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

"Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good." -Jeremiah 32:41 [KJV] God rejoices as much in saving your soul as you can rejoice in your soul being saved. Say I "as much?" His joy is infinite, and yours is finite; His the joy of God, and yours but the joy of man. Do you believe that God rejoices to save, delights in saving? Why else should He have given His dear Son? Do the angels rejoice over repenting sinners? Is there no joy then in the bosom of God to save a sinner too? How this takes us up, as it were, into the very realms of bliss, and reveals to us the wondrous character of God in His Trinity of persons and Unity of essence, that there is a rejoicing in the salvation of the Church, so that God Himself, so to speak, is filled with eternal joy in the salvation of His people.   When His dear Son offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin, and thus put away the transgressions and iniquities of the Church by His own blood-shedding and death, overcame death an...

Weekend Gospel message to follow for All Hands ( 03-05JUL 20) 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: “ There is but one thing with which Almighty God is satisfied - entirely satisfied - and that is THE PERSON AND WORK OF HIS SON! It is with Christ that we must be satisfied, not with ourselves, nor anything about us! When we cease from ALL our labors, and ALL our righteousness, and ENTER INTO HIS REST, pardon and peace will come without delay.” -Horatius Bonar (1808-1889 A.D.)

"Which holdeth our soul in life." -P SALM 66:9 [KJV] It is indeed an unspeakable mercy for the heirs of promise that the life given them in Christ and communicated by the Holy Spirit to their souls cannot be extinguished. It may sink very low—one can hardly say how low, but so low as to sink out of sight and almost out of feeling; and yet if it has once been breathed into the soul from the mouth of God, it can never die. Still it is most desirable that this divine life should be maintained in strength and vigour, and not sink so low as to be scarcely perceptible either to ourselves or others, for if so, we have little comfort of it in our own breast, and are of little use or service to the people of God. It is a sad thing to be satisfied with a low, lean, and lifeless state of soul, or be placing our religion in external activity and zealous attention to forms and mere externals, just to preserve a clean outside, when within there is little else but darkness, bondag...

None can ever be accepted by God who are not perfect. "It shall be perfect" - without blemish, without spot, complete, innocent - "to be accepted" - delighted in, approved of - (Leviticus 22:21) . Since God's people are accepted in Christ (Ephesians 1:6) , then it stands to reason that we are perfect in Christ. Our sins were really and truly imputed to Him and His righteousness has really and truly been imputed to us. Through the substitutionary, justice-satisfying death of our Lord Jesus Christ, His people are "made the righteousness of God in Him (II Corinthians 5:21) . That which was said of Job is true of all God's people in Christ: "that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil" (Job 1:1) . -preacher Jim Byrd, Thirteenth Street Baptist church of Ashland, Kentucky USA https://www.sermonaudio.com/source_detail.asp?sourceid=13thstbaptist

"Draw me; we will run after T hee." -Song of Solomon 1:4 [KJV] How many of us can take the words of the bride into our lips, or have ever been able at any one time of our life to use such an expression? We must have had some sight and sense of the preciousness and loveliness of Jesus before ever we can cry, "Draw me," from the depth of a sincere heart. For the sincere soul is afraid to approach the holy Jehovah, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and insult Him with mock petitions and words that it does not feel. But if ever that desire has been kindled, and that prayer raised up in your soul, "Draw me, we will run after T hee," it must have been the work of the Holy Ghost in your hearts, to raise up those feelings and to give you a living faith in the Son of God. And "he that believeth shall be saved." Whatever doubts, whatever fears, whatever temptations, whatever exercises beset the path, "he that believeth shall be saved....

"For whom the L ord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." -Heb rews 12:6 There cannot be a greater evidence of God's hatred and wrath--than His refusing to correct men for their sinful courses and vanities! Where God refuses to correct--there God resolves to destroy! There is no man so near God's axe--so near the flames--so near Hell--as he whom God will not so much as spend a rod upon! "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore and repent." -Revelation 3:19 God is most angry--when He shows no anger! Who can seriously meditate upon this, and not be silent under God's most smarting rod? -preacher Thomas Brooks (1608 – 1680 A.D.)

"My grace is sufficient for thee: for M y strength is made perfect in weakness." - II CORINTHIANS 12:9 [KJV]   How mysterious are God's dealings! That such a highly- favoured man as Paul should come down from the "third heaven" to the very gates of hell (that is not too strong an expression, for "the messenger of Satan" came from hell), that he should sink in soul-feeling to the very gates of hell, there to be buffeted by "the messenger of Satan;" and all to teach him a lesson that heaven did not teach him, the strength of God made perfect in weakness! Do you not think, that if we are to learn our weakness, we must learn it in the same way? How did Paul get his religion? And must we not get ours, in our feebler measure, through the same channels, by the same means, and by the same inward teachings?   If we are to learn the secret of Christ's strength, it is not by making daily advances in fleshly holiness, and getting stronger in s...