“Ye serve the Lord Christ.” — Colossians 3:24

To what choice order of officials was this word spoken? To kings who proudly boast a right divine? Ah, no! too often do they serve themselves or Satan, and forget the God whose sufferance permits them to wear their mimic majesty for their little hour. Speaks then the apostle to those so-called “right reverend fathers in God,” the bishops, or “the venerable the archdeacons”? No, indeed, Paul knew nothing of these mere inventions of man. Not even to pastors and teachers, or to the wealthy and esteemed among believers, was this word spoken, but to servants, ay, and to slaves. Among the toiling multitudes, the journeymen, the day labourers, the domestic servants, the drudges of the kitchen, the apostle found, as we find still, some of the Lord’s chosen, and to them he says, “Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.” This saying ennobles the…

weary routine of earthly employments,

“Teach me, my God and King, in all things Thee to see;

A servant with this clause makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws, makes that and the action fine.

To make sure you never miss an episode, please subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.

Producer: Todd Adkins
Voice Artist: Ian Cullen

“Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:24

Heaven is a place where we shall never sin; where we shall cease our constant watch against an indefatigable enemy, because there will be no tempter to ensnare our feet. There the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. Heaven is the “undefiled inheritance”; it is the land of perfect holiness, and therefore of complete security. But do not the saints even on earth sometimes taste the joys of blissful security? The doctrine of God’s word is, that all who are in union with the Lamb are safe; that all the righteous shall hold on their way; that those who have committed their souls to the keeping of Christ shall find Him a faithful and immutable preserver. Sustained by such a doctrine we can enjoy security even on earth; not that high and glorious security which renders us free from every slip, but that…

holy security which arises from the sure promise of Jesus

May our God bring home to you a sense of your safety in Christ Jesus!

To make sure you never miss an episode, please subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.

Producer: Todd Adkins
Voice Artist: Ian Cullen

“Whose heart the Lord opened.” — Acts 16:14

In Lydia’s conversion there are many points of interest. It was brought about by providential circumstances. She was a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, but just at the right time for hearing Paul we find her at Philippi; providence, which is the handmaid of grace, led her to the right spot. Again, grace was preparing her soul for the blessing — grace preparing for grace. She did not know the Saviour, but as a Jewess, she knew many truths which were excellent stepping-stones to a knowledge of Jesus. Her conversion took place in the use of the means. On the Sabbath she went when prayer was wont to be made, and there prayer was heard. Never neglect the means of grace; God may bless us when we are not in His house, but we have the greater reason to hope that He will when we are in communion with His saints. Observe the words, “Whose heart the Lord opened.” She did not…

open her own heart. Her prayers did not do it;

To make sure you never miss an episode, please subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.

Producer: Todd Adkins
Voice Artist: Ian Cullen

“So shall we ever be with the Lord.” — 1 Thessalonians 4:17

Even the sweetest visits from Christ, how short they are — and how

“If to-day He deigns to bless us

Oh, how sweet the prospect of the…

time when we shall not behold Him at

“Millions of years our wondering eyes,

In heaven there shall be no interruptions from care or sin; no weeping shall

To make sure you never miss an episode, please subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.

Producer: Todd Adkins
Voice Artist: Ian Cullen

“My people shall dwell in quiet resting places.” — Isaiah 32:18

Peace and rest belong not to the unregenerate, they are the peculiar possession of the Lord’s people, and of them only. The God of Peace gives perfect peace to those whose hearts are stayed upon Him. When man was unfallen, his God gave him the flowery bowers of Eden as his quiet resting places; alas! how soon sin blighted the fair abode of innocence. In the day of universal wrath when the flood swept away a guilty race, the chosen family were quietly secured in the resting-place of the ark, which floated them from the old condemned world into the new earth of the rainbow and the covenant, herein typifying Jesus, the ark of our salvation. Israel rested safely beneath the blood-besprinkled habitations of Egypt when the destroying angel smote the first-born; and in the wilderness the shadow of the pillar of cloud, and the flowing rock, gave the weary pilgrims sweet repose. At this hour we…

rest in the promises of our faithful

“I hear the words of love, I gaze upon the blood,

To make sure you never miss an episode, please subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.

