Quote of the Day

…To change such perfect good news as the gospel set forth made no sense and reached the depths of Spurgeon's disgust.  "My blood boils with indignation at the idea of improving the gospel.  There is but one Savior, and that one Savior is the same for ever.  His doctrine is the same in every age, and is not yea and nay."  If modern proposal for theological change were authentic, what an absurd scene would eternity hold forth.  "What a strange result we should obtain in the general assembly of heaven,"  Spurgeon envisioned, "if some were saved by the gospel of the first century, and others by the gospel fo the second, and others by the gospel of the seventeenth, and others by the gospel of the nineteenth century!  Imagine the scene.  "We should need a different song of praise for the clients of these various periods, and the mingled chorus would be rather to the glory of man's culture than to the praise of the one Lord.  No such mottled heaven, and no such discordant song, shall ever be produced." 

Charles Spurgeon as quoted in Living by Revealed Truth:  The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon by Thomas Nettles

Quote of the Day

How time does fly. If this present life were all that we had, the quick passage of time would be most depressing. How glad I am that we are getting closer to "beginning to eternity with Him" rather than to the "end to life."  

Edith Schaeffer

 

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By elevating the authority of experience over the authority of Scripture, the Charismatic Movement has destroyed the church's immune system - uncritically granting free access to every imaginable form of heretical teaching and practice.

John MacArthur

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Spurgeon observed many, "who, by hearing continually the most precious doctrines that belief in Jesus Christ is saving, have forgotten other truths, and have concluded that they were saved when they were not, having fancied they believed when as yet they were total strangers to the experience which always attended the true faith."  Their confidence was not grounded upon the divine word rightly understood, "nor proved by any facts in their own souls."  They resented any suggestion of self examination by gospel tests as "an assault upon their assurance" and "defended their false peace by the notion that to raise a question about their certain salvation would be unbelief."  Their ill-placed certainty has put them in a hopeless condition and they ignore biblical warnings and admonitions by "their fatal persuasion that it is needless to attend to them."  Their historical knowledge the work of Christ has settled them in a conviction "that godly fear and careful walking are superfluities, if not actually an offence against the gospel."

- From Thomas Nettles' book:  Living By Revealed Truth

Quote of the Day

By 1875 Spurgeon said the "new doctrines have certainly gone tolerable lengths now, and from annihilationism to restoration has been a mere foot-race."  Soon he expected the ungodly to be exalted at once, with no stop in between, to heaven and the righteous sent to outer darkness.  The sympathies of modern preachers were toward the unbelieving, doubt was celebrated and viewed as a sign of salvation.  "We may naturally look for a heaven prepared for loose thinkers, who are so brave as to despise all creeds and believe in nothing whatever."  Those deserving of being cast aside were believers in plenary inspiration, who view sin as a terrible evil and therefore affirm the justness of eternal punishment.  Liberal modern thinkers see such folks as narrow-minded bigots.  "Everybody is received as a Christian nowadays by the Broad School except those who are so indeed."…Robert Reynoldson's book Everlasting Punishment not Everlasting Pain was materialism under the guise of annihilation.  The publication was as feeble as it was fallacious for it substituted assumption for argument, and dogmatism for demonstration…..[Spurgeon said that}"Truths once regarded as fundamental, are either denied, or else turned inside out till nothing of their essence remains.  Holy Scripture is no longer admitted to be the infallible record of revelation; but is made to be a door-mat for 'thought' to wipe its shoes upon."…he found that men were "disloyal to God in order to be charitable to men" and propounded a Christianity "from which the Fall and the Atonement have both been eliminated."

 

From Living By Revealed Truth - by Thomas Nettles

Quote of the Day

If I thought I it wrong to be a Baptist, I should give it up, and become what I believed to be right.  The particular doctrine adhered to by Baptists is that they acknowledge no authority unless it comes from the Word of God.  They attach no importance to the authority of the Fathers - they care not for the authority of the mothers - if what they say does not agree with the teaching of the Evangelists, Apostles, and Prophets, and most of all, with the teaching of the Lord Himself.  If we could find infant baptism in the Word of God, we should adopt it.  It would help us out of a great difficulty, for it would take away from us that reproach which is attached to us - that we are odd, and do not as other people do.  But we have looked well through the Bible, and cannot find it, and do not believe that it is there; nor do we believe that others can find infant baptism in the Scriptures, unless they themselves first put it there.

