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

"While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease." -Genesis 8:22 [KJV] My soul, look at this gracious covenant promise of God, which was made more than four thousand years since, and is as faithfully confirmed to thy experience this night, as in the first hour wherein the Lord delivered it. How hath the seedtime and harvest, the cold and heat, the summer and winter, and day and night, through every generation, proclaimed the unfailing truth! And although we are taught to expect, and by faith both to look and to long for the "new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness;" yet is this blessed promise not less sure, or less to be depended upon, while the present earth remaineth. And do not overlook that special feature of divine faithfulness, in the fulfilment of this gracious promise; I mean that amidst all the unworthiness of man, God's bounty continues the same. Wer...

"Bow down Thine ear, O L ORD , hear me: for I am poor and needy." - Psalm 86:1 [KJV] Whatever deliverance a man may have experienced, let him have been delivered from the lowest hell, and have had his feet placed upon a rock, yet all his life long he will have this experience wrought in him by the Holy Ghost,—to be "poor and needy." And only so far as he is poor and needy, will he want to know anything experimentally of the riches of Jesus Christ, or to taste the consolations which the Spirit of God alone can communicate to the parched and thirsty soul. How many we find in our day, who are "rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing," and yet they are always speaking and boasting of the riches of Christ. But what can they know of Christ's riches? His riches are for H his blood is for the guilty; His righteousness is for the naked; His perfect work and finished salvation is for those who continually stand in need of His powerful arm to s...

"Wherefore, the king hearkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the L ORD ." -I Kings 12:15 [KJV] What a light doth this one verse throw upon the whole of this history, and upon ten thousand of a similar kind, which are perpetually going on through life! The event recorded in this chapter that the king should listen to the counsel of fools, and disregard the advice of wise men, would have appeared incredible, the thing itself being so very obvious. But when we understand the latent cause, and are told that it was "from the Lord," how strikingly doth it set forth the wonderful government of God in bringing about the sacred purposes of His holy will! My soul, sit down this evening, and ponder well the subject. Think how truly blessed it is, and how truly sanctified, to behold this almighty hand in every dispensation. And bring home the doctrine itself, for it is a very blessed one, if well studied and well followed up, to thine own concerns and circumstan...

"I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight." - Isaiah 42:16 [KJV] What is the mind of man—of any man—of your mind, my mind, under affliction? Let him be tried with pain of body, poverty of circumstances, sickness in his family, guilt of conscience, hard bondage in his own soul, without any beam of divine light upon his path, and what is he? A murmuring, rebellious wretch, without a grain of resignation, without a particle of contentment or submission to the will of God.   But let the glory of the Lord be revealed; let him have a view by faith of a suffering Jesus; let some ray of light shine upon his path; let there be some breaking in of the exceeding weight of glory that is to be manifested at Christ's appearing; where are all his crooked things now? All made straight. But how? By his crooked will—crooked because it did not lie level with the Lord's—being made to harmonise with the promise and precept, the footsteps and example of the bles...

  Weekend Gospel message to follow for All Hands (02-04SEP22 A.D.) 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 - Almighty God's unmerited favor - from our sins and from Hell: "The only way of access to God is through the risen Christ and based on the merits of His obedience unto death as Substitute and Surety of His people. The only way of access to Christ is by the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit to reveal Him in His glorious Person and finished work of redemption to make reconciliation for the sins of His people and to establish a righteousness that enables God to be just and Justifier of the ungodly. It is required of men to believe the Gospel, not as a condition they must meet to attain or maintain salvation, but as the God-ordained means to lay hold of Christ, Who by Himself has met all conditions for salvation...

"This is His name whereby He shall be called, The L ORD our Righteousness ." - Jeremiah 23:6 [KJV] What a sweet view does this give of Jesus! We look sometimes at Christ's righteousness as distinct from Christ. Shall I use a figure? We look at the garment as distinct from the maker and wearer of the garment. We look at the righteousness so much, that we scarcely look at Him who wrought out that righteousness. Now, we must not separate Jesus from His righteousness. We must not look merely at the garment, the imputed robe, and forget Him that wrought it out, that puts it on, and that keeps it to this day in firm possession. But when we can see, that not only the obedience of Christ, but Christ Himself—all that Jesus is—all that Jesus has, as head of His Church, as the risen Mediator, as the great High Priest over the house of God—when we can see that this God-man, Immanuel, is made unto His people righteousness, how it expands the prospect! Then we look, not merely at the...

  Nada, Niente, Zilch! (Nothing) by D.G. Miles McKee I have often been told by professing Christian that we are not declared in right standing with God until our life is characterised by obedience.  Accordingly, Christ’s death on the cross was essential for right standing before God, but so also is our life of obedience. To which I say, “What a hodge-podge of confusion twice confounded!”   Although we strongly believe that the believer’s life is characterised by obedience, our obedience is in no way part of the ground of our justification (acquittal before God). To teach that our obedience constitutes any part of our acquittal is to indirectly teach that Christ’s doing and dying are insufficient to take us to heaven.   Are our works and obedience as Christians the condition for receiving God’s ‘not guilty’ verdict? No! Do we yet need to add our obedience to Christ’s in order to guarantee our admittance to heaven? No! Does our Justification depend on our moral transfo...