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

  "And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And He was numbered with the transgressors ."   -Mark 15:28 [KJV] Look up, my soul, to the cross, and behold thy Lord hanging with two thieves; yea, in the middle of them, as if the greatest malefactor of the three; and, what is the most awful part of the subject, not only was He thus considered by the Jewish rabble, but as the sinner's representative, Jesus was thus beheld in Jehovah's view; "numbered with the transgressors," and virtually, the great Surety and Sponsor of them all. Pause, my soul, as thou readest this scripture, and as thou beholdest it fulfilled on the cross. Will it not undeniably follow, that if Christ was so reckoned, and so numbered, then must it have been, not for Himself, for He had no sin, but for His people; and if made sin and a curse, surely He hath taken away both sin and the curse, by the sacrifice of Himself, that they might be made the righteousness of God in Him?   There is o...

"I will be as the dew unto Israel."   - Hosea 14:5 [KJV] Sometimes the Lord, without applying His word with any very great and distinguishing power to the heart, makes  His truth to drop  with a measure of sweetness into the soul. This is as rain or dew, according to His own gracious declaration, "My doctrine shall drop as the rain; My speech shall distil as the dew" (Deuteronomy 32:2). The dropping, then, of His doctrine, or, as the word means, His "teaching," as rain, and the distilling of His gracious speech as dew, kindle in the soul a love of the truth, and wherever this is felt there is salvation, for we read of those who perish that "they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved" (II Thessalonians 2:10).   There is a receiving of the truth, and a receiving of the love of the truth. These two things widely differ. To receive the truth will not necessarily save; for many receive the truth who never receive the love of th...