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

"He that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." -I John 2:6 [KJV] Sweet testimony to the truth as it is in Jesus, when, from being in Christ, we are walking with Christ; and one and the same spirit runs through both. As a man never walks as Christ walked, before he is first united to Christ; so when truly united to Christ, the evidence is made to appear by loving what Jesus loves, and hating what Jesus hates. As Ruth said to Naomi, so the believer saith to the Lord Jesus: "Where thou goest, I would go, and where thou lodgest, I would lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God!"   And, my soul, think what a blessed unanswerable proof doth it afford, both to thyself and to the world around, when, from abiding in Christ, we live as Christ; that is, His Holy Spirit moves in us, speaks in us, walks in us, yea, doth all in us; and as the soul of man gives life and action to the body, so Christ, Who is the soul of the be...

"That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."   -II Timothy 3:17 [KJV] What perfection does the Holy Ghost speak of here? Certainly not perfection in the flesh; that is but a wild dream of free-will and Arminianism. But perfection here and elsewhere means a being well-established and grounded in the faith , as we find the Apostle speaking (Heb. 5:14), "Strong meat belongeth to them that are  of full age"   (literally, as we read in the margin, "perfect"), "even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." Christian perfection does not then consist in perfection in the flesh, but in having arrived at maturity in the divine life, in being what I may call a Christian adult, or what the Apostle terms "a man in Christ."   When Paul therefore says, "Let us therefore, as many as be  perfect,"   he means "being no more children, tossed to and fro, and ca...

"A seed shall serve Him; it shall be accounted to the L ORD for a generation. They shall come, and shall declare His righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that He hath done this." -Psalm 22:30-31 [KJV] It is precious, yea, truly blessed also, to discover the happy correspondence subsisting between the several parts of scripture, in their testimony concerning the features of God's people. Jehovah, in His threefold character of person, is always found as engaged in it; and each One in the holy and undivided Three gives assurance to it. "I will pour My Spirit, (saith God the Father speaking to the person of His dear Son, as the Israel of His people) upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring," Isaiah 44:3 . "A seed, (saith Christ, or, as it might be rendered, and indeed is rendered in the version of the psalms read in the churches, My seed) shall serve Him."   This is the very seed which the Lord hath blessed, and which all that s...

"The secret of the L ORD is with them that fear Him; and He will shew them His covenant."   - Psalm 25:14 [KJV] "The secret of the Lord" (that is,  present  possession)  "is  with them that fear Him; and He  will  shew them" (that is, something  future ) "His covenant." This shews, that while all the people of God, who fear His name, have the secret with them, that is, a measure of the secret, yet all the people of God have not the covenant revealed to them at the same time with the secret. The "secret" is in the present tense; the "shewing of the covenant" is in the future.   It is very sweet to see how the Holy Ghost has discriminated between these blessings. If, for instance, it had run thus, "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He shews to them His covenant," some doubting, desponding child of God might say, "How can I be one of those that fear God? for it says, God shews to them Hi...

  Weekend Gospel message to follow for All Hands (16-18SEP22 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: For the Ungodly!  To redeem poor sinners, Jesus came down from heaven, put on the rags of our mortality, agonized, bled, died. Jesus is made His people's substitute, burden-bearer, sin-remover, guilt-sustainer. Their debt is placed to His account. His riches pay the full amount. Sin is removed from the sinner, and placed on the Sinless! Their curse is rolled on Him, and He endures it, until no more remains!   God deals with Jesus as the guilty one! He, as spotless Deity, receives imputed sins, and fully expiates them all. In the vicarious Victim, God's justice is satisfied, and wrath expires! Jesus, in His life, in the garden, on th...

"A door-keeper in the house of my God." -Psalm 84:10 [KJV] My soul, hast thou ever considered the blessedness of such an appointment, of such an office, when truly followed up? If Jesus indeed appoint, and both teach the nature of it, and give grace to the faithful discharge of it, then is it most honourable, and truly blessed. A door-keeper is supposed to know the several apartments of the house, and to be well acquainted with his Lord and Master, in whose service he ministers. He is supposed also to know who goeth out, and who cometh in; whether his Lord be at home, and how his fellow-servants are employed in their ministry. And if he be a faithful door-keeper, he will willingly open to none but such as his Lord approves, but most gladly shew all that come in his Lord's name, and are welcome to his Lord, the way to his Lord's presence and his Lord's table.   What sayest thou, my soul, to such an office? Surely, to be "an hewer of wood, and a drawer of wate...

"Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end." - Proverbs 19:20 [KJV] What lessons we need day by day to teach us anything aright, and how it is for the most part "line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little." O what slow learners, what dull, forgetful scholars, what ignoramuses, what stupid blockheads, what stubborn pupils! Surely no scholar at a school, old or young, could learn so little of natural things as we seem to have learnt of spiritual things after so many years' instruction, so many chapters read, so many sermons heard, so many prayers put up, so much talking about religion. How small, how weak is the amount of grace compared with all we have read and heard and talked about.    But it is a mercy that the Lord saves whom He will save, and that we are saved by free grace, and free grace alone, through the blood and righteousness of the Son of God . "He of God is made unto us wisdom and ...