“But there are those who will trust Christ no further than they can see Him, and will not believe His promise, unless the means of the performance of it be visible; as if [God] were tied to our methods, and could not draw water without our buckets.”

“But there are those who will trust Christ no further than they can see Him, and will not believe His promise, unless the means of the performance of it be visible; as if [God] were tied to our methods, and could not draw water without our buckets.” Matthew Henry, Commentary on John ch 4. Daily [...]

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“…the mall is the Kingdom of Me and My Choices. The Church is the Kingdom of Christ and his grace.”

“The mall has a food court, a cinema, and all the right shops. Why can’t the church be like that? What’s wrong with it? The main thing wrong with it is that the mall is the Kingdom of Me and My Choices. The Church is the Kingdom of Christ and his grace. They’re two different [...]

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November 3 – “A contented heart looks to God’s disposal, and submits to God’s disposal, that is, he sees the wisdom of God in everything. In his submission he sees his sovereignty, but what makes him take pleasure is God’s wisdom.”

“…Contentment is, submitting, and taking pleasure in God’s disposal. That is to say, the soul that has learned this lesson of contentment looks up to God in all things. He does not look down at the instruments and means, so as to say that such a man did it, that it was the unreasonableness of [...]

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October 30 – “You will think it is a hard lesson to come so far as not only to be quiet but to take pleasure in affliction.”

“It was the expression of old Eli: ‘Good is the hand of the Lord,’ when it was a sore and hard word. It was a word that threatened very grievous things to Eli and his house, and yet Eli says, ‘Good is the word of the Lord.’ Perhaps, some of you may say, like David, [...]

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October 29 – “…not only do I see that I should be content in this affliction, but I see that there is good in it.”

“Contentment is taking pleasure in God’s disposal. This is so when I am well pleased in what God does, in so far as I can see God in it, though, as I said, I may be sensible of the affliction, and may desire that God in his due time would remove it, and may use [...]

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October 28 – “The soul can submit to God at the time when it can send itself under the power and authority and sovereignty and dominion that God has over it.”

“Contentment is freely submitting to and taking pleasure in God’s disposal. Submitting to God’s disposal-What is that? The word submit signifies nothing else but ‘to send under’. Thus in one who is discontented the heart will be unruly, and would even get above God so far as discontent prevails. But now comes the grace of [...]

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September 30 – “O grant, that our faith may be sustained by this support—that thou art the governor of the world, and that men were not only once created by thee, but are also preserved by thy hand…”

“Grant, Almighty God, that as it cannot be but that, owing to the infirmity of our flesh, we must be shaken and tossed here and there by the many turbulent commotions of this world,—O grant, that our faith may be sustained by this support—that thou art the governor of the world, and that men were [...]

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September 27 – “Let us hence learn that God cannot be really glorified, except when men wholly empty themselves.”

“But this sin, as I have already said, belongs to all the ungodly; for where God’s Spirit does not reign, there is no humility, and men ever swell with inward pride, until God thoroughly cleanse them. It is then necessary that God should empty us by his special grace, that we may not be filled [...]

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September 26 – “Except then we be fully persuaded, that God by his secret providence regulates all these confusions, Satan will a hundred times a day, yea every moment, shake that confidence which ought to repose in God.”

“This is a truth much needed: for Satan darkens, as with clouds, the favor of God, when any adversity happens to us, and when God himself thus proves our faith. But adversities are as it were clouds, excluding us from seeing God’s fervor, as the light of the sun appears not to us when the [...]

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September 24 – “…for when we are under the protection of God, we must necessarily continue safe and safe for ever; not that we shall be free from evils, but that the Lord will deliver us from thousand deaths, and ever preserve our life in safety.”

“…but this is yet the conclusion of the argument,—that as God had adopted that people, and received them into favor, and testified that he would be their defender, the Prophet confidently draws this inference,—that this people cannot perish, for they are preserved by God. No power of the world, nor any of its defences, can [...]

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September 23 – “Thus we see that the worst of men are in God’s hand, as Satan is, who is their head…”

“By saying that the Chaldeans would be terrible and dreadful, he praises not their virtues; but, as I have already reminded you, he shows that they would be prepared to do his service by executing his vengeance: and he so regulated his judgement, that he used their cruelty for a good purpose. Thus we see [...]

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August 26 – “…what is the end of our afflictions? It is to make us to perceive our sins…”

“Now then, here we see, first of all that we must not deem things by outward appearance, but gauge deeper and seek the cause that moveth God to do the things which we think strange at first sight… Now then what is the end of our afflictions? It is to make us to perceive our [...]

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August 20 – “…all things stand or fall by the will and authority of God…all the earth keeps silence before the face of the Lord.”

“Here, I see, you are taking the view that the truth and usefulness of Scripture should be measured and decided according to the feeling of men – to be precise, of the ungodliest of men; so that nothing henceforth will be true, Divine and wholesome but what these persons find pleasing and acceptable…What else do [...]

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Distinction between God and man

“For if I am ignorant of the nature, extent and limits of what I can and must do with reference to God, I shall be equally ignorant and uncertain of the nature, extent and limits of what God can and will do in me – though God, in fact, works all in all (1 Corinthians [...]

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God is sovereign over Satan

“Even the works of Satan are so controlled and limited that they serve God’s purposes. While Satan eagerly desires the destruction of the wicked and diligently works to bring it about, yet the destruction proceeds from God. It is, in the first place, God who decreed that the wicked shall suffer, and Satan is merely [...]

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Calvin on Providence

“First, then, let the reader remember that the providence we mean is not one by which the Deity, sitting idly in heaven, looks on at what is taking place in the world, but one by which he, as it were, holds the helm, and overrules all events…But once the light of divine providence has illumined [...]

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“We must not think it strange if wickedness be suffered to prevail long and prosper long.”

“When God seems to connive at the wickedness of the wicked, nay, and to countenance it, by suffering them to prosper in their wickedness, it shocks the faith of good men, and proves a sore temptation for them to say, We have cleansed our hearts in vain (Ps 73:13), and hardens those in their impiety [...]

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