Quote of the Day

Our Savior has bidden us to preach the Gospel to every creature (Mk. 16:15). He has not said, “Preach it only to the elect,” and though that might seem to be the most logical thing for us to do, yet since He has not been pleased to stamp the elect in their foreheads or put any distinctive mark upon them, it would be an impossible task for us to perform. When we preach the Gospel to every creature, the Gospel makes its own division, and Christ’s sheep hear His voice, and follow Him. 

 

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

God's sovereignty is to all other doctrines what the granite formation is to the other strata of the earth.  It underlies and sustains them, but it crops out only here and there.  So this doctrine should underlie all our preaching, and should be definitely asserted only then.

Charles Hodge

Quote of the Day

To the natural man, the very notion of loving his enemies is an intolerable offense, and quite beyond his capacity:  it cuts right across his ideas of good and evil…….In the New Testament our enemies are those who harbour hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility, for Jesus refuses to reckon with such a possibility.  The Christian must treat his enemy as a brother, and requite his hostility with love.  His behavior must be determined not by the way others treat him, but by the treatment he himself receives from Jesus; it has only one source, and that is the will of Jesus….Love asks nothing in return, but seeks those who need it.  And who needs our love more than those who are consumed with hatred and are utterly devoid of love?  Who in other words deserves our love more than our enemy?  Where is love more glorified than where she dwells in the midst of her enemies?  Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love.  Be his enmity political or religious, he has nothing to expect from a follower of Jesus but unqualified love. ……How then does love conquer? By asking not how the enemy treats her but only how Jesus treated her…Our adversaries seek to root out the Christian Church and the Christian faith because they cannot live side by side with us, because they see in every word we utter and every deed we do, even when they are not specifically directed against them, a condemnation of their own words and deeds.  They are not far wrong.  They suspect too that we are indifferent to their condemnation.  Indeed they must admit that it is utterly futile to condemn us.  We do not reciprocate their hatred and contention.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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…Calvinists define all doctrine in a God-centered way.  Sin  is horrible because it is an affront to God.  Salvation is wonderful because it brings glory to God.  Heaven is glorious because it is the place where God is all in all.  Hell is infernal because it is the place where God  manifests His righteous wrath.  God is central in all of those truths.

Joel Beeke

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Inigo, instead of feeling that his remorse was sent to drive him to the foot of the cross, persuaded himself that these inward reproaches proceeded not from God, but from the devil; and he resolved never more to think of his sins, to erase them from his memory, and bury them in eternal oblivion. Luther turned towards Christ, Loyola only fell back upon himself. 

Visions came erelong to confirm Inigo in the conviction at which he had arrived.  His own resolves had become a substitute for the grace of the Lord; his own imaginings supplied the place of God's Word.  He had looked upon the voice of God in his conscience as the voice of the devil; and accordingly the remainder of his history represents him as given up to the inspirations of the spirit of darkness…….These numerous apparitions had removed all doubts; he believed, not like Luther because the things of faith were written in the Word of God, but because of the visions he had seen.  "Even had there been no Bible," say his apologists, "even had these mysteries never been revealed in Scripture, he would have believed them, for God had appeared to him."  Luther, on taking his doctor's degree, had pledged his oath to Holy Scripture, and the only infallible authority of the Word of God had become the fundamental principle of the Reformation.  Loyola, at this time, bound himself to dreams and visions; and chimerical apparitions became the principle of his life and of his faith.

 

Jean Henri Merle D'aubigne

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Our enemies threaten us with death, if they had as much wisdom as foolishness, they would, on the contrary, threaten us with life.  What an absurdity and insult to presume to threaten death to Christ and Christians, who are themselves lords and conquerors of death!......It is as if I would seek to frighten a man by saddling his horse and helping him to mount.  Do they not know that Christ is risen from the dead?  In their eyes HE is still lying in the sepulcher; nay more - in hell.  But we know that He lives……Many believe because of me, but those alone truly believe, who would continue faithful even should they hear (which God forbid!) that I had denied Jesus Christ.  True disciples believe not in Luther, but in Jesus Christ.  As for myself, I do not care about Luther.  Whether he is a saint or a knave, what matters it?  It is not he that I preach; but Christ.  If the devil hate him, let him do so!  But let Christ abide with us, and we shall abide also.

 

Martin Luther

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....Peter was also 'hurried' to ensure that after he died, they would be reminded of these things.  Our ministries (out of integrity) must not be focused solely on this life.  Our goal should be that the 'righteous reminders' we are fortunate enough to share will out-live us.  What we live for (as others see) will be our 'lasting legacy" - what do we really want (seek) this to be?  Will it be our earthly accomplishments, our personality or the One we lived for?  What would we truly like our epitaph to be?  What would we really like our eulogy to consist of?  Wisdom is often evidenced in the looking beyond our life's end; many struggle to look beyond the end of the day - short -sighted.  The plain idea of Peter's intent was to make it so memories of these concepts and truths would be brought back to their thinking long after he had 'departed'.  It is wise to place 'reminders' around us to help us stay focused as well as to strive to be consistent reminders to others.

Don Lambert

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You must not be discouraged at the slowness of recovery.  Look up to Him who giveth liberally for faith to be resigned to His divine will, and trust Him for that measure of health which will most glorify Him and advance to the greatest extent your own real happiness.  We are sometimes suffered to be in a state of perplexity, that our faith may be tried and grow stronger.  "All things work together for good" to God's children.  See if you cannot spend a short time after dark in looking out of your window into space, and meditating upon heaven, with all its joys unspeakable and full of glory; and think of what the Savior relinquished in glory when he came to earth, and of his sufferings for us; and seek to realize, with the apostle, that the afflictions of the present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.  Try to look up and be cheerful, and not desponding.  Trust our kind Heavenly Father, and by the eye of faith see that all things with you are right and for your best interest.  The clouds come, pass over us, and are followed by bright sunshine; so, in God's moral dealings with us, he permits us to have trouble awhile.  But let us, even in the most trying dispensations of His providence, be cheered by the brightness which is a little ahead.

