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

Ascribe to God, ye sons of men, Ascribe with one accord, All praise and honor, might and strength To Him the living Lord! Give glory to His holy name, And honor Him alone; Give worship to His majesty, And bow before His throne. The Lord doth sit upon the floods, Their fury to restrain; He reigns above, both Lord and King, And evermore shall reign. The Lord shall give His people strength, And bid their sorrows cease; The Lord shall bless His chosen race With everlasting peace. -Gospel report by preacher Thomas Sternhold, 1562 A.D.

1. To exalt the grace of God. 2. To proclaim salvation alone through the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. 3. To declare the sinfulness, helplessness, and hopelessness of man in a state of nature. 4. To describe, as far as I am able, the living experience of the saints of God in their trials, temptations, and sorrows--and in their consolations and blessings. -preacher J. C. Philpot   

"God, W ho is rich in mercy." -E PHESIANS 2:4 [KJV]   Mercy well suits a sensible sinner; and the riches of God's mercy especially suit those who are brought down in real extremity of soul to see and feel how abundant He must be in mercy, how overflowing in the exceeding riches of His grace, that they may venture to entertain a hope of an interest in it, as freely coming down to them in their low and lost estate. We know mercy, feelingly and experimentally, before we know love. Love is first in God, but it is not first in our experience of it; nor do we go to God when made first to feel our need of mercy, as if we were objects of His love, or could venture to  entertain the remotest idea that a God so holy could love a sinner so vile; but we go to Him to obtain mercy, as the Apostle speaks: "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" [HEBREWS 4:16 ] . Mercy is the fi...

Weekend Gospel message to follow for All Hands (28FEB-01MAR20) Heads-Up --- Please find enclosed encouragement in SO GREAT SALVATION by the perfect and finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ in saving poor, needy and wretched sinners by His sovereign free grace - God's unmerited favor - from our sins and from Hell: "Let all those that seek Thee rejoice and be glad in Thee: and let such as love Thy salvation say continually, let God be magnified." -Psalm 70:4 [KJV] Every believer can truly identify and say with David, that we love the salvation that God has abundantly, eternally and sovereignly given to the poor and needy sinner in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no doubt that everyone is in need of salvation (Rom. 3:23), but few seem to have any real interest. The warning of scripture is, "how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation" (Heb. 2:3). Why does the true believer love the salvation of God? Let me give you se...

"And hath put all things under H is feet." -E PHESIANS 1:22 [KJV] H OW VAST , HOW NUMEROUS , how complicated are the various events and circumstances which attend the Church of God here below, as she travels onward to her heavenly home! But if all things as well as all persons are put under Jesus' feet, there cannot be a single circumstance over which H e has not supreme control. Everything in providence and everything in grace are alike subject to H is disposal. There is not a trial or temptation, an affliction of body or soul, a loss, a cross, a painful bereavement, a vexation, grief or disappointment, a case, state or condition, which is not put under Jesus' feet.   He has sovereign, supreme disposal over all events and circumstances. As possessed of infinite knowledge He sees them, as possessed of infinite wisdom He can manage them, and as possessed of infinite power He can dispose and direct them for our good and His own glory. How ...

"God, W ho is rich in mercy." -E PHESIANS 2:4 [KJV] Mercy well suits a sensible sinner; and the riches of God's mercy especially suit those who are brought down in real extremity of soul to see and feel how abundant He must be in mercy, how overflowing in the exceeding riches of His grace, that they may venture to entertain a hope of an interest in it, as freely coming down to them in their low and lost estate. We know mercy, feelingly and experimentally, before we know love. Love is first in God, but it is not first in our experience of it; nor do we go to God when made first to feel our need of mercy, as if we were objects of His love, or could venture to  entertain the remotest idea that a God so holy could love a sinner so vile; but we go to Him to obtain mercy, as the Apostle speaks: "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16). Mercy is the ...

"Take heed what ye hear" ­ M ARK 4:24 [KJV] "Take heed how ye hear" ­ L UKE 8:18 [KJV] Hearing is a critical part of the Gospel scheme. "How shall they believe on Him whom they have not heard?" "Faith cometh by hearing." Why the Gospel itself is called in Galatians 3:2-5, "The hearing of faith." Is it any wonder the Saviour said, "Take heed what ye hear," and "Take heed how ye hear . " What has to do with the content of that which is heard. How has to do with the manner of hearing. I will be what I hear. If I hear error, I will be in error. If I hear the Truth, I will believe the Truth, and grow in grace and the knowledge of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. God does not speak apart from the Truth. That is why we should take heed what we hear . I will only benefit by what I hear by the manner in which I hear. That is why I am to take heed how I hear. If I hear with a dull and ...

