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

  1. Ah! But for free and sovereign grace,   I still had lived estranged from God,   Till hell had proved the destined place   Of my deserved but dread abode.   2. But O! Amazed, I see the hand   That stopped me in my wild career;   A miracle of grace I stand;   The Lord has taught my heart to hear.   3. To fear His name, to trust His grace,   To learn His will be my employ,   Till I shall see Him face to face,   Himself my heav’n, Himself my joy. –Paige (1798 A.D.); L.M.; to “Hamburg” / When I Survey The Wondrous Cross    -------0------- Out of Christ's condemnation , flows our justification. Out of His agony , comes our victory. Out of His pain , comes our ease. Out of His stripes , comes our healing. Out of His gall and vinegar , comes our honey. Out of His curse , comes our blessing. Out of His crown of thorns , comes our crown of glory. Out of His death , comes our life. O what a melting consideration is this! – ...

Guilty as Charged , Part I by D G Miles McKee Many believers are suffering needlessly from guilt. It's true that we all have much to feel guilty about, but the Gospel has radically dealt with this problem. Hear the word of the Lord. It says, " Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water."  -Hebrews 10:22. The Lord Jesus is our ever-living, ever-glorious High Priest and, as His followers, we have the privilege, through Him, of enjoying full guilt free access to heaven. This access to heaven, however, has been given, not because of anything we have done or are doing, but rather because Jesus Himself is the living way. Our works as His followers cannot improve upon His finished and completed work nor can they add to His perfection. Christ is 'All in All' ; He is the way to heaven and the destination. He is the door to Heaven and all that is insi...

"The answer of a good conscience towards God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."   -I Peter 3:21 [KJV]   The grand business of faith is, to give being and subsistence to divine truths in the mind, (Hebrews 11:1.) Hence conscience obtains relief and peace, and the soul is made happy.    Consider, (1st.) What is conscience? Science is knowledge. Pre-science is foreknowledge. Conscience is something joined with knowledge. “Some have their conscience defiled,” (Titus 1:15.) With what? The guilt of their sins. Some are said to be sprinkled from an evil, or guilty conscience   (Hebrews 10:22.) With what? The blood of Christ. Therefore, in respect to a good, or bad conscience, something must be joined with the science or knowledge of the mind to determine it by. In this sense, the word conscience is used in scripture.    Hence, (2d.) We may easily see, what is the answer of a good conscience before God. Join the law of God with your science...

The Evidence of True Salvation | The Marks of Genuine Faith Message preached by Henry Mahan (26 minutes). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pWMipCwnFY   In this expository sermon from Matthew 5, we study the opening portion of the Sermon on the Mount, where our Lord Jesus Christ reveals the Beatitudes—the marks of saving grace in the lives of those who belong to His Kingdom. Jesus is not teaching how to be saved. Salvation comes by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ, not by human works, religious effort, or moral improvement. Instead, the Beatitudes describe the spiritual character produced by God’s grace in the hearts of true believers. This sermon explores each Beatitude and explains how genuine faith produces humility, repentance, holiness, mercy, purity, and peace. In this message you’ll learn: Why the Beatitudes describe believers—not the way to become one What it means to be poor in spirit Why true believers mourn over sin The biblical meaning of meekness Hun...

"But I am like a green olive-tree in the house of God." -Psalm 52:8 [KJV]   My soul! canst thou humbly take up this language? See, and mark the particulars, one by one. and then determine the important point. Here the church at large is represented as a green olive-tree: and, by a just conclusion, every member is a part; for, "we, being many, are one body in Christ." Now the apostle saith, that by nature this was not the case, for we were of the wild olive-tree, and were grafted, contrary to nature, into the good olive-tree; Romans 11:24 . Hence, if thou art taken from nature to grace, it must have been by conversion. The work is not of man, but of God. And, so far is any man from contributing to it, that it is altogether contrary to nature.    Hast thou felt the cutting work of conviction, when taken from the old stock of nature; and the healing work of conversion, when brought into the new stock of grace, by an union with Christ? And, when there is ...

" And Gideon said unto God, Let not Thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray Thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew. And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground." -Judges 6:39, 40 [KJV]   Many of the Lord's people labour under doubts and fears, questionings and suspicions as to the reality of the work of grace upon their hearts; whether their convictions were not merely convictions of natural conscience, and whether their joys have been anything else but the joys of the hypocrite. "O," they say, "what would I not give to have a divine testimony that the blessed Spirit was leading me in the right path!" It is through these very doubts that the evidence is obtained. Doubts lead to cries and groans after a divine testimony; and in answer to these cries the heave...