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

     There is nothing in all the world stronger than true love. Even among unbelievers there can be a love so deep that one person would willingly die for another. Genuine love does not cling to self-preservation; it sacrifices itself for the good of the one it loves. Love gives, suffers, and endures (I Corinthians ch. 13) . Yet every example of human love pales in comparison to the love of God in Christ to His elect.   “Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end” (John 13:1) .   Christ loved His people “unto the end.” His love did not fail when betrayal came, when suffering increased, or when the cross stood before Him. He loved faithfully, fully, and perfectly.   Christ Himself declared: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye ar...

"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.  I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust.  Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence."  - Psalm 91:1-3 [KJV]   -------0-------    Those Who Come To Christ     I believe that all who come to our Redeemer in saving faith do so PERSONALLY. I wish that I could believe God for my family; but unless a man in his own heart believes on Christ, he will perish. Those who come to Christ will come SINCERELY. A man is not only persuaded that Christ is the way, but in his heart he lovingly and sincerely agrees with God's terms of salvation. " My son, give me thine heart " (Proverbs 23:26).  It is the heart or nothing in this heavenly marriage.    Also those who come to Christ do so RATIONALLY, in knowledge and understanding. They know WHAT ...

Bible text: Isaiah 60:22 [KJV] Sermon preached by Clay Curtis, 40 min. long.  The LORD JESUS be magnified! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR8M1CZpIEI  

"I die daily."   -I Corinthians 15:31 [KJV]   St. Paul in a peculiar sense could say so. He was daily in danger of suffering martyrdom for Christ. He puts the most solemn oath to it. “I protest, by our (not your) rejoicing, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.” It is like swearing by the Holy Ghost, the Author of this joy. Happy Paul! the joy of the Lord was in his heart; the prospect of enjoying the Lord, in his eye; the world under his feet; and he, daily expecting his Lord’s messenger to call him home. This was living indeed in the very suburbs of glory. And pray what should hinder you and I from living as he did?    St. Paul was the subject of the same corrupt nature, in which dwelt no good thing, as we are. We have the same Lord to look to and rejoice in, the same faith and hope to animate us, the same Holy Ghost to strengthen and comfort us, and the same place prepared by Christ for us, as he had. Why should not we also die daily? ...

"And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them." -Isaiah 42:16 [KJV] Never, surely, was there a promise of a covenant God in Christ more strikingly fulfilled as to what is said in the former port of this verse, than in thine instance, my soul. By nature and by practice, thou wert so totally blind to any apprehension of divine things, that not a right thought hadst thou ever conceived of God and Christ, when the Lord first manifested His grace to thy heart! No being in the universe was so near to me as God, but none so little known or understood. No heart was nearer to me than my own, but to all its errors and deceitfulness I remained the most perfect stranger! In the works of providence, as well as of grace, I had no consciousness whatever of any guide, nor even of needing a gu...

"For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." -I John 5:4 [KJV]   If we are to be saved our faith must gain the day; we must have a faith that shall triumph over death and hell and gain a glorious conquest over every internal and external and infernal foe. This is just the state, then, in which the matter stands: we must either conquer or be conquered; we must either gain the day and be crowned with an immortal crown of glory, or else sink in the strife, defeated by sin and Satan. But none of God's people will be defeated in the fight; and yet they often seem, as it were, to escape defeat by the very skin of their teeth; yet faith will sooner or later gain the day, for Jesus is its Finisher as well as its Author.    He will crown the faith of His own gift with eternal glory. He will never suffer His dear family to be overcome in the good fight of faith, for He will give strength to ev...