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

  "For by grace are ye saved through faith" - Ephesians 2:8 [KJV] Salvation, from start to finish, is the work of God's free grace in Christ. Grace planned the way of salvation by the Substitutionary Sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was Grace that chose those who would be saved in eternal election. Grace brought the Lord Jesus Christ down from Heaven to die in our place at Calvary. Grace calls sinners to Christ by its irresistible power. Grace gives us life. Grace preserves us in life. And that same grace of God will present us holy and without blame before the presence of His glory in heaven. All the blessings of Grace in Salvation come to all of God's people "Through faith." Faith is not our Saviour. Christ alone is the Saviour of His people. But faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is necessary unto salvation. Every one of God's elect looks to Christ in faith and receives salvation from Him. Faith is the channel through which salvation comes. F

"If a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully."                                                                                                     - II Timothy 2:5 [KJV] In other words, it is not a bare striving, but a striving according to certain rules. But these rules are spiritual rules; and being spiritual rules, exclude everything of sense, reason, and nature. Now man, in an unregenerate condition, whether he be in a state of profanity, or in a state of profession, has no spiritual knowledge of the way by which to overcome. He may strive against his lusts; he may endeavour to overcome those things that conscience bears testimony against; but he is not crowned, because he strives not lawfully. He strives in his own strength; contends in his own wisdom; and trusts in his own righteousness. Such strugglers and such overcomers (if overcomers they ever are) are not crowned, because they strive not according to the rules laid down in