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

"Keep thy heart with all diligence." - Proverbs 4:23 [KJV] Camden reports, that “Redwald, king of the east Saxons, the first prince of this nation who was baptized; yet, in the same church, allowed an altar for Christ, and another for the heathen idols.” How many professors imitate him! Their hearts are not whole with Christ. They are sons of folly. This a charge of wisdom to all her children. Consider, there is but one object can make your heart happy. There are a thousand that promise happiness, but only give misery. Keep thy heart in [the sense of] the love of God   (Jude 1:21.) Give all diligence to this blessed end.  Unless you do, vanity may prevail in the mind, error in the understanding, perverseness in the will, the affections may be inordinately set upon other objects, than thy Lord; and so thy conscience will contract fresh guilt. Then thou mayest be left to bemoan a hard heart, and an absent God: darkness may surround thee; fears and terrors haunt ...

"Then I restored that which I took not away."   - Psalm 69:4 [KJV] Whose words are these? They can be none but the words of Jesus; for none ever made restoration but He; and none but He could say, I took nothing away . And what was taken away? God's glory was taken away by sin; and consequently, man's happiness also. For when Adam sinned, he robbed God of His glory, and robbed himself and all his posterity of God's image, and with it all happiness. Nay, my soul, thou hast done the same, in every renewed act of disobedience. And in breaking the divine law thou hast justly lost the divine favour. And hath Jesus, all precious Jesus, restored all these? Yes, blessings on His name, He hath! And what renders it ten-fold more gracious, He hath so done it as never to be lost any more. By His finished work of salvation He hath restored to God His glory. And by His obedience and death, as our Surety, He hath restored to man his happiness. The favour of God we l...

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." -Psalm 23:4 [KJV] Death, the gaunt king of terrors; Death, who with his scythe in his resistless hand, mows down whole millions of the human race; Death, who awaits his victims at every corner; Death, that must soon lay you and me low in the grave, casts a shadow wherever he comes. He visits the sick room, and casts a shadow there; he hangs over the cradle, and his shadow falls on the infant's face; he comes in the Indian letter from abroad, or with the black seal and mourning envelope put into our hand at home; and these tidings or these tokens cast a deep shadow over our hearts. Indeed, where is the place where death does not cast his shadow? where the house where this shade has never fallen? In fact, he never comes without it. He is "the last enemy;"  he is the final fulfilment of the original curse. A...

"Underneath are the everlasting arms."   - Deuteronomy 33:27 [KJV] It is related of Anteus, that every time Hercules threw him to the ground, he rose up the stronger, for he received new strength, by touching his mother, the earth. This is true of the Christian. The more he is assaulted, and thrown down by the enemy, the more he falls into the Lord’s everlasting arms, and gets fresh strength . He cannot be thrown down lower than God permits: for “underneath are the everlasting arms.” His word is full of grace—His arms almighty—His love everlasting. Here is the wisdom, here the glory of the Lord’s people, to look for themselves, to go out of themselves, for safety and salvation.  For they rest upon God’s word. They believe the Lord to be all that to them, which He has said. This is living by faith—honouring the Lord’s truth—glorifying the Saviour’s name. Why are we told? “Underneath are the everlasting arms.”  Because we know and see ourselves deserving of he...

"The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." -I John 1:7 [KJV] My soul, sit down for a while, by this crimson fountain, and duly ponder over this glorious property of thy Redeemer's blood. Oh the sovereign efficacy of it! For it not only cleanseth sin, but all  sin: not only other's sins, but our sins : not only the present evil of sin, but the everlasting evil of it: not only now, but for ever .  It cleanseth from all sin . Pause, my soul. Is there any other laver to wash away sin; can prayers, or tears, or repentance, or ordinances, or communions, or duties, or alms? Oh no. We must say of every thing, and of all things, out of Christ, and void of Christ, as Job did concerning his friends, "Miserable comforters are ye all; physicians of no value."  Here then, my soul, seek thy cleansing, and here only. And while to this Fountain thou art daily brought by the Holy Ghost, look up and behold the whole assembly of the redeemed ab...

"The love of Christ, which passeth knowledge."   - Ephesians 3:19 [KJV] That eminent saint, the apostle Paul, who had been in the third heaven, and there saw glorious sights, and heard unspeakable words, though he exhausted human language to set forth the surpassing excellency of the love of Christ, comes at last to this point: "It passeth knowledge." Indeed it must pass knowledge. Is it not infinite? What measure, then, can be assigned to the love of Christ? If Christ be God, and as such the equal of the Father, His love is as infinite as Deity. Our love is the love of the creature; the love of God is as great as Deity, as infinite as the self-existent I Am; it must needs therefore pass knowledge. You may wonder sometimes—and it is a wonder that will fill heaven itself with anthems of eternal praise—how such a glorious Jesus as this can ever look down from heaven upon such crawling reptiles, on such worms of earth,—what is more, upon such sinners who h...

How little we understand of God’s dealings with us!  If we suffer the slightest set-back in this world’s goods or pleasures, we take it as a sign of God’s judgment and disfavor. If we prosper in this world, we believe that it is evidence of God’s pleasure with us. But, it is likely the opposite.  When God would visit a man with judgment aimed at his destruction, He withholds not the goods, but the spiritual ones; and the one He truly loves is often deprived of worldly goods so that he will more readily seek spiritual goods. Which would you rather suffer, blindness of eyes or blindness of heart?  Which would you rather have, riches in gold or riches in grace? Then, let each of us learn to not judge God’s ETERNAL dealings with us by His TEMPORAL dealings with us. I know that this is hard to do; but it is the essence of living faith to judge, not by what is seen, but by what is not seen, to live by faith in God’s promises, not by sight.  -preacher Joe Terrell