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

" A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh." — Ezekiel 36:26 [KJV] What absolute declarations are here! all display the sovereign will and almighty favor of a covenant God. As God's heart of love is towards His people in Christ, so His spirit of power works in them according to the counsel of His will. Hence they know, love and serve Him. By the blood of Jesus their sins are pardoned and their consciences cleansed from guilt.  By the Spirit of Jesus they are inwardly sanctified from their filthiness and idols: a new heart and a new spirit is put within them; and they are enabled to walk in His statutes, and keep His judgments. Thus "all things are of God, who hath reconciled us unto Himself by Jesus Christ , " — II Corinthians 5:17, 18. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away; behold...

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." -Romans 8:1 [KJV] There is not a more blessed declaration than this in the whole word of truth. It is the sweetest note sounded by the gospel trumpet, for it is the very crown of the whole jubilee. Is not condemnation the bitterest drop in the cup of trembling? the most thrilling, piercing note of that terrible trumpet which sounded so long and so loud from Sinai's blazing top that all the people that were in the camp trembled? See Exodus 19:13, 16. Condemnation is the final execution of God's righteous law, and therefore carries with it all that arms death with its sting and the grave with its terror. The apprehension of this; the dread and fear of being banished for ever from the presence of God; of being lost, and that without remedy; of sinking under the blazing indignation of Him who is a consuming fire , has filled thousands of hearts with horror. And it must be so as long ...