JoshuaNet

Gem #1 - Communion with God

"All my fountains are in you," said David. If you have all your fountains in God, your heart will be completely full. If you went to the foot of Calvary, there will your heart be bathed in love and gratitude. If you often go to your place of seclusion, and there talk with your God, it is there that your heart will be full of calm determination. If you go out with the Master to Mount Olivet, and looked down with Him on a wicked Jerusalem, and weep over it with Him, then will your heart be full of love for eternal souls. If you continually draw your stimulus, your life, the whole of your being from the Holy Spirit, without whom you can do nothing, and if you live in close communion with Christ, there will be no fear of you having a cold heart.

He who lives without prayer--he who lives with little prayer--he who seldom reads the Word--he who seldom looks up to heaven for a fresh influence from on high--he will be the man whose heart will become cold and barren; but he who calls in secret to his God--who spends much time in holy seclusion--who delights to meditate on the words of the Most High--whose soul is given up to Christ--who delights in his fullness, rejoices in his all-sufficiency, prays for his second coming, and delights in the thought of his glorious return--such a man, I say, must have an overflowing heart; and as his heart is, so will be his life. It will be a full life; it will be a life that will speak from the grave, and reverberate into the future. "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life," and plead with the Holy Spirit to keep it full; otherwise, the outcome of your life will be feeble, shallow, and superficial; and you might as well not have lived at all.

Gem #2 - Loving Your Neighbor

I am certain you need no exhortation to love yourself, you will take care of your body, your comfort will be your primary concern. You would line your own nest with downy feathers if you could. You will do these things for yourself. Well, then, as much as you love yourself, love your neighbor.

Gem #3 - Power in the Heart

A man's power in the world, other things being equal, is just the ratio of the power and strength of his heart. A full-hearted is always a powerful man: if he is wrong, then he is powerful for deception; if error is in his heart, he is sure to make it notorious, even though it may be a downright lie. May a man never be so ignorant as to be powerful for wrong. However, if his heart is full of love for a good cause, he becomes a powerful man for that issue, because he has heart-power, heart force.

A man may be lacking a good education and training in the proper manners of our society; but give him a good strong heart, that beats hard, and there is no mistake about his power. Let him have a heart that filled to the brim with an cause, and that man will do thing, or else he will die gloriously defeated, and will glory in his defeat. HEART IS POWER.

Gem #4 - Shadows of Mercy

When the sunlight of God's mercy rises upon our needs, it casts the shadow of prayer far down upon the plain; or, to use another illustration, when God piles up a hill of mercies, He Himself shines behind them, and He casts on our spirits the shadow of prayer, so that we may rest certain, if we are in prayer, our prayers are the shadows of mercy.

Gem #5 - Omnipotence

Omnipotence may build a thousand worlds, and fill them with treasures; Omnipotence may crush mountains into dust, and cause all the seas to evaporate, and destroy the stars, but Omnipotence cannot do one unloving thing toward a believer. Oh! rest assured, Christian, a harsh act, an unloving action from God toward one of His own people is quite impossible. He is kind to you when he throws you into prison as when he takes you into a palace; He is as good when He sends famine into your house as when He fills your cupboards with plenty. The only question is, "Are you His child?" If so, He has rebuked you in affection, and there is love in His discipline.

Gem #6 - Wings of Prayer

Prayer is the rustling of the wings of the angels that are on their way bringing us the blessings of heaven. Have you heard prayer in your heart? You will see the angel in your house. When the chariots that bring us blessings do rumble, their wheels do sound with prayer. We hear the prayer in our own spirits, and that prayer becomes the sign of the coming blessings. Even as the clouds appear before the rain, so prayer precedes the blessing; even as the first green blade of a plant is the beginning of the harvest, so is prayer the prophecy of the blessing that is about to come.

Gem #7 - Reservoir of the Heart

You have seen the great reservoirs provided by our water companies, in which is kept the water which is to supply hundreds of streets and thousands of homes. Now, the heart is the reservoir of man, and our life is allowed to flow in its proper season. That life may flow through different pipes--the mouth, the hand, the eye; but still all the actions of the hand, the eyes, and the lips, derive their source from the great fountain and central reservoir, the heart; and therefore, there is no problem showing the great need that exists for keeping this reservoir, the heart, in a proper state and condition, since otherwise that which flows through the pipes must be foul and corrupt.