Charles Spurgeon

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If we refuse to forgive, we have stepped into dangerous waters.  First, refusing to forgive is to put ourselves in the place of God, as though vengeance were our prerogative, not his.  Second, unforgiveness says God's wrath is insufficient.  For the unbeliever, we are saying that an eternity in hell is not enough, they need our slap in the face or cold shoulder to "even the scales" of justice.  For the believer, we are saying that Christ's humiliation and death are not enough.  In other words, we shake our fists at God and say, "Your standards may have been satisfied, but my standard is higher!"  Finally, refusing to forgive is the highest form of arrogance.  Here we stand forgiven.  And as we bask in the forgiveness of a perfectly holy and righteous God, we turn to our brother and say, "My sins are forgivable, but yours are not."  In other words, we act as though the sins of others are too significant to forgive while simultaneously believing that ours are not significant enough to matter.

Voddie Baucham Jr.

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If we think that our substitutes do more good or reap larger results than the gospel way, we will create serious difficulties and engender a destructive enmity within the church.  "I have known brethren tell sinners a great many falsehoods with the view of saving them."  He did not want one creed for the ministers' meeting and another for the enquiry room.  Salvation is not promoted by the suppression of truth…."I hold that I have no right to state false doctrines, even if I knew it would save a soul.  The supposition is, of course, absurd; but it makes you see what I mean."

…Our tampering produces false theology, false ideas of Christianity, tolerates disobedience to the ordinances, and makes supposed believers impatient with calls to holiness.  One may sure, however, that Christ will not be trifled with, will not have "his words shuffled like a deck of cards," will be "Lord as well as Savior" or will not be Savior.  A supposed assurance of forensic justification "apart from a spiritual work within the soul - - a change of heart, and a renewal of mind" does not yield a future of heaven.

From - Living by Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon by Thomas Nettles

Quote of the Day

Both Arminians and hyper-Calvinists demanded that theology conform to a narrowly defined system more restricted than the biblical revelation allowed.  Scripture conforms to a higher logic than human intellect and can penetrate and unveils mysteries beyond the scope of construction by mere human ratiocination.

 "It has been my earnest endeavor ever since I have preached the Word, never to keep back a single doctrine which I believed to be taught of God  It is time that we had done with the old rusty systems that have so long curbed the freeness of religious speech.  The Arminian trembles to go an inch beyond Arminius or Wesley, and many a Calvinist refers to John Gill or John Calvin as an ultimate authority, It is time that the systems were broken up, and that there was sufficient grace in all our hearts to believe everything taught in God's Word, whether it was taught by either of these men or not.  I have frequently found when I have preached what is called high doctrine, because I found it in my text, that some people have been offended; they could not enjoy it, could not endure it , and went away.  They were generally people who were best gone; I have never regretted their absence.  On the other hand, when I have taken for my text some sweet invitation, and have preached the freeness of Christ's love to man; when I have warned sinners that they are responsible while they hear the gospel, and that if they reject Christ their blood will be upon their own heads, I find another class of doubtless excellent individuals who cannot see how these two things agree.  And therefor also turn aside, and wade into the deceptive miry bogs of antinomianism.  I can only say with regard to them, that I had rather also that they should go to their own sort, than that they should remain with my congregation.  We seek to hold truth.  We know no difference between high doctrine and low doctrine.  If God teaches it, it is enough.  If it is not in the Word, away with it!  Away with it!  But if it be in the Word, agreeable or disagreeable, systematic or disorderly, I believe it.  It may seem to us as if one truth stood in opposition to another, but we are fully convinced that it cannot be so, that it is a mistake in our judgment.  That the two things do agree we are quite clear, though where they meet we do not know as yet, but hope to know hereafter."

 

Charles Spurgeon as quoted in Living by Revealed Truth:  The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon by Thomas Nettles

Quote of the Day

Spurgeon advocated a pure Biblicism for theological construction.  He loved the historic confessions and the pious and helpful writings of the Reformers and Puritans as well as selected numbers from the early Fathers and even some medieval writers…but all of these edified only to the degree that they opened to the mind that which already abided in scriptural revelation.  Theology is not new, nor has it been the product of tradition or development…"the epistles are older than the thirty-nine articles."…We may gain assistance through others that interpret Scripture doctrines, but no addition to the doctrines themselves… Christian doctrine, to the degree that God wants us to know, has mature development in Scripture.  Neither individual theologian nor church corporate may add to, diminish, amend, or dilute by false synthesis any assertion of the biblical text.  We may find a way to give clear teaching on a variety of subjects and seek to show their mature biblical development and relations, and we may surely benefit from the way Christians through the ages have formulated these biblical truths and their practical applications; any effort, however to go beyond the biblical text and its own internal development perverts the truth.

