​Joh 8:58  Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. 
​Joh 10:30  I and my Father are one. 

Making himself equal with God - "This the Jews understood from the preceding verse: nor did they take a wrong meaning out of our Lord’s words; for he plainly stated that, whatever was the Father’s work, his was the same; thus showing that He and the Father were One. They had now found out two pretenses to take away his life: one was that he had broken the Sabbath - ελυε, dissolved, as they pretended, the obligation of keeping it holy. The other was that he was guilty of blasphemy, in making himself equal to God: for both which crimes, a man, according to the law, must suffer death." See Num_15:32; Lev_24:11, Lev_24:14, Lev_24:16.
(Adam Clarke)

​
​"The Text of His First Sermon.—There was nothing fortuitous in Christ’s choice of His first text in Nazareth. The occasion was a marked one. None could forget it. He turned in calm self-possession to the first three verses of Isaiah’s sixty-first chapter, describing what should be the work and office of the destined Redeemer and Savior of man. It scarcely needed that He should say what the application was. The audience felt, as He read, that the text said so." (Vaughan)

​Now let us mark His own question. "When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith upon the earth?" And let us see what would be the answer to it, supposing that His coming in each one of the three senses which I have spoken of should be near, even at the doors. May we for a moment be allowed to conceive the unspeakable awfulness of His coming in the highest sense of all? Should we then be filled with fear in our inmost hearts, as if certain death were coming upon us? or should we look up to Him whom we beheld amidst the blessed company of His saints and angels, as to one whom we have long known, long loved, long desired to see? What would be our feelings were God to come in our generation in the lower sense of the term, if He were to visit this nation with a season of great misery, with famine and pestilence and war? Blessed are they who, like the three men in Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace, walk in their souls unhurt amidst the furnace of evil times, because the Son of God is with them.

The second appeal was made to ambition; and the same insidious temptation is, in one form or other, repeated in the case of every man; and for the most part in the commencement of his career he has to fight the battle, or to yield himself a captive. God’s way to honor and power and wealth is still steep and arduous and rugged; and the lesson we must learn is to avoid the devil’s short cuts, and to make the words of our Lord the motto of our lives: "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."
The last onset on our Lord made an appeal to His faith; and it too was as insidious as the rest. Jesus had already repelled him by expressing His confidence in God and allegiance to His Father, and to that very principle the tempter addresses himself now; as if he had said, "Dost thou trust God? Come and I will place Thee in circumstances such as will make manifest to all His guardian care of Thee." Jesus answered, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

This man, who cared in so divine a way for the health even of his slave, had a regard for religion; and these two things generally go together.
Mark the centurion’s beautiful humility. He felt that he was unworthy that one so good and great as Christ should come under his roof; and so, as Augustine well said, in his characteristic way, accounting himself unworthy that Christ should enter into his doors, he was counted worthy that Christ should enter into his heart.
This Roman soldier teaches us the great practical crowning lesson of being satisfied with the word of Christ. We need nothing but the word of Christ; for the word of Christ is not like the word of an impotent man, that falls helpless to the ground. It is mighty; the omnipotence of God is in it. The only lifeboat in this wide sea is the word of Christ. The only safe anchorage is the word of Christ. The only enduring thing is the word of Christ.
(H. Price Hughes, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 113)

He was helpless. There is no evidence that he had any friends who cared for him; they would have made themselves conspicuous after his cure, if there had been many of them. He was hopeless. It was impossible for him to do anything; he could not see to learn a trade. He was unpopular. He was uneasy, and fiercely on the alert to better his condition. The people,
​being annoyed and uncomfortable at his loud cries, rebuke him to be silent. The world doesn't want to hear anything that will cause them any disturbance. He was an embarrassment to them.

​Mat 6:19  Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 
Mat 6:20  But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 

​A couple of days ago, I saw a video by a couple of men who say they are in ministry in Israel, witnessing for Christ, and I decided to watch it. They had a guest on who spoke of his belief that we are in the Tribulation now, and made the speculation that the Lord may return in 2027. However, as the video came close to the end, while the guest was still in mid-sentence, the video was cut off-and one of the men appeared on the screen with a smiling face and said "You thought you were going to be able to see the end of the video for free, but your not." Then he put up a link to place to donate and then be able to see the end of the video. These men are not in a ministry for Christ, they are merchandizers.
I didn't waste my time going to the donate site, and took note of the channel, and deleted it, and pushed the "do not recommend" button.

"​We live in a world of change. The earth is not the same to-day as it was ages ago, and shall be ages on. The sun is radiating off its heat. The moon, no longer as of yore, burns and glows, and is but an immense opaque cinder, reflecting the sunlight from its disc. Stars have burnt out, and will. The universe is waxing old, as garments which from perpetual use become threadbare. But the dilapidation of the garment is no proof of the waning strength or slackening energy of the wearer. Nay, when garments wear out quickest, it is generally the time of robustest youth or mankind. You wrap up and lay aside your clothes when they have served their purpose, but you are the same in the new suit as in the old. Creation is the vesture of Christ. He wraps Himself about in its ample folds. Its decay affects Him not. And, when He shall bare laid it all aside, and replaced it by the new heavens and the new earth, He will be the same for evermore. With what new interest may we not now turn to the archaic record, which tells how God created the heavens and the earth.

How complete the revolution was in the penitent is shown by his own words. Paul, in one place, sums up Christianity in two things: repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And both of these we see in this penitent’s words. ​It is worth noting that it was not by words that Jesus converted this man. He did not address the penitent thief at all till the thief spoke to Him. The work of conviction was done before He uttered a word. Yet it was His work. It was by the impression of His patience, His innocence, His peace, and His magnanimity, that Jesus converted the man. Yet His words, when He did speak, added immensely to the impression. He accepted the homage of His petitioner; He spoke of the world unseen as of a place native and familiar. He gave him to understand that He possessed as much influence there as he attributed to Him. This great sinner laid on Christ the weight of his soul, the weight of his sins, the weight of his eternity; and Christ accepted the burden. (​Stalker)

"It is no exaggeration to assert that Napoleon I-strangely called the Great-had no moral sense. Carlyle tells the story of a German emperor who, when corrected for a mistake he made in Latin, replied, “I am King of the Romans and above grammar!” Napoleon’s arrogance was infinitely greater. He thought himself above morality and really seems to have believed that he had a perfect right to commit any crime, political or personal, that would advance his interests by an iota: and, in truth, he did commit so many it is almost impossible to recount them."
(H. O. Mackey)

The universality of condemnation. God was going to save the Israelites, but before He saved them He must condemn them. He sent Moses with a message couched in the language of symbol, which clearly showed that the Israelites were guilty no less than the Egyptians. The lamb was to be the representative of the firstborn son, who must die for the sins of his family. The Israelite and the Egyptian are brought under one common charge of guilt, and there they all stand, "condemned already."
The great truth of substitution. God sends Moses to His people and bids them choose "for every family a lamb." The lamb was instead of the firstborn. Christ is the "Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world."
​The third truth taught is appropriation. The Israelite would not have been safe if he had merely killed the lamb; he had to sprinkle its blood on the lintel and on the two sideposts.

The prayer of Psa_132:8-10 is similar to that of Solomon, 2Ch_6:41.

2Ch 6:41  Now therefore arise, O LORD God, into thy resting place, thou, and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O LORD God, be clothed with salvation, and let thy saints rejoice in goodness. 

​For us the ark of God’s strength is our Lord’s nature, in which God and man meet. We are called to be priests, to lift our hands in intercession and to fill the earth with praise. Then in Psa_132:11-18 God seems to take the clauses of that prayer, one by one and to answer, them. His resting-place is in His people. The staves were drawn out from the Ark when it was deposited in the Temple. In Christ there is finality; He is Omega, the Last."  (F.B. Meter)

​He regards the cry of the needy and helpless. “He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper.” Not even the most obscure or despised of men shall cry to Him in vain. He champions their cause. “He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence.” He will befriend the friendless, will be the Helper of the helpless, and the Protector of the defenseless. “His administration will have special respect to those who are commonly overlooked, and who are exposed to oppression and wrong.” He prizes their life. “And precious shall their blood be in His sight.” In His sight men are precious not in proportion to their rank or wealth or power, but according to their character. “The Lord knoweth them that are His,” and holds them dear to Him. He guards His subjects well because He loves them well. “Christ is the poor man’s King.”

​But now I want you to notice David as a pupil-teacher. While he was a pupil, he was also teaching. He says, “Hitherto have I declared Thy wondrous works.” Observe, then, that David taught people what he saw. He saw God’s works all around him. Ah! me, that is a great sight. We do not see God as we should, and we shall never teach aright for God, until we have a kind of instinctive feeling of the presence of God, till we are conscious that God is in us, and round about us, and at work for us. God’s work that David saw was very much work in himself, and work for himself, and work in other men’s hearts. Being taken into the school of God, he was made to observe things; he had object lessons put before him, and he learned to read God’s work; and as he saw it, he wondered. “Hitherto,” said he, “have I declared Thy wondrous works.” He who is a stranger to wonder is a stranger to God, for God is wonderful everyway, and everywhere.

Confidence in Jehovah turns apparent defeat into victory. “They are brought down and fallen; but we are risen and stand upright” (Psa_20:8). The prophetic vision of faith already sees the issue of the conflict. ​The ranks of those who trust in chariots and horses, who rely on material aid, seem firm, impenetrable, defiant, and the onset irresistible. But the people of God, whose trust is in the unseen, and who seem overwhelmed and put to the worse, rise up triumphant, while their enemies are brought down and crushed—the instruments of war in which they trusted helping to make their ruin more complete. Faith has surer wheels than pride; and prayer will carry us where power must fall. “Faith alone, which commits itself to God, can sing the song of triumph before the victory, and raise the shout of joy before help has been obtained; for to faith all is permitted. It trusts in God, and so really has what it believes, because faith deceives not; as it believes, so is it done.” (Luther)

Christian humility-It illustrates — The usefulness of humble service. Grass “seems created only for lowest service,—appointed to be trodden on and fed upon.” Yet of what great use and value it is! In like manner the lowly services of humble souls are indispensably necessary and unspeakably precious. 2. The beauty of humble service. To a person of pure and refined taste grass is very beautiful. To gaze upon it is in the highest degree restful and grateful to the tired eye. How beautiful is a life of humble service! Our Lord “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” He said, “I am among you as He that serves.” He “made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant”. 3. The divine acceptance of humble service. “Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water”. The Most High has declared His special regard for the humble. (See Pro_16:19; Pro_18:12; Pro_22:4; Pro_29:23; Isa_57:15; 1Pe_5:5.)
​(Biblical Illustrator)

“Let them lead me.” Be these my star to guide me to my rest. Be these my Alpine guides to conduct me over mountains and precipices to the abodes of grace. ​​“Let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles.” First in thy mercy bring me to thine earthly courts, and end my weary exile, and then in due time admit me to thy celestial palace above. We seek not light to sin by, nor truth to be exalted by it, but that they may become our practical guides to the nearest communion with God: only such light and truth as are sent us from God will do this, common light is not strong enough to show the road to heaven, nor will mere moral or physical truths assist to the holy hill; but the light of the Holy Spirit, and the truth as it is in Jesus, these are elevating, sanctifying, perfecting; and hence their virtue in leading us to the glorious presence of God. It is beautiful to observe how David's longing to be away from the oppression of man always leads him to sigh more intensely for communion with God. (Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)

This Psalm, so venerable in its materials that it has been attributed to Moses, is in the main a psalm of mortality; and yet its primary thought is not mortality, but eternity. It opens with the note of eternal being. The idea of the eternal stands as a great light in front of the darkness. Man is mortal, but God is; and God is the Eternal, the home, the dwelling-place, of all generations. This is the grand peculiarity of Hebrew and of Christian thought, that God is first, man only second; that the eternal Being is the true Being, the present visible or transitory being only the derivative being, appearing and then vanishing away, according to the direction of the other.
But there is more in this brief word than the general assertion of eternal being, and of a great primary power directing, controlling, all nature and all life. The character of this Being is further so far defined. It is represented not only that God is, but that He is personal. ​

This longing is common to God’s saints. A great part of our nature is made for feeling; a great portion of our life is made up of it; every moment is full of love, and hope, and desire, and fear; and Christ who claims the whole man will not pass over these levers of action, these moving powers of the whole man, as of no importance. Let us give them their proper place; and if David, and Paul, and Peter, and John, mark out a longing after God as the healthy state of the soul, let us not be satisfied if we are strangers to such a longing. (See 2Co_5:4; 2Ti_4:8; Tit_2:13; 2Pe_3:12; Rev_22:20)
How the presence of this longing is an earnest of complete blessedness. God’s Holy Spirit is Himself the water brook for man’s consolation; and He comes, as the Nile when it overflows its banks, and wherever there is a channel, or an aperture, or even a crack in the dry and thirsty soil, there He pours in the life-giving streams of comfort and of love, as one who knows not how to give and to bless enough.

​“And thy thoughts which are to us-ward.” The divine thoughts march with the divine acts, for it is not according to God's wisdom to act without deliberation and counsel. All the divine thoughts are good and gracious towards his elect. God's thoughts of love are very many, very wonderful very practical! Muse on them, dear reader; no sweeter subject ever occupied your mind. God's thoughts of you are many, let not yours be few in return. “They cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee.” Their sum is so great as to forbid alike analysis and numeration. Human minds fail to measure, or to arrange in order, the Lord's ways and thoughts; and it must always be so, for he hath said, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” No maze to lose oneself in like the labyrinth of love. How sweet to be outdone, overcome and overwhelmed by the astonishing grace of the Lord our God!

​Selah: The idea in the Hebrew for this word (occurring 74 times in the Old Testament) is for a pause. Most people think it speaks of a reflective pause, a pause to meditate on the words just spoken. It may also be a musical instruction, for a musical interlude of some kind.
This Selah is an appropriate call for each one to pause and think of the shortness and frailty of his life. It should drive us to great dependence upon God and great earnestness about life and doing good in the short time we do have.
Surely they busy themselves in vain: Sounding very much like the later Book of Ecclesiastes, David thought about the mass of humanity who lived ignoring the shortness and frailty of life.
• Each of them walks about, but like a shadow, living a life with no substance.
• They are busy, but in vain, being blind to eternal things.

Consider the folly of the discouragement which many feel because men are so imperfect, particularly those who go from a higher to a lower state of society. To such men the word is, Wait on the Lord, wait patiently, and by-and-bye He shall give you the desire of your heart.

​Consider the folly of envying wicked men when they are in power, and thinking that perhaps it is worth while to be as wicked as they are. Their prosperity, says the Psalm in effect, is at the beginning, and not at the end. Wicked men do prosper for a little while; but in the end they shall have their just reward.

There is an application of the subject to those that are in trouble. We have no need to hurry. Wait patiently. Trust in God. Do not give up your faith."
(H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 1870, p. 334)

​1Jn 3:1  Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. 

"What a blessed thing it is to turn from man to God! Notice God’s attributes as here enumerated: “thy lovingkindness”, “thy faithfulness,” “thy righteousness,” “thy judgments.” The golden bracelet begins and ends with love. All nature speaks, to the heart that loves, of the love of God. But they who fly to God find Him even better than nature can proclaim. He is better than banquets for hungry men. Let His life arise in thee as a fountain, and ask for the illumination of His light. Serenely sheltered under the wing, or in the house, of God, the soul may look out, unmoved, on “the wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.” (F.B. Meyer)
That God invites the confidence of the soul. “Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings.”
The mercy and rectitude of God, as seen in the principle of His government and in the preservation of the material universe, awaken men to confidence in Him. And God protects those who put their trust in Him. The figure of this verse is very beautiful and attractive. The soul of man can rest in God by trusting in Him. Faith is moral repose. (Preacher's Homiletical)

​“O fear the Lord, lie his saints.” Pay to him humble childlike reverence, walk in his laws, have respect to his will, tremble to offend him, hasten to serve him. Fear not the wrath of men, neither be tempted to sin through the virulence of their threats; fear God and fear nothing else. “For there is no want to them that fear him.” Jehovah will not allow his faithful servants to starve. He may not give luxuries, but the promise binds him to supply necessaries, and he will not run back from his word. Many whims and wishes may remain ungratified, but real wants the Lord will supply. The fear of the Lord or true piety is not only the duty of those who avow themselves to be saints, that is, persons set apart and consecrated for holy duties, but it is also their path of safety and comfort. Godliness hath the promise of the life which now is. If we were to die like dogs, and there were no hereafter, yet were it well for our own happiness' sake to fear the Lord. 

​I rectified the severed members, and so adjusted them that they were every one in communion with the battery, and in the completed adjustment there was power enough to ring the bell. It appears to me to symbolize the condition of many a life which is partially in communion with the King. If is not that there is complete alienation; it is that there are severed strands. There are departments in the life which are not connected with the Almighty, and along the imperfect communion sufficient power does not travel to ring the joy-bells. It may be that the strand between the Lord and our pleasures is broken, or between the Lord and our business, or between the Lord and some secret realm in our life which is not known to others. This severance will have to be put right, and every side of the life adjusted to the Divine will before we can become possessed by that fulness of power which will create bell-melody in the soul. 

We need a hiding place for the soul.
For there is an enemy to our souls ever seeking their destruction. Is it true that there is a wicked devil? Some think not, but Jesus tells us that there is. He tells us also that there is a hiding place from Satan’s power, and it is the Lord Himself.
From our own inclinations. Some years ago I was walking with one of my children over a canal on a very narrow bridge. The child was frightened, and begged me to hold her tight, as she felt as if something were pulling her down into the canal. And so, like that child, we all of us have an inclination to fall from purity, and we shall fall unless the Lord hold us fast. And He will, if we ask Him. He will no more let you fall into sin, if you call on Him with all your heart, than I would have let that child fall into the canal. Though we have an inclination to sin, there is at all times a hiding place in which our souls may shelter until the danger be past.  (W. Birch.)

"​God’s hidden ones. “Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy face.” Whom? Those that flee for refuge to Thee. The act of simple faith is set forth there, by which a poor man, with all his imperfections, may yet venture to put his foot across the boundary line that separates the outer darkness from the beam of light that comes from God’s face. Remember that Jesus Christ is the hiding-place, and that to flee to Him for refuge is the condition of security, and all those who thus, from the snares of life, from its miseries, disappointments, and burdens; from the agitations of their own hearts, from the ebullition of their own passions; from the stings of their own conscience, or from other of the ills that flesh is heir to, make their hiding-place—by the simple act of faith in Jesus Christ—in the light of God’s face, are thereby safe for evermore. But the initial act of fleeing to the refuge must be continued by abiding in the refuge. But not only by communion, but, also by conduct, must we keep in the light.

The human response-
Personal. In some things men move in masses without any realization of individual responsibility. It is not so with this momentous question. There is no rest for the sin-troubled heart until it personally turns to God. Personal submission is needed to put our hearts into a right condition for receiving Divine grace. Personal faith brings to our hearts the saving and sanctifying influence of the Spirit. And personal love to the Divine Father is the only guarantee that our peace is made with Him.
Prompt. Procrastination is full of danger, it is not only the thief of time, but also the rock of peril upon which many good-intentioned souls have struck and perished. The Ancients taught a solemn truth when they represented Time as an old man with wings on his shoulders, a scythe and hour-glass in his hands, and on his wrinkled forehead one lock of hair, all bald behind, and therefore offering no hope to us when it is past. Let us then seize time by the forelock.

“And he will shew them his covenant.” Its antiquity, security, righteousness, fulness, graciousness and excellence shall be revealed to their hearts and understandings, and above all, their own part in it shall be sealed to their souls by the witness of the Holy Spirit. The designs of love which the Lord has to his people in the covenant of grace, he has been pleased to show to believers in the Book of Inspiration, and by his Spirit he leads us into the mystery, even the hidden mystery of redemption. He who does not know the meaning of this verse, will never learn it from a commentary; let him look to the cross for the secret lies there." (Charles Spurgeon-
Treasury of David)
"The secret - His love and favor, which is called his secret, Job 29:4; Pro 3:32, because it is known to none but him that enjoys it. Will shew - He will make them clearly to understand it, both its duties and its blessings; neither of which ungodly men rightly understand." (John Wesley)

These words speak to us not only of the God that dwelt in Zion in outward and symbolical form, by means of a material presence which was an emblem of the true nearness of Israel’s God, but yet more distinctly, as I take it, of the Christ that dwells with men. Christ is all, and more than all, that this Psalm proclaimed the Jehovah of the old covenant to be.
(1) He is the highest manifestation of the Divine rule and authority.
(2) He is the highest raying out of the Divine light, or, as the Epistle to the Hebrews calls it, "the effluence of His glory."
​(3) He is the mightiest exhibition of the Divine power.

​Mat 25:34  Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 

​Rev 19:11  And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. 
Rev 19:12  His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. 
Rev 19:13  And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. 
Rev 19:14  And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. 
Rev 19:15  And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. 
Rev 19:16  And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. 

​David himself was called the lamp of Israel (1Ki_11:36) He was its light and its glory. And God was David’s light and glory. “David’s life and dominion, as the covenant king, is the lamp which God’s favor has lighted for the well-being of Israel, and His power will not allow this lamp (2Sa_21:17) to be quenched.”—Delitzsch. Blessed are all those who find in God their life and glory. They want nothing more. He fills them with joy; He crowns them with beauty and glory. God is a full Light. All other lights are partial and dim. He is a Sun; He giveth grace and glory, Fulness of light, felicity, honor, in fellowship with Him. He is everything. “The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee; but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.” (Isa_60:19)

​“What is man?” “It describes man from the side of his impotence, frailty, and mortality.”—Delitzsch. “Man. The Hebrew word denotes man in his weakness and frailty, as in the next member, Son of man (son of Adam), refers also to his earthly nature as formed out of the ground”—Perowne. “What is man? The first feeling is an overpowering sense of man’s insignificance in presence of the vastness and splendor, the mysterious depth, and the exceeding glory of the heavens, as seen at night.”--
Perowne. Compare the vastness of creation with the littleness of man; the power of creation with the feebleness of man; the duration of creation with the fugitiveness of man. “One generation goeth, and another cometh, but the earth abideth for ever.”
Isa 40:17  All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. 
Isa 40:18  To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?

