NO one can read his Bible without being convinced that it is full of practical exhortations as to human conduct and human effort. Those who are seeking the Lord Jesus Christ are exhorted to repent, to believe, to be converted, to seek, to come, and to follow on to know the Lord. Hence it follows that as we are very apt to see only one side of anything at a time, there is a great tendency to dwell exclusively on human action, and to exhort, and to persuade, as if everything was in our own hands, so that we may do just what we please, and when we please, in the great matter of our soul’s salvation. People are apt to write and speak about coming to Jesus as if it all rested with the sinner himself. But this, though deduced from a truth, is not the whole truth of Scripture. We find there beyond all doubt the warning, the offer and the invitation; but we find also the clear description of a divine salvation, the plan of divine wisdom, and the gift of divine grace. Accordingly in this passage when St. Peter {17} is addressing those who had obtained like precious faith with himself, he makes it perfectly clear at the very outset of his letter that they had obtained it, not by the power of their own energy, or the determination of their own will, but through the power of God, the gift of God, and the call of God, “whereby were given unto them exceeding great and precious promises.” {18a} Let us, therefore, turn our attention to the divine side of the great transaction, and trace through four successive steps, the divine Saviour, the divine salvation, the divine revelation, and the divine application. I. A DIVINE SAVIOUR. It is not my business now to make any attempt to prove the divinity of our Blessed Redeemer, for I take it for granted that we all admit the great truths of Christianity. What I desire now to do is to point out that, if saved at all, we are saved by a Person, and that that Person is divine. The Lord Jesus Christ is a personal Saviour, and as a personal Saviour, saves us from the death of sin. It is as much a personal act as when a bold swimmer leaps into the ocean and saves a drowning man.