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

It is hard for us who have been shown mercy to believe there are people who show no mercy. I don’t mean to say that they never show any mercy, but they pick and choose when and to whom they will show mercy. When someone is offended by someone, becomes angry with someone for whatever reason, instead of “remembering mercy,” they often get vindictive, hard, malicious. This is in their reasoning how they show their disapproval, when they have been offended, or someone has done something they don’t agree with. For reasons only known to them, they feel like they are wise and this is the way to “get even” with the soul who was unfortunate enough to have crossed them, or did something that didn’t meet their approval. What if our God treated us this way when we acted contrary to His word and will? What if our Lord Jesus Christ “showed no mercy”, and manifested an angry, vindictive, hard, and cold attitude toward us when we displeased Him? What if He had the attitude “I w...

"But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead ." - II CORINTHIANS 1:9 [KJV] What is life naturally and what is death naturally? Is not that life in which there is breath, energy, movement, activity? And what is death but the utter cessation of all this moving activity and vital energy? To die is to lose life, and by losing life to lose all the movements of life. Thus, when the Lord takes, as it were, out of our heart and hands everything in which we once had life, in which we lived and moved and seemed to have our earthly, natural, and enjoyed being, and condemns it by His holy word, so as to record therein, and in our conscience as an echo to His voice, a continual sentence of death against it, He delivers us over unto death. And you will observe that none but the living family of God are so delivered: "For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake" ...

“ … Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.” -M ATTHEW 6:32 [KJV] What a rest is this for weary, burdened wayfarers! It is the assurance not only of a 'needs be' in whatever befalls them; but that all are the appointments of their heavenly Father. “Your heavenly Father!” With tender care for the minute and lowly, He makes grass to grow for the cattle, pencils the flower, sculptures the snow wreath, watches the sparrows fall, and feeds the young ravens. The unslumbering Shepherd keeps watch and ward continually, whether under the infinite blue of day, or under night with its starry galaxies. Though mysteries and perplexities are on every side, yet we can rely on the assurance that His are no arbitrary dealings, swayed by caprice, marked and misdirected by human blindness and ignorance; but the dictates of unerring wisdom and of unchanging everlasting love. Mark the Savior’s words. They are not “My heavenly Father;” but “your heave...

"After the similitude of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest, W ho is made , not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life ." - HEBREWS 7:15, 16 [KJV] We may say of the life which the Lord Jesus lives in the courts of heavenly bliss that it is a threefold life. There is, first, his eternal life, by which I mean the eternal life of God in His divine nature. This He lives in Himself; for "as the Father hath life in H imself; so hath H e given to the Son to have life in H imself" [JOHN 5:26 ] . He is hereby "Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." And this life is the foundation of all His acts of mediation, as being God over all, blessed for ever. But there is a life which He lives for Himself, viz. a life of inconceivable glory in His human nature. This is the life which He laid down that He might take it again. This life is the cause of, and is attended with all that inef...

      There is a good picture of the servants of God who labor in the gospel ministry in Genesis 24. There, Eliezar, Abraham’s servant, is sent to find the bride for Isaac. This is exactly what those who are called of God are to do, seek the bride of the Son of God! He was sent by Abraham to a particular place and was to seek “the woman” among a particular people. The servant of God does not choose his place of service but God appoints it. As the servant began his journey to find the bride, he sought the Lord and asked His help: “ And he said, O L ORD God of my master Abraham, I pray T hee, send me good speed this day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham.” Knowing our inability to accomplish the task, God’s servants seek His strength, guidance and help. “ Who is sufficient for these things?” Paul said. And as he went, he was instructed by Abraham to be faithful in what he was to say. Nothing was to be said or done that would in any way diminis...

"Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us." - II PETER 1:1 [KJV] What a thought it is, that if you and I possess one grain of living faith, the same precious grace is in our hearts that was in the hearts of all the saints of God, from Abel the proto-martyr, in all the saints of the Old Testament, in all the prophets, and martyrs, and servants and apostles of God; and will subsist in the bosom of every saint down to the remotest period of time. There is but "one faith," as there is "one God, one Lord, and one baptism;" and it is by the possession of this "like precious faith" that all the family of God are knit together into one glorious body, of which the Lord Jesus Christ is the risen Head. You, in yourself, may be very poor and needy, for faith gives us to feel our poverty and need; you may think and feel yourself unworthy of the least notice of God's...

The last book in the Holy Scriptures, The Revelation of Jesus Christ, identifies three agents employed by Satan in his warfare against the church of Jesus Christ.      First is The Beast Out of the Sea [REVELATION 13:1-10 ] . It represents anti-Christian government . This beast is active wherever governments are trying to eradicate churches of Christ.      Second is The Beast Out of the Earth [REVELATION 13:11-18 ] . It represents anti-Christian persecution . This second beast is active not only where first beast is active but also in other parts of the world.      Third is Babylon The Great, The Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth [REVELATION chs.17f ] . She represents anti-Christian seduction . This Babylon is active wherever you see false religion seducing people away from God and His Christ. She seduces people with a counterfeit Christianity, one that is contrary to Christ but attractive to...