Gem #8 - God's Purpose for Us

There is not a spider hanging on the wall that doesn't have an errand; there is not a weed growing in the corner of the church lot that doesn't have a purpose; there is not a single insect fluttering in the breeze that does not accomplish some divine decree; and I will never believe that God created any man, especially any Christian man, to be a blank, and to be a nothing. He made you for an end. Find out what that purpose is; find out your niche, and fill it. Even if it be something small, if it is only to be someone who picks up trash at the side of the road, or one who mows the church lawn, do something in this great battle for God and truth.

Gem #9 - Undivided Purpose of Heart

Suppose you see a lake, and there are twenty or thirty streams running from it: why, there won't be one strong river in the whole area; there will be a number of little brooks which will be dried up in the summer, and will be temporary torrents in the winter. Every one of them will be useless for any great purpose, because there is not enough water in the lake to feed more than one great stream.

Now a man's heart has only enough life in it to pursue on object fully. You must not give half of your love to Christ, and the other half to the world. No man can serve God and money, because there is not enough in the heart to serve the two.

Gem #10 - Pride

How easy it is for you and I to boast in ourselves! How hard it is to be humble! That demon of pride was born with us, and it will not die one hour before us. It is so woven into our very natures, and until we are dressed in our grave clothes and laying in the coffin, shall we ever hear the last of it.

Gem #11 - Trusting Works

Any man who trusts in his works, even to the smallest amount, is a lost soul. He who trusts in the smallest atom of his works, though it be so small that he himself cannot discern it, will be lost.

Gem #12 - Full Surrender

Don't keep back any part of the price received. Make a full surrender of every inclination of your heart; work to have but one purpose, and one aim. And for this purpose give God complete control of your heart. Cry out for more of the divine control of the Holy Spirit, so that as your soul is preserved and protected by Him, that it may be directed into one river, and one only, that your life may run deep and pure, and clear and peaceful; its only banks being God's will, its only river the love of Christ and a desire to please Him.

Gem #13 - Pride in the Saint

There never was a saint yet, that grew proud of his fine feathers, but what the Lord plucked them out one by one. There never yet was an angel that had pride in his heart, but he lost his wings, and fell into Hell, as Satan and those fallen angels did; and there shall never be a saint who indulges in self-conceit, pride, and self-confidence, but the Lord will spoil his glories, and trample his honors in the mud, and make him cry out, "Lord have mercy on me," the least of all saints, and the "very chief of sinners."

Gem #14 - Brains vs Pride

Men who have no brains are always great men; but those who think, must think their pride down, if God is with them in their thinking.

Gem #15 - Word of God

Never, never neglect the Word of God. The Word will make your heart rich with truth, rich with understanding, and then your conversation, when it flows from your mouth, will be like your heart, rich, soothing, and sweet. Make your heart full of rich, generous love, and then the stream that flows from your hand will be just as rich and generous as your heart. Above all, get Jesus to live in your heart, and then out of your heart shall flow rivers of living water, more rich, more satisfying than the water of the well of Sychar of which Jacob drank. Oh! go, Christian, to the great mine of riches, and cry to the Holy Spirit to make your heart rich unto salvation. So shall your life and conversations be a boon to your fellow man; and when they see you, your face will be like an angel of God. Wise men will stand up when they see you, and men will give you reverence.

Gem #16 - Man's Weakness

God has said it; men must serve Him--they must serve Him in His own way, and they must serve Him in His own strength too, or He will never accept their service. That which man does, unaided by divine strength, can never be accepted by God. There must be a consciousness of weakness before there can be any victory.

Gem #17 - Death

Life is nothing but death's hallway; and our pilgrimage on earth is but a journey to the grave. The pulse that preserves our being beats our death march, and the blood which circulates our life is floating it forward to the deeps of death. Today we see our friends in health, tomorrow we hear of their death. Only yesterday, we shook hands with the strong man, and today we close his eyes. We rode in a chariot of comfort only an hour ago, and in a few more hours the black hearse must carry us to the home of the living. Oh, how closely allied is death to life! The little lamb that plays in the field must soon feel the knife. The cow that lows in the pasture is fattening itself for the slaughter.

