QuotesFromChurchFathers

Andrew Murray was Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Murray became a noted missionary leader. His father was a Scottish Presbyterian serving the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, and his mother had connections with both French Huguenots and German Lutherans. This background to some extent explains his ecumenical spirit. He was educated at Aberdeen University, Scotland, and at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. After ordination in 1848 he served pastorates at Bloemfontein, Worcester, Cape Town, and Wellington. He helped to found what are now the University College of the Orange Free State and the Stellenbosch Seminary He served as Moderator of the Cape Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church and was president of both the YMCA (1865) and the South Africa General Mission (1888-1917), now the Africa Evangelical Fellowship.

He was one of the chief promoters of the call to missions in South Africa. This led to the Dutch Reformed Church missions to blacks in the Transvaal and Malawi. Apart from his evangelistic tours in South Africa, he spoke at the Keswick and Northfield Conventions in 1895, making a great impression. upon his British and American audiences. For his contribution to world missions he was given an honorary doctorate by the universities of Aberdeen (1898) and Cape of Good Hope(1907).

Murray is best known today for his devotional writings, which place great emphasis on the need for a rich, personal devotional life. Many of his 240 publications explain in how he saw this devotion and its outworking in the life of the Christian. Several of his books have become devotional classics. Among these are Abide in Christ, Absolute Surrender, With Christ in the School of Prayer, The Spirit of Christ and Waiting on God.

“Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Pride must die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you.” ~ Andrew Murray

“A dead Christ I must do everything for; a living Christ does everything for me.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Each time, before you intercede, be quiet first, and worship God in His glory. Think of what He can do, and how He delights to hear the prayers of His redeemed people. Think of your place and privilege in Christ, and expect great things!” ~ Andrew Murray

“Humility is nothing but the disappearance of self in the vision that God is all.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Answered prayer is the interchange of love between the Father and His child.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Humility is the displacement of self by the enthronement of God.” ~ Andrew Murray

“God has a plan for His Church upon earth. But alas! we too often make our plan, and we think that we know what ought to be done. We ask God first to bless our feeble efforts, instead of absolutely refusing to go unless God go before us.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The sooner I learn to forget myself in the desire that He may be glorified, the richer will be the blessing that prayer will bring to myself. No one ever loses by what he sacrifices to the Father.” ~ Andrew Murray

“God cannot hear the prayers on our lips often because the desires of our heart after the world cry out to Him much more strongly and loudly than the our desires for Him.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The great thing in prayer is to feel that we are putting our supplications into the bosom of omnipotent love.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The root of all virtue and grace, of all faith and acceptable worship, is that we know that we have nothing but what we receive, and bow in deepest humility to wait upon God for it.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Our forgiving love toward men is the evidence of God’s forgiving love in us. It is a necessary condition of the prayer of faith.” ~ Andrew Murray

“I need to spend time with God even when I do not know what to pray.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is the first duty and the highest virtue of the creature, and the root of every virtue. And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Humility is simply the disposition which prepares the soul for living on trust.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Prayer [is] the quiet, persistent living of our life of desire and faith in the presence of our God.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God, and allows Him as God to do all.” ~ Andrew Murray

“How different our standard is from Christ’s. We ask how much a man gives. Christ asks how much he keeps.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The Christian often tries to forget his weakness; God wants us to remember it, to feel it deeply. The Christian wants to conquer his weakness and to be freed from it; God wants us to rest and even rejoice in it. The Christian mourns over his weakness; Christ teaches His servant to say, ‘I take pleasure in infirmities. Most gladly …will I…glory in my infirmities’ (2 Cor. 12:9)’ The Christian thinks his weaknesses are his greatest hindrance in the life and service of God; God tells us that it is the secret of strength and success. It is our weakness, heartily accepted and continually realized, that gives our claim and access to the strength of Him who has said, ‘My strength is made perfect in weakness” ~ Andrew Murray

“Every providence is God’s will; whatever happens, meet God in it in humble worship. Every precept is God’s will; meet God in it with loving obedience. Every promise is God’s will; meet God in it with full trust. A life in the will of God is rest and strength and blessing.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Humiliation is the only ladder to honoring God’s Kingdom.” ~ Andrew Murray

“It is not the law, and not the book, not the knowledge of what is right, that works obedience, but the personal influence of God and His living fellowship. And even so it is not the knowledge of what God has promised, but the presence of God Himself as the Promiser, that awakens faith and trust in prayer.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Our insight into the need of redemption will largely depend upon our knowledge of the terrible nature of the power that has entered our being.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The truth is this: Pride must die in you or nothing of heaven can live in you. Under the banner of the truth, give yourself up to the meek and humble spirit of the holy Jesus. Humility must sow the seed or there can be no reaping in heaven. Look not at pride only as an unbecoming temper, nor at humility only as a decent virtue: for the one is death and the other is life; the one is hell and the other is heaven. So much as you have of pride within you, you have of the fallen angel alive in you; so much as you have of true humility, so much you have of the Lamb of God within you.” ~ Andrew Murray

“A soul filled with large thoughts of the Vine will be a strong branch, and will abide confidently in Him. Be much occupied with Jesus, and believe much in Him, as the True Vine.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The reality is that a heart desire for prayer is lacking. Many do not know how to spend half an hour with God! It is not that they absolutely do not pray; they may pray every day—but they have no joy in prayer. Joy is the sign that God is everything to you.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Precious lessons that Jesus has to teach us this day. We seek God’s gifts: God wants to give us HIMSELF first. We think of prayer as the power to draw down good gifts from heaven; Jesus as the means to draw ourselves up to God.” ` Andrew Murray

“We prove the value we attach to things by the time we devote to them.” ~ Andrew Murray

“God is love;’ Creation is the outflow of love. Redemption is the sacrifice and the triumph of love. Holiness is the fire of love. The beauty of the life of Jesus is love. All we enjoy of the Divine we owe to love. Our holiness is not God’s, is not Christ’s, if we do not love.” ~ Andrew Murray

“If it is God who has been withholding His presence, exposing the sin, calling for its destruction and a return to obedience, surely we can count upon His grace to strengthen us for the life He asks of us. It is not a question of what you can do. It is a question of whether you will with your whole heart give God what is due Him and allow His will to be done in your life.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The one object God had in making you a branch is that Christ may through you bring life to men. Your personal salvation, your business and care for your family, are entirely subordinate to this. Your first aim in life, your first aim every day, should be to know how Christ desires to carry out His purpose in you.” ~ Andrew Murray

“As bread is the first need of the body, so forgiveness for the soul.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Scripture teaches us that there is not one truth on which Christ insisted more frequently, both with His disciples and with those who came seeking His help, than the absolute necessity of faith and its unlimited possibilities. Experience has taught us that there is nothing in which we come so short as the simple and absolute trust in God to fulfill literally in us all that He has promised. A life in the abiding presence must of necessity be a life of unceasing faith.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The Righteousness of God no longer terrifies man. It meets him as a friend, with an offer of complete justification. God’s countenance beams with pleasure and approval as the penitent sinner draws near to Him, and He invites him to intimate fellowship. He opens for him treasure of blessing. There is nothing now that can separate him from God.” ~ Andrew Murray

“There are two natures in the believer, and so two ways of seeking holiness, as we allow the principles of the one or the other nature to guide us. The one is the carnal way, in which we put forth our utmost efforts and resolutions, trusting Christ to help us in doing so. The other is the spiritual way, in which, as those who have did and can do nothing, our one care is to receive Christ day by day and at every step to let Him live and work in us.” ~ Andrew Murray

“It is necessary to understand that it is not sin that humbles most, but grace.” ~ Andrew Murray

“God desired to reveal himself in and through His creatures by communicating to them as much of His own goodness and glory as they were capable of receiving. But this communication was not meant to give created beings something they could possess in themselves, having full charge and access apart from Him. Rather, God as the ever-living, ever-present, ever-acting One, who upholds all things by the word of His power, and in whom all things exist, meant that the relationship of His creatures to himself would be one of unceasing, absolute dependence. As truly as God by His power once created all things, so by that same power must God every moment maintain all things.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The power to believe a promise depends entirely on our faith in the one who promises.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Learn to cease from your own wisdom as well as your own goodness; draw near in poverty of spirit to let the Holy One show you how utterly above human knowledge or human power is the holiness He demands; to the soul that ceases from self, and has no confidence in the flesh, He will show and give the holiness He calls us to.” ~ Andrew Murray

“It is only into the thirst of an empty soul that the streams of living waters flow. Ever thirsting is the secret of never thirsting.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The call to humility has been too little regarded in the church because its true nature and importance have been too little apprehended. It is not something that we bring to God, or that He bestows; it is simply the sense of entire nothingness that comes when we see how truly God is everything.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Fear and hope are generally thought to be in conflict with each other, in the presence and worship of God they are found side by side in perfect and beautiful harmony. And this because in God Himself all apparent contradictions are reconciled. Righteousness and peace, judgment and mercy, holiness and love, infinite power and infinite gentleness, a majesty that is exalted above all heaven, and a condescension that bows very low, meet and kiss each other.” ~ Andrew Murray

“If Christ is to give Himself wholly to me, He must know that He has me wholly for Himself” ~ Andrew Murray

“The highest glory of the creature is in being a vessel, to receive and enjoy and show forth the glory of God. It can do this only as it is willing to be nothing in itself, that God may be everything.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Nothing but the presence of God can reveal and expel self.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The extent of our love to the Lord is shown by the way we obey His commands. Love does all that it can to make the loved one happy.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Not to be occupied with thy sin, but to be occupied with God, brings deliverance from self.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Of God are ye in Christ. It is not as if God placed and planted us in Christ, and left it to us now to maintain the union. No, God is the Eternal One, the God of the everlasting life, who works every moment in a power that does not for one moment cease. What God gives, He continues with a never-ceasing giving. It is He who by the Holy Spirit makes this life in Christ a blessed reality in our consciousness.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Do not try to stir and arouse faith from within. How often I have tried to do that, and made a fool of myself! You cannot stir up faith from the depths of your heart. Leave your heart, and look into the face of Christ, and listen to what He tells you about how He will keep you.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Moment by moment I’m kept in His love; Moment by moment I’ve life from above.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Because of hasty and superficial communion with God, the sense of sin becomes weak and there is no motive strong enough to help you to hate sin and flee from it. Nothing except secret, humble, constant fellowship with God can teach you as His child to hate sin as God hates it. Nothing but the close fellowship and unceasing power of the living Christ can make it possible for you to understand what sin is and to detest it. Without this deeper understanding of sin, we cannot truly appropriate the victory that Christ made possible for us.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The greatest defect of the Old Covenant was that it demanded obedience but did not provide the power for it. The new heart delights in the law of God; it is willing and able to obey it. A promise of God is a thing of faith. If you do not believe it, you cannot appropriate it or put it to use.” ~Andrew Murray

“One of the worst things sin did for man was to make him selfish, for selfishness cannot love.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Though in its beginnings prayer is so simple that the feeble child can pray, yet it is at the same time the highest and holiest work to which man can rise. It” ~ Andrew Murray

“Manifestations of temper and touchiness and irritation, feelings of bitterness and estrangement, have their root in nothing but pride.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Let us look at every person who annoys or agitates us, as God’s means of grace, God’s instrument for our purification, for the working out of the humility Jesus our Life breathes within us.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The whole difficulty is that we wish to pray in the Spirit and at the same time walk after the flesh. This is impossible.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The Spirit must be honored not only as the author of a new life but also as the leader and director of our entire walk.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The more I understand and contemplate Jesus’ surrender of Himself for me, the more do I give myself again to Him. The surrender is a mutual one: the love comes from both sides. His giving of Himself makes such an impression on my heart, that my heart with the self-same love and joy becomes entirely His.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Some receive Christ in terms of the forgiveness of sin and the hope of heaven, yet know little of His fullness and the wealth that is to be found in Him.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Humility before God is nothing if not proved in humility before men” ~ Andrew Murray

“The Christian often tries to forget his weakness: God wants us to remember it, to feel it deeply. ” ~ Andrew Murray

“The Christian wants to conquer his weakness and to be freed from it: God wants us to rest and even rejoice in it.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The Christian thinks his weakness his greatest hindrance in the life and service of God: God tells us that it is the secret of strength and success.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Let him consider how all lack of love; all disregard for the needs, feelings, and weakness of others; all sharp and hasty judgments and words, so often excused under the plea of being outright and honest; all manifestations of temper, touchiness, and irritation; all feelings of bitterness and estrangement, have their root in nothing but pride, that only seeks itself.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Redemption is too often looked at from its negative side as deliverance from: its real glory is the positive element of being redeemed unto Himself.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Remember that Christ works in and through you, and provides all that God desires for you and all that you need.” ~ Andrew Murray

“We wish in a halfhearted way to be better than we are. But how few there are who truly ‘‘hunger and thirst after righteousness’’; how few who intensely long for a life of obedience and the continual consciousness of being pleasing to God.” ~ Andrew Murray

“In Jesus all our fears are removed, all our needs supplied, all our desires met. He, the righteous One, is your righteousness; He, the obedient One, is your obedience. Will you not trust Him for this? What faith sees and desires and expects and accepts, surely it will dare trust Christ to give. ” ~ Andrew Murray

“This is the love of God; not that He gives us something, but that He gives us some one – a living person – not one or another blessing, but Him in whom is all life and blessing – Jesus Himself.” ~ Andrew Murray

“This is throughout scripture the great central promise: I am with you.” ~ Andrew Murray

“Therefore every morning, present yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead. He will maintain the life He gave, and bestow the grace to live as risen ones.” ~ Andrew Murray

“The master judges by the result, but our Father judges by the effort. Failure does not always mean fault. He knows how much things cost, and weighs them where others only measure.” ~ Andrew Murray

“May God teach us that our thoughts, words, and feelings concerning our fellow man are His test of our humility towards Him.” ~ Andrew Murray

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO QUOTES

A.W. PINK QUOTES

Arthur Walkington Pink was born in Nottingham, England on April 1, 1886 and became a Christian in his early 20’s. Though born to Christian parents, prior to conversion he migrated into a Theosophical society (an occult gnostic group popular in England during that time), and quickly rose in prominence within their ranks. His conversion came from his father’s patient admonitions from Scripture. It was the verse, Proverbs 14:12, ‘there is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death,’ which particularly struck his heart and compelled him to renounce Theosophy and follow Jesus.

