles.  The poem later was shortened to just a few stanzas and is still found in hymnbooks.
     The following is from the book The Story of the Hymns and Tunes by Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth.

     This hymn is biographical, but not autobiographical.  Like the discourses in Herodotus and Plutarch, it is the voice of the dead speaking through the sympathetic genius of the living after long generations.  The strong, stern Calvinist of 1636 in Aberdeen was not a poet, but he bequeathed his spirit and life to the verse of a poet of 1845 in Melrose.  Anne Ross Cousin read his two hundred and twenty letters written during a two years' captivity for his fidelity to the purer faith, and studied his whole history and experience till her soul took his soul's place and felt what he felt.  Her poem of nineteen stanzas (152 lines) is the voice of Rutherford the Covenanter, with the prolixity of his manner and age sweetened by his triumphant piety, and that is why it belongs with the Hymns of Great Witnesses......
     Samuel Rutherford was born in Nisbet Parish, Scotland, in 1600.  His settled ministry was at Anworth, in Galloway—1630-1651—with a break between 1636 and 1638, when Charles I, angered by his anti-prelatical writings, silenced and banished him.   Shut up in Aberdeen, but allowed, like Paul in Rome, to live "in his own hired house" and write letters, he poured out his heart's love in Epistles to his Anworth flock and to the Non-conformists of Scotland.  When his countrymen rose against the attempted imposition of a new holy Romish service-book on their churches, he escaped to his people, and soon after appeared in Edinburgh and signed the covenant with the assembled ministers.  Thirteen years later, after Cromwell's death and the accession of Charles II, the wrath of the prelates fell on him at St. Andrews, where the Presbytery had made him rector of the college.  The King's decree indicted him for treason, stripped him of all his offices, and would have forced him to the block had he not been stricken with his last sickness.  When the officers came to take him he said, "I am summoned before a higher Judge and Judicatory, and I am behooved to attend them."  He died soon after, in the year 1661.

NOTE:  In 1644, Samuel Rutherford wrote the book, LEX REX (Law is King or the Law and the Prince). This book argued for limited government, and limitations on the current idea of the Divine Right of Kings.  However in 1660 when Charles II was declared King, the book was officially burned and in the fall of 1660 Samuel Rutherford found himself confined to his house and facing a charge of high treason before Parliament.  But early in 1661 a serious illness intervened which resulted in the writing of his last will on March 8.  His death on March 29, 1661, took him forever away from banishment, hardships, etc., and brought him at last to Heaven and his Immanuel's land.

Below is the poem in its complete form:

The sands of time are sinking, the dawn of Heaven breaks;
The summer morn I’ve sighed for—the fair, sweet morn awakes:
Dark, dark hath been the midnight, but dayspring is at hand,
And glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

O Christ, He is the fountain, the deep, sweet well of love!
The streams of earth I’ve tasted more deep I’ll drink above:
There to an ocean fullness His mercy doth expand,
And glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

Oh! Well it is forever, Oh! well forevermore,
My nest hung in no forest of all this death doomed shore:
Yea, let the vain world vanish, as from the ship the strand,
While glory—glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

There the Red Rose of Sharon unfolds its heartsome bloom
And fills the air of heaven with ravishing perfume:
Oh! To behold it blossom, while by its fragrance fanned
Where glory—glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

The King there in His beauty, without a veil is seen:
It were a well spent journey, though seven deaths lay between:
The Lamb with His fair army, doth on Mount Zion stand,
And glory—glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

Oft in yon sea beat prison My Lord and I held tryst,
For Anwoth was not heaven, and preaching was not Christ:
And aye, my murkiest storm cloud was by a rainbow spanned,
Caught from the glory dwelling in Immanuel’s land.

But that He built a Heaven of His surpassing love,
A little new Jerusalem, like to the one above,
“Lord take me over the water” hath been my loud demand,
Take me to my love’s own country, unto Immanuel’s land.

