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

  O God of everlasting days, Receive our worship, thanks and praise; May all who gather in this place, Exalt Thy Name and seek Thy face.   We ask that as we gather here, Grant grace to bow, Thy Name to fear; Speak Lord to ev’ry mind and heart, Reveal to us how great Thou art.   Lord, for Thy servant we would pray, May he in power preach today; Send forth Thy gospel to each heart, To every soul Thy grace impart.   O may Thy Son, our sovereign Lord, Be praised, exalted and adored; Give unto us true faith to see,  Christ Jesus saves eternally.   And for Thy loved, yet wayward sheep, Out on the rugged mountain steep; O Shepherd find the lambs which roam, And bring the wand’ring, lost ones home.     Tune: “DOXOLOGY” LM Words by J. Byrd

A BELIEVER’S PEACE      Where does a believer find real and genuine peace?  On what foundation can we rest and say in truth, “It is well with my soul?”  I’ll tell you; it lies in this, that we are justified by faith and not by works.  Christ Jesus stood in my place before God.  I was guilty with nothing to pay; doomed to hell, and Christ took my place.  He died for me!  How can I perish?  How can I be punished for sins which have already been laid on Christ and for which He has already suffered?   God demands of me that I keep His holy law perfectly.  I cannot do it.  But Christ has kept it for me.  He kept it, magnified it, made it honorable in my flesh.  What more can God demand of me?  I am washed in the blood of Christ; I am risen and seated at His right hand in Christ.  You may ask, “How is all this yours?”   I reply, “By the grace of God, through the merits of Chri...

IRRESISTIBLE, EFFECTUAL GRACE       What is there to be said to you sinners about the power of God the Holy Spirit in His regenerating grace?  It says to me that there is hope for spiritually dead and lost sinners.  I can and do preach the gospel of the grace of God to sinners in, through and by Christ the Savior.  However, I cannot save you; I cannot get at your heart.   Perhaps my words may have an emotional effect upon you, maybe even cause you to weep, but you wipe your eyes, leave the building and nothing of any lasting power is accomplished.  But the power of the Holy Spirit, can and does save.  It is able to soften your heart, to make you spiritually alive and cause you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.   That which is impossible for you to do, or for me to accomplish through my preaching, is a work that the Spirit can and must do.  The Lord makes no offer of salvation; He makes sinners wil...

The Scriptures do not teach and therefore we do not believe in a fake redemption, that is, a redemption that did not actually redeem.  “Take heed therefore…to feed the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28).  The true declaration of redemption by the blood of Christ is that He really paid the debt of a particular people, all those given to Him in covenant grace, the church chosen unto salvation.   He suffered, bled, died and arose for those entrusted to Him, the eternal Surety of His people.  I realize most people in religion believe in what is called a universal redemption which says that Christ died for, redeemed, reconciled to God and paid the sin-debt of all men without exception.  Universal redemption is the false notion that the death of the Son of God was as much for Cain who perished as it was for Abel who was saved and as much for Judas who died in his sins as it was for the thief who was brought to faith in...

" As we consider “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God , ” remember that it is not our evaluation of God’s Word that gives it value; nor is it our interpretation or presentation of scripture that makes it authoritative.  What Scripture is intrinsically, in and of itself, gives it authority. Therefore, without depending on anything outside of itself, the Word of God is a powerful offensive weapon that can successfully rout the wicked enemy we are fighting." -preacher J. D. Pentecost Note:  Remarks posted in the ‘Thought for the Day’ are not an endorsement of the person, but only of the quote.

" I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." -Romans 7:9 [KJV] Would you read the best experience of a true believer in Christ, that ever was written? Here it is in this chapter. Try your own. Judge of others by this. Commend me to a holy, humble Paul’s experience. If we are taught by the same Spirit, ours will answer to his, as face does to face in a glass, in the following particulars.  (1st.) A sense of sin will be revived in the conscience, which no human palliates, or lulling opiates can keep in a swoon any longer. You will so see, feel, and be sensible of its dread and terror, that you will confess yourself to be totally destroyed by it, and your case to be quite desperate under it.  (2d.) This is effected by the law. “For by the law is the knowledge of sin,” (Romans 3:20.) “When the commandment came.” That is, when the purity and spirituality of the holy and perfect law of God comes into your heart and co...

"O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock." -Song of Solomon 2:14 [KJV] Jesus is the hiding-place, the only hiding-place from sin and self. "Thou art my hiding place," said David of old. This was shewn to Moses, in figure, when the Lord put him into the cleft of a rock, which Toplady has so beautifully versified, to paint the longing desires of his soul: "Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee!" It is on this "Rock of Ages" that God has built His Church. As a rock, He is deep as well as high—so deep as to have under-bottomed the depths of the fall, so high as to be God's fellow, seated at His right hand. As a rock, too, He is broad as well as long—broad enough to bear millions of living stones built on Him, and long enough to reach from eternity to eternity. The apostle, therefore, prays that the Church at Ephesus may comprehend with all saints, "what is the breadth and length, and depth and height, an...

"And he looked up and said, I see men as trees, walking." -Mark 8:24 [KJV] I have often considered the case of this man as holding forth a sweet and comfortable lesson of instruction, to the small attainments of the followers of Jesus. Perhaps our gracious Lord, in the method He was pleased to adopt, in the opening of this man's eyes by gradual means, intended so to instruct His people. My soul, look at it in this point of view; it may be profitable to thee. When the Son of God, Who came to give light to the spiritually blind, as well as to restore vision to the eye of the body, first touched this poor man's eyes, the effect was that when he looked up, the men he saw were only like "trees, walking;" the sight was imperfect, and the objects obscure. And such is it very frequently in our apprehension of spiritual things; but then it should be remembered, and remembered with great thankfulness, that this imperfection of our sight differs altogeth...