 

From:  Living By Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon - By Thomas

Quote of the Day

I would have every Christian wish to know all that he can know of revealed truth.  Somebody whispers that the secret things belong not to us.  You may be sure you will never know them if they are secret; but all that is revealed you ought to know...

Charles Spurgeon

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The believer is not freed to freedom but freed to obedience.

 

Don Lambert

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We are to trust in God's faithfulness, not to test it.

Don Lambert

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Let it not be objected to this rigid adherence to the language of Scripture, that better and more learned men have not thought it needful, and that we may safely trust a little to their good sense and piety.  For, in conflict with scriptural powers, this scrupulous adherence will be found our only safety.  The Church of Rome may possibly dispense with the Bible, having Trent for doctrine, her anathemas for reproof, her inquisition for correction in righteousness, and her infallible pontiff for instruction in righteousness.  But with us, all these purposes must be served by Scriptures.

Charles Maitland

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They were living to themselves: self, with its hopes, and promises, and dreams, still had hold of them; but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers. They had asked for contrition, and He sent them sorrow; they had asked for purity, and He sent them thrilling anguish; they had asked to be meek, and He had broken their hearts; they has asked to be dead to the world, and He slew all their living hopes; they had asked to be made like unto Him, and He placed them in the furnace, sitting by "as a refiner of silver," till they should reflect His image; they had asked to lay hold of His cross, and when He had reached it out to them, it lacerated their hands. They had asked they knew not what, nor how; but He had taken them at their word, and granted them all their petitions. They were hardly willing to follow so far, or to draw so nigh to Him. They had upon them an awe and fear, as Jacob at Bethel, or Eliphaz in the night visions, or as the apostles when they thought they had seen the spirit, and knew not that it was Jesus. They could almost pray Him to depart from them, or to hide His awefulness. They found it easier to obey than to suffer--to do than to give up--to bear the cross than to hang upon it: but they cannot go back, for they have come too near the unseen cross, and its virtues have pierced too deeply within them. He is fulfilling to them his promise, "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.

But now, at last, their turn is come. Before, they had only heard of the mystery, but now they feel it. He has fastened on them His look of love, as He did on Mary and Peter, and they cannot but choose to follow. Little by little, from time to time, by flitting gleams the mystery of His cross shines upon them. They behold Him lifted up--they gaze upon the glory which rays forth from the wound of His holy passion; and as they gaze, they advance, and are changed into His likeness, and His name shines out through them, for he dwells in them. They live alone with Him above, in unspeakable fellowship; willing to lack what others own, and to be unlike all, so that they are only like him.

"Such are they in all ages who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Had they chosen for themselves, or their friends chosen for them, they would have chosen otherwise. They would have been brighter here, but less glorious in His kingdom. They would have had Lot's portion, not Abraham's. If they had halted anywhere--if He had taken off His hand, and let them stray back--what would they have lost? What forfeits in the morning of the resurrection? But He stayed them up, even against themselves. Many a time their foot had well-nigh slipped; but He, in mercy, held them up; now, even in this life, they know all he did was done well. It was good for them to suffer here, for they shall reign hereafter--to bear the cross below, for they shall wear the crown above; and that not their will but His was done on them.

 

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Quote of the Day

We are blessed to live in an age and a culture which has easy access to the Word of God.  And we are cursed to live in an age and culture which has easy access to the Word of God.  Our fathers had to internalize the Word of God.  They sang the Psalms so they would learn them...We have Bibles in every room in our homes and apps on our smart phones, but we don't hide it in our hearts.

R. C. Sproul Jr.

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Lay down this principle as law - God does nothing arbitrary.  If He takes away your health, for instance, it is because He has some reason for doing so; and this is true of everything you value; and if you have real faith in Him, you will not insist on knowing the reason....You can will to prefer a religion of principle to one of mere feeling; in other words, to obey the will of God when no comfortable glow of emotion accompanies your obedience.

