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

"This is our God for ever, and ever: He will be our guide even unto death." -Psalm 48:14 [KJV] Here is, (1st.) The joyful claim of faith. This God : just as though the sinner saw Him as visible, pointed to Him, and exulted in Him. “Is our God.”  It is our special mercy, we do not serve an unknown God. Our God has manifested Himself to us: is known by us: we have felt His sovereign grace and almighty power within us. Hence, we own Him, come to Him, and rejoice in Him, as our covenant God in Christ.  He came from heaven to earth, to seek and to save us. He has given us hearts to ascend from earth to heaven. There we view our reconciled God and Father, at perfect peace with us; our God Redeemer, ever living to save us; our God and Comforter, winging the joys of salvation into our hearts, and thereby sanctifying us unto eternal glory. “This our God, ever rests in His love to us” (see Zephaniah 3:17.) “He will never turn away from us to do us good” (see Jeremiah...

“And above the firmament, that was over their heads, was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stones and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it."   -Ezekiel 1:26 [KJV] It forms the most satisfying consideration to the breast of the faithful that every event and every providence concerning the people of God is as much directed, arranged, and determined, as the purpose of redemption themselves. The covenant is "a covenant ordered in all things and sure."     He who hath undertaken and completed salvation for them, hath no less secured the means that shall infallibly accomplish the end; and all things, how unpromising soever on the first view, shall work together for good to them that love God . When the Holy Ghost would graciously lead the church into the proper apprehension of this great truth, the prophet is directed to the contemplation of a vision by the river Chebar, which opened befo...

"Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will." -Ephesians 1:11 [KJV]   By these words the apostle brings before our eyes God's omnipotent power as carrying into effectual performance the counsel of His own will towards the objects of His distinguishing favour. An especial blessing is couched in this. Next to a believing view of the purposes of God's grace, and a sweet persuasion of our interest in them, nothing is more strengthening and encouraging than a realising apprehension of the power of God to carry them into full execution.  Feeling, as we do, our own miserable helplessness, sinking under the pressure of our daily weakness, mourning over continual failures, and grieving on account of perpetual backslidings, encompassed by foes, and distressed by fears, how strengthening it is to our faith, thus tried to the utmost, to believe that  He who has purposed has power to perform.   This persuasion of the almighty power of God was the suppo...

  "Grace makes a man a good man, not gifts; a man may have great gifts and not be a good man; grace is useful to a man’s self, gifts are chiefly useful to others; grace makes men fruitful, when gifts leave them barren in the knowledge of Christ; grace is lasting, when gifts fail, and cease and vanish away; grace will abide the fire of persecution, when gifts will not; grace is saving, gifts are not ..." -preacher John Gill, Exposition of the Old & New Testaments , vol. 9, p.408

"Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." -Romans 3:24 [KJV] Who are in this happy state? Men, apostate men! who have alike “sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”  But are impenitent and unbelieving sinners justified? Who will dare assert this? St. Paul fully contradicts it. He expressly says, "The righteousness of God , (that one righteousness which God appoints, accepts and approves) which is by faith of Jesus Christ , (received by that faith, which Jesus is the Author and Finisher of, Hebrews 12:2 .) is unto all, and upon all them who believe."  But unbelievers reject this glorious righteousness of Christ. Therefore, they are not in a state of justification. Doubtless, God hath it in His secret and eternal purposes, to justify all them who shall believe : therefore, He gives them faith in time. Then, what was eternally decreed, effectually takes place in their souls: then, they come as condemned mal...

"Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into Thy lips: therefore God hath blessed Thee for ever." -Psalm 45:2 [KJV] I admire this blessed portion, as well as the method in which the sacred writer hath introduced it. He opens the psalm, professing his design of speaking of the King: but in a moment, as if beholding him, he breaks off, and speaks to him. The verse now quoted contains but three short sentences: but indeed within its bosom, there are folded up as many volumes. For who so fair, so lovely, so engaging, as Jesus? "He is the brightness of His Father's glory, and the express image of His person"  and if all the accomplishments and perfections which can constitute excellency, be among the recommendations of beauty and loveliness; then it will be found, that in the person of Jesus they all centre and shine in one full constellation. Well might the prophet therefore speak of Him in this character: for He is a perfection of lo...