“ Christ is the angel of the covenant, and you can find your part in that covenant by looking to Him [MALACHI 3:1 ] . Many want to know their election before they look to Christ. It cannot be! Look to Christ as a guilty sinner . Cast yourself on Him for mercy and grace, and you will know your election; for all who are chosen are chosen IN HIM. Apart from a saving interest in the Beloved, there is no hope!” - Gospel report by preacher Henry Mahan Please find enclosed link to audio Gospel sermons: https://www.sermonaudio.com/source_detail.asp?sourceid=mahan

"Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father." -I THESSALONIANS 1:3 [KJV]   It is air and exercise that keep the body healthy. So it is spiritually. The graces of the Spirit need to be often exercised and well aired to keep them healthy—aired with the pure breath of heaven, and exercised with the operations of the Holy Ghost drawing them forth into activity and energy. And just as in nature a man gains health and strength by using his limbs and working his muscles, so in spiritual things these graces of the Spirit gain strength by use and exercise. Faith by working hard, hope by enduring much, and love by labouring long in the face of difficulties, become each more strengthened, more confirmed, more active, healthy, and energetic. It is a false faith to sleep all day in the sluggard's arm-chair; it is the hypocrite's hope who endures nothing f...

"For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee."   -Isaiah 54:10 [KJV]

“ Seek ye out of the book of the L ORD , and read…” -I SAIAH 34:16 [KJV] We are people of “the book”! We don’t look to the stars, to tea leaves, to palm-readers or to astrologers. We aren’t looking for additional revelations or manifestations. We aren’t followers of new apostles or prophets. God has provided His revelation in His time and His way. He gave prophets for a particular period and apostles as the front line to bear the message of Christ. That day has passed and we have “the book”. The proper name Bible means book. It has sixty-six books but it is one book. It has numerous writers but one author, the Holy Spirit. It’s as relevant in the twenty-first century as it was in the first century. Jesus was a man of “the book” [its very subject and content]. Again and again He challenged His generation with these words “have you not read?” He spoke of Moses and David, of Isaiah and generally of the prophets. He referred to Jonah as a type of Himself. He said He came ...

  "Tell me, O T hou whom m y soul loveth, where T hou feedest, where T hou makest T hy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of T hy companions? If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents." -S ONG OF SOLOMON 1:7, 8 [KJV] If you say that you want food and rest, to know Christ for yourself and to enjoy His presence and love, the Lord gives you two directions to attain to the enjoyment of these two blessings: 1. to tread in the footsteps of the flock, to walk in the way in which the saints of old have walked, in the path of tribulation and faith; 2. if you are favoured in any way to live within reach of the shepherds' tents, and have the privilege of hearing the gospel preached in its purity and power, to bring your kids in your arms beside the tent, and to put them down to feed on the juicy herbage. And ...

"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also" - JOHN 14:3 [KJV]   By His successful work of reconciliation and redemption, our Savior has taken occupancy of everlasting glory for all of His people. In addition, He who has prepared a place for us by His substitutionary death, has also prepared the route to the place. The pathway of every believer may appear to us to lack any definite purpose, yet we are assured, "the steps of a good man are ordered (fixed, appointed) of the LORD" [PSALM 37:23 ] . He who chose us and redeemed us is directing our way through this world and guiding us safely to our eternal home on the course He predetermined. He will soon come again and receive us unto Himself and then we will be with Him forever. - Gospel report by preacher Jim Byrd Thirteenth Street Baptist church of Ashland, Kentucky USA Please find enclosed link to...

PREPARE FOR LOVED ONES, ASAP! Friends, Consider the following short video of the normally stoic, tough Chinese people who are now confined to their city high rise building [porches], running out of food, water, medicine (etc.) at night in Wuhan. Population of Sub-Provincial, Urban and Metro areas at 40,000,000 souls. Carefully read the English sub-title of what is being said by the camera man. We best ACT NOW and PREPARE for loved ones as America is not going to be exempt from hammer-time. It took until today for the C.D.C. to FINALLY advise people to prepare for this pandemic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp3jH6iYrnw "He will keep the feet of His saints." -I SAMUEL 2:9 [KJV] With love, Billy

"He will keep the feet of H is saints." -I SAMUEL 2:9 [KJV] The Lord sees His poor scattered pilgrims travelling through a vale of tears, journeying through a waste howling wilderness, a path beset with gins, traps, and snares in every direction. How can they escape? Why, the Lord keeps their feet, carries them through every rough place, as a tender parent carries a little child; when about to fall, graciously lays the everlasting arms underneath them, and when tottering and stumbling, and their feet ready to slip, mercifully upholds them from falling altogether. Thus the Lord keeps the feet of His saints. But do you think that H e has not different ways for different feet? The God of creation has not made two flowers, nor two leaves upon a tree alike; and will H e cause all H is people to walk in precisely the same path? No; we have each our path, each our besetment, each our trials, each peculiar traps and snares laid for our feet. And the wisdom of the...

