Quote of the Day

The smiles of an encouraging, if not a believing world, have long followed the writers and preachers of evangelical truth, making smooth and pleasant their allotted tasks.  We believe that it will cease to be so:  the envoys and ambassadors of the Most High will be dismissed with ignominy on the approach of war, where in a time of apparent peace, they have been feted and applauded…… Shall any be found wanting?  Shall voices that in more halcyon days were heard on the Lord's side, grow now so confused and indistinct, that it cannot be known what is piped or harped?  Shall trumpets that were used to echo through the camp of Israel their notes of victory or warning, give now so uncertain a sound that none shall know whether to prepare themselves for battle,  for fight, or for submission?  It may be so. Men sometimes seem to want in things spiritual the wisdom and courage that not uncommonly characterizes the children of this world in their generation.  When the wind sets in, and the tide flows strong upon a rocky shore, the skillful mariner turns the vessel's head, makes for the sea , and calls all hands together to keep her off the land.  Our helmsmen are doing contrariwise:  they have set their sails to wind and their head to the tide, and are doing all they can to near the fatal shore.  In some instance they have gone the utmost length their principles will admit, to conform themselves to the fashion of the times, to avoid the imputation of extreme opinions, and relieve themselves of a name they would once have been ashamed to be without…..

…we are apt to talk a little too vaguely about opinion - as if all religious truths were matters of opinion, subjects of reasoning, exercises of judgment.  It is not so.  The most important truths of the Gospel are not opinions - they are matters of revelation, and therefore matters of fact.  A positive declaration, statement, or command in the Holy Scriptures excludes opinion - forbids opinion - stamps on opinion the sin of unbelief.  There are more of such things  in the book of God than some people are aware of; and the 'I think,' and 'I don't think' of common talk, grates harshly sometimes on the considerate believer's ear; falls unbecomingly sometimes from the inconsiderate believer's lips.  He who insists upon such truths as these, however imperatively, is not dogmatical: he who condemns all contradiction and contravention of them, is not uncharitable; while the believer who when called upon to contend for the faith, from deference to opinion concedes or compromises, or withholds these plain declarations of the word of God, is a traitor or a coward, and no true soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ.  

 

Excerpt taken from Christ Our Law - by Caroline Fry Wilson

https://snickerdoodlesquotes.blogspot.com/

Quote of the Day

…Spurgeon observed many, 'who, by hearing continually the most precious doctrine that belief in Jesus Christ is saving, have forgotten other truths, and have concluded that they were saved when they were not, have fancied they believed when as yet they were total strangers to the experience which 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 of the work of Christ has settled them in a conviction 'that godly fear and careful walking are superfluities, if not actually an offense against the gospel.' 


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

Quote of the Day

Leaders, this is not the finish line.  This is the starting point.  We're aiming too low, even when we're hitting our target.  Again, if spiritual maturity is typically measured by daily Bible reading as individuals, and if discipleship (if it happens) is typically measured by the reproduction of sound doctrine and maybe Scripture memory, and if leadership is qualified by theological education (and perhaps business savvy for directing growth strategies and managing staff recruits), then we're functionally gnostic.  We've focused our efforts on the acquisition of spiritual knowledge in the mind while disregarding the spiritual significance of daily life in the physical world.  An incomplete gospel is an incorrect Gospel.


From the book: Leveling the Church: multiplying your Ministry by Giving it Away - By Micah Fries and Jeremy Maxfield

Quote of the Day

Faith must embrace doctrinal truth.  To the suggestion that the time would come when preaching the doctrines of grace would be passe, Spurgeon responded, "Out on ye, traitors, who tell us that we care to shape our gospel to suit this enlightened nineteenth century!  Out on ye, falsehearts, who would have us tone down the everlasting truth that shall outlive the sun, and moon, and stars, to suit your boasted culture, which is but varnished ignorance!"  No, still he would preach those truths that were mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, and he would maintain it to the death.....Without such knowledge and consent to specific truth, no faith is possible.  A strong evidence of grace is the "mind's perception of revealed truth and its obedience to it," Spurgeon argued.  Since God has lifted the veil through divine revelation, the true believer does not make or invent his own precepts, but he learns them from God.

