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

"God left him to try him, that He might know all that was in his heart."   -II Chronicles 32:31 [KJV]   Hezekiah was a great and a good man: he had rich experience in divine grace. Still he discovered, that he had a sinful nature, and a deceitful heart. Though an eminent saint of God, yet pride and vain-glory beset him. I have been led to think, there seems a little of the spirit of the pharisee, in his beseeching the Lord to remember how he had walked before Him in truth, with a perfect heart, and done that which was good in His sight (II Kings 20:3.)    At least, some of a self-righteous spirit, have been led to think from hence, that they have had somewhat in themselves whereof to glory. O! if we have walked well, and done well, we need not remind our Lord of it. If the heart be simple with its Saviour, it will not: for it was by His grace we did so. He who gives us grace, can never be unmindful of its effects. We hear of Hezekiah’s sickness—of the Lo...

"A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things." -Ecclesiastes 10:19 [KJV]   What feast is this, which the wise man meant, and the wine which, for true mirth, he would here recommend? He could not mean the laughter of the fool for that, he tells us elsewhere (chapter 7:6) "is as the crackling of thorns under a pot." The drunkard's song is but the mirth of the moment, which, like the burning thorn, may blaze and flash amidst the midnight crew, but suddenly goeth out, and leaves a total darkness.    But if Solomon had an eye to the feast which Jesus hath made in the mountain of the Lord's house "a feast of fat things," where His body broken, and His blood shed, are the food of the table; this indeed is a feast made for real joy of heart, and "wine which cheereth God and man;" Judges 9:13 . When the justice of God drank of this blood of the Lamb, it was satisfied; and when the poor sinne...

"Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear." -I Peter 1:17 [KJV]   Our life here is but a vapour. We are but pilgrims and strangers on this earthly ball, mere sojourners, without fixed or settled habitation, and passing through this world as not our home or resting-place. The apostle, therefore, bids us pass this time, whether long or short, of our earthly sojourn, under the influence and in the exercise of godly fear. We are surrounded with enemies, all seeking, as it were, our life, and therefore we are called upon to move with great caution, knowing how soon we may slip and fall, and thus wound our own consciences, grieve our friends, gratify our enemies, and bring upon ourselves a cloud of darkness which may long hover over our souls.    Our life here below is not one of ease and quiet, but a warfare, a conflict, a race, a wrestling not with flesh and blood alone, but with principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places. We have to d...