"Salvation is of the LORD." -Jonah 2:9

"Peter was grieved, because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me ?" -John 21:17 [KJV] Peter had grieved his Lord by three denials of Him. Now his Lord grieves him with three questions, respecting his love to Him. We may often read our sin in our punishment. Peter’s Lord suffered him to fall, to lower his pride and self-confidence. Now He has caused him to descend to the valley of humiliation, He keeps him there.  A little while since, he boasted of his superlative love to Christ, above all the rest of His disciples. “Though all men shall be offended because of Thee, yet will I never be offended—I am ready to go with Thee both into prison and to death—Though I should die with Thee, yet will I not deny thee.” Bold words! who can doubt of the sincerity of Peter’s heart in all this?  Hence learn, (1st.) The warm frames of young converts, are often attended with great self-confidence. There is much of nature’s fire in them. My heart has often rejoiced, and...

"Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?" -Isaiah 21:11 [KJV] While this solemn inquiry may be supposed to have peculiar reference, as addressed to the servants of the Lord, whom He hath set as watchmen upon the walls of Zion, may it not be made personally to every man's bosom also, as it refers to himself? And the repeating of it twice should seem to imply the importance and earnestness with which it should be followed up.  My soul, what is the night with thee? Art thou watching in it more than they that watch for the morning: yea, I say, more than they which watch for the morning? How art thou exercising this watchfulness? Is all safe respecting thine everlasting welfare? Art thou watching the approaches of the enemy?  Art thou watchful in prayer; watchful for the gracious moment of the Spirit's helping thee in prayer; watchful in guiding thee in the exercise of it; watchful of the Lord's gracious answers to prayer; and, like the ...

"Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their distresses." -Psalm 107:6 [KJV] Oh what a mercy it is that there is a God to go to! a God who hears and answers prayer! And what a blessing it is to be able to unbosom before Him the burdened spirit! Observe the words: "Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble." If you have trouble it is a sufficient warrant for you to go to God with it. Do not trouble yourself with the question, whether you are elect or non-elect. God does not put it in that shape, and you need not. The answer will best shew on which side of the line you stand.  Does He not say: "Call upon Mme in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me ? " If you have a day of trouble, you have here a sufficient warrant to call upon God. Write not, then, bitter things against yourself. If you are enabled to sigh and cry unto the Lord there is life in your soul. God has quicken...

  The Gospel and the Believer . Part 5 福音和信徒（之五） D. G. Miles McKee   Just as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous" -Romans 5:19 因一人的悖逆，众人都成为罪人；照样，因一人的顺从，众人也成为义了。（罗马书5:19）   Ruin and redemption were the result of the actions of two men, Adam and Christ. They were our representatives, Strictly speaking, ruin and redemption had nothing to do with our experience! We were neither there in the Garden when Adam ruined us nor were we there at Calvary when Jesus rescued us.   堕落和救赎分别是两个人作为的结果，亚当和基督。他们是我们的替代，严格来讲，堕落和救赎与我们的经历无关！亚当在伊甸园使我们堕落时，我们并不在那里，耶稣在加略山拯救我们时，我们也不在那里。 Christ Jesus is now our new representative man. He is the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45) and the second man (1 Corinthians 15:47). 耶稣基督是我们现在的新代表。祂是末后的亚当（哥林多前书15:45）是第二个人（哥林多前书15:47）。 When Jesus lived and died He did so for us. All that He accomplished is now reckoned to us! What a marvelous inheritance we have in Christ Jesus! Just ...

The Wonderful Name of Jesus. by D G Miles McKee   “…call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins." -Matthew 1:21 [KJV]     Matthew 1:21 is both a promise and a prophecy. It reads,  “ Thou shalt call His name JESUS , for He shall save His people from their sins.”   Notice how Jesus was prophetically named. His name prophesied His future work.  This child would grow up and, by one great redemptive act, save His people from their sins; therefore, a word of prophecy is bound up in the very name of Jesus.    But His name is not only a prophecy, it is also a promise to we who are so ruined outside of Christ that we know we cannot save ourselves.  Listen again to the angel saying,  “He shall save.”   This is a magnificent promise. If He shall and will save us, then we should abandon all our silly and useless efforts to save ourselves!    Notice again how His parents were to,  “Call His name Jes...

