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

"Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they are men wondered at ." -Z ECHARIAH 3:8 [KJV]   A SINNER SAVED IS A SPECTACLE for angels to contemplate. As the Apostle says, "We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels and to men." The ancients used to say that "a good man struggling with difficulties was a sight for the gods to look at." We may say, with all Christian truth, that the mysteries of redemption are "things the angels desire to look into;" and among the mysteries of redemption, what greater than a redeemed sinner? That a man who deserves, by sin original and sin actual, nothing but the eternal wrath of God, should be lifted out of perdition justly merited into salvation to which he can have no claim, must indeed ever be a holy wonder. And that you or I should ever have been fixed on in the electing love of God, ever have been given to Jesus to redeem, ever quicken...

IF ANY DENY THAT SALVATION be by the free and sovereign grace of God in Christ alone, it is because they do not know themselves! They do not know themselves and their real condition because they do not believe God! We are so blinded by self-righteousness and Satan that unless the Spirit give us the gift of faith, we can never know our true state and condition as sinners before God. We can never know our helplessness except we believe Christ’s words, “no man can come to M e except the Father draw him.” We can never know what we imagine our righteousness to be unless we believe God who says that “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” and “there is none righteous, no not one.” When we believe God, we know that we are “lost, blind, dead in trespasses and sins, and without strength.” We are what God says we are, not what men say we are or what we think ourselves to be. When the Spirit of God gives a person faith to believe God and reveals to them what they tr...

"Thus saith the L ORD ; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after M e in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown." -J EREMIAH 2:2 [KJV]   IF WE LOOK AT SALVATION, we shall see that it consists of three parts; salvation past , salvation present , and salvation future . Salvation past consists in having our names written in the Lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world. Salvation present consists in the manifestation of Jesus to the soul, whereby H e betroths it to H imself. And salvation future consists in the eternal enjoyment of Christ, when the elect shall sit down to the marriage-supper of the Lamb, and be for ever with the Lord. Now, as none will ever enjoy salvation future who have no interest in salvation past; in other words, as none will ever be with Christ in eternal glory whose names were not written in the book of life from all eternity; so none will enjoy salvation future,...