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

" We believe, and are sure." -John 6:69 [KJV] Here is both faith and assurance. I wish to the Lord I had them, is the language of many a doubting heart, while they have both this very faith and assurance. This assurance is of the essence of faith. Without it faith has no existence.  Consider, (1st.) The nature of this faith and assurance. “We believe and are sure.” Of what? That their names were written in heaven, that they were sure they were the elect of God? No. But, says St. Peter to our Lord, “We believe, and are sure, that Thou art Christ the Son of the living God, and that Thou hast the words of eternal life.” Their minds were as sure of this truth, as of their existence. So must ours at all times, and under all circumstances. But is this faith and assurance? Then, blessed be God, I am a partaker of both. I do believe, I am sure, that Christ is the Son of God, and that He, and He alone, hath the words of eternal life. But I want to be sure of my own int...

"He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory." -II Samuel 2:8 [KJV] A man can never reach heaven unless he travel heavenwards, Zionwards, in the way that God has marked out for His people to walk in. It is a delusion to think that we are going to heaven unless we know something of divine teaching in the soul. But if we know anything of divine teaching, we know what it is to be poor and needy, we know what it is, more or less, to have our mouth in the dust. But many people do so mistake the way to heaven. The ordinary way is to set up a ladder to reach from earth to heaven, and progressively clambering up the different rounds, at last to climb up into the abode of God. But that is not the way of God's people. They have to go down, down, down, that they may be raised up. It is not with them first "up, up, up," to scale the battlements of...

"I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see." -Revelation 3:18 [KJV] My soul, take advice of thy Lord, for He is a Wonderful Counsellor, and all these blessings will be thine. He will cause thee to inherit substance, and fill all thy treasures; yea, He will give thee durable riches and righteousness. If Jesus clothe thee with the robe of His salvation, thy nakedness will be indeed covered; but no fig-leaves of thine own gathering and sewing together will do this for thee. If Jesus but anoint thine eyes with the precious anointing of His Holy Spirit, thou wilt both see and know the way to buy this tried gold. Now, pause over this sweet verse, and ask thyself, how thou shalt buy this golden treasure? What is the treasure, but faith? For the Holy Ghost calls it precious fai...

" If thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it." -Exodus 20:25 [KJV] This chapter abounds with legal terror. Here, the glorious Jehovah is giving the law with thunderings and lightnings, and the sound of a trumpet. The mountain smoking. Poor sinners, trembling and fleeing, saying, Let not God speak with us, lest we die . Most awfully tremendous! Well might St. Paul call it, “the ministration of death and condemnation” (II Corinthians 3:7, 9.) But blessed, blessed be God, it contains precious gospel-grace to law-condemned sinners. Here, rejoice, and say, Let God speak, and we live . For here is an altar commanded. God is accessible to us. “An altar of earth thou shalt make unto Me.”   Here is gospel-grace. That beloved Son typified, Who was made like unto us, and appeared in our earthly nature. Thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings and peace-offerings upon it. “Our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29.) Yet, “we have an altar” (Hebrews 13:10.) ...

"O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee?" - Hosea 6:4 [KJV] Most of the Lord's people have some peculiar thing that they want to have granted. Most living souls have some peculiar temptation from which they want to be delivered. If some of the Lord's family could sum up all their desires in one petition, it would be to have the pardon of their sins sealed upon the conscience. If others of God's people could crowd up in one sentence all the wants of their soul, it would be to be brought into the enjoyment of gospel liberty. If others could condense in one short prayer the chief desire of their heart, it would be to be delivered from some powerful temptation, or be preserved from some peculiar besetment. And if others could get into one request the longings that heave in their bosom, it would be to be relieved from some special trial or trouble that at times seems as though it would weigh them down to the dust. When the Lord, then, does but enable them ...

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the L ORD ." -Isaiah 55:8 [KJV] My soul, hast thou ever considered the blessedness in this verse, as it concerns the great work of salvation? Ponder over it, this evening. There is nothing, perhaps, in which there is a greater and more striking difference than there is between our crude and contracted notions of redemption, and the perfect and unerring thoughts of Jehovah on this point. Our conduct towards each other is so limited on the score of pardon, that though we may forgive a first or second offence, yet if it be repeated too many, nature revolts at the offender, and seems to take a kind of justification in withholding any farther acts of clemency. Hence; we frame the same standard to judge by, concerning God. But with God, abounding sin calls forth abounding grace, and, like the tide, riseth above high water-mark, yea, overflows all the banks and surrounding ground; so much so, ...

"I will cry unto God most High; unto God that performeth all things for me." -Psalm 57:2 [KJV] In the word "most High," there is something to my mind very expressive. It is to "God most High" that prayers go up from broken hearts, in all parts of the world where the Lord has a quickened people. "Unto God most High" every eye is pointed, every heart is fixed, and every breath of living prayer flows. Jesus sits in glory as "God most High," hearing the sighs and cries of His broken-hearted family, where they dwell in the utmost corners of the earth; and He is not only sitting on high to hear their cries, but also to bestow upon them the blessings which He sees suitable to their case and state. Now when shall we thus come "unto God most High?" When we are pleased and satisfied in self? when the world smiles? When all things are easy without and within? when we are in circumstances for which our own wisdom, str...