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

"That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." - Hebrews 6:12 [KJV] Patience is necessary in order to prove the genuineness and reality of faith. The Lord generally—I may say invariably—does not accomplish His purposes at once. He usually—I might say almost invariably—works by gradations. Is not this the case in creation? Do we see the oak starting up in all its gigantic proportions in one day? Is not a tiny acorn committed to the ground; and is not the giant oak, whose huge limbs we admire, the growth of a century? Men and women are years growing up to their full stature. So spiritually. "He that believeth shall not make haste." Faith in the soul is of slow growth for the most part; for the Lord takes care that every step in the path shall be tried by the perplexities and difficulties that surround it.     And He has appointed this that it may be a means of distinguishing the faith of God's elect from the...

"Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts." - Proverbs 31:6 [KJV] The wise mother of king Lemuel gave her son gracious directions when she spake these words. It is when we begin to feel the misery into which we have been cast by sin, and thus become ready to perish, and of heavy hearts, that the pure wine of gospel grace is suitable to our lost condition. As the holiness  and justice of God are discovered to the conscience, and we are made to see and feel the depths of the Adam fall, we look out of ourselves for a salvation which we could not find in our fallen nature or in our deeply corrupt and unbelieving heart.     When, then, we obtain by living faith a view of the Son of God as a Mediator between God and men , when we see by the eye of faith the blood of the cross, and the full and complete atonement which He, as the Lamb of God, made for sin, then we heartily embrace Him as "of God made unto us wisdom, and r...

  Are you a Grace Believer? Part 1   by D.G. Miles McKee   Not everyone who claims to be a believer is a Grace Believer.  What about you?  Are you a Grace Believer?  It took me a long time to become a Grace Believer. Although I thought I was a Grace Believer I was more of a legalist than a grace man.   Maybe you are struggling to know the difference between living in grace and living under law. If you are, I hope the following is helpful.    1. Grace Believers trust that they are saved entirely and utterly by someone else … the Lord Jesus Christ. They believe that their sole qualification for salvation is found, not in their worthiness, but in their unworthiness.  You say... well OK I can agree with that. But hold on, we are not finished yet. The Grace Believer sees Christ as his complete and continual acceptance with the Father (Philippians 3:4-9). We are saved entirely by grace .   2) Grace Believers understand that to know C...

"Wilt Thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise Thee? Shall Thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave, or Thy faith-fulness in destruction?"   -Psalm 88:10, 11 [KJV] This is not the language of a soul dead in trespasses and sins, but it is the breathing of a living soul struggling and grappling with death. What a difference there is, where there is life working in and under death, and where death reigns absolutely! between the quickened soul and that in which there  is nothing but death, death without one spark of spiritual life, death without one ray of heavenly teaching. There is no groan, no sigh, no lamentation, no piteous inquiry, no pouring out of the heart before God, where the soul is utterly dead, any more than there is life and breath in a corpse in the tomb. But wherever life is implanted in the soul from the Fountain of life, that life groans under death. It sighs from out of the grave; it gasps for breath, under the corpse which overlies i...

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me."  -John 12:32 [KJV] Wherever Jesus is graciously and experimentally manifested to the soul, and made known by any sweet revelation of His glorious Person, atoning blood, and finished work, a secret yet sacred power is put forth, whereby we are drawn unto Him, and every grace of the Spirit flows toward Him as towards its attractive centre. Thus Jeremiah speaks of the saints of God as coming and singing in the height of Zion, and   flowing  together to the goodness of the Lord (Jeremiah 31:12). And thus Isaiah speaks to the church of God, "Then thou shalt see, and  flow  together, and thine heart shall fear [or as the word rather means, shall 'palpitate' with love and joy] , and be enlarged" (Isaiah 60:5).    This view of Christ by faith is what the apostle speaks of to the Galatians, as Jesus evidently set forth before their eyes (Gal. 3:1). As thus set before our eyes, He becomes the...

"Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps; set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest." -Jeremiah 31:21 [KJV] To look at the past is often a blessed encouragement for the future. If we are travellers in the way Zionward, we shall have our various waymarks. A conspicuous call, or a signal deliverance, or a gracious manifestation of Christ; a promise applied here, or a marked answer to prayer there; a special blessing under the preached word; a soft and unexpected assurance of an interest in the blood of the Lamb; a breaking in of divine light when walking in great darkness; a sweet sip of consolation in a season of sorrow and trouble; a calming down of the winds and waves without and within by, "It is I, be not afraid" —such and similar waymarks it is most blessed to be able to set up as evidences that we are in the road. And if many who really fear God cannot set up these conspicuous waymarks, yet they are not without their testimonies eq...

"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."   - Psalm 90:12 [KJV]  Casting our eyes back upon the year now past and gone, are there no mercies which claim a note of thankful praise? It is sweet to see the Lord's kind hand in providence, but sweeter far to view His outstretched hand in grace . Are we then so unwatchful or so unmindful of the Lord's gracious hand in His  various dealings with our soul as to view the whole past twelve months as a dead blank in which we have never seen His face, nor heard His voice, nor felt His power? "Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness?" (Jeremiah 2:31,) the Lord tenderly asks. Has He been such to us also for twelve long and weary months? What! No help by the way, no tokens for good, no liftings-up of the light of His countenance, no visitations of His presence and power, no breakings-in of His goodness for all that long and dreary time—for dreary it must indeed have been ...