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

" He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool." -Proverbs 28:26 [KJV] We all do so naturally: therefore, we are all natural fools. But, through our blindness, we are ignorant of it; through pride, we will not own it. How many continue in this awful state of folly, ignorance, and pride! Among the many who are made wise unto salvation, how doth this folly of self-confidence cleave to them! Say some, “To be sure, it is the greatest folly for natural men to trust in their own hearts; for they are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: but God hath given me a new heart, a clean heart, and a good heart; and surely I may trust in it .”  This is the natural language of folly; not the judgment of a new creature in Christ. Hear the Lord: “I will give them an heart to know that I am the L ORD ; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto Me with their whole heart” (Jereremiah ch. 24.) So that the new heart, the clean hear...

"After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst ." -John 19:28 [KJV] After this, that is, I conceive, (though I do not presume to mark the very order in which the Lord Jesus uttered His loud cries upon the cross,) after His complaint of desertion: for whether this was the fourth or fifth of the seven last words of the Redeemer, I dare not determine: yet the words themselves were highly important, and significant of great things, in reference to Jesus and His people. Jesus thus cried, That the scriptures might be fulfilled, it is said; for it had been prophesied of Him, that gall was given Him to eat—and, when thirsty, vinegar to drink, Psalm 69:21 . And the soldiers, unconscious of what they did in fulfilling this very prophecy, gave Him sponge dipped in vinegar. But, my soul, was it the thirst of the body thy Jesus complained of? I think not. He had before declared, at His last supper, th...

" Fools die for want of wisdom." -Proverbs of Solomon 10:21 [KJV] THERE is such a connection between true wisdom, which is "a knowledge of the holy" (Proverbs 30:3) and the fear of the Lord, and such a connection between ignorance of the Lord and sin, that saved saints are called "wise" and lost sinners are called "fools" not only in the Old Testament, as continually in the Proverbs, but in the New. Many of the Lord's people look with suspicion upon knowledge, from not seeing clearly the vast distinction between the spiritual, experimental knowledge for which we are now contending, and what is called "head knowledge."    They see that a man may have a well-furnished head and a graceless heart, that he may understand "all mysteries and all knowledge," and yet be "nothing" (I Corinthians 13:2) and as some of these all-knowing professors are the basest characters that can infest the churches of ...

" By the obedience of One, shall many be made righteous." -Romans 5:19 [KJV] St. Paul speaks of “Another Jesus, another Spirit, and another gospel” (II Corinthians 11:4.) Some talk of a Jesus, Who shed His blood for sinners, and yet leaves them to perish for want of righteousness: this is another Jesus than what the Scriptures reveal .  They speak of a Spirit, Who strives to make sinners righteous; but, meeting with so much unexpected, perverse wickedness in their nature, He gives over His attempt, and suffers them to perish in their sins: this is another Spirit, than that Spirit, Whose office it is to convince us of sin, and of the righteousness of Christ, to sanctify us in Him, and to glorify Jesus .  Again; they preach what they call gospel, which consists of certain terms to be fulfilled, and conditions performed by us, in order to obtain righteousness and eternal life: this is another gospel, than that good news of everlasting righteousness, life, and s...

"And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani ; that is to say, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ?" -Matthew 27:46 [KJV]   Mark, my soul! Jesus had hung upon the cross now for six hours. Think what agonies He sustained both in soul and body. The fury of hell had broke out upon Him, and in the cruelties of the men around Him, exercised upon His sacred person, manifested how extensive that fury was. But had this been all; had God the Father smiled upon Him, had the cup of trembling been taken away, some alleviation would have taken place in Jesus' sufferings; but so far was this from being the case, that the heaviest load of the sorrow His holy soul sustained, was the wrath of the Father due to sin, as the sinner's Surety. Angels, no doubt, looked on. All heaven stood amazed. And, at length, overpowered with the fulness of sorrow and anguish of soul, the dying Lamb cried out, "My God, My God, why h...

"As the truth is in Jesus." -Ephesians 4:21 [KJV] Without truth there is no regeneration; for it is by "the word of truth" that we are begotten and born again (James 1:18; I Peter 1:23) . Without truth there is no justification; for we are justified by faith , which faith consists in crediting God's truth, and so gives peace with God. Without the truth there is no sanctification; for the Lord Himself says, "Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth" (John 17:17.) And without the truth there is no salvation; for "God hath chosen us to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and BELIEF OF THE TRUTH" (II Thessalonians 2:13.) And as the truth is the instrumental cause of all these blessings, the divinely-appointed means whereby they become manifested mercies, so truth enters into and is received by all the graces of the Spirit as they come forth into living exercise. Thus, without the truth, there is no faith; fo...

" I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus, that I never altered one syllable of God’s Word against my conscience, nor would do this day, if all that is in earth, whether it be honor, pleasure, or riches, might be given me." -preacher William Tyndale , (1494-1536 A.D.), Foxe’s Book of Martyrs , p.184