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

Quote of the Day

"And some cannot advance any further with regard to knowledge; they know the fundamentals, and feel as if they could master nothing more.  It is a great blessing that they know the gospel, and feel that it will save them; but the glorious mysteries of the everlasting covenant, of the sovereignty of God, of His eternal love and distinguishing grace, they cannot compass.....To hear of these things rather wearies them than instructs them:  They have not strength enough of mind for the deep things to God.  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, for these things belong to you and your children.  Take care you know what the Holy Ghost teaches.  do not give way to a faint-hearted ignorance, lest you be great losers thereby.  That which is fit food for babes should not be enough for young men and fathers:  we should eat strong meat, and leave milk to the little ones."

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


See more quotes on my quote collection blog: https://snickerdoodlesquotes.blogspot.com/

Quote of the Day

Satan has now transformed himself into an angel of light, and under this fair disguise he is working with marvelous success.  He is teaching us to build the tombs of our fathers, that we may rest content with the mere approbation of their principles without any imitation of their practice.  He leads some astray into fatal error under the pretext of candor and love of truth; others he saturates with the orthodoxy of the head, that they may become Indifferent to the state of their heart before God.  Some he persuades to deny the Bible; to others he lauds it, that he may make it a substitute for the God of the Bible.  He cries up faith, that he may set it as a substitute for the object of faith.  With some he denies the possibility of assurance, that he may keep them from peace with God; with others he maintains the necessity of it, only in order that he may lead them to make a god of it, and substitute their being sure of salvation for believing in the Savior.  He cries down the Arminianism of making works our Savior, that he may lead us into the more subtle delusion of making a Savior of our faith.  He allows us a wide range of religious feeling and sentiment, if he can only succeed in making them a substitute for God.  He hinders not our being serious, earnest, solemn, if he can thereby feed the cravings of a restless, empty soul with something which may prevent us from seeking the bread of life.  He permits us to denounce the world's vanity and hollow pleasures - to be weary of its unsatisfying round of folly, that he may delude us into the idea that this dissatisfaction with the world is a proof that we are religious, and thereby cause us to sit down contented when yet a great way off from our Father's house.  He tolerates the circulation of useful, nay, of religious knowledge, that we may rest satisfied with something short of the fullness of God himself.  He may countenance, too, the routine of religious societies or Church courts, and the false excitement of crowded assemblies, eloquent speeches, glowing reports, that he may administer thereby that opiate to the soul by which it may be kept in a delusive day-dream, which seems so like the "sober certainty of waking bliss," that we cannot think of breaking the luxury of the pleasant spell.  He inculcates the necessity of providing for our children what is called a liberal education, that he may make that a substitute for a father's blessing and a mother's prayers.  He urges the obligation of Christian liberality, the necessity of large funds, that he may bring men to rest religious enterprise upon funds, not upon faith, - upon prudence, not on prayer. 

These outward things may be in themselves right and good, but what are they without the indwelling Spirit?  What is truth without the True One?  What is the perfection of Church order without the vital power from above?  - The body is there, but the living spirit has fled; the alter and the sacrifice are there, but the fire from heaven descends not; the temple is perfect and the worshippers are thronging its courts, but the glory is departed, Jehovah has left his shrine!

  - Horatius Bonar

From his book: Prophetical Landmarks

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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

Quote of the Day

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

S. Lewis Johnson

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1521-1522

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote of the Day

…the doctrine of the Trinity says something that does not go beyond the first point but that underlines and clarifies it.  For it adds the claim that as God has revealed himself in Christ, so he is in himself.  What he does through his Son on earth reveals what he is like from eternity to eternity.  His revelation in the gospel tells us the ultimate truth about God's being and nature, or else it is not authentic revelation at all.  The love of the Father sending, empowering, guiding, and finally vindicating his Son, the love of the Son, coming, obeying, suffering, dying, are particular historical expressions of the love that eternally flows between Father and Son at the heart of the life of God.  The complex of relationships between Father, Son and Spirit are not just the means by which God communicates with us, they are an essential part of the content of that communication.  They are not just how he speaks, but part of what he says.  If these relationships are not of eternal significance, then the gospel itself is not of eternal significance.  That God not only acts in history as Father, Son and Spirit, but that he is in himself Father, Son and Spirit is the doctrine of the immanent or essential Trinity.