"The king's daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework."   -Psalm 45:13-14 [KJV]   This is a beautiful description of the bridal garments of the Church as the queen. The gold was to be wrought into her clothing, the raiment to be of needlework, intimating that her robe of justifying righteousness was wrought, as it were, as in needlework, stitch by stitch; yet that every thread was embroidered with gold. Here we have the thread of the humanity in union with the gold of Deity, and yet each in such close union that the thread is but one. In gold thread the beauty, the value is in the gold; yet how close the union. Gold by itself could not be made into embroidery.   So Deity cannot suffer, bleed, or die; but humanity can in union with it. Thus, as our blessed Lord went through the whole work which the Father gave Him to do, His Deity, being in union with His obeying, suffering h...

"Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD." -Lamentations 3:40 [KJV] This book is justly styled, the Lamentations. The dear children of God were now in captivity and deep distress. Jeremiah most pathetically enumerates and laments their great calamities. We shall never get out of this book of Lamentations, while in the body. We daily see cause for lamentation, on one account and another: and, indeed, if we did not, it would be a bad sign, that, our eyes were blinded by self-righteous pride, or our hearts hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. “As sorrowing, yet always rejoicing , ”  is the Christian’s motto. Times of calamity, and seasons of distress, call for self-examination and soul-searching. This will keep down murmurings and complaints.  (1st.) Let us search, look for, and enquire after something that may support and comfort us, and teach us to improve our distress. Soul, let thy circumstances be what they may, thy Lord’s advice is ever seasonable...

"He shall not speak of Himself." -John 16:13 [KJV] I have found, in time past, a very great blessedness in this short but sweet account, which Jesus gives of the gracious office of the Holy Ghost; and therefore I would make it the subject of my present evening meditation. I find what the Lord Jesus said concerning the blessed Spirit, in this most delightful part of His divine ministry, to be true. For look wherever I may, through the bible, it is of Jesus only  the Holy Ghost is continually speaking, and not of Himself. And hence, by the way, I learn how to form a most decided testimony of the faithful preachers of the word. For, if God the Holy Ghost, in His glorifying the Lord Jesus, is never found to be speaking but of Jesus; surely all His faithful servants, who act by His authority, and are commissioned and ordained by Him to the work, will never preach themselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. And how blessed is it to be taught of Jesus, by the Holy Ghost!  It is astonish...

"A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident."   -Proverbs 14:16 [KJV]   I believe no living soul can be satisfied with a notional religion: though a miserable backslider, and driven into the fields to feed swine, he cannot feed on their husks, but sighs after the bread of his Father's house. The eyes being enlightened to see the nature of sin, the justice and holiness of God, and the miserable filthiness of self, the quickened soul can find no rest in anything short of a precious discovery of the Lamb of God; and the more that the soul is exercised with trials, difficulties, temptations, doubts, and besetments of various kinds, the more does it feel its need of that blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.   What is a Christian worth without inward trials and exercises? How dead and lifeless are our prayers; how cold and formal when the soul is not kept alive by inward exercises! Where are the sighs, cries,...

"The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against ungodliness and unrighteousness by men."   -Romans 1:18 [KJV] One sin ruined the whole race of Adam. It brought curse and wrath upon every soul of man. Every man that ever lived, that now lives, and that ever shall live upon this earth, is by nature a child of wrath; and the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against his sin, not one soul excepted. How is this wrath revealed?  (1st.) At the giving the holy law on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19.) There the LORD revealed all the terror and glory of His majesty, as the most holy, sin-hating God. O think of the mount that burned with fire! the blackness, darkness, and tempest!—the awful sound of the trumpet!—the terrible voice of words, which they who heard, entreated they should not be spoken any more. And so terrible was the sight, that even Moses said, “I exceedingly fear and quake”   (Hebrews  12:21.) O! think of this; and think not what is called the least sin...