Thomas(Stonewall) Jackson

 

At a time when his second wife(his first wife died) was ill and away from home recovering

Quote of the Day

Instead of complaining that you have no more light, make good use of what you have.

Many groan over their inabilities, and yet they have never gone to the end of their

abilities: this is sheer hypocrisy. 

 

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

Otherworldliness is escapism only if there is no other world.  If there is, it is worldliness that is escapism.

Peter Kreeft

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Caroline [nee Fry] Wilson(1787-1846) writing to a lady friend about an apparently charismatic movement taking place:  "The party with whom it originates, and among whom it is at present confined, is certainly not marked with any character of sobriety.  They are pious and talented, but they are not sober-minded; they love novelty better than their daily bread.  The simplicity of divine truth, and the equal dealings of divine providence are not to their taste; they have mystified the plainest doctrines of the Gospel; they have made war upon every thing common and received; they have quarreled with their mother-tongue, because it can be understood.  Having thrown the whole church into confusion, they have called their own uproar, a 'sign of the times;' and denied salvation to all who will not run with them to like excess of riot….Pious people are not always wise, and clever people, by reason of their temperament, are peculiarly liable to extravagances where their feelings are interested.  ….You know that I expect as fully as they do, the events of 'the last days;' but the more I believe of this, the more I am upon my guard against the 'Lo here! Or Lo there!' with which the levity of men anticipates the majestic walk of Deity.  I know that God can do what he will, and will do what he has promised; but I am accustomed to adjust my faith to the promise, not the promise to my faith, as is the fashion now with some.  Though it is true the Scripture no-where says that miracles shall cease, I am equally sure, it no-where says that they shall not.  We can only judge therefore of what God meant to do, by what he has done, and it is certain they have ceased for many centuries.  Whether God recalled these gifts for some good purpose of his own, or whether man forfeited them by unbelief, I do not know, - for the same reason; the Scripture has not declared it.  If the former, I doubt not God will fully manifest His purpose, to restore them when His time is come; and I can wait till He does so.  If the latter, I must have some evidence that the faith of James Macdonald, and Mary Campbell, is more than the faith of Luther and Latimer, of saints and martyrs, of men of God both dead and living, who, with equal zeal and sounder minds, have followed Christ, but worked no miracles, before I believe that increase of faith has brought back the gifts.

There is one who says, 'If I testify of myself my testimony is not true; ' but these people not only testify of their own gifts, but give the credit of them to their own faith, which they represent to be more than all the faith that has been in exercise for sixteen or seventeen centuries.    Perhaps you will say, 'But here are facts, how can you account for the delusion without supposing willful imposture in the witnesses?'  This I cannot, neither can I explain how Papal Rome performed her well-attested wonders, nor how Joanna Southcote's absurdities deluded 40,000 people; nor how Prince Hohenlohe made the lame to walk; nor how Wesley and his people  raised their ghost.  All must stand together till these new miracles have some better ground to stand on, than the honest credulity of those who think they have witnessed them.  Respecting the recoveries, I am not prepared to say how far the senses may be the dupes of the imagination.  I have seen enough of this, to believe much more; and without a miracle, we see every day, the 'speculations and anticipations of physicians,' baffled by the recovery of the patient, from a seeming deathbed; and that often by no means but strong mental excitement.  As for the tongues, I can imagine nothing easier for man or woman, than to utter what neither themselves or any one else can understand……I must really wait the interpretation of their tongues, and the use to made of them, before I treat this part as any thing but a gross absurdity, calculated to discredit all the rest.  To tell the truth, if the Spirit would constrain some of these people to hold their tongues, rather than to talk; I should be much more disposed to admit a miracle:  the gift of silence would be an extraordinary blessing to the Church at this time.  Mr. E--'s letter is not the writing of a sensible man.  His talent and piety we all know; and it is sad indeed, that men who have been distinguished in the Church, should occupy themselves with turning the heads of silly women, by over-excitement of their pious feelings…….

  

Caroline Wilson

Quote of the Day

February 14th.  Stonewall Jackson to his wife:  Your delightful letter of six pages received a welcome reception this evening.  I am thankful to see that our kind Heavenly Father is again restoring mother to health.  I felt uneasy about her, and thought that Joseph had better make a visit home.  I have made the restoration of mother's health a subject of prayer; but then we know that our dear ones are mortal, and that God does not always answer prayer according to our erring feelings.  I think that if, when we see ourselves in a glass, we should consider that all of us that is visible must turn to corruption and dust, we would learn more justly to appreciate the relative importance of the body that perishes and the soul that is immortal.

Quote of the Day

If you don't have the meaning of Scripture, you do not have the Word of God at all.  If you miss the true sense of what God has said, you are not actually preaching His Word! 

