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

" Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light." -Ephesians 5:8 [KJV] Unregenerate persons, raised from indigence (-poverty) to opulence (-riches) , do not love to hear of their pedigree: they see not the hand of the Lord in it. What detracts from their character and merit, hurts them. But disciples of Christ like to hear of, love to look back upon what they were by nature, that they may ascribe fresh praise to the Lord, Who of His mere grace raised their degenerate souls "out of the dust, and lifted the needy from the dunghill, and has set them with the princes of His people , ” (Psalm 113:7, 8.)   We are here reminded, “Ye were” —what? dark, having some glimmering light of God, His truth, His ways, etc. Nay more, darkness itself. Blind to them, as if totally deprived of sight. Ignorant of them as a beast: as dark, respecting them, as we should be of natural objects without the sun. We walked in darkness, and kn...

"Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? But My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit." -Jeremiah 2:11 [KJV] Pause, my soul, over these words! Was it ever known that any nation changed their dunghill gods for others? Such regard had they for whatever ignorance had set up, that the veneration never after ceased. But Israel, above every other nation of the earth, manifested folly, and even exceeded the most senseless and stupid of men. My soul! dost thou not in Israel's folly behold thy own? Was there ever one, when the Lord first called thee, less deserving? A transgressor, as the Lord knew thee, from the womb! And yet this did not prevent the Lord from calling thee. He loved thee because He would love thee; gave thee His Christ, — gave thee His Holy Spirit—gave thee the name, the privilege, the adoption of a son.  What returns hast thou made? How often since hath thy back-slidings, thy coldness, thy departures, been...

"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." -Hebrews 2:14 [KJV] By His sufferings, blood-shedding, and death our gracious Lord not only made a complete atonement for sin, fulfilled every demand of the law, washed His people from all their iniquities in the fountain of His precious blood, and wrought out and brought in a perfect and everlasting righteousness for their justification, but "through death destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." It was by the death of the cross that the gracious Lord "spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it."   It is a point little considered, though one of much importance, that the Lord Jesus had, as if personally, to grapple with and overcome the prince of the power of the air, ...