Thanks for being a Hymnary.org user. You are one of more than 10 million people from 200-plus countries around the world who have benefitted from the Hymnary website in 2024! If you feel moved to support our work today with a gift of any amount and a word of encouragement, we would be grateful.

You can donate online at our secure giving site.

Or, if you'd like to make a gift by check, please make it out to CCEL and mail it to:
Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 3201 Burton Street SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546
And may the promise of Advent be yours this day and always.

Click here to donate to Hymnary.org I have already donated. Please don't show this to me again

Build on the Rock

Representative Text

1 What are you building, brother,
So busily day by day?
Is it a mighty castle of stone?
Is it a house of clay?
Whose is the plan you build on?
What are the stones and lime?
Is it based on the Rock of eternity,
Or the sands of the shores of time?

Chorus:
Then build on the Rock, the Rock that ever stands,
O build on the Rock, and not upon the sands!
You need not fear the storm or the earthquake shock,
You're safe for evermore if you build on the Rock.

2 What are you building, brother,
You work at it ev'ry day;
Something is added, something is changed,
Something is cast away.
Is it a house of pleasure?
Is it a house of sin?
Or a temple divine for the Light of lights
To descend and abide within? [Chorus]

3 Brother, a time is coming,
When all shall be tried by fire;
Storms of the world shall beat on your house,
Winds of a fierce desire.
Then, if you based it wrongly,
Great will the ruin be;
But if built on the firm and unchanging Rock
It will stand for eternity. [Chorus]

4 Build on the Rock, then, brother,
How grandly it towers above!
Piercing the clouds and the starry skies,
Lost in the heights of Love!
Heaven and earth shall perish,
Grow like a garment old;
But the Rock is the same, and it shall not fail,
Thro' the ages of time untold. [Chorus]

Source: Redemption Songs: a choice collection of 1000 hymns and choruses for evangelistic meetings, solo singers, choirs and the home #912

All representative texts • Compare texts^ top

Author: H. Ernest Nichol

H. Ernest Nichol (b. Hull, Yorkshire, England, 1862; d. Skirlaugh, Yorkshire, England, 1926) had begun a study program in civil engineering when he decided to study music instead. In 1888 he received a bachelor's degree in music from Oxford University. Nichol wrote some 130 hymn tunes and texts, many under the pseudonym “Colin Sterne” (derived from his middle and last name); many were first sung at church school programs. Psalter Hymnal Handbook… Go to person page >

^ top

Text Information

First Line: What are you building, brother
Title: Build on the Rock
Author: H. Ernest Nichol
Language: English
Refrain First Line: Then build on the Rock, the Rock that ever stands
Copyright: Public Domain
^ top

Instances

Instances (1 - 1 of 1)
TextPage Scan

Redemption Songs #912

Redemption Songs #912
All instances^ top
Suggestions or corrections? Contact us
It looks like you are using an ad-blocker. Ad revenue helps keep us running. Please consider white-listing Hymnary.org or getting Hymnary Pro to eliminate ads entirely and help support Hymnary.org.