Quote of the Day

Modern liberal critics leave behind them a world of jumbled confusion.  They tell us that God has revealed Himself but refuse to pin themselves down as to exactly what that revelation is.  In fact, upon occasion, we find them glorifying the uncertainty of their preaching, because this offers them an opportunity for the exercise of 'the leap of faith.'  The basic thesis of their dialectical theology is that the acts of God in history cannot be detected apart from 'a leap of faith' and the revealed Words of God can never be identified with any words.  The avow that divine acts are beyond history and divine words are beyond language.  There is a segment of neoorthodoxy that distinguishes between God's Word and the human expression of that word.  The so-called word of God can be recognized only in the area of experience.  This would mean that not even the words of Jesus are a valid external authority.  Only those words of Jesus are valid which one feels to be appropriate to Jesus according to the judgment of one' sown mind, which seems to mean that one's own mind becomes one's own Jesus…….Thus, the entire Bible becomes a Book from which one may pick and choose what appeals to one's mind.  Experience becomes the supreme authority.  Bible teaching becomes secondary….Religious experience thus becomes an object of one's own interpretation fo truth and as such  it can prove anything….Cutting theology off from the control of the biblical text cannot do aught but lead to its death.

 

 

- W. A. Criswell

Quote of the Day

Harmony is found in Christ-likeness not in the flaunting of our originality.  The true Christian wants to blend in amongst the (Christ-like) brethren.

- Don Lambert

Quote of the Day

People often demand signs (from God) on their terms, ignoring the signs God chooses to give.  God builds our faith in ways that we would not have anticipated.  To insist on proofs of our own making is not beneficial. 

- paraphrase of Don Lambert

Quote of the Day

You know whether or not you are really a servant by the way you react when you are treated like one.

George MacDonald

Quote of the Day

That the members of every Church or Congregation should know one another so that they may perform all the duties of love one towards another both to soul and body.  Matthew 18:15.  1 Thessalonians 5:14. 1 Corinthians 12:25.  And especially the elders should know the whole flock, of which the Holy Ghost has made them overseers.  Acts 20:28. 1 Peter 5:2, 3.  and therefore a Church should not consist of such a multitude that they cannot have particular knowledge of one another.

- Part of a Baptist declaration of faith in 1611

Quote of the Day

"What is somewhat remarkable about this vast array of gods named in the Bible is the fact that nothing is mentioned about their alleged abilities or qualities.  The Bible is purposefully silent about any description of these gods.  This is not important because the gods are in fact not a part of reality."

 

"The gods were something only in the sense that the people of God had to contend with the idea of them…The first commandment does not affirm that other gods exist even though it refers to them.  They are merely constructs of the human imagination or belong to the created order."

From: The Ten commandments:  Ethics for the Twenty-first Century by Mark Rooker

Quote of the Day

“I recall Decimus instructing me while at work that wrong friends will make my heart yearn for sin more than it usually does. Compromises will be easier and wisdom will be replaced with folly. I just figured that they didn’t know him, and therefore were judging him. Plus, I told them that Erebus …was interested in becoming a Christian, and that was the basis of our friendship. My biggest mistake was when I told John that Jesus spent time with sinners far worse than Erebus. ‘Oh foolishness, you forget I was with Jesus when he was in the homes and company of sinners,’ John chided. ‘Jesus did not come to make friends, but to call sinners to repent. Do that long enough and let’s see how many friends you pick up…His visits were hardly a social call…He did not save any lost soul by living like that lost soul…until Erebus sees Christ in you, you are guilty of leading him astray as I’m afraid he is leading you astray...As I see it, friendships are grown when you are all going in the same direction, and can help, encourage and protect all involved. Friendships are not to be reckless, but constructive and purposeful where you are building each other up and improving each other’s character. If this isn’t that inner, guiding principle of all the friends you hold, then in what direction is it actually going, and what good will be derived from it? If friends are not making each other better, then they’re fulfilling the role of our spiritual enemy by tearing down what is good and ruining what had potential……”

- Rick Lambert
from his book-  Polycarp: A Destroyer of our gods

Quote of the Day

True love isn't mutual, true love is selfless.

- Don Lambert

Quote of the Day

No artistic depiction should ever be offered as a way to understand something of God's glory.  Any attempt to understand an aspect of God's glory in this way would present a false impression and a distortion.  "In a similar way, the pathos of the crucifix obscures the glory of Christ, for it hides the fact of His deity, His victory on the cross, and His present kingdom."

- From Mark Rooker's book  The Ten Commandments:  Ethics for the Twenty-First Century

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

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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