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

The great and important question for you and me always has been and is now. "How can man be just with God?" I do not deny an interest in the mysteries of providence and the matters of prophecy, but the most important matter to me at all times ­ and it increases as I grow older and approach the day of judgment ­ is, "How can I stand before God justified and accepted?" Woe to the man who shall be weighed and found wanting! "If I justify myself," Job declared, "my own mouth would condemn me." If I say that I am without sin and holy enough for God's fellowship, I would be a liar and make God a liar! But Paul declares "It is God that justifieth." He can, by the substitution and satisfaction of His Son, make the unjust, just and the unclean, clean! He can cover us with a perfect robe of righteousness, so that we are as holy and pure as the Redeemer Himself. And the important thing is that God can justify us in a way that is

"Let him alone, and let him curse; for the LORD hath bidden him. It may be that the LORD will look on mine affliction; and that the LORD will requite me good for his cursing this day." - 2 Samuel 16:11, 12 [KJV] My soul, see here a believer in his best frame. To be sure, it is not always thus with a child of God; but it were to be devoutly desired always thus to be. But while we admire the faith, let us yet more admire and adore Him, and His grace and mercy who gives it. Oh what a blessed state it is to eye the hand of the Lord in every thing. When Shimei thus cursed David, he passeth by the instrument, and recognizeth the hand of the Lord in the appointment. "Let him alone, for the Lord hath bidden him." Sin is at the bottom. The Lord doth not correct for naught. How unjust so ever on the part of man, it is both just and right on the part of God.   And observe, moreover, the comfort he takes to himself out of it. If my God bid my enemy distress me,