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

"If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole; Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth , whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole." -Acts 4:9-10 [KJV] Peter and John were faithful preachers of the gospel. They were not afraid to meet men at their point of rebellion; they were preachers, not politicians. Peter could have said to the Sanhedrin court, "The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers hath made this man whole." He would have been right, everyone there would have agreed, and all would have been well. However, Peter and John would have been wrong, because they knew their point of rebellion.  They knew that those men refused to recognize Jesus Christ as God incarnate, as Messiah, and as Lord, and refused to admit their own guilt. Thank God for men like Peter an...

"And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace." -Acts 20:32 [KJV] Not only did Paul "commend" the church at Ephesus "to God," but he commended them also in an especial manner "to the word of His grace." There is a difference between "grace" and "the word of His grace." Nothing but grace can save the soul; nothing but superabounding grace can blot out and hide from the view of justice our aggravated iniquities. But "the word of His grace" is that word which brings this grace into the heart, which communicates life and power to the soul, which the Spirit by His inward teaching and testimony seals on the conscience, and by which He reveals and sheds abroad that favour of which He testifies. This is what the Lord's people  want. It is "the word of grace" that reaches their soul. It is not reading of grace in God's word that brings peace into their hearts; it is "th...

"That H e would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve H im without fear, in holiness and righteousness before H im, all the days of our life." -Luke 1:74,75 [KJV] Holiness consists mainly of two points:   1. Being made a partaker of the spirit of holiness whereby, as born of God, we are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; set our affections on things above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God; have our conversation in heaven; put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him which created him; live a life of faith in the Son of God, and beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.   To be thus spiritually-minded, to be thus brought near unto God through His dear Son, to walk before Him in the light of His countenance, and to know something of spiritual communion with the ...