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

"I, even I am He, who blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins."   - Isaiah 43:25 [KJV] With tears of joy and emotions of love, my once dearly beloved and much honoured friend, now with Jesus, the late Mr. Jones, minister of St. Saviour’s, told me, the awful charges which precede, and the free and unmerited grace which is proclaimed in this text, made the first impressions of the Saviour’s love upon his heart. O that the Lord of all grace may give us some comfort from it to-night!  Here grace shines with meridian splendour; here grace gloriously reigns, over all the aboundings of sin: here grace sweetly triumphs over all the baseness and unworthiness of the sinner. In the two former verses, God arraigns the culprit, reads a black catalogue of indictment against him, and concludes with, “Thou hast made Me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied Me with thine iniquities.”  The sinner is struck dumb. He dare not deny it...

"Come, see the place where the Lord lay."   - Matthew 28:6 [KJV] Lord, I would desire grace to accept the call, for it is always profitable to have faith in lively exercise: I would pray that my meditation might frequently take wing, and view the memorable sepulchre of my Lord. Did Jesus once lay in the grave? Surely death never had such a prisoner before! But did Jesus lay so low for me? Am I shortly to lay there? Sweet consoling thought! The grave is now softened, and the chambers of death are perfumed with the fragrancy contracted from His holy incorruptible body. But is there not another place where the Lord lay? And doth not the angel invite His people to see Him there also? Yes, Jesus lay in the bosom of the Father from all eternity. And doth He not lay there now, and will He not through all eternity? But can I see him there? Yes;—for if by faith I behold Jesus as the Christ, the Sent, the Sealed of the Father; in seeing Him, I see the Father also.  He sai...

"For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me." -Psalm 109:22 [KJV] The needy is a character who is not merely poor, empty, and naked before God, but who is feelingly in want of spiritual blessings applied to his soul. Some persons can rest on temptations, and take temptations as evidences. Others can build on doubts and fears, and rest on doubts and fears as evidences. Some can take powerful past convictions, or present convictions, and lean on them as evidences. Others can look to a profession of religion, and take that as an evidence.  But a living soul must have heavenly blessings communicated immediately to his heart and conscience from the mouth of God. He must have deliverance manifested to his soul as a reality; he must have the blood of Jesus sprinkled on his conscience with divine power, to purge it from filth and dead works; he must have his eyes anointed with eye-salve to see Jesus; yea, his soul pants to be led up into sweet communion ...

What a Magnificent Name , Part I by DG Miles McKee   The Lord Jesus Christ!  ---What a magnificent name.    When we call our Master the Lord, we are declaring He is the Sovereign.   When we call Him Jesus, we are declaring He is the Savior.   When we call Him Christ, we are declaring that He is the Sufficient One.   He is Sovereign, Savior and Sufficient. What a marvelous combination of saving power and wisdom.   To say that someone is ‘LORD’ is to admit that they are the one in charge.   Jesus continually demonstrated His Lordship and sovereignty over all things thus proving continually that He was and is God.     He was Lord over all nature and with a single word calmed a storm.     He demonstrated that He was Lord over death by raising the dead.   He demonstrated His sovereignty over Satan each time He cast out demons.   Sovereignty is God’s domain! Is it any wonder then that Jesus gave a continual demonstrati...

"Nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine."  -I Timothy 4:6 [KJV] Many a soul is saying, Alas! I hear and hear again, and do not see that I am profited. I obtain little or no comfort from what I hear.  Consider, (1st.) what you hear. Is it the words of faith, and of good doctrine? There is more danger in words than we are aware of. Words convey corrupt ideas to the mind, and nourish vain hopes and false confidences in the heart. They subvert the promises, and pervert the soul. Many words of this sort have obtained amongst us. Such as the merit of works—perhaps you start at that. You would not hear preachers who use the phrase. But these amount to just the same thing, the terms of the gospel—the conditions of salvation. These are not the words of faith, nor of good doctrine; not the words which the Holy Ghost teaches. They are the words of man’s proud wisdom.  They were hatched in the church of Rome, and are contended for by the greatest enemies...

"Whether our brethren be inquired of, they are the messengers of the churches, and the glory of Christ."   -II Corinthians 8:23 [KJV] What a blessed account is here given of the children of God to all inquiries concerning them. See, my soul, whether thy experience corresponds to it, and mark their character. They are not only brethren to one another, but to Christ also; for we are told that He is not ashamed to call them brethren . Precious condescending, Saviour! Moreover, they are the messengers of the churches. What is that? A messenger, in scripture, is called also an angel. And if the brethren of Jesus do know, and can speak of Him as His people should, then are they like angels come down from the court of heaven, to relate what they have seen and known, of the King in His beauty, and their hearts glow with a warmth of earnestness to proclaim His glory, and His love to poor sinful creatures here below.  Neither is this all. For they are the glory of Chri...