And will sing praise to the name of the Lord - To the name of Jehovah; that is, to Yahweh himself, the “name” being often used to designate a person, or that by which he is known; and also, in many cases, as in this, being significant, or designating the essential nature of him to whom it is applied.
Most high - Exalted above all other beings; exalted above all worlds. The purpose here declared of praising God may refer either to the act which he was then performing in the composition of the psalm, or it may be a purpose in respect to the future, declaring his intention to be to retain in future life the memory of those characteristics of the divine nature now disclosed to him, and to celebrate them in all time to come. The great truth taught is, that God is to be adored for what he is, and that his holy character, manifested alike in the treatment of the righteous and the wicked, lays the foundation for exalted praise.   (Albert Barnes)

"​If this is the kind of prayer which the Lord will hear, then let us gladly learn that one man will be heard; that every man will be heard in his own way; that no man who loves wickedness will be heard; that those who are heard and answered should be enthusiastic in their joy.
Regarding this as an acceptable prayer, we may correct some modern notions of worship; for example, that we may not tell God what He already knows; that we may not make a speech to God; that in prayer we should be continually asking for something. Our worship should distinctly express our personality of sin, trouble, and necessity; then it will be always new, vigorous, and profitable."
(Parker, The Ark of God, p. 130)

Isa 33:22  For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us. 

​“O God of my righteousness.” He recognizes the fact of God’s righteousness. Man is unjust, the world often seems to be full of injustice; but David recognizes the justice of the Divine character and government. And not only so, but he recognizes his personal relation to the righteous God. “O God of my righteousness.” “O God! who art righteous Thyself, and art the patron of my righteousness, of my righteous cause, and of my righteous life.”—Leighton. The Psalmist claims to be righteous, but acknowledges God as the author of his righteousness. “A celebrated heathen said, ‘I wrap myself up in my own virtue.’ A true believer has something infinitely better to wrap himself in.
When Satan says, Thou hast yielded to my suggestions; when Conscience says, Thou hast turned a deaf ear to my admonitions; when the Law of God says, Thou has broken me; when the Gospel says, Thou hast neglected me; when Justice says, Thou hast insulted me; when Mercy says, Thou hast slighted me; Faith can say, All this is too true! but I wrap myself up in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.” (Toplady)

1Co 1:30  But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: 

​The odds are overwhelmingly against him. This is a fact which he does not attempt to hide from himself: “How many are mine enemies.” Meanwhile, where are his friends, his army, his counsellors? Not a word of allusion to any of them in the Psalm. Yet he is not crushed, he is not desponding. Enemies may be as thick as leaves of the forest, and earthly friends may be few, or uncertain, or far off. But there is one Friend who cannot fail him, and to Him David turns with a confidence and an affection which lilt him above all his fears. Never had he been more sensible of the reality and preciousness of the Divine protection. If he was surrounded by enemies, Jehovah was his shield. If Shimei and his crew turned his glory into shame, Jehovah was his glory; if they sought to revile and degrade him, Jehovah was the lifter up of his head. Nor did the mere fact of distance from Jerusalem separate between him and his God.

​God laughs because He sits in the heavens. It isn’t an earthly throne He occupies; it is the throne of heaven with authority over all creation. What does heaven have to fear from earth?
​
“God does not tremble. He does not hide behind a vast celestial rampart, counting the enemy and calculating whether or not he has sufficient force to counter this new challenge to his kingdom. He does not even rise from where he is sitting. He simply ‘laughs’ at these great imbeciles.” (Boice)

“This derisive laughter of God is the comfort of all those who love righteousness. It is the laughter of the might of holiness; it is the laughter of the strength of love. God does not exult over the sufferings of sinning men. He does hold in derision all the proud boastings and violence of such as seek to prevent His accomplishment of His will.” (Morgan)

​"And he shall be like a tree". A man’s life should be rooted in God, in God’s law, in God’s service. It should not be as a plucked flower, but as a flower unplucked growing on the eternal stem.
"The ungodly are not so". To know whose they are, you must know where the wind is—the wind of popularity, the wind of success, the wind of Divine visitation.
"Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment". These are the true and final tests of character. At present judgment is partial and uncertain, and at present society is mixed; but the time of judgment and separation is coming.
Mark the three characters: the godly, the ungodly, the Lord. The final award is not with man, but with God. The destiny of the righteous and the ungodly is as distinct as their characters. There is no blending of one into the other—the one lives; the other perishes.
(Parker, The Ark of God, p. 113)

​The sin of the Sodomites was single, but that of those rejecting the apostles would be manifold, including
(1) infidelity;
(2) disobedience;
(3) ingratitude;
(4) inhospitality;
(5) rebellion and contumacy against God, contrary to the law of nature, and in defiance of the grace of God. (Lapide.)
​To shake off the dust from the feet, therefore, was a significant act, denoting that they regarded them as impure, profane, and as pagans, and that they declined any further connection with them. It is recorded that this was actually done by some of the apostles. See Act_13:51; Act_18:6.

​We know persons by sight, or by name, or by description. They are best known by their actions.
​
I. What is meant by “doings” here?
1. The tempers a child indulges in. These tempers are fretful, or patient, or selfish, or generous.
2. The ill habits he forms. Idle, or industrious, or careless, or careful, or dilatory, or prompt.
3. The company he keeps. The choice of companions is a very important thing.

II. What may be known of a child by his doings? You are making your fortunes now every day. The tempers you are indulging, the habits you are forming, and the company you are keeping are all helping to make them. How careful you should be to find out what is wrong in your tempers and habits, and pray to God to help you to correct it at once. (R. Newton, D. D.)
​
"A successful parent will be one who makes the training of the children a constant and religious study. It is the last subject in the world to be left to haphazard. From the first a clear aim must be kept in view. “Is my great object that this boy shall be a true, a noble, a God-fearing man, serving his day and generation in the way God shall appoint?” That is the question which the parent puts to himself."  (Great Texts)

​Luk 6:43  For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 
Luk 6:44  For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. 

But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent: In general, mankind showed no repentance, despite the presence of some pretty overwhelming signs and wonders.
​
That they should not worship demons, and idols: Instead, man continued with his idol worship in a business as usual sort of way. They continued in their worship of demons, whether their worship is witting or unwitting.

It is amazing to see how quickly things return to what is thought to be normal after some calamity such as an earthquake. We are quick to forget God’s lessons, even the lessons that come in judgment.

And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts: This list of sins is a striking accusation against our present age. Certainly, our modern world is characterized by murders, sorceries (associated with the taking of drugs), sexual immorality and thefts. (David Guzik)

​What does he do? With a grasping and feverish hand he gathers all that he can save of his goods, and laden with his treasures, bending under his burden, he arrives at this door which refuses to give him passage. “For me,” he cries then, “for me! the door is too narrow.” Ah! poor idiot! leave there thy treasures which will cost thee thy life, strip thyself of that which prevents thy progress, consent to sacrifice all; thy salvation is only at that price. You have understood me, brethren. This house which is falling in is our life; this devouring flame is the judgment of the holy God; this open door is pardon; and these treasures which will ruin you, are those qualities, those virtues, those merits, which you wish to preserve at all cost. Yes, the door of heaven is too narrow for the self-righteous, and because of this the Gospel raises so much repugnance and irritation amongst them." (E. Bersier, D. D.)

"​We have been appointed for the one purpose of bearing imperishable fruit, but our holy service to the world will never be appreciated. The world has its own god and religion. It hates without cause. The more Christlike we are, the closer we shall be identified with His sufferings. There is no limit to the hatred and persecution which the world will vent on those who have ceased to belong to it because of their identification with the Crucified. But through the pitiless storm, we must be glad; there must be no slackening of our love, which will as certainly conquer hate as tomorrow’s sun the darkness" Joh_15:26-27.
​(F.B. Meyer)

​This is the permanent incentive of the Christian life. This present experience of ours leads to a larger, more satisfying experience. Beyond our horizon there awaits us an endlessly enlarging world. Death, which seems to bound our view, is really but our real birth to a fuller, and eternal, and true life. "Therefore be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord." The promptings of conscience do not delude you; your instinctive hopes will not be put to shame; your faith is reasonable; there is a life beyond.

​But there is no doubt as to the sequel of a true life. The world of men may count it a failure, but God pledges Himself that as the pendulum swings here in the dark, it shall swing equally in yonder world of light. Three things are impossible with God-to die, to lie, and to fail the soul that trusts Him. Even when we cannot muster faith enough, His word of promise cannot be frustrated in the case of those whose faith is weak and trembling as the smoking flax.

"​He who came in by the door which John the Baptist opened has become the door. It stands open to all comers-if any man. The salvation here mentioned refers to the entire process of soul-health: go in for fellowship; go out for service.
Wherever destruction is uppermost in speech or act, you may detect the presence of the great enemy of souls. Christ is ever constructive, saving, life-giving. Let us not be content until our life has become abundant life. Our life cost the Shepherd’s life. He did not hesitate to interpose Himself between the sheep and the wolf of hell. There is possible between our Lord and ourselves an intimacy of knowledge which can be compared to nothing less than that which subsists between the Father and Himself.
Note how our Lord looked beyond the hurdles of the Jewish fold and thought tenderly of the Gentile sheep that were far away. In the revelation committed to the Apostle Paul He gave vent to His love, and through the succeeding centuries He has ever sought them. There may be many folds, but there can be only one flock. Men die because they cannot help it; Christ was born that He might die; He died because He would."  (F.B. Meyer)

“He deviseth mischief upon his bed.” His place of rest becomes the place for plotting. His bed is a hot-bed for poisonous weeds. God-fearing men meditate upon God and his service; but when men turn all their thoughts and inventive faculties towards evil, their godlessness is proved to a demonstration. He hath the devil for his bed-fellow who lies abed and schemes how to sin. God is far from him. “He setteth himself in a way that is not good.” When he gets up he resolutely and persistently pursues the mischief which he planned. The worst of ways he prefers for his walking, for he has taught his heart to love filthiness, having accustomed himself to revel in it in imagination. “He abhorreth not evil.” So far from having a contempt and abhorrence for evil, he even rejoices in it, and patronises it. He never hates a wrong thing because it is wrong, but he meditates on it, defends it, and practises it.
(Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)

I've had the content of my devotions criticized for not having enough pictures of happy people in various types of activities, and enjoyments. There's a reason for this. I pray about what God would want on these pages, and He's directed me to make any graphic images mostly biblical characters, or without people-why?
The main focus in these devotions/teachings and other content is to provoke the readers to look within themselves, and contemplate what they are saying to them, and their souls. God doesn't want to feed your ego, or your vanities. He wants you to get beyond the surface of your skin.

But, "how can these things be?" He, a master in Israel asked that question of Christ. This blessed life of victory is only possible to those who have been born from above. By nature we were born from below into the first Adam, who was "a living soul." We must be born from above, into the second Adam, who becomes to all who trust in Him a Life-giving spirit (1Co_15:45). That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and cannot of itself rise into the Spirit; the Holy Spirit must stoop to lift it into union with Himself. But He will do this for you, if only you will lift your heart to Christ in simple faith and surrender.
​The difference it will make. Each life has been planned by God with the intention of training it for high service here and beyond; and whatever happens in life, there is always an abundance of grace awaiting our use. But how often we are as blind to it as Balaam was to the Angel that stood on the wayside. We make our plans.

​There is a second sense in which the Lord is light and salvation. No longer afraid of the condemning power of sin, we are warranted in standing in fear of its ruling power in our hearts. Therefore we are exhorted to “work out our salvation.” To do this we need the light to guide us into all truth, the salvation to deliver us from all evil. Under the shadow of God's wings, we have no fear of man, or devil.
"Strength". “If God be for us” strength is on our side. He promises to be our Rock and fortress.
“The beauty of the Lord.” The beauty of His attributes, as they meet and harmonize for our blessing. The beauty, too, reflected in us; for in His light and salvation and strength we are “changed into the same image.”

The Bible reveals what man would have failed to discern, that the heart is the root of character, the seat of the moral quality attaching to the thoughts and actions of men. This truth, plainly taught in Scripture, accords with reason, and finds irrefutable proof in man’s career. There are three aspects of the heart here suggested:
Surpassing deceptiveness. “Deceitful above all things.” Its cruel delusions. It often prompts a man to evil, promising joy and reward, then leaves him befooled by his desires; allures him to follow passion, then leaves him to the tortures of conscience; assures him of courage in difficult hours, then, at the crisis, leaves him trembling in fear, It flatters its dupes; is a false syren.
Its religious frauds. Fosters hypocrisy in the superficial, urges men to assume a religious profession, and walk as if God were being reverently served; and then, in secret, craves and impels towards hidden vice and subtle indulgences. 

This apparent defeat resulted in a marvelous victory.
Suppose that these three men had lost their faith and courage, and had complained, saying, "Why did not God keep us out of the furnace!" They would have been burned, and God would not have been glorified. If there is a great trial in your life today, do not own it as a defeat, but continue, by faith, to claim the victory through Him who is able to make you more than conqueror, and a glorious victory will soon be apparent. Let us learn that in all the hard places God brings us into, He is making opportunities for us to exercise such faith in Him as will bring about blessed results and greatly glorify His name.
​(Life of Praise--Our Daily Walk)

​​"Defeat may serve as well as victory
To shake the soul and let the glory out.
When the great oak is straining in the wind,
The boughs drink in new beauty, and the trunk
Sends down a deeper root on the windward side.
Only the soul that knows the mighty grief
Can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come
To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy."

​A look, as in Eve’s case, opened the door to the devil. “Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity.” However great our attainments and however high our standing, we are all liable to attack and failure; but when we abide in Christ, no weapon that hell can forge can hurt us. When we have sinned, our only safety is in instant confession. This David delayed for a year and till forced to it. He was more eager to evade the consequences than to deal with his transgression. Sober David was far worse, here, than drunken Uriah. The singular self-restraint of the soldier threw the sin of the king into terrible and disgraceful prominence."  F.B. Meyer)
Several times David attempts to get Uriah to go to his house, so he'd have a cover for his sin; but he would not go, but stayed in Jerusalem, even after David had him eat and drink until he was drunk. He still remained loyal to his post, and would not go home. 

​Abel testifies of faith’s sacrifice and worship always accepted. Enoch of faith’s walk and triumph, lifted above sin and death into fellowship with the holy God, the Lord of Life. Noah’s faith has again another testimony. He found grace—the first time the word is used in Scripture—in the eyes of the Lord. His faith, rooted in the contrite heart, and evidenced in his daily work and obedience, was tested by the opposition and mockery of the world to whom he testified of sin, of judgment, and saving grace; declaring what he possessed himself, righteousness by faith. And by his faith he not merely saved himself, but his household.
(A. Saphir, Lectures on Hebrews, vol. ii., p. 289)

Everything we need for life and godliness is in Him; only let us make all that we can of our wonderful position and possessions.
Paul came to Corinth from Athens, where he had sought to win his hearers by a studied and philosophical discourse as best adapted to their needs. But as he entered Corinth, he appears to have deliberately determined that his theme would be the crucified Lord, and expressed in the simplest phrases. When we speak the truth as it is in Jesus, the Spirit is ever at hand to enforce our testimony by His demonstration and power.
​(F.B. Meyer)

God is not only powerful, but all wise. There is no searching of His understanding. Infinite strength would terrify us, but infinite strength under the dominion of infinite mind recovers us from the tremendous shock which comes of abstract, immeasurable, unwasting strength. Is God all-wise? Then the darkest providences have meaning. His plan of salvation is complete and final, and we shall waste our strength and show how great is our folly by all attempts to improve the method of redemption and recovery of the world. Our individual life is all understood by Him. That life is but dimly known to ourselves. We catch glimpses of it here and there, but its scope and meaning are still unrevealed to us. It is enough that God knows our life, and that His wisdom is pledged as our defense.
​​We have a guarantee of endless variety in our future studies and services.

​Look at Salvation in a Person made known. God has given this name of Jesus—given it in writing to be read, given it by preaching to be heard, given it Himself that it may never be forgotten and that it may be above every name, given it among men that men may read, hear it, learn and repeat it, and incorporate it with their prayers and their songs, and that it may become as familiar in their mouths as any household word.
Look at the fact that the dispensation of salvation is limited to that Person. It would be interesting to inquire into the causes of other names and things being put forward. Perhaps the chief cause is pride. We shrink from the practical acknowledgment of entire and absolute dependence upon the grace of God for our redemption; we despise the simplicity of faith, or we are not prepared to follow after holiness. But, however that may be, "neither is there salvation in any other."
(S. Martin, Rain upon the Mown Grass, p. 225)

​Among the Greeks this was a crime which was punishable with death. Alexander ab Alexand. Gen. Dier. L. ii c. 13. Among the ancient Germans, Tacitus says, that to lose the shield in battle was regarded as the deepest dishonor, and that those who were guilty of it were not allowed to be present at the sacrifices or in the assembly of the people. Many, says he, who had suffered this calamity, closed their own lives with the baiter under the loss of honor. Tac. Germ. c. 6. A similar disgrace would attend the Christian soldier if he should cast away his shield of faith; compare the notes, Eph_6:16.
​Eph 6:16  Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
Which hath great recompense of reward - It will furnish a reward by the peace of mind which it gives here, and will be connected with the rewards of heaven. (Albert Barnes)

No man knoweth or showeth the spirit of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him. The water, as a certain glass, somewhat dim indeed, but very true, representeth the countenance therein imprinted unto the countenance that beholdeth the same; even so the heart sheweth man to man; that is to say, the mind and the conscience of every man telleth him justly, though not perfectly, what he is, as whether he be good or evil, in God’s favour or out of the same; for the conscience will not lie, but accuse or excuse a man, being instead of a thousand witnesses.… As water that is troubled representeth the visage amiss, so a troubled or polluted mind may sometimes wrongly shew to a man the estate wherein he standeth. But if the soul be not wholly corrupt and the conscience seared as with a hot iron, it will declare to a man his condition rightly, though not peradventure fully in all respects. (Muffet)

If then ye were raised together with Christ. The Revision is correct. A definite act, not a state, is referred to. The definite act is named in Col_2:12 above. When they were "buried with him in baptism," they were also raised from this burial with him through faith, quickened. Hence here he says, "If then ye were raised with him," if your obedience was from the heart and in faith, if you rose therefore with him (these are the emphatic words), then seek those things which are above. The risen Christ ascended; let your aspirations ascend also.
​​Set your affection on things above. This is a condition of seeking the things above. Our hearts must be in heaven with our beloved Lord.
For ye died. This is a reason for not loving earthly things. We died to the world, crucified with Christ, and were buried. See notes on Col_2:12. Also Rom_6:2; Gal_2:20. This death was a definite act, like the burial and the rising, not a state. 

This is the law and the prophets - That is, this is the sum or substance of the Old Testament. It is nowhere found in so many words, but if is a summary expression of all that the law required. The sentiment was in use among the Jews. Hillel, an ancient Rabbi, said to a man who wished to become a proselyte, and who asked him to teach him the whole law, “Whatever is hateful to you, do not do to another.” Something of the same sentiment was found among the ancient Greeks and Romans, and is found in the writings of Confucius. (Albert Barnes)

This sums it up well:

"Do justice to your brother (you can do that whether you love him or not), and you will come to love him. But do injustice to him, because you don’t love him, and you will come to hate him."
​(Great Texts)

​God is not only powerful, but all wise. There is no searching of His understanding. Infinite strength would terrify us, but infinite strength under the dominion of infinite mind recovers us from the tremendous shock which comes of. abstract, immeasurable, unwasting strength. Is God all-wise? Then the darkest providences have meaning. His plan of salvation is complete and final, and we shall waste our strength and show how great is our folly by all attempts to improve the method of redemption and recovery of the world. Our individual life is all understood by Him. That life is but dimly known to ourselves. We catch glimpses of it here and there, but its scope and meaning are still unrevealed to us. It is enough that God knows our life, and that His wisdom is pledged as our defense. We have a guarantee of endless variety in our future studies and services. God is ever extending our knowledge of His works, in reward of the endeavors we are making to acquaint ourselves with the wonders by which we are enclosed.

​"Others may do a greater work,
But you have your part to do;
And no one in all God’s heritage
Can do it so well as you."

"They who are God’s without reserve, are in every state content; for they will only what He wills, and desire to do for Him whatever He desires them to do; they strip themselves of everything, and in this nakedness find all things restored an hundredfold." (Streams in the Desert)

​"I know how to be abased - Having scarce what is needful for my body. And to abound - Having wherewith to relieve others also. Presently after, the order of the words is inverted, to intimate his frequent transition from scarcity to plenty, and from plenty to scarcity. I am instructed - Literally, I am initiated in that mystery, unknown to all but Christians. Both to be full and to be hungry - For one day. Both to abound and to want - For a longer season."  (John Wesley)

​While we look not at things which are seen, but,  Our eyes are fixed on the unseen things beyond, the glory that the flesh cannot behold. Hence, we turn away from present afflictions as momentary, as belonging to the seen and the transient, and only regard them as adding to the weight of our unseen, eternal joys. Our goal is beyond.

For the things which are seen are temporal. All material things, and all that the world values, are perishing. 

​There are resting-times in our lives. God graciously arranges green pastures and quiet waters, and makes us to lie down. His voice sounds amid the turmoil of our existence, and bids us come aside and rest awhile. But often we fret against enforced rest, we persist in hurrying to and fro, and give way to bitter repining. When the cloud stays, remain where you are. When you do not know what to do, stop still until some indication points your path.
There are times for action. The trumpet is heard with its summons, to which we must give immediate attention. When the sleeper refuses to arise instantly at the whir of the alarum, he soon becomes so accustomed to it that it does not disturb him. So we shall gain keenness of hearing when we accustom ourselves to instant obedience. The peace and usefulness of our earthly life will be in direct proportion to our appropriation of the Lord Jesus for all the demands of our pilgrim condition. 