Thomas Smail

Quote of the Day

The Godhood of God stands at the base of Divine revelation: “in the beginning God”—in solemn majesty, eternal, un-caused, self-sufficient. This is the foundation doctrine, and upon it all other doctrines must be built, and any other doctrine which is not built upon it will inevitably fail and fall in the day of testing. At the beginning of all true theology lies the postulate that God is God—absolute and irresistible. It must be so. Without this we face a closed door: with it we have a key which unlocks every mystery. This is true of Creation; exclude an Almighty God and nothing is left but blind and illogical materialism. This is true of Revelation: the Bible is the solitary miracle in the realm of literature; exclude God from it and you have a miracle and no miracle-Worker to produce it. This is true of Salvation. Salvation is “of the Lord,” entirely so; exclude God from any aspect or part of salvation, and salvation vanishes. This is true of History, for history is His story: it is the outworking in time of His eternal purpose; exclude God from history and all is meaningless and purposeless. The absolute Godhood of God is the only guaranty that in the end it shall be fully and finally demonstrated that God is “All in all”.

Arthur Pink

Quote of the Day

In space, astronauts experience the misery of having no reference point, no force that draws them to the center. Where there is no "moral gravity"- that is, no force that draws us to the center- there is spiritual weightlessness. We float on feelings that will carry us where we were never meant to go; we bubble with emotional experiences that we often take for spiritual ones; and we are puffed up with pride. Instead of seriousness, there is foolishness. Instead of gravity, flippancy. Sentimentality takes the place of theology. Our reference point will never serve to keep our feet on solid rock. Our reference point, until we answer God's call, is merely ourselves. We cannot possibly tell which end is up.

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

There is a vast difference, however, between a childlike faith and a childish faith, though the two are often confused. A childish faith balks at learning the things of God in depth. It refuses the meat of the gospel while clinging to a diet of milk. 

R. C. Sproul

Quote of the Day

Men hold truths nowadays with the bowels taken out of then, and the very life and meaning torn away. There are members and ministers of evangelical denominations who do not believe evangelical doctrine, or if they do believe it they attach but little importance to it; their sermons are essays on philosophy, tinged with the gospel. They put a quarter of a grain of gospel into an Atlantic of talk, and poor souls are drenched with words to no profit. God save us from ever leaving the old gospel, or losing its spirit, and the solid comfort which it brings...

Charles Spurgeon

His Robes For Mine

This is an excellent song! You can listen to it here:  http://www.sacredaudio.com/previews/player.php?id=1005_18  

His robes for mine: O wonderful exchange!
Clothed in my sin, Christ suffered ‘neath God’s rage.
Draped in His righteousness, I’m justified.
In Christ I live, for in my place He died.

Chorus:

I cling to Christ, and marvel at the cost:
Jesus forsaken, God estranged from God.
Bought by such love, my life is not my own.
My praise-my all-shall be for Christ alone.

His robes for mine: what cause have I for dread?
God’s daunting Law Christ mastered in my stead.
Faultless I stand with righteous works not mine,
Saved by my Lord’s vicarious death and life.

His robes for mine: God’s justice is appeased.
Jesus is crushed, and thus the Father’s pleased.
Christ drank God’s wrath on sin, then cried “‘Tis done!”
Sin’s wage is paid; propitiation won.

His robes for mine: such anguish none can know.
Christ, God’s beloved, condemned as though His foe.
He, as though I, accursed and left alone;
I, as though He, embraced and welcomed home!

