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

"Above all, taking the shield of faith." -Ephesians 6:16 [KJV] When Christ has the heart, it will say, If I can see nothing of Christ in the text, that text is nothing to me. Here is a shield of defence. What is it? A mere assent of the mind? A cold consent of the tongue, to some certain propositions? Is this the shield of faith, which will cover my head, and defend my heart in the day of battle? Is it believing a system of doctrines, without having the heart warmed with love, or the life influenced by the power of them, that the apostle exhorts me above all to take? O no, nothing less is this shield of faith than Christ, precious Christ. Never, never have any idea of faith, without including its Author and Object. Otherwise it is a mere non-entity: a notion which has no real existence but in fancy. When we hear people insist, that faith is our righteousness—that faith is imputed to us for righteousness, we are led to think they take up, and are in love with so...

"Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." -Revelation 2:10 [KJV] My soul! thy last evening meditation, by faith, was on Pisgah's top. This evening, do thou attend to what thy Saviour speaks in this scripture of the prospect of a prison. This forms the state and condition of the believer. The transition he is sometimes, and suddenly, called to make, is from the house of feasting to the house of mourning. He is here but in a wilderness at the best; and whatever accommodations he meets with by the way, the apartments of joy and sorrow are both under the same roof, and very often it is but a step from one to the other: yea, sometimes, and not unfrequently, when Jesus hath been feasting with His people, and they with Him, before the cloth hath been taken away, and the bl...

"The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." -Jeremiah 31:3 [KJV] There can be no new thought in the mind of God. New thoughts, new feelings, new plans, new resolutions continually occur to our mind; for ours is but a poor, fallen, fickle, changeable nature. But God has no new thoughts, feelings, plans or resolutions; for if He had He would be a changeable Being, not one great, eternal, unchangeable I Am . All His thoughts, therefore, all His plans, all His ways are like Himself, eternal, infinite, unchanging, and unchangeable. So it is with the love of Christ to the Church. It is eternal, unchanging, unchangeable. And why? Because He loved as God. Never let us lose sight of the glorious Deity of Jesus. He loved her in eternity as the Son of God, prior to His incarnation. That was but the fruit of His love. We can, therefore, assign no beginning to the love of ...

  Cleansed from all Sin by D G Miles McKee     “ The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from  all  sin.” – I John 1:7 [KJV]   This verse tells us that the blood cleanses us, not just from some sin, but “from all sin.” Where is our original sin (Romans 5:12) , the sin received from the Fall of Adam? ---it’s gone! How? The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. Where is our inherited sin, the sin with which we were born (Psalm 51:5) ? It’s gone! How? The blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin! Where is our actual sin, those vile disturbances of filth that erupt from deep within. The penalty for them is gone! How? The blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin. The blood cleanses from all sins, big sins, small sins, sins of commission, sins of omission, deadly sins, sins of lust, sins of adultery, sins of lying, stealing, pride and arrogance--the blood of Jesus cleanses them all. Surely this one verse, (1 John 1:7) when be...

"...and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace."   - Ephesians 6:15 [KJV]   Soldiers of Christ, you are not only commanded to stand against every enemy, but to march on: to follow the Captain of your salvation, in the way to eternal glory . Here you must expect the enemy will strive to retard your march. He will strew the road with difficulties and entanglements—with briers and thorns—make it rugged, and almost impassable, as though every step was upon sharp stones and goading spikes. Your feet must be shod, or you will halt when you should march: turn back when you should go forward. "No one can make a shoe to the creature’s foot, so as he shall go on easy, in a hard way, but Christ. He can do it to the soldier’s full content.    How doth He it? Truly, no other way than underlaying it: or, if you will, lining it with the peace of the gospel . What though the way be set with sharp stones? If this shoe go between the Christian’s foot a...

"The top of Pisgah." -Deuteronomy 34:1 [KJV]   There is somewhat truly interesting in this account of Pisgah, to which Moses ascended before his death. The relation, no doubt, was intended to convey seasonable instruction, of a spiritual nature, to all true believers in Christ, in their Pisgah contemplations of the promised land. My soul! sit down this evening, and see what, under divine teaching, thou canst make of it. Probably thy Lord, thy Jesus, may grant to thy faith, sights yet more glorious than even Moses beheld in open vision, when he went up to Mount Nebo. "The top of Pisgah" afforded to the man of God, a beautiful prospect of Canaan; and as we are told, that "his natural force was not abated, neither his eye become dim;" he might possibly view the boundaries of Israel's dominions; which, in point of extent, reached but little more than fifty miles in one direction, and about three times that length in another.    Indeed, we ...