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

"To them who have obtained like precious faith with us through [ in ] the righteousness of GOD, and [ even ] our Saviour JESUS CHRIST."   -II Peter 1:1 [KJV]   There may be strong faith, where there is no true faith. Persons may pretend to have the assurance of faith—may believe that their sins are forgiven, without one grain of precious faith. Who believes more than a Deist does? He believes he has wisdom to guide, and power to save himself, without either the word, or the grace of God. Who has stronger faith than the self-righteous Pharisee had? He believed he had a right to go to God—to plead his Works before God—and to assure his heart that he was accepted of God. He wanted no righteousness from God.    This is just such a faith, which all unregenerate men have. It is not a precious faith—it is not obtained through the precious righteousness of Christ—it doth not make His glorious person, and everlasting righteousness precious to the heart—it does...

"Jehovah-nissi."   -Exodus 17:15   Jehovah-nissi, is the suitable inscription for every undertaking. The meaning is, "The LORD is my banner." And how blessed is it to set this over us in all the conflicts of our warfare, because it appeals to God, and calls in God to our help in all emergencies. Hence the church cries out, "We will rejoice in Thy salvation, and in the name of our God we wilt set up our banners"   -Psalm 20:5. And how lovely is the church described, when strengthened in the Lord her God, "looking forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners" -Song of Solomon 6:10.   But this inscription hath a yet more special reference to Jesus. The history to which it belongs, gives us an account of Amalek, with whom the Lord declared "he would have war from generation to generation." Now as Joshua was a type of Christ, so Amalek became a type of the devil. There is n...

"Then I said, I am cast out of Thy sight; yet I will look again toward Thy holy temple." -Jonah 2:4 [KJV]   When poor Jonah spake these words he uttered them in the very bitterness of his heart; he felt that he was cast out of God's gracious presence. But he must have known something experimentally of the sweetness of God's manifested presence; he must have tasted that heaven was in it, and that all his happiness centered there. He must have enjoyed this in order to know if God's presence were not felt in the soul, there was but one barren scene of gloom and death; and that to be "cast out of His sight" was the commencement of hell upon earth. Now here a living soul differs from all others, whether dead in sin, or dead in a profession.    The persuasion that in God alone is true happiness; the feeling of misery and dissatisfaction with everything else but the Lord, and everything short of His manifested presence, is that which stamps the r...