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

From whence this fear and unbelief? Hath not the Father put to grief His spotless Son for me? And will the righteous Judge of men Condemn me for that debt of sin Which, Lord, was charged on Thee? Complete atonement Thou hast made, And to the utmost farthing paid Whate’er Thy people owed; How then can wrath on me take place If sheltered in Thy righteousness, And sprinkled with Thy blood? If Thou hast my discharge procured, And freely in my room endured The whole of wrath divine, Payment God cannot twice demand First at my bleeding Surety’s hand, And then again at mine. Turn then, my soul, unto thy rest! The merits of thy great High Priest Have bought thy liberty; Trust in His efficacious blood, Nor fear thy banishment from God, Since Jesus died for thee! -preacher Augustus Toplady (1740-1778 A.D.)

     "For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on H im, but also to suffer for H is sake." -Philippians 1:29 [KJV] After the Lord, by His special work on the conscience, has called us to repentance and confession of sin, as well as to faith in Jesus; after He has called us to godly sorrow; to live according to the precepts of the gospel; and to walk in the ordinances of His Church; He then calls us to suffer for and with Christ. But we cannot "suffer according to the will of God," that is, in a gospel sense and from gospel motives, till the Lord enables us in some measure to look to Him. The same Spirit, who calls the believer to walk in a path of suffering, strengthens and enables him to do so.   To suffer aright, we must walk in the steps of the great Captain of our salvation, who "though a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which H e suffered." The Father in this sense spared not His only-begotten Son, but led Hi...

  "For we walk by faith, not by sight."   - II Corinthians 5:7  [KJV] The nature of faith is to trust in the dark, when all appearances are against it; to trust that a calm will come, though the storm be overhead; to trust that God will appear, though nothing but evil be felt. It is tender, child-like, and therefore is an implicit confidence, a yielding submission, a looking unto the Lord. There is something filial in this; something heavenly and spiritual; not the bold presumption of the daring, nor the despairing fears of the desponding; but something beyond both the one and the other—equally remote from the rashness of presumption, and from the horror of despair. There is a mingling of holy affection connected with this trust, springing out of a reception of past favours, insuring favours to come; and all linked with a simple hanging and depending of the soul upon the Lord, because He is what He is. There is a looking to, and relying upon the Lord, because we have ...

   "The Christian knows no change with regard to God. He may be rich today and poor tomorrow; he may be sickly today and well tomorrow; he may be in happiness today and tomorrow be in distress; but THERE IS NO CHANGE WITH REGARD TO HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD.  If He loved me yesterday, He loves me today. I am neither better nor worse in God than I ever was. Let prospects be blighted, let hopes be blasted, let joy be withered, let mildews destroy everything; I HAVE LOST NOTHING OF WHAT I HAVE IN GOD!" -copied

"The L ORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty." -Zephaniah 3:17 [KJV] What a mighty God we have to deal with! And what would suit our case but a mighty God? Have we not mighty sins? Have we not mighty trials? Have we not mighty temptations? Have we not mighty foes and mighty fears? And who is to deliver us from all this mighty host except the mighty God? It is not a little God (if I may use the expression) that will do for God's people. They need a mighty God because they are in circumstances where none but a mighty God can interfere in their behalf.   Why, if you did not know feelingly and experimentally your mighty sins, your mighty trials, your mighty temptations, and your mighty fears, you would not want a mighty God. This sense of our weakness and His power, of our misery and His mercy, of our ruin and His recovery, of the aboundings of our sin and the superaboundings of His grace—a feeling sense, I say, of these opposite yet harmonious things brings us to ...

  Weekend Gospel message to follow for All Hands( 25-27 DEC20) 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: GRACE AND MERCY! It is by the grace of God that any sinner has been everlastingly loved in Christ, chosen in Christ, redeemed by Christ, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. It is by the mercy of God, for Christ’s sake, that we are forgiven for the sins that we daily commit while struggling in this present evil world -copied

"Great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh." - I Timothy 3:16 [KJV] A mystery indeed it is, a great, a deep, an unfathomable mystery; for who can rightly understand how the divine Word, the eternal Son of God, was made flesh, and dwelt among us? "Who shall declare H is generation?" (Isa iah 53:8;) either that eternal generation whereby He is the only-begotten Son of God, or the generation of His sacred humanity in the womb of the Virgin, when the Holy Ghost came upon her, and the power of the Highest overshadowed her? These are the things "which the angels desire to look into;" which they cannot understand, but reverently adore. And well may we imitate their adoring admiration, not attempting to understand, but believe, love, and revere; for well has it been said, "Where reason fails, with all her powers, There faith believes, and love adores."  Nor, if rightly taught and spiritually led, shall we find this a barr...