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

"Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." - II TIMOTHY 2:3 [KJV] We often get into states and frames of mind, where we need something else besides consolation. A child would not grow, if it were always fed upon sweetmeats. It must have exercise, and be exposed to the weather, and have the cold winds blow upon its face, and be hardened, so as to enable it to bear the chill winter and the nipping frosts. So the child of God is not always petted, and fed upon love-tokens. He is not always carried in the warm bosom, or sucking the breasts of consolation, but he has to learn lessons to fit him to be a soldier. The soldier, we know, has to endure hardships. He has to lie all night upon the wet grass; to be pinched with hunger, parched with thirst, and nipped with cold; to make harassing marches; to hear the roar of the cannon and the whistling of the bullets, "the thunder of the captains and the shouting;" to see the f...

Weekend Gospel message to follow for All Hands (17-19APR20) 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: JUSTIFIED FREELY Faith is not the impulsive or moving cause of Justification. It is an act of pure and free grace, without any motive in the creature: Therefore the apostle saith, "...being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption which is in Jesus Christ" [EPHESIANS 1:7] . But this benefit would not be of grace, but of works, was our faith the impulsive cause of it: because faith is a work or act of ours, as we learn from the words of Christ: "This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent" [JOHN 6:29] . Salvation is not of works, in any branch of it; "for by grace are we saved, through f...