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

"God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ."   -I Thessalonians 5:9 [KJV]   Here is a precious negative, a glorious positive, and happy souls. Lord help us to meditate upon them, to our profit.    (1st.) The negative. “God hath not appointed us to wrath.” St. Paul has in his eye, what our proud nature cannot bear to hear of, the sovereignty of God. It is as though he had said, we are all by nature children of wrath. We have all by practice deserved wrath. Here is myself, the other day I did not know the Son of God, but persecuted Him and His servants. If God had dealt with us according to our just deserts, we should have suffered His eternal wrath in hell. Is your conscience convinced of this? Do your eyes see it? Does your tongue confess this? Does your heart fear this? Rejoice with wonder. That just God, who had a sovereign right, yet will not appoint you to wrath for your sins. If you have trembled under a s...

"By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days."   - Hebrews 11:30 [KJV]   Never, in the annals of mankind, in the history of all wars, is there a parallel instance to be found, of exploits like what the Holy Ghost hath recorded here, of faith. The walls of a city actually fell down at the blasting of rams' horns; and yet not from the blasting of horns, but from faith in the almighty power of God. My soul! let thy meditation, this evening, be directed to the subject, to see whether it will or not, under divine teaching, give strength to the exercise's of thy faith? We find, in the relation given of this memorable siege, that no ramparts were thrown up, no mounds raised, nothing of any human attempt made, either to sap the foundations, or to harass the enemy. The simple process adopted to intimate to the besieged the appearance of war, was an army marching round the walls, once every day, for seven days together.   I ...

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." - Romans 8:1 [KJV] There is not a more blessed declaration than this in the whole word of truth. It is the sweetest note sounded by the gospel trumpet, for it is the very crown of the whole jubilee. Is not condemnation the bitterest drop in the cup of trembling? the most thrilling, piercing note of that terrible trumpet which sounded so long and so loud from Sinai's blazing top that all the people that were in the camp trembled? (Exodus 19:13, 16.) Condemnation is the final execution of God's righteous law, and therefore carries with it all that arms death with its sting and the grave with its terror.    The apprehension of this; the dread and fear of being banished for ever from the presence of God; of being lost, and that without remedy; of sinking under the blazing indignation of Him who is a consuming fire, has filled thousands of hearts with horror. And it must be so as lo...