"Salvation is of the LORD." -Jonah 2:9

The 'Five Solas' are the distilled essence of biblical Christianity. They are not dusty slogans of a bygone era, but blazing torches of divine truth that pierce through every age's darkness. Each "Sola" declares a truth upon which the Christian stands—or falls.  1. Scripture Alone God's Word stands as our supreme and final authority in all matters of faith and practice (II Timothy 3:16–17). It is not tradition, emotion, or experience that determines truth--but the written Word of God. To deny Sola Scriptura is to dethrone God's Word as our final authority, and enthrone sinful human opinion. The believer who clings to Scripture alone, drinks from the purest fountain of divine truth, unpolluted by the fallible dictates of sinful men.  2. Grace Alone Salvation flows entirely from the unmerited favor of God (Ephesians 2:8–9). Grace is not God's response to our human effort—it is His sovereign initiative toward the undeserving, the ill-deservi...

THINK ON THESE THINGS “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,  whatsoever things are honest,  whatsoever things are just,  whatsoever things are pure,  whatsoever things are lovely,  whatsoever things are of good report;  if there be any virtue,  and if there be any praise,  think on these things”   -Philippians 4:8   [KJV] Finally brethren, last but not least, give yourselves to meditate on these things of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As Paul says in other scripture, "Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all"  (I Timothy 4:15). Take note of these eight words that describe the gospel. 1). The gospel of Christ is unquestionably true. In the word of the gospel we have the truth declared about sin; the truth declared about salvation; the truth declared about God. Our Lord said it is the truth that sets sinners free. 2). The gospel of Christ is indisputably hone...

"Be content with such things as ye have: for He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."   - Hebrews 13:5 [KJV] Preach contentment to a covetous carnal mind, and you will just have the same success, as if you bid the surging billows to be calm, or the boisterous winds be still. He possesses nothing which can give true contentment to his mind. Has he riches? they are a curse to him: for he himself is under the curse of the law. O believer! was not this, in a certain sense, your case also? You stand in need of this exhortation— “Be content.”  You are the subject of a carnal nature, that is under the curse of the law: for that is ever dissatisfied, craving for more, murmuring against the dispensations of the Lord. Know and consider this. Be humble: be watchful.  Consider, (1st.) what good things of this life you have. Be they little or much, do you deserve them? Have you a right to challenge more from God, the giver of them? Here set your foot, and ...

"It is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." -Romans 13:11 [KJV] Solemn consideration! What time is it with thee, my soul? Let me ask, with the prophet, "Watchman, what of the night? The morning cometh, and also the night."  Perhaps there may be but a step between me and death. Am I really awakened from the sleep of carnal security? Am I alive from spiritual death? Am I dead to the world, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord? Oh Lord Jesus, impress these solemn enquiries upon my soul yet more and more, since everlasting happiness, or everlasting misery hangs upon the decision. My beating pulse is hastening to fulfil the appointed number. Even while I think of these things the account is increased. Every fleeting breath is one the less to take. Lord, make me wise to remember my latter end! -preacher Robert Hawker (1753-1827 A.D.)

"I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him." -Ezekiel 21:27 [KJV] There is One then to come, "whose right it is;"  there is a King who has a right to the throne, and to the allegiance of His subjects; a right to all that they are and to all that they have. But whence has He gained this right? "Until He come whose right it is."   It is His right then, first, by original donation and gift, the Father having given to the Son all the elect. "Here am I , " says Jesus, "and the children that Thou hast given Me . " "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me . "  Then, so far as we are His, Jesus has a right to our persons; and in having a right to our persons, He has, by the same original donation of God the Father, a right to our hearts and affections. But He has another right, and that is by purchase and redemption, He having redeemed ...

"This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare; holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck."   -I Timothy 1:18, 19 [KJV] This "good warfare"  is carried on against three principal enemies—the flesh, the world, and the devil; and each of these enemies so closely allied to ourselves, and each so powerful and so hostile, that they must surely overcome us, unless we are "strengthened with might in the inner man." There is the flesh, with all its baits, charms, and subtle attractions, continually laying its gins and traps for our feet, perpetually ensnaring us in some evil word or some evil work, and we in ourselves utterly defenceless against it. Said I defenceless? Yea, eager to run into it, like the silly bird that sees the grains of corn spread in the trap, but thinks not, when it flutte...

"Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense." -Song of Solomon 4:6 [KJV] Methinks I would have every poor sinner, until the day dawn of awakening grace breaks in upon his soul, get away to the ordinances of God in the mountain of the Lord's house: there lie should live, there wait, until the Lord speaks to his soul. And methinks I would have every poor sinner that is awakened, until the day of glory breaks in with an everlasting light upon him, get away to the gospel mountain, where the odour of Jesus' incense, and the savour of His blood and righteousness, become sweeter than myrrh, and more fragrant than frankincense. Here, Lord, cause me to get away from all surrounding impediments, and to be constantly found waiting, that my soul may drink in the fresh, reviving, renewing streams, until Jesus Himself, the morning star, breaks in upon my soul, to lead me home to His everlast...

"I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died."   - Romans 7:9 [KJV] Would you read the best experience of a true believer in Christ, that ever was written? Here it is in this chapter. Try your own. Judge of others by this. Commend me to a holy, humble Paul’s experience. If we are taught by the same Spirit, ours will answer to his, as face does to face in a glass, in the following particulars.  (1st.) A sense of sin will be revived in the conscience, which no human palliates, or lulling opiates can keep in a swoon any longer. You will so see, feel, and be sensible of its dread and terror, that you will confess yourself to be totally destroyed by it, and your case to be quite desperate under it.  (2d.) This is effected by the law. “For by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20.) “When the commandment came.”  That is, when the purity and spirituality of the holy and perfect law of God comes into your heart...

