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

"O that I knew where I might find Him! that I might come even to His seat! I would order my cause before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments." -Job 23:3, 4 [KJV] Was not Job in the same spot where we often are? If this aged patriarch had not known what it was to be shut up in his mind, harassed and distressed, and well-nigh overwhelmed with the attacks of the wicked one, he would not have said, "O that I knew where I might find Him! that I might come even to His seat! I would order my cause before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments." Has that ever been, is it now, the genuine feeling, the real experience of your soul?  Do look into your heart, you that fear God. Do look for a moment, if you have never looked before, at the work of grace (and where are you, if you have never looked at it?) and consider if you know any of these matters. Did you ever, in a feeling of darkness, gloom, bondage, and distress of soul, cry (I do not say the words, it i

"Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, Thou shalt purge them away." -Psalm 65:3 [KJV] My soul, ponder over this important verse. I t is but short, but it is full of precious things. Blessed the man that can, from his heart, make use of what is here said as his own experience! He hath learned much of Christ, that can do so. In a time when a sense of sin abounds, when comforts run low, and the rebellion of the remains of indwelling corruptions riseth high; when the enemy cometh in like a flood, and no answers return from the sanctuary; yea, when the very spirit of prayer fails, and the heaven that is over the head, is as brass, and the earth that is under the feet, is as iron; then to rest simply upon Christ, and to say, "Iniquities prevail against me!" I feel the dreadful consequences of a fallen state; but all those transgressions Jesus will purge them away; though the Canaanites are yet in the land, my almighty Joshua will, by l

Justification of God’s Elect The elect of God all fell in Adam. They must be restored to a right standing before God. So, first in the order of justification is Christ’s death for them. In this way He restored all of the elect of God to a right standing before God by one act at the cross (Romans 3.23-24; 8.33; Titus.3.7) Then is justification by faith.   This is the time when faith corrects the state of the believer so that he begins to walk right before God (Romans 3.28; 5.1; James 2.21-25) So, there are two parts to justification.   First it restores the standing of the elect, and then the state; the position, then the condition.   First He sets our feet upon the Rock, and then He establishes our goings.   Psalm 40:2   "He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock , and established my goings ."