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

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth: if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy" -Psalm 137:5-6  [KJV] My soul! Sit down this evening, and contemplate the languishing state of Zion. Did ever the church of Christ lie in more desolate circumstances than now? Amidst a great profession of zeal for religion, how little possession of the divine life is to be met with among men! And who is there that seriously lays it to heart? For whom doth a throne of grace witness, that they are holy mourners for Zion, and are earnestly wrestling, night and day, with the Lord, that He would visit Zion, and make His glory to appear? Where is the priest, the minister of the Lord, that is weeping between the porch and the altar, and saying,  "Spare Thy people, O LORD! and give not Thine heritage to reproach?" (Joel 21:17) And where are the people that seriously lay it to heart?    ...

"O send out Thy light and Thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles." - Psalm 43:3 [KJV] A living man cannot, in his right mind, bear the idea of standing still, that is to say, standing still so as to have no spiritual work going on within; and still less can he bear the idea of going backward. He wants to go forward. He is often dissatisfied with his state; he feels how little he knows; he is well certified of the shallowness of his attainments in the divine life, as well as of the ignorance and the blindness that are in him; and therefore, laboring under the feeling of his own shortcomings for the past, his helplessness for the present, and his ignorance for the future, he wants to go forward wholly and solely in the strength of the Lord , to be led, guided, directed, kept, not by the wisdom and power of the creature, but by the supernatural entrance of light and truth into his soul.   The mercy-seat is continually covered w...

"And he was sore athirst, and called on the LORD, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of Thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? " -Judges 15:18  [KJV] Here is a sweet thought, my soul, suggested in these words of Samson, and wilt thou not hope that the Holy Ghost may make it blessed to thy evening: meditation? The Lord had wrought a great deliverance for Samson, in the discomfiture of his enemies: and now on a renewed pressing occasion, he makes this the plea of looking up for being again delivered. "Thou hast given," saith he, "this great deliverance into the hand of Thy servant, and shall I now die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?" As if he had said, "Shall my God cease to be God; or shall I now want His help, who hath always helped me in what has passed? Hath He begun to deliver; and will He now cease to do so?" Pause, my soul! And when th...

"In Whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins." - Colossians 1:14 [KJV] Of all spiritual blessings made known to the soul by the power of God "a knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins" is the hardest to be obtained, and most prized when got. How many poor tried, exercised, distressed souls are at this very moment sighing and crying for the manifestation of this one blessing. These well know, and some of them by the painful experience of many years' hard bondage and travail, how hard it is to get forgiveness sealed on their heart.  Not that it is really hard on the part of God now to forgive, that is, in experimental manifestation; for it is already done to and for all the elect of God: "And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him,  having forgiven  you all trespasses" (Colossians 2:13) ; and again, "In Whom we  have"   (not "shall hav...

Weekend Gospel message to follow for All Hands (11-13FEB22) 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: “ THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jeremiah 23:6, KJV).  While believers always trust Christ and submit to His righteousness as the sole basis for our acceptance before God, there are four times when we must be especially certain that we are looking only to Him Who is “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.”   1. When we have sinned and have feelings of shame, conviction, remorse and despair we must look to Christ and His righteousness. The life of a child of God is lived with two constants: the realization of personal guilt, and the remembrance that “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Our record before God is perfect for, He sees us in “T...

"And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day." -Jude vs. 6  [KJV] This scripture, concerning the rebellion, and consequent punishment of apostate spirits, will form a solemn meditation, my soul, for thy evening thoughts to be exercised upon. And perhaps, under grace, it may lead thee to some sweet improvements in the contemplation of the distinguishing grace manifested to our rebellious nature; while judgment the most awful, and everlasting, overtook the higher nature of angels. If we humbly inquire what was the nature of their sin, all we can gather of information concerning it, was, that it was rebellion against God.     One part of scripture indeed tells us, that "there was war in heaven: Michael (by which we understand, Michael our Prince, the Lord Jesus Christ, Daniel 10:2l) and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought ...

"My doctrine shall drop as the rain, My speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass."    - Deuteronomy 32:2 [KJV] In the falling of the natural dew there is something soft, still, and gentle. We therefore read, "We will light upon him as the dew falleth on the ground" (2 Samuel 17:12), that is, stealthily and unseen. It does not rush down like the pelting hail, but falls stilly and often imperceptibly; so that we scarcely know it has fallen, till we go out in the morning and see every blade of grass tipped with the sparkling dew-drops; by these bright gems we know that dew has fallen during the still hours of the night.  So spiritually, the kingdom of God is not in noise, rant, or wild excitement. The Lord was not in the strong wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still small voice (1 Kings 19:11, 12). And thus there may be a great deal of religious fire, but no presence of God felt; ...