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." -I John 1:9 [KJV] “He is faithful and just.”  Oh, what a word is that! There is scarcely to my mind such a word in the Bible as that; so great, so glorious, so comforting: “He is faithful and just.”  “Just” say you, “why I know that God’s mercy and God’s grace can pardon sinners; but how can God be just, and pardon transgressors? Does not God’s justice demand the punishment of sin? Does not God's justice blaze forth in eternal lightnings against the soul that transgresses His holy law? How, then, can it be true, that God can be just, and yet forgive a confessing sinner?" But it is true, divinely True, blessedly, eternally true. And in it is locked up that grand mystery of redemption by the blood and obedience of God's co-equal Son. It is locked up in this one word—"just." "But how?" it may be asked. In this way. The Lor...

"The times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the LORD." - Acts 3:19 [KJV] Who shall these times come to? Every sinner that repents and turns to Christ for salvation. From whence shall they come? From the presence of the Lord. Here then it is manifest, whether you have repented and turned to the Lord.  If so, (1st.) your soul will delight in God’s presence.  (2d.) You will earnestly long for and highly prize these refreshing seasons.  (3d.) You will say with David, “Thou art my God; my times are in Thy hands. I will bless the LORD at all times: His praise shall be continually in my mouth”   (Psalm 31:14-15 & 34:1.)  Hence, (4th.) you will turn from your sins, your self-righteous hopes, carnal pleasures, and worldly vanities, to seek all your happiness in the enjoyment of the presence of the Lord.  And, (5th.) you will wait in the patience of faith, for the coming of refreshing seasons, believing they shall come. Is it now a ...

"It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto Me." -John 6:45 [KJV] Mark, my soul, these precious words of thy Jesus. It was one of the old testament promises, that all God's children should be taught of Him. And as this condescension of God, in teaching, implied the Father, so the blessed consequence and effect of it should be, that every one thus taught proved his being a child, and inclined his heart to come to God in Christ as a Father. My soul, art thou come? Art thou looking to, leaning upon, trusting in, walking with, and seeking for Jesus? Is He the LORD thy righteousness , thine only righteousness, thine only hope, thine only confidence? Dost thou, like the apostle, count all things else but dung and dross to win Christ, and to be found in Him? Courage then, my soul!  These are blessed tokens of thine adoption character. None but God the Father,...

"That He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." -Romans 3:26 [KJV] Every created thing, every finite intelligence, must sooner be annihilated, than Jehovah can sacrifice, or suffer the slightest tarnish to come over any one of His eternal attributes. Yet God can be just, infinitely just, scrupulously just, unchangeably just - and yet, preserving His attribute of justice unchanging and unchangeable, He can still be "the justifer of him which believeth in Jesus."  The way by which this was effected will take a countless eternity to understand, and a boundless eternity to admire and adore. But what is meant by the expression "the justifier?" "The justifer"  means, that God can count man as righteous, can freely pardon his sins, can graciously accept his person, can impute to him righteousness without works, and can bring him to the eternal enjoyment of Himself. And who is the character that He thus brings to...

"These all died in faith." -Hebrews 11:13 [KJV]   An officer in the Navy, who held me exceedingly in derision on account of religion, was taken dangerously ill. To my great surprise, he sent for me. I found him in distress of soul: spoke freely to him of our lost estate, of Christ’s love and salvation, and prayed with him. He wept sore: clapping his hands to his breast, he cried out, “O, my God! have I got a soul?” As though he had never known it before.    Turning to the place where I kneeled, he said, “Where have I lived, that I never heard these things before? O I shall never forget what I have heard this night!” I visited him to his last moments, and trust he died in the faith, and hope to see him in glory. “Heaven is a house full of the miracles of Christ’s free-grace,” says one. There is the once idolatrous Manasseh; the murdering, adulterous David; the persecuting Saul; the Christ-denying Peter, etc.    O my God, shall wretched I be ther...

"Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Zion." -Psalm 65:1 [KJV]   Is this the language of my heart? Am I indeed waiting until that Jesus be ready to receive my poor praise? Hath God the Holy Ghost prepared my heart? Oh then, hasten to Him, my soul, with thy morning offerings, poor as they are; for sure I am, Jesus is waiting to be gracious. God will accept both thee and thy offering in Him the Beloved.    Go forth to meet Him as early and as often as thine heart can wish: depend upon it, thy Redeemer will be beforehand with thee, and is waiting thy coming. Neither thy praise nor thy prayer can outrun His love; for both are the blessed effects of His grace, and of His own quickenings.    Precious Jesus, grant me to come as often as I need Thee. And, Lord, if Thou wilt grant me this blessing, I shall never be from Thee, for I need Thee every moment.   -preacher Robert Hawker (1753-1827 A.D.) 

"According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will." -Ephesians 1:4, 5 [KJV] It is a very solemn but a very true assertion, that no man can quicken his own soul; and it is an equally solemn, we might almost say, a tremendous truth, that the gospel only comes in power to those whom God has chosen unto eternal life.  Indeed the one flows from the other; for if no man can quicken his own soul, it necessarily follows it must be of sovereign grace that it is quickened at all. Once you allow the fall, and acknowledge that a man is by nature so thoroughly dead in trespasses and sins that he cannot raise himself up out of this state to newness of life, then the doctrine of election necessarily follows.   A living soul may reason thus: "Am I quickened? Yes. Di...