Desiring to grow in knowledge of the Bible, Pink immigrated to the United States to study at Moody Bible Institute. In 1916 he married Vera E. Russell, who was from Kentucky. However, he left after just two months for Colorado, then California, then Britain. From 1925 to 1928 he served in Australia, including as pastor of two congregations from 1926 to 1928, when he returned to England, and to the United States the following year. He eventually pastored churches Colorado, California, Kentucky and South Carolina.

In 1922 he started a monthly magazine entitled Studies in Scriptures which circulated among English-speaking Christians worldwide, though only to a relatively small circulation list of around 1,000.

In 1934 Pink returned to England, and within a few years turned his Christian service to writing books and pamphlets. Pink died in Stornoway, Scotland on July 15, 1952. The cause of death was anemia.

After Pink’s death, his works were republished by the Banner of Truth Trust and reached a much wider audience as a result. Biographer Iain Murray observes of Pink, “the widespread circulation of his writings after his death made him one of the most influential evangelical authors in the second half of the twentieth century.” His writing sparked a revival of expository preaching and focused readers’ hearts on biblical living.

“It is not the absence of sin but the grieving over it which distinguishes the child of God from empty professors” ~ A.W. Pink

“Instead of a river, God often gives us a brook, which may be running today and dried up tomorrow. Why? To teach us not to rest in our blessings, but in the blesser Himself.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Were God to show grace to all of Adam’s descendants, men would at once conclude that He was righteously compelled to take them to heaven as meet compensation for allowing the human race to fall into sin. But the great God in under no obligation to any of his creatures, least of all to those who are rebels against him.” ~ A.W. Pink

“When we complain about the weather, we are, in reality, murmuring against God.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Afflictions are light when compared with what we really deserve. They are light when compared with the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. But perhaps their real lightness is best seen by comparing them with the weight of glory which is awaiting us.” ~ A.W. Pink

“When you observe that the fire in your room is getting dull, you do not always put on more coal, but simply stir with the poker; so God often uses the black poker of adversity in order that the flames of devotion may burn more brightly.” ~ A.W. Pink

“But why should we not place implicit confidence in God and rely upon His word of promise? Is anything too hard for the Lord? Has His word of promise ever failed? Then let us not entertain any unbelieving suspicions of His future care of us. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not so His promises.” ~ A.W. Pink

“He foresaw my every fall, my every sin, my every backsliding; yet, nevertheless, fixed His heart upon me.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Our Lord has many weak children in His family, many dull pupils in His school, many raw soldiers in His army, many lame sheep in His flock. Yet He bears with them all, and casts none away.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Those who speak of man’s “free will,” and insist upon his inherent power to either accept or reject the Saviour, do but voice their ignorance of the real condition of Adam’s fallen children.” ~ A.W. Pink

“It is not the absence of sin but the grieving over it which distinguishes the child of God from empty professors.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Deny that the Bible is, without any qualifications, the very Word of God, and you are left without any ultimate standard of measurement and without any supreme authority. Grant that the Bible is a Divine revelation and communication of God’s own mind and will to men, and you have a fixed starting point from which an advance can be made into the domain of truth.” ~ A.W. Pink

“We must not forget that the issues of Eternity are settled in Time.” ~ A.W. Pink

“To argue that God is “trying His best” to save all mankind, but that the majority of men will not let Him save them, is to insist that the will of the Creator is impotent, and that the will of the creature is omnipotent.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Almost all doctrinal error is really truth perverted. Truth wrongly divided. Truth disproportionately held and taught.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Thousands acknowledge they are sinners, who have never mourned over the fact.” ~ A.W. Pink

“The first time [Christ] came to slay sin in men. The second time He will come to slay men in sin.” ~ A.W. Pink

“How quickly self rises to the surface, and the instrument is ready to believe he is something more than an instrument! How sadly easy it is to make of the very service God entrusts us with a pedestal on which to display ourselves. But God will not share His glory with another, and therefore does He “hide” those who may be tempted to take some of it unto themselves. It is only by retiring from public view and getting alone with God that we can learn our own nothingness.” ~ A.W. Pink

‘The Lord knows what is best for each of us, and one effect or resting on this truth will be the silencing of our petulant complainings. God is greatly honored when, under trial and chastening, we have good thoughts of Him, vindicate His wisdom and justice, and recognize His love in His very rebukes.” ~ A.W. Pink

“No doctrine of Redemption that in any way casts the slightest shadow over the high mountain of Divine Sovereignty can be tolerated for a moment.” ~ A.W. Pink

“A ‘god’ who’s will is resisted, designs frustrated, and purpose checkmated, possesses no title to Deity.” ~ A.W. Pink

“All outward actions are worthless while our hearts be not right with God.” ~ A.W. Pink

“If man is a totally depraved being, can he possibly take the first step in the matter of his return to God?” ~ A.W. Pink

“God is “light” (1 John 1:5), as well as love; and because He is such, sin cannot be ignored, its heinousness minimized, nor its guilt cancelled.” ~ A.W. Pink

“But now the question arises, Why has God demanded of man that which he is incapable of performing? The first answer is, Because God refuses to lower His standard to the level of our sinful infirmities.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Though poor in this world’s goods, though grieving the loss of loved ones, though suffering pain of body, though harassed by sin and Satan, though hated and persecuted by worldlings, whatever be the case and lot of the Christian, it is both his privilege and duty to rejoice in the Lord.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Christ is the Divine answer to the Devil’s overthrow of our first parents.” ~ A.W. Pink

“How can we who are so weak in ourselves, so inferior in power to the enemies confronting us, bear up under our trials which are so numerous, so protracted, so crushing? We could not, and therefore Divine grace has provided for us an all-sufficient Helper. Without His aid we had long since succumbed, mastered by our trials. Hope looks forward to the Glory to come; in the weary interval of waiting, the Spirit supports our poor hearts and keeps grace alive within us.” ~ A.W. Pink

“There must be head faith before there can be heart faith. We must believe intellectually before we can believe savingly in the Lord Jesus.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Nothing in all the vast universe can come to pass otherwise than God has eternally purposed. Here is a foundation of faith. Here is a resting place for the intellect. Here is an anchor for the soul, both sure and steadfast. It is not blind fate, unbridled evil, man or Devil, but the Lord Almighty who is ruling the world, ruling it according to His own good pleasure and for His own eternal glory.” ~ A.W. Pink

“A true recognition of God’s sovereignty will avow God’s perfect right to do with us as He wills. The one who bows to the pleasure of the Almighty will acknowledge His absolute right to do with us as seemeth Him good. If He chooses to send poverty, sickness, domestic bereavements, even while the heart is bleeding at every pore, it will say, Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right! Often there will be a struggle, for the carnal mind remains in the believer to the end of his earthly pilgrimage. But though there may be a conflict within his breast, nevertheless, to the one who has really yielded himself to this blessed truth there will presently be heard that Voice saying, as of old it said to the turbulent Gennesaret, “Peace be still”; and the tempestuous flood within will be quieted and the subdued soul will lift a tearful but confident eye to Heaven and say, “Thy will be done.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Here is a fundamental difference between the man of faith and the man of unbelief. The unbeliever is ‘of the world’, judges everything by worldly standards, views life from the standpoint of time and sense, and weighs everything in the balances of his own carnal making. But the man of faith brings in God, looks at everything from His standpoint, estimates values by spiritual standards, and views life in the light of eternity. Doing this, he receives whatever comes as from the hand of God. Doing this, his heart is calm in the midst of the storm. Doing this, he rejoices in hope of the glory of God.” ~ A.W. Pink

“To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the Almighty, the Possessor of all power in heaven and earth, so that none can defeat His counsels, thwart His purpose, or resist His will (Ps. 115:3). To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is “The Governor among the nations” (Ps. 22:28), setting up kingdoms, overthrowing empires, and determining the course of dynasties as pleaseth Him best. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the “Only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords” (1 Tim. 6:15). Such is the God of the Bible. How different is the God of the Bible from the God of modern Christendom! The conception of Deity which prevails most widely today, even among those who profess to give heed to the Scriptures, is a miserable caricature, a blasphemous travesty of the Truth. The God of the twentieth century is a helpless, effeminate being who commands the respect of no really thoughtful man. The God of the popular mind is the creation of a maudlin sentimentality. The God of many a present-day pulpit is an object of pity rather than of awe-inspiring reverence.” ~ A.W. Pink

“As to liberty, men would be at their own disposal and live as they please. They suppose the only true liberty is to be at the command and under the control of none above themselves, and live according to their heart’s desire. But this is a thralldom and bondage of the worst kind. True liberty is not the power to live as we please, but to live as we ought! Hence, the only One Who has ever trod this earth since Adam’s fall that has enjoyed perfect freedom was the Man Christ Jesus, the Holy Servant of God, Whose meat it ever was to do the will of the Father.” ~ A.W. Pink

“The becoming attitude for us to take is that of godly fear, implicit obedience, and unreserved resignation and submission. But not only so: the recognition of the sovereignty of God, and the realization that the Sovereign Himself is my Father, ought to overwhelm the heart and cause me to bow before Him in adoring worship. At all times I must say “Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in Thy sight.” ~ A.W. Pink

“I warn every reader of this [article] to beware of quack medicines in religion. Beware of supposing that penitence, reformation, formality, and priestcraft can ever give you peace with God. They cannot do it. It is not in them. The man who says they can must be ignorant of two things: he cannot know the length and breadth of human sinfulness; he cannot understand the height and depth of the holiness of God. There never breathed the man or woman on earth who tried to cleanse himself from his sins and in so doing obtained relief.” ~ A.W. Pink

“To openly defy Him who is clothed with omnipotence, who can rend us in pieces or cast us into Hell any moment He pleases, is the very height of insanity.” ~ A.W. Pink

“A spiritual and saving knowledge of God is the greatest need of every human creature.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Here is encouragement to prayer. There is no cause for fearing that the petitions of the righteous will not be heard, or that their sighs and tears shall escape the notice of God, since He knows the thoughts and intents of the heart. There is no danger of the individual saint being overlooked amidst the multitude of supplicants who daily and hourly present their various petitions, for an infinite Mind is as capable of paying the same attention to millions as if only one individual were seeking its attention.” ~ A.W. Pink

“An ineffably holy God, who has the utmost abhorrence of all sin, was never invented by any of Adam’s fallen descendants!” ~ A.W. Pink

“No revolving world, no shining of star, no storm, no creature moves, no actions of men, no errands of angels, no deeds of devil—nothing in all the vast universe can come to pass otherwise than God has eternally purposed. Here is a foundation of faith. Here is a resting place for the intellect. Here is an anchor for the soul, both sure and steadfast. It is not blind fate, unbridled evil, man or devil, but the Lord Almighty who is ruling the world, ruling it according to His own good pleasure and for His own eternal glory.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Here then is a sure resting-place for the heart. Our lives are neither the product of blind fate nor the result of capricious chance, but every detail of them was ordained from all eternity, and is now ordered by the living and reigning God. Not a hair of our heads can be touched without His permission.” ~ A.W. Pink

“The demands of justice must be met; the requirements of God’s holiness must be satisfied; the awful debt we incurred must be paid. And on the Cross this was done; done by none less than the Son of God; done perfectly; done once for all. “It is finished.” ~ A.W. Pink

“To say that Christ is unable to win to Himself those who are unwilling, is to deny that all power in heaven and earth is His. To say that Christ cannot put forth His power without destroying man’s responsibility is a begging of the question here raised, for He has put forth His power and made willing those who have come to Him, and if He did this without destroying their responsibility, why “cannot” He do so with others? If He is able to win the heart of one sinner to Himself, why not that of another? To say, as is usually said, the others will not let Him, is to impeach His sufficiency. It is a question of His will. If the Lord Jesus has decreed, desired, purposed the salvation of all mankind, then the entire human race will be saved, or, otherwise, He lacks the power to make good His intentions; and in such a case it could never be said, “He shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied” (Isa 53:11). The issue raised involves the deity of the Saviour, for a defeated Saviour cannot be God.” ~ A.W. Pink

