Quote of the Day

It has been well said, "Nothing is easier than to doubt.  A man of moderate ability or learning can doubt more than the wisest men believe."  Faith demands knowledge, for it is an intelligent grace, able and anxious to justify itself; but infidelity is not required to give a reason for the doubt that is in it; a defiant mien and a blustering tone answer its purpose.  The acme of unbelief is to know nothing.  What is this but the apotheosis of ignorance.  A man may glide into agnosticism insensibly, and remain in it languidly; but to believe is to be alive.  Those who think faith to be a childish business will have to make considerable advance toward manliness before they are able to test their own theory.

- Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

Liberty is the Diana of our times...Professors(of Christianity)are so far from a holy jealously, that should make them watch their hearts, lest they go too far, that they stretch their consciences to come up to the full  length of their tedder; as if he were the brave Christian that could come nearest the pit of sin, and not fall in...

William Gurnall

Quote of the Day

You remember the apostle Peter's famous remark with regard to the writings of the apostle Paul. He says that there are things in them which are `hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest . . . unto their own destruction'. What he means is this. They read these Epistles of Paul, yes; but they are twisting them, they are wresting them to their own destruction. You can easily read these Epistles and be no wiser at the end than you were at the beginning because of what you have been reading into what Paul says, wresting them to your own destruction. Now that is something which we must always bear in mind with regard to the whole of the Bible. I can be seated with the Bible in front of me; I can be reading its words and going through its chapters; and yet I may be drawing a conclusion which is quite false to the pages in front of me.
There can be no doubt at all that the commonest cause of all this is our tendency so often to approach the Bible with a theory. We go to our Bibles with this theory, and everything we read is controlled by it. Now we are all quite familiar with that. There is a sense in which it is true to say that you can prove anything you like from the Bible. That is how heresies have arisen. The heretics were never dishonest men; they were mistaken men. They should not be thought of as men who were deliberately setting out to go wrong and to teach something that is wrong; they have been some of the most sincere men that the Church has ever known. What was the matter with them? Their trouble was this: they evolved a theory and they were rather pleased with it; then they went back with this theory to the Bible, and they seemed to find it everywhere. If you read half a verse and emphasize over-much some other half verse elsewhere, your theory is soon proved. Now obviously this is something of which we have to be very wary. There is nothing so dangerous as to come to the Bible with a theory, with preconceived ideas, with some pet idea of our own, because the moment we do so, we shall be tempted to overemphasize one aspect and under-emphasize another.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Quote of the Day

Dear Brothers and Sisters, honor the Spirit of God as you would honor Jesus Christ if He were present! If Jesus Christ not there! Do not ignore the Presence of the Holy Spirit in your soul! I beseech you, do not live as if you had not heard whether there were a Holy Spirit. To Him pay your constant adorations. Reverence the august Guest who has been pleased to make your body His sacred abode. Love Him, obey Him, worship Him!

Take care never to impute the vain imaginings of your fancy to Him. I have seen the Spirit of God shamefully dishonored by persons—I hope they were insane—who have said that they have had this and that revealed to them. There has not, for some years, passed over my head a single week in which I have not been pestered with the revelations of hypocrites or maniacs. Semi-lunatics are very fond of coming with messages from the Lord to me and it may save them some trouble if I tell them once and for all that I will have none of their stupid messages. When my Lord and Master has any message to me He knows where I am and He will send it to me direct, and not by mad-caps!  

Never dream that events are revealed to you by Heaven, or you may come to be like those idiots who dare impute their blatant follies to the Holy Spirit. If you feel your tongue itch to talk nonsense, trace it to the devil, not to the Spirit of God! Whatever is to be revealed by the Spirit to any of us is in the Word of God already—He adds nothing to the Bible, and never will. Let persons who have revelations of this, that, and the other, go to bed and wake up in their senses.

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

……Adding to the fertile soil for legalistic parachurch gurus to adversely influence churches and individuals is the modern idea that we must have experts in every area of life.  Rarely does a week go by that I (as a pastor) fail to receive a call informing me of a new video series that is "must viewing" for every church body.  The expert on marriage relationships; the expert on child rearing; the expert on interpersonal relationships; the expert on this; the expert on that has made a video series.  Surely no mere pastor can keep up with 'the experts.'  And so, we are encouraged to turn our churches over to Dr. ___________.  After all, he or she supposedly knows more than any of the rest of us, and if we will just do what he or she says, we will all succeed in our Christian lives.  This is not intended to be a blanket condemnation of everything and everyone who is part of what might be called a parachurch ministry.  However, any and every time the parachruch dictates to the church rather than the other way around, parachurch is out of place.  And any individual who follows a parachurch ministry more closely than his own local church has a definite problem with his priorities, since parachruch organizations are never mentioned in the Bible…….If you listen to those trying to sell many of these products you are likely to conclude that pastors just aren't necessary anymore.  And why would anyone in the pew want to listen to old 'what's -his- name' week after week when they could be listening to 'the expert!'

