I am sure that everyone has heard or read the story how the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah and how he was held captive in the fish's belly for three days. Jonah was totally helpless to deliver himself from this captivity, in his desperate condition he looked toward the holy temple and prayed unto the Lord for his deliverance and made this glorious confession, Salvation is of the Lord." This story was not given to enterain us nor to peak our curiosity how a man could survive three days in the fish's belly, but rather this story was given by God to teach us how God saves sinners. In Matthew 12:39 our Lord Jesus Christ used this scripture to preach the gospel to the lost, self-righteous Pharisees. Here are four things to remember about God's glorious salvation.
Our Lord planned and purposed the salvation of His chosen people before the foundation of the world. Before Adam was created Jesus Christ stood as the Surety for His Elect. Salvation is older than creation, every detail of a sinner's salvation was decreed before time began. God determined from the beginning who would be saved and how He would save them (2 Thess. 2:13). To deny this truth is to deny that salvation is of the Lord!
God not only purposed the sinner's salvation, but He also provided the means whereby He could justly accomplish it. The Lord Jesus Christ provided sufficient atonement by His precious blood to put away the sin of those whom God was determined to save (Heb. 2:17; Cor. 5:21).
Because the sinner is spiritually dead in sin, God must make application to the sinners heart. This is exactly what happens when God sovereignly regenerates a sinner. Salvation is not what we do for God, but rather what He does in the sinners heart (Eph. 2:1).
Those whom God are pleased to save by His sovereign grace are eternally secured in Christ Jesus. They will preserve in faith because they are kept by the power of God. None for whom God chose, none for whom Christ died, none for whom the Holy Spirit calls shall ever perish. To entertain any idea that a man is saved one day, only to be lost on another is to believe that salvation is of works, not of grace. Our Lord said,