In the last days, scripture says God will send a strong delusion, as was in the days of Isaiah. In spite of 2000 years since the birth, death and resurrection of Christ, people continue to reject the Son of God, and the risen Savior. God will choose the strong delusions among them, and we are seeing the results of this around the world today. The rise of pagan god worship, and idolatry, is blatant rejection of the God of creation. People do not want God or His Son to rule over them, they want to worship their own gods, and continue in their sins of lust and perversions. 
Examples: The youth reject their gender, and attempt to change their sex, and the schools and governments make laws to protect them to do this, even though it is grotesque self mutilation. The sin of sodomy, that caused the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, is now legal around the world, and protected. What God did to Sodom and Gomorrah-He will do to the world, as it's written in Peter, and Revelation. 

​​More to be desired are they than gold - That is, his law; or, as in the preceding verse, his judgments. They are more valuable than gold; they are of such a nature that the soul should more desire to be in possession of them than to be in possession of gold, and should value them more. The psalmist here and in the following verses describes his estimate of the worth of revealed truth as he perceived it. In the previous verses he had shown its value in the abstract; he here speaks of his own feelings in regard to it, and shows that he esteems it more than he did the objects most prized and valued among men.
Yea, than much fine gold - The word used here - פז pâz - means properly that which is purified or pure, and thus becomes an epithet of gold, particularly of gold that is purified. It is rendered fine gold here, as in Psa_119:127; Pro_8:19; Son_5:11, Son_5:15; Isa_13:12; Lam_4:2; and pure gold in Psa_21:3. 

"It is a question for many how much of your Christian faith is, other than conformity to public custom, and how much is simple conformity to what is respectable.
Is the praise you receive beneficial in its effect upon you? Is it preparing you for higher association in the kingdom above? The day hastens. Soon we shall stand before Him who has declared that if in this evil generation we are ashamed of Him, He will be ashamed of us."
​(H. W. Beecher.)
​
Because of pride, vanity and self-love-even if many may concede that Christ is who He claims-the Christ of God, when in the presence of those they desire acceptance and adulation, they will not stand and speak up, and proclaim Jesus as their Savior. They will capitulate, and remain silent,  proving they are an empty shell, with no substance. The word of God is twisted, and toyed with, to get it to say anything they want it to say, in order that they can justify their sin, use it to profit themselves and remain in good standing with the people they want to impress. Jesus openly condemned them, and proclaimed their  doom. The question is-where do you and I stand, and what will we do, when faced with this test.

​
​Joh 5:44  How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?

"Words like these could not be forgiven. The growing irritation of the audience seems to have extorted those burning remonstrances, and to have hastened the final scene. But the storm that burst around Christ’s faithful confessor and first martyr could not disturb his serenity. His heart was fixed, trusting in God.

Psa 108:1  A Song or Psalm of David. O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise, even with my glory. 
​
The peace of God garrisoned his heart and mind. At the moment when his foes were fiercest, the presence of Jesus, who had risen from sitting to standing, in order to encourage and welcome him, was most vital. It will always be even so. You will never know the completeness of Christ’s comradeship till you have weathered a storm in His company."  (F.B. Meyer)​

The fact of our Lord’s abiding presence ought to make us brave.—If God be for us, and with us, who can be against us? No temptation need be too strong to be conquered, no difficulty need be too hard to be surmounted, by those who know that God is with them—Emmanuel.
​
The fact of our Lord’s abiding presence ought to make us good to each other.—Look on your fellow-men, and learn from the incarnation to respect man, every man, as wearing the flesh which Jesus wears. (H. J. Wilmot-Buxton)

​To that future our Lord passes, as His last reason for the command and motive for obeying it, in Mar_8:38. One great hindrance to out-and-out discipleship is fear of what the world will say. Hence come compromises and weak compliance on the part of disciples too timid to stand alone, or too sensitive to face a sarcasm and a smile. A wholesome contempt for the world’s cackle is needed for following Christ. The geese on the common hiss at the passer-by who goes steadily through the flock. How grave and awful is that irony, if we may call it so, which casts the retribution in the mold of the sin! The judge shall be ‘ashamed’ of such unworthy disciples-shall blush to own such as His. May we venture to put stress on the fact that He does not say that He will reject them? They who were ashamed of Him were secret and imperfect disciples. Perhaps, though He be ashamed of them, though they have brought Him no credit, He will not wholly turn from them.

Having mentioned his God, the Psalmist's heart burns, and his words sparkle; he challenges heaven and earth to find another being worthy of adoration or trust in comparison with Jehovah. His God, as Matthew Henry says, is a None-such. The idols of the heathen he scorns to mention, snuffing them all out as mere nothings when Deity is spoken of. “Who is God save the Lord?” Who else creates, sustains, foresees, and overrules? Who but he is perfect in every attribute, and glorious in every act? To whom but Jehovah should creatures bow? Who else can claim their service and their love? “Who is a rock save our God?” Where can lasting hopes be fixed? Where can the soul find rest? Where is stability to be found? Where is strength to be discovered? Surely in the Lord Jehovah alone can we find rest and refuge.
(Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)

“He is but a tenant at will",—a leaseholder upon most precarious tenure, liable to instantaneous ejectment. The great Landowner and true Proprietor holds His court above the clouds, and laughs at the title-deeds of worms of the dust. The fee-simple is not with the lord of the manor, nor the freeholder, but with the Creator.”--
“The ‘fulness’ of the earth may mean its harvests, its wealth, its life, or its worship; in all these senses the Most High God is Possessor of all. The earth is full of God; he made it full and he keeps it full.”  (Spurgeon)

In your patience possess ye your souls.
​Luk 21:19

Call Back
​​If you have gone a little way ahead of me,
call back--
’twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track;
And if, perchance, Faith’s light is dim, because the oil is low,
Your call will guide my lagging course as
wearily I go.

Call back, and tell me that He went with you
into the storm;
Call back, and say He kept you when the forest’s roots were torn;
That, when the heavens thunder and the earthquake shook the hill,
He bore you up and held you where the very
air was still.

Oh, friend, call back, and tell me for I cannot
\see your your face,
They say it glows with triumph, and your feet bound in the race;
But there are mists between us and my spirit eyes are dim,
And I cannot see the glory, though I long
for word of Him.

But if you’ll say He heard you when your
prayer was but a cry,
And if you’ll say He saw you through the night’s sin-darkened sky
If you have gone a little way ahead, oh, friend, call back--
’twill cheer my heart and help my feet along
​the stony track.  
Anonymous

​Yet the love of the world is a principle fearfully prevalent. It is to be found in many who do not suspect it. Here is a man placed in a position where he may add to his worldly substance. But there is a difficulty. The law stares him in the face, “provide things honest in the sight of all men.” He would like to keep it, but the prospect is tempting. By degrees his principle of integrity is overcome, and he takes the golden bait, overcome by the love of the world. One other illustration may be added. Here is a man who does respect the laws of integrity, and honor, and devotion. But he is associated with another, who does not respect them. A case arises where both must act together. The former expresses his desire to act righteously. The other uses his influence to overcome what he denominates his scruples. He is afraid to offend him; his interests are too deeply involved to run so great a risk; he yields, and presents another example of a victim overcome by the love of the world.

​He shall go in. He shall be privileged to go in among the divine family, sharing the children's bread, and participating in all their honors and enjoyments. He shall go in to the chambers of communion, to the banquets of love, to the treasures of the covenant, to the storehouses of the promises. He shall go in unto the King of kings in the power of the Holy Spirit, and the secret of the Lord shall be with him.

​The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan: The Antichrist will come with power, with signs and with lying wonders. But all of this is according to the  working of Satan, as described in Rev_13:13-17.
If someone has spiritual power, signs, or wonders, those are not enough to prove they are from God. Satan can perform his own powerful works, either through deception or through his own resources of power.
“He is Satan’s messiah, an infernal caricature of the true messiah.” (Moffatt)
Among those who perish: However, the deception can only take root in those who do not receive the love of the truth. These people are ready for the deception of the Antichrist, because they want a lie, and God will send them a strong delusion.
God will send them: In the end, the Antichrist is only God’s messenger. God has judgment to bring, and He will send ... a strong delusion through the Antichrist. God will not force this delusion on anyone, but those who do not receive the love of the truth will receive this strong delusion. “They were first deluded, which was their sin; and God sends them strong delusion, and that is their punishment.” (Poole)

God’s people, His children, are a reproving light. They are called out of darkness into marvelous light, that they might reflect the, light of Him who hath “called them out of darkness into His marvelous light.” But, beloved, there is another quality in light, there are many others indeed, but this one especially here to be noted, which is, that there is a detective and a reproving quality in light. We know not the beauty of an object but as the light unfolds it; we know not its faultiness, we see not its defects, they are to us unknown without the light; but the light reveals them. The Lord’s people are especially called to stand; not merely as a reflecting light, not merely as a diffusing light, but as a reproving light, reproving the “darkness “ around them.
(Biblical Illustrator)

​​Today, in the 21st century we see the blatant lack of unfeigned love, in every aspect of life. Much of it is rooted in pride, arrogance, and selfishness. This is the "ME" culture-whatever feels good-do it, regardless of who it may harm. There's a great deal of merchandising of "love", because it is profitable, and it can be polished up and made to look real-when it is just a cheap imitation. 
I'll narrow it down to a few examples: If you are intentionally doing something to harm anyone else-either physically, mentally, morally, or psychologically, it has no root in love. It is rooted in the work of the devil. Jesus said he came to kill, steal, and destroy. If you are doing anything that brings harm in any way to another-you are in league with Satan. 
Another tool of the devil: Do you intentionally provoke someone else to do something wrong, just so you can find fault, and accuse them to  other's? This is malicious trickery, that many use to get someone to lose their temper or retaliate-so they can then slander them everywhere.

​The technologies today are used by many to aide people in their evil intentions, and brings untold misery to other's. Spying on other's private lives, spreading and promoting slander, which brings false accusations, and destroys people. Manipulation, control, and power over other's is a rampant disease today, that is spread by every form of media. Only those who work diligently to avoid getting trapped in this, will endure to the end, before Christ returns. In this age of deceit-
​I don't blame anyone if they do not want to be involved in large gatherings, or crowds. Use wisdom, and choose your friends wisely. God never calls us to be foolish, or a doormat.
​Lorna Couillard

​“As for man, his days are as grass.” He lives on the grass and lives like the grass. Corn is but educated grass, and man, who feeds on it, partakes of its nature. The grass lives, grows, flowers, falls beneath the scythe, dries up, and is removed from the field: read this sentence over again, and you will find it the history of man. If he lives out his little day, he is cut down at last, and it is far more likely that he will wither before he comes to maturity, or be plucked away on a sudden, long before he has fulfilled his time. “As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.” He has a beauty and a comeliness even as the meadows have when they are yellow with the king-cups, but, alas, how shortlived. No sooner come than gone, a flash of loveliness and no more. Man is not even like a flower in the conservatory or in the sheltered garden border, he grows best according to nature, as the field-flower does, and like the unprotected beautifier of the pasture, he runs a thousand risks of coming to a speedy end.

​“Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me to escape.” Be true, O God, to thy word. It is a righteous thing in thee to keep the promises which thou hast made unto thy servants. I have trusted thee, and thou wilt not be unrighteous to forget my faith. I am taken as in a net, but do thou liberate me from the malice of my persecutors. “Incline thine ear unto me, and save me.” Stoop to my feebleness, and hear my faint whispers; be gracious to my infirmities, and smile upon me: I ask salvation; listen thou to my petitions, and save me. Like one wounded and left for dead by mine enemies, I need that thou bend over me and bind up my wounds. These mercies are asked on the plea of faith, and they cannot, therefore, be denied.
(Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)

​MOSES AND Elijah uttered practically the same call, which is always being spoken to each fresh generation. As soon as we can think for ourselves, we are accosted by the challenge of the Divine Voice- Art thou for Me or against Me? Which side dost thou take? From the lips of our blessed Lord comes the additional challenge, which compels us to face the alternative as one that may not be trifled with or put aside: "He that is not with Me is against Me."
How long halt ye between two opinions? We must take one side or the other. When the division-bell rings in the House of Commons, the Ayes must go to the right and the Noes to the left. A man must choose which he will take! If Jehovah, If Baal, We cannot be neutral without being stultified.
Who, then, is prepared to take sides, and to come out to Christ, without the camp, bearing His reproach?

Jesus often told stories to teach on the truths of life-but the stories weren't fiction. Lazarus was a real person, and is still in torment and in hell today. And, if he could he'd be warning you-don't come to this place of torment, don't be like the ones described by Jesus in this parable, don't be blind and stupid. Heed the warnings now, while you are still on this side of death. This parable also destroys the false teaching of purgatory. It is accounted unto man once to die-then the judgment.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
​Luk 16:19  There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: 
Luk 16:20  And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, 
Luk 16:21  And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. 
Luk 16:22  And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; 
Luk 16:23  And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 
Luk 16:24  And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. 
Luk 16:25  But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. 
Luk 16:26  And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. 
Luk 16:27  Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: 
Luk 16:28  For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. 
Luk 16:29  Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. 
Luk 16:30  And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. 

Luk 16:31  And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. ​

The exaltation of the name of God should be the business of every Christian; but since such poor things as we fail to honor him as he deserves, we may invoke his own power to aid us. Be high, O God, but do thou maintain thy loftiness by thine own almightiness, for no other power can worthily do it.
“So will we sing and praise thy power.” For a time the saints may mourn, but the glorious appearance of their divine Helper awakens their joy. Joy should always flow in the channel of praise. All the attributes of God are fitting subjects to be celebrated by the music of our hearts and voices, and when we observe a display of his 
power, we must extol it. He wrought our deliverance alone, and he alone shall have the praise. (Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)

We can picture to ourselves the unfolding splendors of the new morning. The eyes of the people gazed as, without wave or sound, as with increasing vigor and unsullied purity, the light streamed in from the east. It disclosed the green fields and well kept vineyards and pleasant groves of the valleys; it lit up the city and its splendid palaces and gorgeous Temple; and it revealed all around them the majestic forms of the mountains. How it gilded everything, and beautified the pinnacles of the Temple, and touched the hills with gold! How it aroused the wicked, who then as now turned night into day, and worked deeds of violence and wrong under cover of black night! How it cleansed the earth, and lifted the thick veil of mist, and drove away the pestilential vapors. 

Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Christ. He had a glimpse of that day of the birth of Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, as He had a glimpse also of the manner in which Jesus Christ should work out our redemption. He took his son Isaac and offered him up on Mount Moriah—that Isaac so exceedingly dear, of whom it was said, that "in Isaac shall thy seed be called." He offered him up, his one hope of becoming the father of many nations. And that act of Abraham—that act of faith, was counted unto him for righteousness; and he is held up for ever as the father of the faithful. To him, as St. Paul writes, "The Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed."
​Jesus Christ Himself lived before Abraham was born. Whenever God is spoken of as holding communion and as being visible to man, it is in the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God, the Son, Jesus Christ. It is He who declares to us the Father. It is He who represents God to us, and is Himself God, even Jesus Christ.

​He passed through the stage of helpless and unconscious infancy—being in all things made like His brethren. No preternatural glory shone about Him: it is by His wearing the first childish swaddling clothes, hastily extemporized perhaps by His virgin mother, and by the rude fashion of His resting-place, that the shepherds are to discover Him. Yet even while He lies on His hard bed in poorest guise there are not wanting signs of His great and unapproachable majesty.  Heaven opens, and angels descend to proclaim and celebrate His birth; the glorious light that breaks in upon the darkness of earth, the multitude of celestial beings, and the song of praise, bear witness to the greatness and significance of the event that has just taken place in Bethlehem.
​In no uncertain terms the angel speaks of Jesus as the possessor of a mightier throne than that of Caesar. He is Lord of angels and of men.

“If the Son shall make you free”. The faithful are the true freemen, and the full tyranny of sin ends when redemption begins. Not that the faithful are ever entirely free from sinning. Still, they are free from sin: from its blindness—they know it for what it is; from its punishment—they fear that no more; from the love of sin; from the dominion of sin. They have come under a better dominion. They learn to glory through and in Him who is the end of the law for righteousness: “I delight to do Thy will, O my God; yea, Thy law is within my heart” (Psa_40:8). Let us thank God that we can rejoice and say, There came to us a Savior, a Deliverer, a Son of man, full of love and power, who hath kindled a quickening fire within our hearts. Now we see the heaven open to us as our true Fatherland, and can now believe and hope and rejoice that we are of the household of God. “If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed”. (Joh_8:31-32).
​(Abridged from Friedr. Arndt)

Blessed are ye when men shall revile you - Reproach you; call you by evil and contemptuous names; ridicule you because you are Christians. Thus, they said of Jesus that he was a Samaritan and had a devil Joh_8:48; that he was mad Joh_10:20; and thus they reviled and mocked him on the cross, Mat_27:39-44. But, being reviled, he reviled not again 1Pe_2:23; and thus being reviled, we should bless 1Co_4:12; and thus, though the contempt of the world is not in itself desirable, yet it is blessed to tread in the footsteps of Jesus, to imitate his example, and even to suffer for his sake, Php_1:29.
(Albert Barnes)

Here is a dramatic representation of weighty decisions made every day in human hearts. When we choose ease and worldly glory in preference to holiness and self-denial, we despise and reject Christ. Here our choice is seen worked out to the bitter end. This is a revelation of the meaning of sin.
​THE EFFECT OF THIS REVELATION. The world can never forget that spiracle. In the dark ages, when the Bible was a hidden book, a representation of this scene was to be found in every church. Though obscured by superstition, the ideal was still held up, and was still molding the minds and stimulating the holy endeavors of men. In an open Bible we have the ideal more truthfully set forth. The love there revealed has been the constraining motive which moved apostles to preach, martyrs to suffer, missionaries to forgo the joys of home, and humble men and women to labor in countless ways to advance the interests of Christ. His patience shames our murmuring: His burning love to us kindles our love to Him. (R. C. Ford, M.A.)

​Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." What! the whole of it vanity? O favored monarch, is there nothing in all thy wealth? Nothing in that wide dominion reaching from the river even to the sea? Nothing in Palmyra's glorious palaces? Nothing in the house of the forest of Lebanon? In all thy music and dancing, and wine and luxury, is there nothing? "Nothing," he says, "but weariness of spirit." 

​"Wonderful." This is the first title which the prophetic herald assigns to the newborn Prince. Wonderful in His actions, for look at His miracles; wonderful in His endurances, for contemplate His sufferings; wonderful in life, for who shall declare His generation? wonderful in death, for He saw no corruption; wonderful in His resurrection, for He raised Himself; wonderful in ascension, for He carried our fallen nature into heavenly places; wonderful in the love which moved Him to do and to suffer for sinful beings like ourselves.
​
Next He is called "Counsellor." Not our Counsellor, as though the office were one limited to the children of men, but Counsellor in the abstract; denoting, it may be, His intimate union in the Divine essence, as a Person in the Godhead, and as such concerned in all the counsels of eternity.

​"Our Lord gives the fourfold basis of His peace: (1) The vision of the Father. Throughout these wonderful chapters He seems able to speak of nothing else. If we lived in the thought and consciousness of God, our peace also would be as a river. Let us wrap that thought around us, as a man his overcoat on a stormy day. (2) Disentanglement from the world. We must stand clear of the ambitions of the world, of its fear and favor, of its craving for wealth and fear of poverty. The world must have no charms for us. (3) A constraining love, as in Joh_14:31. (4) Obedience to God’s supreme authority. When we put the government on His shoulder, He sets up the inward reign as Prince of Peace." (F.B. Meyer)

​​Joh 14:31  But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence. 

Silliness. There are many things that we pardon in a child because it is a child. If a child makes a foolish remark, or does a foolish act, we say, in excuse, “He is but a child—he will be wiser by and by.” But if, when the child grows up, and is still not wiser, we say, by way of reproach, that he is childish and ought, at his age, to know better.
​Selfishness. All young children show this more or less. Hence the greediness in children and their egotism, the frequent use in their mouth of the words “I” and “me.” And this is a fault which all parents should try to correct. But a selfish child has the excuse of ignorance; but a selfish young man or woman has not this excuse. They do know better. While this fault remains uncorrected in us, we cannot make any progress in our Christian walk. 

Observe how the Psalmist brands his own initials upon every name which he rejoicingly gives to his God - my expectation, my rock, my salvation, my glory, my strength, my refuge; he is not content to know that the Lord is all these things; he acts faith towards him, and lays claim to him under every character. What are the mines of Peru or Golconda to me if I have no inheritance in them? It is the word my which puts the honey into the comb. If our experience has not yet enabled us to realize the Lord under any of these consoling titles, we must seek grace that we may yet be partakers of their sweetness. The bees in some way or other penetrate the flowers and collect their juices; it must be hard for them to enter the closed cups and mouthless bags of some of the favorites of the garden, yet the honey-gatherers find or make a passage; and in this they are our instructors, for into each delightful name, character, and office of our covenant God our persevering faith must find an entrance, and from each it must draw delight." (Charles Spurgeon-
Treasury of David)

​Isa 43:25  I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. 

How humble-not by their power. How daring-God had glorified Him whom they slew! What glorious conceptions of Christ-Prince of Life, holy and righteous. What pity for the ignorance of the Jews. The times of refreshing which are to come on this distracted world depend on the repentance and restoration of Israel. The Jew has the first offer of the gospel, as the child of the covenant; but its wide provisions lie open to us all, who by faith have become heirs of the promises made to Abraham. Christ begins His work of benediction for the soul by turning it away from iniquity. “Turn us, O Lord, and we shall be turned".     (F.B. Meyer)

'Be converted - Be turned from sin and Satan unto God. See Act 26:20. But this term, so common in modern writings, very rarely occurs in Scripture: perhaps not once in the sense we now use it, for an entire change from vice to holiness. That the times of refreshing - Wherein God largely bestows his refreshing grace, may come - To you also. To others they will assuredly come, whether ye repent or no."  (John Wesley)

We belong to Him by right; it is for us to see to it that we are also His by choice. And His ownership involves His shepherd-care. We are His flock; it is for Him to lead us into green pastures and beside still waters.
​
To the psalmist’s eye the nations of the world pour into the Temple through the wide-open portals. “Hark!” he cries. “Listen to the burst of thanksgivings which roll forth from the mighty throng!” The great attraction is the goodness of Jehovah, and the everlastingness of His love and troth. This psalm reveals the true genius of religion. We cannot be satisfied till all men share our knowledge of the love of God. There is nothing which will better promote the true happiness and gladness of mankind.
​(F.B. Meyer)

Wait upon Him in the most unpromising circumstances. “Yea, in the way of Thy judgments have we waited for Thee.” When all is dark and threatening; when the promised mercy is long delayed and all seems settling into gloom and desolation; when the dungeon has no lamp and the night no star, even then does the longing soul wait for God (chap. Isa_8:17). It is a genuine mark of grace to trust a withdrawing God and never forego confidence in Him, but look for Him as in the darkest night the shivering sentinel looks for the morning star; as the husbandman amid the severest winter believes in the returning spring.