Robert Pruitt

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Believers are not freed from sin to stay its slaves and we are not freed to freedom but free dot obedience. We are bought by another and are His slaves.   We are not our own master, we are to view ourselves as ready for battle, not as victims of sin and circumstance.  We are saints, not sinners.  As soldiers, not victims or villains, we do not focus on our wounds but on our orders, our purpose, trusting our commanding officer.  Accept your slavery of obedience to God with joy.

- (Paraphrase of?) Don Lambert

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 Fortunately for us, our faith does not entitle us to heaven anymore than our stupidity shuts us out of it; when we get there it will be through Him who loved us.

Elizabeth Prentiss

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On Philippians 2:12-13:

Here it is perfectly clear: the more I read the Bible and see the picture of the Christian man, the more I understand the nature of sin and life in this world, and what God has done for me in Christ, then the more I shall desire the things of God and hate the other. So I suggest that the best practical step is to read God's word, and to be thoroughly soaked in it. There is a very simple, practical test that one can apply at this point. I wonder what the result would be if we all kept a chart for one week and put down on paper the amount of time which we spent in reading God's word and things which help us to understand it, and the time we spent reading newspapers and novels or watching films? Now I am just asking the question. We say we believe in salvation. We believe God has given us this gift, so then, I ask, what are the relative amounts of time that we give to these things? Working out our own salvation means that we do everything we can to feed this life, to stimulate it, to enable it to extend and develop and grow.

 And the other thing, clearly, is prayer: prayer for an increasing knowledge of God, for a greater measure of the Holy Spirit and for a greater understanding of this word; prayer for guidance, for leading and for understanding. If I believe in God and that he has done this for me, why do I spend so little time with Him? Why do I not long for Him more and more? That is how we work it out and I must follow and obey every prompting and leading that I am conscious of in this direction. The fathers used to regard the Christian life as a whole time occupation. They used to spend their time with it and, I feel, it is one of the greatest condemnations of us today that we are guilty of not working out this amazing salvation that God has given to us.

 But, then, what is the manner in which we do this? The Apostle says that we are to do it 'with fear and trembling'. Here again we must define our terms. He does not mean that we must do it in fear of losing our salvation. You will find that in the New Testament these words never carry that implication. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians 'I was with you ... in fear, and in much trembling' (1 Cor 2:3), he did not mean that he was afraid that he would lose his soul. Neither is it a kind of craven fear, one of self torment. It means humility and a holy reverence, or, if you like, a holy vigilance and circumspection. It means that as I work out my salvation, I should realise the tremendous seriousness of what I am doing.

 I wonder whether this is not the thing which needs to be emphasised most at the present time, not least in the ranks of evangelical people? I wonder why it is that the whole idea of the godly man has somehow or other got lost amongst us? Why is it that Christian people are not described as 'God fearing' people? Why is it that there is such a difference between us and the Christian of a hundred or two hundred years ago, or the Puritan of the seventeenth century? They were truly Christian. 'Methodist', too, was a kind of nickname given to people because of their methodical life. I wonder why it is that somehow or other we have lost this particular sense of the Christian life? I have no doubt but that the explanation is that it is an overreaction on our part from the pure legalism that was so common at the turn of the century when many people had lost the true spirit of the New Testament. They imposed a certain kind of life upon themselves and upon their children; they laid down rules and regulations; and people then reacted and said, 'That is pure legalism, not Christianity.' But now we are so much like everybody else because we have forgotten this about 'fear and trembling', vigilance and circumspection. Sometimes I am afraid we have been so anxious not to give the impression that to be Christian means being miserable, that we have imagined that we must be smiling and laughing all the time and we have believed in this so called 'muscular' Christianity…………

And, lastly, I must work out my salvation with fear and trembling, for this good reason: the New Testament teaches me that if I fail to do so myself, then I must not be surprised if God begins to do certain things to me. Do you remember the teaching of Hebrews 12:6-note? 'Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.' (cp He 12:5-note)It is put still more strikingly in 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul says that there were many in the church at Corinth who were sick, and there were even some, he said, who were dead, and he tells us that the reason for that was that they had not examined themselves before partaking of the Lord's Supper, and were partaking unworthily. Such a man, Paul said, 'eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body' (1Co 11:29).

