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

"They crucified Him."   - Matthew 27:35 [KJV]   A short sentence, replete with the greatest importance to a world of sinners: each word in it contains matter of sorrow, wonder, and joy. Here is a fund for meditation. O Christian, time can never explore its depths. It will be the glory of eternity to sing of, wonder, and adore a once crucified Jesus. Let us consider the agents—the work—and the subject.    (1st.) The agents—they. Who? Angels? No: they gaze and wonder at the cruel, awful deed; but share not in it. Devils? No: they instigate to it; they shout and applaud the deed, but effect it not. No, the work is done by beings, little lower than the angels; yet not devils, but men. Men of devilish natures, cursed passions, and wicked hands. With these they seize the innocent victim, doomed to direful agonies, and an ignominious death.    (2d.) The work. They crucified. O the bloody deed! Heaven that hour let fall a tear. There hangs— who? A man ...

Christ Fulfilled, Repent Therefore (Acts 3:18-21). Message from preacher Clay Curtis (32 minutes).   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogCOKXZu5ZE

"For which of you intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost?" -Luke 14:28 [KJV] Ponder, my soul, over this very striking similitude of thy Lord's, respecting the divine life. The figure of a builder is most aptly chosen; for the christian builder is building for eternity. And the figure of a warrior, which our Lord also joins to it, is no less so, for the battle is for life, and that life is eternal. Hast thou counted the cost? Hast thou entered upon the work? Is the foundation-stone, which God hath laid in Zion, the rock on which thou art building? Pause and examine. Be the cost what it may; the loss of earthly friends; the parting with every worldly pursuit; the scorn, contempt, and derision of all mankind; yea, the loss of life itself: if these come in the way of competition, art thou ready to give them all up?—   When thou hast answered these inquiries, go on, and see that thy foundation be really fixed on Christ. If so, it...

"But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." -II Thessalonians 2:13, 14 [KJV] The first work of grace is to kill rather than to make alive; to wound rather than to heal; to bring down rather than to lift up; to reveal the law rather than the gospel. For "balm is useless to the unfeeling." Salvation with all its super-abounding grace is but an empty sound to those who have never felt themselves cut off from all help or all hope. So, in a sense, there is a calling under and through, if not by the law, in the first teaching and operations of the Spirit of God, bringing the soul under its condemnation as a ministration of death. But when the law has done its office, and the sinner is slain by its killi...