Trees only grow to be cut down. Yes, and greater things than these feel death. Empires rise and flourish; they flourish only to fall into decay, they rise to fall. How often do we take up a history book, and read of the rise and fall of empires. We hear of the coronation and the death of kings. Death is the black servant who rides behind the chariot of life. See life! and death is close behind it. Death reaches far throughout this world, and has stamped all terrestrial things with an arrow pointing to the grave. Stars die; it is said that large and destructive fires have been seen in outer space, and astronomers have marked the funerals of planets--the decay of those mighty spheres, that we had imagined set forever in sockets of silver, to glisten as the lamps of eternity.

But blessed be God, there is one place where death is not life's brother--where life reigns alone; "to live" is not the first syllable which is to be followed by the next, "to die." There is a land where the death bells are never tolled, where grave clothes are never put on, where graves are never dug. Blessed land beyond the skies! To reach it, we must die.

Gem #18 - Nothingness of Man

My God! when I survey the boundless fields of space, and see those magnificent spheres rolling through it all--when I consider how vast are your dominions--so wide that an angel's wing might flap to all eternity and never reach a boundary--I marvel that you should look on insects so obscure as man. I have looked into my microscope and seen the short lived tiny insect on a leaf, and I have called him small. I will not call him "tiny" again: compared with me, he is great, if I put myself in comparison with God. I am so little, that I shrink into nothingness when I behold the almightiness of Jehovah--so little that the difference between the microscopic animal and man dwindles into nothing, when compared with the infinite chasm between God and man.

Gem #19 - Death of the Righteous

What a great sorrow that the good should die! That the righteous should fall! Death, why don't you cut down the poisonous tree? Why don't you mow down the poisonous plant? Why do you touch the tree that has provided shade for the weary people? Why do you touch the flower whose perfume has made the earth joyous? Death, why do you snatch away the excellent of the earth, in whom is all of our delight? If you would use your axe, use it on the trees that draw nourishment, but afford no fruit; then we would thank you. But why will you cut down the cedars, why will you fell the godly trees of Lebanon? O Death, why don't you spare the church? Why must the pulpit be hung in black; why must the missionary outpost be filled with weeping? Why must the godly family lose its priest, and the house its head? O Death, where are you? Don't touch the earth's holy things; your hands are not fit to pollute the Israel of God. Why do you put your hand on the hearts of the elect? Oh, stop, stop; spare the righteous, Death, and take the bad! But no, it must not be; death comes and smiles at the godliest of us all; the most generous, the most prayerful, the most holy, the most devoted must die. Weep, weep, weep, O church, for you have lost your martyrs; weep, O church, for you have lost your preachers, your holy men are fallen.

Howl fir tree, for the cedar has fallen, the godly fail, and the righteous are cut off. But stay awhile; I hear another voice. Say to the daughter of Judah, spare your weeping. Say to the Lord's flock, Cease, cease your sorrow; your martyrs are dead, but they are glorified; your ministers are gone, but they have ascended up to your Father and to their Father; your brethren are buried in the grave, but the archangel's trumpet shall awaken them, and their spirits are ever now with God.

Gem #20 - Satan the Defeated Enemy

Death was the devil's chief defense; Christ boldly opposed the lion in his den, and fought him in his own territory; and when He took death from him, and dismantled that once impregnable fortress, He took away from him, not only that, but every other advantage that he had over the saint. And now Satan is a conquered foe, not only in the hour of death, but in every other hour and in every other place.

He is an enemy, both cruel and mighty; but he is a foe who shudders and shrinks back when a Christian gets into battle with him; for he knows that though the fight may waver for a little while in the scale, the balance of victory must fall on the side of the saint, because Christ by his death destroyed the devil's power.

Gem #21 - One Must Fear to Believe

See that man drowning over here--I also see another in the water too. The one in the distance thinks he can swim: a plank is thrown to him; he believes that he is in no danger of drowning. Well, he clutches the plank very leisurely, and does not seem to grab it firmly. But this poor creature over here, he knows he cannot swim, he feels that he will soon drown. Now, put the means of escape near him and note how desperately he clutches it; how he seems as if he would drive his fingers through the plank! He clutches it for life or death; that is his all, for he must perish if he is not saved by that. Now, in this case, he that fears the most believes the most; and I do think it is sometimes the same with poor hopeless and lost spirits.