Elizabeth Prentiss
(from Stepping Heavenward)

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...To worship God the Hebrews had to say no to the old covenant and its ceremonies, sacrifices, symbols, pictures and types.  The old was gone - it was set aside.  A new and better covenant had come, and they had to be willing to come to God in full confidence of the revealed faith of the New Testament.  The New Covenant, in contrast to the Old, is not a system based on ceremonies, sacrifices, and external obedience to the law.  Its truth is not veiled in types and figures.

John Macarthur

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False peace is only concerned with forgiveness, not with practical righteousness.  Genuine peace is focused on the work of Christ before and after salvation.

-Don Lambert(part of the quote might be paraphrased, I wrote it down while he was preaching)

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...But the Charismatic movement can't be defined doctrinally. Why? Because it involves Pentecostals, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, anybody and everybody. So it resists and has resisted any kind of doctrinal definition that is too rigid.

 

What they all hold in common is an experience which they will call the baptism of the Holy Spirit and they, wrongly, define the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a post-salvation experience that adds something to your Christian life that you previously didn't have and is usually accompanied by signs and wonders, most particularly, speaking in tongues. And we're going to talk much more about the baptism of the Holy Spirit in tongues at a later time…….

 

Paul was no Charismatic either, believe me. Paul was no Charismatic. He made divine truth the beginning and the ending of his ministry. It was the preaching of the truth revealed to him by the Spirit of God. Acts 17:2, "According to Paul's custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, 'This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.'" He was explaining the Scripture, he was delineating the Scripture. He had an experience. He went to Heaven! But God said, "You are not allowed to," what? "You're not allowed to talk about it." "I don't want anybody basing anything on your interpretation, on your experience." Paul never built his ministry on his visions, his experiences. He built it on what he knew was the revealed truth of God, and he called into question any experience that violated Scripture.

 

The end of his ministry in the 28 Acts, we find him at lodge, and people were there in large numbers; and he was explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God, and trying to persuade them concerning Jesus, from both the Law of Moses and from the Prophets, from morning until evening. He was in the Scripture trying to prove the truth from the pages of the Word of God.

 

Charismatics, like Jews of Paul's day have zeal without knowledge. Enthusiasm without enlightenment. They are often approaching truth without their minds, without thinking. Some even claim that God deliberately gives people unintelligible tongues in order to bypass and thus humble the proud human intellect. Beloved, this is a serious and tragic error.

 

John Macarthur

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being persuaded of this very thing, that the One having begun a good work in you will finish it until the day of Jesus Christ;
(Php 1:6)

