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

"They shall take to them every man a lamb."   - Exodus 12:3 [KJV]   This was God’s appointed means of salvation, in a night of sore destruction. It was a display of the sovereignty of God, and the obedience of faith. Lord, enable us to bow to the one, and to learn more and more of the other.    Consider, (1st.) The sovereignty of God in His severity upon His enemies, and in His goodness to His people: in destroying all the first-born of the former, and in preserving every one of the latter. And this was in a way appointed by His sovereign mercy. There is no mercy from God to any sinner, but in the way He Himself appoints. This was a lamb. “They shall take to them every man a lamb.” His flesh was to be their food, His blood their salvation. Would not taking the flesh and blood of any other creature have answered the same end? No: To attempt it would have been a direct act of unbelief of God’s word, and disobedience to His will. Such a soul would have bro...

"That thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD." -Deuteronomy 28:58 [KJV]   My soul! Thy morning meditation, in the opening of a new month, was directed to that soul-reviving subject, the contemplation of the name of Jesus. Oh! what rich stores of unknown, unexplored treasures of mercies are folded in that one name of thy Lord! It will serve to heighten thy study yet more, and tend to endear Jesus as increasingly precious, by pondering over what the man of God taught Israel in the solemn words here proposed to thine evening meditation.   Every thing in Jehovah is solemn. His sweetest mercies come to us with great sacredness. It is impossible to receive them but with the lowliest reverence, even when the soul is made blessed in divine favours. We rejoice indeed, but we rejoice with trembling. And the greater the mercies are, the more will the conscious sense of our undeservings humble the soul to the dust before God. The Israelites were t...

"I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you ." -Luke 11:9 [KJV]   Wherever there is true prayer, there is importunity. Wherever the Lord brings trials upon the soul, He pours out upon it the spirit of grace and supplications. He thus encourages and enables the soul to be importunate with Him. The blessings and benefits of perseverance and importunity in prayer the Lord has brought prominently before us in two parables—one, of the man in bed with his children, who would not get up and relieve his friend, but yet was overcome by his importunity; and the other, of the woman, who had a cause at issue, and went before the judge, who feared not God, neither regarded man; yet by her continual going to him, overcame him at last by her importunity (Luke 11:5-8; 18:1-7) .    Thus importunity and perseverance form the very feature of true prayer. If the child of God has a burden—if he is labouring und...