Gem #22 - To Die is to Gain

Here we see through a glass that is dark and cloudy, but there we shall see face to face. There, what "eye has not seen nor ear heard" shall be fully revealed to us. There, paradoxes will be unraveled, mysteries made plain, obscure texts enlightened, confusing and questionable verses will be revealed as being amazingly simple and true. The least of all souls in heaven knows more of God than the greatest saint on the earth. The greatest saint on the earth may have it said of him, "Nevertheless he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." Not our greatest preachers understand as much of theology as the lambs of the flock of glory. Not even the greatest masterminds of the earth understand one- millionth part of the mighty meanings which have been discovered by souls liberated from these bodies made from clay.

Yes, "To die is gain." Take away, take away that hearse, remove the covering of black, adorn it in white with bright shiny decorations. There, take away the music of the death march, rather lend me the trumpet and the drum. O hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah; why do we cry as the saints go to heaven? They are not dead, they have simply gone to heaven before us. Stop, stop that crying, hold back your tears, clap your hands, clap your hands.

"They are supremely blessed,
Are done with care and sin and woe,
And with their Saviour they rest."

What! weep! weep! for heads that are crowned with crowns of heaven? Weep, weep for hands that hold the harps of gold? What, weep for eyes that see the Redeemer? What, weep for hearts that are washed from sin, and are throbbing with eternal bliss? What, weep for men that are in the Savior's arms? No; weep for yourselves, that you are here. Weep that the mandate has not come which commands you to die. Weep that you must remain. But not for them.

I see them turning back on you with loving wonder, and they exclaim, "Why do you weep? What, weep for poverty that is clothed in riches? What, weep for sickness, that has inherited eternal health? What, weep for shame, that is glorified; and weep for sinful mortality, that has become immaculate? Oh, do not weep, but rejoice. If you knew what it was that I have said to you, and where I have gone, you would rejoice with a joy that no man should take from you."

Gem #23 - Satan's Attempts to Kill the Christ

When the Lord Jesus came down to earth, Satan knew his mission. He knew that the Lord Jesus was the Son of God, and when he saw Him an infant in the manger, he thought if he could kill Him and get Him in the bonds of death, what a fine thing it would be! So he stirred up the spirit of Herod to kill Him; but Herod missed his mark. And many a time did Satan strive to put the personal existence of Christ in danger, so that he might get Christ to die. Poor fool as he was, he did not know that when Christ died he would bruise the devil's head.

Once, you remember, when Christ was in the synagogue, the devil stirred up the people, and made them angry; and he thought, "Oh! what a glorious thing it would be if I could kill this man; then there would be an end of Him, and I should reign supreme forever." So he got the people to take Him to the edge of the cliff, and he gloated over the thought that now surely He would be thrown down headfirst. But Christ escaped.

He tried to starve Him, he tried to drown Him; He was in the desert without food, and He was on the sea in a storm; but there was no starving or drowning Him, and Satan no doubt panted for His blood, and longed that He should die. At last the day arrived; it was transmitted to the court of hell that at last Christ would die. They rung their bells with hellish elation and joy. "He will die now," said he; "Judas has taken the thirty pieces of silver. Let those Scribes and Pharisees get Him, they will no more let Him go than the spider will let go of a poor unfortunate fly. He is as good as dead."

And the devil laughed with excitement, when he saw the Savior stand before Pilate's bar. And when it was said, "Let Him be crucified," then his joy knew no limits, except the limit set by his own misery. As far as he could, he revelled in what was to him a delightful thought, that the Lord of glory was about to die. In death, as Christ was being observed by angels, so also He was seen by the devils too; and that dreary march from Pilate's palace to the cross, was one which devils watched with extraordinary interest. And when they saw Him on the cross, there stood the exulting fiend, smiling to himself. "Ah! I have the King of Glory now in my dominions; I have the power of death, and I have the power over the Lord Jesus."

He exerted that power, until the Lord Jesus had to cry out in bitter anguish, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" But ah! how short lived was hellish victory. How brief was the Satanic triumph! He died; and "It is finished!" shook the gates of hell. Down from the cross the conqueror leaped, pursued the fiend with thunderbolts of wrath; swift to the darkness of hell the fiend did fly, and swift descending went the conqueror after him; and we may conceive him exclaiming--

"Traitor! this thunderbolt shall find and pierce you through,
Though under hell's deepest, darkest wave you seek to go,
To find a sheltering grave."