“ He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things ?” -ROMANS 8:32 [KJV] Look at the cross! Behold His precious Gift transfixed to it, and that by His own hand, and for your sins. Then look at your present circumstances, survey . . .your needs, your trials, your chastisements, your bereavements, your heart sickening, heartbreaking tribulations, and know that God still is love. If He had love strong enough, deep enough, to give you Jesus; to tear Him, as it were, from His bosom, and to transfix Him on yonder accursed tree for your iniquities; has He not love enough to bow His ear to your cry, and His heart to your sorrow? Will He not . . . rescue you from this difficulty, deliver you out of this trouble, shield you in this temptation, supply this need, support and comfort you in this grief? Oh yes, He will! doubt it not! The cross of Calvary is a standing pledge; standing until sin ...

“ Be Not Dismayed; For I Am Thy God .”   -ISAIAH 41:10 [KJV] Poor fearful saint, be not dismayed, Nor dread the dangers of the night; Thy God will ever be thy aid, And put the hosts of hell to flight. * Nor sin, nor Satan, can o'ercome The arm that vindicates thy cause; God, thy own God, will lead you home, In spite of all that may oppose. * In every sore and deep distress, “I am thy God” shall be thy stay; Thy God shall all thy woes redress, And drive thy guilty fears away. * This soul-supporting truth contains All blessings that our God can give; In sorrows, sicknesses, or pains, Thy God will every need relieve. Author: William Gadsby Tune: Just as I am (Wm. Bradbury)

"As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing." - II CORINTHIANS 6:10 [KJV] Though the Christian in himself is sorrowful, and has reason to be so all the day long, yet so far as he has any views by faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, any good hope through grace, or any manifestation of His Person, work, blood, and love, he may be always rejoicing. Nay, his very sorrow opens up a way for joy. There is no room in a worldly heart for spiritual joy, for the Lord gives joy in sorrow. When the heart is sunk in gloom and fear, and doubt and distress take possession of the mind, when family afflictions, or painful bereavements, or trying circumstances fill the heart with grief and dismay, that is the very time for the Lord to pour joy into the soul. As afflictions abound, so do consolations. Sorrow and joy are linked together as night and day, as sun and moon, as heaven and earth. Without sorrow there can be no joy, for joy is its counterpoise. If you had everything your...

"He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure." - II SAMUEL 23:5 [KJV]   O the blessedness of having a manifest interest in the blood of the covenant, and thus to have a testimony that God has made a covenant with His dear Son upon our behalf; that our names are written in the book of life; and that Christ is our Mediator at the right hand of the Father! What are all earthly blessings compared with this? What are health and strength and riches and all the goods of this life; what is everything that the carnal heart can desire or the covetous mind grasp; what is all compared with an interest in the everlasting covenant, and in the love and blood and righteousness of the Lord the Lamb? What is earth, with all its attractions, compared with an interest in the precious, precious blood of a dying Jesus?   You will find it so when you come to lie upon a bed of languishing and pain; when the cold drops of sweat stand upon your f...

"Who loved me, and gave H imself for me." -GALATIANS 2:20 [KJV] Many of the saints of God may not be so highly favoured as to take up into their lips Paul's language of strong, personal assurance. They may hope, and at times may rise beyond a hope, into a sweet confidence, by the shining in of the Sun of righteousness, that the Son of God has loved them, and given Himself for them. But the strength of Paul's persuasion and the full expression of his confidence so far outstrip both their assurance and their language, that many real saints of God confess they come short both in heart and tongue. Yet their coming short of this blessed certainty as an enjoyed reality in the heart, and as a declared confidence by the mouth—for conscience and tongue must move together where God works— does not affect the fact. Clouds and mists sometimes obscure the sun, but they do not blot him out of the sky. So the mists and fogs of unbelief may obscure the Sun of ri...

“ Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with W hom we have to do.” -HEBREWS 4:13 [KJV] God is omniscient. His knowledge is infinite in kind and extent. It is eternal. He knows all things past, present, and future; all things that ever have been, are, or ever shall be. In heaven, earth, and hell, nothing is hid from His all-seeing eye. God knows the hearts of all His creatures. God also knows all things which ever could have been, could now be, or could hereafter be on any conceivable supposition. His knowledge embraces all plans, all truths, all systems. God can neither learn nor forget anything. “Great is our Lord, and of great power: His understanding is infinite.” -PSALM 147:5 - Gospel report by preacher William Swan Plume r (1802 – 1880 A.D.)

Weekend Gospel message to follow for All Hands (21-23FEB20) Heads-Up --- Please find enclosed encouragement in SO GREAT SALVATION by the perfect and finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ in saving poor, needy and wretched sinners by His sovereign free grace - God's unmerited favor - from our sins and from Hell. WHO IS THE GOSPEL FOR? "The gospel is a salvation appointed for those who are ready to perish, and is not designed to put them in a way to save themselves by their own works. It speaks to us as condemned already, and calls upon us to believe in a crucified Savior, that we may receive redemption through the blood, even the forgiveness of our sins. And the Spirit of God, by the Gospel, first convinces us of unbelief, sin and misery; and then, by revealing the things of Jesus to our minds, enables us, as helpless sinners, to come to Christ, to receive Him, to behold Him, or, in other words, to believe in Him."   -preacher John Newton (1725–1807 A....

"I will bear the indignation of the L ORD , because I have sinned against H im" -M ICAH 7:9 [KJV] It is a view of our sins against God that enables us to bear the indignation of the Lord against us and them. As long as we are left to a spirit of pride and self-righteousness, we murmur at the Lord's dealings when H is hand lies heavy upon us. But let us only truly feel what we rightly deserve: that will silence at once all murmuring. You may murmur and rebel sometimes at your hard lot in providence; but if you feel what you deserve, it will make you water with tears of repentance the hardest cross. So in grace, if you feel the weight of your sins, and mourn and sigh because you have sinned against God, you can lift up your hands sometimes with holy wonder at God's longsuffering mercy that H e has borne with you so long; that H e has not smitten you to the earth, or sent your guilty soul to hell. You will see, too, that the heaviest strokes were...

" To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. " -E PHESIANS 1:6 [KJV]   Think for a moment of the glory and majesty of Almighty God. If a believer ponders in his heart the wonder of God’s grace, he soon realizes his own unworthiness and utter vileness. How could it ever be that He, before whom the moon and stars are not pure in His sight, accepts such sinners? Yet the infallible Word of God declares that He indeed has accepted some men in the Beloved. Who are they? How are they made accepted? According to Ephesians 1:3-14, they are those who have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ. They are those who have been chosen in Christ from the foundation of the world. They are those who have been predestinated to the adoption of children by Christ. They are those who have been accepted in Christ. They are those who have been redeemed by Christ, forgiven their sins by Christ, illuminated in Christ, gathered in...

"It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life ." -JOHN 6:63 [KJV]   It is through the word that the soul in the first instance is cleansed. It is by the word that the soul is begotten again unto eternal life. It is, too, by the word applied to the heart that the blessed Spirit from time to time keeps alive communion with the Lord Jesus Christ. Is it not so in vital experience? Some passage of Scripture drops into the soul, some promise comes warm into the heart, and as it comes it makes way for itself. It enters the heart, breaks down the feelings, melts the soul, and draws forth living faith to flow unto and centre alone in the "altogether lovely."   There are many times and seasons when the word of God is to us a dead letter; we see and feel no sweetness in it. But there are other times, through mercy, when the word of God is made sweet and precious to us;...

There is a Person that we are called upon to believe in and trust. His name is Jesus. There are also those we are warned to beware of and not to trust. Paul called them “another jesus.” How are we to distinguish between these persons? They differ in many ways but the chief one is their work! For that reason the apostle says, “ We preach Christ crucified.” We do not preach nor are people to believe on a mystical, generic jesus but on that One who is distinguished by the work He accomplished in His life and death. He is the “ crucified” One! He is the Lord Jesus Christ, God in flesh, who came according to the will of God and accomplished His purpose in saving His elect. This He did as their Substitute satisfying every claim against them. Jesus saved His people from their sins. Success crowns His work and salvation is sure in Him. The Spirit of God brings those He died for to trust the Lord Jesus Christ and He takes the things of Christ to do it [JOHN 16:14,15 ] . The thin...