Come Out of Her, My People.

Paul says a man is made right with God by faith, “without the deeds of the law” — nothing added. God doesn’t justify the good; He justifies “the ungodly” who stop working and simply trust Him. That means your record is not the question; His Son is.

You can be right with God today, by trusting Him alone.

Paul puts it simply: if it’s by grace, it cannot be by works, or grace stops being grace. God saved us “not by works of righteousness which we have done,” but by His mercy. Good works are the fruit of a saved life, never the root.

The root is His mercy — and His mercy holds you.

A wage is what you’ve earned; a gift is what someone else paid for. Sin earns death — that is the only wage Scripture offers. Eternal life sits in the other column: “the gift of God.” You don’t earn a gift; you receive it, and no one boasts about receiving.

It is being held out to you right now.

The Bible slams the door on a repeated sacrifice. The old priests stood every day because their work was never done. Christ offered “one sacrifice for sins for ever” — then sat down. “It is finished” means paid in full, and where sins are forgiven “there is no more offering for sin” (Hebrews 10:18). He finished it.

Rest in it.

Scripture has no waiting room. “Absent from the body” is “present with the Lord.” The thief on the cross — no sacraments, no good works, no time — heard “to day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” The blood of Jesus “cleanseth us from all sin” — all, not most. Purgatory says His blood wasn’t enough.

If you’re His, you close your eyes here and open them with Him.

God counts the mediators for you: one. “One mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Your Advocate with the Father is “Jesus Christ the righteous” — not His mother. Mary herself called God “my Saviour”; she needed saving too. Going to anyone else first isn’t devotion — it’s going around the only Door God gave. Go straight to Jesus.

He is waiting for you.

A jailer asked, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul’s answer had no rituals in it: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Whoever believes “hath everlasting life” — already. The thief on the cross had no sacraments at all. Adding rites to faith isn’t extra safety; it’s trusting something besides Christ.

Believe Him, and you’re saved right where you sit.

Jesus faced this exact system. Leaders had set their traditions beside God’s Word, and He said their worship was “in vain” and their tradition made God’s Word “of none effect.” Isaiah gives the test: “if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Whatever is added to the Book has no light in it. You have the Book.

It is enough.

God’s Word asks, “should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?” Jesus taught you to pray to “your Father” — directly, in secret — never to a saint. When John fell at an angel’s feet, the angel stopped him: “worship God.” Calling on the dead isn’t honoring them; it’s going around God. You need no go-between.

Your Father hears you Himself.

God said it in stone: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image… Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them.” No exception for saints. “My glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.” Bowing to a statue, kissing it, praying before it — God calls that idolatry, whatever men call it.”

Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”

You confess to God, and God forgives. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us.” David said, “I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest.” No booth, no priest, no penance. Jesus is the only priest you need, and He opened the way for you to come “boldly unto the throne of grace.”

Go to your Father tonight.

When God forgives, He forgives everything. He forgave “all trespasses” and nailed the record of your debt to the cross. “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” He keeps no second ledger for purgatory. Saying a punishment is still owed after Christ paid says His payment came up short. It didn’t.

If you’re in Christ, nothing is owed — not now, not after death.

Scripture makes no exceptions: “all have sinned.” Mary herself sang, “my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour” — and only sinners need a Saviour. God warns, “Add thou not unto his words.” Calling her sinless takes what belongs to Jesus alone and gives it to someone else. Mary was a believing woman saved by the same Saviour you need.

Trust Him the way she did.

Jesus said, “one is your Master, even Christ.” No man is beyond correction — Paul “withstood” Peter “to the face, because he was to be blamed.” Peter called himself “also an elder” and told leaders not to lord it over God’s people. Any man who claims he cannot err is claiming what belongs to God alone.

Test every teacher by the Book — the pope included.

There is “none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Jesus said, “he that believeth not is condemned already.” Sincerity doesn’t save; Christ does. That’s why Paul asked, “how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?” Telling people they can be saved without Jesus is not kindness. You’ve heard His name.

Trust Him.

