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

"Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in M e." -M ATTHEW 11:6 [KJV] What is the feeling of your heart toward Jesus? What is the solemn desire of your soul? that He would come and make your heart His abode? that He would visit your soul with the light of His countenance? that He would sprinkle His blood upon your conscience? that He would make Himself very near, very dear, and very precious? Do you count one word from His lips worth a thousand worlds? a smile of His countenance worth thousands of gold and silver? Then you are blessed. You are not stumbling upon the dark mountains of error. You are not stumbling at the perfections of the Son of God. You are not offended at a free gospel, an unconditional salvation. No; the Lord in mercy has slaughtered your prejudices, subdued your enmity, and brought you to receive the gospel as a little child. "Well," but some may say, "I believe all this; but, then, I have doubts and fears w...

"But we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope." -R OMANS 5:3-4 [KJV] Not only does the believer rejoice in hope of the glory of God, but he rejoices even in tribulation, trials, and afflictions (James 1:2-3; 2 Cor. 12:10). We do not rejoice in the suffering nor the trial itself, for most trials are grievous and difficult; but we rejoice in the EFFECT of the trial. All of our trials are appointed by God, our Father, and are for His glory and our good (Rom. 8:28; Heb. 12:9-11; Psa. 119:71).  "Trials work patience." Patience is submission to the will of God. It is to be content and wait upon the Lord (Heb. 13:5; Psa. 27:13-14). It is the opposite of covetousness, complaining, and haste. It involves not only our attitude toward God and His providence but also our attitude toward others during the trial. "Patience worketh experience" or MATURITY of character and pr...

" According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God ." - I TIMOTHY 1:11 [KJV] The ceremonial law contained many a type and shadow of Messiah; but the gospel is the history of His advent and mediatorial work. The ceremonial law pointed to the coming Prince of Peace; but the gospel brings Him to His throne, and puts the crown upon His head. Christ is "the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of His person" and Moses and Aaron are lost in His light, as the moon and the stars are lost in the blaze of the rising sun. The excellence of His person, the merit of His sacrifice, and the utility of His offices, give Him an immense superiority. The many prophets, priests and kings of the former dispensation, were but the shadows cast by the one great Prophet, Priest and King, which indicated His coming. A light arose from the cross of Calvary, which turned the black cloud on Sinai into a pillar of glory. Typical blood shielded the children of I...

"Yet T hou, O L ORD , art in the midst of us, and we are called by T hy name." -J EREMIAH 14:9 [KJV] If the Lord has ever been in our soul to manifest there a sense of His goodness and mercy, we can then make use of this as our plea, "Yet T hou, O L ORD , art in the midst of us." If He has ever heard your prayer He is with you; if He has ever given you a promise He is with you; if He has ever touched your heart with His finger He is with you; if He has ever favoured you with a smile He is with you. And though taking the general run of your experience he may be a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night, or though even as it may seem, as if he were astonied at what you are—a mighty man that cannot save, still every token for good encourages you to cling, to cleave, to hang round Him, to catch hold of His feet as the Shunamite caught Elisha by the feet, and would not be thrust away; for you cannot but fee...

"This is the true God, and eternal life." - I JOHN 5:20 [KJV]   O the blessedness, which eternity itself can never exhaust, of possessing eternal life! There is something to my mind so singularly blessed in the expression "eternal life," that I cannot help dwelling upon it. How the thought, the feeling of it expands the breast! Compared with it, how poor, mean, and low is our temporal life and all its concerns—the short span which God has allotted to us here below! And do observe how our eye is directed by holy John to the true God as being Himself eternal life. He is not only the Giver, the Spring, the Subject, the Object of it; He Himself is it all. O if He has but quickened our souls by His Spirit and grace, we carry now, even now, eternal life in our breast! for this eternal life is the precious fruit on earth of that eternal life in heaven which was with the Father and was manifested unto us [I JOHN 1:2 ] .   But how shall we know that w...

“Now once in the end of the world has He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself ” (Hebrews 9:26). What does it mean to put away sin? We can learn much about this from the Feast of Unleavened Bread when the Israelites were commanded to put away all leaven out of their houses (Exodus 12:15;19). Leaven is usually a picture of sin and this ‘putting away’ was a thorough job. The cupboards and drawers were emptied and their floors were very carefully swept in case a crumb of leaven bread should remain (see also Exodus 13:3-16; Leviticus 23:6-8; Deuteronomy 16:8; John 6:51). In the New Testament, sin, not leaven, was put away by Jesus. He, as it were, cleaned house.  If it had been left to us to clean our houses, we would have missed some of our hidden sins.  We don’t realise how great a mountain of sin and lurking darkness we accumulated during our lifetime. Question: How did Jesus put away sin? Answer: “He appeared to put away sin by the sacri...

The Lord instructed Jeremiah to visit the potter’s house and there he learned that the Lord not only has the right to do what He wills with His own, but He exercises that right. "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in Mine hand, O house of Israel" [JEREMIAH 18:6 ] . My friends, when the people of God encounter danger, difficulty, disease and death, there is no truth that will comfort the worried mind, soothe the troubled soul and calm the anxious heart as being assured that our Lord sovereignly controls all things . Now, if we give way to carnal reason and distrust, we will quickly be discouraged, dismayed and disheartened. The hymn writer said, "Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan His work in vain." Child of God, let us confront the question God asks, "Cannot I do with you as this potter?" Are we not His property? Are we not His children, His o...