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

     No man has a true desire for the salvation of men's souls who does not first have a desire for God to be honored and glorified above all things. The individual who believes or preaches a gospel in which God is not glorified, one in which His justice is not fully satisfied as His grace is shown, not only doesn't truly desire to see men's souls saved but most likely is not saved himself. A salvation which does not begin with God, which is not provided for altogether by God, which does not save all whom He purposes to save and which does not keep all He saves...does not glorify God.  The chief end of all things in salvation as well as in general is the glory of God.  -preacher Gary Shepard https://www.sermonaudio.com/source_detail.asp?sourceid=allsovgrace

"...NOT by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy He saved us..." -Titus 3:5 [KJV]      Ritualism, or externalism, or traditionalism are all different forms of self-righteousness; man's self-invented ways of pleasing or appeasing God, or paying for admittance into heaven. These forms of self-righteousness are a human apparatus for procuring God's pardon. They are the means by which the performer of them hopes to win God's favor--perhaps, also, man's praise--most certainly, his own esteem. Every act, or performance, or ceremony, which honors self, exalts self, or gives prominence to self--is an accursed thing. It is an abomination in the sight of God--however religious, or sacred, or solemn, or devout, it may seem to man. It is to self-righteousness in some form or other, that man is always tending. Man attempts to make up for this badness, or to cover it over, by works, and devotions, and ceremonies. All this is pure ...

  "And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with a cluster of grapes."   - Numbers 13:23 [KJV]      Was not this single cluster of God's earnest to the people of the sure possession of the land where those delicious fruits grew? And was not the size and weight of this one branch a sample how full and extensive all the blessings, both of the covenant and of the promised land, should be to the after possession of God's people? My soul, dost thou not see in it then a precious representation of Jesus, that one branch, and of all that cluster of blessings which are in Him? Well might the church cry out concerning the Redeemer, "My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi." For whether this camphire, this copher, denotes the vine of Cyprus, or the fruit of the palm-tree, in either, or in both, the soul-strengthening, soul-exhilarating, soul-healing virtues of this unnumbered excellencies, may well be ...