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

  "An altar of earth." -Exodus 20:24 [KJV]  Every thing, and every service, in the old testament dispensation, as well as in the gospel church, points to Christ. Behold, my soul, in the Lord's appointment of "an altar of earth," how jealous the Lord is of His honour. If the altar dedicated to the Lord's service, be of earth, or if it be of stone, there was not to be the least mixture. Nothing hewn, nothing polished by man's art, or man's device; "for if," saith Jehovah, "thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it." Behold, how fully Jesus was preached here! There can be nothing offered to the Lord for His acceptance, but what is the Lord's Jesus is the Father's gift to poor sinners; and when a poor sinner presents before the Father, the Lord Jesus as His whole altar, sacrifice, and offering, He presents to the Father what the Father first presented to Him. If the sinner were to join any thing of his own with t...

"And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried; they shall call on My name, and I will hear them; I will say, It is My people : and they shall say, The L ORD is my God ." - Zechariah 13:9 [KJV] It is a mercy to be in the furnace, and it is a mercy to be brought through it. The Lord's promise to the third part is, that He will bring them through the fire. They must therefore, according to His own word, be put into it, and yet not left in it. It is "through the fire" —right through it from beginning to end, whether it be a long and slow one or short and fierce one. The Lord knows exactly what we can bear, and it is not always the hottest fire which produces the most softening effects. Some metals indeed are so stubborn, and the dross is so deeply engrained into them, that they seem to require a hotter fire than others. But after the law has done its work, and the dross and tin have...