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

"For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." -Galatians 5:17 [KJV] The Holy Spirit is especially tender of His own work upon the soul. He originally formed it; it is His own spiritual offspring; and as a mother watches over her babe, so the blessed Spirit watches over the spirit of His own creating. It is the counterpart of Himself, for it is the spirit that He has raised up in the soul by His own almighty power.  He, therefore, acts upon it, breathes into it fresh life and power, and communicates grace out of the inexhaustible fulness of the Son of God, thus enabling the spirit to breathe and act, struggle and fight against the flesh, so that the latter cannot have all its own way, but must submit and yield.  For the spirit can fight as well as the flesh; can act as well as the flesh; and can desire good as well as the flesh can desire e...

" ..and confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." -Hebrews 11:13 [KJV] O, ye worldly-minded professors, can ye read this without being ashamed and reproved? What will bring a man to this confession? Will sickness, and a near approach to death? O no! Men return from the most dangerous illness, to greater love of the world, and more ardent pursuit after the things of it. Look at a dying worldling. See him, like a drowning man, clinching the faster what he has grasped for his hope and help.  Men not only live fools, but die fools too. Their senses beguile them: their reason befools them: they reject the plainest truths before them. Nothing will kill the love of a bewitching world in a deceitful heart, but the view of heaven by faith. No man will confess himself a stranger to the world, and a pilgrim on the earth, until he sees himself “a fellow-citizen with the saints, and of the household of God.” (Eph. 2:19.)  As we say, we will not quit a certain...

"...renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." -Titus 3:5, 6 [KJV] Precious office of the Spirit! Condescend, great God, to grant it me this morning. Oh, renew my soul with all Thy sweet revivals, after a night of sleep, as Thou renewest the face of the earth. Oh send forth, I beseech Thee, Lord, all Thy graces, as suited to my necessities, and the Redeemer's glory, and let it be most abundantly shed abroad, through all the faculties of my soul, through Jesus Christ my Saviour. Pause, my soul, over the blessed prospect, and having now pleaded in Jesus' name for the mercy, act faith upon thy God in His promises. Is not every morning a renewing of the Holy Ghost? Is it not said concerning the productions of the earth, that God "sendeth forth His Spirit, and they are created, and Thou renewest the face of the earth?"   See what an evidence the earth gives in this lovely season, in the fruits, and pl...

"But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." -Philippians 4:19 [KJV] Oh! if there were no Christ Jesus, there could be no "supply." Howling in hell would our miserable souls be, unless there were a Mediator at the right hand of the Father; a blessed Jesus, full of love, pity, and power, co-equal and co-eternal in His divine nature with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and yet the God-Man, in Whom "it hath pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell."   If there were not such a blessed Mediator at the right hand of God, not one drop of spiritual comfort, not one particle of hope, not one drop of fruit of the Spirit to distinguish us from the damned in hell, would ever be our lot or portion.  Oh! we should never forget the channel through which these mercies come; we should never, for one moment, think that they could come through any other Person or in any other way, than through God's only ...