“There is a greater difference between the genuine Christian and the deceived professing Christian than there is between a living man and a corpse. None need remain in doubt if they will honestly measure themselves by the Holy Word of God.” ~ A.W. Pink

“God foreknows what will be because He has decreed what shall be. It is therefore a reversing of the order of Scripture, a putting of the cart before the horse, to affirm that God elects because He foreknows people. The truth is, He foreknows because He has elected. This removes the ground or cause of election from outside the creature, and places it in God’s own sovereign will. God purposed in Himself to elect a certain people, not because of anything good in them or from them, either actual or foreseen, but solely out of His own mere pleasure.” ~ A.W. Pink

“God did not elect any sinner because He foresaw that he would believe, for the simple but sufficient reason that no sinner ever does believe until God gives him faith; just as no man sees until God gives him sight. Sight is God’s gift, seeing is the consequence of my using His gift.” ~ A.W. Pink

“He is solitary in His majesty, unique in His excellency, peerless in His perfections. He sustains all, but is Himself independent of all. He gives to all, but is enriched by none. By revelation Such a God cannot be found out by searching. He can be known only as He is revealed to the heart by the Holy Spirit through the Word.” ~ A.W. Pink

“The apprehension of God’s infinite knowledge should fill the Christian with adoration. The whole of my life stood open to His view from the beginning. He foresaw my every fall, my every sin, my every backsliding; yet, nevertheless, fixed His heart upon me. Oh, how the realization of this should bow me in wonder and worship before Him!” ~ A.W. Pink

“The “god” which the vast majority of professing Christians “love” is looked upon very much like an indulgent old man, who himself has no relish for folly, but leniently winks at the “indiscretions” of youth. But the Word says, “Thou hatest all workers of iniquity” (Psa 5:5). And again, “God is angry with the wicked every day” (Psa 7:11). But men refuse to believe in this God, and gnash their teeth when His hatred of sin is faithfully pressed upon their attention. No, sinful man was no more likely to devise a holy God than to create the Lake of Fire in which he will be tormented for ever and ever.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:18). From the beginning God purposed to glorify Himself “in the Church by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end” (Eph. 3:21). To this end, He created the world, and formed man. His all-wise plan was not defeated when man fell, for in the Lamb “slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8) we behold the Fall anticipated. Now will God’s purpose be thwarted by the wickedness of men since the Fall, as is clear from the words of the psalmist, “Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain” (Ps. 76:10).” ~ A.W. Pink

“God is immutable in His essence. His nature and being are infinite, and so, subject to no mutations. There never was a time when He was not; there never will come a time when He shall cease to be. God has neither evolved, grown, nor improved. All that He is today, He has ever been, and ever will be. “I am the LORD, I change not” (Mal 3:6) is His own unqualified affirmation. He cannot change for the better, for He is already perfect; and being perfect, He cannot change for the worse. Altogether unaffected by anything outside Himself, improvement or deterioration is impossible. He is perpetually the same. He only can say, “I AM THAT I AM” (Exo 3:14). He is altogether uninfluenced by the flight of time. There is no wrinkle upon the brow of eternity. Therefore His power can never diminish nor His glory ever fade.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Sinful self and all its wretched failures should be sufficiently noticed so as to keep us in the dust before God. Christ and His great salvation should be contemplated so as to lift us above self and fill the soul with thanksgiving.” ~ A.W. Pink

“If Scripture teaches the imputation of sin, we should not stumble when we find it affirming the imputation of righteousness.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Power is God’s hand or arm, omniscience His eye, mercy His bowels, eternity His duration, but holiness is His beauty” ~ A.W. Pink

“He is solitary in His majesty, unique in His excellency, peerless in His perfections. He sustains all, but is Himself independent of all. He gives to all, but is enriched by none.” ~ A.W. Pink

“When we trustfully resign ourselves, and all our affairs into God’s hands, fully persuaded of His love and faithfulness, the sooner shall we be satisfied with His providences and realize that “He doeth all things well.” ~ A.W. Pink

“False theology makes God’s foreknowledge of our believing the cause of His election to salvation; whereas, God’s election is the cause, and our believing in Christ is the effect .” ~ A.W. Pink

“How different is the God of the Bible from the God of modern Christendom! The conception of Deity which prevails most widely today, even among those who profess to give heed to the Scriptures, is a miserable caricature, a blasphemous travesty of the Truth. The God of the twentieth century is a helpless, effeminate being who commands the respect of no really thoughtful man.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Everything about God is great, vast, incomparable. He never forgets, never fails, never falters, never forfeits His word.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Such a God cannot be found out by searching. He can be known only as He is revealed to the heart by the Holy Spirit through the Word.” ~ A.W. Pink

“The God of Scripture can only be known by those to whom He makes Himself known.” ~ A.W. Pink

“There is no attribute more comforting to His children than that of God’s sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, they believe that sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that sovereignty overrules them, and that sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children ought more earnestly to contend than the doctrine of their Master over all creation—the kingship of God over all the works of His own hands.” ~ A.W. Pink

“On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldlings, no truth of which they have made such a football, as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except on His throne. They will allow Him to be in His workshop to fashion worlds and make stars. They will allow Him to be in His almonry to dispense His alms and bestow His bounties. They will allow Him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean; but when God ascends His throne, His creatures then gnash their teeth. And we proclaim an enthroned God, and His right to do as He wills with His own, to dispose of His creatures as He thinks well, without consulting them in the matter; then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on His throne is not the God they love. But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. It is God upon His throne whom we trust.” ~ A.W. Pink

“God is not working at random: the gospel has been sent forth on no uncertain mission: the final outcome in the conflict between good and evil has not been left indeterminate; how many are to be saved or lost depends not on the will of the creature. Everything was infallibly determined and immutably fixed by God from the beginning, and all that happens in time is but the accomplishment of what was ordained in eternity.” ~ A.W. Pink

“During eternity past, God was alone: self-contained, self-sufficient, self-satisfied; in need of nothing. Had a universe, had angels, had human beings been necessary to Him in any way, they also had been called into existence from all eternity. The creating of them when He did, added nothing to God essentially. He changes not (Mal 3:6), therefore His essential glory can be neither augmented nor diminished.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Were it in anywise possible for something to occur apart from either the direct agency or permission of God, then that something would be independent of Him, and He would at once cease to be Supreme.” ~ A.W. Pink

“The knowledge that God has predestinated me unto eternal glory supplies an absolute guarantee that no efforts of Satan can possibly bring about my destruction, for if the great God be for me, who can be against me!” ~ A.W. Pink

“The Gospel addresses men as guilty, condemned, perishing criminals. It declares that the most chaste moralist is in the same terrible plight as is the most voluptuous profligate; and the zealous professor, with all his religious performances, is no better off than the most profane infidel. The Gospel contemplates every descendant of Adam as a fallen, polluted, hell-deserving and helpless sinner. The grace which the Gospel publishes is his only hope.” ~ A.W. Pink

“The prickings of an uneasy conscience are not the same as the conviction of sin which is produced by the Holy Spirit.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Why is it that, today, the masses are so utterly unconcerned about spiritual and eternal things, and that they are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God? Why is it that, even on the battlefields, multitudes were so indifferent to their soul’s welfare? Why is it that defiance of heaven is becoming more open, more blatant, more daring? The answer is, Because “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom 3:18).” ~ A.W. Pink

“Ah, my reader, the reason why people do not receive and duly prize the truth of election, is because they do not feel their due need of it.” ~ A.W. Pink

“How often is such the case with us: some sore trial presses, and we cry unto God for relief, but before His answer comes, matters appear to get worse. Ah, that is in order that His hand may be the more evident.” ~ A.W. Pink

“God’s supremacy over the works of his hands is vividly depicted in Scripture. Inanimate matter, irrational creatures, all perform their Maker’s bidding. At his pleasure the Red Sea divided and its waters stood up as walls (Exod. 14); and the earth opened her mouth, and guilty rebels went down alive into the pit (Num. 16). When he so ordered, the sun stood still (Josh. 10); and on another occasion went backward ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz (Isa. 38:8). To exemplify his supremacy, he made ravens carry food to Elijah (1 Kings 17), iron to swim on top of the waters (2 Kings 6:5), lions to be tame when Daniel was cast into their den, fire to burn not when the three Hebrews were flung into its flames. Thus “Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places” (Ps. 135:6).” ~ A.W. Pink

“He only is independently, infinitely, immutably holy. In Scripture He is frequently styled “The Holy One”: He is so because the sum of all moral excellency is found in Him. He is absolute Purity, unsullied even by the shadow of sin.” ~ A.W. Pink

“The unregenerate do not really believe in the holiness of God. Their conception of His character is altogether one-sided. They fondly hope that His mercy will override everything else.” ~ A.W. Pink

“We read the Scriptures in vain if we fail to discover that the actions of men, evil men as well as good, are governed by the Lord God.” ~ A.W. Pink

“The most extensive ideas that a finite mind can frame about divine love, are infinitely below its true nature.” ~ A.W. Pink

“The severest self-denials and the most lavish gifts are of no value in God’s esteem unless they are prompted by love.” ~ A.W. Pink

“God’s supremacy over the works of His hands is vividly depicted in Scripture. Inanimate matter, irrational creatures, all perform their Maker’s bidding.” ~ A.W. Pink

“To countless thousands, even among those professing to be Christians, the God of the Scriptures is quite unknown.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Until we really behold the horror of the pit in which by nature we lie, we can never properly appreciate Christ’s so-great salvation. In man’s fallen condition we have the awful disease for which divine redemption is the only cure, and our estimation and valuation of the provisions of divine grace will necessarily be modified in proportion as we modify the need it was meant to meet.” ~ A.W. Pink

“The faithfulness of God is a truth to be confessed by us not only when we are at ease, but also when we are smarting under the sharpest rebuke.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Is it not that a disappointed God is the One whom Christians believe in? From what is heard from the average evangelist today, is not any serious hearer obliged to conclude that he professes to represent a God who is filled with benevolent intentions, yet unable to carry them out; that He is earnestly desirous of blessing men, but that they will not let Him?” ~ A.W. Pink

“We poor mortals may speak often and yet fail to be heard. He speaks but once and the thunder of His power is heard on a thousand hills.” ~ A.W. Pink

“Everything about God is great, vast, incomparable. He never forgets, never fails, never falters, never forfeits His word. To every declaration of promise or prophecy the Lord has exactly adhered, every engagement of covenant or threatening He will make good, for “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: hath He said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?” (Num 23:19). Therefore does the believer exclaim, “His compassions fail not, they are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness” (Lam 3:22,23).” ~ A.W. Pink

“Those who defy Him, who break His laws, who have no concern for His glory, but who live their lives as though He existed not, must not suppose that, when at the last they shall cry to Him for mercy, He will alter His will, revoke His word, and rescind His awful threatenings. No, He has declared, “Therefore will I also deal in fury: Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in Mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them” (Eze 8:18). God will not deny Himself to gratify their lusts. God is holy, unchangingly so. Therefore God hates sin, eternally hates it. Hence the eternality of the punishment of all who die in their sins.” ~ A.W. Pink

“How solemn is this fact: nothing can be concealed from God!” ~ A.W. Pink

A.W. TOZER QUOTES

Aiden Wilson Tozer was an American evangelical pastor, speaker, writer, and editor. After coming to Christ at the age of seventeen, Tozer found his way into the Christian & Missionary Alliance denomination where he served for over forty years. In 1950, he was appointed by the denomination’s General Council to be the editor of “The Alliance Witness” (now “Alliance Life”).

Born into poverty in western Pennsylvania in 1897, Tozer died in May 1963 a self-educated man who had taught himself what he missed in high school and college due to his home situation. Though he wrote many books, two of them, “The Pursuit of God” and “The Knowledge of the Holy” are widely considered to be classics.

A.W. Tozer and his wife, Ada Cecelia Pfautz, had seven children, six boys and one girl.

