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

"Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be?"   -II Kings 7:2 [KJV] This is a daring reply to, “Thus saith the LORD!” The word of the Lord promises, by a great plenty, instantly to relieve His people from a great famine. Doubtless, with a witty sneer, this great peer of the earth uttered this reply to Elisha, as though he had said, “Behold, ye people, do not mind what this mad fellow says; use your reason; judge of the nature of things by your senses: do you think God will make windows in heaven, to pour down corn for you? there is no other possible way for such a supply as Elisha talks of.” Thus, with an imperious air he insults the prophet, and exalts his carnal reason and unbelief against the Lord’s word of promise. Today, he prides himself in his wisdom; to-morrow, he perishes, and is trod under foot, as an unbelieving fool. Here, see the cursed nature of carnal reason; here, Behold the dreadful evil of rejecting the word of the Lo...

" And he was sore athirst, and called on the LORD, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of Thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?" -Judges 15:18 [KJV] Here is a sweet thought, my soul, suggested in these words of Samson, and wilt thou not hope that the Holy Ghost may make it blessed to thy evening meditation? The Lord had wrought a great deliverance for Samson, in the discomfiture of his enemies: and now on a renewed pressing occasion, he makes this the plea of looking up for being again delivered. "Thou hast given," saith he,  "this great deliverance into the hand of Thy servant, and shall I now die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?" As if he had said, "Shall my God cease to be God; or shall I now want His help, who hath always helped me in what has passed? Hath He begun to deliver; and will He now cease to do so?" Pause, my soul! ...

"In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins." -Colossians 1:14 [KJV] Of all spiritual blessings made known to the soul by the power of God "a knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins"  is the hardest to be obtained, and most prized when got. How many poor tried, exercised, distressed souls are at this very moment sighing and crying for the manifestation of this one blessing. These well know, and some of them by the painful experience of many years' hard bondage and travail, how hard it is to get forgiveness sealed on their heart. Not that it is really hard on the part of God now to forgive, that is, in experimental manifestation; for it is already done to and for all the elect of God: "And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses" (Colossians 2:13) ; and again, "In whom we have"  (not "sha...