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

"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." -M ATTHEW 26:41 [KJV] Why is flesh so weak? Because it is fallen, because it is sinful, because it has an alliance with the temptation which is presented to it. It is weak against temptation for the same reason that a man who loves strong drink is weak against the offered dram. If we had no inward lusting after evil, no pride, no rebelliousness, no fallen nature, no carnal mind, no vile affections, nothing in us earthly, sensual, or devilish, need we fear temptation? No; for then we should be proof against it; it would be like dipping a match in water. Here our weakness lies. If we could always resist we should conquer, but resist we cannot, except by the special power of God . This is a lesson we all need to learn. The weakness of the flesh manifests itself continually in compliance, in nonresistance, in giving way, in yielding, often almost without a struggle, nay, sometimes in acting a worse and more wic...

Jesus Christ is a Christian’s "all in all" [COLOSSIANS 3:11 ] . Jesus Christ is "all in all" in election [EPHESIANS 1:4 ] . He has "chosen us in Him , " as our Head. The free grace and love of God is the head of election. God did, therefore, choose us, because He did love us; and He did therefore love us, because He would love us. No other reason can be given [DEUTERONOMY 7:7-8 ] . But the Head of the elect is Christ. God the Father gave them to Him to be His body, and Him to them to be their Head. Except for Christ and His undertaking for us, there had been no such thing as electing of us. - Gospel report by preacher Phillip Henry (1631–1696 A.D.)

    Judge the awfulness of sin by the punishment required to remove it. We know that a just God would never require an unfair payment for sin. His justice would not demand more, nor settle for less, than the price required to remove it. Behold the cross of Calvary. See who is fastened to the cursed tree. It is the Lord’s Anointed, the holy, spotless, eternal Son of God. Why does He hang there? Why does He suffer so? Why does He cry out, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Why does He die? It is because He bore the sins of His own people on the cross, and since a holy God demands satisfaction for crimes against Him, Christ must suffer, bleed and die as the Substitute for sinners. "God spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all" [ROMANS 8:32 ] . Learn then the awfulness of sin by the payment required to put it away. "Christ died for our sins" [I CORINTHIANS 15:3 ] . Let me weep over my sin that caused His grief and let me rejoi...

"A time to weep, and a time to laugh." -ECCLESIASTES 3:4 [KJV] Does a man only weep once in his life? Does not the time of weeping run, more or less, through a Christian's life? Does not mourning run parallel with his existence in this tabernacle of clay? for "man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards." Then "a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up" must run parallel with a Christian's life, just as much as "a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance." Living souls will know many times to weep; they will have often to sigh and cry over their base hearts; to mourn with tears of godly sorrow their backslidings from God; to weep over their broken idols, faded hopes, and marred prospects; to weep at having so grieved the Spirit of God by their disobedience, carnality, and worldliness; to be melted into contrition at the feet of a dying Lord, so...

Every child of God is a prodigal and a rebel by birth, by nature and by works. All, apart from restraining grace, will in their rebellion go as far as they can from the Father’s house. They will associate with and join themselves with the very children of the evil one. They will indulge every appetite of the flesh till they are left in such a state so as to be abandoned by the very ones who helped them get in that state. They will spend all, every bit of health, mind, talent, and every resource in self-gratification. They will waste all their substance on what the world calls “living.” They will wallow in the pig sties of this world (both religious and irreligious), eat its filthiest fare ( believe its false gospels and swallow the doctrines of men with ease ) and be found in the bondage, captivity and slavery of the devil (especially legalistic, works religion). Yet, there is one thing they will never do. They will never cease to be God’s sons. They will never fall t...

"It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the L ORD ." - LAMENTATIONS 3:26 [KJV] The Lord does not bring His poor and needy children to a throne of grace, and send them away immediately they have come. But His purpose is, to shew them deeply what they are, to make them value His favours, to sink them lower and lower in self, that they may rise higher and higher in Christ, to "teach them to profit" (as the Scripture speaks), to write His laws upon their hearts in lines of the Spirit's drawing, in deep lines, "graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever;" not characters traced out in the sand, to be washed out by the rising tide, or effaced by the wind, but in characters as permanent as the soul itself. The work of the Spirit in the hearts of the redeemed is radical work, work that goes to the very bottom; nothing flimsy, nothing superficial, nothing which can be effaced and obliterated s...

"No man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand." - JOHN 10:29 [KJV] Think, my soul, how eternally safe and secure must the church of Jesus be, thus kept by the mighty power of God, through faith, unto salvation! What shall unclasp the hands of Jehovah? Who shall wrest the weakest, the humblest, the poorest of Christ’s little ones from the holding of His omnipotency? Why then art thou, my soul, so frequently exercised with fears, and doubts, and misgivings? It is the Lord’s love that is the foundation of thy assurance, and not the strength of thy graces! His own free mercy, and not thy merit were the first causes of thy calling; and what is it now, in thy present preservation, but the same which holds thee up and carries thee through every difficulty? "Yea, He loved the people; all His saints are in Thy hands" [ D EUTERONOMY 33:3 ] . Precious Lord Jesus! It is enough. How shall a child of Thine perish when secured by such almighty support? Oh ...