But flowers need nights cool darkness, the moonlight and the dew;
So Christ, from one who loved it, His shining oft withdrew:
And then, for cause of absence my troubled soul I scanned
But glory shadeless shineth in Immanuel’s land.

The little birds of Anwoth, I used to count them blessed,
Now, beside happier altars I go to build my nest:
Over these there broods no silence, no graves around them stand,
For glory, deathless, dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

Fair Anwoth by the Solway, to me thou still art dear,
Even from the verge of heaven, I drop for thee a tear.
Oh! If one soul from Anwoth meet me at God’s right hand,
My heaven will be two heavens, in Immanuel’s land.

I’ve wrestled on towards Heaven, against storm and wind and tide,
Now, like a weary traveler that leaneth on his guide,
Amid the shades of evening, while sinks life’s lingering sand,
I hail the glory dawning from Immanuel’s land.

Deep waters crossed life’s pathway, the hedge of thorns was sharp;
Now, these lie all behind me Oh! for a well tuned harp!
Oh! To join hallelujah with yon triumphant band,
Who sing where glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

With mercy and with judgment my web of time He wove,
And aye, the dews of sorrow were lustered with His love;
I’ll bless the hand that guided, I’ll bless the heart that planned
When throned where glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

Soon shall the cup of glory wash down earth’s bitterest woes,
Soon shall the desert briar break into Eden’s rose;
The curse shall change to blessing the name on earth that’s banned
Be graven on the white stone in Immanuel’s land.

O I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved’s mine!
He brings a poor vile sinner into His “house of wine.”
I stand upon His merit—I know no other stand,
Not even where glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

I shall sleep sound in Jesus, filled with His likeness rise,
To love and to adore Him, to see Him with these eyes:
’Tween me and resurrection but Paradise doth stand;
Then—then for glory dwelling in Immanuel’s land.

The Bride eyes not her garment, but her dear Bridegroom’s face;
I will not gaze at glory but on my King of grace.
Not at the crown He giveth but on His pierced hand;
The Lamb is all the glory of Immanuel’s land.

I have borne scorn and hatred, I have borne wrong and shame,
Earth’s proud ones have reproached me for Christ’s thrice blessed Name:
Where God His seal set fairest they’ve stamped the foulest brand,
But judgment shines like noonday in Immanuel’s land.

They’ve summoned me before them, but there I may not come,
My Lord says “Come up hither,” My Lord says “Welcome home!”
My King, at His white throne, my presence doth command
Where glory—glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.
                                                 Anne R. Cousin


Below is how the song frequently is found in hymnbooks:

        The sands of time are sinking,
        The dawn of heaven breaks;
        The summer morn I've sighed for -
        The fair, sweet morn awakes:
        Dark, dark had been the midnight,
        But dayspring is at hand,
        And glory, glory dwelleth
        In Emmanuel's land.

        The King there in His beauty,
        Without a veil is seen:
        It were a well-spent journey,
        Though seven deaths lay between:
        The Lamb with His fair army,
        Doth on Mount Zion stand,
        And glory, glory dwelleth
        In Emmanuel's land.

        O Christ, He is the fountain,
        The deep, sweet well of love!
        The streams on earth I've tasted
        More deep I'll drink above:
        There to an ocean fullness
        His mercy doth expand,
        And glory, glory dwelleth
        In Emmanuel's land.

        The Bride eyes not her garment,
        But her dear Bridegroom's face;
        I will not gaze at glory
        But on my King of grace.
        Not at the crown He giveth
        But on His pierced hand;
        The Lamb is all the glory
        Of Emmanuel's land.

        O I am my Beloved's
        And my Beloved is mine!
        He brings a poor vile sinner
        Into His house of wine.
        I stand upon His merit -
        I know no other stand,
        Not e'en where glory dwelleth
        In Emmanuel's land.
                                                   Anne R. Cousin