And seize him He did--chained him to his chariot wheel; dragged him up the steeps of glory; angels shouting all the while, "He ascended on high, He led captives in his train and gave gifts to men." Now, devil, you said that you would overcome me, when I came to die. Satan, I defy you, and laugh you to scorn! My master overcame you, and I shall overcome you yet. You say you will overcome the saint, do you? You could not overcome the saint's Master, and you will not overcome him.

You once thought you had conquered Jesus: you were bitterly deceived. Ah! Satan, you may think you shall overcome the little faith and the faint heart; but you are wondrously mistaken--for we shall assuredly tread Satan under our feet shortly; and even in our last extremity, with fearful odds against us, we shall be "more than conquerors through Him that loved us."

Gem #24 - River of God

The river of God is full of water; but there is not one drop of it that comes from earthly springs. God will have no strength used in His own battles but the strength which He himself imparts; and I would not have you that are now distressed in the least discouraged by it. Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being filled; and your casting down is but the making ready for your lifting up.

Gem #25 - Kindness

Deal gently, deal kindly, deal lovingly, and there is not a wolf in human shape that won't be melted by kindness; and there is not a tiger in woman's form that won't break down and beg for forgiveness, if God should bless the love that is brought to bear on her by her friend.

Gem #26 - The Devil in Sheep's Clothing

If the devil comes to my door with his horns visible, I will never let him in; but if he comes with his hat on as a respectable gentleman, he is at once admitted. The metaphor may be very strange, but it is quite true. many a man has taken in an evil thing, because it has been varnished and glossed over, and not apparently an evil; and he has thought in his heart, there is not much harm in it; so he has let in the little thing, and it has been like the breaking forth of water--the first drop has brought after it a torrent. The beginning has been but the beginning of a fearful end.

Gem #27 - Few are Blessed

If we could see things as they are--if we were not deceived by the masquerade of this poor life--if we were not so easily taken in by the masks and dresses of those who act in this great drama, be it comedy or tragedy--if we could but see what the men are behind the scenes, penetrate their hearts, watch the inner motions, and discern their secret feelings, we should find but a few who could bear the name of "blessed."

Gem #28 - Destroy Sin

Do not touch the persons of men; but destroy their sin with a stout heart and with a strong arm. Kill both the little sins and the great ones; let nothing be spared that is against God and his truth; but we have no war with the persons of poor mistaken men.

Gem #29 - Prayer Before Blessings

If we had the blessings without asking for them, we would think them mere common things; but prayer makes the common pebbles of God's worldly provisions more precious than diamonds; and our spiritual prayer cuts the diamond, and makes it glisten more.

After a long chase, the hunter prizes the animal, because he has set his heart upon it, and is determined to have it; and yet more true, after a long hunger, he who then eats finds his food much more tasty. So prayer does sweeten the mercy.

Prayer teaches us its preciousness. It is the reading over of the bill of sale, the account, the property lists, before the estate and the properties are themselves transferred. We know the value of the purchase by reading over the will of it in prayer, and when we have groaned out our own expression of its matchless price, then it is that God bestows the benediction on us. Prayer goes before the blessing, because it shows us the value of it.

Gem #30 - Little Faith

We hear, sometimes, a great deal said about possessing a full assurance of being a child of God; and then, every now and then, we hear of a doubt, a hope. As good Joseph Irons used to say, "They keep hope, hope, hoping--hop, hop, hopping--all their lives, because they can't walk." Little faith is always lame.

Gem #31 - National Salvation

If there were such a thing as national salvation; if it could be possible that we could be saved in the whole and in the mass, that so, like the sheaves of corn, the few weeds that may grow with the stubble, would be gathered in for the sake of the wheat, then, indeed, it might not be so foolish for us to neglect our own personal interests; but if the sheep must, every one of them, pass under the hand of him that tells them, if every man must stand in his own person before God, to be tried for his own acts--by everything that is rational, by everything that conscience would dictate, and self-interest would command, let each of us look to our own selves, that we be not deceived, and that we find not ourselves, at last, miserably cast away.

Gem #32 - The Great Worker of Salvation

The great King, immortal, invisible, the Divine person, called the Holy Spirit: it is He that stimulates the soul, or else it would lie dead for ever; it is He that makes it tender, or else it would never feel; it is He that imparts power to the Word preached, or else it could never reach further than the ear; it is He who breaks the heart, it is He who makes it whole; He, from first to last, is the great worker of Salvation in us, just as Jesus Christ was the author of Salvation for us.

