THE LORD YOUR GOD.

Our great consolation in the worst times lies in our God. The very name of our covenant God -"The Lord thy God "-is full of good cheer. That word, "The Lord" is really Jehovah, the self- existent One, the unchangeable One, the ever-living God, who cannot change or be moved from His everlasting purpose. Children of God, whatever you have not got, you have a God in whom you may greatly glory. Having God you have more than all things, for all things come from Him, and if all things were to be blotted out, He could restore all things simply by the power of His will. He speaks, and it is done, He commands, and it stands fast. Blessed is the man who has the God of Jacob for his trust, and whose hope Jehovah is. In the Lord Jehovah we have righteousness and strength, let us trust Him forever. Let the times roll on, they cannot affect our God. Let troubles rush upon us like a tempest, but it shall not come nigh unto us now that He is our defence. Jehovah, the God of His church, is also the God of each individual member of it, and each one may therefore rejoice in Him. Jehovah is as much your God, my brother, as if no other person in the universe could use that covenant expression. O believer, The Lord God is altogether and wholly your God! All His wisdom, all His foresight, all His power, all His immutability, all that He is, is yours. As for the church of God, when she is at her lowest estate she is still established and endowed in the best possible sense, established by the divine decree, and endowed by the possession of God all-sufficient. The gates of hell cannot prevail against her. Let us exult in our possession. Poor as we are, we are infinitely rich in having God, weak as we are, there is no limit to our strength, since the almighty Jehovah is ours. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" If God be ours, what more can we need? Lift up thy heart, thou sorrowful one, and be of good cheer. If God be thy God, thou hast all thou canst desire, wrapped up within His glorious name we find all things for time and for eternity, for earth and for heaven. Therefore in the name of Jehovah we will set up our banners, and march onwards to the battle. He is our God by His own purpose, covenant and oath, and this day He is our God by our choice of Him, by our union with Christ Jesus, by our experience of His goodness, and by the spirit of adoption whereby we cry " Abba, Father."

FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST.

The needs of spiritual men are very great, but they are not greater than the power of the Divine Trinity to meet. We have one God-Father, Son and Holy Ghost,-One in Three and Three in One, and that blessed Trinity in unity gives Himself to sinners that they may be saved. In the first place, every good thing that a sinner wants is in The Father. The prodigal son was wise when he said, " I will arise and go to my father." Every good and perfect gift comes from God The Father, the first Person of the blessed Trinity, because every good and perfect gift can only be found in Him. But the needy soul says, " how shall I reach The Father? He is infinitely above me, how shall I get to Him?" In order that you may obtain the blessings of grace, God was in Christ Jesus, the second ever-blessed Person of the sacred Trinity. Jesus said " All things that The Father hath are Mine." So you see that everything is in The Father first, and The Father puts all things into Christ, for, " it pleased The Father, that in Him should all fulness dwell." Now you can get to Christ because He is man as well as God. He is " over all, God blessed forever." But He came into this world, was born of the virgin Mary, lived a sinless life, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, was buried. He is the conduit-pipe, conveying to us all the blessings from The Father. In the gospel of John we read, " of His fulness have all we recieved, and grace for grace." Thus you see The Father, with every good thing in Himself, putting all fulness into the mediator, the Man Christ Jesus who is also the Son of God.
Now I hear a poor soul say, " but I cannot even get to Christ, I am lame and blind. If I could get to Him , He would open my eyes, but I am so lame that I cannot run or even walk to Him. If I could get to Him, He would give me strength, but I lie as one dead. I cannot see Christ or tell where to find Him." Here comes the work of The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the blessed Trinity. It is His office to take the things of Christ, and show them to saints and sinners alike. We cannot see them, but we shall see them fast enough when He shows them unto us. Our sins put a veil between ourselves and Christ. The Holy Spirit comes and takes the veil away from our hearts, and then we see Christ. It is The Holy Spirits office to come between us and Christ, even as the Son of God comes between us and The Father, to lead us to The Father. So that we have the whole Trinity uniting to save a sinner, the Triune God bowing down out of heaven for the salvation of rebellious men.
Every time we dismiss you from this house of prayer, we pronounce upon you the blessing of The Sacred Trinity. " May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of The Holy Ghost be with you." And you want all that to make a sinner into a saint, and to keep the saint from going back to being a sinner again. The whole blessed Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Ghost must work upon every soul that is to be saved. See how divinely they work together, how The Father glorifies The Son, how The Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus, how both The Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus glorify The Father? These Three are One, sweetly uniting in the salvation of the holy seed.