John MacArthur

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1521-1522

In Germany, the Wittenburgers had been infiltrated by so-called apostles, giving new revelation from God discounting the Bible.  And from among their own congregation, a professor named Carlstadt, though rejecting to some degree the false-prophets, was advocating the forced profession of 'Protestantism' or at least its practices(no mass, no statues…etc.), and so abusing the Catholics by destroying the statues of saints, abolishing the mass…etc. In March 1522 Luther has arrived from his exile in the Wartburg castle to speak in the pulpit in Wittenburg for the first time since his exile.  He has returned because he is concerned about what is happening with his congregation:

(the following excerpt is taken from D'aubigne's History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century)His language was simple, noble, yet full of strength and gentleness:  one might have supposed him to be a tender father returning to his children, inquiring into their conduct, and kindly telling them what report he had heard about them.  He candidly acknowledged the progress they had made in faith; and by this means prepared and captivated their minds.  He then continued in these words:  But we need something more than faith; we need charity… What does a mother do to her infant?  At first she

Gives it milk, then some very light food.  If she were to begin by giving it meat and wine, what would be the consequence?......So should we act towards our brethren…permit your brother to drink as long as yourself. 

…The abolition of the mass, say you, is in conformity with Scripture:  Agreed!  But what order, what decency have you observed? It behoved you to offer up fervent prayers to the Lord, and apply to the public authority; then might every man have acknowledged that the thing was of God.

The mass is a bad thing; God is opposed to it; it ought to be abolished; and I would that throughout the whole world it were replaced by the Supper of the Gospel.  But let no one be torn from it by force.  His Word must act, and not we.  And why so, will you ask?  Because I do not hold men's hearts in my hand, as the potter holds the clay.  We have a right to speak; we have not a the right to act.  Let us preach:  the rest belongs unto God.  Were I to employ force, what should I gain?  Grimace, formality, ape-ings, human ordinances, and hypocrisy…..But there would be no sincerity of heart, nor faith, nor charity.  Where these are wanting, all is wanting…

Our first object must be to win men's hearts; and for that purpose we must preach the Gospel.  To-day the Word will fall in one heart, to-morrow in another, and it will operate in such a manner that each one will withdraw from the mass and abandon it.  God does more by his Word alone than you and I and all the world by our united strength.  God lays hold upon the heart; and when the heart is taken, all is won.

I do not say this for the restoration of the mass.  Since it is down, in God's name there let it lie!  But should you have gone to work as you did?  Paul, arriving one day in the powerful city of Athens, found there alters raised to false gods.  He went from one to the other, and observed them without touching one.  But he walked peaceably to the middle of the market-place, and declared to the people that all their gods were idols.  His language took possession of their hearts, and the idols fell without Paul's having touched them. 

I will preach, discuss, and write; but I will constrain none, for faith is a voluntary act.  See what I have done!  I stood up against the pope, indulgences, and papists, but without violence or tumult.  I put forward God's Word;  I preached and wrote - this was all I did.  And yet while I was asleep, or seated familiarly at table with Amsdorff and Melancthon…the Word that I had preached overthrew popery, so that neither prince nor emperor has done it so much harm.  And yet I did nothing:  the Word alone did all.  If I had wished to appeal to force, the whole of Germany would perhaps have been deluged with blood.  But what would have been the result?  Ruin and desolation both to body and soul.  I therefore kept quiet, and left the Word to run through the world alone.  Do you know what the devil thinks when he sees men resort to violence to propagate the Gospel through the world?  Seated with folded arms behind the fire of hell, Satan says, with malignant looks and frightful grin:  'Ah!  How wise these madmen are to play my game!'  But when he sees the Word running and contending alone on the field of battle, then he is troubled, and his knees knock together; he shudders and faints with fear.

Quote of the Day

When people talk of having received “…a blessing” and of having found “the higher life,” after hearing some earnest advocate of “holiness by faith and self-consecration,” while their families and friends see no improvement and no increased sanctity in their daily tempers and behaviour, immense harm is done to the cause of Christ.  True holiness, we surely ought to remember, does not consist merely of inward sensations and impressions.  It is much more than tears, and sighs, and bodily excitement, and a quickened pulse, and a passionate feeling of attachment to our own favorite preachers and our own religious party, and a readiness to quarrel with everyone who does not agree with us.  It is something of “the image of Christ,” which can be seen and observed by others in our private life, and habits, and character, and doings (Rom. 8:29).

J. C. Ryle

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Then what is a pure heart? In what does it consist? The answer can be given quickly, and you do not have to climb up to heaven or run to a monastery for it and establish it with your own ideas. You should be on your guard against any ideas that you call your own, as if they were just so much mud and filth. And you should realize that when a monk in the monastery is sitting in deepest contemplation, excluding the world from his heart altogether, and thinking about the Lord God the way he himself paints and imagines Him, he is actually sitting—if you will pardon the expression—in the dung, not up to his knees but up to his ears. For he is proceeding on his own ideas without the Word of God; and that is sheer deception and delusion, as Scripture testifies everywhere.

What is meant by a “pure heart” is this: one that is watching and pondering what God says and replacing its own ideas with the Word of God. This alone is pure before God, yes, purity itself, which purifies everything that it includes and touches. Therefore, though a common laborer, a shoemaker, or a blacksmith may be dirty and sooty or may smell because he is covered with dirt and pitch, still he may sit at home and think: “My God has made me a man. He has given me my house, wife, and child and has commanded me to love them and to support them with my work.” Note that he is pondering the Word of God in his heart; and though he stinks outwardly, inwardly he is pure incense before God. But if he attains the highest purity so that he also takes hold of the Gospel and believes in Christ—without this, that purity is impossible—then he is pure completely, inwardly in his heart toward God and outwardly toward everything under him on earth.

Martin Luther

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Lately I've had the occasion to fly a lot around the country, preaching here and there. Even though I'm here on Sundays, it seems like my weeks have been spent in airports, sometimes for a long time, as I've had mechanical delays and things like that. And I've become very much aware of a book that I knew was out there but I see literally all over all the airports that I've been in, in the last month or so, it has been labeled, at least, the best selling religious book of the time. The title of it is Your Best Life Now. I have seen stacks and stacks and stacks of those books everywhere I've gone.