.....wherefore by it is undoubtedly meant the work of grace upon their hearts, sometimes called the work of faith, because that is a principal part of it: this is God's work, and not man's, as may be concluded from the nature of the work itself, which is the transforming of a man by the reviewing of him, a regeneration, a resurrection, and a creation, and therefore requires almighty power; and from the condition man is in by nature, he is dead in sin, and has no power to act spiritually, and much less what is equal to such a work as this; he has no will, desire, and inclination to it, but all the reverse; and if he had, he could no more effect it, than the dry bones in Ezekiel's vision could cause themselves to live. ....[faith] is a "good work", as it must needs be, since it is God's work; he is the efficient cause of it; his good will and pleasure, his grace and mercy are the moving cause of it, and not men's works; and his good word is the means of it. The matter of it is good; it is an illumination of the understanding, a subduing of the will, a taking away of the stony heart, and a giving of an heart of flesh, an infusion of spiritual life, a formation of Christ in the soul, and an implantation of all grace there: it is good in its effects; it makes a man a good man, and fits and qualifies him to perform good works, which without it he cannot do; it makes a man a proper habitation for God, and gives him meetness for the heavenly inheritance. And this is an internal work, a work begun "in" the saints; nothing external is this work; not an outward reformation, which, when right, is the fruit of this good work; nor external humiliation for sin; nor a cessation from the grosser acts of sin; nor a conformity and submission to Gospel ordinances; all which may be where this work is not; but it is something within a man; as appears from the names by which it goes; such as spirit, so called, because it is of a spiritual nature, wrought by the Spirit of God, and has its seat in the spirit of man; it is called the inward man, which is renewed day by day; a seed that remains in him, and a root which is out of sight, and oil in the vessel, the heart, as distinct from the lamp of an outward profession: as also from the several things, which, together, make up the subject of it; it is the understanding which is enlightened; the will which is subdued; the heart and inward parts in which the laws of God are written; the mind and conscience, which are sprinkled with the blood of Christ, and cleansed; and the affections, which are set on divine objects. This is a begun work, and but a begun one. It may be said to be begun as soon as light is let into the soul by the Spirit of God; when it sees its lost state, and need of a Saviour, for as the first thing in the old creation was light, so in the new; when the fear of God is put into the heart, which is the beginning of wisdom; when love appears in the soul to God, to Christ, to his people, word, and ordinances; and when there are the seeing, venturing, and relying acts of faith on Christ, though there is a great deal of darkness, trembling, and unbelief; and when it is got thus far, and even much further, it is but a begun work; it is not yet finished and perfect: this appears from the several parts of this work, which are imperfect, as faith, hope, love, knowledge, &c. from the indwelling of sin, and corruption in the best of saints; from their various continual wants and necessities; from their disclaiming perfection in this life, and their desires after it. But the apostle was confident, and so may every good man be confident, both for himself and others, that God who has, and wherever he has begun the good work of grace, will "perform", finish it, or bring it to an end, as the word here used signifies: and this the saints may assure themselves of, from many considerations; .........for if this work is not finished, the glory of God the Father in election, in the covenant of grace, in the contrivance of salvation, in the mission of his Son, the glory of Christ in redemption, and of the Spirit in sanctification, would be entirely lost: wherefore it may be depended on, this work will be performed wherever it is begun, and that "until the day of Jesus Christ"; meaning either the day of death, when Christ takes the souls of believers to himself, and they shall be for ever with him, when this work of grace upon the soul will be finished; for God, who is the guide of his people, will be their God and guide even unto death: or else the last day, the day of judgment, the resurrection day, when Christ shall appear and raise the dead, and free the bodies of the saints from all their bondage, corruption, vileness, and weakness, which will be putting the last and finishing hand to this good work...

John Gill

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Faith is more focus than fantasy.

 

Don Lambert

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We find thus by experience that there is no good applying to heaven for earthly comfort.  Heaven can give heavenly comfort; no other kind.  Earth cannot give earthly comfort either, as there is no earthly comfort in the long run.

C. S. Lewis

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God's bow is never drawn at random; he makes no mistakes either in telling the number of 'the stars', or in measuring out to me the griefs which shall teach me to glorify him...Ah! our eyes are so dimmed by earth's fogs and shadows that we cannot see clearly enough to distinguish good from evil and if left to ourselves might embrace a curse rather than a blessing.  Poor blind mortals that we are, it is well for us that our Master should choose our trials for us even though to our imperfect vision he seems sometimes to have appointed a hard thing.

 

Ill that God blesses turns to good.

While unblest good is ill,

And all is right that seems most wrong

If it be his sweet will.

 

Susannah Spurgeon

 

Quote of the Day

Whatever may be the grievous circumstances in which I am placed, or the injustices of others from which I am suffering, if my God says, 'Fear not', I ought surely to be brave and strong. If we can only get firmly fixed in our hearts the truth that the Lord's hand is in everything that happens to us, we have found a balm for all our woes, a remedy for all our ills. When friends fail us and grow cold, when enemies triumph and grow confident, when the smooth pathway upon which we have been travelling suddenly becomes rough, stony and steep - we are too apt to look askance at the visible second causes, and to forget that our God has forseen every trial, permitted every annoyance, and authorized each item of discipline...the soul that has learned the blessed secret of seeing God's hand in all that concerns it, cannot be a prey to fear; it looks beyond all second causes, straight into the heart and will of God, and rests content because He rules.

Susannah Spurgeon

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In respect to its present state, I should say nay to what you say, as it regards the taste of the public for religious truth.  I should certify on no light grounds, that the defection lies elsewhere; there is appetite of the whole counsel of God, but they who are left in charge, have found in their wisdom that the food is not wholesome, and they dare - I speak strongly, for I have felt it strongly - even to tears; I have felt it under their pulpits - they dare deny it to the flock they have been sent to feed.  Comes there a man in town or country, or on week-day or Sunday, who in simplicity delivers the whole of his message, and you will see how they throng his aisles, how they will steal like Nicodemus by night, to take of the desired but forbidden draught, - afraid to be blamed by their ghostly confessors if they are detected…..many are the times I have whispered in the ear of those who sit satisfied, nay, abysmally devoted to some favorite preacher of a garbled truth, that there is more behind, and have been surprised to find how well they knew it, how much they could like to have it - but it is not good for them!  The servant has grown wiser than his master; the messenger can amend his message - God can no more be trusted with the salvation of his people - Man knows a better way, and expediency is like to become the Antichrist of our land.

