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

"I am the L ORD that healeth thee." - Exodus 15:26 [KJV] How does God heal the diseases of His people? He heals them chiefly by subduing them; for in this life they are never thoroughly healed. The promise runs: "He will subdue our iniquities" (Micah 7:19) . To subdue them is to restrain their power. Thus He sees one suffering under the power of unbelief. He gives him faith: this subdues his unbelief. Here is another poor languid patient, dying of exhaustion: He gives him strength. Here is a third mourning under his corruptions: He gives a drop of His blood to purge his conscience, and a taste of His love to warm his heart. He sees a fourth crying under the strong assaults of Satan: with one look Satan flies and the soul is set free. Thus with infinite wisdom blended with infinite love and power, He passes on from bed to bed of every sick patient, administering health wherever He goes.  This blessed Physician has a remedy for every disease, and the remedy is alwa...

"And they journeyed; and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob." -Genesis 35:5  [KJV] It was the evening before the last, that my soul was led to the contemplation of what is the everlasting security of a child of God, amidst all the corruption, within and without, which he carries about him in a body of sin and death. It will form a very pleasing subject, to a similar effect, to trace also a believer's security from the world at large, in the natural enmity there is in every unawakened heart to a state of grace. And this precious scripture traces every child of God's safety to the same source. The family of Jacob, the praying seed of Jacob, are still journeying; for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. The people of God are but few in number; yea, very few: the scripture saith, "And they are strangers in the land," Psalm 105:12.   The very profession of the cr...

"I will walk before the L ORD in the land of the living." - Psalm 116:9 [KJV]  There is a distinction between walking  before  God and walking  with  God. To walk  before  God is to walk with an abiding sense of God's eye being upon us; to walk with a desire to do those things which are pleasing in His sight; to walk in His ordinances blameless; to walk before His people with our garments unspotted by the world; in a word, to walk before Him in private as in public, alone and in company, before the Church and the world, by day and by night, as we should walk if we had a personal view of His glorious majesty in heaven before our eyes.   Now if you carried about with you a deep and daily sense that God saw every thought, marked every movement, heard every word, and observed every action, this sense of His presence would put a restraint upon your light, trifling, and foolish spirit. You would watch your thoughts, your words, your actions, as living...

"And He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul.” -Psalm 106:15  [KJV] Here is a very solemn subject to exercise the mind of a child of God. My soul, take it for thine own exercise this evening. In the part of the church's history alluded to, it should seem that they were just arrived on the borders of Canaan: they had been all along fed and sustained by God's bounty; and the manna, as usual, came fresh and pure from heaven every morning; but tired and dissatisfied with the table of God's providing, they demanded flesh to eat, and the Lord gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul. Happy would it have been for the church of God, if such rebellions had been confined to that period of its history. But, alas! in all ages, God's children too often manifest the like temper.     My soul! bring the subject home; thy God, thy Jesus, hath appointed thee the very path best suited for thee. Had a synod of angels been convened to choose wha...

"Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."   -I Peter 1:13 [KJV] Hope chiefly regards  "the end;" —for that is "better than the beginning," the crowning consummation of all that faith believes, hope expects, and love enjoys. But through what dark and gloomy seasons has hope often to look before this end comes, being sometimes sunk so low as almost to despair even of life! How it has in these low spots to muster all its evidences, look back to this and that Ebenezer, this and that hill Mizar, this and that deliverance, manifestation, and blessing; how it has to hang upon the word of promise, cry out for help, and that mightily, as if at its last breath, and hope against hope in the very face of unbelief, infidelity, and despair.  An end must come to all our struggles, trials, exercises, afflictions, and conflicts.    We shall not be always struggl...

Weekend Gospel message to follow for All Hands (18-20MAR22) 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: UNDERSTANDING THE GOSPEL “These things understood not H is disciples at the first: but when Jesus was  glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of H im, and  that they had done these things unto H im.” -John 12:16 [KJV] When the Lord is pleased to glorify and reveal Himself to us and in us, in  the way of mercy and grace, then He also gives us an understanding of the  gospel of Christ ( I John 5:20). Consider these four things: 1). When we see the glory of His electing grace (Eph esians 1:3-6), then He gives us an understanding, that had Christ not chosen us we never would have believed and loved Him ( II Thes salonians 2:13). ...

"The man which had the withered hand."   -Mark 3:3  [KJV] Surely the man in the jewish synagogue, which had a withered hand, will, in the history of his disease and cure, furnish me, this evening, with a very improving meditation. Do Thou, blessed Jesus, the great Healer both of soul and body, render it profitable, by Thy gracious instruction to my heart. This poor man had a withered hand, not only sinew-shrunk, but wasting away. He attended divine worship, for Jesus found him in the synagogue. But we do not read that he asked the mercy from Christ. It was Jesus that first looked upon him; and not he on the Lord Jesus. "Stretch forth thine hand," said the Son of God. Instantly the poor man found the powers of nature restored, the shrunk sinew became lengthened, and the hand which had wasted away, was restored.     Pause, my soul! look at the subject as it concerns thyself. How long didst thou attend the means of grace under a withered soul? And to this hour, had no...