About This Website
This website is just a humble blog and I call it humble because nobody knows about it or looks at it. Perhaps some day many people will and hopefully it will stay humble. What is not humble however, is its mission statement:
- The Holy Anchor exists to glorify the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ by exalting Him to the fullest, magnifying His name above all other names, and demonstrating the full richness of God’s grace towards us through Him.
My name is Chuck Larsen and this site and its content is produced and moderated by me. In the past I have written under other names (most recently Poliorketika). There may be other contributors at some point in the future. I will try to be diligent in quoting all sources and giving credit where credit is due. Inspiration for the site name is due largely in part to Tobias Saul, an amazing graphic artist and font creator, and an article by Chad Bird on the 1517.org website entitled What’s An Anchor Doing In The Holy Of Holies? I encourage you to feast your eyes on the former and your soul on the latter.
The article by Chad Bird quotes an old favorite hymn of mine entitled “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less” by Edward Mote. A stanza in that hymn reads as follows:
When darkness veils his lovely face
My Hope is Built on Nothing Less – by Edward Mote
I rest on his unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil.
This veil here refers to the curtain or barrier separating the holy place of the Jewish temple from the most holy place or Holy of Holies. This was the place where God’s glory dwelt. No one was allowed to pass beyond this veil except the High Priest and then only once a year to offer the blood of the sacrifice. It may be difficult to see what any of this has to do with an anchor but there is a passage in the book of Hebrews which reads:
“So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
Hebrews 6:17-20
The hope we have in God through Christ Jesus, a hope grounded in the promises which He swore with an oath, this same hope, is an anchor for our souls. And this anchor is lodged firmly in the Holy of Holies, behind the curtain, in the presence of the glory of God, and it cannot be moved. Regardless of the storms and tempests of life, we are anchored by the blood of Christ to a hope that entered into the most holy place. Another favorite hymn of mine has a stanza which reads:
Though the angry surges roll
My Anchor Holds – by William C. Martin
On my tempest-driven soul,
I am peaceful, for I know,
Wildly though the winds may blow,
I’ve an anchor safe and sure,
That can evermore endure.
In the chorus of Edward Mote’s hymn we sing, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” As the apostle John writes in his first epistle,
“And the world is passing away along with its desires, but he who does the will of God abides forever.”
I John 2:7
What a comfort it is to have an anchor who abides forever! What a tragedy will befall those who seek to anchor themselves to this world and the things of the world. Such things are sinking sand and no anchor will find purchase there.