Out of curiosity, I want to know what's in the book and so I found this on page 5, “God wants this to be the best time of your life.” On another page it says, “Happy, successful, fulfilled individuals have learned how to live their best life now. On another page it says, “As you put the principles found in these pages to work today, you will begin living your best life now.” And that is absolutely true if you're not a Christian. This is it, you better get the book because your next life is going to be infinitely worse than this one.

This is your best life now. In fact, it's your only life because in the world to come, you will only exist in a perpetual state of dying with no hope, no satisfaction, no meaning, no joy and no future and no relief from eternal suffering. That's the worst life possible. And this is your best life, if your next life is in hell.

But, on the other hand, if you are a child of God and your sins are forgiven and you've come to embrace Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, this is not even close to your best life.......

Contrary to what is popular today, even in religious circles, even in quote/unquote religion circles, even in the name of Jesus, the Lord is not promising you here and now a full, happy, rich, satisfying, trouble-free life of health, wealth and success. Oh He does promise that. Absolutely...a full, rich, satisfying, trouble-free life of health and wealth and success and absolute joy and peace and perfection...but not now...not now. In fact, quite on the other hand, our Lord has promised to those who know Him and love Him in this life...trouble, persecution, rejection, difficulty, trials, temptation, pain, suffering, sorrow, sickness and even physical death.

So, for Christians, this is our worst life now. It isn't that it's bad, but comparatively it's the worst when you think about the life to come, which is the best. Your best life as a Christian begins when this life ends.

- John Macarthur

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 Slavish fear makes the naughty heart imprison truth in his conscience, because, if that had it's liberty and authority in the soul, it would imprison, yea, execute every lust that rules the roost...

 

William Gurnall

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In 1891 the last year of his (Spurgeon’s) life, there was another sermon from the book of Daniel, this time on the resolution of Daniel’s three companions who were thrown into the furnace for their refusal to submit to Nebuchadnezzar. In the first division of the sermon he lists the kind of excuses the three men might have used to justify a compliance which might have used to justify a compliance which would have kept them out of the furnace. They might have said, ‘We can do more good by living,’ dying would ‘cut short our opportunities for usefulness.’ Upon which Spurgeon enlarges:

“Ah, my dear brethren! There are many that are deceived by this method of reasoning. They remain where their conscience tells them they ought not to be, because, they say, they are more useful than they would be if they went “without the camp”. This is doing evil that good may come, and can never be tolerated by an enlightened conscience. If an act of sin would increase my usefulness tenfold, I have no right to do it; and if an act of righteousness would appear likely to destroy all my apparent usefulness, I am yet to do it. It is yours and mine to do the right though the heavens fall, and follow the command of Christ whatever the consequences may be. “That is strong meat,” do you say? Be strong men, then, and feed thereon…

For right is right, since God is God,

And right the day must win;

To doubt would be disloyalty,

To falter would be sin.

Excerpt from The Forgotten Spurgeon - by Iain Murray

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Every Christian who falls into sin is a fool.  If a Christian feels he is in a state of defeat, it is because he is being controlled by his subjective feelings, instead of by an understanding of the truth.  Deliverance from this condition, therefore, depends upon a total change in approach:  Christians are to look not at themselves and their problems but at what God had done for them; their need is not the ‘hospital’ but the ‘barracks” where they will forget their own troubles and ills, and learn to fight in the army. 

We must get rid of that notion of the clinic and the hospital; and we must look at these things more in terms of God and His glory, and the great campaign which He inaugurated through the Son of His love, and which He is going to bring to a triumphant conclusion.

Martyn-Lloyd Jones

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And yet some people actually imagine that the revelation in God’s Word is not enough to meet our needs. They think that God from time to time carries on an actual conversation with them, chatting with them, satisfying their doubts, testifying to His love for them, promising them support and blessings. As a result, their emotions soar; they are full of bubbling joy that is mixed with self-confidence and a high opinion of themselves. The foundation for these feelings, however, does not lie within the Bible itself, but instead rests on the sudden creations of their imaginations. These people are clearly deluded. God’s Word is for all of us and each of us; He does not need to give particular messages to particular people.

 

Jonathan Edwards

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It is the Word that prunes the Christian, it is the truth that purges him, the Scripture made living and powerful by the Holy Spirit-effectually cleanses the Christian. Affliction is the handle of the knife - affliction is the grindstone that sharpens the Word - affliction is the dresser that removes our soft garments and lays bear the diseased flesh, so that the surgeon's knife may get at it - affliction merely makes us ready to feel the Word - but the true prune is the Word, in the hand of the Great Vinedresser.

 Charles Spurgeon

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Think of reading like you think of eating.  In other words, pay attention to your diet.  For the Christian, the highest reading priority is the Word of God.  Our spiritual maturity will never exceed our knowledge of the Bible.

 

Albert Mohler

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 Faith according to our Lord’s teaching in this paragraph, is primarily thinking; and the whole trouble with a man of little faith is that he does not think. He allows circumstances to bludgeon him. … We must spend more time in studying our Lord’s lessons in observation and deduction. The Bible is full of logic, and we must never think of faith as something purely mystical. We do not just sit down in an armchair and expect marvelous things to happen to us. That is not Christian faith. Christian faith is essentially thinking. Look at the birds, think about them, draw your deductions. Look at the grass, look at the lilies of the field, consider them. … Faith, if you like, can be defined like this: It is a man insisting upon thinking when everything seems determined to bludgeon and knock him down in an intellectual sense. The trouble with the person of little faith is that, instead of controlling his own thought, his thought is being controlled by something else, and, as we put it, he goes round and round in circles. That is the essence of worry. … That is not thought; that is the absence of thought, a failure to think.

