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

"And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled." -Acts 4:31 [KJV]  Think, my soul, what a blessed testimony this must have been, in confirmation to the disciples, that their God was a prayer-hearing, and a prayer-answering God! And what a full reply to all they had been praying for! The enemies of God, and of His Christ, had threatened the poor disciples what they would do to them, if they persisted in preaching Jesus to the people. The purport, therefore, of the apostles prayer was, not that the Lord would stop their malice, and silence all their opposition: this they sought not to avoid. But the single prayer was, that their souls might be animated to go on, let the malice of their foes manifest itself as it might. In answer, "the place is shaken." As if the Lord had said, "He that shakes the place, can make your enemies hearts tremble." And so it proved.   Now, my soul, take thine improvement from it. Jesus sees all, knows ...

"Peace, peace to him that is far off." - Isaiah 57:19 [KJV] Far off! What means that? It means that the soul passing through that experience is separated, in its feelings, and at an infinite distance from God. Now this inward sense of    being "far off" is one of the most painful feelings that a quickened soul can experience. The ungodly, who are really afar off, know nothing experimentally of distance from God, for they have never been brought spiritually near. They have felt no "cords of love, no bands of a man" drawing them with sweet attraction to the throne of the most High; they have never sighed after the sweet manifestations of God's mercy and love; but they live gladly, and wallow wilfully in those things which separate the soul from its Maker.   But those who are "afar off" in their feelings, are such as have seen something of the beauty of the Lord, and felt the evil of sin, who spiritually know Jehovah's purity and the creat...