- Written by Christ Anderson.  The sheet music can be purchased here:  http://www.bjupress.com/product/279752?path=169192&spot=1

Quote of the Day

…we have had in recent years a Jesus movement and a charismatic movement.  The one has almost disappeared and the other is threatening to run out of steam, perhaps because each is in a different way inadequate to the gospel, which his basically a Father movement.   It is not first a Jesuology (a doctrine about Jesus) or a pneumatology (a doctrine about the Spirit) but it is a theology or even a patrology - a doctrine about God the Father.  It starts not with the cross of Jesus or with the gift of the Spirit, but with the Father who so loved the World that he gave his Son in his Spirit.

Thomas Smail

Quote of the Day

You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true.

R. C. Sproul

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It is not… by an earthly leader, by a worldly hierarchy, by an uniformity of worship, of liturgy, by crosses, miters, censers, it is not by all these things that the unity of the Church is manifested; she leaves to the world these miserable elements. The true Church of Christ has no other bond than the unity of her faith and confession, in love and holiness of life. With her, all externals, which men regard of so high importance, are altogether secondary. All is free for her, saving her Jesus. When Rome points to her false and dead unity, the Church of Christ is to present a true and living unity; a UNITY and not an UNIFORMITY. 

 

Jean Henri Merle D'aubigne

Quote of the Day

 Love is the Queen of the Christian graces. It is a holy disposition given to us when we are born again by God. True spiritual love is characterized by meekness and gentleness, yet it is vastly superior to the courtesies and kindnesses of the flesh.

We must be careful not to confuse human sentimentality, carnal pleasantries, and human amiability with true spiritual love. The love God commands, first to Himself and then to others, is not human love. If we indulgently allow our children to grow up with little or, no Scriptural discipline, Proverbs plainly says we do not love them, regardless of the human sentimentality and affection we may feel for them. Love is not a sentimental pampering of one another with a loose indifference as to our walk and obedience before the Lord. Glossing over one another’s faults to ingratiate ourselves in their esteem is not spiritual love.

The true nature of Christian love is a righteous principle which seeks the highest good of others. The exercise of love is to be in strict conformity to the revealed will of God. We must love in the truth. Love among the brethren is far more than an agreeable society where views are the same. It is loving them for what we see of Christ in them, loving them for Christ’s sake.

The Lord Jesus Himself is our example. He was not only thoughtful, gentle, self-sacrificing and patient, but He also corrected His mother, used a whip in the Temple, severely scolded His doubting disciples, and denounced hypocrites. True spiritual love is above all faithful to God and uncompromising towards all that is evil. We cannot declare, ‘Peace and Safety’ when in reality there is spiritual decay and ruin!

True spiritual love is very difficult to exercise because it is not our natural love. By nature we would rather love sentimentally and engender good feelings. Also many times true spiritual love is not received in love, but is hated as the Pharisees hated it. We must pray that God will fill us with His love and enable us to exercise it without dissimulation toward all.

 

Arthur Pink

Quote of the Day

The plain fact is, dear reader, that to the present generation the Most High of Holy Writ is 'the unknown God."  It is just because people today are so ignorant of the Divine character and so lacking in godly fear, that they are quite in the dark as to the nature and glory of divine justice, presuming to arraign it.  This is an age of blatant irreverence, wherein lumps of animate clay dare to prescribe what the Almighty ought and ought not to do.  Our forefathers sowed the wind, and today their children are reaping the whirlwind.  The "divine rights of kings"  was scoffed at and tabooed by the sires, and now their offspring repudiate the "divine rights of the King of kings."  Unless the supposed "rights" of the creature are "respected," then our moderns have no respect for the Creator, and if His high sovereignty and absolute dominion over all be insisted upon, they hesitate not to vomit forth their condemnation of Him.  And, "evil communications corrupt good manners" (I Cor.  15:33)!  God's own people are in danger of being infected by the poisonous gas which now fills the air of the religious world. 

Arthur Pink