Paul warned that some would “depart from the faith,” following “doctrines of devils” — and the first he named was “forbidding to marry.” He wrote that a bishop must be “the husband of one wife.” Peter, the man Rome calls the first pope, was married — Jesus healed his mother-in-law. God calls marriage “honourable in all.”

A rule God calls devilish can’t be made holy by a church.

Paul named “commanding to abstain from meats” right beside forbidding to marry — a mark of those who “depart from the faith.” “Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving.” “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink.” God’s kingdom isn’t a menu, and food rules can’t make you holy.

Eat with thanks, and rest in Christ.

Jesus could not have been plainer: “call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.” He said it about religious titles — leaders who loved being honored by rank. “Holy Father” is how Jesus addressed God. Giving that name to a man isn’t respect; it’s handing God’s title to a sinner. You have a Father in heaven.

Talk to Him directly.

God wrote His Book to be read — by you. It is “given by inspiration of God” and makes you “throughly furnished.” The Bereans checked even the apostle Paul against the Scriptures, and God called them noble. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet” — not a locked box only priests can open. Anyone who says you can’t understand God’s Word without them is standing where the Holy Spirit belongs.

Open it.

Jesus warned: if anyone says “Lo, here is Christ” — “in the secret chambers” — “believe it not.” His body is in heaven, which “must receive” Him until He returns as visibly as lightning. The Supper is “in remembrance of me,” not a re-making of Him. Bowing to bread is bowing to a created thing.

Worship Christ where He is — at the Father’s right hand — and He will live in you.

When a woman praised Mary, Jesus corrected her: “Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.” The only “queen of heaven” in the Bible is a false goddess God was angry with His people for worshipping (Jeremiah 7:18). And Mary’s own words point away from herself: “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.”

Honor her by doing exactly that.

The Bible says it plainly. Joseph “knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son” — “till” means that changed. His hometown named His brothers, “James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas,” and spoke of “his sisters.” When a teaching has to rewrite what the Bible plainly says, the teaching is wrong — not the Bible. Mary was a faithful wife and mother.

That’s no dishonor to her.

In Cornelius’ house, the Holy Ghost fell on the listeners while Peter was still preaching — before a drop of water touched them. Then they were baptized, to show what had already happened. Paul said, “Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel” — he could never say that if water saved. Baptism is obedience after salvation, never the door to it.

Believe, and you are saved today.

Jesus said of His sheep: “they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” Whoever believes “shall not come into condemnation.” You’re sealed with the Holy Spirit the moment you believe. A child of God who sins grieves the Spirit and comes under the Father’s chastening — disciplined, never disowned.

What Christ holds, He keeps.

“Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Peter himself called Christ the “chief corner stone.” Jesus told His apostles that rulers lord it over people — “but it shall not be so among you.” And the One He sent to take His place on earth is the Holy Ghost, not a man in Rome. Christ is the only Head of His church.

He is enough.

Nobody has extra righteousness to share. Jesus said that even when we’ve done everything commanded, we are “unprofitable servants.” Isaiah says our best is “as filthy rags.” Mary and the saints needed a Saviour’s righteousness themselves. The only righteousness that saves is Christ’s, credited to you by faith — and it’s not stored in a church vault.

Receive it from Him directly.

Jesus said, “use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do,” then taught a short prayer to “Our Father” — not to His mother. Dying, He committed His spirit to the Father; Stephen, dying, cried, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” The gospel isn’t beads — it’s that Christ died for our sins and rose again. Pray to your Father plainly.

He hears you the first time.

Paul said even “an angel from heaven” preaching another gospel is accursed, and “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” A shining lady who points people to her heart, her chapels and her cloth instead of Christ is not from God — whatever miracles are reported. Jesus said, “I am the way… no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

He alone saves from eternal fire.

God has no “venial” bin. James says offend in one point and you’re “guilty of all.” Jesus said a lustful look is adultery in the heart. The “small” sin Rome says only wounds you is enough to condemn you on its own — that’s the bad news. The good news is bigger: Christ’s blood “cleanseth us from all sin” — small and great. By one offering He “perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” You don’t sort your sins.

You bring them all to the cross, where they were already paid.