"I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb." -Isaiah 48:8 [KJV] Humbling as the view is, it is profitable to look back, and trace all the way the Lord our God hath brought us, through many a year in the wilderness, to humble us, and to prove us, and to shew us what is in our heart; and this perhaps is the sweetest of all subjects, when the Holy Ghost takes us by the hand, and leads the heart back. Even from the first moment of conversion, to the very moment when taking the review, every step serves to prove what this scripture sets forth, that the Lord knew that His people would deal very treacherously, and be transgressors from the womb. My soul! let thy meditation, this evening, as it concerns thyself be to this amount: Where wert thou, when in a state of unawakened nature, and as all other carnal persons, intent only upon the best means of fulfilling to the desires of the flesh; living without God, and with...

"...and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."   -Ephesians 2:6 [KJV]   There is a distinction between being quickened together with Christ and being raised up together with Him. Is not this true in the experience of God's people? To be quickened into divine life, to be convinced of sin, to have the fear of God planted deeply in the soul, is the commencement of a work of grace . But this is not a deliverance, not a being raised up out of darkness, bondage, doubt, guilt, and fear.  This is not a knowledge of Christ, and the power of His resurrection; this is not a full coming out of the dark and silent tomb into the glorious light and warmth of day. But here is the great blessedness of a mystical union with the Lord Jesus Christ that, as by virtue of interest in Him there is a partaking of the benefit and power of His having been quickened, so there is a partaking in the benefit and power of his having been ra...

"If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." -I Corinthians 15:19 [KJV] Here is a supposition, and a consequence drawn from it. Consider, (1st.) This hope in Christ. It is not common to all men. It is a precious grace of the Holy Spirit. It springs from faith in Christ. It looks to the promises in Christ, and is nourished and supported by them. It is a lively hope. We are “begotten again to it, according to the abundant mercy of God our Father, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”   (I Peter 1:3.) By it, we are made to differ from all other men, who, though they may talk of hope in God, yet have no hope; but are without Christ, and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12.)   Here is the proof of it: “Every man who hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as He is pure”   (I John 3:3.) Mind—Christ is the object of this hope. It is in, or on Christ. The man who is the subject of it, purifies himse...

"And on His head were many crowns." -Revelation 19:12 [KJV] Every view of Jesus is blessed. But there are some views which the heart of a believer finds a peculiar gratification in contemplating. The Holy Ghost hath in this scripture given a very interesting representation of Jesus. Heaven is opened; Jesus appears in His well-known characters, "faithful and true."  A "white horse"  He rides on, to manifest His equity and justice. His vesture is "dipped in blood," to intimate that by blood He hath purchased His kingdom. And His glorious name, "the Word of God , "  is also mentioned to testify the greatness and almightiness of His person.  But amidst these distinguishing characteristics, the coronation of the Lord Jesus is particularly striking. "On His head were many crowns."  The crown of Godhead is His by right, in common with the Father. And the crown of God-man mediator is His also, being His by gift, by purcha...

"And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." -Ephesians 2:1 [KJV]   Death in sin is of course a figure, and must be interpreted as such; for moral death is its meaning, and by moral death we understand the utter absence of everything holy, heavenly, spiritual, and divine; the entire want of participation in, and conformity to the life which God lives as essentially and eternally holy, pure, wise, and good, and for ever dwelling in the glorious light of His own infinite perfections.   To be dead, then, is to have no present part or lot with God; no knowledge of Him, no faith, no trust, no hope in Him; no sense of His presence, no reverence of His terrible Majesty; no desire after Him or inclination toward Him; no trembling at His word, no reliance on His promise, no longing for His grace, no care or concern for His glory. It is to be as a beast before Him, intent like a brute on satisfying the cravings of lust, or the movements of mere anima...