Monday, December 31, 2012

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

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

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

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

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

Monday, December 24, 2012

Quote of the Day

…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

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Quote of the Day


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

Friday, December 21, 2012

Quote of the Day


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

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Quote of the Day


....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

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Quote of the Day


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

Monday, December 17, 2012

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

Sunday, December 16, 2012

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

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Quote of the Day

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

Friday, December 14, 2012

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.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

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

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Quote of the Day


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.



Monday, December 10, 2012

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

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Quote of the Day

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

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Quote of the Day



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

Friday, December 7, 2012

Quote of the Day


 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

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Quote of the Day


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

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Quote of the Day


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

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Quote of the Day


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

Monday, December 3, 2012

Quote of the Day


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