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

"And they called the name of that place Bochim." -Judges 2:5 [KJV]   Surely it was enough to induce such an effect, when the preaching of an angel informed the people, that the Lord, for their sins, would not drive out their enemies before them. The place might well be called Bochim , and they themselves might hear the name Bochim, weepers . But, my soul, thou hast lately been to a place which is yet more calculated to make it memorable, by weeping, when thou didst attend Jesus at the ordinance of His supper. For there Jesus Himself was, and is, the everlasting Preacher, Who sheweth thee His hands and His side, pierced and streaming with blood, for thy sins. Didst thou not hear Him speak to thee Himself, in His own words, "They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced: and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for  Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born?" Zechariah 12:10 . Didst thou not weep in behol...

"Behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours." - Isaiah 54:11 [KJV] By these "stones," which the Lord has promised to "lay with fair colours," I think we may understand the blessed truths of the gospel which are laid into the soul by the hand of God. The fair colours are deeply ingrained and embedded in the very substance of the stone, not artificially laid on. They are like beautiful marbles, in which every bright hue and vein penetrate into the deepest substance of the material. Such are the truths of God, beautiful throughout, penetrated with grace and glory into their inmost depths.   But these colours are hidden from view till brought out and laid into the soul by the hand of God. However fair or beautiful any word of God be in itself, it only experimentally becomes so as inlaid by His own divine hand into the soul. This brings out the fair colours. How often we read the word of God without seeing the least beauty in it! But let the very same p...