Quote of the Day

Have you ever noticed the difference between being humble and being humbled?  Many persons are humbled who are not humble at all.

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

When other people offend us, we should see that as an opportunity to love them.  

Paraphrase of Don Lambert

Quote of the Day

A fool soon makes up his mind, because there is so very little of it; but a wise man waits and considers.

 

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

Windshields are one of those technological wonders we have all gotten used to.  In fact, they work best when you don't notice them, when they are invisible so that all you can see is what they reveal.  I am concerned that many Calvinists today do little more than celebrate how wonderfully clear their theological windshield is.  But like a windshield, Reformed theology is not an end in itself.  It is simply a window to the awe-inspiring universe of God's truth, filled with glory, beauty, and grace.  Do we need something like a metaphorical windshield of clear, biblical truth to look through as we hope to marvel at God's glory?  Absolutely.  But we must make sure that we know the difference between staring at a windshield and staring through one. 

Greg Dutcher

Quote of the Day

I have been afraid to be too sanguine, lest another blow should come, but, that is wrong.  Thankfulness should not be kept in check by mistrust;  seeing that if disappointment do come, I have had proof that strength and guidance will abundantly come with it.   

  

Caroline Wilson

Quote of the Day

If you were to get up and hum a tune then you wouldn’t get anything if you had no theology. Now I can just hear a message in song, if I know the song and I know the words of it; I can get a blessing from it. But I’m not getting it from the music; I’m getting it primarily from the word that the music is seeking to proclaim. Now if music was intended to be put on the plane of the word of God, then the Lord Jesus would have come from heaven and whistled and hummed. 

S. Lewis Johnson

Quote of the Day

The appeal of (Matthew)11:26-29 leads to the assurance of 11:30:  'My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.'  The Lord will never tax us beyond our strength, never impose a task beyond the ability He gives.  He is on the other side of the yoke and He carries all its weight.  The responsibility is His.  The results are His burden, not ours. The Lord is the kindest and most considerate Master in the world. 

John Phillips

Quote of the Day

 No article of faith may be based on any noncanonical work, regardless of its religious value. 

The divinely inspired and authoritative books are the sole basis for doctrine and practice.  Whatever complimentary support canonical truth derives from other books, it in no way lends canonical value to those books.  The support is purely historical and has no authoritative theological value.  The truth of inspired Scripture alone is the canon or foundation of the truths of faith.

- From the book From God to Us:  How We Got our Bible - by Norman Geisler and William Nix

Quote of the Day

A mighty bulwark is our God

A doughty ward and weapon.

He helps us clear from every rod

By which we now are smitten.

Still our ancient foe

Girds him to strike a blow.

Might and guile his gear,

His armor striketh fear

 On earth is not his equal.

By our own strength is nothing won.

We court at once disaster.

There fights for us the Champion

 Whom God has named our Master.

Would you know his name?

Jesus Christ the same

Lord Sabaoth is he.

No other God can be.

The field is his to hold it.

And though the fiends on every hand

Were threatening to devour us,

We would not waver from our stand.

They cannot overpower us.

This world’s prince may rave.

However he behave,

He can do no ill.

God’s truth abideth still.

One little word shall fell him.

That word they never can dismay,

 However much they batter,

For God himself is in the fray

And nothing else can matter.

Then let them take our life,

Goods, honor, children, wife.

We will let all go.

They shall not conquer so,

 For God will win the battle

 

Martin Luther

Quote of the Day

Consider what thou owest to His (God's)immutability. Though thou hast changed a thousand times, He has not changed once; though thou hast shifted thy intentions, and thy will, yet He has not once swerved from His eternal purpose, but has still held thee fast.

