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

"Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost."   -Acts 11:16  [KJV] Blessed promise! realize it, Oh Thou Holy Spirit, day by day, in and upon my soul. Bring me under the continued baptisms of Thy sovereign influence, and cause me to feel all the sweet anointings of the Spirit sent down upon the hearts and minds of Thy redeemed, as the fruits and effects of Jesus's exaltation, and the promise of God the Father.   Y es, blessed Spirit, cause me to know Thee in Thy person, work, and power; in all Thy offices, characters, and relations. I need Thee day by day, as my Comforter. I need Thee, as the Spirit of truth, to guide me into all truth. I need Thee, as the Remembrancer of the Lord Jesus, to bring to my forgetful heart all the blessed things He hath revealed to me. I need Thee, as the witness of my Jesus, to testify of my wants, and His fulness to supply. I need Thee, as my advocate and helper, in all my infirmities in prayer. I need thee, as the earnest of the promised inher...

"Behold the man whose name is the Branch."  -Zechariah 6:12  [KJV] My soul, listen to the call, and behold this wonderful Man, whose name is the Branch. Mark the wonderful features of His person. This is one of the prophetical names of Him, in the faith of whom, as the Redeemer of Israel, all the old testament saints died. The branch of the Lord—the branch of righteousness; or, as He is elsewhere called, the Nazarene. But observe how very descriptive of His nature is this title. He grows up out of His place. And where is that? rain the eternal counsel of Jehovah.     Who shall declare His generation? He is indeed a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch out of His roots. But all this as the root Himself of David; planted in the eternal purpose of God's own sovereign decree, and budding forth as a branch in all the periods of His incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, glory. And what a branch of never-failing loveliness, and everlasting verdure and fruitfuln...

  Weekend Gospel message to follow for All Hands   (17-19SEP21) 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 to save us  from our sins and from Hell: HOW GOD SAVES SINNERS In Genesis chapter six and seven we have the story of the flood and how God  saved Noah and his family from the horrendous destruction by putting them  into an Ark. We see the righteous judgment of God against sin and the mercy  of God revealed through Christ. The Ark of God is a worthy picture and  pattern of how the Lord is pleased to save sinners and justify them in Jesus  Christ. Here are five things to remember about how God saves sinners. 1). The grace of God , "Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD" (Genesis 6:8) .  Noah did not earn, merit or deserve gra...

"I will strengthen them in the L ORD , and they shall walk up and down in His name, saith the L ORD ." -Zechariah 10:12 [KJV]   My soul, mark these words, how precious they are; and mark the Speaker and Promiser, and consider how sure They are. Is not this God the Father speaking of the church, and most graciously assuring the church that He will strengthen the church in Jesus, the church's glorious Head? Is not this said with an eye to Christ, who is represented in another part of this blessed prophecy as calling upon the church to attend to Him, who is come to build the temple of the Lord, and to bear all the glory, and who expressly saith that the church shall know that He, the LORD of Hosts, is sent by the LORD of Hosts unto His people?     Who but the LORD of Hosts could build the temple of the LORD of Hosts; or who but Him bear all the glory? see Zechariah 10:12 . So then, my soul, observe that Christ is the strength, as well as the righteousness of His redeemed. A...

"As for me I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me." -Psalm 40:17  [KJV] My soul, sit down, and reckon up thy true riches. See what are thine outward circumstances, and take an inventory of all thine inward wealth. Thou art, by nature and by practice, one of the children of a bankrupt father, even Adam, who lived insolvent, and died wretchedly poor in himself, having entailed only an inheritance of sin, misery, and death, with the loss of divine favour, upon the whole race of his children.     By nature and by practice thou art poor in the sight of God, despised by angels on account of thy loathsome disease of sin; thine understanding darkened; thy will corrupt; passions impetuous, proud, selfwilled; all in opposition to the law of God; exposed to all present evil, everlasting evil; a slave to Satan, a willing captive in his drudgery; hastening daily to death, to the second death, and with an insensibility which is enough to make every heart mourn that beholds...

                                                          Cities of Refuge , Part VI Golan. by D.G. Miles McKee   As you remember, in previous weeks we’ve seen that six places were appointed as cities of refuge in Israel ... Kedesh, Shechem, Hebron, Bezer, Ramoth and Golan (Numbers 35:11; Joshua 20:7-8).  The reason for there being six cities and not merely one was that anyone who had unintentionally committed manslaughter would have no more than a day's journey to reach the nearest sanctuary. The names of these cities tell us a great deal about the Saviour.   Our final city in this mini-series then is that of Golan. So, what does the name ‘Golan’ tell us about Jesus? Golan  literally means  Joy .  This name once more points us to the Saviou...

"And He must needs go through Samaria." -John 4:4  [KJV] And what was there, blessed Jesus, that constrained Thee to this necessity? Was it because there was a poor adulterous woman there, that needed Thy grace, and the hour was come for her conversion? Sweet thought! let me cherish it this morning. Was there not the same needs be for the Father setting Thee up, from everlasting, for the Head of Thy church and people? Could there have been a church without Thee? And when Thy church had fallen by sin, what archangel could have recovered her but Thee? Why then there was a needs be that Thou shouldest take the nature of Thy people upon Thee, and come to seek and save that which was lost. And as it is said of Thee concerning this poor woman, that "He must needs go through Samaria," so must it be equally said, Jesus must needs go to Jerusalem, to save Jerusalem sinners by His blood. Oh yes, there was a blessed necessity upon Thee, Thou Lamb of God, that Thou shouldest ...