Quote of the Day

The longing to see Christ that burned in the breasts of those first Christians seems to have burned itself out.  All we have left are the ashes.  It is precisely the 'yearning' and the 'fainting' for the return of Christ that has distinguished the personal hope from the theological one.   Mere acquaintance with correct doctrine is a poor substitute for Christ and familiarity with New Testament eschatology will never take the place of a love-inflamed desire to look on His face.

If the tender yearning is gone from the advent hope today there must be a reason for it; and I think I know what it is, or what they are, for there are a number of them.  One is simply that popular fundamentalist theology has emphasized the utility of the cross rather than the beauty of the One who died on it.   The saved man's relation to Christ has been made contractual instead of personal.  The 'work' of Christ has been stressed until it has eclipsed the person of Christ.   Substitution has been allowed to supersede identification.   What He did for me seems to be more important than what He is to me.   Redemption is seen as an across-the-counter transaction which we 'accept,' and the whole thing lacks emotional content.   We must love someone very much to stay awake and long for his coming, and that may explain the absence of power in the advent hope even among those who still believe in it.  

Another reason for the absence of real yearning for Christ's return is that Christians are so comfortable in this world that they have little desire to leave it.   For those leaders who set the pace of religion and determine its content and quality, Christianity has become of late remarkably lucrative.   The streets of gold do not have too great an appeal for those who find it so easy to pile up gold and silver in the service of the Lord here on earth.   We want to reserve the hope of heaven as a kind of insurance against the day of death, but as long as, we are healthy and comfortable, why change a familiar good for something about which we actually know very little?   So reasons the carnal mind, and so subtly that we are scarcely aware of it.

Again, in these times religion has become jolly good fun right here in this present world, and what's the hurry about heaven anyway?   Christianity, contrary to what some had thought is another and higher form of entertainment.   Christ has done all the suffering.   He has shed all the tears and carried all the crosses; we have but to enjoy the benefits of His heartbreak in the form of religious pleasures modeled after the world but carried on in the name of Jesus.  So say the same people who claim to believe in Christ's second coming.

- A. W. Tozer

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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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…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

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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

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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

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Thomas(Stonewall) Jackson's first wife died in childbirth(the child died as well).  In a letter to his aunt at the time he writes:  "I frequently go to the dearest of earth's spots, the grave of her who was so pure and lovely -  but she is not there.  When I stand over the grave, I do not fancy that she is thus conlined, but I think of her as having a glorified existence."  For a long time he visited her grave daily…In one of his note-books appears the following entry, showing his desire to profit by his great sorrow:  "Objects to be effected by Ellie's death:  To eradicate ambition; to eradicate resentment; to produce humility.  If you desire to be more heavenly-minded, think more of the things of heaven, and less of the things of earth.

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

Joel Beeke

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

Peter Kreeft

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

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

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

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

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

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

- John Macarthur

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A Christian knows that death shall be the funeral of all his sins, his sorrows, his afflictions, his temptations, his vexations, his oppressions, his persecutions. He knows that death shall be the resurrection of all his hopes, his joys, his delights, his comforts, his contentments.

Thomas Brooks

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Excerpt from a letter written bv Hudson Taylor, in China at the time, to a friend in England.  Taylor's wife and new-born son Noel had just died(their oldest son, Samuel, died earlier that year). There second youngest child was staying with friends eleswhere in China and the other children had been sent to England not long before this event:
 

It is Sunday evening.  I am writing from Mr. White's bungalow.  The cool air, the mellow, autumnal beauty of the scene, the magnificent Yangtze - with Silver Island, beautifully wooded, reposing, as it were, on its bosom - combine to make one feel as if it were a vision of dreamland rather than actual reality.  And my feelings accord.  But a few months ago my home was full, now so silent and lonely - Samuel, Noel, my precious wife, with Jesus; the elder children far, far away, and even little T'ien-pao in Yang-chow.  Often, of late years, has duty called me from my loved ones, but I have returned, and so warm has been the welcome!  Now I am alone.  Can it be that there is no return from this journey, no home-gathering  to look forward to? Is it real, and not a sorrowful dream that those dearest to me lie beneath the cold sod?  Ah, it is indeed true!  But not more so, than that there is a home-coming  awaiting me which no parting shall break into, no tears mar….Love gave the blow that for a little while makes the desert more dreary, but heaven more home-like.  "I go to prepare a place for you":  and is not our part of the preparation the peopling it with those we love? 

And the same loving Hand that makes Heaven more home-like is the while loosening the ties that binding us to this world, thus helping our earth-cleaving spirits to sit looser, awaiting our own summons, whether personally to be "present with the Lord," or at "the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior"  "Even so, come, Lord Jesus," come quickly!

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Triumph, O my faith! All things are Christ's, and Christ is God's and God, Christ, and all things are thine. Time is his, and in it I have my numbered years; the air is his, and in it I breath; the world and on it I dwell; its fullness and I am fed; grace is his, and in it I stand; faith, and by it I overcome the world; tribulations are from him, and in them I glory; perfection is his, and towards it I press; death is his and by it  I arrive at home; heaven is his, and there is my mansion; eternity is his, and there is my treasure and glory.

James Meikle