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

  Begin, my tongue, some heavenly theme And speak some boundless thing The mighty works and mightier NAME   Of our eternal King. Tell of His wondrous faithfulness And sound His Name abroad Sing the sweet promise of His grace And our Redeeming Lord. Proclaim salvation from the Lord For sinful, dying men His hand has writ the Holy Word With an immortal pen. Oh might I hear Thy heavenly tongue But whisper, “Thou art Mine!” Those precious words would raise my song To notes almost divine!     -Gospel hymn, “According to Thy Gracious Word”     *****   “And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offense of the cross ceased.”   - Galatians 5:11 [KJV]   And what is the preaching of circumcision?   The preaching of anything you must do before you can be saved.   As long as circumcision is preached, there will be no persecution.   If someone would say I preach circumcision, why am I still ...

"She said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table ."   -Matthew 15:27 [KJV] Here is blessed reasoning. It produced admiration in the Lord: “O woman, great is thy faith!” It obtained a free grace grant from Him also: “Be it unto thee, even as thou wilt.” Great faith! How does it appear? We do not find she came to Christ in full assurance of faith; saying, I know Thou art my Saviour, I am assured Thou hast loved me, and wilt save me. No. Still there was great faith without this. Look at her faith. Imitate it. She honoured the Lord by it. He honours her for it.    (1st.) She was in trouble: she flies instantly to Christ. She tells Him of her sorrows. “Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.” To cry to Jesus for mercy, under a sense of being vexed with a devil, is the prayer of faith, and honours the Lord of glory.    (2d.) Here are great discouragements. Christ answers her not a wor...

"And have been all made to drink into one Spirit." -I Corinthians 12:13 [KJV] What a most lovely and endearing representation is here given of the several members of Christ's mystical body, as all united to their one glorious and common Head, and, like so many branches of the vine, deriving every thing of life, and grace, and fruitfulness, from Him! "They have been all made to drink into one Spirit." Yes; the Lord the Spirit, the Holy Ghost the Comforter, whose gracious influence first unites them to Jesus, unites them also, in Him, to one another. Hence, though distant and remote from each other; divided and separated by distant climes, and countries, and languages; though unknown by face to each other, yea, in language, and manners, and customs wholly dissimilar; and of different degrees of knowledge, and apprehension, and attainment in the divine life; yet, from being one with Christ, they are also one with each other, and "are members of His body, of ...

"A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished." -Proverbs 22:3 [KJV]   Noah, warned of God, prepared an ark to the saving of his house. Lot, admonished by the angels, fled out of Sodom. So there is a fleeing from the wrath to come. How careless, how secure, and unconcerned are we till quickened with spiritual life! Solomon speaks of those who sleep on the top of a mast, where one jerk of the wave, or one turn of the sleeper may precipitate him into the boiling ocean. God's anger is gathering against a wicked world.    Who will escape this fearful storm of eternal, unmitigated wrath? Those who flee to Jesus. Who flee to Jesus? Those only who feel their need of Him. How are they made to feel their need of him? By the flashes of God's anger. Whence issue these flashes? Out of the thunder cloud of God's holy law—the revelation which He has made of His anger against transgressors. How necessary then to feel the applica...