"My grace is sufficient for thee."   -II Corinthians 12:9 [KJV] My soul, gather a rich cluster this morning of those precious fruits which hang upon the tree of life—even upon Jesus. Thou wilt find their taste more sweet and pleasant than all the branches of the vine. Consider the fulness in thy Lord. Such a fulness indeed, by virtue of the covenant engagements in Jehovah, is treasured up in Christ, that all the grace every individual of His seed could possibly want in time, and all the glory hereafter—all, all is lodged in Him. What a thought is here! Consider also the freeness of this grace. Never, surely, did God give any gift more free than when He gave His Son. And as the apostle from hence justly reasons: "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"   When, my soul, thou hast feasted thyself upon the fulness and freeness of the fruits of Jesus' salvation, gather a...

"I have remembered Thy name, O LORD, in the night." -Psalm 119:55 [KJV] Consider, Hebrew names express the nature of the things to which they are applied. Whatever name the LORD makes Himself known by to us, is expressive of His nature, and of His covenant love and grace to us. Hence there is no name so sweet to us sinners, as that which He hath assumed, the name JESUS: The Lord, the self-existing Jehovah, Jesus.   All the glorious perfections of wisdom, love, and power, shine with the greatest lustre in that name: the great God, even our Saviour Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13.) All the attributes of Jehovah are magnified and glorified in that precious name. To remember the name of the Lord, is to meditate in faith, upon what He is to us, hath done for us, and hath promised to bestow upon us, as the Lord our Saviour. O what a wide field for meditation is here!  But David remembered the Lord in the night. While others were sleeping, or doing worse, he was meditating: ...

"The sighing of the needy."   -Psalm 12:5 [KJV] The distinguishing mark and character of a needy soul is to be full of needs. Day after day he wants divine realities to be revealed to his soul, to hear the sweet voice of mercy speaking into his heart, as from the lips of God Himself, that he is an accepted child, that he may bathe, as it were, in sweet manifestations of the love and mercy of God.  In the supply of want he believes the marrow of all true religion and vital godliness to consist. So that he cannot take up with his present state of need for religion.  If he is in doubts and fears, or is passing through heavy temptations, and is writing bitter things against himself, he cannot say "this is religion;" but what he wants is something different from what he feels, even the blessed testimonies and manifestations that he is one of the Lord's own dear family; and I am very well assured from soul experience, that nothing but the application of h...

"It is true that the more conscience be enlightened, the more will it discover to us all manner of sins, and rebuke us for them; yet conscience alone will never discover unbelief to us, and convict us of its heinousness— only the immediate light of the Holy Spirit shining in the heart will do that ." -preacher Arthur Pink , Exposition of Hebrews , p.1259

We must never be vague or unclear about the substitutionary death of our Lord Jesus Christ.   To merely say to this religious generation, “Christ died for sinners,” is to dodge the issue and not tell all the truth.  The sacrifice of the Lord Jesus was a victorious death for a particular people.   “Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25) .  “I am the good Shepherd:  the good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep”   (John 10:11) .  Let me be as clear as I can be.  It is blasphemous to say that Christ died for those who will someday perish in their sins.  How demeaning it is to the Savior to insist that He suffered the infinite wrath of God for some people who will themselves also suffer divine wrath.  A just and righteous Judge could not punish any sinner whose sin debt has already been retired by the Lord Jesus Christ .  The Scriptures teach that the design of the LORD from old eternity was T...

"The answer of a good conscience towards God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." -I Peter 3:21 [KJV] The grand business of faith is, to give being and subsistence (- Competent provisions; means of supporting life )   to divine truths in the mind (Hebrews 11:1.) Hence conscience obtains relief and peace, and the soul is made happy.  Consider, (1st.) What is conscience? Science is knowledge. Pre-science is foreknowledge. Conscience is something joined with knowledge . “Some have their conscience defiled” (Titus 1:15.) With what? The guilt of their sins. Some are said, “to be sprinkled from an evil, or guilty conscience" (Hebrews 10:22.) With what? The blood of Christ . Therefore, in respect to a good, or bad conscience, something must be joined with the science or knowledge of the mind to determine it by. In this sense, the word conscience is used in scripture.  Hence, (2d.) We may easily see, what is the answer of a good conscience before God. Join the...