Then shall the King say to them on his right hand. The King is Christ. This is the only time, save in parabolic language, that he applies the title to himself, though he speaks of his kingdom and declares he came into the world to be a king. At judgment his kingly majesty will be acknowledged by all the universe.

Come, ye blessed of my Father. Observe that his invitation on earth to mortals is to come: "Come ye to the waters and drink;" "Let him that is athirst come and partake of the waters of life freely." To all who have heeded his earthly invitation he gives a heavenly invitation.

Inherit the kingdom prepared for you. The blessed are now to enter on an inheritance. On earth they were heirs and joint-heirs with Christ.
(B.W. Johnson)

"Yea, I still account both all these and all things else to be mere loss, compared to the inward, experimental knowledge of Christ, as my Lord, as my prophet, priest, and king, as teaching me wisdom, atoning for my sins, and reigning in my heart. To refer this to justification only, is miserably to pervert the whole scope of the words. They manifestly relate to sanctification also; yea, to that chiefly. For whom I have actually suffered the loss of all things - Which the world loves, esteems, or admires; of which I am so far from repenting, that I still account them but dung - The discourse rises. Loss is sustained with patience, but dung is cast away with abhorrence. The Greek word signifies any, the vilest refuse of things, the dross of metals, the dregs of liquors, the excrements of animals, the most worthless scraps of meat, fit only for dogs. That I may gain Christ - He that loses all things, not excepting himself, gains Christ, and is gained by Christ. And still there is more; which even St. Paul speaks of his having not yet gained." (John Wesley)

1. I'm a loose woman, who am involved sexually with other men. I've also been accused of many things regarding sex, that only someone who's got an agenda-would accuse me of. By the way-do you know that there's people who've had material intentionally put into their computers, that they didn't put there, and cops, and the CIA do this-if they want to destroy somebody's reputation? I've had things mailed to me, that I never ordered-that I've destroyed. Think about that. When somebody wants to destroy you, because what your doing is a threat to them, there's nothing they won't do. There's been no relationships or sexual encounters with any man when I was married to Lynn, nor since, and never will be.
2. I'm anti-social, and not a contributing member of the community.
I've given sums of money over the years to  certain charities I trust, and here in my area, but do not broadcast it, it's nobody's business who I give to or how much. The bible speaks clearly about this, that we are not to trumpet what we do.
3. I don't have any friends.
Over the years when I was in churches, I worked with several women who I was friends with, and we traveled around the country to conferences, prayer meetings, and events. I don't do this anymore, and most of these friends are no longer here, they are gone, in heaven. I don't have the time or desire to spend on meetings and events that I am not interested in now. Many Churches are social clubs, with very little bible, or no bible teaching-I won't waste what time I have left, on things that do not matter to me.
5. I've been accused of being a poor old woman, who's got little to nothing the contribute, and in the "trailer trash" of society. 
When I was abandoned by my first husband many years ago, at the age of 21-that's just what I was, and drinking my way to destruction, while my small daughter was living with me in this situation. I praise God every day, for how He has brought me through, led me in this path of life, and brought me out of that life. How He put opportunities and blessings before me, and dreams He's allowed me to see come to pass, as I worked step by step and He's guided me in the jobs I've worked, and gained in each one. And the people He's put before me, and the victories that have been won, By the power of God. It's in the book I wrote, that can be read at the top of this page "The NightWatchman". The photo of my home here is a modest 3 bedroom ranch, with 3 acres of land-that's all I want to maintain at my age now-72. During our life together, Lynn and I built two very nice homes, and no one can take away the memories, or the victories that we gained in building them. For many years, I owned, trained, and won many awards for the fine Arabian horses God allowed me to have, and I cherish the memories of those years. No one can change that. One day, I'll have them again. As I am now, I owe no one anything, and if I lost everything today, I feel the same as Paul, I have Christ, that is all I need. Whatever may come, I will face it with Jesus, and I know I can trust Him, He will see me through.
Now, I'm looking forward to the home God has prepared for me, when He decides it's time for me to leave this world. I'm prepared for whatever He chooses. These photos gives a good overview of what God can do for anyone, who turns to Him, and allows Him to lead them in life. They speak louder than any words.
I could go on, but, this is where I will stop. This will be enough for now. As for what I post or don't post here on these sites, I seek God for everything that's put here, if a mistake is made, I do what I can to correct it. But, I won't be persuaded, bribed, or blackmailed by anyone. The decisions made here, are between myself, and God alone. In the experiences I've had through this life, I've learned where my source of comfort, and my refuge is- in God.
The purpose of these sites is to lift the Name of Jesus Christ, declare Him as Lord and Savior, and coming again. Are you ready, when He does? If you died today, are you ready to meet Him? That, is the most important question you can ever be asked. The answer, is up to you.
Lorna Couillard

​He was grievously mistaken as to the purchasing power of money. He thought that money could do anything. His mind was so utterly sordid that he was as honest as he could be in proffering coin for the sovereign gifts of God. There are men in our times who seem to have a like confidence in filthy lucre. Their very souls grow yellow as they bow before their wretched golden god. They subordinate all things to personal gain. Friendship, beneficence, patriotism, and piety are of value only, as they can be made to serve their selfish ends.

“Come,” He said, “I will make ye fishers of men. And they left all and followed Him.” He was not wrong then in His choice. These men who gave up all at once for Him, had impulse, heart, impetuosity, love; and these were the main things He wanted for His work. It would be a hard task, and no faint-heartedness or questioning could bear its trials. It was this intensity of spirit that Christ stirred in men. When He spoke men arose from the dead. ​The source of His influence was partly personal; also it was weighted with infinite, Divine, ideal thoughts; He established living truths in the hearts of men and women.

But the Lord pondereth the hearts: weighs them in the balance of righteousness and truth; considers them, having a perfect knowledge of them, and all the springs of action in them; and knows that every way of man is not right, though they may seem so to him. (John Gill)

Pro 16:2  All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits. 
Pro 16:25  There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. 

People who follow Christ must not always expect smooth sailing. If there are any people who you would think ought to have a good time in getting out of this world, the apostles of Jesus Christ ought to have been the men. Have you ever noticed how they got out of the world? James lost his head. Philip was hung to death against a pillar. Matthew was struck to death by a halberd. Mark was dragged to death through the streets.  James the Less had his brains dashed out with a fuller’s club. Matthias was stoned to death. Thomas was struck through with a spear. John Huss in the fire, the Albigenses, the Waldenses, the Scotch Covenanters-did they always find smooth sailing? Why go so far? There is a young man in a store in New York who has a hard time to maintain his Christian character. All the clerks laugh at him, the employers in that store laugh at him, and when he loses his patience they say: “You are a pretty Christian.” Not so easy is it for that young man to follow Christ. If the Lord did not help him hour by hour he would fail.
(Dr. Talmage-Biblical Illustrator)

​The answer of Jesus was prompt and decisive. Not deigning to use any words of His own, or to hold any parley, even the shortest, He meets the word of the tempter with a Divine word: "It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." The tempting thought is something foreign to the mind of Jesus, something unwelcome, repulsive, and it is rejected instantly. Instead of allowing Himself to be diverted from the Divine purpose, His will detached from the Father’s will, He turns to that will and word at once. It is His refuge, His home. The thought of Jesus cannot pass beyond the circle of that will, any more than a dove can pass beyond the over-arching sky. He sees the throne that is above all thrones, and gazing upon that, worshipping only the Great King, who is over all and in all, the thrones and crowns of earthly dominions are but as motes of the air. The victory was complete. 

 “Lead me in a plain path.” Help is here sought as well as direction; we not only need a map of the way, but a guide to assist us in the journey. A path is here desired which shall be open, honest, straightforward, in opposition to the way of cunning, which is intricate, tortuous, dangerous. Good men seldom succeed in fine speculations and doubtful courses; plain simplicity is the best spirit for an heir of heaven: let us leave shifty tricks and political expediencies to the citizens of the world - the New Jerusalem owns plain men for its citizens. Esau was a cunning hunter, Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. “Because of mine enemies.” These will catch us if they can, but the way of manifest, simple honesty is safe from their rage. It is wonderful to observe how honest simplicity baffles and outwits the craftiness of wickedness. Truth is wisdom. “Honesty is the best policy.”
​(Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)

​1. Pardoning mercy.
2. Purifying mercy: for it would be of little use if purity were not given as well as pardon.
3. Pacifying mercy—to keep me quiet in the midst of this unquiet world.

The fruit. The river is to make glad the city of God. That is, God’s Church and people; and the great purpose of the river and all its streams is—to make them glad: to bring up a smiling landscape around them, to fill their lips and hearts with praise.
Its source. It is far above out of your sight. So is it, even, with earthly rivers: they do not at once reveal their source. You must travel up and up the stream, and leave plain for hillside, and still press on ere you come to the fountain head. And for this river you must ascend to the boundless lake of Divine love.
The channel—the Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him it flows down to man. 

There is, I know, a false, as well as a true peace. There is the simulated contentment of a hard indifference. There is the cynical self-complacency of a moral blindness. There is the deep infatuation of a false security. There is the dull stupefaction of an obstinate despair. But who will call this peace? The carelessness of a traveller by night, who knows not that he is walking all the time along the edge of a frightful precipice—is that peace? For, just as we must not be deceived by the false semblance, or by voices which cry Peace, peace, when there is no peace, so let us neither be robbed of the deep reality by external appearances, or by passing troubles.  
The lives of how many of us are troubled by the strife of tongues! And yet even amid these flights of barbed arrows; amid these clouds of poisonous insects; amid these insolences of anonymous slander, what peace—what perfect peace—may we find if our minds be stayed on God. (Dean Farrar, D. D.)

The rock of my strength - The strong rock; the refuge that cannot be successfully assailed; where I shall feel strong and secure. See the notes at Psa_18:2.
Psa 18:2  The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. 
My refuge - That to which I may flee for safety. 
​Psa 46:1  To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, A Song upon Alamoth. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 
​(Albert Barnes)

With that said-there are other factors that I'll bring out, that rarely is spoken of, and in today's world we see an epidemic of people with no moral compass, and do not care in the least, whether their tongues destroy someone else, they enjoy their wickedness, and use their serpents tongues, just like Satan did, in the garden, long ago.
If someone comes to me and speaks about someone else, accusing them of some offence, I ask these questions to myself privately, and then may ask the person who's accusing, if I get the chance:
1. Was there more than just one who saw or heard this?
2. Was the person provoked, or compelled to say or do this?
3. Was this person mistreated, offended, or abused in some way that brought him/her to this point to do this?
Many times, when I've asked these questions, the looks on the faces, and the uneasy responses, tells me more than any of their words do.
Lorna Couillard

​Wherever destruction is uppermost in speech or act, you may detect the presence of the great enemy of souls. Christ is ever constructive, saving, life-giving. Let us not be content until our life has become abundant life. Our life cost the Shepherd’s life. He did not hesitate to interpose Himself between the sheep and the wolf of hell. There is possible between our Lord and ourselves an intimacy of knowledge which can be compared to nothing less than that which subsists between the Father and Himself.
Note how our Lord looked beyond the hurdles of the Jewish fold and thought tenderly of the Gentile sheep that were far away. In the revelation committed to the Apostle Paul He gave vent to His love, and through the succeeding centuries He has ever sought them. There may be many folds, but there can be only one flock. Men die because they cannot help it; Christ was born that He might die; He died because He would.    (F.B. Meyer)

Heaven is a “far country,” because we are by nature so disqualified from inhabiting it. We speak of the fall of man, and this is the measure of it—a fall from paradise to perdition—a fall that only power Divine can span. From this” far country” good news has come. News from a far country is interesting to us, if it is from a strange land, unlike our own. If we have those who are near and dear to us dwelling in it. If we hope, or intend, to live in it by and by. Good news has come from this far country, the best and most glorious news that can fall on mortal ear. Angels have brought it. Jesus has brought it. The Holy Spirit has brought it. Holy men, moved by Him, have written and spoken it. Subtle, gracious, secret good news is brought from the far country still. (J. Jackson Wray)

​Isa 55:1  Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 

YESTERDAY’s GRIEF
The rain that fell a-yesterday is ruby on the roses,
Silver on the poplar leaf, and gold on willow stem;
The grief that chanced a-yesterday is silence
that incloses
Holy loves when time and change shall never trouble them.

The rain that fell a-yesterday makes all the hillsides glisten,
Coral on the laurel and beryl on the grass;
The grief that chanced a-yesterday has taught the soul to listen
For whispers of eternity in all the winds that pass.

O faint-of-heart, storm-beaten, this rain
will gleam tomorrow,
Flame within the columbine and jewels
on the thorn,
Heaven in the forget-me-not; though sorrow now be sorrow,
Yet sorrow shall be, beauty in the magic
of the morn.
Katherine Lee Bates

​Thus tremulous, timid, mobile, it is beautifully compared to a hind. The true object of its longings is always God, however little it knows for what it is thirsting. But they are happy in their very yearnings who are conscious of the true direction of these, and can say that it is God for whom they are athirst. The correspondence between man’s needs and their true object is involved in that name “the living God”; for a heart can rest only in one all-sufficient Person, and must have a heart to throb against. But no finite being can still them; and after all sweetnesses of human loves and helps of human strengths, the soul’s thirst remains unslaked, and the Person who is enough must be the living God. The difference between the devout and the worldly man is just that the one can only say, “My soul pants and thirsts,” and the other can add “after Thee, O God.” (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
You Are My Hiding Place/As The Deer--
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWYtujZjoUA

​"O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee,
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

"O Light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to Thee,
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

"O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee,
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shalt tearless be.

"O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from Thee,
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red,
Life that shall endless be."

At times on this page and others, I post some of the photos I've taken myself, and have made graphics from some of them. Some people have gotten the idea, it's all to promote myself. 
They are put here for the people I've spoken of above. When you are bed-ridden in a hospital, or nursing home, wheelchair bound, have lost a husband or wife, or a shut-in, seeing a photo of  the untouched beauty of God, can lift your spirit, and bring hope, and a touch of His love into their lives. This, is the intention of putting them here.
Please, try to get beyond yourself, and put yourself in their situations.

​Look on this image of patience. There He stands in the cool evening hour, having waited till the heat and business of the day be past. He chooses the time when the mind is most likely to be at leisure, and to be quick to hear. The cares of the day are over; it is the hour of relaxation. The very solitude of the chamber disposes the mind to serious thought. Silence has its quiet influence. The spirit of the evening scene is peace. His footprints are on the threshold, marking His last visit, and no one has heeded them. No welcome, it is feared, for Him again to-night, waiting patiently till all within be hushed and His voice be heard.
​
 "If any man hear My voice, and open the door." This is the condition of His entering, the welcome which He asks of us. Two possible states of life are indicated: a man may be so deaf that he cannot hear, or he may hear and not heed.

​It is perilous to tamper with the world - to look at its pleasures or to seek its society. He that would enter heaven must come with a heart full of love to God; giving “all” into his hands, and prepared always to give up all his property, his health, his friends, his body, his soul to God, when he demands them, or he cannot be a Christian. Religion is everything or nothing. He that is not willing to sacrifice “everything” for the cause of God, is really willing to sacrifice nothing.
​(Albert Barnes)

In the morning - Early; speedily; with the first rays of the morning. Let it be, as it were, the first thing in the day; the first thing that is done. The idea is not that he would wait for another day, but that he would interpose as the very first act - as when one enters on a day. See the notes at Psa_46:5, where the margin is, when the morning appeareth; Hebrew, In the faces of the morning.
For in thee do I trust - I have no other confidence or ground of reliance; but I have confidence in thee.

But the conversation and teaching of the godly are always a means of moral health to others; by their words they witness for the truth of God, and are the means of “opening men’s eyes, and turning them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God” (Act_26:13)
​​And, like their Divine Master, they “know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary” (Isa_50:4), and thus that which flows from their lips is as refreshing and healthful to weary and struggling men and women on the highway of life as the living, cooling watercourse is to the dusty and thirsty traveler. (Preacher's Homiletical)

For without are dogs - The wicked, the depraved, the vile: for of such characters the dogs, an unclean animal among the Jews, was regarded as a symbol, Deu_23:18. On the meaning of the expression, see the notes on Php_3:2. The word “without” means that they would not be admitted into the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, Rev_21:8, Rev_21:27.
And sorcerers, ... - All these characters are specified in Rev_21:8, as excluded from heaven. See the notes on that verse. The only change is, that those who “love and make a lie” are added to the list; that is, who delight in lies, or what is false. (Albert Barnes)

"In an oriental city the dogs, an unclean animal, are seen in great numbers in the streets, and are a disagreeable feature. These are taken to represent one type of sinners. Others with different characteristics are also given. All are without. None of them ever pass through the portals of the New Jerusalem." (B.W. Jonson)

​The majestic music of this great psalm separates it from all the rest. It is like the deep bass stop of a mighty organ. Moses’ authorship is stamped upon it. It is worthy of the man who had seen God face to face. The transitoriness of human life is contrasted with the stability of God. He is the asylum and home of all the generations of mankind, Deu_33:27.

Deu 33:27  The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them.

​The earth and its mountains, the universe and its worlds, were born of Him; but He Himself had no origin, no beginning. Time is but a sigh, a breath, the swift rush of the mountain-torrent, a tale told by the camp-fire at night, the grass of a morning’s growth.  (F.B. Meyer)​

Bad communications is dangerous to our characters. To have the same attachments and dislikes, the same pursuits and aversions, has always been esteemed the foundation of friendship; similarity of disposition, of sentiments, of manners, is the usual bond which unites companions together. The world forms its judgments by general rules; when it sees a man a frequent spectator of the excesses of the vicious, it takes for granted that he is a partaker also, and an approver of them. ​(Biblical Illustrator)

​The workman, 2Ti_2:14-18 : The one anxiety with us all should be to stand approved before God.  We must hold a straight course in the word of truth. Our testimony should resemble an undeviating furrow. Let us construct in our life something which will be a permanent addition to the well-being of the world, so that at the last the Master may say that He is satisfied.
(F.B. Meyer)

And the entrance on the next world must bring with it a knowledge of God such as is quite impossible in this life. His vast, His illimitable life, will present itself to the apprehension of our spirits as a clearly consistent whole—not as a complex problem to be painfully mastered by the efforts of our understandings, but as a present, living, encompassing Being who is inflecting Himself upon the very sight, whether they will it or not, of His adoring creatures. "Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty"—they were words of warning as well as words of promise.
At our entrance on another world we shall know ourselves as never before. The past will be spread out before it, and we shall take a comprehensive survey of it. One Being there is who knows us now, who knows each of us perfectly, who has always known us. Then, for the first time, we shall know ourselves even as also we are known. We shall not have to await the Judge’s sentence; we shall read it at a glance, whatever it be, in this new apprehension of what we are.  (H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 1098)

But, still from a far distance, the father ran. No hesitation, no slowing of pace-he ran. 
When the sinner starts for God, God starts for the sinner. God does not come out with a slow and hesitating pace; the infinite spaces slip beneath His feet, and He takes worlds at a bound.
​The father is silent, and that silence is Godlike. He receives the confession, for it is true, it is necessary; nothing can excuse the deeds, nothing can change the character of that awful past; but he does not dwell upon the painful subject, he does not open up the wound afresh. 

Why are we so powerless? Because our temptations assail us at our weakest points. The man who has no love of money would never be tempted to miserliness. “Every man is tempted by his own lust”— by his own particular evil bent or propensity. Many examples in Bible: Solomon, drawn away by love of women; Lot, by love of strong drink; Balaam, by love of money.
(Preacher's Homiletical)

God has wisely hidden from us the day of death, that we may be always ready and watching for His coming.
There is never but a step, a breath, a heart-throb, between any man and death - While the citadel is guarded, and the walls and gates are watched day and night with sleepless vigilance, an unseen foe lurks within, and with noiseless tread, at the midnight hour, enters the chamber of the sleeper, and life is extinct. Be ready, O man - The Son of Man may come at any hour, in any place, by any agency, along any one of a thousand unseen avenues. (Homiletic Review)

The state of Judah and Israel was one of obstinate unbelief. Today, it has remained the same-to this day they do not as a nation, recognize their Messiah-Jesus Christ.
Christ has been preached by those who know the truth, and they've consistently rejected Him, as most of the world has. They remain as they were in Jeremiah's day, and have stubbornly continued to look to the traditions of the former laws and traditions of their fathers; and have not believed they would ever suffer the consequences of their sin. They've had 2000 years to turn and repent-and receive their risen Messiah-but still to this day refuse. God's doing what He said He would do, and the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse are riding, and God's word will unfold, as the prophet John saw on the Isle of Patmos.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus. 