“God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which he must work. Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven’t yet come to the end of themselves. We’re still trying to give orders, and interfering with God’s work within us. ” ~ A.W. Tozer

“I can safely say, on the authority of all that is revealed in the Word of God, that any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“I want the presence of God Himself, or I don’t want anything at all to do with religion… I want all that God has or I don’t want any.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Perhaps it takes a purer faith to praise God for unrealized blessings than for those we once enjoyed or those we enjoy now.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, ‘Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.’ Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Any faith that must be supported by the evidence of the senses is not real faith.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Jesus calls us to his rest, and meekness is His method. The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children. He does not distribute Himself that each may have a part, but to each one He gives all of Himself as fully as if there were no others.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“If man had his way, the plan of redemption would be an endless and bloody conflict. In reality, salvation was bought not by Jesus’ fist, but by His nail-pierced hands; not by muscle but by love; not by vengeance but by forgiveness; not by force but by sacrifice. Jesus Christ our Lord surrendered in order that He might win; He destroyed His enemies by dying for them and conquered death by allowing death to conquer Him.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Justice is not something God has. Justice is something that God is.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“The vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly
has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“We can be in our day what the heroes of faith were in their day – but remember at the time they didn’t know they were heroes.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“A man by his sin may waste himself, which is to waste that which on earth is most like God. This is man’s greatest tragedy and God’s heaviest grief.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“I believe that entertainment and amusements are the work of the Enemy to keep dying men from knowing they’re dying; and to keep enemies of God from remembering that they’re enemies.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of His Presence.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“The fact of God is necessary for the fact of man. Think God away and man has no ground of existence.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Unbelief is actually perverted faith, for it puts its faith not in the living God, but in dying men.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“All things as they move toward God are beautiful, and they are ugly as they move away from Him.” ~ A.W. Tozer

‘Secularism, materialism, and the intrusive presence of things have put out the light in our souls and turned us into a generation of zombies.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“For myself, I long ago decided that I would rather know the truth than be happy in ignorance. If I can not have both truth and happiness, give me truth. We’ll have a long time to be happy in heaven.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Trying to be happy without a sense of God’s presence is like trying to have a bright day without the sun.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“We get the odd notion that God is showing mercy because Jesus died. No. Jesus died because God is showing mercy.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“The love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens, it kills and makes alive, it draws and repulses. There can be nothing more terrible or wonderful than to be stricken with love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out in a pained adoration of His person, an adoration that disturbs and disconcerts while it purges and satisfies and relaxes the deep inner heart.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“But the sons of this world have not God; they have only each other, and they walk holding to each other and looking to one another for assurance like frightened children.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Hardly anything else reveals so well the fear and uncertainty among men as the length to which they will go to hide their true selves from each other and even from their own eyes.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Whenever you see confusion, you can be sure that something is wrong. Disorder in the world implies that something is out of place. Usually, at the heart of all disorder you will find man in rebellion against God. It began in the Garden of Eden and continues to this day.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.” God actually rises up storms of conflict in relationships at times in order to accomplish that deeper work in our character. We cannot love our enemies in our own strength. This is graduate-level grace. Are you willing to enter this school? Are you willing to take the test? If you pass, you can expect to be elevated to a new level in the Kingdom. For He brings us through these tests as preparation for greater use in the Kingdom. You must pass the test first.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“A true and safe leader is likely to be one who has no desire to lead, but is forced into a position of leadership by the inward pressure of the Holy Spirit and the press of the external situation. Such were Moses and David and the Old Testament prophets. I think there was hardly a great leader from Paul to the present day but that was drafted by the Holy Spirit for the task, and commissioned by the Lord of the Church to fill a position he had little heart for. I believe it might be accepted as a fairly reliable rule of thumb that the man who is ambitious to lead is disqualified as a leader. The true leader will have no desire to lord it over God’s heritage, but will be humble, gentle, self-sacrificing, and altogether as ready to follow as to lead, when the Spirit makes it clear that a wiser and more gifted man than himself has appeared.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“The problem of why God created the universe still troubles thinking men; but if we cannot know why, we can at least know that He did not bring His worlds into being to meet some unfulfilled need in Himself, as a man might build a house to shelter him against the winter cold or plant a field of corn to provide him with necessary food. The word ‘necessary’ is wholly foreign to God.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“As long as you set yourself up as a little god to which you must be loyal there will be those who will delight to offer affront to your idol.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“In every Christian’s heart there is a cross and a throne, and the Christian is on the throne till he puts himself on the cross. If he refuses the cross he remains on the throne. Perhaps this is at the bottom of the backsliding and worldliness among gospel believers today. We want to be saved but we insist that Christ do all the dying. No cross for us, no dethronement, no dying. We remain king within the little kingdom of Mansoul and wear our tinsel crown with all the pride of a Caesar, but we doom ourselves to shadows and weakness and spiritual sterility.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“To admit the existence of a need in God is to admit incompleteness in the divine Being. Need is a creature-word and cannot be spoken of the Creator. God has a voluntary relation to everything He has made, but He has no necessary relation to anything outside of Himself. His interest in His creatures arises from His sovereign good pleasure, not from any need those creatures can supply nor from any completeness they can bring to Him who is complete in Himself.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“I do not think I exaggerate when I say that some of us put our offering in the plate with a kind of triumphant bounce as much as to say: “There – now God will feel better!” I am obliged to tell you that God does not need anything you have. He does not need a dime of your money. It is your own spiritual welfare at stake in such matters as these. You have the right to keep what you have all to yourself – but it will rust and decay, and ultimately ruin you.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“I want to be a more serious-minded Christian, more detached from this world, more ready for heaven than I have ever been in my whole life. I want an ear that is sharp to know the voice of the enemy, whether it comes from religion, politics, or philosophy … I would rather stand and have everybody my enemy than to go along with the crowd to destruction. Do you feel that way?” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Many of us Christians have become extremely skillful in arranging our lives so as to admit the truth
of Christianity without being embarrassed by its implications.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial act of “accepting” Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“What is wisdom? It is the skill to achieve the perfect means by the perfect ends.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“The cross stands high above the opinions of men and to that cross all opinions must come at last for judgment.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety. This is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Whoever defends himself will have himself for defense, and he will have no other. But let him come defenseless before the Lord and he will have for his defender no less than God Himself.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“A real Christian is an odd number anyway. He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen, talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another, empties himself in order to be full, admits he is wrong so he can be declared right, goes down in order to get up, is strongest when he is weakest, richest when he is poorest and happiest when he feels worst. He dies so he can live, forsakes in order to have, gives away so he can keep, sees the invisible, hears the inaudible and knows that which passeth knowledge.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“First, there is the burden of pride. The labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed. Think for yourself whether much of your sorrow has not arisen from someone speaking slightingly of you. As long as you set yourself up as a little god to which you must be loyal there will be those who will delight to offer affront to your idol. How then can you hope to have inward peace? The heart’s fierce effort to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy, will never let the mind have rest. Continue this fight through the years and the burden will become intolerable. Yet the sons of earth are carrying this burden continually, challenging every word spoken against them, cringing under every criticism, smarting under each fancied slight, tossing sleepless if another is preferred before them. Such a burden as this is not necessary to bear. Jesus calls us to His rest, and meekness is His method. The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort. He develops toward himself a kindly sense of humor and learns to say, “Oh, so you have been overlooked? They have placed someone else before you? They have whispered that you are pretty small stuff after all? And now you feel hurt because the world is saying about you the very things you have been saying about yourself? Only yesterday you were telling God that you were nothing, a mere worm of the dust. Where is your consistency? Come on, humble yourself, and cease to care what men think.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Whatever God felt about anything, He still feels. Whatever He thought about anyone, He still thinks. Whatever He approved, He still approves. Whatever He condemned, He still condemns. Today we have what they call the relativity of morals. But remember this God never changes. Holiness and righteousness are conformity to the will of God. And the will of God never changes for moral creatures.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“When I understand that everything happening to me is to make me more Christlike, it resolves a great deal of anxiety.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“The heart’s fierce effort to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy, will never let the mind have rest.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“God does his deepest work in our darkest hours” ~ A.W. Tozer

“To escape the error of salvation by works we have fallen into the opposite error of salvation without obedience. In our eagerness to get rid of the legalistic doctrine of works we have thrown out the baby with the bath and gotten rid of obedience as well.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“If God gives you a few more years, remember, it is not yours. Your time must honor God, your home must honor God, your activity must honor God, and everything you do must honor God.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Frankly, I am quite tired of those who tout Christianity as a way to stop smoking or drinking or break wild habits of the world. Is that all Christianity is, to keep us from some bad habit? Of course, regeneration will clean us up, and the new birth will make a man right. If that is what Christianity is all about, what about the person whose life is not that bad? The purpose of God in redemption is to restore us again to the divine imperative of worship. We were created to worship, but sin destroyed that ability. Jesus Christ, on the cross, redeemed us and brought us back to the place where we now can worship and have fellowship with God Almighty. My clean life is a by-product of my conversion. My life may have pointed out to me that I needed a drastic change, but that is not the purpose for which I was converted. The essence of conversion is to bring me into a right relationship with God and have fellowship with Him.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“The things you read will fashion you by slowly conditioning your mind.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Religious work can be done by natural men without the gifts of the Spirit, and it can be done well and skillfully.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Anyone who wishes to check on his true spiritual condition may do so by noting what his voluntary thoughts have been over the last hours or days.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Some Christians have taken all the justice, judgment and hatred of sin out of the nature of God and have nothing left but a soft god. Others have taken love and grace out and have nothing left but a god of judgment. Or they have taken away the personality of God and have nothing left but a mathematical god—the god of the scientists. All these are false, inadequate conceptions of God.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Worship is no longer worship when it reflects the culture around us more than the Christ within us.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Our thought habits are those of the scientist, not those of the worshipper. We are more likely to explain than to adore.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone, and if it were medicine it would not cure anyone.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Remember, fear is of the flesh and panic is of the devil.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“The only Christians you want to listen to are the ones who give you more of a hunger for God.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Be hard on yourself and easy on others. Carry your own cross but never lay one on the back of another.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“Those who have truly seen Christ in His glory have eyes for nothing else.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“The world lives in a time of crisis. Christians alone are in a position to rescue the perishing. We dare not settle down to try to live as if things were normal.” ~ A.W. Tozer

“For always remember this friends, that who a man is is always more important to God than what he does.” ~ A.W. Tozer

B.B. WARFIELD QUOTES

CORNELIUS VAN TIL QUOTES

GEERHARDUS VOS QUOTES

GEORGE WHITEFIELD QUOTES

George Whitefield (December 27, 1714 – September 30, 1770), also known as George Whitfield, was an English Anglican priest who helped spread the Great Awakening in Britain, and especially in the British North American colonies. He was one of the founders of Methodism and of the evangelical movement generally.

“Lord, help me to begin to begin.” ~ George Whitefield

“If you are going to walk with Jesus Christ, you are going to be opposed…. In our days, to be a true Christian is really to become a scandal.” ~ George Whitefield

“People want to recommend themselves to God by their sincerity; they think, ‘If we do all we can, if we are but sincere, Jesus Christ will have mercy on us.’ But pray what is there in our sincerity to recommend us to God? … therefore, if you depend on your sincerity for your salvation, your sincerity will damn you.” ~ George Whitefield

“Congregations are lifeless because dead men preach to them.” ~ George Whitefield

“You may have orthodox heads, and yet you may have the devil in your hearts.” ~ George Whitefield

“If one evil thought, if one evil word, if one evil action, deserves eternal damnation, how many hells, my friends, do every one of us deserve, whose whole lives have been one continued rebellion against God!” ~ George Whitefield

“True conversion means turning not only from sin but also from depending on self-made righteousness. Those who trust in their own righteousness for conversion hide behind their own good works. This is the reason that self-righteous people are so angry with gospel preachers, because the gospel does not spare those who will not submit to the righteousness of Jesus Christ!” ~ George Whitefield

“What! Get to heaven on your own strength? Why, you might as well try to climb to the moon on a rope of sand!” ~ George Whitefield

“Study to know Him more and more, for the more you know, the more you will love Him.” ~ George Whitefield

“I was honored today with having a few stones, dirt, rotten eggs, and pieces of dead cat thrown at me.” ~ George Whitefield

“If we once get above our Bibles and cease making the written Word of God our sole rule both as to faith and practice, we shall soon lie open to all manner of delusion and be in great danger of making shipwreck of faith and a good conscience.” ~ George Whitefield

“Christ is worth all, or he is worth nothing.” ~George Whitefield

“God forbid that I should travel with anybody a quarter of an hour without speaking of Christ to them.” ~ George Whitefield

“We can preach the Gospel of Christ no further than we have experienced the power of it in our own hearts.” ~ George Whitefield

“It is a poor sermon that gives no offense; that neither makes the hearer displeased with himself nor with the preacher.” ~ George Whitefield

“Man is nothing; he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him” and “you dishonour God by denying election. You plainly make salvation depend, not on God’s ‘free grace’ but on Man’s ‘free will.'” ~ George Whitefield

“I would rather wear out than rust out.” ~ George Whitefield

“True repentance will entirely change you; the bias of your souls will be changed, then you will delight in God, in Christ, in His Law, and in His people.” ~ George Whitefield

“Let my name die everywhere, let even my friends forget me, if by that means the cause of the blessed Jesus may be promoted.” ~ George Whitefield

“We are immortal till our work is done.” ~ George Whitefield

“As God can send a nation or people no greater blessing than to give them faithful, sincere and upright ministers, so the greatest curse that God can possibly send upon a people in this world is to give them over to blind, unregenerate, carnal, lukewarm and unskilled guides.” ~ George Whitefield

“God, give me a deep humility, a well-guided zeal, a burning love and a single eye, and then let men or devils do their worst!” ~George Whitefield

“How sweet is rest after fatigue! How sweet will heaven be when our journey is ended.” ~ George Whitefield

“Other men may preach the gospel better than I, but no man can preach a better gospel.” ~ George Whitefield

“Pray that I may be very little in my own eyes, and not rob my dear Master of any part of his glory.” ~ George Whitefield

“Jesus was God and man in one person, that God and man might be happy together again.” ~ George Whitefield

“The renewal of our natures is a work of great importance. It is not to be done in a day. We have not only a new house to build up, but an old one to pull down.” ~ George Whitefield

“I got more true knowledge from reading the Book of God in one month, than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men.” ~ George Whitefield