Caroline Wilson

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What are you out for?  Believe me, you will get it whatever it is, if you are determined to do so.  Are you out for the rewards of this world?  They can be obtained with very little effort.  They satisfy for a while, but when one begins to think seriously about them they are not even worth that little effort.  But still we go on trying to get the best our of both worlds.  Let us realize once and for all that the things of the Spirit can only be appreciated by the spirit.  The reward for a spiritual way of life is a spiritual reward.  Why do we expect to get the rewards of this world as well?  Why do we so often complain that the ungodly seem to succeed while we fail?  We are not out for the same thing.  We must learn to judge spiritual results by spiritual  standards.  Whatever a man soweth that also shall he reap.  If we have sown to the spirit why expect to get a worldly and bodily harvest?  The man who sows for worldly results gets them, and everyone can see these and know them and appreciate them.  The Christian, on the other hand, has very little that the world can appreciate.  That is why the Way of Life is a difficult way - it is a life of faith.  When you enter upon it, you give up everything that the world treasures most, and it is inevitable that at times we shall experience a sense of loss.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

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We get endless sermons on psychology, but amazingly few on Christianity.  Our preachers are afraid to preach on the doctrine of the Atonement and on predestination.  The great cardinal principles of our belief are scarcely ever mentioned, indeed there is a movement on foot to amend them so as to bring them up-to-date.  How on earth can you talk of bringing these eternal truths up to date?  They are not only up-to-date, they are and will be ahead of the times to all eternity.

 

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

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It is not imitation that makes sons. It is sonship that make imitators.

  

Martin Luther

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

Charles Spurgeon

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

Paraphrase of Don Lambert

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

 

Charles Spurgeon

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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

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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

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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

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 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

Quote of the Day

…a study which is exclusively practical and devotional is necessarily imperfect.  There are many things in Scripture which do not lend themselves to an immediate practical purpose, and which in fact are as good as shut out from the circle of ordinary Bible-reading.  I know that good people often try to hide this fact from themselves by hooking on some sort of lesson to passages which they do not understand, or which do not directly touch any spiritual chord.  There is very respectable precedent for this course, which in fact is nothing else than the method of topical  exegesis that reigned supreme in the Old Catholic and Medieval Church.  The ancient fathers laid down the principle that everything in Scripture which, taken in its natural sense, appears unedifying must be made edifying by some method of typical or figurative application.  In principle this is no longer admitted in the Protestant Churches (unless perhaps for the Song of Solomon), but in practice we still get over many difficulties by tacking on a lesson which is  not really taken out of the difficult passage, but read into from some other part of Scripture.  People satisfy themselves in this way, but they do not solve the difficulty.  Let us be frank with ourselves, and admit that there are many things in Scripture in which unsystematic and merely devotional reading finds no profit.

 

William Robertson Smith

I do not agree with his stance on the Old Testament(higher criticism)

Quote of the Day

We may if we please, confine our study of Scripture to what is immediately edifying, skimming lightly over all pages which do not serve a direct purpose of devotion, and ignoring every difficulty which does not yield to the faculty of practical insight, to the power of spiritual sympathy with the mind of the Spirit, which the thoughtful Christian necessarily acquires in the habitual excessive of bringing Scripture to bear on the daily needs of his own life.  This use of Scripture is full of personal profit, and raises no intellectual difficulties.  But it does not do justice to the whole Word of God.  It cannot exhaust the whole mind of the Spirit.  It is limited for every individual by the limitations of his own spiritual experience.  Reading the Bible in this way, a man comes to a very personal appreciation of so much of God's truth as is in immediate contact with the range of his own life.  But he is sure to miss many truths which belong to another range of experience, and to read into the inspired page things from his own experience which involve human error.  In this way he becomes narrow, and full of prejudice, which prevent him from seeing that the Bible is larger than his knowledge of it, and that other men whose needs are different from his may be quite in the right in getting things out of the Scripture which he does not know, does not need, and is inclined to call false or dangerous.  