Martyn-Lloyd Jones

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IN ONE OF HIS LETTERS TO ERASMUS, LUTHER SAID, “YOUR thoughts of God are too human.” Probably that renowned scholar resented such a rebuke, the more so, since it proceeded from a miner’s son; nevertheless, it was thoroughly deserved. We too, though having no standing among the religious leaders of this degenerate age, prefer the same charge against the majority of the preachers of our day, and against those who, instead of searching the Scriptures for themselves, lazily accept the teaching of others. The most dishonoring and degrading conceptions of the rule and reign of the Almighty are now held almost everywhere. To countless thousands, even among those professing to be Christians, the God of the Scriptures is quite unknown.

Of old, God complained to an apostate Israel, “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself” (Psa 50:21). Such must now be His indictment against an apostate Christendom. Men imagine that the Most High is moved by sentiment, rather that actuated by principle. They suppose that His omnipotence is such an idle fiction that Satan is thwarting His designs on every side. They think that if He has formed any plan or purpose at all, then it must be like theirs, constantly subject to change. They openly declare that whatever power He possesses must be restricted, lest He invade the citadel of man’s “free will” and reduce him to a “machine.” They lower the all-efficacious atonement, which has actually redeemed everyone for whom it was made, to a mere “remedy,” which sin-sick souls may use if they feel disposed to; and they enervate the invincible work of the Holy Spirit to an “offer” of the Gospel which sinners may accept or reject as they please.

The “god” of this twentieth century no more resembles the Supreme Sovereign of Holy Writ than does the dim flickering of a candle the glory of the midday sun. The “god” who is now talked about in the average pulpit, spoken of in the ordinary Sunday School, mentioned in much of the religious literature of the day, and preached in most of the so-called Bible Conferences is the figment of human imagination, an invention of maudlin sentimentality. The heathen outside of the pale of Christendom form “gods” out of wood and stone, while the millions of heathen inside Christendom manufacture a “god” out of their own carnal mind. In reality, they are but atheists, for there is no other possible alternative between an absolutely supreme God, and no God at all. A “god” whose will is resisted, whose designs are frustrated, whose purpose is checkmated, possesses no title to Deity, and so far from being a fit object of worship, merits naught but contempt. 

A. W. Pink

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I do know that waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thoughts. Its easy to talk oneself into a decision that has no permanence – easier sometimes than to wait patiently.

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Worship is not an experience. Worship is an act, and this takes discipline. We are to worship ''in spirit and in truth.'' Never mind about the feelings. We are to worship in spite of them. 

  

Elisabeth Elliot

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People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith or delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; toward disobedience and call it freedom; toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the non-discipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

D. A. Carson

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By this experience [his illness of 1561], the Lord has once again made me better understand, that it is not left to ministers to choose their locations, nor to go or run to any other place which might seem good to them, but rather to go where it pleases God to send them. For God is the Lord of the harvest. It is, therefore, His responsibility alone to send out the laborers (Matt. 9:38; Rom. 10:15), choosing those whom He pleases, and according to the time He so ordains.

Pierre Viret

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Discernment is not simply a matter of telling the difference between what is right and wrong; rather it is the difference between right and almost right.

  

Charles Spurgeon

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Truth is mightier than eloquence.  The victory remains with him who lisps out the truth, and not with him who puts forth a lie in flowing language.

 

Martin Luther

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...God establishes a rule of life by which you can live together in wedlock:  'Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.  Husbands, love your wives' (Col. 3:18,19).  With your marriage you are founding a home.  That needs a rule of life, and this rule of life is so important that God establishes it himself, because without it everything would be out of joint.  You may order your home as you like, except in one thing: the wife is to be subject to her husband and the husband is to love his wife.

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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How does all this come to pass?  How does God create a community of saints out of sinful men and women?  How can he avert the reproach of unrighteousness if he makes a covenant with sinners?  How can the sinner become righteous without impairing the righteousness of God?  The answer is that God justifies Himself by appearing as his own advocate in defense of his own righteousness….and it is in the cross of Christ that this supreme miracle happens (Rom. 3:21)…Having thus died with him, we become partakers in the righteousness of God through the death of Jesus….The justification of the sinner therefore consists in the sole righteousness of God…Whenever we desire an independent righteousness of our own we are forfeiting our only chance of justification, which is through God and his righteousness.  God alone is righteous.

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quote of the Day

Truth existed before any revelation in written form was made. It therefore does not depend on revelation for its truthfulness. To the same end, it may be said that some truths, though recorded and in no way opposed to reason, are not demonstrable by reason. If, as has been proved, revelation is infinitely true, it follows that, should reason advance a contradiction to revelation, reason is at fault.

L. S. Chafer

Quote of the Day

Providence is wonderfully intricate. Ah! You want always to see through Providence, do you not? You never will, I assure you. You have not eyes good enough. You want to see what good that affliction was to you; you must believe it. You want to see how it can bring good to the soul; you may be enabled in a little time; but you cannot see it now; you must believe it. Honor God by trusting Him.

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

 God often comforts us, not by changing the circumstances of our lives, but by changing our attitude toward them.

 

S. H. B. Masterman

Quote of the Day

‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎The mind of God is greater than all the minds of men, so let all men leave the gospel just as God has delivered it unto us.

  

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

Beware of a religion without holdfasts….