“You blame me for weeping, but how can I help it when you will not weep for yourselves, though your immortal souls are on the verge of destruction.” ~ George Whitefield

“When you hear of a notorious sinner, instead of thinking you do well to be angry, beg of Jesus Christ to convert, and make him a monument of his free grace.” ~ George Whitefield

“There are many likewise, who go on in a round of duties, a model of performances, that think they shall go to heaven; but if you examine them, though they have a Christ in their heads, they have no Christ in their hearts.” ~ George Whitefield

“If we are not inwardly wrought upon, and changed by the powerful operations of the Holy Spirit, and our moral actions proceed from a principle of a new nature, however we may call ourselves Christians, we shall be found naked at the great day.” ~ George Whitefield

“For, if we have not charity, we are not Christians: charity is the great duty of Christians.” ~ George Whitefield

“Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, even persecutors, the worst of sinners: his righteousness is sufficient for them; his Spirit is able to purify and change their hearts.” ~ George Whitefield

“It is an undoubted truth that every doctrine that comes from God, leads to God; and that which doth not tend to promote holiness is not of God.” ~ George Whitefield

“What could the Lord Jesus Christ have done for you more than he has? Then do not abuse his mercy, but let your time be spent in thinking and talking of the love of Jesus, who was incarnate for us, who was born of a woman, and made under the law, to redeem us from the wrath to come.” ~ George Whitefield

“We must all have the spirit of martyrdom, though we may not all die martyrs.” ~ George Whitefield

“God is well pleased when all our actions proceed from love, love to Himself, and love to immortal souls.” ~ George Whitefield

“I say salvation is the free gift of God. It is God’s free grace, I preach unto you, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Jesus Christ justifies the ungodly. Jesus Christ passed by and saw you polluted with your blood and bid you live.” ~ George Whitefield

“Know, by sad experience, what it is to be lulled to sleep with a false peace. Long was I lulled asleep; long did I think myself a Christian, when I knew nothing of the Lord Jesus Christ.” ~ George Whitefield

“Why fear ye that the Lord Jesus Christ will not accept of you? Your sins will be no hindrance, your unworthiness no hindrance; if your own corrupt hearts do not keep you back, nothing will hinder Christ from receiving of you.” ~ George Whitefield

“Come away, my dear brethren, fly, fly, fly for your lives to Jesus Christ; fly to a bleeding God, fly to a throne of grace; and beg of God to break your heart; beg of God to convince you of your actual sins; beg of God to convince you of your original sin; beg of God to convince you of your self-righteousness; beg of God to give you faith, and to enable you to close with Jesus Christ.” ~ George Whitefield

“Believers keep up and maintain their walk with God by secret prayer. The spirit of grace is always accompanied with the spirit of supplication. It is the very breath of the new creature, the fan of the divine life, whereby the spark of holy fire, kindled in the soul by God, is not only kept in, but raised into a flame.” ~ George Whitefield

“Take care of your life and the Lord will take care of your death.” ~ George Whitefield

“It is God alone who can subdue and govern the unruly wills of sinful men.” ~ George Whitefield

“My prayer today is that God would make me an extraordinary Christian.” ~ George Whitefield

“I am never better than when I am on the full stretch for God.” ~ George Whitefield

“All our afflictions, all our temptations are to make heaven more desirable, and earth more loathsome.” ~ George Whitefield

“Come poor, lost, undone sinner, come just as you are to Christ.” ~ George Whitefield

“I offer you salvation this day; the door of mercy is not yet shut, there does yet remain a sacrifice for sin, for all that will accept of the Lord Jesus Christ. He will embrace you in the arms of His love.” ~ George Whitefield

“I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books, and praying over, if possible, every line and word…I would be so overpowered with a sense of God’s Infinite Majesty, that I would be constrained to throw myself on the ground, and offer my soul as a blank in His hands, to write on it what He pleased. ~ George Whitefield

“See that you feel the truths that you speak.” ~ George Whitefield

“Let us…once and forever put an end to that lie which says that Calvinism and an interest in evangelism are not comparable.” ~ George Whitefield

“The riches of His free grace cause me daily to triumph over all the temptations of the wicked one, who is very vigilant, and seeks all occasions to disturb me.” ~ George Whitefield

“The great and important duty which is incumbent on Christians, is to guard against all appearance of evil; to watch against the first risings in the heart to evil; and to have a guard upon our actions, that they may not be sinful, or so much as seem to be so.” ~ George Whitefield

“Mere heathen morality, and not Jesus Christ, is preached in most of our churches.” ~ George Whitefield

“If you know Christ and Him crucified, you know enough to make you happy, supposing you know nothing else. And without this, all your other knowledge cannot keep you from being everlastingly miserable.” ~ George Whitefield

“Speak every time my dear brother as if it were your last.” ~ George Whitefield

“Works? Works? A man get to heaven by works? I would as soon think of climbing to the moon on a rope of sand!” ~ George Whitefield

“The Christian world is in a deep sleep; nothing but a loud shout can awaken them out of it!” ~ George Whitefield

“Among the many reasons assignable for the sad decay of true Christianity, perhaps the neglecting to assemble ourselves together, in religious societies, may not be one of the least.” ~ George Whitefield

“Left to himself, man is half beast and half devil.” ~ George Whitefield

“Dare, dare, my dear brethren in Christ, to follow the Captain of your salvation, who was made perfect through sufferings.” ~ George Whitefield

“Lord Jesus, I am weary in Thy work, but not of it. If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for Thee once more in the field, seal Thy truth, and come home to die.” ~ George Whitefield

“Though you have sinned much, that is no reason why you should despair, but only why you should love much, having so much forgiven.” ~ George Whitefield

“The fall of man is written in too legible characters not to be understood: Those that deny it, by their denying, prove it.” ~ George Whitefield

“At the day of judgment we shall all meet again.” ~ George Whitefield

“Oh that I was lowly in heart! Honor and dishonor, good report and evil report would then be alike, and prove a furtherance to me in my Christian cause.” ~ George Whitefield

“God has condescended to become an author, and yet people will not read his writings. There are very few that ever gave this Book of God, the grand charter of salvation, one fair reading through.” ~ George Whitefield

“Mere are so many stony ground hearers, who receive the Word with joy that I have determined to suspend my judgment till I know the tree by its fruits. I cannot believe they are converts till I see fruit brought back; it will never do a sincere soul any harm.” ~ George Whitefield

HERMAN BAVINCK QUOTES

Herman Bavinck (1854-1921), a Dutch Reformed theologian, was a contemporary of Abraham Kuyper and B. B. Warfield, both of whom he knew well. He graduated magna cum laude in 1880 from Leiden with a double major in Systematic Theology and Old Testament. His doctoral dissertation was on the concept of the State in Zwingli’s theology. Bavinck taught at the Theological Seminary in Kampen, Holland – where he also pastored – before accepting the position of professor at the Free University of Amsterdam. He is best known for his magnum opus, Reformed Dogmatics (Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, in 4 volumes). Bavinck is one of the most balanced and solidly Reformed theologians Holland ever produced.

Bavinck introduced the notion of organic inspiration of the Scriptures and also developed a solution to the infra/supralapsarian conundrum. Although Bavinck passed away in 1921, he remains a powerful force in Reformed theology. Several important Reformed theologians owe large debts to his work, including Cornelius Van Til and Louis Berkhof.

“The doctrine of God’s immutability is of the highest significance for religion. The contrast between being and becoming marks the difference between the Creator and the creature. Every creature is continually becoming. It is changeable, constantly striving, seeks rest and satisfaction, and finds this rest in God, in Him alone, for only He is pure being and no becoming. Hence, in Scripture God is often called the Rock.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“When you wish to do something evil, you retire from the public into your house where no enemy may see you; from those places of your house which are open and visible to the eyes of men you remove yourself into your room; even in your room you fear some witness from another quarter; you retire into your heart, there you mediate: He is more inward than your heart. Wherever, therefore, you shall have fled, there He is. From yourself, whither will you flee? Will you not follow yourself wherever you shall flee? But since there is One more inward even than yourself, there is no place where you may flee from God angry but to God reconciled. There is no place at all whither you may flee. Will you flee from Him? Flee unto Him.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Heaven and earth and all creatures, herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea and all things declare God. There is not an atom of the universe in which God’s power and divinity are not revealed.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Ascribed to God, grace is His voluntary, unrestrained, unmerited favor toward guilty sinners, granting them justification and life instead of the penalty of death, which they deserved.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“It is completely incomprehensible to us how God can reveal himself and to some extent make himself known in created beings: eternity in time, immensity in space, infinity in finite, immutability in change, being in becoming, the all, as it were, in that which is nothing. This mystery cannot be comprehended; it can only be gratefully acknowledged.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“God the Father has reconciled His created but fallen world through the death of His Son, and renews it into a Kingdom of God by His Spirit.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Whoever isolates himself from the church, i.e., from Christianity as a whole, from the history of dogma in its entirety, loses the truth of the Christian faith. That person becomes a branch that is torn from the tree and shrivels, an organ that is separated from the body and therefore doomed to die. Only within the communion of the saints can the length and the breadth, the depth and the height, of the love of Christ be comprehended.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Gratitude & joy drove them to do good works before the thought that they had to do them even crossed their mind.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The Gospel is temporary, but the law is eternal and is restored precisely through the Gospel. Freedom from the law consists, then, not in the fact that the Christian has nothing more to do with the law, but lies in the fact that the law demands nothing more from the Christian as a condition of salvation. The law can no longer judge and condemn him. Instead he delights in the law of God according to the inner man and yearns for it day and night.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“A theologian is a person who makes bold to speak about God because he speaks out of God and through God. To profess theology is to do holy work. It is a priestly ministration in the house of the Lord. It is itself a service of worship, a consecration of mind and heart to the honour of His name.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The essence of Christianity consists therein: that the creation of the Father, destroyed by sin, is again restored in the death of the Son of God and recreated by the grace of the Holy Spirit to a Kingdom of God.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“In this simple but profound psychological way Scripture tells the history of the fall and of the origin of sin. In this way sin continues still to come into being. It begins with the darkening of the understanding, continues with the excitement of the imagination, stimulates desire in the heart, and culminates in an act of the will.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“God saves by causing Himself to be known and enjoyed in Christ.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“One human nature is common to all the descendants of Adam, and it is, for all men, guilty and polluted” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Faith and repentance are as much benefits of the covenant of grace as justification . . . . faith and repentance themselves . . . . are components of the gospel, not the workings or fruits of the law.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“We can shed some light on the possibility of the fall, but the transition to the actuality of it remains shrouded in darkness. Scripture makes not so much a single effort to render this transition understandable” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Both for unbelievers and believers, the doctrine of election is a source of inexpressibly great comfort. If it were based on justice and merit, all would be lost. But now that election operates according to grace, there is hope even for the most wretched. If work and reward were the standard of admission into the kingdom of heaven, its gates would be opened for no one. Or if Pelagius’s doctrine were the standard, and the virtuous were chosen because of their virtue, and Pharisees because of their righteousness, wretched publicans would be shut out. Pelagianism has no pity. But to believe in and to confess election is to recognize even the most unworthy and degraded human being as a creature of God and an object of his eternal love. The purpose of election is not—as it is so often proclaimed—to turn off the many but to invite all to participate in the riches of God’s grace in Christ. No one has a right to believe that he or she is a reprobate, for everyone is sincerely and urgently called to believe in Christ with a view to salvation. No one can actually believe it, for one’s own life and all that makes it enjoyable is proof that God takes no delight in his death. No one really believes it, for that would be hell on earth. But election is a source of comfort and strength, of submissiveness and humility, of confidence and resolution. The salvation of human beings is firmly established in the gracious and omnipotent good pleasure of God. ~ Herman Bavinck

“The resurrection is the fundamental restoration of all culture.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“For it is not we who call God by these names. We do not invent them. On the contrary, if it depended on us, we would be silent about Him, try to forget Him, and disown all His names. We take no delight in the knowledge of His ways. We tend continually to oppose His names: His independence, sovereignty, righteousness, and love, and resist Him in all His perfections. But it is God himself who reveals all His perfections and puts His names on our lips. It is He who gives Himself these names and who, despite our opposition, maintains them. It is of little use to us to deny His righteousness: every day He demonstrates this quality in history. And so it is with all His attributes. He brings them out despite us. The final goal of all His ways is that His name will shine out in all His works and be written on everyone’s forehead (Rev. 22:4). For that reason we have no choice but to name Him with the many names His revelation furnishes us.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“These two things, the love of God and Christ’s satisfaction, had to and could go hand in hand because we were simultaneously the object of His love as His creatures and the object of His wrath as sinners.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The Gospel is sheer good tidings, not demand but promise, not duty but gift. But in order that as promise and gift it may be realized in us, it takes on the character of moral admonishment in accordance with our nature. It does not want to force us, but it wants nothing other than that we freely and willingly accept in faith what God wants to give us. The will of God realizes itself in no other way than through our reason and will. That is why it is rightly said that a person, by the grace He receives, himself believes and himself turns from sin to God.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Religion is inconceivable apart from revelation, and revelation cannot occur apart from the existence of a spiritual world above and behind this visible world, a spiritual world in communion with the visible world.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Where God’s Word is, there is God Himself, there God’s Spirit is at work, there God establishes His covenant, there He plants His church.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Conversion is a necessary and moral duty for every man.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Conversion means a religious and moral change in man, by which he gives up his sinful ways and learns to know, love, and serve with his whole heart the true God who has revealed Himself in Christ;” ~ Herman Bavinck