William Robertson Smith

(Disclaimer:  his stance in his writings on higher criticism is wrong)

Quote of the Day

My song shall bless the Lord of all,

My praise shall climb to His abode;

Thee, Savior, by that name I call,

The great Supreme, the mighty God.

Without beginning, or decline,

Object of faith, and not of sense;

Eternal ages saw Him shine,

He shines eternal ages hence.

As much, when in the manger laid,

Almighty Ruler of the sky;

As when the six days’ works He made,

Filled all the morning-stars with joy.

A cheerful confidence I feel,

My well-placed hopes with joy I see;

My bosom glows with heav’nly zeal

To worship Him Who died for me.

As man, He pities my complaint,

His pow’r and truth are all divine;

He will not fail, He cannot faint,

Salvation’s sure, and must be mine.

 

William Cowper

- ?

Quote of the Day

Tell F. that I am surprised at his going to a separate church because of choir attractions.  What is the use of his complaining of ritualism and so on, if he does not practice what he preaches?  For myself, I had enough of musical services in Stratford, and want no more.  Where are we told in the Bible that 'the choir is the power of God unto salvation'? And when men try to preach the Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation, it offends fastidious tastes for its plain-spokenness. Oh that we English people thought less about the messenger and more about the glorious message!

 

Thomas Walker

Quote of the Day

It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.

G. K. Chesterton

Quote of the Day

The cross is laid on every Christian. It begins with the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death -- we give over our lives to death. Since this happens at the beginning of the Christian life, the cross can never be merely a tragic ending to an otherwise happy religious life. When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther's, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time -- death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at His call. That is why the rich young man was so loath to follow Jesus, for the cost of his following was the death of his will. In fact, every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts. But we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ and His call are necessarily our death and our life. 

  

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quote of the Day

The grace that does not change my life will not save my soul. 

 Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

The grace that does not change my life will not save my soul.

 Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

The Gospel itself is the power of God unto salvation (Rom 1:16)…Since unbelief is at heart a moral, rather than an intellectual problem, no amount of evidences will ever turn unbelief to faith.  But the revealed Word of God has inherent power to do so…

John MacArthur

Quote of the Day

There is an essential difference between the decease of the godly and the death of the ungodly. Death comes to the ungodly man as a penal infliction, but to the righteous as a summons to his Father's palace. To the sinner it is an execution, to the saint an undressing from his sins and infirmities. Death to the wicked is the King of terrors. Death to the saint is the end of terrors, the commencement of glory.

  

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

Peace if possible, truth at all costs.

  

Martin Luther

Quote of the Day

Sometimes a person comes to his minister and says, ‘I am a poor specimen of Christianity. I have no patience at all. Would you please pray for me that I might have patience?’ A minister who knows the Word of God well might begin to pray at that moment, ‘Lord, please send tribulation into this person’s life,’ because the way we develop perseverance of patience is through suffering. Therefore, if misfortune enters your life, God may be using it to develop character in you that in days to come he will use to bring glory to his name. 

D. Martyn Lloyd Jones

Quote of the Day

Many have a certain imagination of faith. They think no farther than that faith is a thing which is in their own power to have, as do other natural works which men do. . . . But the right faith springeth not of man's fantasy, neither is it in any man's power to obtain it; but it is altogether the pure gift of God without deserving and merits, yea, without our seeking for it, even faith is God's gift and grace. . . . Faith rooteth herself in the hearts of the elect.

Is it not. . . . perverse blindness to teach how a man can do nothing of his own self, and yet presumptuously take upon them the greatest and highest work of God, even to make faith in themselves of their own power, and of their own false imaginations and thoughts?

Therefore, I say, we must despair of ourselves and pray to God to give us faith.

William Tyndale

Quote of the Day

We are not simply a society in which we recognize the existence of, and the differences between, a variety of religious beliefs, but one in which we declare all such beliefs are to be equally valid. From that perspective there is only one kind of heresy, namely, to claim that one view is ultimately right, where others are wrong. In granting plausibility to everything, we may grant certainty to nothing. Tolerance has been embraced at the expense of truth… To allow that everyone and everything is right is to destroy the notion of truth itself.

