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

     Now, there may be people on this earth, religious folks, who boast of what they have done for God. There may be. I am sure there are, who boast of what they have done for God. But that is not the song in heaven. The song in heaven is what He did for us, not what we did for Him . There may be folks on this earth who feel like they are due some praise and some credit for their teaching or preaching or giving or their works. But not in glory. Your works might look pretty good down here, but they won’t look too good before God, not compared to Christ’s perfect work, perfect holiness, perfect righteousness, perfect love. Ah, nobody there is talking about what they have done. They are talking about what He did.   “He washed us. He redeemed us.” There may be folks here who feel like they deserve a reward, that they deserve a crown, that they deserve some special attention up there for what they did down here. But nobody up there feels that way. From first...

"Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image."   - Genesis 5:3 [KJV]   Not in the image of God, in which Adam was created, but after the likeness of himself, an apostate spirit, fallen from God, into all the cursed, proud, wrathful tempers of a wicked devil, and all the vile, filthy lusts of a brute beast. Awful difference between God’s creation, and man’s procreation! Where can we turn our eyes, but we see the dreadful effects of it? The Holy Ghost hath left this truth upon record for our instruction.    Consider, (1st.) that we are begotten sinners, not created such by God. David confesseth this: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psalm 51:5.) He does not charge his sinful nature to God, and impiously demand, Why hast Thou made me thus? Ever beware of such doctrines, which have the least tendency to make a holy God the author of sin.    (2d.) See whence you sprung. Boast not of your high bir...

"He shall drink of the brook in the way; therefore shall He lift up the head." -Psalm 110:7 [KJV]   The brook of Kedron was a black brook (for so the word Kedron signifies) into which all the filth from the sacrifices was thrown; it was the brook over which the Son of God passed in the night that He entered the garden of Gethsemane. Now, as the whole Psalm from which this portion is taken, refers to the person of Jesus, nothing can be more plain than that David, by the spirit of prophecy, is here describing the deep sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.   By the expression, drinking of this black brook, it is intended to convey an idea of the "cup of trembling" put into the Lord Jesus' hands, when He sustained all the sins and filth of His people, and in consequence as their surety, all the Father's wrath against sin. Hence the Lord said, "The cup that My Father giveth Me, shall I not drink it?" My soul! pause, and...

"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." -I Timothy 2:5 [KJV]   That He is God, is the very foundation of His salvation; for it is His eternal Godhead that gives virtue, efficacy, and dignity to all that as man He did and suffered for His chosen people. If He were not God, God and man in one glorious Person, what hope would there be for our guilty souls? Could His blood atone for our sins, unless Deity gave it efficacy? Could His righteousness justify our persons, unless Deity imparted merit and value to all the doings and sufferings of His humanity? Could His loving heart sympathise with and deliver us, unless "as God over all,"  He saw and knew all that passes within us, and had all power, as well as all compassion, to exert on our behalf?    We are continually in circumstances where no man can do us the least good, and where we cannot help or deliver ourselves; we are in snares, and cannot break them; we are...