“God does not say that He will be our God if we do this or that thing. But He says that He will put enmity, that He will be our God, and that in Christ He will grant us all things. The covenant of grace can throughout the centuries remain the same because it depends entirely upon God and because God is the Immutable One and the Faithful One.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The Gospel is so rich, and the salvation purchased by Christ contains so many and diverse benefits, that the most varied needs of men are satisfied by it, and the richest powers of human nature are brought to development.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“All culture, whatever significance it may have, just as all education, civilization, development, is absolutely powerless to renew the inner man.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Religious experience is neither the source nor the foundation of religious truth” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Conversion is not the source of truth, but the source of certainty with regard to the truth.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Either humanity, with all its culture, is a means for the unconscious, unreasonable, and purposeless world-power, or it is a means for the glorifying of God.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“God is above the world, and is also above sin and all evil. He allowed it because He could expiate it. So He maintained through all centuries and among all men the longing and the capacity for redemption, and wrought that redemption Himself in the fullness of time, in the midst of history, in the crucified Christ.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The cross is the divine settlement with the divine condemnation of sin.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The cross of Christ divides history into two parts — the preparation for and the accomplishment of reconciliation” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Christ is not the founder of Christianity, nor the first confessor of it, nor the first Christian. But He is Christianity itself, in its preparation, fulfillment, and consummation” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The highest ideal for the Christian is not to make peace with the world, with science, with culture at any price, but to keep himself from the evil one.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“God’s will is the will of the Creator of heaven and earth, who cannot repudiate His own work in creation or providence, and who cannot treat the human being He has created as though it were a stock or stone. It is the will of a merciful and kind Father, who never forces things with brute violence, but successfully counters all our resistance by the spiritual might of love. The will of God realizes itself in no other way than through our reason and our will. That is why it is rightly said that a person, by the grace he receives, himself believes and himself terms from sin to God.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“There is great danger that modern culture, progressing in its anti-supernaturalistic course, will be stirred against the steadfastness of believers and attempt to accomplish by oppression what it cannot obtain by reasoning and argument.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The truth and value of Christianity do not depend on the fruits which it has borne for civilization and culture: it has its own independent value; it is the realization of the kingdom of God on earth” ~ Herman Bavinck

“But the electing love of God is at the same time a forgiving love. God not only elects and calls, but gives Himself to his people; He joins Himself to them so intimately and tenderly that He charges their guilt and transfers it, as it were, to Himself.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Man can as little make propitiation for his sin as he can forgive it himself. But God can do both, atone and forgive; He can do the one just because He can do the other.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“One thread runs through the history of mankind, namely, the operation of the sovereign, merciful, and almighty will of God, to save and to glorify the world notwithstanding its subjection to corruption.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Race instinct, sense of nationality, enmity, and hatred, these are divisive forces between peoples. This is an astonishing punishment and a terrible judgment, and cannot be undone by any cosmopolitanism or leagues of peace, by any ‘universal’ language, nor by any world-state or international culture.

If ever there is to be unity among mankind again it will not be achieved by any external, mechanical rallying around some tower of Babel or other, but by a development from within, a gathering under one and the same Head (Eph 1:10), by the peacemaking creation of all peoples into a new man (Eph 2:15), by regeneration and renewal through the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:15), and by the walking of all people in one and the same light (Rev 21:24).” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The notion that all peoples are on the road to progress is as incorrect as that they are continuously declining and degenerating.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Life often mocks every system; it is richer and fuller than the deepest thinker in all his wisdom can imagine.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“All religion is supernatural, and rests upon the presupposition that God is distinct from the world and yet works in the world.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Beneath the head lies the heart, out of which are the issues of life.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The church’s holiness must not be sacrificed for its catholicity, and the church’s catholicity may not be surrendered in favor of its holiness. For in denying either, we lose both. Both attributes by nature characterize the one Christian church.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The whole man is taken into fellowship with that one true God; not only his feelings, but also his mind and will, his heart and all his affections, his soul and his body.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“If there ever is to be a blessed humanity it must be preceded by a radical change in human nature.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“There is no knowledge of or fellowship with Christ apart from Scripture.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The preaching of the gospel is neither ineffective nor useless.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“All “permission” is an act of God’s will; he willed to permit it. But God is never the agent of sin; only creatures are.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Without losing Himself, God can give Himself, and, while absolutely maintaining His immutability, He can enter into an infinite number of relations to His creatures.” ~Herman Bavinck

“The Kingship of Christ over his church consists in that by this Word and Spirit He gathers and governs His own and protects and keeps them in the redemption acquired.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Scripture does not give us data to interpret; it is itself the interpretation of reality, the shaper of a distinct worldview.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“They are most to be feared who become very rich in book learning but remain unlearned as Christians.” ~Herman Bavinck

“God, and God alone, is man’s highest good.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The essence of the Christian religion consists in the reality that the creation of the Father, ruined by sin, is restored in the death of the Son of God, and re-created by the grace of the Holy Spirit into a kingdom of God.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Suffering is not always a consequence of personal sin, but it is nonetheless still a consequence of sin in general.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Divine inspiration, accordingly, is a permanent attribute of Holy Scripture. It was not only “God-breathed” at the time it was written; it *is* God’ breathing.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“In Christ, suffering is the road to glory, the cross points to a crown, and the timber of the cross becomes a tree of life.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Man is an enigma whose solution can be found only in God.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The two things we have in common with all men are the image of God and our need for Jesus.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“If predestination were founded on human merits, all would be lost.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“It is not God who finds His destiny in His creatures; rather, they find their destiny in Him.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“That which unites all true Christians is always more than that which separates them.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The resurrection of Jesus is the ‘Amen!’ of the Father placed upon the ‘It is finished!’ of the Son.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The law demands perfect righteousness, but the Gospel grants it.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“It is God Himself who reveals all His perfections and puts His names on our lips.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Objectively and subjectively, from beginning to end, the work of salvation is a work of God’s grace and of His grace alone.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Christ gives more than sin took away.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Sanctification is both gift and task.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Truth always seeks to be honored as truth and can never be at peace with error and deception.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The knowledge of God leads to adoration and worship; to know God is to live.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“There is no faith without struggle.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The human heart, in which God has placed eternity, is so huge that all the world is too small to satisfy it.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“God hears the voice of his Son in the prayers of his people.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The aim of theology, after all, can be no other than that the rational creature know God and, knowing him, glorify God.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“While physical training is of some value, the main thing is godliness in conjunction with righteousness and self-control.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The cross is the highest judgment and the richest grace.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“It is our calling to resist in a powerful way every hostile force that undermines the foundation of the family.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“The first duty of every theologian is to be humble.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Theology is never a dry and academic exercise; it is eminently practical and superlatively fruitful for life” ~ Herman Bavinck

“In the end there are no atheists; there is only argument about the nature of God.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Every human soul is beset by a restlessness that no scientific reasoning can remove.” ~ Herman Bavinck

“Christ not only acquired what Adam lost but also what Adam, in the way of obedience, would have gained.” ~ Herman Bavinck

HORATIUS BONAR QUOTES

Dr. Horatius Bonar (1808-89) is perhaps best-known today for his hymns, such as ‘I heard the voice of Jesus say’, ‘Thy way, not mine, O Lord’, and the communion hymn ‘Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face’. An older brother of Andrew Bonar, he was educated at Edinburgh High School and the University, where he was much influenced by Thomas Chalmers.

After mission work in Leith, he was ordained as parish minister in Kelso in 1837, where he remained (after the 1843 Disruption and the formation of the Free Church) until 1867, when he was called to Chalmers Memorial Free Church in Edinburgh. He received a DD from the University of Aberdeen in 1853, and was Moderator of the Free Church Assembly in 1883. Influenced by Edward Irving, Bonar’s pre-millennial convictions regarding the Lord’s return were a feature of much of his ministry.

“For we are not saved by believing in our own salvation, nor by believing anything whatsoever about ourselves. We are saved by what we believe about the Son of God and His righteousness. The gospel believed saves; not the believing in our own faith.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“It is not opinions that man needs: it is TRUTH. It is not theology; it is God. It is not religion: it is Christ. It is not literature and science; but the knowledge of the free love of God in the gift of His only-begotten Son.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“We are forgiven, that we may be like Him who forgives us.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“The divine order then is first pardon, then holiness; first peace with God, and then conformity to the image of that God with whom we have been brought to be at peace.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“Faith is the acknowledgment of the entire absence of all goodness in us, and the recognition of the cross as the substitute for all the want on our part. Faith saves, because it owns the complete salvation of another, and not because it contributes anything to that salvation.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“It is forgiveness that sets a man working for God. He does not work in order to be forgiven, but because he has been forgiven, and the consciousness of his sin being pardoned makes him long for its entire removal than ever he did before. An unforgiven man cannot work. He has not the will, nor the power, nor the liberty. He is in chains. Israel in Egypt could not serve Jehovah. “Let my people go, that they may serve Me.” was God’s message to Pharaoh (exodus 8:1) first liberty, then service.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“Bold preaching is the only preaching that is owned of God.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“Sin is too great an evil for man to meddle with. His attempts to remove it do but increase it, and his endeavours to approach God in spite of it aggravate his guilt.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“The believed gospel saves; but it is the believed promise that assures us of this salvation.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“The life above, when this is past,
Is the ripe fruit of life below.
Sow love, and taste its fruitage pure;
Sow peace, and reap its harvest bright;
Sow sunbeams on the rock and moor,
And find a harvest-home of light.”
~ Horatius Bonar

“Christianity was born for endurance; it is not an exotic, but a hardy plant, braced by the keen wind; not languid, nor childish nor cowardly. It walks with strong step and erect frame; it is kindly, but firm; it is gentle, but honest; it is calm, but not facile; decided, but not churlish. It does not fear to speak the stern word of condemnation against error, nor to raise its voice against surrounding evils, knowing that it is not of this world.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“Let us see God before man every day.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“It is much to be feared that “we are weak in the pulpit because we are weak in the closet.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“Be much alone with God, and take time to get thoroughly acquainted. Converse over everything with Him. Unburden yourself wholly -every thought, feeling, wish, plan, doubt- to Him…He wants not merely to be on good terms with you, but to be intimate.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die; another’s life, another’s death, I stake my whole eternity.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“I looked for the church and I found it in the world; I looked for the world and I found it in the church.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“Have I then no work to work in this great matter of my pardon? None. What work canst thou work? What work of thine can buy forgiveness or make thee fit for the Divine favour? What work has God bidden thee work in order to obtain salvation? None. His Word is very plain and easy to be understood, “To him that worketh not, but believeth in Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:5). There is but one work by which a man can be saved. That work is not thine, but the work of the Son of God. That work is finished.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“Thy way, not mine, O Lord, however dark it be; lead me by thine own hand; choose out the path for me.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“A believing man will be a zealous man. Faith makes a man zealous. Faith shows itself by zeal. Not by zeal for a party or a system or an opinion; but by zeal for Christ – zeal for His church – zeal for the carrying on of His work on earth.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“All unbelief is the belief of a lie.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“How fast we learn in the day of sorrow! Scripture shines out in a new effulgence; every verse seems to contain a sunbeam, every promise stands out in illuminated splendor; things hard to be understood become in a moment plain.” ~ Horatius Bonar

I praise the God of grace;
I trust His truth and might;
He calls me His, I call Him mine.
My God, my joy and light
~ Horatius Bonar