Gem #33 - God's Salvation for Sinners

As sure as God is God, if you this day are seeking Him correctly, through Christ, the day shall come when the kiss of full assurance shall be on your lip, when the arms of sovereign love shall embrace you, and you shall know it to be so. You may have despised Him, but you shall know Him yet to be your Father and your friend. You may have scoffed His name; you shall one day come to rejoice in it as better than pure gold. You may have broken His Sabbaths and despised His Word; the day is coming when the Sabbath shall be your delight, and His Word your treasure. Yes, marvel not; you may have plunged into the wretched house of sin and made your clothes black with sin; but you shall one day stand before His throne white as the angels are; and that tongue that once cursed Him shall yet sing His praise. If you are a real seeker, the hands that have been stained with lust shall one day grasp the harp of gold, and the head that has plotted against the Most High shall yet be encircled with gold. Does it not seem a strange thing that God should do so much for sinners? But strange though it seem, it shall be strangely true.

Gem #34 - God's Word vs Man's

We do not care about 50,000 cliches, or syllogisms, or anything else. God's word against man's any day.

Gem #35 - The God Who Hears

Our God is no god who sits in one perpetual dream; nor does He clothe Himself in such thick darkness that He cannot see; He is not like Baal who does not hear. True, He may not be concerned about battles; He does not care for the pomp and pageantry of kings; He does not listen to the rise of martial music; He does not regard the triumph and the pride of man; but whenever there is a heart big with sorrow, wherever there is an eye filled with tears, wherever there is a lip quivering with agony, wherever there is a deep groan, or a sorrowful sigh, the ear of Jehovah is wide open; He marks it down in the registry of his memory; He puts our prayers, like rose leaves, between the pages of His book of remembrance, and when the volume is finally opened, there shall be a precious fragrance springing up from there.

Gem #36 - A New World Coming

God's good pleasure is, that this world shall one day be totally redeemed from sin; God's good pleasure is, that this poor planet, so long covered in darkness, shall soon shine out in brightness, like a new-born sun. Christ's death has done it. The stream that flowed from His side on Calvary shall cleanse the world from all its blackness. That hour of mid- day darkness was the rising of a new sun of righteousness, which shall never cease to shine upon the earth. Yes, the hour is coming, when guns and cannons shall be forgotten things, when the harness of war and the pageantry of pomp shall all be laid aside for the food of the worm or the contemplation of the curious. The hour approaches when old Rome shall shake upon Her seven hills, when Mohammed's crescent shall no longer increase on the earth, when all the gods of the heathens shall lose their thrones and be cast out to the moles and to the bats; and then, from the equator to the poles Christ shall be honored, the Lord paramount on earth, when from land to land, from the river even to the ends of the earth, one King, shall reign, one shout shall be heard, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, the Lord God Omnipotent reigns."

Gem #37 - Christ Our Food

Without bread, I become thin like a skeleton; and, at last, I die. Without thought, my mind becomes dwarfed, yes, and it deteriorates until I become the idiot, with a soul that just has life, but little more. And without Christ, my newborn spirit must become a vague, shadowy emptiness. It cannot live unless it feeds on that heavenly manna which came down from heaven. Now the Christian can say, "The life that I live is Christ;" because Christ is the food on which he feeds, and the sustenance of his newborn spirit.

Gem #38 - The Joy of a Newborn

Sinner, let this be your comfort, that God sees you when you begin to repent. He does not see you with His usual gaze, with which He looks on all men, but he sees you with an eye of intense interest. He has been looking on you in all your sin, and in all your sorrow, hoping that you would repent; and now He sees the first gleam of grace, and He beholds it with joy. Never a soldier on the lonely castle top saw the first gray light of morning with more joy than that with which God beholds the first desire in your heart. Never a physician rejoiced more when he saw the first heaving of the lungs in one that was supposed to be dead, than God does rejoice over you, now that He sees the first symptom of good.

Gem #39 - Christian, Do Not Worry

I have seen the Christian man in the depths of poverty, when he lived from hand to mouth, and scarcely knew where he should find the next meal, still with his mind unruffled, calm, and quiet. If he had been as rich as an prince, he could not have had less care; if he had been told that his bread should always be delivered to his door, and the stream which ran fast by should never run dry--if he had been quite sure that ravens would bring him bread and meat in the morning, and again in the evening, he would not have been one, bit more calm.