"We, being many, are one body in Christ." -Romans 12:5 [KJV] One of the most delightful of all thoughts, and which when fully enjoyed under the influence of the Holy Ghost, gives an unspeakable felicity (- happiness ) in the heart, is that union and fellowship of Christ with His church. Ponder it, my soul, this morning. All the members of Christ's body are but one body. the apostle saith, in Christ; "and He is the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all."   I would never, if possible, lose sight of this, because in the perfect conviction and assurance of it must be found all our security and joy. And the way by which this blessed truth, under divine teaching, will be kept alive in the soul, is this: I would behold myself, what I am by nature and practice in Adam, and connect with this view what I am by grace and faith in Christ. Now, as Adam was the common head of all his seed in nature, eq...

"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God."   -I John 4:7 [KJV] "Love is of God." I can have no satisfaction, real satisfaction, that I am a partaker of the Spirit and grace of Christ except I feel some measure of the love of God shed abroad in my heart. I may have hopes, expectations, and evidences, fainter or brighter; but I have no sure, clear evidence in my own soul that I have the Spirit and grace of Christ there, except I am blessed with the love of God; for until love comes, there is fear which hath torment. And whilst we have fear which hath torment, there is no being made perfect in love. You have no clear assurance in your own breast that God has loved you with an everlasting love; nor have you any bright testimony that the Spirit of God makes your body His temple until this love comes into your soul. But when the crowning blessing comes of the love of God experimentally fe...

"Saul answered, I am sore distressed, for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me . " -I Samuel 28:15 [KJV] A more awful speech is scarce to be found in the Bible. A more dreadful state a soul cannot be in, on this side of hell. To have potent enemies in battle array: to have the guilt of abominable sins staring one in the face: and to be sensible that the Lord is departed from one, how horrid to think of! O come here, and see the terrible effects of trifling with God, and disobeying His commands!  For we read that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul—that God gave him another heart— that he was turned into another man—and that he prophesied (I Samuel 10:6.) And yet, such was his dreadful conduct, as to bring upon himself such sore distress. How does he act under it? Does he humble himself, as heretofore before the Lord? No.  But he adds this evil to all his abominations. He seeks to the witch of Endor: desires her to raise up Samuel to...

"As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings; so the LORD alone did lead them." -Deuteronomy 32:11-12 [KJV] Here learn a lesson, to form some faint idea how the Lord is unceasingly engaged in taking care of His people. If thy God condescends to represent it by such a similitude, is it not both thy privilege and thy duty to mark the several particulars of such grace and tenderness? The eagle not only possesseth in common with other creatures, the greatest affection for her young, but manifests a vast superiority over every other of the winged tribe in her management of her brood.  She provides for them and protects them, as other birds of the air do; but in educating them, and the method by which she shelters them from danger, here is displayed such superior wisdom and power, as far exceeds whatever we meet with in other creatures. "She stirreth up her nest:" by which ...

"But mine eyes are unto Thee, O GOD the Lord: in Thee is my trust; leave not my soul destitute."   -Psalm 141:8 [KJV] The very cry is a pledge that the Lord will not leave the soul destitute. Strange though it be to us; it is the light that shews darkness; it is life that makes us feel deadness; nay, more, it is fertility and fruitfulness that make us feel barrenness; it is riches that make us feel poverty; it is God's teaching and presence that make us feel destitution.  This very mourning over our barrenness; this very feeling of our inability to do good, is a proof of the life of God in the soul, an evidence of the work of grace in the heart .  "Leave not my soul destitute." This is something genuine; this is heart-work; these are the footsteps of the flock; these are the leadings and teachings of God the Spirit in the hearts of the redeemed. These things are saving; these things will lead the soul to eternal glory. And he that knows any of thes...

"...but ye have not so learned Christ." -Ephesians 4:20 [KJV] Believe, and live as you will. Love, and walk as you please. Will any say, This is fine licentious doctrine? We answer, Such do not know, nor consider the power of faith, nor the influence of Christ’s love. They are strangers to His teaching. Christians are His scholars. Christ is our one Master. He graciously condescends to teach us. He kindly says, “learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29.)   Our grand business is, to sit at His feet. We have no just ideas of the sinfulness of sin, the vileness of our nature, nor the preciousness of His person, but what we learn of Him. Christian, what hast thou learned of Christ this day?  If thou hast not learned somewhat of the heinous nature of sin, so as to abhor it, and of the preciousness of Christ’s person and salvation, so as to cleave to Him, verily, thou hast lost a day. Thou didst not so learn Christ. For this is His word daily to...