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

"The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer."   -I Peter 4:7 [KJV] My soul, how hath the year been hastening from thee, and thou hastening in it from the world! Where are the days fled? They are gone to be numbered with the years beyond the flood; and thou art now standing as on the isthmus of time. "The end of all things is at hand." Friends are dying around thee, thou art dying thyself; yea, the world is dying: and the end of all things is at hand. In this state, my Lord, well may I look up to Thee!  Circumstances so very solemn may well induce soberness, and watchfulness unto prayer. Yes! blessed Jesus! I would pray Thee to induce in me every suited state, that every faculty may be on the watch tower, waiting my Lord's coming. Thou hast said: "Yet a little while, and He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry."   Oh! then for grace to live by faith on Thee; and so to live, that when I change worlds, I may ...

"For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake." - Philippians 1:29 [KJV] After the Lord, by His special work on the conscience, has called us to repentance and confession of sin, as well as to faith in Jesus; after He has called us to godly sorrow; to live according to the precepts of the gospel; and to walk in the ordinances of His Church; He then calls us to suffer for and with Christ. But we cannot "suffer according to the will of God," that is, in a gospel sense and from gospel motives, till the Lord enables us in some measure to look to Him. The same Spirit, Who calls the believer to walk in a path of suffering, strengthens and enables him to do so.  To suffer aright, we must walk in the steps of the great Captain of our salvation, Who "though a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which He suffered." The Father in this sense spared not His only-begotten Son, but led Him into the ...

  ONCE! D.G. Miles McKee   The book of Hebrews demonstrates the superiority of the Lord Jesus over the Old Covenant.  In fact, Hebrews makes it very clear that the Old Covenant has been done away. Because of the sufficiency and finality of Christ’s sacrifice, the Old Testament priesthood has been abolished.  When we comprehend the teachings of Hebrews, we realize, among other things, that there can be no priesthood in existence today which is qualified to make sacrifices for sin.  Why not?  Simply because there is no need for one.  Those, such as the Roman Communion, who claim to be able to offer sin-forgiving sacrifices declare themselves and their followers separate from the New Covenant.  Why? Because in the New Covenant there is but  one  priest who has offered Himself  once  for sin.  Christ Jesus is that priest and His work of dealing with our sins is finished.   Let’s look at this more closely and consider 4 in...

"For he that is entered into His rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His." -Hebrews 4:10 [KJV] My soul, see to it, that among other blessed evidences of thine union and rest in Christ, thou hast this also "We which have believed," the apostle saith, "do enter into rest." Our dependence on, and knowledge of Jesus, are such, that we really and truly enjoy the blessings of redemption. And as God the Father, when He had finished creation, rested from all His works which He had made; and as Jesus, when He had finished redemption, entered into His glory; so true believers, when they have once found Christ, and redemption in His blood, no longer weary themselves in the works of sin, or the works of self-righteousness, by way of justification before God; but cease from every thing in self, and rest with complacency and delight in the rich, free, and full salvation that is by Christ.   My soul, what sayest thou to this blessed testimony...

"For we walk by faith, not by sight."   -II Corinthians 5:7 [KJV] The nature of faith is to trust in the dark, when all appearances are against it; to trust that a calm will come, though the storm be overhead; to trust that God will appear, though nothing but evil be felt. It is tender, child-like, and therefore is an implicit confidence, a yielding submission, a looking unto the Lord. There is something filial in this; something heavenly and spiritual; not the bold presumption of the daring, nor the despairing fears of the desponding; but something beyond both the one and the other—equally remote from the rashness of presumption, and from the horror of despair. There is a mingling of holy affection connected with this trust, springing out of a reception of past favours, insuring favours to come; and all linked with a simple hanging and depending of the soul upon the Lord, because He is what He is.   There is a looking to, and relying upon the Lord, because we have felt Him t...

"A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence." -I Peter 2:8 [KJV] O my Lord! how wonderful is it, that Thy coming should have given such offence to Thy people? The prophet, indeed, said it should be so, and thereby gave one among the many testimonies to Thy character. "He," saith the prophet in Isaiah 8:14,  "that shall be for a sanctuary, shall be but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel." But what was there, my Lord, in Thee, and the gracious purpose for which Thou came, that could have furnished occasion for stumbling? Thy birth, indeed, was humble, Thy life marked with sorrow, Thy death ignominious, and every thing about Thee debased. But under all these things, did not the Godhead burst forth in acts which none but God could perform?  And is the offence of the cross ceased in the present hour? Alas! what multitudes of sinners now, as much as then, still live to despise salvation by Thy blood and righteousn...

"The L ORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty." - Zephaniah 3:17 [KJV] What a mighty God we have to deal with! And what would suit our case but a mighty God? Have we not mighty sins? Have we not mighty trials? Have we not mighty temptations? Have we not mighty foes and mighty fears? And who is to deliver us from all this mighty host except the mighty God? It is not a little God (if I may use the expression) that will do for God's people. They need a mighty God because they are in circumstances where none but a mighty God can interfere in their behalf.   Why, if you did not know feelingly and experimentally your mighty sins, your mighty trials, your mighty temptations, and your mighty fears, you would not want a mighty God. This sense of our weakness and His power, of our misery and His mercy, of our ruin and His recovery, of the aboundings of our sin and the superaboundings of His grace—a feeling sense, I say, of these opposite yet harmonious things brings us to hav...