Everybody is getting to be so oily, so plastic, so untrue, that we need a race of hardshells to teach us how to believe. Those old-fashioned people who in former ages believed something and thought the opposite of it to be false, were truer folk, than the present timeservers.

I should like to ask the divines of the broad school whether any doctrine is worth a man’s dying for it. They would have to reply, “Well, of course, if a man had to go to the stake or change his opinions, the proper way would be to state them with much diffidence, and to be extremely respectful to the opposite school.”

But suppose he is required to deny the truth?

“Well, there is much to be said on each side, and probably the negative may have a measure of truth in it as well as the positive. At any rate, it cannot be a prudent thing to incur the odium of being burned, and so it might be preferable to leave the matter an open question for the time being.”

Yes, and as these gentlemen always find it unpleasant to be unpopular, they soften down the hard threatenings of Scripture as to the world to come, and put a color upon every doctrine to which worldly-wise men object.<big>The teachers of doubt are very doubtful teachers.

 

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

God makes your marriage indissoluble, "What therefore God has joined together let no man put asunder" (Matt. 19:6)  God joins you together in marriage; it is his act, not yours.  Do not confound your love for one another with God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quote of the Day

Faith is not what some people think it is. Their human dream is a delusion. Because they observe that faith is not followed by good works or a better life, they fall into error, even though they speak and hear much about faith. “Faith is not enough,” they say, “You must do good works, you must be pious to be saved.” They think that, when you hear the gospel, you start working, creating by your own strength a thankful heart which says, “I believe.” That is what they think true faith is. But, because this is a human idea, a dream, the heart never learns anything from it, so it does nothing and reform doesn’t come from this `faith,’ either.
Instead, faith is God’s work in us, that changes us and gives new birth from God. (John 1:13). It kills the Old Adam and makes us completely different people. It changes our hearts, our spirits, our thoughts and all our powers. It brings the Holy Spirit with it. Yes, it is a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn’t stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever. He stumbles around and looks for faith and good works, even though he does not know what faith or good works are. Yet he gossips and chatters about faith and good works with many words.
Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it. Such confidence and knowledge of God’s grace makes you happy, joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures. The Holy Spirit makes this happen through faith. Because of it, you freely, willingly and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who has shown you such grace. Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire! Therefore, watch out for your own false ideas and guard against good-for-nothing gossips, who think they’re smart enough to define faith and works, but really are the greatest of fools. Ask God to work faith in you, or you will remain forever without faith, no matter what you wish, say or can do.

 

Martin Luther

Quote of the Day

When the Reformation came, the providence of God raised Martin Luther to restore the gospel of pure, costly grace.  Luther passed through the cloister; he was a monk, and all of this was part of the divine plan.  Luther had left all to follow Christ on the path of absolute obedience.  He had renounced the world in order to live the Christian life.  He had learnt obedience to Christ and to his Church, because only he who is obedient can believe.  The call to the cloister demanded of Luther the complete surrender of his life.  But God shattered all his hopes.  He showed him through the Scriptures that the following of Christ is not the achievement or merit of a select few, but the divine command to all Christians without distinction.  Monasticism had transformed the humble work of discipleship into the meritorious activity of the saints, and the self-renunciation of discipleship into the flagrant spiritual self-assertion of the 'religious.'  The world had crept into the very heart of the monastic life, and was once more making havoc.  The monk's attempt to flee from the world turned out to be a subtle form of love for the world. …once more he must leave his nets and follow.   The first time was when he entered the monastery, when he had left everything behind except his pious self.  This time even that was taken from him.  He obeyed  the call, not through any merit of his own, but simply through the grace of God.  Luther did not hear the word:  'Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as your are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness.'  No, Luther had to leave the cloister and go back to the world, not because the world in itself was good and holy, but because even the cloister was only a part of the world.
Luther's return from the cloister to the world was the worst blow the world had suffered since the days of early Christianity.  The renunciation he made when he became a monk was child's play compared with that which he had to make when he returned to the world.  Now came the frontal assault.  The only way to follow Jesus was by living in the world.  Hitherto the Christian life had been the achievement of a few choice spirits under the exceptionally favorable conditions of monasticism; now it is a duty laid on every Christian living in the world.  The commandment of Jesus must be accorded perfect obedience in one's daily vocation of life.    The conflict between the life of the Christian and the life of the world was then thrown into the sharpest possible relief.  It was a hand-to - hand conflict between the Christian and the world.
It is a fatal misunderstanding of Luther's action to suppose that his rediscovery of the gospel of pure grace offered a general dispensation from obedience to the command of Jesus, or that it was the great discovery of the Reformation that God's forgiving grace automatically conferred upon the world both righteousness and holiness.  On the contrary, for Luther the Christian's worldly calling is sanctified only in so far as that calling registers the final, radical protest against the world.  Only in so far as the Christian's secular calling is exercised in the following of Jesus does it receive from the gospel new sanction and justification.  It was not the justification of sin, but the justification of the sinner that drove Luther from the cloister back into the world. The grace he had received was costly grace.  It was grace, for it was like water on parched ground, comfort in tribulation, freedom from the bondage of a self-chosen way, and forgiveness of all his sins.  And it was costly, for, so far from dispensing him from good works, it meant that he must take the call to discipleship more seriously than ever before.  It was grace because it cost so much, and it cost so much because it was grace.  That was the secret of the gospel of the Reformation - the justification of the sinner.

