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

"Old things are passed away."   -II Corinthians 5:17 [KJV] Such is the blessedness of every new creature in Christ. Every believer in Him is a new creature. Mind, St. Paul does not say, Old things are passing away, but are passed away . We are not to understand him in an absolute, but in a qualified sense. For if none were new creatures, till all old things were passed away, we should not find one on this side heaven. Now the year is nearly at an end, do not you find your old corruptions cleaving to you? Yea, the old man still whole and alive in you, just as you did at the beginning of the year, or at the beginning of days, when you first believed on Jesus, and were made a new creature in Him? Do not you also see just the same reason to comply with these exhortations, as at first? “Put off the old man which is corrupt” (Ephesians 4:22.) “Cleanse yourself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit”   (II Corinthians 7:1.)  Why, if so, how can it be said,...

"Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mispeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us." -I  Samuel 7:12 [KJV] Did Samuel do this? Was that servant of the Lord, who lived not to see Christ in the flesh, so full of faith in the coming Saviour, and in the experience of Jehovah's faithfulness in what was past, that he set up his Ebenezer? Surely, my soul, thou wilt blush to be outdone by the prophet, when thou hast not only seen the day of the Son of man completed, but felt His power. Oh my soul, let thine Ebenezer be Jesus! Let the stone thou settest up, be indeed the Rock of Ages. Yes, my soul, set up Jesus indeed, in all places, at all times, upon all occasions. And Oh Lord, do Thou by Thy blessed Spirit set up Thyself in my heart, and enthrone Thyself there, and reign and rule there for ever. Surely, my soul, Jesus is thine every-day Ebenezer; for He doth help, and will help, and be Himself thine help, t...

"A living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious."   -I Peter 2:4 [KJV] Though  "disallowed of men,"  the Lord Jesus Christ is "chosen of God;"  and God, I speak it with reverence, cannot make an unwise choice. To think that, would be to attribute folly to the Most High. He is "chosen of God," because He alone was fitted for the work. It would have crushed an archangel to bear what Jesus bore. No bright angel, nor glorious seraph, no created being, however exalted, could have borne the load of sin; and therefore none but God's own Son, not by office, but by eternal generation, the Son of the Father in truth and love, could bear the weight of imputed sin and guilt. As Hart says, "Such loads of guilt were on Him put, He could but just sustain the weight." But He was "chosen of God" that He might be Zion's Representative, Zion's Sin-bearer, and Zion's glorious Head; that there mi...