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

…men have come to consider pardon, and safety, and the hope , not very animated, of a future Heaven, as the whole of salvation - all of it at least that is dispensed to us in this life - holiness and happiness, the blessed remainder, being waited for till we die.  To the scriptural doctrine of imputed righteousness, by which we stand justified and sinless in the sight of God, has been joined and in a manner confounded with it, an idea of imputed sanctification - by which, without any change wrought in us, we become holy and prepared for bliss at the same moment that we are pardoned and justified in Christ - nothing more being to be done by us, or in us, until the day of our removal hence; thus denying altogether the idea of progressive sanctification, or any sanctification at all, except as imputed to us from the perfect merits of  our blessed Lord….I have observed the consequences of this base contentedness with an unhallowed and unhappy safety; the half of what Christ has promised, and that not the better half, since if his mercy rested there, it would be unavailing to us; it would have remitted our misery without making us blessed; it would have sent us from prison with our fetters on, and preferred us to a heaven that would not suit us when we come there:  the little taste for that heaven evinced by persons of this condition, is a proof that it would not.  From this low estimate of what salvation is, I have observed to result a life and conversation proportionately low; very little of enjoyment; a stupid expectation, that scarcely ever warms into desire….there is no desire for the Bridegroom's coming, because there is no assimilation of character to make the blest companionship delightful….But if, on this, you advise them to become more fit, by a closer walk with God, they recur to first principles - there fitness is of God - He has promised - justified in Christ, they know that they are saved.  Most precious truths! Enough, one would think, to make us long after Him as the hart panteth for the water-brooks, and lose all care for what may intervene, in watchful expectation of His coming.  But they have no such effect in this case:  time loses little of its importance - earth but little of its influence….Is it not true, then, that they who rest satisfied with a  bare and barren hope of being safe for eternity, by which little more is understood than safety from the punishment of hell, do meanly estimate the Redeemer's work, accept but the half of what he has purchased, and wearily and unsafely postpone the other half, as something beyond our present reach.  True, it is beyond our present reach in its ultimate perfection…But is that a reason they should not begin? …..Should we make so light of the Savior's gift as to be in no haste to enjoy it till we possess it all, if indeed we can possess in eternity what we have made no progress towards in time? …I see no security for them in the word of God; I see there, on the contrary, that growth, increase, progression, are the terms in which the divine life is spoken of; "increasing in stature," "growing into the likeness," "going on to perfection."  Such figures and expressions do not characterize that sudden change at death which some rely on.  The first sowing of the seed is a momentary act; the putting in of the sickle is momentary also; but it grows not in an hour, it ripens not in a day.  Does the husbandman, when he comes into his field to reap, expect to find it as he left it when he sowed?  Or when suns have shone on it in vain, and in vain the waters of heaven descended, will it start into perfection under the reaper's sickle?  

  

Caroline Wilson

Quote of the Day

While the heart is unchanged and the spirit unrenowned, vain is every exhortation to serve God and lead a good and Christian life.  This is to demand the fruit before the tree is planted - to reap the harvest before the field is sown.  It is not the language of Scripture.  "Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,"  be conscious of your need of such a change, and believe that it is the gift and purchase of redeeming love.  This is the first exhortation addressed to every sinner under the gospel dispensation; and as sinners once dead in trespasses and sins, this is the theme of our prayers, our gratitude, and our rejoicing.  For we believe on the word and faithfulness of God, that the work He has begun He will complete; and having by His Spirit touched us into life,  He will preserve the feeble breath within us till it grows into immortality.   So long as the assurance of this first act of mercy abides within us, we feel, amid all the sins and dangers that  surround us, no apprehension for the issue of our travail…Being justified freely, we have confidence towards God; and God is more honored by our confidence than He could be by our doubts or any degree of mistrustful, anxious labor with which we might endeavor to relieve them.   This is the foundation of Christian character, the living principle, without which the action of life cannot be carried on; and proportioned, I believe, to the vigour of this principle will be the action it produces.

 

Caroline Wilson

Quote of the Day

Our home!  What spirit has not felt the charm,

The untold meaning, hidden in that word?

Can any not recall one throb of joy

That swell'd the bosom when that name was heard?

Far banished from the beings most beloved

Strangers and pilgrims on a foreign soil;

Where even that we have is scarcely ours,

Claimants to nothing but to care and toil

Chill'd by a rugged and ungenial clime,

Despised as aliens, taunted and disclaimed,

What brilliant visions animate the soul,

Whene'er our country or our home is named

Heaven is our home - our best beloved is their,

And there is all that we can call our own;

Treasures far other than earth's borrowed joys,

There are our wealth, our scepter, and our crown.

What then is death?  Is it the mournful shroud,

The soldered coffin, and the sable train?

The brief inscription, and the moldering stone

That tells the careless stranger, we have been?

Mistaken emblems of unreal ill!!

Phantoms that pale the conscious sinner's cheek;

Spectres!  That haunt us in life's gayest hours!

When Christians die, how false the tale you speak.

Far other visions crowd his closing eye;

Death comes to him a messenger of love-

He hears angelic hosts their songs prepare

To greet his coming to the realms above

He sees the Savior stand with hand outstretched

To wipe the tears of sorrow from his eye;

He hears the Father from his lofty throne,

Invite him to his mansion in the sky.

Behind him he beholds earth's thousand ills,

With all the folly of its mad pursuits;

And sin disrobed of passion's artful guise,

Stands forth confessed with all its bitter fruits.

Before- what mortal accents may not tell

Something, life's grosser vision cannot see,

The bright beginnings of eternal bliss,

The gleam of coming immortality!

 

Caroline Wilson

Quote of the Day

We don't envy the people that we love. 

Don Lambert