INSIGHTS & NOTES FROM
CHAPTER 1
"...God's prophets should be sons of truth." "...men's words are but wind, but God's words are substance." "How many great cities & great nations are there that sit in darkness & in the valley of the shadow of death!" "...he must witness against their great wickedness, & must warn them of the destruction that was coming upon them for it." "He owns himself that the reason of his aversion to this journey was because he foresaw that the Ninevites would repent, & God would forgive them & take them into favour, which would be a slur upon the people of Israel, who had been so long a peculiar people to God." "The ready way is not always the right way." "...what need we have, when the word of the Lord comes to us, to have the Spirit of the Lord come along with the word, to bring every thought within us into obedience to it." "Sin brings storms & tempests into the soul, into the family, into churches & nations; it is a disquieting disturbing thing." "Many will not be brought to prayer till they are frightened to it" "Those that thus quit their temporal interests for the securing of their spiritual welfare will be unspeakable gainers at last; for what they lose upon those terms they shall find again to life eternal." "Sin is of a stupifying nature, & we are concerned to take heed least at any time our hearts be hardened by the deceitfulness of it." "The devotions of others should quicken ours" "While there is life there is hope, & while there is hope there is room for prayer." "Jonah is found out to be the cause of the storm." "God has many ways of bringing to light concealed sins & sinners, & making manifest that folly which was thought to be hidden from the eyes of all living." "When we are among those that are strangers to us we should do what we can to bring them acquainted with God, by being ready upon all occasions to own our relation to him & our reverence for him." "If the righteous be thus scarcely saved, & for a single act of disobedience thus closely pursued, where shall the ungodly & the sinner appear?" "Those that commit a wilful sin know not how far the mischievous consequences of it may reach, nor what mischief may be done by it." "We must pray & believe, when we are in a storm, & study to answer the end for which it was sent, & then the storm shall become a calm. But especially we must consider what is to be done to the sin that raise the storm; that must be discovered, & penitently confessed; that must be detested, disclaimed, & utterly forsaken. What have I to do any more with it? Crucify it, crucify it, for this evil it has done." "Those know not what ruin they run upon that run away from God." "If we turn from our sins, he will soon turn from his anger." "In the midst of judgment God remembers mercy." "The fish swallowed up Jonah, not to devour him, but to protect him." "Jonah's burial was a figure of Christ's. God prepared Jonah's grave, so he did Christ's" "Was Jonah there the best part of 3 days & 3 nights? So was Christ; but both in order to their rising again for the bringing of the doctrine of repentance to the Gentile world." CHAPTER 2 "When we are in affliction we must pray; then we have occasion to pray, then we have errands at the throne of grace & business there; then, if ever, we shall have a disposition to pray, when the heart is humbled, & softened, & made serious" "Jonah was here in confinement; the belly of the fish was his prison, was a close & dark dungeon to him; yet there he had freedom of access to God, & walked at liberty in communion with him. Men may shut us out from communion with one another, but not from communion with God." "God heard him, heard the voice of his affliction, the voice of his supplication." "Thus are the people of God sometimes perplexed & entangled, that they may learn not to trust in themselves, but in God that raises the dead." "In trying times, the issue will be good at last, provided our faith do not fail" "Thus against hope he believed in hope." "Our afflictions should put us in mind of God, & thereby put us upon prayer to him. When our souls faint we must remember God; &, when we remember God, we must send up a prayer to him" "If the Lord be our God, he will be to us the resurrection & the life, will redeem our lives from destruction, from the power of the grave." "Salvation is still of him, as it has always been; from him alone it is to be expected, & on him we are to depend for it." "God has all creatures at his command, makes what use he pleases of them" CHAPTER 3 "When God has afflicted us, & delivered us out of affliction, we must hear his voice, saying to us, Now return to the duties which before you neglected, & which by these providences you are called to." "God's making use of us is the best evidence of his being at peace with us." "The nature of repentance; it is the change of our mind & way, & a return to our work & duty, from which we had turned aside; it is doing that good which we had left undone." "God's servants must go where he sends them, come when he calls them, & do what he bids them; whatever appears to be the word of the Lord we must conscientiously do according to it." "God will keep us in a continual dependence upon himself, & the directions of his word & providence." "Those that come to God, that come back to him after they have revolted from him, must believe, must believe that he is, that he is reconcilable, that he will be theirs if they take the right course." "Those that would not be ruined must be humbled, those that would not destroy their souls must afflict their souls; when God's judgments threaten us we are concerned to humble ourselves under his mighty hand" "With their fasting & mourning they must join prayer & supplication to God; for the fasting is designed to fit the body for the service of the soul in the duty of prayer, which is the main matter, & to which the other is but preparatory or subservient." "It was time to cry to God when there was but a step between them & ruin - high time to seek the Lord." "Hope of mercy is the great encouragement to repentance & reformation" "Here were no sacrifices offered to God, that we read of, to make atonement for sin, but the sacrifice of God is a broken spirit; a broken & contrite heart, such as the Ninevites now had, is what he will not despise; it is what he will given countenance to & put honour upon." CHAPTER 4 "Those have a spirit of contention & contradiction indeed that can find in their hearts to quarrel with the goodness of God, & his sparing pardoning mercy, to which we all owe it that we are out of hell." "Our business is to get ready to die by doing the work of life, & then to refer ourselves to God to take away our life when & how he pleases." "We do ill to be angry at that grace which we ourselves need & are undone without; if room were not left for repentance, & hope given of pardon upon repentance, what would become of us? Let the conversion of sinners, which is the joy of heaven, be our joy, & never our grief." "It is just that those who love to complain should never be left without something to complain of, that their folly may be manifested & corrected, &, if possible, cured." "One soul is of more value than the whole world" "...God will justify himself in the methods of his grace towards repenting returning sinners as well as in the course his justice takes with those that persist in their rebellion" Matthew Henry's Commentary: Isaiah to Malachi, Mac Donald, pgs. 1278 - 1302.
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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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