“In all unbelief there are these two things: a good opinion of one’s self, and a bad opinion of God.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“God chooses us, not because He foresees that we would choose Him, or that we would believe, but for the very opposite reason. He chooses us just because He foresees that we would neither choose Him nor believe of ourselves at all. Election proceeds not upon foreseen faith in us, but upon foreseen unbelief.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“There can be no grace when there is no sovereignty. Deny God’s right to choose whom He will and you deny His right to save whom He will. Deny His right to save whom He will and you deny that salvation is of grace. If salvation is made to hinge upon any merit or fitness in man, seen or foreseen, grace is at an end.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“Our changing years affect not Him with Whom one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day: Who is the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. In a changing world, let us rejoice in this unchangeableness.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“If you are Christians, be consistent. Be Christians out and out; Christians every hour, in every part. Beware of halfhearted discipleship, of compromise with evil, of conformity to the world, of trying to serve two masters – to walk in two ways, the narrow and the broad, at once. It will not do. Half-hearted Christianity will only dishonor God, while it makes you miserable.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“He makes us to glory in tribulation: for this is the road by which all the former saints went to the kingdom; the way by which all are going now; the way by which the Master went during His sojourn here.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“If Christ be not the Substitute, He is nothing to the sinner. If He did not die as the Sin-bearer, He has died in vain. Let us not be deceived on this point, or misled by those who, when they announce Christ as the Deliverer, think they have preached the Gospel. If I throw a rope to a drowning man, I am a deliverer. But is Christ no more than that? If I cast myself into the sea, and risk my life to save another, I am a deliverer. But is Christ no more? Did He but risk His life? The very essence of Christ’s deliverance is the substitution of Himself for us, His life for ours. He did not come to risk His life; He came to die! He did not redeem us by a little loss, a little sacrifice, a little labor, a little suffering. “He redeemed us to God by his blood,” “the precious blood of Christ” (Rev 5:9; 1Pe 1:19). He gave all He had, even His life, for us.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“You are perplexed by the doctrine of God’s sovereignty and election. I wonder that any man believing in a God should be perplexed by these. For if there be a God, a King, eternal, immortal, and invisible, He cannot but be sovereign – and He cannot but do according to His own will and choose according to His own purpose. You may dislike these doctrines, but you can only get quit of them by denying altogether the existence of an infinitely wise, glorious, and powerful Being. God would not be God were He not thus absolutely sovereign in His present doings and His eternal pre-arrangements.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“The road is rugged, and the sun is hot. How can we be but weary? Here is grace for the weariness – grace which lifts us up and invigorates us; grace which keeps us from fainting by the way; grace which supplies us with manna from heaven, and with water from the smitten rock. We receive of this grace, and are revived. Our weariness of heart and limb departs. We need no other refreshment. This is enough. Whatever the way be – rough, gloomy, unpleasant – we press forward, knowing that the same grace that has already carried thousands through will do the same for us.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“Not that you are to read no book but the Bible. All that is true and good is worth the reading, if you have time for it. All, if properly used, will help you in your study of the Scriptures. A Christian does not shut his eyes to the natural scenes of beauty spread around him. He does not cease to admire the hills, or plains, or rivers, or forests of earth because he has learned to love the God that made them; nor does he turn away from books of science or true poetry because he has discovered one book truer, more precious, and more poetical than all the rest together.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“A believing man will be a humble man. He will think little and speak little about himself. True faith carries us above this pride, self-esteem, and vainglory… He will…refrain from giving prominence to self in any of his proceedings. His great object will be to hide self; and not only to forget it himself, but to make others forget it too. The man that is still proud, boastful, vainglorious, self-confident has good reason to suppose that he has never yet believed.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“There is nothing so hardening as unbelief; and one great reason for this is, that there is nothing so deceitful. It does not look a great sin; nay, sometimes not like sin at all, but like modesty and humility. It pretends to be jealous for God, to be conscious of personal unworthiness, to be unfit to venture on a hope of acceptance. Thus, it deceives… It actually hides itself, lessens its own wickedness, veils its hatefulness under the name of humility. In all these ways, it contrives to destroy faith, to cherish itself, and so to harden the heart.” ~ Horatius Bonar

“Much zeal is shown for the freedom of man’s will; little jealousy seems to be left for the freedom of God’s will. Men insist that it is unjust and tyrannical in God to control their wills, yet see nothing unjust, nothing proud, nothing Satanic in attempting to fetter and direct the will of God. Man, it seems, cannot have his own foolish will gratified, unless the all-wise God will consent to relinquish His! Such are some of the steps in the march of Atheism. Such are the preparations making in these last days by the wily usurper for dethroning the Eternal Jehovah.” ~ Horatius Bonar

JEREMIAH BURROUGHS QUOTES

J.I. PACKER QUOTES

James Innell Packer (born 1926), usually cited as J.I. Packer, is an English-born Canadian evangelical theologian in the low-church Anglican and Calvinist traditions. He currently serves as the Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is considered one of the most influential evangelicals in North America.^] He has been the theologian emeritus of the Anglican Church in North America since its inception in 2009.

“Wait on the Lord” is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting. He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come.” ~ J.I. Packer

“The Puritan ethic of marriage was first to look not for a partner whom you do love passionately at this moment but rather for one whom you can love steadily as your best friend for life, then to proceed with God’s help to do just that.” ~ J.I. Packer

“God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependence on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away. To live with your ‘thorn’ uncomplainingly — that is, sweet, patient, and free in heart to love and help others, even though every day you feel weak — is true sanctification. It is true healing for the spirit. It is a supreme victory of grace.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life’s problems fall into place of their own accord.” ~ J.I. Packer

“There is nothing more irreligious than self-absorbed religion.” ~ J.I. Packer

“I need not torment myself with the fear that my faith may fail; as grace led me to faith in the first place, so grace will keep me believing to the end. Faith, both in its origin and continuance, is a gift of grace (Phil 1:29).” ~ J.I. Packer

“Nor is it the spirit of those Christians – alas, they are many – whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the sub-middle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.

The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor – spending and being spent – to enrich their fellowmen, giving time, trouble, care and concern to do good to others – and not just their own friends – in whatever way there seems need.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Whatever else in the Bible catches your eye, do not let it distract you from Him.” ~ J.I. Packer

“There is no peace like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with full assurance that they have known God, and God has known them, and that this relationship guarantees God’s favor to them in life, through death and on for ever.” ~ J.I. Packer

“God was happy without humans before they were made; he would have continued happy had he simply destroyed them after they had sinned; but as it is he has set his love upon particular sinners, and this means that, by his own free voluntary choice, he will not know perfect and unmixed happiness again till he has brought every one of them to heaven. He has in effect resolved that henceforth for all eternity his happiness shall be conditional upon ours.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Wisdom is the power to see, and the inclination to choose, the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.” ~ J.I. Packer

“There is tremendous relief in knowing His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me , so that no discovery can disillusion him about me , in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God. It is an activity of holy thought, consciously performed in the presence of God, under the eye of God, by the help of God, as a means of communion with God.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Real spiritual growth is always growth downward, so to speak, into profounder humility, which in healthy souls will become more and more apparent as they age.” ~ J.I. Packer

“All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me.” ~ J.I. Packer

“To be right with God the judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is a greater.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Thus the effect of his gift of wisdom is to make us more humble, more joyful, more godly, more quick-sighted as to his will, more resolute in the doing of it and less troubled (not less sensitive, but less bewildered) than we were at the dark and painful things of which our life in this fallen world is full….
Thus, the kind of wisdom that God waits to give to those who ask him is a wisdom that will bind us to himself, a wisdom that will find expression in a spirit of faith and a life of faithfulness.” ~ J.I. Packer

“A God whom we could understand exhaustively, and whose revelation of Himself confronted us with no mysteries whatsoever, would be a God in man’s image, and therefore an imaginary God, not the God of the Bible at all.” ~ J.I. Packer

“The Christian up to his eyes in trouble can take comfort from the knowledge that in God’s kindly plan it all has a positive purpose, to further his sanctification. In this world, royal children have to undergo extra training and discipline which other children escape, in order to fit them for their high destiny. It is the same with the children of the King of kings. The clue to understanding all his dealings with them is to remember that throughout their lives he is training them for what awaits them, and chiseling them into the image of Christ. Sometimes the chiseling process is painful and the discipline irksome, but then the Scripture reminds us: “The Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son. Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons . . . No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Heb 12:6-7,11). Only the person who has grasped this can make sense of Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good to them that love God” (KJV); equally, only he can maintain his assurance of sonship against satanic assault as things go wrong. But he who has mastered the truth of adoption both retains assurance and receives blessing in the day of trouble: this is one aspect of faith’s victory over the world. Meanwhile, however, the point stands that the Christian’s primary motive for holy living is not negative, the hope (vain!) that hereby he may avoid chastening, but positive, the impulse to show his love and gratitude to his adopting God by identifying himself with the Father’s will for him.” ~ J.I. Packer

“We are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it.” ~ J.I. Packer

“The purpose of the church is to make the invisible kingdom visible through faithful Christian living and witness-bearing” ~ J.I. Packer

“Creatures are not entitled to register complaints about their Creator.” ~ J.I. Packer

“What we do every time we pray is to confess our impotence and God’s sovereignty.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Christian minds have been conformed to the modern spirit: the spirit, that is, that spawns great thoughts of man and leaves room for only small thoughts of God.” ~ J.I. Packer

“We must seek, in studying God, to be led to God.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Wisdom will not go with comforting illusions, false sentiment, or the use of rose-colored glasses.” ~ J.I. Packer

“I can hide my heart, and my past, and my future plans, from those around me, but I cannot hide anything from God. I can talk in a way that deceives my fellow creatures as to what I really am, but nothing I say or do can deceive God. He sees through all my reserve and pretense; he knows me as I really am, better indeed than I know myself. A God whose presence and scrutiny I could evade would be a small and trivial deity. But the true God is great and terrible, just because he is always with me and his eye is always upon me. Living becomes an awesome business when you realize that you spend every moment of your life in the sight and company of an omniscient, omnipresent Creator.” ~ J.I. Packer

“We should not…think of our fellowship with other Christians as a spiritual luxury, an optional addition to the exercises of private devotion. We should recognise rather that such fellowship is a spiritual necessity, for God has made us in such a way that our fellowship with himself is fed by our fellowship with fellow Christians, and requires to be so fed constantly for its own deepening and enrichment.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Today, vast stress is laid on the thought that God is personal, but this truth is so stated as to leave the impression that God is a person of the same sort as we are—weak, inadequate, ineffective, a little pathetic. But this is not the God of the Bible!” ~ J.I. Packer

“People have gotten into the practice of following private religious hunches rather than learning of God from His Word; we have to try to help them unlearn the pride and, in some cases, the misconceptions about Scripture which gave rise to this attitude and to base there convictions henceforth not on what they feel but on what the Bible says…modern people think of all religions as equal and equivalent – they draw their ideas about God from pagan as well as Christian sources; we have to try to show people the uniqueness and finality of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s last word to man…people have ceased to recognize the reality of their own sinfulness, which imparts a degree of perversity and enmity against God to all that they think and do; it is our task to try to introduce people to this fact about themselves and so make them self-distrustful and open to correction by the Word of Christ…people today are in the habit of disassociating the thought of God’s goodness from that of His severity; we must seek to wean them from this habit, since nothing but misbelief is possible as long as that persists.” ~ J.I. Packer

“I must labor to keep my heart actively responsive to God.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Any theology that does not lead to song is, at a fundamental level, a flawed theology.” ~ J.I. Packer

“There are two sorts of sick consciences, those that are not aware enough of sin and those that are not aware enough of pardon.” ~ J.I. Packer

“The preacher should work to convert his congregation; the wife should work to save her unbelieving husband. Christians are sent to convert, and they should not allow themselves, as Christ’s representatives in the world, to aim at anything less. Evangelizing, therefore, is not simply a matter of teaching, and instructing, and imparting information to the mind. There is more to it than that. Evangelizing includes the endeavor to elicit a response to the truth taught.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Our aim in studying the Godhead must be to know God himself better. Our concern must be to enlarge our acquaintance, not simply with the doctrine of God’s attributes, but with the living God whose attributes they are.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Many have found it hard to see what claim the law can have on the Christian. We are free from the law, they say; our salvation does not depend on law-keeping; we are justified through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. How, then, can it matter, or make any difference to anything, whether we keep the law henceforth or not?

….While it is certainly true that justification frees one forever from the need to keep the law, or try to, as the means of earning life, it is equally true that adoption lays on one the abiding obligation to keep the law, as the means of pleasing one’s newfound Father.…The sins of God’s children do not destroy their justification or nullify their adoption, but they mar the children’s fellowship with their Father.” ~ J.I. Packer

“A little knowledge of God is worth more than a great deal of knowledge about Him.” ~ J.I. Packer

“The most excellent study for expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and Him crucified, and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity.” ~ J.I. Packer

“There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, he wants me as his friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given his Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose.” ~ J.I. Packer

“It is our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians—I will be more specific: so many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians—go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord’s parable, seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that God might meet those needs) averting their eyes and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians—alas, they are many—whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the submiddle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Seek advice, weigh advice, and practice prudence.” ~ J.I. Packer

“For it is not true that some Christians believe in divine sovereignty while others hold an opposite view. What is true is that all Christians believe in divine sovereignty, but some are not aware that they do, and mistakenly imagine and insist that they reject it. What causes this odd state of affairs? The root cause is the same as in most cases of error in the church–the intruding of rationalistic speculations, the passion for systematic consistency, a reluctance to recognize the existence of mystery and to let God be wiser than men, and a consequent subjecting of Scripture to the supposed demands of human logic.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Our Lord Jesus Christ is both God for man and man for God” ~ J.I. Packer

“Our proud humanism, so-called, has made the world more like hell than heaven.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Regenerate people feel through their minds and think through their feelings. They are self-aware in a God-conscious and God-centered way that is beyond the understanding of those who do not not actually share this life quality .” ~ J.I. Packer

“When we looked at God’s wisdom, we saw something of His mind; when we thought of His power, we saw something of His hand and His arm; when we considered His word, we learned about His mouth; but now, contemplating His love, we are to look into His heart.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Man’s Chief End “Man’s chief end,” says the Shorter Catechism, magnificently, “is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.” End, note, not ends; for the two activities are one. God’s chief end, purposed in all that He does, is His glory (and what higher end could He have?), and He has so made us that we find our own deepest fulfillment and highest joy in hallowing His name by praise, submission, and service. God is no sadist, and the principle of our creation is that, believe it or not (and or course many don’t, just as Satan doesn’t), our duty, interest and delight completely coincide. Christians get so hung up with the pagan idea (very dishonoring to God, incidentally) that God’s will is always unpleasant, so that one is rather a martyr to be doing it, that they hardly at first notice how their experience verifies the truth that in Christian living duty and delight go together. But they do!—and it will be even clearer in the life to come. To give oneself to hallowing God’s name as one’s life-task means that living, though never a joy ride, will become increasingly a joy road. Can you believe that? Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating! Try it, and you will see.” ~ J.I. Packer

