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

Before the throne of God above, I have a strong, a perfect plea; The Great High Priest, whose name is love, Will ever live and plead for me. My name is graven on His hands; My name is written on His heart; I know that while in heaven He reigns, No tongue can bid me to depart. Because the sinless Saviour died, My sinful soul is counted Free; For God, the Just, is satisfied To look on Him and pardon me. Behold Him there, the worthy Lamb! My perfect, spotless righteousness, The great unchangeable "I AM," The KING of glory and of grace. Tune: “Doxology”

"For it became H im, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." -Hebrews 2:10 [KJV] When, with believing eyes, we can view God the Son as the eternal salvation of all whom the Father gave unto Him; when we can see Him, by the eye of faith, coming down into this lower world, taking our nature into union with His own Divine Person; when, by faith, we can accompany the Man of Sorrows into the gloomy garden of Gethsemane, or behold Him groaning, bleeding, and dying on the cross, an object of ignominy and shame, and believe that in this way, and this alone, salvation could be wrought out, O, what a view it gives us of the demerit and awful nature of sin, that nothing short of the incarnation of God's only begotten Son, nothing short of such a tremendous sacrifice could put away sin, and bring the elect back unto God!   On the one hand, as we take a glance at the...

Men speak of what they are worth, and they immediately think of their earthly pedigree or possessions of money, land, stocks, bonds, gold, silver, etc. This is such a low estimate of life and reflects only the depravity of our hearts. The worth and value of your life cannot be measured by what you possess but only by what possesses you. If you own yourself, your life measures up to selfishness. If the world owns you, your life measures up to worldliness. If other people own you, your life measures up to slavery. However, if Christ owns you - your life, your heart, your mind, soul, and body, your possessions which are really not your own - then your life measures up to a life lived for the glory of God in Christ. Those who belong to Christ were BOUGHT WITH A PRICE. Christ has redeemed His people and bought them with His own precious blood. He has justified them by His blood and brought them into His family forever and ever. Those who belong to Christ are to spend their lives glorify...

"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit." -Philemon vs. 25 [KJV] It is the regenerating breath of the Lord Jesus Christ which makes the soul alive unto Himself. This is manifest from His own language: "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life" (John 6:63) . Then for the first time "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is with our spirit." For you will observe that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is not with our carnal mind: that ever remains the same, a body of sin and death, flesh, corrupt flesh, "in which dwelleth no good thing," and therefore not the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.   His grace is with our spirit, that "new man" of which we read that "it is after God, [that is, after the image of God] created in righteousness and true holiness." This is called our "spirit," because it is born of the ...

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." -Matthew 5:3 [KJV] Only those who are poor in spirit, are capable of receiving grace. He who is swollen with self-excellency and self-sufficiency is not fit for Christ. He is full already. If the hand is full of pebbles it cannot receive gold. The glass is first emptied, before you pour in wine. God first empties a man of himself, before He pours in the precious wine of His grace. He who is poor in spirit is a Christ-admirer. He has high thoughts of Christ. He sees himself naked and flies to Christ, to be clothed in the garments of His righteousness. He sees himself wounded and as the wounded deer runs to the water so he thirsts for Christ's blood, the water of life. "Lord!" says he, "give me Christ or I die!" His conscience has turned into a fiery serpent and has stung him; now he will give all the world for a brazen serpent! He sees himself in a state of death; and how prec...

  "I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight." -Isaiah 42:16 [KJV] What is the mind of man—of any man—of your mind, my mind, under affliction? Let him be tried with pain of body, poverty of circumstances, sickness in his family, guilt of conscience, hard bondage in his own soul, without any beam of divine light upon his path, and what is he? A murmuring, rebellious wretch, without a grain of resignation, without a particle of contentment or submission to the will of God.   But let the glory of the Lord be revealed; let him have a view by faith of a suffering Jesus; let some ray of light shine upon his path; let there be some breaking in of the exceeding weight of glory that is to be manifested at Christ's appearing; where are all his crooked things now? All made straight. But how? By his crooked will—crooked because it did not lie level with the Lord's—being made to harmonise with the promise and precept, the footsteps and example of the...

  Weekend Gospel message to follow for All Hands ( 04-06SEP 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 their sins and from Hell: A PERFECT SACRIFICE God cannot have a blemished priest at His altar or a blemished sacrifice thereon. Both the priest and the sacrifice must be perfect (Leviticus ch. 21-22). Now we have both the perfect Priest and the perfect sacrifice in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, He having offered Himself without spot to God. In Him we have all that God requires, whether as the victim or the Priest. We have all that God could require, and all that a man could need. - preacher Scott Richardson