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

"He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob, whom He loved. Selah." -Psalm 47:4 [KJV] My soul, to whom, but to the all-lovely and all-loving Jesus, couldest thou have thought this blessed verse referred, even had this little word Selah not been placed at the end, by way of marking the emphasis of the Holy Ghost? Who couldest thou have considered suitable to have chosen the inheritance of His people, but He Who is the Lord of His people, and Himself their inheritance and their portion for ever? It was God thy Father that chose him to be the excellency of Jacob, when He gave Him for a covenant to the people; and when to the infinite mind of Jehovah, this One glorious Person, in the holiness and purity of His nature, came up before Him here, on Him the Lord placed His choice.    And had all His people been present; had it been possible for the whole of the chosen of Zion to have been consulted in the choice, would not every soul have fixed its longing eyes...

"The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." -Ephesians 6:17 [KJV] There is only one weapon whereby we can fight Satan to any purpose, and that is the word of God . But observe, that it must not be merely the letter of the word. It must be the "sword of the Spirit , " and therefore a spiritual sword, which can only be taken in hand when the word of God is applied with a divine power to your heart, and you have a living faith in it as made "life and spirit" to your soul. It is of no use my bringing forward a text to resist a temptation of Satan, unless I can make that text my own; in other words, unless I can handle that sword as one who knows how to wield it. To take up a text and not know the sweetness and power of it, would be like a child taking up a warrior's sword without having the warrior's hand. He might play with the sword, but what is the sword of a giant in the hand of a child?    The sword of Scander-Beg, a famous Albanian wa...