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

“The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof.  Clouds and darkness are round about Him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne.” -Psalm 97:1-2 [KJV]   -------O-------     God reigns on high let saints rejoice, O praise Him people of His choice; He reigns forever over all, The Lord reigns over great and small.   God reigns upon this earth below, No matter whether friend or foe; He reigns and works His sovereign will, He reigns with wise, unerring skill.   God reigns His purpose to fulfill, He reigns, who can resist His will? He reigns o’er angels, devils too, Our God reigns over me and you!   God reigns His wondrous grace to give, He reigns to make dead sinners live; He reigns to make the darkness light, He reigns in saving love and might.   God reigns, cheer up ye troubled saint, He reigns, fear not or ever faint; He reigns, so let your soul be still, He reigns to work His perfect wi...

“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgement and justice in the earth.   In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. " - Jeremiah 23:5-6 [KJV]  The righteousness of God is the absolute and essential perfection of His nature.  Our Lord Jesus, the God-Man, came into this world to “magnify the law and make it honourable” (Isaiah 42:21) and establish righteousness for His people by suffering the penalty of the Law which was His substitutionary and sacrificial death.   We know that the thrice holy God can only accept into His presence those who are righteous.    “It must be perfect to be accepted”   (Leviticus 22:21).   “Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD?  Or, who shall stand in His holy place?  He that hat...

" God be merciful to me a sinner." -Luke 18:13 [KJV] I often reflect on what a perfectionist once said to me, upwards of twenty years ago: “Do not go to hear such preaching; you will get such a notion of sinnership, as though you were to be a poor sinner all your days.” Truly, after being so long in Christ, when I look into the glass of God’s law, I see myself just the same poor sinner I was at first; striving against sin, and looking to Christ for salvation.  I thank my Lord, I do not trust in myself that I am righteous: yet am as righteous in myself, as any poor sinner on earth is; and as righteous in Christ, as any saint in glory is. O the humbling joy of faith! it brings boldness of access to God into the heart, while it destroys self-righteous confidence. Many poor souls are apt to say, I am afraid to approach God, I am such a sinner—I tremble to think what will become of me—I fear God will cast me off for ever; and damn me eternally, for my sins.  No, sa...

"And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth ." -Matthew 28:18 [KJV] Hail, then, Thou Sovereign Lord of all! I have lately been following Thee in sweet and solemn meditation through the seasons of Thy humiliation; now let me behold Thee on Thy throne. And here I'm called upon to contemplate my Lord and my God as possessing universal dominion. Ponder, my soul, the vast extent.  Thy Jesus, as God, as one with the Father, possesseth in common with Him all power from everlasting. This is His, as God, essentially so; not given to Him, for by nature it is His, being "one with the Father, over all, God blessed for ever. Amen , " said Paul; so let it be; so shall it be. And so say I, and so saith all the church; Amen, Amen . But what thy Jesus saith here, in these blessed words, is of a power given to Him; and that is a power as the Head of His church and people. And although had He not been God, one with t...

"For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." -Galatians 5:17 [KJV] The Holy Spirit is especially tender of His own work upon the soul. He originally formed it; it is His own spiritual offspring; and as a mother watches over her babe, so the blessed Spirit watches over the spirit of His own creating. It is the counterpart of Himself, for it is the spirit that He has raised up in the soul by His own almighty power.  He, therefore, acts upon it, breathes into it fresh life and power, and communicates grace out of the inexhaustible fulness of the Son of God, thus enabling the spirit to breathe and act, struggle and fight against the flesh, so that the latter cannot have all its own way, but must submit and yield.  For the spirit can fight as well as the flesh; can act as well as the flesh; and can desire good as well as the flesh can desire e...

" ..and confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." -Hebrews 11:13 [KJV] O, ye worldly-minded professors, can ye read this without being ashamed and reproved? What will bring a man to this confession? Will sickness, and a near approach to death? O no! Men return from the most dangerous illness, to greater love of the world, and more ardent pursuit after the things of it. Look at a dying worldling. See him, like a drowning man, clinching the faster what he has grasped for his hope and help.  Men not only live fools, but die fools too. Their senses beguile them: their reason befools them: they reject the plainest truths before them. Nothing will kill the love of a bewitching world in a deceitful heart, but the view of heaven by faith. No man will confess himself a stranger to the world, and a pilgrim on the earth, until he sees himself “a fellow-citizen with the saints, and of the household of God.” (Eph. 2:19.)  As we say, we will not quit a certain...

"...renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." -Titus 3:5, 6 [KJV] Precious office of the Spirit! Condescend, great God, to grant it me this morning. Oh, renew my soul with all Thy sweet revivals, after a night of sleep, as Thou renewest the face of the earth. Oh send forth, I beseech Thee, Lord, all Thy graces, as suited to my necessities, and the Redeemer's glory, and let it be most abundantly shed abroad, through all the faculties of my soul, through Jesus Christ my Saviour. Pause, my soul, over the blessed prospect, and having now pleaded in Jesus' name for the mercy, act faith upon thy God in His promises. Is not every morning a renewing of the Holy Ghost? Is it not said concerning the productions of the earth, that God "sendeth forth His Spirit, and they are created, and Thou renewest the face of the earth?"   See what an evidence the earth gives in this lovely season, in the fruits, and pl...