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

"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit." - Philemon vs. 25 [KJV] It is the regenerating breath of the Lord Jesus Christ which makes the soul alive unto Himself. This is manifest from His own language: "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life" (John 6:63) . Then for the first time "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is with our spirit." For you will observe that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is not with our carnal mind: that ever remains the same, a body of sin and death, flesh, corrupt flesh, "in which dwelleth no good thing," and therefore not the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.   His grace is with our spirit, that "new man" of which we read that "it is after God, [that is, after the image of God] created in righteousness and true holiness." This is called our "spirit," because it is born of the Sp...

  Jesus The Prophet  by  D.G. Miles McKee   “Never man spake like this man.” (John 7:46).   Our Lord Jesus holds several wonderful and remarkable offices, which He exercises in His church.  He is, for example, our Prophet, our Priest, and our King.  Let’s look at this a little more closely.    As our prophet, Christ Jesus is the revealer of the Father, the declarer of the name of God, the teacher, the true and faithful witness and the beloved Son whom we are to hear (John 1:18; John 17:26; Revelation 3:14; Matthew 17:5).   Jesus is the all-sufficient prophet for, as our prophet, He taught us the true meaning of the Law (see Matthew 5:21 and following verses).   Not only did He instruct during His earthly ministry, but, also as our prophet, He continues to teach and motivate, by His Spirit, through His Word.  (John 5:39; 15:26; 16:13-14a).   It is written of Him, “Never man spake like this man” (John 7:46).   No...

"Ready to be revealed in the last time." -I Peter 1:5 [KJV] My soul, hast thou ever considered the very great and blessed things contained in these few words? Sit down, this evening, and look them over. Dost thou ask, what is ready to be revealed in the last time? The answer is direct. All the fulness, glory, grace, provision, peace, and everlasting happiness, that are in the covenant of redemption, and all centered in the person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.   Thou hast now but obscure views of Jesus, and His fulness, suitableness, and all-sufficiency. Thou hast believed indeed unto salvation, and art resting upon Christ for thy justification, and sanctification, and comfort; but of the fulness in which believers stand complete in Christ, no saint upon earth hath ever had a conception equal to what it really is. "Beloved, (saith John) now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall appear we shall be...

"Exercise thyself unto godliness."   -I Timothy 4:7 [KJV] "The Lord trieth the righteous" (Psalm 11:5) . In fact, a righteous life is for the most part a tried life. There is not a child of God, whose graces are lively and active, that is not tried in his soul. I have no more belief that the soul can live without exercise than that the body can. The more the soul is exercised, the healthier it will be. Trial is one main source of exercise. If you are tried as to your standing; tried as to your state; tried as to the reality of the work of grace upon your soul; tried as to your experience; tried as to your manifestations, deliverances, and evidences; tried by your sins; tried by Satan; tried by professors; tried by profane; and above all tried by your own heart, and that continually—it will keep your soul in exercise. And this is "exercise  unto  godliness."   If these exercises are  unto  godliness, they lead to godliness, they take you on your way to go...

"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...