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

"The doctrine of free and sovereign grace is rather an encouragement to awakened and brokenhearted sinners than otherwise. If you are most unworthy of mercy and destitute of every plea, should you not be glad to hear that the Lord does not expect worthiness in those whom He saves; but that He Himself has provided the only plea by which He will accept us and a plea which cannot be overruled – the righteousness and mediation of His well-beloved Son? None are so bad but the gospel affords them a ground of hope; none are so good as to have any just ground of hope without it." -preacher John Newton

We won't make much headway in finding a solution if we do not understand the problem. A cure is not likely to be found if we have no knowledge of the disease. In the matter of salvation the problem is man's sin; the solution is God's grace. The disease is moral depravity and spiritual inability; the remedy is God's mercy in Christ. If a man is near-sighted, he only needs corrective glasses but if he is blind, he needs the miracle of sight! If a man is sick, he only needs medicinal aid, but if he is dead, he needs the miracle of life! If man has only strayed from the way, he needs directions, but if he is completely lost, he needs to be found! Here is the question to be settled by preachers and people 'What happened in the garden?' When one feels obliged to come to some conclusions on the subjects of election, irresistible grace and particular redemption, it would be wise for him to first determine the condition of the sinner who is to be saved. If a man was o...

"Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place." -Isaiah 28:17  [KJV] Wherever God the Holy Ghost begins and carries on a work of grace in the heart, He will weigh up, and mete out, from time to time, all a man's religion and try every inch of the way whether it lies straight and level with the word and will of God. Depend upon it the Lord who "weigheth the spirits" (Prov erbs 16:2) , and by whom "actions are weighed" ( I Sam uel 2:3) , will put into his righteous and unerring scales both nature and grace, both human and divine teaching, and make us know which is full weight in heaven's court. The religion of the present day is too much to confuse everything of an experimental nature; to cover and obscure the work of grace in the heart.   But there can be no question that God will never suffer our religion, if, indeed...