Like some fleecy vapor flitting across the sun, and irradiated by its light, it enables our weak eyes to see light, and not darkness, in the else intolerable blaze. Yes! Thou art the light of the world, because in Thee dwelleth “the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Thy servant hath taught us the meaning of Thy words, when he said: “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
(Note: J. G. Greenhough, The Cross in Modern Life, 90)

Every vile thought leaves its trail of slime behind, leaves the mind filthier for even its momentary presence. Every bad act of a man’s life makes it easier for him evermore to do the bad. A miser not only scrapes his fingers to the bone in raking together his money, he hardens his heart to the core. “What is put into the strong box,” it is truly said, “is taken out of the man.” He who cheats, is cheating himself worse than all others. The thief steals from himself; the liar turns himself into a living lie; the profligate is his own victim. The man who attempts to injure his neighbor, only succeeds in injuring himself. The wrong that he does his own soul is ten times more severe and lasting than any evil he can inflict on others. “No man,” says Burke, “ever had a point of pride that was not injurious to him”; and St. Bernard wrote: “Nothing can work me damage except myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real sufferer but by my own fault.”
(Note: Carlyle, Past and Present, bk. i. ch. ii.)

Many parts of this prayer bear a strict resemblance to that offered up by Solomon, 2Ch_6:1, when dedicating the temple:
2Ch 6:1  Then said Solomon, The LORD hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. 

​He kneeled down upon his knees before all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands towards heaven; 2Ch_6:13.
2Ch 6:13  For Solomon had made a brasen scaffold, of five cubits long, and five cubits broad, and three cubits high, and had set it in the midst of the court: and upon it he stood, and kneeled down upon his knees before all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven,

​The apostle was now dedicating the Christian Church, that then was and that ever should be, to God; and praying for those blessings which should ever rest on and distinguish it; and he kneels down after the example of Solomon, and invokes him to whom the first temple was dedicated, and who had made it a type of the Gospel Church.  (Adam Clarke)

​The body is the Holy Spirit’s temple, and He is asked to bring it to the level of that spiritual wholeness which is His ideal. Where He gives the prayer that can affirm and claim, there is no doubt that perfect health will result. But there is all the difference between human telepathy and divine healing, which is God’s gift to faith.
Elijah became what he was by faith and prayer. Naturally he was subject to the same fears and failings as ourselves. There are two reasons why we should endeavor to convert men: (1) for their salvation, (2) for the arrest of their baleful influence.  (F.B. Meyer)

​He took into the wilderness a perfect humanity of flesh and blood, made in all points like His brethren, though without sin. He elected to fight His great fight, not by the use of the divine attributes, but as Son of man. Where the first Adam fell, the second must stand.
First, He could not use His native power for His own gratification. Second, He would abide strictly within the limitations of the world He had entered, Heb_2:16-17. Third, He would win His kingdom by the Cross.  (F.B. Meyer)

​There are three phases in our Lord’s teaching about prayer-that of Mat_6:1-34, Luk_18:1-43, and the words of Joh_14:1-31; Joh_15:1-27. In Luk_18:1-8 He exhorts to uniformity and urgency. There is an aspect of prayer that we are in danger of overlooking when the skies are blue and the sun is shining, and that is, the need of holy violence.
This lesson is taught, in the parable of this paragraph, by a striking contrast which may be stated thus: If an unjust and ungodly judge will finally grant a just petition, out of base and selfish motives and merely to save himself from being worried by a defenseless and oppressed woman, how much more shall the just and merciful God hear the cry and avenge the cause of those whom He loves. If answers to certain prayers, which we have offered in an agony of tears, are slow in coming, we may be sure, either that the time is not ripe, or that He is going to do something better.  (F.B. Meyer)

No evil, but every good gift - Whatever tends to holiness. And every perfect gift - Whatever tends to glory. Descendeth from the Father of lights - The appellation of Father is here used with peculiar propriety. It follows, "he begat us." He is the Father of all light, material or spiritual, in the kingdom of grace and of glory. With whom is no variableness - No change in his understanding. Or shadow of turning - in his will. He infallibly discerns all good and evil; and invariably loves one, and hates the other. There is, in both the Greek words, a metaphor taken from the stars, particularly proper where the Father of lights is mentioned. Both are applicable to any celestial body, which has a daily vicissitude of day and night, and sometimes longer days, sometimes longer nights. In God is nothing of this kind. He is mere light. If there Is any such vicissitude, it is in ourselves, not in him. (John Wesley)

Their eyes they have closed - Totally and obstinately resisted the truth of God, and shut their eyes against the light.

Lest - they should see- Lest they should see their lost estate, and be obliged to turn unto God, and seek his salvation. His state is truly deplorable who is sick unto death, and yet is afraid of being cured. The fault is here totally in the people, and not at all in that God whose name is Mercy and whose nature is love.
(Adam Clarke)

A wicked man’s conscience tells him that he must have some religion, and therefore so long as the minister calls only for some hearing, he responds. The vilest drunkard will be content to hear of calling on the Lord Jesus at his death; otherwise their consciences would not be quiet.

That which scares the wicked from, draws the godly unto the Word. The owl flies from the morning light, which other birds welcome.
​(J. Dyke.)

​The people that do know God, have learned patiently to do his will. None can hope to do exploits that is unqualified to bear those things that are unpleasant to the flesh. Hardness must be endured by every good soldier of Jesus Christ. “If we faint in the day of adversity, our strength is but small.”
The people that do know their God, are prepared for extraordinary services, by the ordinary course of their service to God. When men are daily adding sin to sin by obstinate impenitence, they prepare thorns and briars to tear their consciences, when an evil day comes. If you say that you know God, and keep not his commandments, you are liars. Great exploits were done by the heroes of God’s people. All that know their God, have learned to keep up an intercourse with him by prayer; and in the time of distress and danger, they pray more earnestly. Great are the victories which prayer and faith hath obtained.​ ​(Biblical Illustrator)

Of this we have one peerless example in the man Christ Jesus, who, on the eve of His agony, utters these words. We have here a word of farewell; "Peace be with you." ​But what are such legacies compared with that which Jesus here bequeaths to the humblest of His disciples. If we have Christ’s peace, no matter for anyone’s curse, no matter what wrath may surround our head. Peace is here used twice, and occurs first in its general sense. Peace within, in the calm serenity of a pardoned and reconciled soul; peace without, in every needed temporal blessing; peace in storms and afflictions, in the precious gift of a “heart established, trusting in the Lord”; peace in persecution; yea, “perfect peace,” blessing them that curse us, doing good to them that hate us; peace in death; for “mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace”; peace in the grave, for there the body is stretched out in repose, “where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest”; and the consummation of all peace in heaven.
​(T. Guthrie, D. D.)

My Peace--Maranatha Music
https://youtu.be/tlA13M33jcU?si=wRUL6za_EY6bkvTc

Every time you do what you know to be wrong, every time you surrender yourselves to a thought which you know to be evil, you are earning the wages of sin which are death—death to all peace of mind, to all noble feeling, to all nobility of character, to all solid success in life.
The wages of sin are seen in shattered lives, destroyed bodies by self-inflicted diseases, destroyed homes, and marriages, and nations.
By the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ unworthy sinners may have eternal life in Christ, and that as a gift from God, and not as something which is to be had in another world, but something which may be had in this. Turning to Christ, and receiving His mercy and grace, brings life and life everlasting. We know we belong to Him, and when this life is over, we will join Him and the saints in heaven. Choose this day-who you will serve. (Biblical Illustrator)

​Sometimes God comes in fire, Psa_97:3, as at Sinai, or on the day of Pentecost, which took place on the anniversary of the giving of the Law. Days come like that on which Jerusalem fell, or when the Turks took Constantinople, or when Napoleon was shattered at Waterloo-then hills melt like wax. But through all dark and terrible dispensations the Kingdom is secretly growing, the Lord is being exalted, and light is being sown for His people, Psa_97:11. So, believer, your tears and fightings, as they pass, are absorbing heaven’s love and power, which they will hold in reserve though buried for long in the dark. Days are at hand of unspeakable gladness. Be of good cheer.  (F.B. Meyer)

​By him were all things created. Hence he must have existed before any creation. Compare Joh_1:3, and Heb_1:2. As God manifested himself by means of the Son in the gospel, so in creation he manifested himself through the Son. The visible universe is a manifestation of God through the Son. THE WORD is the power that gives all things existence that exist.
Thrones, dominions, principalities. The angelic hierarchy; different ranks of angels, according to the teachings of some of the Jewish doctors. A heresy had already been proposed that divided these into ranks, assigned them an undue prominence, and held that Christ was only an angel. Paul does not pause to say whether these divisions are correct, but declares that Christ is above them all, created them, and that they were created for him. One of these heresies he wished to counteract was the doctrine of angel worship.
And he is before all things. He was before them all in time, and through him they came into existence.  (B.W. Johnson)

See herein the greatness of his nature, the depth of his condescension, and the range of his love. Mark the one sole cause of his bounty - “For his mercy endureth for ever.” He hath done all things from this motive; and because his mercy never ceases, he will continue to multiply deeds of love world without end. Let us with all our powers of heart and tongue give thanks unto the holy name of Jehovah for ever and ever.
Change and decay in all around I see,
O thou who changest not, abide with me.
​(Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)

We see, therefore, that we may cast away our confidence by unbelief. Once begin to doubt the power and will of Christ to bless us, and our confidence is gone. 
​​The faith may not altogether have departed, but confidence is thrown away. In fact, it seems to be possible for one to have all the evidences of Christ’s character and goodness set before him, so that he cannot doubt, but must believe in Christ’s divinity and salvation; and yet to have no real confidence in Him, no confidence which leads one to trust Him fully, and to go forth in His name in all boldness and with Christian courage. If, then, you are a possessor of this confidence, hold it fast. It is a step in advance of the ordinary Christian plan. It leads to something more, something higher, bolder, and grinder, for Christ and for His cause. Hold it fast, and exercise it. The more it is cultivated and exercised, the more it will grow and the stronger it will become.
(Biblical Illustrator)

“And do good.” Be practical, active, energetic, persevering in good. Positive virtue promotes negative virtue; he who does good is sure to avoid evil. “Seek peace.” Not merely prefer it, but with zeal and care endeavor to promote it. Peace with God, with thine own heart, with thy fellow man, search after this as the merchantman after a precious pearl. Nothing can more effectually promote our own happiness than peace; strife awakens passions which eat into the heart with corroding power. Anger is murder to one's own self, as well as to its objects. “And pursue it.” Hunt after it, chase it with eager desire. It may soon be lost, indeed, nothing is harder to retain, but do your best, and if enmity should arise let it be no fault of yours. Follow after peace when it shuns you; be resolved not to be of a contentious spirit. The peace which you thus promote will be returned into your own bosom, and be a perennial spring of comfort to you.
​(Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)

​A man of understanding will draw it out: Wisdom not only knows how to get and have wisdom; it also knows how to use it. The wise man – the man of understanding – knows how to draw wisdom out for practical and ready use.
Will draw it out: “By prudent questions and discourses, and a diligent observation of his words and actions.” (Poole)

“Those who are wise can discern the motives of the heart.” (Ross)

For what man knoweth the things of a man - All the inmost recesses of his mind; although men are all of one nature, and so may the more easily know one another. So the things of God knoweth no one but the Spirit - Who, consequently, is God.
​(John Wesley)

​"We may be self-deceived for threescore years and ten, but the deception ceases on the other side. There we shall know even as we are known. Know what? Among other things, ourselves. There will be no delusions concerning our possessions when our eyes open on that eternal dawn. I bid you remember there will be no seeming to have, before the great white throne and Him who sits on it. All that is accidental and imaginary will be revealed in the light of that great day. If we have never let action do its work, and never seen ourselves amid life's changes, we have not escaped the judgment of the Christ."
(Selected excerpts-e-Sword devotions)

​Our safety is in God alone. Having Him for our God we are beyond the reach of any real harm. We secure His protection by trusting in Him. By faith we dwell in the secret place of the Most High, and are ever secure under His shadow. Do not fear or hesitate to trust God fully and for ever. Commit yourself with confidence into His hands, and you shall dwell safely by Him for ever.
​(Preacher's Homiletical)

​In all works of faith we may count upon Jesus' fellowship. It is when we are in his work that we may reckon upon his smile. Ye unknown workers who are occupied for your Lord amid the dirt and wretchedness of the lowest of the low, be of good cheer, for jewels have been found upon dunghills ere now, earthen pots have been filled with heavenly treasure, and ill weeds have been transformed into precious flowers. Dwell ye with the King for his work, and when he writes his chronicles your name shall be recorded."
(Charles Spurgeon-Morning Devotion)

No doctrine, no conception of the Atonement can explain to us the cross of Christ. We stand before that cross that we may gather its meaning for ourselves, that we may feel its import, that we may see its entire and absolute unlikeness to anything else, and so feel that its significance could be explained only by some conception of what we call the Atonement. This cannot exist to us as a logical statement. It exists as a vital truth. As we gaze upon the cross of Christ, and see the sacrifice that He there made, we see and feel that the perfectness of His suffering, the entire self-control that He possessed, and all the great drama of the Crucifixion, showed a beauty, a completeness of His manhood, which indeed bore our sins. Great was the power of sin, terrible was the exhibition of its power at the foot of the cross; but above all human vileness and corruption, above all human selfishness and self-seeking, above all temporary scheming and plotting there rose the perfect form of Him who was the Eternal Truth. 

​We have here a farther account of the first day's work. In which observe, 1. That the first of all visible beings which God created was light, the great beauty and blessing of the universe: like the first - born, it doth, of all visible beings, most resemble its great parent in purity and power, brightness and beneficence. 2. That the light was made by the word of God's power; He said, Let there be light - He willed it, and it was done; there was light - Such a copy as exactly answered the original idea in the eternal mind. 3. That the light which God willed, he approved of. God saw the light, that it was good - 'Twas exactly as he designed it; and it was fit to answer the end for which he designed it. 4. That God divided the light from the darkness - So put them asunder as they could never be joined together: and yet he divided time between them, the day for light, and the night for darkness, in a constant succession. 

This defense from Stephen was a lesson for the Church and believer of every age. His forecast swept away at once all the privileges and profits connected with the religious position of Jerusalem, and by doing so, destroyed the political prospects of the Jewish people. Men never listen patiently when their pockets are being touched,  and their dearest hopes annihilated.
Standing before his slanderers, Stephen continues to give honor to God, unflinching. He keeps in view the unlimited greatness, authority and sovereignty of God, according to which God is bound to nothing and no one, and can manifest Himself to whom, and how, and when He pleases. Then, his tone changes, and seals his fate with courage, and boldness--
​Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. 
As it was with Stephen, it is the same today.

1. No weapon shall prosper. His enemies may be mighty, but more mighty, wise, watchful, indefatigable and loving is his protector. He is perfectly safe. This does not mean, however, that he is not to use expedients—to watch and pray, to resist and strive. 2. Every tongue he shall condemn. (1) He shall do it himself by welldoing (1Pe_2:15). (2) God shall do it for him. (3) It shall be done sufficiently on earth (Psa_37:6). (4) Perfectly in eternity (Job_19:25). 3. Let Christians see to it that they so live that men speaking evil of them shall do it “falsely,” and God shall fully vindicate them. (Preacher's Homiletical)

We are liable, however opposed to shams in ordinary life, to be shallow in faith. When a man is recognized by society as a Christian, he soon gets to deem himself one. Appearances are all in his favor. The hearing of the Word seems sufficient evidence of a devout mind. We listen so respectfully to instruction in duty that surely more cannot be required from us. Are we not often as much satisfied when we see the reasonableness of a thing, and feel as if we were already become righteous, as when we experience the reality?
The results of trusting in superficial appearances are stated in language intended to set forth their overwhelmingly disastrous nature. The rain-storm mentioned is such as every winter is sure to bring about in every season. It is no extraordinary calamity. The inevitable tests the house, and shows its faultiness or its strength. Time is all that is required to test everything. It forces nature to the front. Make sure that you have such a foundation as will stand all the shocks of time and last eternally.
(M. Dods, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 397)

In the verses above it shows Jesus fulfilled Isaiah's prophetic description of God's promises to be all that is needed for the troubled, burdened soul. Jesus emphasizes it in Matt. ch. 11, and calls all who would-to come to Him and take His yoke of rest on upon them. 
From the first days of my salvation, I've searched the scriptures and allowed the Holy Spirit to penetrate my heart and soul, and develop in me a solid faith in Christ's promises to me, and you. There is no problem that He isn't aware of in my life. He's allowed it for a purpose. I may not know what that reason is at the moment, but, if I take it to Him in prayer, if it's His will He may show me why and what I need to do the change the situation, or how to pray against the forces of darkness and overcome it.
He's also developed a sound faith in His love for me, and that if everyone else in the world leaves me-He remains. If I have God, I have all I need.
​Lorna Couillard 

​Christ is God’s attestation to His promises. All these have received their seal in the words, sufferings and resurrection of our Lord. In Jesus God says Yea to the yearnings and prayers of human hearts, and Amen (verily) to all the ten thousand promises of Scripture. He who rests on Christ stands in the focal point of certainty and assurance. Not one good thing shall fail him of all that has been promised.
2Co_1:21 is full of comfort. God alone can give us a settled and established position. He anoints us for service; seals us with His Spirit for safety, likeness, and authentication; and in this way gives us the earnest and foretaste of heaven, as the grapes of Eschol were the pledge and foretaste of Canaan. (F.B. Meyer)

​The psalmist declares here in the most absolute manner, that he shall not be “moved” at all. In Psa_62:2, he said that he would not be “greatly moved;” his mind would not be much or materially disturbed. The language here indicates more entire confidence - more certain conviction - showing that the slight apprehension or fear which existed in the beginning of the psalm, had been wholly dissipated, and that his mind had become perfectly calm. (Albert Barnes)

Like the sons of Jesse before Samuel, so do the successive regiments on which the world relies pass before Christ. The wise, the mighty, the noble, the great, the things that are! And the King says, I have not chosen these. The warriors with whom He will win the world to Himself are the nobodies, the ciphers, the people who in the world’s estimate do not count. Do not depreciate yourself, but give yourself to Him; He will find a niche for you and make your life worth living. Notice that God has put you into union with Christ Jesus. Everything we need for life and godliness is in Him; only let us make all that we can of our wonderful position and possessions.
Paul came to Corinth from Athens, where he had sought to win his hearers by a studied and philosophical discourse as best adapted to their needs. But as he entered Corinth, he appears to have deliberately determined that his theme would be the crucified Lord, and expressed in the simplest phrases. When we speak the truth as it is in Jesus, the Spirit is ever at hand to enforce our testimony by His demonstration and power.
(F.B. Meyer)
​ His strength is Perfect – Steven Curtis Chapman
https://youtu.be/QGC9KT918Kk?si=aBEv2rTNuKf0St2N

​The Place and Function of the Lamp.—The disciples are to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, one element of whose hypocrisy it was to withhold from the common people the light of their own better knowledge; neither going into the kingdom of heaven themselves, nor suffering those who would have entered to go in. The disciples, unlike the Pharisees, are not to withhold any light which they possess; for God intends nothing to be concealed from any man. Whatever is covered is to be uncovered. Whatever is hidden from us is hidden, not by God, but by the limitations of our own faculty, and will be disclosed as we train our faculty of perception and outgrow its limitations. So far as we can see, we may see; and what we see not yet we shall see soon. Yes, and, as we are expressly taught here, so far as we can see we may speak, and must speak. For as it is the will of God that nothing should be covered except that it may be uncovered, so also it is the will of Christ that whatever He or His disciples have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; whatever they have spoken in the chamber shall be proclaimed from the house-top. The same rule is to govern their words which governed His words. What He had taught them privately, that they were to teach openly (Mat_10:27); and now He adds that whatever they taught privately, that their successors were to teach openly. They were to have no mysteries, no “economy,” no truths reserved for the initiated. (Cox)

"Even the friends of God are commanded to fear God, as a being who has authority to send both body and soul into hell. Therefore it is proper even for the most holy persons to maintain a fear of God, as the punisher of all unrighteousness. A man has but one life to lose, and one soul to save; and it is madness to sacrifice the salvation of the soul to the preservation of the life."
​(Adam Clark)

Darkness is here personified, and is represented as having power, authority, and sway; all Jews and Gentiles, which had not embraced the Gospel, being under this authority and power. And the apostle intimates here that nothing less than the power of God can redeem a man from this darkness, or prince of darkness, who, by means of sin and unbelief, keeps men in ignorance, vice, and misery.
Translated us into the kingdom, - He has thoroughly changed our state, brought us out of the dark region of vice and impiety, and placed us in the kingdom under the government of his dear Son, Υἱου της αγαπης αὑτου, the Son of his love; the person whom, in his infinite love, he has given to make an atonement for the sin of the world.   (Adam Clarke)
The word translated forgiveness is the ancient Greek word aphesis, most literally rendered “a sending away.” Our sin and guilt is sent away because of what Jesus did on the cross for us.
“It thus speaks of the removal of our sins from us, so that they are no longer barriers that separate us from God.” (Vaughan)​

​Now when He was risen early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven devils. She went and told them that had been with Him, as they mourned and wept. And they, when they heard that He was alive, and had been seen of her, disbelieved. And after these things He was manifested in another form unto two of them, as they walked, on their way into the country. And they went away and told it unto the rest: neither believed they them. And afterward He was manifested unto the eleven themselves as they sat at meat; and He upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen Him after He was risen. And He said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieves shall be condemned. And these signs shall follow them that believe: in My name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Mar_16:1-18 (R.V.)

The Savior’s first appearance after resurrection was to a woman. For all He had died. But not to an assembled world does He manifest Himself now that He has risen victorious over the grave; not to angels, or apostles; not to the faithful Joseph, or the true-hearted Nicodemus; but to a woman, whom He had cast out seven devils.

Rise Again--Dallas Holm
Holmhttps://youtu.be/APuy2dJrqYk?si=ZOo16xjmCQBeCoWy

His burial was an assurance that His resurrection was a reality: for His Body was taken down by friends in the presence of foes who knew that He was dead, and deposited by them, not in a common tomb, but in a cave, hollowed out of a hillside, with a great stone rolled to block up the entrance, which was guarded by the soldiers of Pilate.
His burial also was the last humiliation offered to Him; for, though Joseph and Nicodemus and the women who assisted performed it as a work of piety and love, yet in it He was not the less associated with us, whose bodies must be committed to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. He was the Incorruptible, and yet was buried, and they prepared to embalm Him as if He had been corruptible. In birth from a womb, and in burial in a tomb, He was one with His sinful brethren.
His burial is in a remarkably mysterious way connected with our baptism. The font represents the grave of the Lord, in which, as having died with Him, we are mystically and sacramentally buried, and from which we rise again, endued with new life from Him, as He rose from His grave endured with new life (Col_2:12; Rom_6:1-4).
​(M. F.Sadler.)