Producer: Todd Adkins
Voice Artist: Ian Cullen

“Therefore will the Lord wait that He may be gracious unto you.” — Isaiah 30:18

God often DELAYS IN ANSWERING PRAYER. We have several instances of this in sacred Scripture. Jacob did not get the blessing from the angel until near the dawn of day — he had to wrestle all night for it. The poor woman of Syrophenicia was answered not a word for a long while. Paul besought the Lord thrice that “the thorn in the flesh” might be taken from him, and he received no assurance that it should be taken away, but instead thereof a promise that God’s grace should be sufficient for him. If thou hast been knocking at the gate of mercy, and hast received no answer, shall I tell thee why the mighty Maker hath not opened the door and let thee in? Our Father has reasons peculiar to Himself for thus keeping us waiting. Sometimes it is to…

show His power and His sovereignty, that men

To make sure you never miss an episode, please subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.

Producer: Todd Adkins
Voice Artist: Ian Cullen

“Thou, O God, hast prepared of Thy goodness for the poor.” — Psalm 68:10

All God’s gifts are prepared gifts laid up in store for wants foreseen. He anticipates our needs; and out of the fulness which He has treasured up in Christ Jesus, He provides of His goodness for the poor. You may trust Him for all the necessities that can occur, for He has infallibly foreknown every one of them. He can say of us in all conditions, “I knew that thou wouldst be this and that.” A man goes a journey across the desert, and when he has made a day’s advance, and pitched his tent, he discovers that he wants many comforts and necessaries which he has not brought in his baggage. “Ah!” says he, “I did not foresee this: if I had this journey to go again, I should bring these things with me, so necessary to my comfort.” But God has…

marked with prescient eye all the requirements of His poor

Reader, is your heart heavy this evening? God knew it would be; the

To make sure you never miss an episode, please subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.

Producer: Todd Adkins
Voice Artist: Ian Cullen

“Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their

We may understand this to refer to justification. “They shall walk in

Again, it refers to joy and gladness: for white robes were holiday dresses among the Jews. They who have not defiled their garments shall have their faces always bright; they shall understand what Solomon meant when he said “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart. Let thy garments be always white, for God hath accepted thy works.” He who is accepted of God shall…

wear white garments of joy and

The promise also refers to walking in white before the throne of God.

To make sure you never miss an episode, please subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.

Producer: Todd Adkins
Voice Artist: Ian Cullen

“I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” — 1 Corinthians 9:22

Paul’s great object was not merely to instruct and to improve, but to save. Anything short of this would have disappointed him; he would have men renewed in heart, forgiven, sanctified, in fact, saved. Have our Christian labours been aimed at anything below this great point? Then let us amend our ways, for of what avail will it be at the last great day to have taught and moralized men if they appear before God unsaved? Blood-red will our skirts be if through life we have sought inferior objects, and forgotten that men needed to be saved. Paul knew the ruin of man’s natural state, and did not try to educate him, but to save him; he saw men sinking to hell, and did not talk of refining them, but of saving from the wrath to come. To compass their salvation, he gave himself up with untiring zeal to telling abroad the gospel, to warning and beseeching men to be reconciled to God. His prayers were…

importunate and his labours incessant. To save souls was his consuming passion, his ambition, his calling. He became a servant to all men, toiling for his race, feeling a woe within him if he preached not the gospel. He laid aside his preferences to prevent prejudice; he submitted his will in things indifferent, and if men would but receive the gospel, he raised no questions about forms or ceremonies: the gospel was the one all-important business with him. If he might save some he would be content. This was the crown for which he strove, the sole and sufficient reward of all his labours and self-denials. Dear reader, have you and I lived to win souls at this noble rate? Are we possessed with the same all-absorbing desire? If not, why not? Jesus died for sinners, cannot we live for them? Where is our tenderness? Where our love to Christ, if we seek not His honour in the salvation of men? O that the Lord would saturate us through and through with an undying zeal for the souls of men.

To make sure you never miss an episode, please subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.

Producer: Todd Adkins
Voice Artist: Ian Cullen

“Base things of the world hath God chosen.” — 1 Corinthians 1:28

Walk the streets by moonlight, if you dare, and you will see sinners then. Watch when the night is dark, and the wind is howling, and the picklock is grating in the door, and you will see sinners then. Go to yon jail, and walk through the wards, and mark the men with heavy over-hanging brows, men whom you would not like to meet at night, and there are sinners there. Go to the Reformatories, and note those who have betrayed a rampant juvenile depravity, and you will see sinners there. Go across the seas to the place where a man will gnaw a bone upon which is reeking human flesh, and there is a sinner there. Go where you will, you need not ransack earth to find sinners, for they are common enough; you may find them in every lane and street of every city, and town, and village, and hamlet. It is for such that Jesus died. If you will…

select me the grossest specimen of

Reader, by that love looking out of Jesus’ tearful eyes, by that love

To make sure you never miss an episode, please subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.

Producer: Todd Adkins
Voice Artist: Ian Cullen