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

"Only fear the LORD, and serve Him in truth, with all your heart; for consider how great things He hath done for you." -I Samuel 12:24 [KJV] How truly affectionate was this pastoral advice of the prophet to Israel, in the close of recapitulating Israel's history, and God's love over them! My soul! take this portion from Israel's history, and apply it to thine own; for the argument, and the reason upon which the argument is founded, are one and the same; and thou wilt find the same causes, both from interest in Christ and from received mercies from Christ, to form the same conclusion. But at what part of thine history wilt thou begin, or where wilt thou end, in considering what great things thy God, thy Jesus, hath done for thee? Wilt thou open with the consideration of God's mercies towards thee in nature, or providence, or grace? What arithmetic will be competent to score the vast account, even in a thousandth degree, of either of those departme...

"Lead me in Thy truth, and teach me."   - Psalm 25:5 [KJV] What wonderful things does God sometimes shew us in His word! How our eyes sometimes seem to be anointed with eye-salve "to behold wondrous things out of God's law!"   (Psalm 119:18.) Sometimes in reading a chapter we see such beauty, such fulness, such sweetness, such glory in it, that it seems, as it were, to fill our very hearts. And what our souls want (I am sure my soul wants it, and it is my frequent cry to the Lord in secret that I may feel it) is to have this blessed truth taken out of the word of God, and applied to and sealed upon our hearts by the Spirit of God. I want no new revelation. Day by day I seem more satisfied of this, and more established in it—that all saving truth is in the word of God. I seek no visions, I desire no dreams, I want no airy speculations; but when my heart is brought to lie at the footstool of mercy, this seems to be the panting and breathing of my sou...

Plush! by D G Miles McKee   “But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has made us alive together with Christ, (by grace you are saved)."   -Ephesians 2:4-5 [KJV]   In the beginning part of our verse, we are given an amazing picture of God.  We are told that He is rich in mercy.     Rich in mercy?  .....What does that mean? It means, among other things, that the Lord´s mercy is neither meagre nor miserly. Indeed, His supply of mercy is munificent and very generous.  He is rich in mercy. The Greek word for rich in our verse is  plousios  and speaks of wealth and abundance. It is the Greek word from which we get our English word plush.  Literally, the Lord is plush in mercy (we see this in His treatment of the woman caught in adultery, John 8 ). We also see it in David´s repentance after his affair with Bathsheba (Psalm 51:1) Etc, Etc.  He is plush in merc...

"Believe in the LORD your God, so shall ye be established: believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper."   -II Chronicles 20:20 [KJV]   Such was the advice of good old Jehosaphat, in a time of invasion by a powerful army. Precious words! at all times seasonable. What can a child of God desire on this side glory, so much as establishment of mind and prosperity of soul? Both are obtained by faith. As the mind is established, so the soul prospers.    (1st.) What is implied in being established? It is to be fixed and settled in the confidence of our mind, and not to halt between two opinions, as those of old did, between God and an idol (I Kings 18:21.) To halt, is to be lame on both sides. Thus, their minds were in suspense, agitated between two objects, and not steadily fixed upon either. So many sincere souls are tossed to and fro, by every wind of doctrine. They are like children, not steadily fixed in their judgment, nor settled in their confidence in the...

"The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." -I Peter 3:4 [KJV]   My soul! where is this to be had? Hast thou considered it in its importance, or in its attainment; whence it cometh, and on whose account it is given? Sit down, this evening, and ponder over it. What is a meek and quiet spirit, but grace, in all its blessed properties and saving effects, keeping the heart and mind through Christ Jesus?   Now mark some of the many precious things belonging to it. The fountain of it is God; for "every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning , '' James 1:17 . It is also the purchase of Christ's blood, and the fruit of the Holy Ghost; and so infinitely important in its operation, that believers are said thereby "to be made partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in th...

"Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD." -Lamentations 3:39, 40 [KJV]   I believe in my conscience there are thousands of professors who have never known in the whole course of their religious profession what it is to have "searched and tried their ways;" to have been put into the balances and weighed in the scales of divine justice; or to have stood cast and condemned in their own feelings before God as the heart-searching Jehovah. From such a trying test, from such an unerring touchstone they have ever shrunk. And why? Because they have an inward consciousness that their religion will not bear a strict and scrutinizing examination. Like the deceitful tradesman, who allures his customers into a dark corner of his shop, in order to elude detection when he spreads his flimsy, made-up goods before them, so those who have an inward consciousness that their ...