​Rulers, soldiers, and malefactors all heaped their insults on the dying Lord, little realizing that they were all included in the great love which was pouring itself out as the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. It may be that we shall have to share the same opprobrium, if we drink of His cup and are baptized with His baptism. But God will do for us as He did for Jesus; He will not leave our soul in the grave nor suffer His own to see corruption, Psa_16:10.
The signs of renewal, wrought in the heart of the penitent thief, showed the sure work of the Holy Spirit. These were the fear of God, the sense of justice in His suffering, the confession of evil deeds, the recognition of our Lord’s sinlessness and dignity, and the anticipation of His coming Kingdom. We may begin a day under the dull skies of earth and close it where there is no need of sun or moon. See Php_1:23; 2Co_5:6. For the rent veil, see Heb_10:20. Dying saints have often passed home with our Lord’s last words on their lips, Psa_31:5; Act_7:59. (F.B. Meyer)

​The vacillation of Pilate made him a criminal. Weakness becomes sin. At first he evidently meant to release Jesus, but instead of saying so outright, he strove to bring about His release by indirect means and without committing himself.
First, he sent Him to Herod, Luk_23:17, thinking that a Jew would view favorably the position of a fellow-Jew. Then he sought to touch the springs of pity by the anguish of scourging. Finally, he gave the people the choice between Barabbas and Christ, feeling sure that they must choose the liberation of a lover of men rather than that of an outlaw.
None of these expedients succeeded, and he drifted into the very act which his conscience had condemned from the first. He is a specimen of those weak men who want the right thing to be done, but will not adventure their own interests to get it done. There is no chance of such men coming out right.   (F.B. Meyer)

We cannot fathom the secret thoughts of the traitor. Did he hope that his act would compel Christ to take the course of self-vindication, which His mighty acts appeared to make possible? It seems unthinkable that there was not some explanation other than mere greed! Yet, when we look into our own hearts, can we be altogether surprised? How often have we betrayed the Lord by our reticence, when we should have spoken; by the kiss of the lip, when we were selfishly exploiting our association with Him to our own advantage.
Our Lord did not die a martyr’s death. The martyr is led to the scaffold or stake because he is overpowered by superior force. But our Lord knew that the invisible world was full of help if only He had expressed the slightest wish. Others die because they are born; He was born that He might die. “He laid down His life that He might take it again.” He would not receive help from the Father, or the angels, or Peter’s sword, but poured out His soul unto death, because of a love that was stronger than death.  (F.B. Meyer)

​Mat 26:53  Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? 

Judas the covetous.—This incident reveals Judas Iscariot. If he had intended to compel Christ to commit Himself, and begin at once His kingdom, the very last thing he could have thought of would be making money for himself out of such a transaction. We should divest our minds altogether of the idea that the case of Judas was an exceptional one. We are warranted in looking at Judas exactly as we look at any other man. He had to be exposed to temptation, but was capable of resistance. He was liable to err, to falter, to fall, but there was provided for him adequate and opportune help.
The motives of the betrayal.—He was disappointed in the thing that had grown to be the ruling power in his nature—his love of money; and the disappointed man only too easily can become the revengeful man. Such a man only awakens to behold himself when the consequences of his ill-doing are fully before him. Then such a man may feel remorse—he will not rise to healthy repentance. Judas let money rule him, and money brought him down to a woe unspeakable. (Weekly Pulpit)

​​Grievous wolves. The figure of the flock is still kept up. The "grievous wolves" were false teachers, and the special reference is to the Judaizing teachers, who taught that the Gentile Christians must keep the Jewish law. Paul's ministry was a long battle with the schismatics. See 1Ti_1:3-4, 1Ti_1:20; 2Ti_1:15; 2Ti_2:17; also John's Third Epistle. By turning to these references the names of some six of these "grievous wolves" will be found. Also in Rev_2:6 we learn that there were false teachers at Ephesus.  (B.W. Johnson)

​Christ stands and cries still in the midst of a thirsting world: “Whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely.” Has His voice become so familiar that it has lost all significance? For all who can hear and believe, His truth remains. There is life-abundant life for us. Drink of any other fountain, and you only intensify thirst, and make life more difficult, spending energy without renewing it. Live in Christ and you live in God. You have found the center, the heart, the eternal life. As Christ stood and cried to the people He was conscious of power to impart to them a freshly welling spring of life-a life that would overflow for the strengthening and gladdening of others besides themselves. 
​In these words Christ proclaims that He is the great Temple-fountain; or rather, that He is the true Temple, and that the Holy Ghost proceeding from Him, and dwelling in men, is the life-giving fountain. All the cravings after a settled and eternal state, all the longings for purity and fellowship with the Highest, which the Temple services rather quickened than satisfied, Christ says He will satisfy.  (Expositor's Bible)

​“Thou art more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey.” Far more is Jehovah to be extolled than all the invading powers which sought to oppress his people, though they were for power and greatness comparable to mountains. Assyria had pillaged the nations till it had become rich with mountains of spoil, this was talked of among men as glory, but the Psalmist despises such renown, and declares that the Lord was far more illustrious. What are the honors of war but brags of murder? What the fame of conquerors but the reek of manslaughter? But the Lord is glorious in holiness, and his terrible deeds are done in justice for the defense of the weak and the deliverance of the enslaved. Mere power may be glorious, but it is not excellent: when we behold the mighty acts of the Lord, we see a perfect blending of the two qualities. 
(Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)

Even the old age of the good is not always exempt from trial. We are never beyond the reach of the storm while we are in this world. The old age of David was darkened by trouble by reason of the great sins which stain and mar one period of his life.
​​Old men need have no failure in their buoyancy and gladness, if they will fix their thoughts where the psalmist fixed his. Other subjects will soon wear out, but they who make God’s righteousness and salvation their theme will ever have material for meditation and praise. We have here an inexhaustible subject, and one which will keep us young. Let us ask for help, that we may disappoint the calculations of those who hate us, whether men or demons. It is a piteous spectacle when apparently prosperous careers” are overclouded, and age is overwhelmed in catastrophes which there is no time to surmount. But such is not God’s way with His loyal servants. His rivers do not end in swamps and marshes, but broaden and deepen till they kiss the mighty ocean.  (F.B. Meyer)

The river. This I take to be the mercy of God; His kindness to the miserable. Just, He must needs be, for He would not be merciful if He were not just. But there are manifestations of His justice in which He takes no joy. “He taketh no pleasure in the death of the sinner;” but “He delights in mercy.” And sometimes its exhibitions are very tender—“it drops as the gentle dew from heaven upon the place beneath.” And how copious its store! it is a river, not a rill that can be turned aside by any pebble in its bed; but a river that sweeps triumphantly over and through every obstacle.
The streams Some rivers are fed by streams; not so this one” it gives out streams but receives none, like the river of Damascus, whose branches surround the city. These streams are--
1. Pardoning mercy.
2. Purifying mercy: for it would be of little use if purity were not given as well as pardon.
3. Pacifying mercy—to keep me quiet in the midst of this unquiet world.

​“My flesh longeth for thee;” by the two words “soul” and “flesh,” he denotes the whole of his being. “The flesh,” in the New Testament sense of it, never longs after the Lord, but rather it lusteth against the spirit; David only refers to that sympathy which is sometimes created in our bodily frame by vehement emotions of the soul. Our corporeal nature usually tugs in the other direction, but the spirit when ardent can compel it to throw in what power it has upon the other side. When the wilderness caused David's weariness, discomfort, and thirst, his flesh cried out in unison with the desire of his soul. “In a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.” A weary place and a weary heart make the presence of God the more desirable; if there be nothing below and nothing within to cheer, it is a thousand mercies that we may look up and find all we need. 

Jesus loved children, and gave stern warning against harming them. However, scripture gives ample guidance in the proper upbringing of children, and to not corrupt them in spirit or manners.
It doesn't take being a genius to bring up children in a righteous environment, it takes steadfast commitment, and using the word of God and applying it to the situation that we're facing in guiding the child. It can be summed up in asking ourselves a few questions:
Is it honest?
Is it teaching integrity?
Is it teaching consideration for others?
Does it establish my walk with God in it's proper place-and am I walking in peace with God, myself, and others?     Lorna Couillard

"So should we be. In our more fixed and settled habits of life; in our quiet homes; in our residence in the land in which we were born, and in the society of old and tried friends, we should yet regard ourselves as “strangers and sojourners.” We have here no fixed abode. The houses in which we dwell will soon be occupied by others; the paths in which we go will soon be trod by the feet of others; the fields which we cultivate will soon be plowed and sown and reaped by others. Others will read the books which we read; sit down at the tables where we sit; lie on the beds where we repose; occupy the chambers where we shall die, and from whence we shall be removed to our graves. If we have any permanent home, it is in heaven; and that we have, the faithful lives of the patriarchs teach us, and the unerring word of God everywhere assures us."  (Albert Barnes)

​The gratification of the flesh was the main object among the Romans. Living in luxury and licentiousness, they made it their great object of study to multiply and prolong the means of licentious indulgence. In respect to this, Christians were to be a separate people, and to show that they were influenced by a higher and purer desire than this grovelling propensity to minister to sensual gratification. It is right, it is a Christian duty, to labor to make provision for all the real needs of life. But the real wants are few; and with a heart disposed to be pure and temperate, the necessary wants of life are easily satisfied; and the mind may be devoted to higher and purer purposes.  (Albert Barnes)

​In the early nineteenth century, Adam Clarke described the situation of his day, and it sounds like it is even truer of our own time. “This is a striking feature of the city of London in the present day. The itch for news, which generally argues a worldly, shallow, or unsettled mind, is wonderfully prevalent: even ministers of the Gospel, negligent of their sacred function, are become in this sense Athenians; so that the book of God is neither read nor studied with half the avidity and spirit as a newspaper…It is no wonder if such become political preachers, and their sermons be no better than husks for swine. To such the hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.”

Around them stood the most exquisite temples ever reared by human genius, but these were not the home of God. He seeks the lowly and contrite heart, not of the Jew alone, but wherever man is found, and on whatever intellectual plane. Men, the world over, are brothers-“he hath made of one blood all nations.” The arrangements of divine providence have been contrived to lead men to God. If they feel after Him with reverence and true desire, He will be found of them. All men are His offspring, but only those who receive the Son of God into their hearts become really sons. Repentance is the act of the will, and therefore it may be commanded. God can overlook much that is hurtful and evil, because He loves the world and deals with men according to their light; and we may rejoice therefore that He will judge mankind by “the Man”-Christ Jesus.
​(F.B. Meyer)

But a correct view of the eternity of God conveys warning as well as comfort. The more it is studied, the stronger is the contrast into which it throws the brevity and uncertainty of human life.
The eternal power of God convicts us of helplessness. Notice the sharp contrast. “From everlasting to everlasting, O God,” Thy life is self-sustained—in Thine own power: man’s life, that gift in which he so exults and on which he presumes to play “such fantastic tricks before high heaven,”—that which flowers out in his pride and high endeavor, in his ambitions, plans, and grand enterprises, is a thing so little in his power, that Thou turnest him even unto the finest dust with a word; and, with another word,—“Return, ye children of men”—callest others into being to fill his place.
The eternal being of God is used to convict us of delusion. We measure life by false standards. The psalm brings us back to the true rule of measurement.  (M. R. Vincent, D.D.)
Psa 90:12  So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. 

​It is precisely because He is the only man on earth who, as a representative of our race, endured a punishment which He did not deserve, and did not add a fresh sin to a fresh pain, that His suffering rises to the height of a redeeming sacrifice. This redemption was completed on the Cross. It would not have been enough for the Son of man to have been pierced with all the sorrows of humanity except the last. It would not have been enough for Him to have endured all the consequences of man’s rebellion except the last. Death is the wages of sin, and the striking sign of God’s condemnation resting on a guilty world. These wages have been received for us by Him who did not deserve them, because He freely made Himself a partaker of our misery in order to save us. Our comforter is the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. In all our distresses, therefore, and in all our shipwrecks, there is but one shelter, and that is the Cross.
(E. de Pressensé, The Mystery of Suffering, p. 16 (see also Pulpit Analyst, vol. iii., p. 205)

I love those who love me: Those who love and pursue wisdom will find themselves rewarded. They will find wisdom (those who seek me diligently will find me) and the blessings wisdom brings (riches and honor…righteousness). It could even be said that wisdom seeks out her followers to bless them (that I may cause those who love me to inherit wealth).
Those who seek me diligently will find me: “With sincere affection, and great diligence, and above all other persons or things in the world; which he mentions as the effect and evidence of their love; for otherwise all men pretend to love God.” (Poole)
2Ti 2:19  Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

David was to be so early astir at his devotions that, instead of the dawn awaking him, he would awake it: he would summon it to arise out of the east and help him to praise his Maker. But it is not Nature alone he would inspire with his enthusiasm: so full is he of joy in God that he wishes to communicate his emotions to all his fellow-creatures (Psa_57:9). How marvelously has this wish been fulfilled! The Psalter has been translated into scores of languages, and wherever it has been known it has been loved. Finally he gives the reasons for praise (Psa_57:10), “For Thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and Thy truth unto the clouds.” These will always be the reasons for praise that is truly hearty—to know the mercy that is as far above our sins as the dome of heaven is above the earth, and to know the faithfulness which, having begun a good work in us, will complete it unto the day of Christ. (J. Stalker, D. D)

“Ye are still in your sins.” The proof that Jesus is the Savior lies in His resurrection (Rom_1:4); but if Jesus has not been raised, then He is not the Son of God—you have no Savior, your fate is still among the unforgiven.
The apostles are liars (1Co_15:15). Observe how Paul puts his own personal veracity and that of his fellow apostles into direct issue.
The saintly are lost (1Co_15:18). If it is the fact that there can be no resurrection of the dead, then Christian morality is a failure. The Heavenly Father puts no difference between His children and the beasts that perish.
The life in Christ is a misery (1Co_15:19.) To profess Christ means self-denial, persecution, martyrdom. Moreover, Christianity awakens within us loftiest aspirations which can never be satisfied in this world. But if there is no resurrection, then we Christians are of all men the most to be pitied. (G. D. Boardman, D.D.)

​1Co 15:20  But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. 
Robin Mark -- The Wonder of Your Cross
https://youtu.be/K6fv9rkIIZo?si=BcEFLUatRvti4wrm

Come Find His Rest--
https://youtu.be/mn_aRpKdEpo?si=cMTkqTIpIR8vV_Wp

"Depart from evil. Turn from it. Don’t play with uncleanness. Don’t touch it with thy finger. Don’t hold conversation concerning it, for there are some things of which it is a “shame even to speak.” “Depart from evil and do good.” The best way to effect a permanent divorce from evil is to exercise oneself in active good. Where there is no positive ministry in goodness, we soon relapse into sin. A positive goodness will make the life invincible.
To teach men how to live and how to die, is the aim of all useful religious instruction. The rewards of virtue are the baits with which the young are to be drawn to morality. While we teach piety to God we should also dwell much upon morality towards man.” (Spurgeon)

A whisperer separates chief friends; one that goes from place to place, from house to house, carrying tales, whispering into the ears of persons things prejudicial to the characters of others, mere lies and falsehoods; such a man by his conduct separates one friend from another, even chief friends, that have been for a long time in the closest and most intimate friendship; he alienates their minds one from another, so that they will not come near one another, or keep up any correspondence as before. The word for "chief friends" is in the singular number, and signifies a prince or leader; and such men, according to the station they are in, and the influence they have, separate princes, as the Vulgate Latin version renders it, from their subjects, and stir up the latter to rebel against them; at least alienate their affections from them; and pastors of churches from their flocks, and husbands from their wives: and such a man, at last, when found out, separates his best friends from himself, as well as from one another; who drop him as a worthless person, yea, as dangerous to converse with; so sin, that whisperer and agitator, separates between God and men. (John Gill)

A response of Paul-to a comparative situation:
​2Ti 4:14  Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works: 

​"I fancy if we each had to single out some one person as exhibiting in his or her life the power of Divine Grace, we should not generally select those who stand highest in the world’s esteem for intellect or power of will, but we should take one whose transparent simplicity and modesty seemed to allow the light of Christ to shine through him in all its purity, so that none could be in his company without feeling that they had been brought nearer to Christ Himself. These are the living witnesses of the unseen realities; one such humble Christian man or woman exercises a power for good of which they are themselves altogether unconscious, and which will be fully understood only in that day when God shall judge the secrets of men."
(J. B. Mayor, The World’s Desire, 74)

The word redemption or ransom is easily understood; it means the buying back, the paying something for another. When a man had incurred a debt, and, in accordance with ancient law, had been imprisoned or sold as a slave in consequence of that debt, the payment of the debt by another constituted his redemption from slavery, his ransom from bondage. All mankind was in that condition before God, and we are in that condition; burdened with the ten thousand talents of debt which we cannot pay; in bondage to sin and Satan; sold under sin, tied and bound with the chain of our sins; our very lives justly forfeited to the majesty of violated law. And from this condition Christ delivered us. As far as the effects to us are concerned, we might say that He purchased us from this slavery, that He bought us by the price of His life and death; redeemed us with His precious blood. And the figure chiefly used is not that He pays the debt, but that He cancels it; forgives it, freely and unpaid; blots it out, tears it up, nails its no longer valid fragments to His cross.  (E. A. Stuart)

The Slave Trader – Amazing Grace (John Newton)
https://youtu.be/VMdBuyDAVVg?si=26glMDLOs1GBsDFC
Amazing Grace: The Story Behind the Song
https://youtu.be/8m8AHHduTM0"

​As his faith matured, Newton’s remorse over his involvement in the slave trade surfaced and galvanized him. In 1785 he met with William Wilberforce and counseled him to remain in politics rather than pursue a religious life. Newton would remain a spiritual mentor for the prominent abolitionist for the next 20 years. He renounced his former slaving profession by publishing a blazing pamphlet called “Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade.” The tract described the horrific conditions on the ships and Newton apologized for making a public statement so many years after participating in the trade: “It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.” 
"I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior." - John Newton

“Weak is the effort of my heart,
And cold my warmest thought;
But when I see Thee as Thou art,
I’ll praise Thee as I ought.”
Newton.

​Meditation on our short and uncertain state in this world may wean us from an over-fondness for anything in it.
The consideration of the shortness of life may assist us in supporting us under its afflictions.
If the time of our sojourning in this world be but short, let the great and habitual object of our attention be that state which may soon begin but can never end. If “we have here no continuing city, let us seek one to come.” (G. Cart, B. A.)
The Holy City - Jerome Hines
https://youtu.be/m8RxsfX_JcI?si=0T0B_cRyV69qN2cN

​The last days of the present age are to be black and sorrowful. Sinful rejection of Christ will come to a head. We must not be misled by the wide-spread profession of the forms of religion; this may co-exist with the rankest apostasy. When women are conscious of sins against God, society, and themselves, they are very liable to the seduction of false teachers, who promise peace and condone impurity.
Tares and wheat grow together unto the harvest. The devil has always set himself to counterfeit God’s handiwork: the Holy City by Babylon; the Son of man by the man of sin; blessedness by the worldling’s giddy merriment. Thus the Egyptian conjurers repeated the miracles of Moses by resorting to sleight of hand. So there is a pure gospel and a specious mimicry of it. Wait for the inevitable unfoldings of God’s purpose. Time will show what is true and what is false. In the meantime, examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith.  (F.B. Meyer)

​“They are corrupt.” It does not spring from a pure and honest intellect, which finds itself perplexed by a problem too great for it, but from a proud and corrupt heart. “Passion, not reason, generates atheism. Sin suggests a dislike of Providence, and reason is then marshalled to drive Him out of our view.”—Rylands. “Their foolish heart was darkened” (Rom_1:21). The child recognises God, but, giving place for long years to worldliness and sin, the man sinks into practical atheism. He lives so long without God in the world, that at last he ventures to think that there is no God. And so a nation as it increases in wealth, and luxury, and power, becomes self-sufficient; and the outcome of this is a general prevalence of speculative and practical atheism. We wrong God, and then we forget Him; we forget Him, and then we deny Him.
​“Sin, if unchecked, would go to the extinction of all being, and of God Himself. There is no doubt that all sin designs deicide. All sin is directed against universal being. It is primarily against God, inferentially against all being. All transgression is ambitious, and, if it could succeed, it would scale the universe and dethrone its Monarch.”—Duncan. Atheism is the essence of ingratitude, injustice, lying, pride, hatred, and selfishness. (Preacher's Homiletical)
​Heb 11:6  But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

​“Put on the armour of light.” What a fine battle-cry this is! It comes, too, from the lips of the finest fighter the world has ever seen, the man who could stand up and say to God and all ages, “I have fought the good fight.” Life was a battle to him, a fight for his very soul, a stern unceasing conflict. And so it is with most of us. But let us remember how all the grand heroes of war have borne the brunt without murmuring. Do not complain of the conditions. They are not always fair; we fight an unseen foe who will not come out into the open. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood”; it would be a comparatively simple thing if that were all. But we wrestle against “the wiles of the devil, against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” To such a battle are we called.
What we all want, and what we want most, is that the Master should come over and again lay His hands upon us and tell us to be as men that wait for their Lord, whom when He cometh He shall find watching. What a splendid figure that is! The sentinel at his post, watching in the dim morning, peering through the haze for the rising of the sun."  (W. A. L. Taylor)

We Choose the Fear of the Lord -
https://youtu.be/vNYvKtEziuI?si=d9Eu5pQs-uLzCxQG