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quote of the Day

Repentance, faith, and holiness, are unchangeable in their nature, and uniform in their effects.  Religion has to do with one God, one Mediator, one sacrifice; it recommends one faith, enjoins one baptism, proclaims one heaven, and one hell.  All these are unchangeable both in their nature and their effects.  One Gospel is the fountain whence all these things are derived; and that Gospel being the everlasting Gospel, was, is, and will be, the same, form its first publication, till time shall be no more.  Novelty, therefore, on such subjects cannot be expected:  he who has read the conversion and religious experience of on sensible man, has, in substance, read that of ten thousand.

 

Adam Clark?

Quote of the Day

O Almighty and Everlasting God! How terrible is this world! Behold, it openeth its mouth to swallow me up, and I have so little trust in Thee!.....How weak is the flesh, and Satan how strong! If it is only in the strength of this world that I must put my trust, all is over!......My last hour is come, my condemnation has been pronounced!......O God! O God!......O God! do thou help me against the wisdom of the world! Do this; thou shouldest do this.....thou alone.....for this is not my work, but Thine. I have nothing to do here, nothing to contend for with these great ones of the world! I should desire to see my days flow on peaceful and happy. But the cause is Thine.....and it is a righteous and eternal cause. O Lord! help me! Faithful and unchangeable God! In no man do I place my trust. It would be vain! All that is of man is uncertain; all that cometh of man fails....O God! my God, hearest Thou me not?.....My God, art Thou dead?.....No! Thou canst not die! Thou hidest thyself only! Thou hast chosen me for this work. I know it well!.....Act, then, O God!......stand at my side, for the sake of thy well-beloved Jesus Christ, who is my defense, my shield, and my strong tower...................Lord! where stayest Thou?......O my God! where art Thou?,,,,,,Come! come! I am ready!.....I am ready to lay down my life for Thy truth.....patient as a lamb. For it is the cause of justice - it is Thine!.....I will never separate myself from Thee, neither now nor through eternity!.....And though the world should be filled with devils, - though my body, which is still the work of Thy hands, should be slain, be stretched upon the pavement, be cut in pieces.....reduced to ashes.....my soul is Thine!....Yes! Thy Word is my assurance of it. My soul belongs to Thee! It shall abide for ever with Thee.....Amen!....O God! help me!.....Amen!

Martin Luther

The second morning of Luther's appearance at the Diet of Worms.

Quote of the Day

We profess to be strangers and pilgrims, seeking after a country of our own, yet we settle down in the most un-stranger-like fashion, exactly as if we were quite at home and meant to stay as long as we could. I don't wonder apostolic miracles have died. Apostolic living certainly has.

 

Amy Carmichael

Quote of the Day

We still cannot imagine that today God really doesn't want anything new for us, but simply to prove us in the old way.  That is too petty, to monotonous, to undemanding for us.  And we simply cannot be content with the fact that God's cause is not always the successful one, that we really could be 'unsuccessful': and yet be on the right road.  But this is where we find out whether we have begun in faith or in a burst of enthusiasm.

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quote of the Day

What is fate? Fate is this -- Whatever is, must be. But there is a difference between that and Providence. Providence says, Whatever God ordains must be; but the wisdom of God never ordains any thing without a purpose. Every thing in this world is working for some one great end. Fate does not say that. Fate simply says that the thing must be; Providence says, God moves the wheels along, and there they are. If any thing would go wrong, God puts it right; and if there is any thing that would move awry, he puts his hand and alters it. It comes to the same thing; but there is a difference as to the object. There is all the difference between fate and Providence that there is between a man with good eyes and a blind man. Fate is a blind thing; it is the avalanche crushing the village down below and destroying thousands. Providence is not an avalanche; it is a rolling river, rippling at the first like a rill down the sides of the mountain, followed by minor streams, till it rolls in the broad ocean of everlasting love, working for the good of the human race. The doctrine of Providence is not, that what is, must be; but that, what is, works together for the good of our race, and especially for the good of the chosen people of God. The wheels are full of eyes; not blind wheels. And, my brethren, it is quite certain that no man ever begins the new birth himself. The work of salvation never was commenced by any man. God the Holy Spirit must commence it. Now, the reasons why no man ever commenced the work of grace in his own heart, is very plain and palpable. First, because he cannot; secondly, because he won't. The best reason of all is, because he cannot—he is dead. Well the dead may be made alive, but the dead cannot make themselves alive, for the dead can do nothing. Besides, the new thing to be created as yet hath no being. The uncreated cannot create. "Nay," but you say, "that man can create." Yes, can hell create heaven? Then sin may create grace. What! will you tell me that fallen human nature, that has come almost to a level with the brutes, is competent to rival God; that it can emulate the divinity in working as great marvels, and in imparting as divine a life as even God himself can give? It cannot. Besides, it is a creation; we are created anew in Christ Jesus. Let any man create a fly, and afterwards let him create a new heart in himself; until he hath done the less he cannot do the greater. Besides, no man will. If any man could convert himself, there is no man that would. If any man saith he would, if that be true, he is already converted; for the will to be converted is in great part conversion. The will to love God, the desire to be in unison with Christ, is not to be found in any man who hath not already been brought to be reconciled with God through the death of his Son. There may be a false desire, a desire grounded upon a misrepresentation of the truth; but a true desire after true salvation by the true Spirit, is a certain index that the salvation already is there in the germ and in the bud, and only needs time and grace to develop itself. But certain it is, that man neither can nor will, being on the one hand utterly impotent and dead, and on the other hand utterly depraved and unwilling; hating the change when he sees it in others, and most of all despising it in himself. Be certain, therefore, that God the Holy Spirit must begin, since none else can do so.

