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

“No man can come unto Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44).  It is by the secret and effectual operation of the Spirit that the Father brings each of His elect to a saving knowledge of Christ. No sinner ever comes to Christ until the Holy Spirit first comes to him! And no sinner will savingly believe on Christ until the Spirit has communicated faith to him. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).   The gift of faith is an eye to discern Christ before it is a foot to approach Christ. There can be no act without an object, and there can be no exercising of faith upon Christ till Christ is seen in His excellency, sufficiency and suitability to poor sinners. “They that know Thy name will (not ought to but will) put their trust in Thee” (Psalm 9:10). But again, we say, that knowledge must be a spiri...

     Don’t you get tired of hearing politicians on TV telling lies and misrepresenting themselves and their opponents just to get elected? Listen to the words of Christ as He is revealed here to be Wisdom personified –   “Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of My lips shall be right things. For My mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to My lips. All the words of My mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them. They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge.” (Proverbs 8:6-9)   We can be assured that every word that HE speaks is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth! His words are excellent and right. His words are truth and righteousness. His words are plain and simple to all whom He has given knowledge. And this is especially true in His words of salvation by His free and sovereign grace for sinners whom God has chosen, loved, and adopt...

May each of us ask that question to ourselves: why am I here? Various motives prompt those who worship together for the professed purpose of worshipping God. But may we hope that all of us here present are moved by spiritual motives and not fleshly. In answer to the question I have asked, I can truly say that I am here for the glory of God, the exaltation of God’s Christ, the honor of His blessed Spirit and the good of God’s chosen people.    Those of you who are spiritually one with me are longing for the fulfillment of the Father’s promise, “In all places where I record My Name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee” (Exodus 20:24) . You are also desiring the fulfillment of the Master’s promise, “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20) . May He give us to enjoy the reality of His Own sweet words to the Samaritan woman. “The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spir...

  Wonderful Jesu s! by D G Miles McKee “… the grace of God that brings salvation…”   - Titus 2:11 Let me make a bold statement-- Jesus Himself is the grace of God!  In His doing, dying and rising again He gave us the summary of grace. Also, in His doing, dying and rising again, He gave us God. Jesus is the revelation of God. He is the One in Whom we see and meet the grace of God. Moses and the Law brought condemnation, but Christ, the God/Man, ushered in the fulness of grace . He is wonderful! Look again in Titus 2:11 and see that grace is the bringer of salvation. I love the word “brings” in that verse. God did not merely send salvation, He brought it . Nor did He entrust the bringing of salvation to anyone other than Himself. He by-passed the angles and archangels refusing to use them as His messengers in this matter. I think I see Him talking to Gabriel and saying, “Gabriel, you are a trustworthy servant, both faithful and true, but I cannot send salvation...

"For the love of money is the root of all evil; which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."   -I Timothy 6:10 [KJV]   How hard to persuade a man, that there is any evil in that which he loves! Evil in money! what evil can there be in that which will purchase all things? Truly, we may say of money as one said of a pack of cards. Being asked, what harm there is in them? replied, None at all: they are very innocent things, if you will not meddle with them. So is money. But there is a curse in the love of it. There is the root of all evil. What mighty ills have not been done by this? Why, the love of money will dethrone God in the heart, and make a man an idolater. “Covetousness is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5.) Can there in all the world be a greater evil than this? Is not this the root of all evil? Do not all evils spring from hence?    Love of money was the same in the apostle’s days a...

"And they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, LORD GOD Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." -Revelation 4:8 [KJV]   Make a solemn pause, my soul, over these words; and when thou hast found a fixedness of thought, that every faculty may be engaged in the contemplation, ponder well this divine perfection of Jehovah, the holiness of His nature, by which an eternal distinction is drawn between Him and all His creatures. None but Jehovah can be essentially holy. Angels, who have never sinned, have indeed a holiness; but it is derived from Him, it exists not in themselves, and, in point of comparison, is but as the shadow to the substance; moreover, being in their nature mutable creatures, their holiness may be changed also: the fallen angels are proofs in point. But with Jehovah, holiness is in Himself; the peculiar glory of His nature, and inseparable from His very existence.   Pause over this view, for it is scriptural, and truly blessed. Go...

"Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." -I Peter 1:18, 19 [KJV]   O the unspeakable depths of the goodness and mercy of God! O the riches of His super-abounding grace! When there was no other way of redemption, God sent His only-begotten Son, that by His precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, we might be redeemed from all the consequences of our vain conversation received by tradition from our fathers; and not only from all its consequences, but from its power and practice. It is a knowledge, a personal, experimental knowledge of this redemption, which lays us under a spiritual obligation to walk worthy of our high calling.    And it acts in this way. A view by faith of the bleeding, dying Lamb of God, a seeing and feeling what H...