​The sun, moon, and stars are symbols of earthly dignitaries, great lights in the political or religious heavens. In the dream of Joseph, which so maddened his brethren, these terms are used in this meaning, as well as by the ancient prophets. In the East it was common to liken the king or emperor to the sun, and the stars as the symbols of princes or rulers. For the use of the term we refer the reader to Dan_8:10. The blackness of the sun and the bloody hue of the moon point out scenes of mourning and bloodshed among rulers and princes. The falling of the stars would indicate the downfall of those who had high places on the earth, or rather within the Roman Empire.  (B.W. Johnson)

​Love not the world. An exhortation to all three classes just named. The love of the world and of God are not reconcilable. See notes on Jas_4:4. By "the world" is meant the ways of the world, its passions, pleasures and pursuits.
For all that is in the world. This sinful world is comprehended under three heads.
The lust of the flesh. The desires which spring from the appetites and passions.
The lust of the eyes. The desires that are aroused by appeals made to our eyes.
The pride of life. The vain glory of the world; its foolish display. Sensuality, avarice and pride, nearly, but not quite, illustrate what is meant.
And the world passeth away. All things are transient, but he who does the will of God builds on eternal foundations. (B.W. Johnson)

​Thou art God - Or, “Thou, O God.” The idea is, that he was always, and ever will be, God: the God; the true God; the only God; the unchangeable God. At any period in the past, during the existence of the earth, or the heavens, or before either was formed, he existed, with all the attributes essential to Deity; at any period in the future - during the existence of the earth and the heavens, or beyond - far as the mind can reach into the future, and even beyond that - he will still exist unchanged, with all the attributes of Deity. The creation of the universe made no change in him; its destruction would not vary the mode of his existence, or make him in any respect a different being. There could not be a more absolute and unambiguous declaration, as there could not be one more sublime, of the eternity of God. The mind cannot take in a grander thought than that there is one eternal and immutable Being. ​(Albert Barnes)

In responding to this call, they must avoid worldly customs. Called out of the world, though living in it, they must avoid its “abominations,” charmers and “observers of times.” It has its witches, and “women of familiar spirits.” Notions of lucky and unlucky days are not confined to heathen countries. In this country, men observe the stars, charm diseases, and prognosticate success of wars, the happiness or misfortune of marriages, and the length of human life. This dethrones God from the heart and supersedes the promises and threatenings of His word. It rejects the doctrine of Divine Providence and is treason to the Ruler of the Universe. “Should not a people seek unto their God? for (on behalf of) the living (should they consult) to the dead?” (Isa_8:19).
In seeking to avoid worldly customs God alone can help. God alone had preserved Israel in the past. “Thy God hath not suffered thee so to do” (Deu_18:14). In the future, instead of having recourse to heathen superstitions, He would provide them with “a prophet,” with divine teaching time after time. In Christ and the scripture we have help. If weak and sinful, God’s grace can renew and strengthen. If dark and uncertain, the word is a light and guide. Christ completes what Moses begins. He is still performing the prophetic office, calling ministers by His Spirit, enlightening men to understand the scriptures and making the gospel come to them, not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance.
(Preacher's Homiletical)

​The world is no friend to righteousness; its spirit cannot endure the restraints that holiness imposes upon its workings. Hence the world’s hostility to all those who live truly godly lives. To understand the full force of keeping one as the apple of the eye it is necessary to consider first, how the whole eye is protected, sheltered by bones and sinews, opening and closing doors, light-softening and dust-excluding curtains, and then, that the pupil of the eye, located farther in, is protected by guardians equally wonderful and peculiarly its own. There is no other part of the human body so wonderfully protected, and no other part that, when endangered, we so instinctively try to shelter from harm. And so God guards His people as tenderly as we guard the pupil of our eye; yea, as tenderly as He guards the pupil of His own eye. (David Caldwell, A. M.)

For at last every one shall reap as he sows. The use made of our seed-time determines exactly, and with a moral certainty greater even than that which rules in the natural field, what kind of fruitage our immortality will render. Eternity for us will be the multiplied, consummate outcome of the good or evil of the present life. Hell is just sin ripe—rotten ripe. Heaven is the fruitage of righteousness. “He that soweth to his own flesh reaps corruption”—the moral decay and dissolution of the man’s being. This is the natural retributive effect of his carnality. The selfish man gravitates downward into the sensual man; the sensual man downward into the bottomless pit. “He that soweth to the Spirit reaps life everlasting.” The sequence is inevitable. Like breeds its like. Life springs of life, and death eternal is the culmination of the soul’s present death to God and goodness. The future glory of the saints is at once a divine reward and a necessary development of their present faithfulness. (Findlay, passim)

Lo, I am with you - That is, by my Spirit, my providence, my attending counsel and guidance. I will strengthen, assist, and direct you. This also proves that Christ is divine. If he is a mere man, or a creature, though of the highest order, how could he promise to be “with” his disciples “always,” or at all? They would be scattered far and wide. His disciples would greatly increase. If he was “with them” always, he was God; for no finite creature could thus be present with many people scattered in different parts of the world.

I Am The Resurrection
https://youtu.be/Nab1fKLlP4I?si=JVGhxhjBrE6StivO

The Lord will give grace and glory - Grace, or favor, here; glory, or honor, in the world to come. He will bestow all needful favor on his people in this life; he will admit them to glory in the world to come. Grace and glory are connected. The bestowment of the one will be followed by the other. Rom_8:29-30. He that partakes of the grace of God on earth will partake of glory in heaven. Grace comes before glory; glory always follows where grace is given.
No good thing will he withhold ... - Nothing really good; nothing that man really needs; nothing pertaining to this life, nothing necessary to prepare for the life to come. (Albert Barnes)

​"Then in his dream he thought he died, and that a mighty voice came rolling down from above: “He that climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber,” and down came his ladder, and he woke from his sleep, and thought: “If I go to heaven, I must go some other way.” My friends, it is by the way of the blood of Christ that we are to go to heaven. If a man has got to work his way there, who will ever get there?"
(D. L. Moody)

​​Faith is the eye by which we look to Jesus. A dim-sighted eye is still an eye; a weeping eye is still an eye. Faith is the hand with which we lay hold of Jesus. A trembling hand is still a hand. And he is a believer, whoso heart within him trembles when he touches the hem of the Saviour’s garment that he may be healed. Faith is the tongue by which we taste how good the Lord is. A feverish tongue. And even then we may believe, when we are without the smallest portion of comfort; for our faith is founded, not upon feelings, but upon the promises of God. Faith is the foot by which we go to Jesus. A lame foot is still a foot. He who comes slowly, nevertheless comes. (H. Muller)

​Joh 6:40  And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

And Jesus said to them, "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." They had never grasped the fact that Christ was a great Physician, and that His business was not to go to those who were in perfect health, but to go to those who were ill; and, first of all, to those whose case was most desperate.
​Now in this Christ has left you and me an example that we should walk in His steps; and if we have the mind of Christ we shall follow the wandering sheep into the wilderness, and shall never rest until we find it. Our business is to go to the prodigal sons of God, and to persuade them to come home again; and, however far off they are, we must follow them to the distant country, and we must refuse to come back without them.
(H. P. Hughes, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 184)
​​Mat 18:11  For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.

​The Lord Christ, having abased Himself for our redemption, was exalted by the Father to the highest pitch of glory. The name which is above every name is said to be given to Christ, because His divine majesty, before hid, was now manifested and the human nature so highly honoured that that person who is man is true God, and is to be acknowledged as such. However small a part of the world acknowledge Christ to be the Lord, His glory will grow till all reasonable creatures in heaven, earth, and hell subject themselves to Him, and the giving of divine honour to Him does in no way impair the glory of God the Father. (Fergusson)

This special function is not confined to the Hebrew race. By the express words of our Lord it is shared by the Church. See Act_1:8. As our Lord bore witness to truth, His subjects are summoned to do the same. See 1Ti_6:13-14; Rev_1:5.
Let us witness to the love that never tires. “Fear not, thou art mine.” Let us witness to a purpose that never falters, Isa_43:1 and Isa_43:7. Let us witness to a deliverance that never disappoints. We are not saved from fire and water, but are delivered in the midst of them by the never-failing presence of our King. Let us ask for the Spirit of Truth to witness with us, Act_5:31-32.
​(F.B. Meyer)

And this He could do because He Himself was the revelation of the Father, “the brightness of His glory,” etc. So that those who see Jesus in reality see the Father, and those who believe on Him believe on the Father who sent Him.
​​And thus He is the light of those who follow Him, who believe on Him. His revelation of the Father was not in vain for all. He became obedient unto death. Had He not turned aside from Satan’s wiles, then the world had remained in darkness and the shadow of death. But now through Him the light of the divine love, mercy, and wisdom hath for those who believe for ever dispelled the darkness. In this revelation of the Father’s will, and in the doing of it, Jesus brought life to men. His commandment is life. He wills not the death of sinners, but their salvation. “The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Rom_1:16). (Preacher's Homiletical)

Add not thou unto his words - You can no more increase their value by any addition, than you can that of gold by adding any other metal to it. Take care that you do not any thing that this word forbids, nor leave undone any thing that it commands: for this is adding and diminishing in Scripture phrase.
Lest he reprove thee - Lest he try thy word by fire, as his has been tried; and it appear that, far from abiding the test, the fire shows thine to be reprobate silver; and so thou be found a falsifier of God’s word, and a liar.  (Adam Clarke)

​With every turn of the turnstile on Waterloo Bridge a record (in the old time) was made against the gatekeeper, and he could not recall or obliterate it. Every movement of the wind over Greenwich Observatory, steady or capricious, fast or slow, is self-registered, with pencil and paper, by an apparatus communicating to a room below, in which blank paper is presented to the pencil by clockwork; and these autobiographical memoirs are carefully preserved. So constant and unerring is the record kept in the book of God’s remembrance concerning all our actions, and even “every idle word that men shall speak” (Mat_12:36).
​
​Mat 12:36  But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
​See commentary below:

Heb 9:28  So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. 

The original “a change of mind” or “an after-thought.” Now that is exactly what the Holy Spirit produces in the convicted soul. “There is,” says the wise man, “a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Now it is the work of the Holy Ghost to dispel this false view of our way, and to bring us to see things as they really are; and when we yield to His convicting influences, the light of truth flashes into our soul, and we come to ourselves. Now we see things from an entirely different point of view, and cry out against ourselves—against our folly and our sin. “What a fool I have been!” cries the awakened and repentant soul. “So many years I have lived in this world, and yet have I never really begun to live at all! My whole past has been a wasted existence. I have been simply exercising my faculties in furthering my own destruction!” The first step in a real repentance is taken when we open our eyes to see things as in the light of the Holy Ghost, when we escape from the long delirium of a life lived under the influence of the great deceiver, and thus undergo a change of mind with respect to God and to sin, and the value of things seen and things eternal.
​(W. Hay Aitken)

​The fall of Corrupt Society

​Our scientific friends find yellow bricks still impressed with the name of Nebuchadnezzar, and they go back to the sarcophagus of a monarchy buried more than two thousand years ago. But is it possible that that is all that remains of Babylon? a city once five times larger than London and twelve times larger than New York? Wall three hundred and seventy-three feet high and ninety-three feet thick. Twenty-five burnished gates on each side, with streets running clear through to corresponding gates on the other side. Six hundred and twenty-five squares. More pomp and wealth and splendour and sins than could be found in any five modern cities combined. A city of palaces and temples. Great capital of the ages! But one night, while honest citizens were asleep, but all the saloons of saturnalia were in full blast, and at the king’s castle they had filled the tankards for the tenth time, and reeling and guffawing and hiccoughing around the state table were the rulers of the land. General Cyrus ordered his besieging army to take shovels and spades, and they diverted the river from its usual channel into another direction, so that the forsaken bed of the river became the path on which the besieging party entered. When the morning dawned the conquerors were inside the city walls. Babylon had fallen. But do nations die? Oh, yes, there is great mortality among monarchies and republics. They are like individuals in the fact that they are born, they have a middle life, they have a decease, they have a cradle and a grave. Some of them are assassinated, some destroyed by their own hand.

And let him that heareth say, Come - Whoever hears the gospel, let him go and invite others to come. Nothing could more strikingly set forth the freeness of the invitation of the gospel than this. The authority to make the invitation is not limited to the ministers of religion; it is not even confined to those who accept it themselves. All persons, even though they should not accept of it, are authorized to tell others that they may be saved. One impenitent sinner may go and tell another impenitent sinner that if he will he may find mercy and enter heaven. How could the offer of salvation be made more freely to mankind?
And let him that is athirst come - Whoever desires salvation, as the weary pilgrim desires a cooling fountain to allay his thirst, let him come as freely to the gospel as that thirsty man would stoop down at the fountain and drink.
Isa 55:1  Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 

Separate yourselves, for you are God’s temple: separate yourselves and you will be sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, and He will be your Father. The friendship of the world, as James reminds us, is enmity with God; it is the consoling side of the same truth that separation from the world means friendship with God.
​As God's temple has nothing in common with the idol temple, so the saints are to be separated from idolators.
​For ye are the temple of the living God. The Christian is himself the sanctuary of the Lord, as is proved by the passage quoted from Lev_26:12. God dwells in his people as the Shekinah dwelt between the cherubim. (B.W. Johnson)

​Jas 4:4  Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

"Why do you walk so lamely and unevenly, being so unsteady in your opinions and practices, and doubting whether it is better to worship God or Baal? If the Lord - Whom you pretend to worship. Follow - Worship him, and him only, and that in such place and manner as he hath commanded you. If Baal - If Baal can prove himself to be the true God. Answered not - Being convinced of the reasonableness of his proposition."(John Wesley)
​
"Nothing is needed more absolutely than the answer by fire. There are many who, like the prophets of Baal, endeavor to kindle it. But when prevented from putting their own false fire into the stack of wood, they are paralyzed. The frantic entreaties, the self-inflicted wounds, the monotonous chant, are insufficient. They are carnal and arouse only the worst emotions. Spiritual conditions have to be fulfilled, as Elijah showed; then God bears witness “by signs and wonders” and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will." (F.B. Meyer)​

“The tongue is a little member, but boasteth great things.” Boasting results from an overestimate of ourselves, and an underestimate of others. It is selfishness manifesting itself in words. It is the inflated mind, venting itself in windy words. It betrays weakness, littleness, ignorance, vanity, self-conceit, arrogance, presumption.
It is a sinful boasting when men display their trophies, boast of their own worth and eminency, that others may admire and cry them up; a man’s self is his idol, and he loves to have this idol worshipped: “there arose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody.” (Biblical Illustrator)

​If by tares is meant the bearded darnel of our English fields, then the tares and the wheat bear a strong resemblance to each other. They both belong to the tribe of grasses, and to the special group Trititicinoe, or wheat-like grasses. Their structure, mode, and conditions of growth are almost the same; when in the blade they present an appearance so very similar, that the Jewish farmer, who is careful in weeding his field, cannot distinguish between them, and it is only when the fruit is formed that the impostor is detected by its smaller and darker ear. (Hugh Macmillan)

When Jesus spoke to these disciples of His about martyrdom and persecution, He knew that all of them - except John - would die martyr’s deaths for Him. He also knew of His own coming suffering and death on the cross.
​All persecutors can do is kill the body, and God has ultimate power over the life and death of the believer. Therefore, we shouldn’t fear our persecutors, but have a healthy respect of God that makes us more concerned with obeying Him than any man. God holds our eternity in His hands.
​Psa 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.

His life was full of trials and Saul's hatred and envy. David was chased many years by Saul, who tried to kill him. But, even when he had the chance, David did not destroy Saul, he spared his life, because he would not kill an anointed King of Israel. He left vengence in God's hands.
At his worse, when he sinned with Bathsheba, it took some time and he sank deeply into deception, but when Nathan the prophet confronted him, he was cut to the heart, and truly repented. In Psalm 51, he pours out his heart to God in deep repentance. 
​David's own children were a source of heartache and trouble the rest of his life. His son Absalom disgraced him, and also tried to kill him.
David's life is a great example of what God can do with anyone who will surrender themselves to God, and allow God to use them. At the end of his life, David was an overcomer. Lorna Couillard​

​God is faithful to his word, his covenant and promises; he has promised to sanctify and cleanse his people from all their sins, and to preserve them safe to his kingdom and glory; agreeably the Arabic version renders this last clause, "and will execute his promise": and the effectual calling is a sure pledge of glorification; whom God calls he justifies and glorifies; as sure as he gives grace, he will give glory; and whom he calls to his eternal glory, he will make perfect, stablish, strengthen, and settle. (John Gill)
​2Th 3:3  But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil.

​Psa_96:6
“Honour and majesty are before him.” Men can but mimic these things; their pompous pageants are but the pretence of greatness. Honour and majesty are with him and with him alone. In the presence of Jehovah real glory and sovereignty abide, as constant attendants. “Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.” In him are combined all that is mighty and lovely, powerful and resplendent. We have seen rugged strength devoid of beauty, we have also seen elegance without strength; the union of the two is greatly to be admired. Do we desire to see the “sublime and beautiful” at one glance? Then we must look to the eternal throne. In the Chronicles we read strength and gladness; and the two renderings do not disagree in sense, for in the highest degree in this instance it is true that “a thing of beauty is a joy for ever.” Not in outward show or parade of costly robes does the glory of God consist; such things are tricks of state with which the ignorant are dazzled; holiness, justice, wisdom, grace, these are the splendours of Jehovah's courts, these the jewels and the gold, the regalia, and the pomp of the courts of heaven. (Charles Haddon Spurgeon- Treasury of David)

​All heaven declares (with lyrics) - Martin Ball
https://youtu.be/kPkZAjA610k?si=hkkinqn8xDMqeBEQ

2Pe 1:16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
​2Pe 1:17 For 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.

​The Lord’s tone is gentle and tender when He turns to address the poor. He says three times over, “Don’t be anxious.” He never forgot that He sprang, according to His human nature, from the ranks of poverty. His references to patching garments, using old bottle-skins, the price of sparrows, and the scanty pittance of a laborer’s hire, indicate that He was habituated to the shifts of the poor.
There is all the difference between foresight and foreboding. It is the latter that Jesus chides. The farmer must sow in the autumn that he may reap in the summer, but there is no need for him to lie sleepless through the nights of winter, worrying about the yet distant harvest. Do not be anxious about the supply of your needs, whether of body, mind, or heart. God knows what you need. If He has given life, will He not maintain it? Does He not care for the birds and flowers? Did He not give His Son, and will He withhold any good? Trust Him and be at peace.  (F.B. Meyer)

The term joined to his wife has the idea of gluing two things together. “Be glued to her... A husband ought to be as firm to his wife as to himself.” (Trapp)
The term Jesus uses for joined together is literally yoked together. Like two animals yoked together, couples must work together and head the same way to really be joined the way God wants them to be joined.
Here there is a new and overriding unity. The bond between a husband and wife should be even stronger than the bond between parent and child. The marriage bond should be stronger than the blood-bond. “And the law of God was not, that a man should forsake his wife whenever he had a mind to it, but that he should rather forsake his father and mother than his wife; loving his wife as his own body.” (Poole)
“Not only meaning that they should be considered as one body, but also as two souls in one body, with a complete union of interests, and an indissoluble partnership of life and fortune, comfort and support, desires and inclinations, joys and sorrows.” (Clarke)
What God has joined together: Next, Jesus reminded the Pharisees that marriage is spiritually binding before God. Marriage is not merely a social contract, and as God has joined He will keep together.

​The actions of children become, in process of time, their own doings. Children move before they act, and they live as mere animals before they act spiritually and morally. But in process of time the child acts. All its movements become conduct, the result of a determination to behave itself in a particular way. This is what is meant by "his doings."
When the actions of children become their doings, the children are recognised as accountable. (1) God recognises the child as the author of its own actions; He sees the doings of the child spring from a motive and principle within. (2) The god of evil knows, by the doings of children, with whom and with what he has to do. (3) The angelic inhabitants of heaven recognise children in their ministrations. (4) Children are recognised as accountable by their fellow human beings.
Make no mistake, the world will know you by the way you conduct yourself in public, and private.

​Mat 7:16  Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 

With thy likeness - Or, in thy likeness; that is, resembling thee. The resemblance doubtless is in the moral character, for the highest hope of a good man is that he may be, and will be, like God. Compare the notes at 1Jn_3:2. I regard this passage, therefore, as one of the incidental proofs scattered through the Old Testament which show that the sacred writers under that dispensation believed in the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead; that their language was often based on the knowledge and the belief of that doctrine, even when they did not expressly affirm it; and that in times of trouble, and under the consciousness of sin, they sought their highest consolation, as the people of God do now, from the hope and the expectation that the righteous dead will rise again, and that in a world free from trouble, from sin, and from death, they would live forever in the presence of God, and find their supreme happiness in being made wholly like him.  (Albert Barnes)

The apostle mentions two sorts of enemies. 1. The first he calls flesh and blood.—The motions of our animal nature. The phrase may further intend those sensible objects which are suited to gratify fleshly desires; or it may intend mankind, who are partakers of flesh and blood. 2. The other kind of enemies with whom we are to contend are evil spirits.—These spirits are enemies to mankind. Their number is great, and the terms used denote a subordination among them. They are not divided against themselves, but act in concert under the direction of one leading spirit, who is called the devil and Satan. They have great power over such as submit to their dominion. Their chief influence is over the ignorant and superstitious. They most successfully carry on their designs in the dark. When the gospel began to shine, Satan began to fall. Among those who reject the gospel he recovers his full dominion.—(Lathrop)
​Above all, taking the shield of faith. The Roman oblong shield, four and a half feet long, covered the whole body, and was a protection of itself. So faith, the faith that fully trusts in God and never doubts, is the best of all defenses. It will quench, stop, put out all the doubts, whisperings and evil suggestions of the wicked. (B.W. Johnson)

​‘My dove.’ A term of endearment. Love sees in its object only what is beautiful and agreeable. The called one a sinner, with much that is not dove-like. Yet love says: ‘My dove.’ Yet in regard to a believer, the title thee. The believer is—(1) A ‘dove,’ because renewed with a dove-like nature akin to that of Him who renews him and dwells in him—the Holy Spirit, whose emblem is the dove; the dove-like becoming the predominant one in him, and going on increasing until it reaches perfection and is the only one, and that for ever. Believers viewed and addressed by Christ in His love, according to their new, rather than their old nature. (2) Christ’s dove, as—(i.) Given Him by the Father; (ii.) Purchased by His own blood; (iii.) Wooed and won by Him as His Bride, and made a member of His body. The little word ‘my’ as precious to Christ in reference to believers as it is to believers in reference to Christ.
(Preacher's Homelitical)

​Rev 19:11  And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. 

