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

  Weekend Gospel message to follow for All Hands (24-26DEC21) 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: "These things spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said ,  Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may also glorify Thee. As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. And THIS IS LIFE ETERNAL, that they might know Thee THE ONLY TRUE GOD, AND JESUS CHRIST, whom Thou hast sent."  -John 17:1-3 [KJV] Let us look upon a crucified Christ, as the remedy of all our miseries. His cross has procured a crown —and His passion has expiated our transgressions. His death has disarmed the law —and His blood has washed a believer's soul. His death is the destruction of o...

"Lo, I come." -Psalm 40:7 [KJV] What a longing had old testament saints for the Lord Jesus's coming! And what an earnest wish and prayer it is among new testament believers, for Jesus's coming by the visits of His grace, and the sweet influences of His Holy Spirit, from day to day! My soul, methinks I would realize by faith this day, even this very day, these words of thy Redeemer, as if He were now standing at the door of thine heart, and asking for admission. And shall I not say, under this sweet impression, "Come in, Thou blessed of the Lord, wherefore standest Thou without?"    Oh blessed Jesus, when I consider the many precious instances of Thy coming, set up from everlasting in Thy goings forth for the salvation of Thy chosen, Thy anticipation, in Thy visits before the season of Thy tabernacling in our flesh; Thy visits to the patriarchs and prophets; Thy manifestation openly to the people; Thy secret, sweet, and inexpressibly gracious visits now, and...

"Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He hath purposed in Himself." -Ephesians 1:9  [KJV] My soul, pause over these volumes of divine truth for they are not as so many simple words, but contain vast volumes indeed, and such as a whole eternity will not afford space to read over and finish. The first is a large one indeed—even the mystery of God's will namely, the mystery of redemption, originating in the divine mind, before all worlds. And this is not the smallest part of it, that it should be made known in any degree or measure to thee, my soul, a poor creature of a day, and that day, a day of nothing but sin.    The second volume in this vast subject is another precious part of the same glorious truth; namely, that this mercy of God in Christ is the sole result of God's good pleasure. No foresight, no merit, no pretensions of thine, my soul; no, nor the merits of archangels, becoming in the least the cause. For th...

"Then I restored that which I took not away." -Psalm 69:4  [KJV] Whose words are these? They can be none but the words of Jesus; for none ever made restoration but He; and none but He could say, I took nothing away. And what was taken away? God's glory was taken away by sin; and consequently, man's happiness also. For when Adam sinned, he robbed God of His glory, and robbed himself and all his posterity of God's image, and with it all happiness. Nay, my soul, thou hast done the same, in every renewed act of disobedience. And in breaking the divine law thou hast justly lost the divine favour. And hath Jesus, all precious Jesus, restored all these? Yes, blessings on His name, He hath! And what renders it ten-fold more gracious, He hath so done it as never to be lost any more.    By His finished work of salvation He hath restored to God His glory. And by His obedience and death, as our Surety, He hath restored to man his happiness. The favour of God we lost by sin; ...

"The blood of Jesus Christ His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." -1 John 1:7  [KJV] My soul, sit down for a while, by this crimson fountain, and duly ponder over this glorious property of thy Redeemer's blood. Oh the sovereign efficacy of it! For it not only cleanseth sin, but all sin: not only other's sins, but our sins : not only the present evil of sin, but the everlasting evil of it: not only now, but for ever . It cleanseth from all sin. Pause, my soul. Is there any other laver to wash away sin; can prayers, or tears, or repentance, or ordinances, or communions, or duties, or alms? Oh no. We must say of every thing, and of all things, out of Christ, and void of Christ, as Job did concerning his friends, "Miserable comforters are ye all; physicians of no value." Here then, my soul, seek thy cleansing, and here only.    And while to this Fountain thou art daily brought by the Holy Ghost, look up and behold the whole assembly of the redeemed above, who a...

"God is faithful by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord." -1 Corinthians 1:9  [KJV] Think, my soul, what a dignity believers in Jesus are called unto, when brought into a nearness of communion with their glorious Head, in any exercise of trial or affliction for His sake. God is faithful in the appointment. How? In that it proves God's fulfilment of His covenant promises, when Jesus and His members are considered by Him as one. God is faithful in manifesting this oneness and fellowship, in making the members conformable to their glorious Head, by trials or sufferings. God is faithful in sending the affliction. And God manifests His faithfulness in guiding through it, and supporting under it. The trial itself, be it what it may, is a discovery of the covenant love and faithfulness of Jehovah. Nay, God would not have manifested His faithfulness to a believer without it. What a sweet consoling thought this is to the afflicted exercised fo...

"For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father." -Ephesians 2:18  [KJV] Who would have thought that so short a verse should contain so much sweetness? And who would have conceived that in it the gracious offices of all the Persons of the Godhead, as they are mercifully exercised towards a poor sinner; are described? Is not the access to a throne of grace the work, the leading of God the Holy Ghost? Surely, He is the Spirit here spoken of. And through whom can a poor sinner have access to the mercy-seat but in Him, and by Him, and through Him, whom the Father heareth always?  And of whom should the regenerated, adopted child of God have access, but unto His God and Father in Christ Jesus? Are then all the glorious persons of the Godhead thus revealed, as engaged in every poor sinner's approach to the heavenly throne? Oh for grace to give to each, and to all, the praise, and glory, and love, due to such transcendent mercy; and in a conscious sense of be...