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

"For the LORD hath called thee, as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God."   - Isaiah 54:6 [KJV] This was literally fulfilled, when Christ’s church was first gathered to Him in the days of His flesh. Scarcely were the disciples called and married to Christ, the loving Bridegroom, by faith, but He was taken away from them by a sudden and violent death. They were then like a woman, bereaved of her affectionate husband, who mourned and grieved for her great and affecting loss. They were then as a wife of youth, just married, and soon became as widows, whom the world refused and rejected.    But here lay all their comfort of faith, and joy of hope,— the Lord had called them, and He would never forsake them . Though death’s relentless arm snatched Christ from them, yet his power could not hold Him. By His own omnipotent power, Jesus raised Himself; and because of His everlasting love to them, He appeared...

"And it came to pass as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, Oh thou man of God, there is death in the pot ! " -II Kings 4:40 [KJV] It was at a time of great famine, that the prophet Elisha ministered among the sons of the prophets at Gilgal; no wonder, therefore, that their diet was reduced to a dinner of herbs. During the season of persecution in our kingdom, somewhat more than a century and half since, there was a spiritual famine, not of bread or of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord: and so precious was the word of the Lord in those days, that our good old fathers used to remark, "bread and water, with the gospel, was choice fare."     We find, in the household of Elisha, that wild gourds by the ignorance of him that gathered the herbs, were served up in the pottage of the people, which, as soon as they were discovered, occasioned the cry to the prophet, "O thou man of God, there is death in the pot!"...

"But He knoweth the way that I take: when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold."   -Job 23:10 [KJV]   Believer, do you have any burdens, worries, anxieties, concerns or fears? If you're reading these words you do. We may try to convince ourselves or others that we are so spiritually stable, faithful, and grounded that we are beyond the reach of these plagues of the old man. But to you who have been made honest and willingly admit the battle that rages within, remember these words of comfort, "Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you" (I Peter 5:7). -preacher Marvin Stalnaker  

"O Lord, by these things men live; and in all these things is the life of my spirit." -Isaiah 38:16 [KJV] When Hezekiah said, "By these things men live," he meant that by these trials and deliverances, by these sinkings and risings, strippings and clothings, emptyings and fillings, "by these things men," that is, spiritual men, "live." It is a mystery, but a great truth, that just in proportion as we die to the world, to self, to sense, to nature, and to false religion, the more the life of God is strengthened in our conscience. The Lord, perhaps, has taught some of you this truth through great afflictions. But when these trials came upon you at the first, it seemed as though they would entirely overwhelm you; they took away your standing, and it appeared as though they had destroyed your faith and hope. But though these floods of temptation passed over the soul, they swept away nothing but rubbish, which till then was mistaken fo...