​and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land; judgment upon the blind Pharisees given up to judicial blindness and hardness of heart; and upon the world, and the prince of it, who was cast out by him; and though he came not at first to judge the world and all the individuals of it, as he will do at his second coming; yet all judgment, rule, and government of his church, is committed to him by his Father; and he is on the throne to order and establish it with judgment, and to overrule all things for the good of it, and his own and his Father's glory: and he has "wrought" out an everlasting "righteousness", agreeably to law and justice, for the justification of his people; for which reason he and they have the name in Jer 33:16. (John Gill)
cross references:
2Co 5:21  For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Heb 1:8  But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.

Man is not even like a flower in the conservatory or in the sheltered garden border, he grows best according to nature, as the field-flower does, and like the unprotected beautifier of the pasture, he runs a thousand risks of coming to a speedy end. A large congregation, in many-coloured attire, always reminds us of a meadow bright with many hues; and the comparison becomes sadly true when we reflect, that as the grass and its goodliness soon pass away, even so will those we gaze upon, and all their visible beauty. Thus, too, must it be with all that comes of the flesh, even its greatest excellencies and natural virtues, for “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and therefore is but as grass which withers if but a breath of wind assails it. Happy are they who, born from above, have in them an incorruptible seed which liveth and abideth for ever.
(Charles Surgeon-Treasury of David)

We see, therefore, that we may cast away our confidence by unbelief. Once begin to doubt the power and will of Christ to bless us, and our confidence is gone. The faith may not altogether have departed, but confidence is thrown away. In fact, it seems to be possible for one to have all the evidences of Christ’s character and goodness set before him, so that he cannot doubt, but must believe in Christ’s divinity and salvation; and yet to have no real confidence in Him, no confidence which leads one to trust Him fully, and to go forth in His name in all boldness and with Christian courage. If, then, you are a possessor of this confidence, hold it fast. It is a step in advance of the ordinary Christian plan. It leads to something more, something higher, bolder, and grander, for Christ and for His cause. Hold it fast, and exercise it. The more it is cultivated and exercised, the more it will grow and the stronger it will become. (Biblical Illustraror)

“Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable.” Note that the “scripture” of this verse is not the same as the “sacred writings” of 2Ti_3:15. Here it is simply “every writing inspired of God.” The inbreathing of the Holy Ghost is the condition of its being profitable. For correction.—Setting upright again something that was out of the perpendicular. For instruction.—Fatherly discipline or process of education, often by chastisement or severe methods. The word of God does not always speak smooth things to us.
​(Preacher's Homiletical)

In comparison with the fleeting phenomena which environ us, Christ is the enduring substance, the reality which persists unchanged through all change. “They shall perish, but thou remainest.”
​​By the very law of contrast, and by the need of finding sufficient reason for the changes, we are driven from the contemplation of the fleeting to the vision of the permanent. Blessed are they who, in a world of passing phenomena, penetrate to the still centre of rest, and looking over all the vacillations of the things that can be shaken, can turn to the Christ and say, “Thou who movest all things art Thyself unmoved; Thou who changest all things, Thyself changest not.” As the moon rises slow and silvery, with its broad shield, out of the fluctuations of the oceans, so the one radiant Figure of the all-sufficient and immutable Lover and Friend of our souls should rise for us out of the billows of life’s tossing ocean, and come to us across the seas.

This is a common trait in society, especially in this fast paced life people live in today. People want to be seen and heard, but will not hear out a matter completely, before spreading a story, or half truth, that ends up slandering the person, and ruining their reputation. 
I've been in this situation, and even as I was speaking to the person before me, could see by their demeanor, and expression on their face-they were'nt even listening to me, and weren't hearing me. I knew what I said didn't matter to them, and if asked, they couldn't repeat to me what I'd said. They were just waiting for an opportunity to talk over me. When this happens, it's clear there's no basis for any understanding, or any relationship with this person. It's a waste of time to say anything to them, and I've learned over the years, to avoid such situations, and leave them to themselves. Self is on the throne, you do not matter to these people.     Lorna Couillard 

​Mat 14:25  And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. 

​It befits every era in which the Church is in danger from her foes, and foretells the final destruction of Antichrist. It was Luther’s favorite psalm, and is rendered into verse in his memorable hymn, Ein’ Feste Burg. During the sitting of the Diet of Augsburg he sang it every day to his lute, standing at the window and looking up to heaven. The theme of the psalm is the security of God’s people, and this is elaborated in three stanzas, each of which ends with Selah.
Alone among great cities, Jerusalem lacked a river; but God was willing to become all that a river could be and more. Your deficiencies give more room for God’s all-sufficiency. Mark the beautiful alternative translation of Psa_46:5, R.V., margin, “at the dawn of morning.” Your sorrow is limited to a single night. See also Isa_37:36; Mat_14:25. Be still, O troubled heart! The God of the nations is your Father! Desolations are the snapping off of the dead branches to prepare for the spring. (F.B. Meyer)

As a man looking into the water (used anciently as a mirror) sees an exact transcript of his own countenance, so every heart has, by nature, precisely the same moral character with every other unsanctified heart. Every child of Adam, till renewed by Divine grace, has, in view of Omnipotence and Omniscience, the same moral aspect. Notice some of the circumstances which have contributed to make men differ in their conduct who have by nature the same moral character. Grace has made a wide difference in men who were by nature alike. Difference in instinctive passions and affections makes men differ in their conduct. Some have not the talents for doing mischief that others have. Others have not the opportunities. One man may achieve less mischief than another because more restrained.
​(Biblical Illustrator)
​Rom 3:23  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 

The Septuagint and Arabic versions render it to this sense,
"every man seems righteous to himself;''
but the Lord pondereth the hearts: weighs them in the balance of righteousness and truth; considers them, having a perfect knowledge of them, and all the springs of action in them; and knows that every way of man is not right, though they may seem so to him.  (John Gill)

​Pro 16:2  All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits.

​The gospel preacher must avail himself of any circumstance in his surroundings that will enable him to arrest the attention of his audience. He must meet them where they are and take them with him to realms of thought with which they are not familiar. Paul was wise to begin with that altar to the unknown god.
Around them stood the most exquisite temples ever reared by human genius, but these were not the home of God. He seeks the lowly and contrite heart, not of the Jew alone, but wherever man is found, and on whatever intellectual plane. Men, the world over, are brothers-“he hath made of one blood all nations.” The arrangements of divine providence have been contrived to lead men to God. If they feel after Him with reverence and true desire, He will be found of them. All men are His offspring, but only those who receive the Son of God into their hearts become really sons. Repentance is the act of the will, and therefore it may be commanded. God can overlook much that is hurtful and evil, because He loves the world and deals with men according to their light; and we may rejoice therefore that He will judge mankind by “the Man.” (F.B. Meyer)

​Act 17:32  And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. 

​Jesus, our Lord, ever shall be. The connection of the word “Father” with the word “everlasting” allows us very fairly to remark that our Lord is as everlasting as the Father, since He Himself is called “the everlasting Father”; for whatever antiquity paternity may imply is here ascribed to Christ. It is the manner of the Easterns to call a man the father of a quality for which he is remarkable. To this day, among the Arabs, a wise man is called “the father of wisdom”; a very foolish man “the father of folly.” The predominant quality in the man is ascribed to him as though it were his child, and he the father of it. Now, the Messiah is here called in the Hebrew “the Father of eternity,” by which is meant that He is preeminently the possessor of eternity as an attribute.
​He is federally a Father, representing those who are in Him, as the head of a tribe represents his descendants. The grand question for us is this, Are we still under the old covenant of works? If so, we have Adam to our father, and under that Adam we died. But are we under the covenant of grace? If so, we have Christ to our Father, and in Christ shall we be made alive.

To Christians, to those, that is, who mourn for sin, and renounce and forsake it, and trust in Christ only, and pray for the grace of the Holy Spirit to make them and keep them His, it ought to be and will be a real comfort to remember that just inside that door there is a heaven, and a throne set, and a God seated thereon, and a holy and loving council gathered, and plans under preparation for purposes of good to the poor struggling and suffering people below; and that round the throne is the covenant bow, promising evermore a clear shining after rain, and pledging the very faithfulness of God to their final rescue and deliverance. (Biblical Illustrator)

Angels singing caught on tape (Updated) Improved sound quality and lyrics to the mystery solo
​​https://youtu.be/wxgfnEkxkMI?si=gSVsjYugnxwWHwCH

Judas, who had been called along with the other disciples to share in the work of spreading the gospel, and watched Jesus do nothing but good for 3 years-never learned or allowed the truth of Jesus life to change him, he never really repented of his sins, and when an opportunity came, he was quick to betray Jesus. This is a lesson every servent of the Lord learns. Our enemies, can be our closest friends.
God had called me for several years, before I finally obeyed and did what God called me to do. He finally got my attention after 3 different people I'd never met before-were put before me in 3 separate occasions, came up to me and publicly said that I was called by God to serve Him. Each time, it was in a church full of people. I finally had to either obey, or know I was rejecting God's call on my life. Over the years, I've learned the lessons that came to Jesus and Corrie ten Boom. What God has called me to do may never be popular, or draw great crowds of people- God never promised me it would. But, His purposes are what matters.

Keep thy heart with all diligence,.... The mind from vanity, the understanding from error, the will from perverseness, the conscience clear of guilt, the affections from being inordinate and set on evil objects, the thoughts from being employed on bad subjects; and the whole from falling into the hands of the enemy, or being the possession of Satan: great diligence had need be used in keeping it, since it is naturally so deceitful and treacherous; a strict eye is to be kept upon it; all the avenues to it to be watched, that nothing hurtful enters, or evil comes out; it is to be kept by all manner of means that can be thought of, by prayer, hearing, reading, meditation; and, above all, by applying to Christ for his grace and Spirit to sanctify, preserve, and keep it. Or, "above all keeping, keep thine heart"; though other things are to be kept, and care taken of them, as kingdoms and cities, and towns and families, and treasures and riches; yet the heart above all:

​What you learn from bad habits and in bad society you will never forget, and it will be a lasting pang to you. I tell you in all sincerity, not as in the excitement of speech, but as I would confess and have confessed before God, I would give my right hand tonight if I could forget that which I have learned in evil society—if I could tear from my remembrance the scenes which I have witnessed, the transactions which have taken place before me. You cannot, I believe, take away the effect of a single impure thought that has lodged and harbored in the heart. You may pray against it, and by God’s grace you may conquer it, but it will, through life, cause you bitterness and anguish. (J. B. Gough.)

Behold Him, the Son of man, seated at the right hand of the Father, and in His majestic rest and peaceful dignity behold the perfect assurance of our acceptance and of our blessedness.
Behold Jesus in heaven, and seek the things which are above. In Him are all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. From Him descend all healthful influences, all spiritual gifts, all quickening and renewing power, all true and everlasting consolation.
Behold Jesus in heaven, and be of good comfort. He presents unto the Father all the petitions and thanksgivings, all the labors and sufferings, all the words and works of His people, and they are accepted and well-pleasing in His sight.
​(A. Saphir, Christ and the Church, p. 1)

This is the end of our Lord’s discourse to Nicodemus; and though we are not informed here of any good effects produced by it, yet we learn from other scriptures that it had produced that from this time he became a disciple of Christ. He publicly defended our Lord in the Sanhedrin, of which he was probably a member, Joh_7:50, and, with Joseph of Arimathea, gave him an honorable funeral, Joh_19:39, when all his bosom friends had deserted him.   (Adam Clarke)
​Eph 5:9  (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)

The earth and all man's creations. That the world shall come to an end seems to be written in its very constitution. A slight change in the constitution of the atmosphere, or the decomposition of its water would wrap it in flame. Science finds the elements of final dissolution in the relations of the earth and sun. According to the ratio of increase in two centuries the world will not have resources to feed its population. In a few hundred years the coal resources of the world will fail. These and many other facts point to a necessary and inevitable change.
What manner of persons ought ye to be. Since we have no abiding home on this earth and seek one beyond, we should live in a state of preparation. Be sober, diligent, found in peace.
Looking for. Looking for, preparing for, and desiring the Lord's coming. Dreadful as that day will be for the impenitent it is a day of relief and of glorious attainment to the saint.
We, according to his promise. See Isa_65:17; also Isa_66:22. The heavens and the earth are not to be blotted out, but changed, purified, and made better for the home of the righteous.
(B.W. Johnson)
​Rev 21:1  And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. 

Rev 21:27  And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. 
Watchman [Live]--
https://youtu.be/FdTDGjibJz0?si=N6O8fUsjNXGVYL2i

​God will see to it that our needs are supplied, that our enemies are silenced, and that our soul is redeemed.
Psa_34:15 : Do you feel unable to claim the designation of righteous? Remember that Paul was glad to reject his own, that he might be clad in Another’s righteousness. That still avails for us. See Php_3:9.
Psa_34:17 : We are not kept from trouble, but delivered out of it.
Psa_34:20 : You do not recognize Him, but the Great Gardener passes by the plants that have braved the wind and storm to bend over you who are beaten to the earth. See the literal fulfillment of this in Joh_19:36. How much we owe to God’s continuous care.
Psa_34:22 : Observe the present tenses in which the psalmist records God’s redeeming love. It never grows old.  (F.B. Meyer)
​Psa 34:22  The LORD redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate. 

Thus Enoch, the seventh from Adam, walks with God. In this simple familiar expression we have the description of the new life; it brings before us communion with God, dependence on His guidance, submission to His authority, confidence in His love and favour, continuous, habitual fellowship, and a mind conformed to God’s mind, and delighting itself in the Lord.
Abel testifies of faith’s sacrifice and worship always accepted. Enoch of faith’s walk and triumph, lifted above sin and death into fellowship with the holy God, the Lord of Life. Noah’s faith has again another testimony. He found grace—the first time the word is used in Scripture—in the eyes of the Lord. His faith, rooted in the contrite heart, and evidenced in his daily work and obedience, was tested by the opposition and mockery of the world to whom he testified of sin, of judgment, and saving grace; declaring what he possessed himself, righteousness by faith. And by his faith he not merely saved himself, but his household.
(A. Saphir, Lectures on Hebrews, vol. ii., p. 289.)
​Gen 6:13  And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 
Gen 6:14  Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. 

​Paul does not say, the wages of great sins, or the wages of some sins, or the wages of certain sins; he simply says: “The wages of sin,” of any sin, of all sins, of the least sin, “is death.” A single sin, however insignificant it may appear, brings guilt of death; as St. James writes: “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” The man who has broken one link in the chain of the commandments is guilty of breaking the chain.
​Death and life are before all men who hear the Gospel: the one, the natural issue and proper reward of sin; the other, the absolutely free “GIFT OF GOD” to sinners, “in Jesus Christ our Lord.”
​Joh 6:40  And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. 

Thou shalt not bear false witness - This forbids, Speaking falsely in any matter, lying, equivocating, and any way devising and designing to deceive our neighbor. Speaking unjustly against our neighbor, to the prejudice of his reputation; And (which is the highest offence of both these kinds put together) Bearing false witness against him, laying to his charge things that he knows not, either upon oath, by which the third commandment, the sixth or eighth, as well as this, are broken, or in common converse, slandering, backbiting, tale - bearing, aggravating what is done amiss, and any way endeavoring to raise our own reputation upon the ruin of our neighbor's.  (John Wesley)

O God, when the worldling's mirth has all expired, for ever with Jesus may we dwell “at thy right hand,” where “there are pleasures for evermore;” and meanwhile, may we have an earnest by tasting thy love below. Trapp's note on the heavenly verse which closes the Psalm is a sweet morsel, which may serve for a contemplation, and yield a foretaste of our inheritance. He writes, “Here is as much said as can be, but words are too weak to utter it. For quality there is in heaven joy and pleasures; for quantity, a fulness, a torrent whereat they drink without let or loathing; for constancy, it is at God's right hand, who is stronger than all, neither can any take us out of his hand; it is a constant happiness without intermission: and for perpetuity it is for evermore. Heaven's joys are without measure, mixture, or end.”
(Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)

Christ is “the Truth,” and His teaching, accepted by the will and expressed in the life, is the Truth that makes us free.
​Christ taught that this life is not all; that it is only a miserable state of human infancy. He taught that in words, by His life, and by His Resurrection. This, again, was freedom. If there is a faith that cramps and enslaves the soul, it is the idea that this life is all. If there is one that expands, and elevates, it is the thought of immortality; and this is something quite distinct from the selfish desire of happiness. It is not to enjoy, but to be that we long for; to enter into more and higher life—a craving which we can part with only when we sink below Humanity, and forfeit it. This was the martyrs’ strength. They were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might attain a better resurrection. In that hope, and the knowledge of that truth, they were free from the fear of pain and death.  (Great Texts)
cross references: Mat 12:20  A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory.
​Psa 119:133  Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
​Rom 8:2  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 

Luk 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 
Luk 4:19  To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 

It would seem that there were not even so many as ten righteous in Sodom. And yet God went even further than His promise, and saved Lot’s family, which contained, doubtless, all the righteous who were there. Thus He granted Abraham’s prayer. He would not destroy the righteous with the wicked. God loves to be pleaded with and importuned in prayer. The righteous are the salt of the earth. The world is preserved in being for the Church’s sake. The history of the world is the history of redemption.  We have still higher encouragement to pray and plead for the ONE RIGHTEOUS’ sake—JESUS. Six times he, Abraham, urged his prayer, with a steady advance, and each time made God’s gracious answer the encouragement to ask yet more. And there he rested in a serene  confidence in God, that He would do all things right and well. “Not my will, but Thine be done.”  What a blessing to have the prayers of a saint for us.—(Jacobus)

The Divine seal or confirmation of this testimony. (1) We have, on the one side, a declaration of glorious privilege—"having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His." The Lord knows all things, but in a peculiar and distinguishing sense He knows and marks His people as His own. But God has known His people, and set His love on them from eternity, for they are all elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. (2) "And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." It is here put in the form of a rule or precept, to teach us that the certainty of God’s purpose never interferes with our moral responsibility, nor supersedes the obligation resting on His people, to strive and pray for entire holiness. (R. Elder, The Redeemer’s Cry, p. 91)

The good man has his enemies. He would not be like his Lord if he had not. If we were without enemies we might fear that we were not the friends of God, for the friendship of the world is enmity to God. Yet see the quietude of the godly man in spite of, and in the sight of, his enemies. How refreshing is his calm bravery! “Thou preparest a table before me.” When a soldier is in the presence of his enemies, if he eats at all he snatches a hasty meal, and away he hastens to the fight. But observe: “Thou preparest a table,” just as a servant does when she unfolds the damask cloth and displays the ornaments of the feast on an ordinary peaceful occasion. Nothing is hurried, there is no confusion, no disturbance, the enemy is at the door and yet God prepares a table, and the Christian sits down and eats as if everything were in perfect peace. Oh! the peace which Jehovah gives to his people, even in the midst of the most trying circumstances.

Let us read again 1Ki_21:23. The word of the Lord-by Elijah concerning Jezebel.
1Ki 21:23  And of Jezebel also spake the LORD, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.
​How those words came back to the two men, who had heard them from the lips of God’s servant years before! God’s mills grind slowly, but to powder. In a deep sense Ahab’s blood was licked by dogs, as it flowed from the gaping wounds of his son. As a man sows he reaps, and when his children follow his steps, they too reap. But Ezekiel makes it perfectly clear that a godly son may break the entail of his father’s iniquities. See Eze_18:1-32, which has a most important bearing on the modern doctrine of heredity.​
Jezebel’s heart was proud and unbroken. She thought to make the conqueror the slave of her charms. When these failed, she taunted him with the fate of Zimri, so closely associated with the rise of Ahab’s family to the throne. His reign of seven days was thrown in Jehu’s teeth, 1Ki_16:15.
1Ki 16:15  In the twenty and seventh year of Asa king of Judah did Zimri reign seven days in Tirzah. And the people were encamped against Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines. 
​But Jezebel could not avert her fate. Her very chamberlains turned against her. How often does God’s representative ask the same question, “Who is on my side?” Let us heed the challenge and dare to “look out” in answer! There is service appointed for us all, and we must not fail to render it.  (F.B. Meyer)
Mic 7:10  Then she that is mine enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her which said unto me, Where is the LORD thy God? mine eyes shall behold her: now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets. 

Paul lay in prison at Rome, bound with a chain to the Roman trooper who watched him day and night. He employed his prison hours in writing. It was very natural that his language, like his thoughts, should be colored here and there by the objects around him; and we find that whilst writing this circular epistle to the Ephesians his eye had actually been resting on the soldier to whom he was chained. In the outfit of the Roman legionary he saw the symbol of the supernatural dress which befits the Christian.
​The ornamented girdle or balteus, bound around the loins, to which the sword was commonly attached, seemed to the apostle to recall the inward practical acknowledgment of truth, which is the first necessity in the Christian character.
​The metal breastplate suggests the moral rectitude or righteousness which enables a man to confront the world. 

This is one of the reasons why he is called “the image of God,” and the “first-born.” He makes God known to us by his creative power, and by the same power in creation shows that he is exalted over all things as the Son of God. The phrase which is used here by the apostle is universal. He does not declare that he created all things in the spiritual kingdom of God, or that he arranged the events of the gospel dispensation, as Socinians suppose (see Crellius); but that every thing was created by him. A similar form of expression occurs in Joh_1:3; see the notes at that verse. There could not possibly be a more explicit declaration that the universe was created by Christ, than this. As if the simple declaration in the most comprehensive terms were not enough, the apostle goes into a specification of things existing in heaven and earth, and so varies the statement as if to prevent the possibility of mistake.