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

Winston Churchill said, “Truth is incontrovertible.  Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, and malice may distort it, but there it is.”  Let me use similar words with respect to the truth of God.   The gospel is irrefutable!  Man’s pride may resent it, his ignorance may reject it, and his wisdom may despise it, but there it is. “ The word of the Lord endureth forever.  And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”   -I Peter 1:25 [KJV]

" He who endureth to the end shall be saved." -Matthew 10:22 [KJV] We have now arrived to the end of another year. Look back with humility. Look up with hope. Look forward with joy. For consider what great things God hath done for us. “Now is our salvation nearer, than when we first believed , ” (Romans 13:11.) Salvation, O the joyful sound! But, before the Sun of righteousness arose upon us, and displayed the glory of His finished salvation to our hearts, alas! what dark, proud, ignorant notions of salvation, did we entertain? Instead of seeing righteousness as a gift by Jesus Christ, and justification of life coming by free gift, and eternal life the gift of God, through Jesus Christ, (Romans 5:17-18 & 6:23.) we vainly thought that salvation was to be obtained by our fulfilling certain terms and conditions.  In our natural state of blindness, before we saw Jesus, we thought, enduring to the end, was the condition of being saved. Now we see we are “saved ...

"All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you." -I Peter 1:24, 25 [KJV] All flesh, and everything that springs from the flesh, and is connected with the flesh, is as grass, which, for a time, looks green and flourishing, but touched with the mower's scythe, or scorched by the midday sun, soon withers and fades away. Such is all flesh, without exception, from the highest to the lowest. As in nature, some grass grows thicker and longer than other, and makes, for a while, a brighter show, yet the scythe makes no distinction between the light crop and the heavy, so the scythe of death mows down with equal sweep the rich and the poor, and lays in one common grave all the children of men. You have seen sometimes in the early spring the grass in flower, and you have noticed t...

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen." -II Corinthians 13:14 [KJV] Here, my soul, set up thy pillar. Baptised as thou hast been into the joint name, love, praise, and adoration, of the Holy Three in One ; and blessed as thou hast been, and art, in their joint mercies, grace, and favour; here every day, and all the day, seek thy portion and blessing, as the united source of all thy salvation. End the year, and begin the year, under those precious tokens of God in Christ; and daily keep up a lively communion and friendship with each, as the blessed cause of all thine happiness. Jehovah, in His threefold character of person, is engaged to perfect what He hath begun: and it is, and should be thy happiness to be for ever viewing the testimonies of it, in the holy scriptures of truth.  God thy Father hath so loved the church in Jesus, as to give Him to the church, and the church to Him; a...

" Old things are passed away." -II Corinthians 5:17 [KJV] Such is the blessedness of every new creature in Christ. Every believer in Him is a new creature. Mind, St. Paul does not say, Old things are passing away, but are passed away. We are not to understand him in an absolute, but in a qualified sense. For if none were new creatures, till all old things were passed away, we should not find one on this side heaven. Now the year is nearly at an end, do not you find your old corruptions cleaving to you? Yea, the old man still whole and alive in you, just as you did at the beginning of the year, or at the beginning of days, when you first believed on Jesus, and were made a new creature in Him?  Do not you also see just the same reason to comply with these exhortations, as at first? “Put off the old man which is corrupt,” (Ephesians 4:22.) “Cleanse yourself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,” (II Corinthians 7:1.) Why, if so, how can it be said, “Old t...

"Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof." -Ecclesiastes 7:8 [KJV] Thus saith the wise man, and it is often true in natural things, but invariably so in divine. Rarely at first can we foresee what will be the issue of any matter which we take in hand. We may begin it with much hope, and find in the end those hopes sadly disappointed. We may begin it with much fear, and find from the event those fears utterly groundless. Whatever we take in hand it is very rare that our expectations are fully carried out, for we have again and again to learn that "man's heart deviseth his way, but the L ORD directeth his steps , " and that there are many devices in a man's heart, nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that and that only, shall stand. But so far as we are amongst the family of God, and as such are under especial guidance and divine teaching and leading, whether our first expectations are accomplished or not, the end stamps wisdom...

"A building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." -II Corinthians 5:1 [KJV] My soul, after thy last evening's meditation on the shortness and unsatisfying nature of life, let thy present thoughts be occupied in beholding, with steady faith, the great contrast to it: and see whether thy confidence be as strong, and well founded, as the apostle's. His was not a mere hope only, but an assurance in Jesus. "We know, (saith he) that if this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."  Dost thou know this? Is Jesus thy foundation? Hath God thy Father built for thee? And doth the Holy Ghost set His almighty hand to the work, in sweetly witnessing to the writings, and sealing the deed, that it is thine? Oh! the blessedness to know this, to live already in the enjoyment of it; and while the pins of thy earthly tabernacle are daily loosening, and taking out, to be l...