Alistair Begg

Quote of the Day

One does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime.

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

Too many modern preachers are so bent on understanding the culture that they develop the mind of the culture and not the mind of Christ. They start to think like the world, and not like the Savior. Frankly, the nuances of worldly culture are virtually irrelevant to me. I want to know the mind of Christ and bring that to bear on the culture, no matter what culture I may be ministering to. If I’m going to stand up in a pulpit and be a representative of Jesus Christ, I want to know how He thinks—and that must be my message to His people too. The only way to know and proclaim the mind of Christ is by being faithful to study and preach His Word. What happens to preachers who obsess about cultural “relevancy” is that they become worldly, not godly.

John MacArthur

Quote of the Day

Speaking of Church services in our day:

I think we cater too much to people who can't pay attention.

 Don Lambert

Quote of the Day

I think the greatest weakness in the church today is that almost no one believes that God invests His power in the Bible. Everyone is looking for power in a program, in a methodology, in a technique, in anything and everything but that in which God has placed it—His Word. He alone has the power to change lives for eternity, and that power is focused on the Scriptures.

R. C. Sproul

Quote of the Day

Calvin believed that biblical preaching must occupy the chief place in the worship service.  What God has to say to man is infinitely more important than what man has to say to God.  If the congregation is to worship properly, if believers are to be edified, if the lost are to be converted, God's Word must be exposited.  Nothing must crowd the Scriptures out of the chief place in the public gathering.

Steven Lawson

Quote of the Day

They (Disciples/Christians) are simply the servants and instruments of the Word; they have no wish to be strong where the Word chooses to be weak.  To try and force the Word on the world by hook or by crook is to make the living Word of God into a mere idea…..Where the Word is, there shall the disciple be.  Therein lies his true wisdom and his true simplicity.  If it is obvious that the Word is being rejected, if it is forced to yield its ground, the disciple must yield with it.  But if the Word carries on the battle, the disciple must also stand his ground.

  

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quote of the Day

Noah is referenced in Hebrews 11 as demonstrating faith, which in its most basic form  is: having as the "footing of our expectations" (substance of our hope) what has not been seen but what has been promised and revealed to us by God's Word.

Don Lambert

Quote of the Day

Remember this; or you may fall into error by fixing your minds so much upon the faith which is the channel of salvation as to forget the grace which is the fountain and source even of faith itself. Faith is the work of God's grace in us. No man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Ghost. "No man cometh unto me," saith Jesus, "except the Father which hath sent me draw him." So that faith, which is coming to Christ, is the result of divine drawing. Grace is the first and last moving cause of salvation; and faith, essential as it is, is only an important part of the machinery which grace employs. We are saved "through faith," but salvation is "by grace." Sound forth those words as with the archangel's trumpet: "By grace are ye saved." What glad tidings for the undeserving!…...Still, I again remind you that faith is only the channel or aqueduct, and not the fountainhead, and we must not look so much to it as to exalt it above the divine source of all blessing which lies in the grace of God. Never make a Christ out of your faith, nor think of as if it were the independent source of your salvation. Our life is found in "looking unto Jesus," not in looking to our own faith. By faith all things become possible to us; yet the power is not in the faith, but in the God upon whom faith relies. Grace is the powerful engine, and faith is the chain by which the carriage of the soul is attached to the great motive power. The righteousness of faith is not the moral excellence of faith, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ which faith grasps and appropriates. The peace within the soul is not derived from the contemplation of our own faith; but it comes to us from Him who is our peace, the hem of whose garment faith touches, and virtue comes out of Him into the soul.…... Think more of Him to whom you look than of the look itself. You must look away even from your own looking, and see nothing but Jesus, and the grace of God revealed in Him.

 

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

The Pruned Branch

It is the branch that bears the fruit,

That feels the knife;

To prune it for a larger growth,

A fuller life,

Though every budding twig be lopped,

And every grace

Of swaying tendril, springing leaf

Be lost a space.

O thou, whose life of joy seems reft,

Of beauty shorn,

Whose aspirations lie in dust,

All bruised and torn,

Rejoice, though each desire, each dream,

Each hope of thine,

Shall fall and fade; it is the hand

Of love divine

That holds the knife, that cuts and breaks

With tenderest touch,

That thou, whose life has borne some fruit

May now bear much.

Annie Johnson Flint