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

What does UNGODLY mean?  It means that I am unlike God.  God is light, I am darkness.  God is Holy, I am sin.  God is Life, I am death.  Whatever God is, I am the opposite, but thank God, Christ died for the UNGODLY.  “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”   -Romans 5:6 [KJV]             John Flavel once said, “He who calls you to come to Him for mercy and forgiveness, knows your sins, your weakness and your guilt, YET He calls you!  Now if your sin does not hinder Christ from calling, Neither should it hinder you from coming!  What an encouragement to come to Him!  Christ Jesus came into this world, on purpose, to save, not the righteous, but sinners.  Therefore –   Let not conscience make you linger Nor of fitness fondly dream All the fitness He requireth Is to have a need of Him.  

Some say they accepted  Christ. Others say they received  Christ. Which is true? There is an important difference between receiving  and accepting .      If we say we have received Christ, we emphasize our reception of Him through God’s sovereign bestowal (John 3:27): “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.”   But if we say we have accepted Christ, we emphasize our sovereignty over Him, His need of our approval and acceptance, and our ability to act contrary to our fallen nature, for Christ is unacceptable to the natural man. Holy Scriptures therefore say nothing about accepting  Christ.   Rather, Scriptures emphasize receiving  Christ. For example: Jesus speaks of “he who receives Me” (Matthew 10:40); we read of “as many as received Him” (John 1:12); Paul wrote to those who had “received Christ Jesus the Lord” (Colossians 2:6).   No man in his natural state will...

"And He said unto them, Why are ye troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts ?" -Luke 24:38 [KJV] Help, O help us, Thou dear Lord, who spake these words to Thy affrighted disciples, to gather some sweet consolation from them to our hearts this night. We know Thou prayest for us, when Thou prayest for all who should believe on Thee (John 17:20.) O speak in life and power these words to our troubled hearts, and for the rising thoughts of distress. Thine is the power: Thine shall be the glory.  (1st.) We here see, though their dear Lord was present, yet His beloved disciples were troubled. Yea, and though He had but that moment pronounced peace unto you, yet fears again rose in their hearts. They were as we are, flesh, as well as spirit: men of like passions with us. The frights, fears and troubles which nature is subject to, discompose the spiritual frames of disciples.  But, (2d.) They do not alter our state, nor separate us from the love of Christ. This...

"The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live." -John 5:25 [KJV] What a promise is here, and what an encouragement for every dead sinner to hope, and for every living saint, who is interested for dead sinners, not to despair? Observe, my soul, the extensiveness of the mercy: it is the dead. Why, all are dead in trespasses and sins. Is there not hope then for all? "And they that hear shall live."   Why, then, every sinner should ask his heart- Do I hear ? But, my soul, mark how this is done. It is by the voice of the Son of God. Yes; there is salvation in no other. He saith Himself, "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth, and believeth in Me, shall never die" (John 11:25-26.) But, my soul, while taking comfort from this blessed passage, as it concerns poor dead sinners, ask thine own heart whether thou hast been the happy part...