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

“NEVERTHELESS AT THY WORD” The Lord Jesus boarded a boat from which His disciples had been fishing and He instructed them to sail into deeper waters and then cast out their net.  Peter felt obliged to tell the Lord that they had fished all night and had nothing to show for their labors, but then he spoke these words,  “nevertheless  at Thy word  I will let down the net”   (Luke 4:4) .   This is true faith.  There was no evidence to rely upon.  It wasn’t that the disciples saw other fishermen catching fish in the area to which the Lord directed them.  No, there was nothing tangible to depend upon, nothing visible to cause them to think they would catch an abundance of fish.  Merely relying upon the word of the Master, they ventured into deeper water, the net was lowered and a tremendous catch resulted.   Learn this about genuine faith; it hangs upon nothing but the bare Word of God.  True faith needs no ev...

"Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself." -Luke 24:39 [KJV] One Amintos had performed some valiant acts, and lost part of his arm in the field of battle for his country’s good. His brother Aechylus was about to be condemned to die. Amintos came into court, spake not a word, but only lifted up the stump of his arm without a hand: as though he had said, See what I have lost in my country’s cause! His silent oratory prevailed, and saved his brother’s life.  What a much more affecting sight does our dear Lord now present to His disciples! He called upon them, He calls upon us to behold: they, by the eye of sense; we, by the eye of faith. Consider, the reasons for this;  (1st.) To compose and comfort their minds. They were terrified and affrighted. They took him for a spirit. Christ is touched with a feeling of our infirmities. He sympathizes with us in all our troubles. One cause of them is misapprehension of the nature of Christ: we too often forget that...

"And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter."   -Luke 22:61 [KJV] My soul, hath that eye that looked so graciously upon Peter, looked graciously upon thee? Pause and determine the point by the effects. "Peter went out and wept bitterly." Hath such impressions of grace been upon thee, my soul? Hast thou wept over the recollection of sin and a ruined nature, which is continually manifesting itself in the same faithlessness and worthlessness as in the apostle?  Moreover, hast thou ever looked with an eye of faith and love to Jesus? If so, it must be wrought by this eye of Christ upon thee, my soul: for, mark it, we never look to Him with an eye of faith, until Jesus hath first looked on us with an eye of love. If we love Him, it is because He first loved us . Sweet testimony this, if so be thou hast it in thine experience, that He that turned and looked upon Peter, hath looked on thee also. Moreover, any thing short of this glance of Jesus' eye, is sh...

"To see Thy power and Thy glory, so as I have seen Thee in the sanctuary." -Psalm 63:2 [KJV] Every place is "a sanctuary" where God manifests Himself in power and glory to the soul. Moses, doubtless, had often passed by the bush which grew in Horeb; it was but a common hawthorn bush, in no way distinguished from the other bushes of the copse; but on one solemn occasion it was all "in a flame of fire," for "the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire" out of the midst; and though it burnt with fire, it was not consumed.  God being in the bush, the ground round about was holy, and Moses was bidden to put off his shoes from off his feet. Was not this a sanctuary to Moses? It was, for a holy God was there. Thus wherever God manifests Himself, that becomes a sanctuary to a believing soul. We want not places made holy by the ceremonies of man, but places made holy by the presence of God.  Then a stable, a hovel, a hedge, ...