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

"If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf."   -I Peter 4:16 [KJV]   “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch” (Acts 11:26.) It is a blessed name. We ought ever to glory in it, and never be ashamed of it. But the bare name will no more avail us in life, death, and judgment, than to be called rich, while we are feeling the pinching hand of want. Christ signifies anointed. He was anointed to be our Saviour (Acts 10:38.) All who are saved by Him, and come to Him, are His anointed ones. So St. John speaks of all Christ’s living members: “Ye have an unction from the Holy One” (I John 2:20.)    To anoint, is to consecrate and set apart for holy and spiritual purposes. Christians are consecrated and set apart from the rest of the world, to be a people peculiarly devoted to the glory of Jesus. They are the jewels which compose His mediatorial crown. Are you thus highly honoured by the Lord o...

"Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet, that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.—And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth." -Daniel 2:34, 35 [KJV] Ponder well, my soul, this wonderful vision of the heathen king, and mark its several features. If the Lord be about to bless and comfort His people, how often is it done by ways the most opposite and unlikely, according to our apprehension of things! It shall be accomplished, even by their enemies, and they who wish most to afflict them, shall not unfrequently be made the unconscious instruments of doing the very reverse of what they intend; as in the instance before us, to which these words in the writings of the prophet Daniel refer. The church was now in captivity; oppressed, and brought very low: the king, in whose dominions they were in their vassalage, a despotic tyrant, whose word became the chie...

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"   - Romans 8:35 [KJV] Be this never forgotten, that if we have ever been brought near to the Lord Jesus Christ by the actings of living faith, there never can be any final, actual separation from Him. In the darkest moments, in the dreariest hours, under the most painful exercises, the most fiery temptations, there is, as with Jonah in the belly of hell, a looking again toward the holy temple. There is sometimes a sigh, a cry, a groan, a breathing forth of the heart's desire to "know Him, and the power of His resurrection ; "  that He would draw us near unto Himself, and make Himself precious to our souls. And these very cries and sighs, groanings and breathings, all prove that whatever darkness of mind, guilt of conscience, or unbelief we may feel, there is no real separation. It is in grace as it is in nature; the clouds do not blot out the sun; it is still in the sky, though they often intercept his bright rays...