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

"She bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the LORD ." -I Samuel 1:20 [KJV] It is really both blessed and profitable to observe, how holy men of old made memorandums of the Lord's kind dealings with them, as well in providence as grace, by way of preserving alive a due sense of divine mercies upon their souls. A night or two since, the evening portion remarked a beautiful instance of this sort in the case of Hagar: and in the scripture I have brought forth for our present meditation, is another, equally beautiful in the instance of Hannah. In the former, the memorial was set up to perpetuate the place of the Lord's graciousness; in this latter, the dedication is of the person concerning whom divine favour was shewn. But in both, the design is one and the same, to glorify God . I pause by the way, to-remark, how much to be lamented it is, that this truly scriptural and pious custom is so little followed by christians,...

"Thou hast delivered my soul from death." -Psalm 56:13 [KJV] You may have been delivered from death, as much as David was, but not so fully in the assurance of the deliverance. God may have quickened your soul into life divine; He may have communicated His grace to your heart, and yet you have many doubts and fears whether it be a real work of grace upon your soul. It is not every child of God who has been delivered from death by regenerating grace who can use the words with the confidence expressed here: "Thou hast delivered my soul from death." But I will shew you when He can. When God is pleased to bless him with a sense of His pardoning love; when Jesus is revealed to his heart, and manifested with power to his soul; when the blood of sprinkling is applied to purge his conscience from guilt, filth, and dead works, to serve the living God; when the Spirit of adoption is given, and he is enabled to cry, "Abba, Father;"  when he can "r...

"Happy it is for us that God hath taken upon Himself to gather and convert us to His Son. Unless He was the Gatherer, not one of us would ever be gathered.  Free-will never yet led a sinner to Christ; and never will, while the world remains.  We are free enough to depart from God and holiness; but we are not free and desirous to return to Him, and forsake our sins, and be conformed to Him in righteousness, until His grace makes us free in the day of His power upon our hearts.  Free-will has led millions and millions of souls to the place of torment, but it never lifted a single soul to heaven. All the sins that ever were committed were committed by free-will, but it is only the transforming grace of God that inspires and adorns us with the mind that was in Christ."   -preacher Augustus Toplady , ‘The Works of Toplady,’ p.427, Reprint 1853 verbatim of the first edition of his work (1794 A.D.)

"Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." -I Corinthians 13:13 [KJV] It is a pity it was not rendered love, instead of charity, all through this chapter: it certainly would have been a means of preventing much error. Consider, (1st.) The abiding of love. It springs from faith and hope, and has no existence in the heart without them. We have no more love to God, than a beast, yea, than a devil has, till we believe His love to us, and hope in His promises made to us in Christ Jesus. We love Him. Why? Because, merely of the glories and perfections of His nature, is He the object of our supreme love? No, but rather “because He first loved us”   (I John 4:19.) How has God manifested His love to us? In this: “Because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him”   (see verse 9.) But our hearts are strangers to this love, till we believe in Jesus, and hope in His salvation. Then the ...

"Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" -Galatians 3:3 [KJV] While beholding the church of Galatia, which set out upon true gospel principles, and before whose eyes Jesus Christ had been evidently set forth as crucified among them; yet after this, turning aside to seek justification by works; let thine evening meditation, my soul, be directed to this heart-searching inquiry: upon what art thou building thine hopes of salvation? Is it simply on Christ; or art thou mingling with the blood and righteousness of Jesus, somewhat of thine own, by way of justification ? The question is exceedingly important; and the clear answer to it, of the first consequence to thy present peace, and everlasting welfare. See to it then, that there be no reserves, no limitations, nothing to qualify the plain and direct answer to the apostle's words; but that having begun in the Spirit, thou mayest truly say, thou dost not seek to be made perfect by the ...

"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." -Revelation 2:29 [KJV] These words extend the message beyond the church to which they were spoken, and address themselves to every one to whom the word comes, and to whom an ear is given to hear and receive it. Thus each message sent to the churches becomes a message sent personally to us. If we have a spiritually circumcised ear, if we are willing to listen to the voice of the Lord, He speaks to us in every message as personally and as distinctly as He spoke to each individual church. It is indeed an unspeakable blessing to have this ear given to us that we may receive in humility, simplicity, and godly sincerity what the Lord speaks in the word of His grace. It is by His word that He knocks at the door of our hearts; and what a blessing He has pronounced on the man who hears His voice and opens the door when He hears the knock, like a fond and affectionate wife when she hears the knoc...