"I say unto all, watch." - Mark 13:37 [KJV]   It is very awful, when God’s precious promises are opposed to His righteous commands. Hence some get above and beyond duty: they cannot bear the word duty! O say they, don’t tell us of duty, it is such legal stuff! We are at liberty. We are not under the law, but under grace. True, indeed they are at liberty, but it is to pervert the gospel. They are awfully under the law of sin; not under the law of love, but the spirit delusion.    Their ears are closed, and their hearts shut against the sweet voice of our loving charmer, Christ. O my soul, watch against such, and their licentious notions of liberty, as you prize the love of Christ, and sweet communion with Him. He who sees no danger, and thinks he has nothing to lose, will give no attention to this command, Watch . It is here opposed to sleep. Sin is not dead. Satan never sleeps. The world ever invites and enchants. All is war against thee.    Theref...

"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."  - Romans 5:6 [KJV]   My soul fold up this sweet and precious scripture, and carry it about with thee in thy bosom, and in thine heart, that it may help thee on at any time, and at all times, when thy strength seems gone, and there is no power left. Was it not when the whole nature of man was without strength, that Christ was given of the Father?    And was it not equally so, when Christ came to seek and save that which was lost? And was it not in due time when Christ died for the ungodly; due time in His resurrection, due time in His ascension, "when He ascended up on high, led captivity captive, and received gifts for men, yea, even for the rebellious, that the Lord God might dwell among them?"   Go further yet, my soul, as it concerns thyself was it not due time indeed, when Jesus passed by and saw thee in thy loathsome state of sin, cast out to perish, and when no...

"But Thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head." -Psalm 3:3 [KJV] If your soul has ever been favoured with a taste of mercy, with a sip of the brook by the way; if ever your conscience has felt the application of atoning blood, or the love of God has ever been shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost, when the law comes to curse you, endeavour always to bear in mind that the Lord Jesus Christ stands as the shield between you and its curse.   The law has therefore nothing to do with you that believe, it has cursed Jesus Christ for you; as the apostle declares, "He was made a curse for us ; " and again, "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree , " etc. Therefore the law has nothing to do with you who believe in Christ Jesus. He has intercepted the curse for you, and, by receiving it into His own body and soul, bore it harmless away from you. It is a blessed act of faith when you can thus...

"Many, O LORD my God, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto Thee: if I were to declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered." -Psalm 40:5 [KJV]  

"He received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." -II Peter 1:17 [KJV] These words furnish poor sinners with matter for sweet meditation. Spirit of truth, help us to see the honour and glory of the Father and Son in them, and to get comfort from them.  Here is, (1st.) a silencing answer to that objection: you rob the Father of His honour and glory, by ascribing so much to the Son Jesus. Have you never been assaulted with this temptation? It comes from the enemy of God and sinners. Can two walk together, except they be agreed?  But God and we are agreed. Our faith puts all the honour and glory of our salvation upon God’s beloved Son. There God Himself puts it. IN His beloved Son, God is well pleased, and with us also IN Him.  (2d.) Here see the nature of faith. It causes the soul both to imitate and obey God, and to be well pleased with what Go...

"For lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations; like as corn is sifted in a sieve; yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth." -Amos 9:9 [KJV] Blessed promise to my poor soul; sifted, blown about by temptation. Look then to Jesus with it, and plead it under every new sifting time. Corn must be sifted, for it is much covered at times with tares and chaff. And so must the seed—of Jesus, that the precious may be known and separated; "for what is the chaff to the wheat?"  saith the LORD. Oh Lord, if it please Thee, for Thou knowest the necessity of it, sift me, try me, separate me, not only from the ungodly, with whom I am constrained to dwell, but from myself, from my own trifling, vain conversation, from the corruption of indwelling sin in my fallen nature, from the vain thoughts which lodge within me.  Yes, precious Jesus; sift all, and every thing which is unsuitable to Thee, and let the whole fall through the ...

"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." -Romans 8:10 [KJV] We want two things in lively operation; a spiritual death and a spiritual life. We want death put upon the flesh, upon sin, upon everything which is ungodly, that it may not reign or rule; and we want also the communication and maintenance of a divine life which shall act Godward, exist and co-exist in the same breast, and be in activity at the same moment.  Here is sin striving for the mastery; but here also is a view of the cross of Christ; here is a testimony of bleeding, dying love. This puts a death upon sin. But as death is put upon sin and the lust is mortified, crucified, resisted, or subdued, there springs up a life of faith and prayer, of hope and love, of repentance and godly sorrow for sin, of humility and spirituality, of a desire to live to God's praise and walk in His fear. The cross gives both. From the cross comes de...

The Gospel and Authentic New  Testament Ministry , Part V by D G Miles McKee      The heart and passion of authentic New Testament ministry is the good news of Jesus Christ. For this reason Paul wrote to the Church at Rome saying, “ And I am sure that, when I come unto you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ ” (Romans 15:29) .   In Paul‘s apostolic mind, his visit would be for the purpose of bringing the Gospel to the Roman believers. Paul, unlike many today, did not discount the Gospel as being something un-necessary for believers. In fact, in Paul’s inspired thinking when it came to edifying and establishing the church, the Gospel was an inescapable essential. To grow in grace, we walk by faith ... faith in that which has already been accomplished in and by Christ Jesus.   Fellowship with God does not rest on an inward process of supposedly being made holy and mature. Our inward condition cannot mediate betwe...