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

"Is the LORD among us or not?"   -Exodus 17:7 [KJV] A very awful question to proceed from the lips of any child of God. What was the cause of it? Why, the Lord tried their faith. That fails them: nature murmurs: the flesh wants gratification: they are athirst: they tempt the Lord: they chide Moses: he is in distress: he cries to the Lord, “What shall I do unto this people? they be ready to stone me.” Mr. Henry judiciously observes here, “They do in effect suppose, that Moses was an impostor: Aaron a deceiver: the pillar of cloud and fire a mere sham and illusion, which had imposed on their senses; that long series of miracles, which had saved, rescued, and fed them, a chain of cheats; and the promise of Canaan, a banter upon them. It was all so, if the Lord was not among them.  Observe, it is a great provocation to God for us to question His presence, providence, or promise; especially for His people to do it, who are so much obliged to trust Him.”    ...

"And God said, Ask what I shall give thee? " -I Kings 3:5 [KJV]   My honoured Lord! may I not, with all humbleness of soul, apply what was here said to Solomon, in the old testament dispensation, as said to all Thy redeemed under the new testament grace? Didst Thou not say, Lord! "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in My name; ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full?"  -John 16:23, 24   I feel encouraged by this saying of my Lord; and I am come up, this evening, to my Lord, to get large supplies of grace, mercy, pardon, peace; yea, Christ Himself, with all His gifts, with all His fulness, and all His blessings. And sure I am, if my Lord will give me as large a hand to receive, as my Lord's hand is to give, I shall have a blessed time of it this evening. My soul, look to it, that thou take with thee all thy wants; yea, come as empty as the poorest beggar that ever appeared i...

"If thou knewest the gift of God, and Who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water." -John 4:10 [KJV] We cannot know the nature, though we may know the necessity, of the gift of God, till we experience its power as revealed and shed abroad in our soul. Then we know some measure of the gift of God when we feel eternal life flowing through our spiritual veins. How do I know I live naturally? Is not my participation of natural life known to me by an internal consciousness that I possess it? I know I live, because I feel that I live. And so, if we have spiritual life, there will be, at times and seasons, an internal consciousness that we have it; we shall feel the spiritual heart beat, and the spiritual lungs breathe, and the spiritual eyes see, and the spiritual ears hear: in a word, we shall be internally conscious of those emotions and sensations which are peculiar to the life of God ...