The doctrine of the New Testament can be put into this form: if God has called you and given you his salvation, he destines you for salvation and he is going to perfect you. His method is to put promptings within us. He energizes our mind and whole outlook, but if we fail to practise these things, then God, in His very love to us, is going to chasten us a sickness, an illness, a disappointment, a loss, a sorrow. These are ways which God uses because of our failure and our recalcitrance. 'It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God' (Heb 10:31-note).

The love of God is as great as that. The Christian man who is not doing his utmost to live the Christian life is a fool, and he must not be surprised if certain things begin to happen to him. If you are a child of God, He is going to bring about your perfection and if you do not do it yourself to please Him in this way, then, I say, you may well find that God will do it to you in one of these other ways. That is a very wonderful thing. I am not saying that every Christian who suffers is being chastised, but I do say that God does do that, and if we fail to respond to His appeal, then we must not be surprised if we experience His chastening.”

 

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Quote of the Day

We are sensible of our own defects, but we have not the same clear view of the defects of others. We see our own hearts; we are conscious of the great corruption there; we have painful evidence of the impurity of the motives which often actuate us - of the evil thoughts and corrupt desires in our own souls; but we have not the same view of the errors, defects, and follies of others. We can see only their outward conduct; but, in our own case, we can look within. It is natural for those who have any just sense of the depravity of their own souls, charitably to hope that it is not so with others, and to believe that they have purer hearts. This will lead us to feel that they are worthy of more respect than we are. Hence, this is always the characteristic of modesty and humility - graces which the gospel is eminently suited to produce. A truly pious man will be always, therefore, an humble man, and will wish that others should be preferred in office and honor to himself. Of course, this will not make him blind to the defects of others when they are manifested; but he will be himself retiring, modest, unambitious, unobtrusive. This rule of Christianity would strike a blow at all the ambition of the world. It would rebuke the love of office and would produce universal contentment in any low condition of life where the providence of God may have cast our lot.

- Albert Barnes

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Speaking of Martin Lloyd-Jones:  "Basically it lay in his conviction that ministers are called to be preachers, not writers.  He did not view the readiness of contemporary Christianity to allow the pulpit to be overshadowed by other means of communication as a wise adjustment to modern conditions but as a loss of faith in the means to which God has attached the special promise of His power."

Iain Murray

Quote of the Day

We must turn our back very resolutely upon every teaching of the Christian life which would lead us to try to obtain a direct vision of God.  We must not desire ever to hear audible voices or to have such visions as will give us a kind of mechanical, material certainty.  Now you know there were mystics who went in for that kind of thing… They did not like the idea of faith, they did not like the life which, as Paul describes it, says, 'we walk by faith not by sight'.  They wanted to see and hear, they wanted something tangible, and the result was they became victims of aberrations, of hallucinations and of all the manifestations which invariably accompany this craving for the immediate…We must not think of God in material terms.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Quote of the Day

At what point does our cultural engagement become just a sophisticated way of being worldly?

Trevin Wax

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Every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress(Matt 5:32).  The compact of marriage is a matter of such sacredness that it is not nullified even by separation.  For if a wife marries while her husband is still alive, even if he has left her, she commits adultery, and he who left her is the cause of this evil.  I wonder, however, whether, just as one can renounce an adulterous wife, it is also impossible to marry another when one has renounced her.  Holy Scripture makes this a difficult problem since the apostle says, on the authority of the Lord, that a woman should not leave her husband; but that if she does so, she must remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.  Yet she should not in any case leave her husband and remain unmarried unless he is an adulterer;  for by leaving him she might cause one who was not an adulterer before to commit adultery (Matt 5:32).  Still, if she cannot exercise continence, she may properly be reconciled to her husband if she puts up with him or if he changes his ways.  But I do not see how a man could be allowed to marry another when he has left an adulterous wife since a woman is not allowed to marry another man if she leaves an adulterous husband.  Since this is so, the bond of fellowship between the spouses is so strong that although they are joined together for the sake of begetting children, this bond is not to be broken in order to beget them.  A man might divorce a barren woman and marry a woman who would bear him children, but this is not allowed.  And in our time Roman custom forbids having more than one living wife by taking an additional wife.  To be sure, if a man or a woman were to abandon an adulterous spouse and marry another, more children would be produced.  But since the divine rule seems to forbid this, it makes very clear the strength of the marriage bond.  I do not think that it could ever have such great force unless there were attached to it the sacral power of something greater than this weak mortality of ours, a bond which, although people abandon it and desire to nullify it, still remains unshaken and able to bring them punishment.

Augustine of Hippo