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

"And this is life eternal, that they might know T hee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, W hom T hou hast sent." - JOHN 17:3 [KJV] How many are anxious to know what is the way of salvation, how eternal life is to be obtained, and how to "flee from the wrath to come." But the Lord Jesus has shewn in one short sentence in what eternal life consists, that it is in the knowledge of the "only true God, and of Jesus Christ, W hom H e has sent." He therefore that knows the Father and the Son has eternal life in his soul. The Lord Jesus, in the sixth chapter of John, quoted this amongst other passages of the Old Testament, and says, "It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto M e." He lays this down, then, as one especial fruit of divine teaching, that it produces a coming unto Him. The Spirit, Who teacheth to

When the Hebrew servant's liberty was proclaimed, he was delivered from his master, from the command of his master, from the threatening of his master, and from the service of his master, he was a free man; and yet this man, that went out at the year of jubilee, is, says God, My servant. "For they are M y servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen" [LEVITICUS 25:42 ] . So the believing sinner is delivered from the law, that being dead [ROMANS 7:6 ] from the command of the law, for the letter killeth; from the curse of the law [GALATIANS 3:13 ] and from the service of the law, for he shall "serve in the newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." He is a free man: "if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed;" and yet he that is this free man is Christ's servant [I CORINTHIANS 7:22 ] ; for though he is not under the law, yet he is not without l

In Proverbs 13:10 we read a statement that should be a rebuke to most of us: “Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.” Did you really hear that? “Only by pride comes contention”? Strong’s Hebrew dictionary defines the word for contention here as “strife, debate.” Here is one more of its three uses in the Bible: “He loveth transgression that loveth strife: and he that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction” [PROVERBS 17:19 ]. Then there is one more: “Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high” [ISAIAH 58:4 ] . At the root of all contention, strife and debate is PRIDE, period! God says “only.” Whatever our stated reasons might be, pride is the real reason. The scriptures say that with pride comes shame and it is pride that precedes destruction and a haughty spirit that precedes a fall. But contrasted to that it says, “

"But the God of all grace, W ho hath called us unto H is  eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a  while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you."   - I PETER 5:10 [KJV]   There is no Christian perfection, no divine establishment, no spiritual strength, no solid settlement, except by suffering. But after the soul has suffered, after it has felt God's chastising hand, the effect is to perfect, to establish, to strengthen, and to settle it. By suffering, a man becomes settled into a solemn conviction of the character of Jehovah as revealed in the Scripture, and in a measure made experimentally manifest in his conscience. He is settled in the belief of an "everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure;" in the persuasion that "all things work together for good to them that love God, and are the called according to H is purpose;" in the firm conviction that everything comes to pass according to Go