  

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

Let there be no misunderstanding at this point. The Arminian limits the atonement as certainly as does the Calvinist. The Calvinist limits the extent of it in that he says it does not apply to all persons (although as has already been shown, he believes that it is efficacious for the salvation of the large proportion of the human race); while the Arminian limits the power of it, for he says that in itself it does not actually save anybody. The Calvinist limits it quantitatively, but not qualitatively; the Arminian limits it qualitatively, but not quantitatively. For the Calvinist it is like a narrow bridge which goes all the way across the stream; for the Arminian it is like a great wide bridge which goes only half-way across....

 

Loraine Boettner

Quote of the Day

I can pretty clearly distinguish, between skill and malice, and I set no high value on a malice so unskillful.  To burn books is so easy a matter that even children can do it; much more, then, the Holly Father and his doctors.  It would be well for them to show greater ability than that which is required to burn books......Besides, let them destroy my works!  I desire nothing better; for all my wish has been to lead souls to the Bible, so that they might afterwards neglect my writings....If we had a knowledge of Scripture what need would there be of any books of mine?....

 

Martin Luther

Quote of the Day

If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.

Augustine

Quote of the Day

 "I can pretty clearly distinguish, between skill and malice, and I set no high value on a malice so unskillful.  To burn books is so easy a matter that even children can do it; much more, then, the Holly Father and his doctors.  It would be well for them to show greater ability than that which is required to burn books......Besides, let them destroy my works!  I desire nothing better; for all my wish has been to lead souls to the Bible, so that they might afterwards neglect my writings....If we had a knowledge of Scripture what need would there be of any books of mine?...."

 

Martin Luther

Quote of the Day

I am accused of rejecting the holy doctors of the Church.  I do not reject them; but, since all these doctors endeavor to prove their writings by Holy Scripture, Scripture must be clearer and surer than they are.  Who would think of proving an obscure passage by one that was obscurer still?  Thus, the necessity obliges me to have recourse to the Bible, as all the doctors have done, and to call upon it to pronounce upon their writings; for the Bible alone is lord and master.

 

Martin Luther

Quote of the Day

A Thanksgiving

For all Thy blessings given there are many to thank Thee, Lord,

But for the gifts withholden I fain would add my word.

For good things I desired that barred me from the best,

The peace at the price of honour, the sloth of a shameful rest;

The poisonous sweets I longed for to my hungering heart denied,

The staff that broke and failed me when I walked in the way of pride;

The tinsel joys withheld that so content might still be mine,

The help refused that might have made me loose my hand from Thine

The light withdrawn that I might not see the dangers of my way;

For what Thou hast not given, I thank Thee, Lord today.

Annie Johnson Flint

Quote of the Day

So many burdened lives along the way!

My load seems lighter than the most I see,

And oft I wonder if I could be brave,

Patient and sweet if they were laid on me.

But God has never said that He would give

Another's grace without another's thorn;

What matter, since for every day of mine

Sufficient grace for me comes with the morn?

And though the future brings some heavier cross

I need not cloud the present with my fears;

I know the grace that is enough today

Will be sufficient still through all the years.

 

Annie Johnson Flint

Quote of the Day

On Mathew 6:

Anxiety creates its own treasures and they in turn beget further care.  When we seek for security in possessions we are trying to drive out care with care, and the net result is the precise opposite of our anticipations.  The fetters which bind us to our possessions prove to be cares themselves.
The way to misuse our possessions is to use them as an insurance against the morrow.  Anxiety is always directed to the morrow, whereas goods are in the strictest sense meant only for today.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.  The only way to win assurance is by leaving to-morrow entirely in the hands of God and by receiving from him all we need for to-day.  If instead of receiving God's gifts for to-day we worry about tomorrow, we find ourselves helpless victims of infinite anxiety.  "Be not anxious for the morrow" : either that is cruel mockery for the poor and wretched, the very people Jesus is talking to who, humanly speaking really will starve if they do not make provision to-day.  Either it is an intolerable law, which men will reject with indignation; or it is the unique proclamation of the gospel of the glorious liberty of the children of God, who have a Father in heaven, a Father who has given his beloved Son.  How shall not God with him also freely give us all things?
"Be not anxious for the morrow"."  this is not to be taken as a philosophy of life or a moral law:  it is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and only so can it be understood.  Only those who follow him and know him can receive this word as a promise of the love of his Father and as a deliverance from the thraldom of material things.  It is not care that frees the disciples from care, but their faith in Jesus Christ.  Only they know that we cannot be anxious(verse 27).  The coming day, even the coming hour, are placed beyond our control.  It is senseless to pretend that we can make provision because we cannot alter the circumstances of this world.  Only God can take care, for it is He who rules the world.  Since we cannot take care, since we are so completely powerless, we ought not to do it either.  If we do, we are dethroning God and presuming to rule the world ourselves.

"Now mark ye, no beast worketh for his sustenance, but each hath his proper function, according to which he seeketh and findeth his own food.  The bird doth fly and sing, she maketh nests and beareth young.  That is her work, but yet she doth not nourish herself thereby.  Oxen plough, horses draw carts and fight, sheep give wool, milk, and cheese, for it is their function so to do.  But they do not nurture themselves thereb.  Nay, the earth bringeth forth grass, and nurtureth them through God's blessing.  Likewise it is man's bounden duty to work and do things, and yet withal to know that it is Another who nurtureth him:  it is not his own work, but the bounteous blessing of God.  It is true  that the bird doth neither sow nor reap, yet would she die of hunger if she flew not in search of food.  But that she findeth the same is not her work, bu tthe goodness of God.  For who put the food there, that she might find it?  For where God hath put nought, none findeth, even though the whole worl dwere to work itself to death in search therefof.'(Luther).

- From Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book, The Cost of Discipleship