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

" Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear, and your souls shall live." -Isaiah 55:3 [KJV] Some cannot bear exhortations to be used, either to saints or sinners. O, dear! they sound so legal in their ears, they are quite disgusted with them. But why? Truly, such are wise above what is written; and they proclaim their folly in condemning the conduct of Christ, and His Spirit in the prophets and apostles. They have most need of exhortations, who see least cause for them: be not high-minded, but fear .  A Chinese philosopher asserted, that a man had three ears: one differed from those two which are seen. This was counted a great absurdity. But it holds true in a spiritual sense; for naturally we have ears, but hear not. “The hearing ear, the L ORD hath made” (Proverbs 20:12.) This Christ calls for: “Incline your ear.” Act as sentenced rebels and condemned malefactors; be all ear to a sound of mercy, and a proclamation of a reprieve, from Me.   Though your heart...

"Being in an agony ." -Luke 22:44 [KJV] My soul, art thou still in Gethsemane? Look at Jesus once more; behold Him in His agony; view Him in His bloody sweat, in a night of cold, and in the open air, when we are told the servants, in the high priest's hall, were obliged to make a fire of coals to warm themselves. In such a night was thy Jesus, from the extremity of anguish in His soul, by reason of thy sins, made to sweat great drops of blood. Look at the Lord in this situation; and as the prophet, by vision, beheld Him coming up with His dyed garments, as One that had trodden the wine fat; so do thou, by faith, behold Him in His bloody sweat; when, from treading the winepress of the wrath of God, under the heavy load of the world's guilt, His whole raiment was stained with blood. Sin first made man to sweat: and Jesus, though He knew no sin, yet taking out the curse of it for His people, is made to sweat blood. Oh Thou meek and holy Lamb of God! Methink...

"And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: BUT THE SON ABIDETH EVER." -John 8:35 [KJV] It is the irreversible blessing of a son, that he is never to be turned out of the house, that the union between the Parent and the child can never be broken, but that he is to reign with Christ through the ages of one everlasting day. This is a sweet consolation to God's family that "the Son abideth ever." How often is a child of God exercised, whether he shall abide for ever, whether he may not draw back to perdition, whether some temptation may not overtake him whereby it shall be made manifest that he is nothing but a deceiver and deceived! But the Lord Himself says, "the Son abideth ever;" let him be but a babe, let him have but the first beginning of spiritual life in his soul, he "abideth ever;" he has the same interest in the affections of the Father, is a fellow-heir with Christ, and has a title to the same inheritance as t...