INSIGHTS & NOTES FROM
CHAPTER 1
"The great Creator knows what use to make of every man before he makes him." "What God has designed men for he will call them to; for his purposes cannot be frustrated." "It becomes us, when we have any service to do for God, to be afraid lest we mismanage it, & lest it suffer through our weakness & unfitness for it; it becomes us likewise to have low thoughts of ourselves & to be diffident of our own sufficiency." "Though a sense of our own weakness & insufficiency should make us go humbly about our work, yet it should not make us draw back from it when God calls us to do it." "Those that have messages to deliver from God must not be afraid of the face of man, Ezekiel 3:9." "God not only put knowledge into his head, but words into his mouth; for there are words which the Holy Ghost teaches, I Corinthians 2:13." "They have forsaken God & revolted from their allegiance to him, & have burnt incense to other gods, new gods, strange gods, & all false gods, pretenders, usurpers, the creatures of their own fancy, & they have worshipped the works of their own hands." "The fear of God is the best antidote against the fear of man." "It is better to have all the men in the world our enemies than God our enemy." "Those who are sure that they have God with them (as he is if they be with him) need not, ought not, to be afraid, whoever is against them." CHAPTER 2 "Let a minister carefully compare what he has to deliver with the word of God, & see that it agrees with it, that he may be able to say, not only, The Lord sent me, but, He sent me to speak this." "It must be the strong affection of the youth, & the espousals, that will carry us on to follow God in a wilderness, with an implicit faith & an entire resignation; & it is a pity that those who have so followed him should ever leave him." "Those that forsake God cannot say that he has ever given them any provocation to do so." "Idolatrous worships are vanities. Acts 14:15." "Those who should have instructed the people in the knowledge of God took no care to get the knowledge of him themselves." "Before God punishes sinners he pleads with them, to bring them to repentance." "Idolaters change God's glory into shame (Rom. 1:23)" "Whatever those turn to who forsake God, it will never do them any good" "If we make an idol of any creature - wealth, or pleasure, or honour - if we place our happiness in it, & promise ourselves the comfort & satisfaction in it which are to be had in God only, - if we make it our joy & love, our hope & confidence, we shall find it a cistern, which we take a great deal of pains to hew out & fill, & at the best it will hold but a little water" "Let us therefore with purpose of heart cleave to the Lord only, for whither else shall we go? He has the words of eternal life." "Whatever trouble we are in at any time we may thank ourselves for it; for we bring it upon our own head by our forsaking God." "Cleaving to sin is leaving God." "Those that leave God wander endlessly" "They had promised fair, but had not made good their promise" "Idolatry is strangely intoxicating, & those that are addicted to it will with great difficulty be cured of it." "...it is the folly of sinners to please themselves with that which will certainly be their grief, & pride themselves in that which will certainly be their shame." "God sometimes has led his people through a wilderness & a land of darkness, but he himself was then to them all that which they needed; he so fed them with manna, & led them by a pillar of fire, that it was to them a fruitful field & a land of light." "God justly takes it ill when those to whom he has been a bountiful benefactor care not either for hearing from him or speaking to him." "Those that will not lay their hand on their heart in godly sorrow, which works life, shall be made to lay their hand on their head in the sorrow of the world, which works death." CHAPTER 3 "Blushing is the colour of virtue, or at least a relic of it; but those that are past shame (we say) are past hope." "In our return to God we must thankfully remember that he was the guide of our youth in the way of comfort; & we must faithfully covenant that he shall be our guide henceforward in the way of duty, & that we will follow his guidance, & give up ourselves entirely to it, that in all doubtful cases we will be determined by our... (covenant-love relationship w/ God)" "It is a shameful thing for men thus to call God father, & yet to do the works of the devil" John 8:44 "God keeps account, whether we do or no, how often he has called to us to turn to him & we have refused." "Those will justly be divorced from God that join themselves to such as are rivals with him." "We deceive ourselves if we think to deceive God by a feigned return to him." "God's anger is ready to fall upon sinners, as a lion falls on his prey, & there is none to deliver" "But if they repent it shall be turned away" "We that are sinful were for ever undone if God were not merciful; but the goodness of his nature encourages us to hope that, if we by repentance undo what we have done against him, he will by a pardon unsay what he has said against us." "It is well with a people when their pastors are after God's own heart, such as they should be" "Those are pastors after God's own heart who make it their business to feed the flock" "Those who are not only pastors, but teachers, must feed them with the word of God, which is wisdom & understanding, which is able to make us wise to salvation." "Sin is the perverting of our way, it is turning aside to crooked ways, & perverting that which is right. Forgetting the Lord our God is at the bottom of all sin." "True penitents have learned to call sin shame" "True penitents have learned to call sin death & ruin" CHAPTER 4 "Sin must be put away out of the heart, else it is not put away out of God's sight" "An unconvinced unhumbled heart is like fallow ground, ground untilled, unoccupied. It is ground capable of improvement" "We must search into our own hearts, let the word of God divide (as the plough does) between the joints & the marrow, Hebrews 4:12." "We must pluck up by the roots those corruptions which, as thorns, choke both our endeavours & our expectations." "Every one must return from his own evil way, &, in order to that, cleanse his own evil heart." "Reformation is absolutely necessary to salvation." "There is heart-wickedness that is defiling to the soul, from which we must wash ourselves." "A good man, in such a bad world as this is, cannot be a man of sorrows" "Those that would affect others with the word of God should evidence that they are themselves affected with it" "Even angry men cannot do us any real hurt, unless God be angry with us." "As sin will find out the sinner, so sorrow will, sooner or later, find out the secure." Matthew Henry's Commentary: Isaiah to Malachi, Mac Donald, pgs. 398 - 433.
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AuthorCross Preaching Pentecostal Pastor. Husband to Tonia, Father to 3 beautiful girls, Monica, Zoe & Briana, & Grandfather to Wesley & Elliott Archives
September 2023
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