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

"A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence." -I Peter 2:8 [KJV] O my Lord! how wonderful is it, that Thy coming should have given such offence to Thy people? The prophet, indeed, said it should be so, and thereby gave one among the many testimonies to Thy character. "He," saith the prophet in Isaiah 8:14,  "that shall be for a sanctuary, shall be but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel." But what was there, my Lord, in Thee, and the gracious purpose for which Thou came, that could have furnished occasion for stumbling? Thy birth, indeed, was humble, Thy life marked with sorrow, Thy death ignominious, and every thing about Thee debased. But under all these things, did not the Godhead burst forth in acts which none but God could perform?  And is the offence of the cross ceased in the present hour? Alas! what multitudes of sinners now, as much as then, still live to despise salvation by Thy blood and righteousn...

"The L ORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty." - Zephaniah 3:17 [KJV] What a mighty God we have to deal with! And what would suit our case but a mighty God? Have we not mighty sins? Have we not mighty trials? Have we not mighty temptations? Have we not mighty foes and mighty fears? And who is to deliver us from all this mighty host except the mighty God? It is not a little God (if I may use the expression) that will do for God's people. They need a mighty God because they are in circumstances where none but a mighty God can interfere in their behalf.   Why, if you did not know feelingly and experimentally your mighty sins, your mighty trials, your mighty temptations, and your mighty fears, you would not want a mighty God. This sense of our weakness and His power, of our misery and His mercy, of our ruin and His recovery, of the aboundings of our sin and the superaboundings of His grace—a feeling sense, I say, of these opposite yet harmonious things brings us to hav...