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

"I say unto all, watch." - Mark 13:37 [KJV]   It is very awful, when God’s precious promises are opposed to His righteous commands. Hence some get above and beyond duty: they cannot bear the word duty! O say they, don’t tell us of duty, it is such legal stuff! We are at liberty. We are not under the law, but under grace. True, indeed they are at liberty, but it is to pervert the gospel. They are awfully under the law of sin; not under the law of love, but the spirit delusion.    Their ears are closed, and their hearts shut against the sweet voice of our loving charmer, Christ. O my soul, watch against such, and their licentious notions of liberty, as you prize the love of Christ, and sweet communion with Him. He who sees no danger, and thinks he has nothing to lose, will give no attention to this command, Watch . It is here opposed to sleep. Sin is not dead. Satan never sleeps. The world ever invites and enchants. All is war against thee.    Theref...

"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."  - Romans 5:6 [KJV]   My soul fold up this sweet and precious scripture, and carry it about with thee in thy bosom, and in thine heart, that it may help thee on at any time, and at all times, when thy strength seems gone, and there is no power left. Was it not when the whole nature of man was without strength, that Christ was given of the Father?    And was it not equally so, when Christ came to seek and save that which was lost? And was it not in due time when Christ died for the ungodly; due time in His resurrection, due time in His ascension, "when He ascended up on high, led captivity captive, and received gifts for men, yea, even for the rebellious, that the Lord God might dwell among them?"   Go further yet, my soul, as it concerns thyself was it not due time indeed, when Jesus passed by and saw thee in thy loathsome state of sin, cast out to perish, and when no...

"But Thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head." -Psalm 3:3 [KJV] If your soul has ever been favoured with a taste of mercy, with a sip of the brook by the way; if ever your conscience has felt the application of atoning blood, or the love of God has ever been shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost, when the law comes to curse you, endeavour always to bear in mind that the Lord Jesus Christ stands as the shield between you and its curse.   The law has therefore nothing to do with you that believe, it has cursed Jesus Christ for you; as the apostle declares, "He was made a curse for us ; " and again, "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree , " etc. Therefore the law has nothing to do with you who believe in Christ Jesus. He has intercepted the curse for you, and, by receiving it into His own body and soul, bore it harmless away from you. It is a blessed act of faith when you can thus...

"Many, O LORD my God, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto Thee: if I were to declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered." -Psalm 40:5 [KJV]  

"He received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." -II Peter 1:17 [KJV] These words furnish poor sinners with matter for sweet meditation. Spirit of truth, help us to see the honour and glory of the Father and Son in them, and to get comfort from them.  Here is, (1st.) a silencing answer to that objection: you rob the Father of His honour and glory, by ascribing so much to the Son Jesus. Have you never been assaulted with this temptation? It comes from the enemy of God and sinners. Can two walk together, except they be agreed?  But God and we are agreed. Our faith puts all the honour and glory of our salvation upon God’s beloved Son. There God Himself puts it. IN His beloved Son, God is well pleased, and with us also IN Him.  (2d.) Here see the nature of faith. It causes the soul both to imitate and obey God, and to be well pleased with what Go...

"For lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations; like as corn is sifted in a sieve; yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth." -Amos 9:9 [KJV] Blessed promise to my poor soul; sifted, blown about by temptation. Look then to Jesus with it, and plead it under every new sifting time. Corn must be sifted, for it is much covered at times with tares and chaff. And so must the seed—of Jesus, that the precious may be known and separated; "for what is the chaff to the wheat?"  saith the LORD. Oh Lord, if it please Thee, for Thou knowest the necessity of it, sift me, try me, separate me, not only from the ungodly, with whom I am constrained to dwell, but from myself, from my own trifling, vain conversation, from the corruption of indwelling sin in my fallen nature, from the vain thoughts which lodge within me.  Yes, precious Jesus; sift all, and every thing which is unsuitable to Thee, and let the whole fall through the ...

"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." -Romans 8:10 [KJV] We want two things in lively operation; a spiritual death and a spiritual life. We want death put upon the flesh, upon sin, upon everything which is ungodly, that it may not reign or rule; and we want also the communication and maintenance of a divine life which shall act Godward, exist and co-exist in the same breast, and be in activity at the same moment.  Here is sin striving for the mastery; but here also is a view of the cross of Christ; here is a testimony of bleeding, dying love. This puts a death upon sin. But as death is put upon sin and the lust is mortified, crucified, resisted, or subdued, there springs up a life of faith and prayer, of hope and love, of repentance and godly sorrow for sin, of humility and spirituality, of a desire to live to God's praise and walk in His fear. The cross gives both. From the cross comes de...