Gem #40 - Our Friends in Heaven

Oh, I reckon on the day of death if it were for the mere hope of seeing the bright spirits that are now before the throne; to clasp the hand of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, to look into the face of Paul the apostle, and clasp the hand of Peter; to sit in flowery fields with Moses and David, to bask in the sunlight of bliss with John and Magdalene. Oh, how blessed! The company of poor imperfect saints on earth is good; but how much better the society of the redeemed. Death is no loss to us by way of friends. We leave a few, a little band below, and say to them, "Fear not, little flock," and we ascend and meet the armies of the living God--the hosts of His redeemed. "To die is gain."

Gem #41 - Prayer

If anyone should ask me for a summation of the Christian religion, I would say, it is in that one word--"prayer." If I should be asked, "What will take in the whole of the Christian experience?" I would answer, "prayer." A man must have been convinced of sin before he could pray; he must have had some hope that there was mercy for him before he could pray. In fact, all the Christian virtues are locked up in that word, prayer. If you tell me, that you are a man of prayer, then I will reply at once, "Sir, I have no doubt of the reality, as well as the sincerity, of your religion."

Gem #42 - The Chosen Ones

In the very beginning, when this great universe was in the mind of God, like unborn forests in a cup of acorns; long before the echoes walked in the quiet solitudes; before the mountains were brought forth; and long before the light flashed through the sky, God loved His chosen men and women. Before there were men and women--when the heavens were not yet fanned by an angel's wing; when space itself did not an exist; when there was nothing but God alone; even then, in that loneliness of Deity, and in that deep quiet and depth, His heart moved for His chosen ones. Their names were written on His heart, and they became dear to His soul.

Gem #43 - The Elect of the Elect

There are elect out of the elect, I will acknowledge, as to gifts and standing, and as to the works they may accomplish in this world; but there is no election out of the elect on the basis of a deeper extent of the love of God. They are all loved the same; they are all written in the same book of eternal love and life.

Gem #44 - The Rich Church

When I hear of a church where they all are the wealthy and the upper class of our society, then I always say farewell to them, for where there are no poor people, the ship will soon sink. If there are no poor, then, Christ will soon give them some, if they are a real Gospel church.

Gem #45 - Our Tears

Oh! it is a glorious fact, that prayers are noticed in heaven. The poor broken hearted sinner, going into his bedroom, bends his knee, but can only utter his mournful cry in the language of sighs and tears. Look! that groan has made all the harps of heaven thrill with music; that tear has, been caught by God, and put into a vase made especially for tears, to be perpetually preserved. The tearful praying Christian, whose distress prevent his words, will be clearly understood by the Most High.

Gem #46 - Slow Moving Christians

You crippled! I don't fear; you will not be thrown out. Two snails entered the ark; how they got there, I cannot tell. It must have taken them a long time. They must have started rather early, unless it is that Noah took them part of the way. So, some of you are snails; you are on the right road, but it will take a long while, unless some blessed Noah helps you into the ark.

Gem #47 - God Knows His Children

Jesus recognizes His family when their sins make them as black as the tents of Kedar, and He knows they shall be as bright as the curtains of Solomon. He knows His children when they do not know themselves; when they believe they are lost beyond recovery, or when they foolishly conceive that they can save themselves.

Gem #48 - Living in the Light of God

Give me the support of God, and I can easily bear the insults of men. Let me lay my head on the chest of Jesus, and I will not fear the interruptions of care and trouble. If my God will forever give me the light of His smile, and a glimpse of His blessing--it is enough. Come on enemies, persecutors, demons, yes, the Devil himself, for "the Lord God is my sun and shield." Gather, you clouds, and surround me, I carry a Sun within me; blow, wind of the frozen north, I have a fire of living coal within me; yes, death, kill me, but I have another life--a life in the light of God's countenance.

Gem #49 - Backsliders

Backsliders! fallen ones! God will have mercy on you if you are repentant. Glorious fact! the sorrowing backslider shall not be left behind. Backsliders shall sing above, as God's restored children, He has forever loved. Blind and crippled ones! believe in the Lord, and you shall be found among the children of the Lamb at last.

Gem #50 - God's Throne

You may erect little thrones for those whom you love; but God's throne must be the glorious high throne; you may set your loved ones upon the steps leading up to His throne, but God must sit on the very seat itself. He is to be enthroned, the royal One within your heart, the king of your affections.

Transcribed by: Tony Capoccia