“We think of God as too much like what we are. Put this mistake right, says God; learn to acknowledge the full majesty of your incomparable God and Savior.” ~ J.I. Packer

“In the Bible, divine sovereignty and human responsibility are not enemies. They are not uneasy neighbors; they are not in an endless state of cold war with each other. They are friends, and they work together.” ~ J.I. Packer

“What we have to grasp, then, is that the bad conscience of the natural man is not at all the same thing as conviction of sin. It does not, therefore, follow that a man is convicted of sin when he is distressed about his weaknesses and the wrong things he has done. It is not conviction of sin just to feel miserable about yourself and your failures and your inadequacy to meet life’s demands. Nor would it be saving faith if a man in that condition called on the Lord Jesus Christ just to soothe him, cheer him up and make him feel confident again. Nor should we be preaching the gospel (though we might imagine we were) if all that we did was to present Christ in terms of a human’s felt wants. (`Are you happy? Are you satisfied? Do you want peace of mind? Do you feel that you have failed? Are you fed up with yourself? Do you want a friend? Then come to Christ; he will meet your every need”-as if the Lord Jesus Christ were to be thought of as a fairy godmother, or a super-psychiatrist.) No; we have to go deeper than this. To preach sin means not to make capital out of people’s felt frailties (the brain-washer’s trick), but to measure their lives by the holy law of God. To be convicted of sin means not just to feel that one is an all-around flop, but to realize that one has offended God, flouted His authority, defied Him, gone against Him and put oneself in the wrong with Him. To preach Christ means to set Him forth as the One who, through His cross, sets men right with God again. To put faith in Christ means relying on Him, and Him alone, to restore us to God’s fellowship and favor.” ~ J.I. Packer

“To be preoccupied with getting theological knowledge as an end to itself, to approach Bible study with no higher motive than a desire to know all the answers, is the direct route to a state of self-satisfied deception.” ~ J.I. Packer

“We may be frankly bewildered at things that happen to us, but God knows exactly what he is doing, and what he is after, in his handling of our affairs. Always, and in everything, he is wise: we shall see that hereafter, even where we never saw it here.” ~ J.I. Packer

“It is extraordinary how little the New Testament says about God’s interest in our success, by comparison with the enormous amount that it says about God’s interest in our holiness, our maturity in Christ, and our growth into the fullness of His image.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Every time we mention God we become theologians, and the only question is whether we are going to be good ones or bad ones.” ~ J.I. Packer

“We should not be held back by the thought that if they are not elect, they will not believe us and our efforts to convert them will fail. That is true; but it is none of our business and should make no difference to our action. In the first place, it is always wrong to abstain from doing good for fear that it might not be appreciated. In the second place, the non-elect in this world are faceless men as far as w are concerned. We know that they exist, but we do not and cannot know who they are, and it is as futile as it is impious for us to try and guess. The identity of the reprobate is one of God’s ‘secret things’ into which his people may not pry. In the third place, our calling as Christians is not to love God’s elect, and them only, but to love our neighbour, irrespective of whether he is elect or not.” ~ J.I. Packer

“You can cut yourself off from your fellow human beings, but you cannot get away from your Creator.” ~ J.I. Packer

“You tremble before the nations, because you are much weaker than they; but God is so much greater than the nations that they are as nothing to him. Behold your God!” ~ J.I. Packer

“Men treat God’s sovereignty as a theme for controversy, but in Scripture it is matter for worship.” ~ J.I. Packer

“God loves creatures who have become unlovely and (one would have thought) unlovable.” ~ J.I. Packer

“To long for total spiritual well-being is right and natural, but to believe that one is anywhere near it is to be utterly self-deceived.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Let your thoughts move to and fro like an accelerating pendulum, taking ever wider swings. “He’s my Father—and he’s God in heaven; he’s God in heaven—and he’s my Father! It’s beyond belief—but it’s true!” Grasp this, or rather, let it grasp you; then tell God what you feel about it; and that will be the worship which our Lord wanted to evoke when he gave us this thought-pattern for the invocation of the One who is both his Father and ours.” ~ J.I. Packer

“I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, One who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted for me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters.” ~ J.I. Packer

“To an age which has unashamedly sold itself to the gods of greed, pride, sex, and self-will, the church mumbles on about God’s kindness but says virtually nothing about his judgment… The fact is that the subject of divine wrath has become taboo in modern society, and Christians by and large have accepted the taboo and conditioned themselves never to raise the matter.” ~ J.I. Packer

“God answers the prayer we ought to have made rather than the prayer we did make.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Doctrinal preaching certainly bores the hypocrites; but it is only doctrinal preaching that will save Christ’s sheep.” ~ J.I. Packer

“The gospel tells that our Judge has become our Savior.” ~ J.I. Packer

“If I were the devil, one of my first aims would be to stop folk from digging into the Bible.” ~ J.I. Packer

“God’s wisdom is not, and never was, pledged to keep a fallen world happy, or to make ungodliness comfortable.” ~ J.I. Packer

“The idea that all are children of God is not found in the Bible anywhere.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Arminianism is ‘natural’ in one sense, in that it represents a characteristic perversion of Biblical teaching by the fallen mind of man.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Calvary not merely made possible the salvation of those for whom Christ died; it ensured that they would be brought to faith and their salvation made actual.” ~ J.I. Packer

“What is a Christian? The richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Today, on our own turf, we face pagan ignorance about God every bit as deep as that which the early church faced in the Roman Empire.” ~ J.I. Packer

“If our theology does not quicken the conscience and soften the heart, it actually hardens both.” ~ J.I. Packer

“God is good to all in some ways and to some in all ways.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Repentance, as we know, is basically not moaning and remorse, but turning and change.” ~ J.I. Packer

“God has not abandoned us any more than He abandoned Job. He never abandons anyone on whom He has set His love; nor does Christ, the good shepherd, ever lose track of His sheep.” ~ J.I. Packer

“Think against your feelings; argue yourself out of the gloom they have spread; look up from your problems to the God of the gospel.” ~ J.I. Packer

“The essence of God’s action in wrath is to give people what they choose, in all its implications.” ~ J.I. Packer

“We do not make friends with God; God makes friends with us, bringing us to know Him by making His love known to us (Gal. 4:9).” ~ J.I.Packer

JOHN BUNYAN QUOTES

John Bunyan (November 30, 1628 – August 31, 1688), was the most famous of the Puritan writers and preachers. He was born at Harrowden (1 mile south-east of Bedford), in the Parish of Elstow, England. He is most well-known for his book “The Pilgrim’s Progress”, one of the most printed books in history, which he composed while in prison for the crime of preaching the Gospel without a license.

“Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer.” ~ John Bunyan

“What God says is best, is best, though all the men in the world are against it.” ~ John Bunyan

“In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. ” ~ John Bunyan

“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” ~ John Bunyan

“This hill, though high, I covet to ascend;
The difficulty will not me offend.
For I perceive the way to life lies here.
Come, pluck up, heart; let’s neither faint nor fear.
Better, though difficult, the right way to go,
Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.”
~ John Bunyan (The Pilgrim’s Progress)

“He who runs from God in the morning will scarcely find Him the rest of the day.” ~ John Bunyan

“One leak will sink a ship, and one sin will destroy a sinner.” ~ John Bunyan

“It is said that in some countries trees will grow, but will bear no fruit because there is no winter there.” ~ John Bunyan

“Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none.” ~ John Bunyan

“If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us…” ~ John Bunyan

“I will stay in prison till the moss grows on my eye lids rather than disobey God.” ~ John Bunyan

“I have given Him my faith, and sworn my allegiance to Him; how, then, can I go back from this, and not be hanged as a traitor?” ~ John Bunyan

“Conversion is not the smooth, easy-going process some men seem to think… It is wounding work, this breaking of the hearts, but without wounding there is no saving… Where there is grafting there will always be a cutting, the graft must be let in with a wound; to stick it onto the outside or to tie it on with a string would be of no use. Heart must be set to heart and back to back or there will be no sap from root to branch. And this, I say, must be done by a wound, by a cut.” ~ John Bunyan

“Pray often, for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge for Satan.” ~ John Bunyan

“Though there is not always grace where there is the fear of hell, yet, to be sure, there is no grace where there is no fear of God.” ~ John Bunyan

“Just as Christian came up to the Cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, fell from off his back, and began to tumble down the hill, and so it continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulcher. There it fell in, and I saw it no more!” ~ John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress

“The man that takes up religion for the world will throw away religion for the world.” ~ John Bunyan

“I seek a place that can never be destroyed, one that is pure, and that fadeth not away, and it is laid up in heaven, and safe there, to be given, at the time appointed, to them that seek it with all their heart. Read it so, if you will, in my book.” ~ John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress

“Nothing can hurt you except sin; nothing can grieve me except sin; nothing can defeat you except sin. Therefore, be on your guard, my Mansoul.” ~ John Bunyan

“It is always hard to see the purpose in wilderness wanderings until after they are over.” ~ John Bunyan

“It is profitable for Christians to be often calling to mind the very beginnings of grace with their souls.” ~ John Bunyan

“Fear, lest, by forgetting what you are by nature, you also forget the need that you have of continual pardon, support, and supplies from the Spirit of grace, and so grow proud of your own abilities, or of what you have received from God.” ~ John Bunyan

“In times of affliction we commonly meet with the sweetest experiences of the love of God.” ~ John Bunyan

“He that lives in sin, and looks for happiness hereafter, is like him that soweth cockle and thinks to fill his barn with wheat or barley.” ~ John Bunyan

“God’s grace is the most incredible and insurmountable truth ever to be revealed to the human heart, which is why God has given us His Holy Spirit to superintend the process of more fully revealing the majesty of the work done on our behalf by our Savior. He teaches us to first cling to, and then enables us to adore with the faith He so graciously supplies, the mercy of God. This mercy has its cause and effect in the work of Jesus on the cross.” ~ John Bunyan

“Not that the heart can be good without knowledge, for without knowledge the heart is empty. But there are two kinds of knowledge: the first is alone in its bare speculation of things, and the second is accompanied by the grace of faith and love, which causes a man to do the will of God from the heart.” ~ John Bunyan

“Man indeed is the most noble, by creation, of all the creatures in the visible World; but by sin he has made himself the most ignoble.” ~ John Bunyan

“I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.” ~ John Bunyan

“Is there anything more worthy of our tongues and mouths than to speak of the things of God and Heaven?” ~ John Bunyan

“…Great sins do draw out great grace; and where guilt is most terrible and fierce, there the mercy of God in Christ, when showed to the soul, appears most high and mighty…” ~ John Bunyan

“To go back is nothing but death; to go forward is fear of death, and life everlasting beyond it. I will yet go forward.” ~ John Bunyan

“Christians are like the several flowers in a garden that have each of them the dew of heaven, which, being shaken with the wind, they let fall at each other’s roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of each other.” ~ John Bunyan

“If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us than a golden slipper on a gouty foot.” ~ John Bunyan

“A work of grace in the soul makes itself known either to the one who has it or to onlookers.” ~ John Bunyan

“You came in by yourselves, without His direction, and will go out by yourselves, without His mercy.” ~ John Bunyan

“Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God hath promised, or according to the Word, for the good of the church, with submission, in faith, to the will of God.” ~ John Bunyan

“Affliction is better than sin, and if God sends the one to cleanse us from the other, let us thank him, and be also content to pay the messenger.” ~ John Bunyan

“Wake up, see your own wretchedness, and fly to the Lord Jesus. He is the righteousness of God, for He Himself is God. Only by believing in His righteousness will you be delivered from condemnation.” ~ John Bunyan

“We are apt to overshoot, in the days that are calm, and to think ourselves far higher, and more strong than we find we be when the trying day is upon us . . . We could not live without such turnings of the hand of God upon us. We should be overgrown with flesh, if we had not our seasonable winter” (Seasonable Counsel, 694). In the days of pain, the Lord showed me how much flesh I still retain –– how prone I am to fear, sadness, worry, agitation, frustration, and doubt. Yet through it all, how wondrously beautiful are the reign of God over sin through the cross and all the gospel fruits that flow from it toward me: forgiveness, reconciliation, life, righteousness, help, true hope, peace, resolute joy, persevering strength, ears to hear the word and a heart to believe it, transformed desires that compel me and my family to follow God.” ~ John Bunyan

“Though the hill is high, I still desire to walk up it. I don’t care how difficult it is, because I understand that it leads to the way of life.” ~ John Bunyan

“I would rather go through this valley to find the honor that true wise men seek than choose those things that this man and his worldly friends think most worthy of our affections.” ~ John Bunyan

“The bothersome noise of religious talk grows irksome when laid upon the living score of discordant behavior.” ~ John Bunyan

“Let the Kingdom be always before you, and believe with certainty and consistency the things that are yet unseen. Let nothing that is on this side of eternal life get inside you.” ~ John Bunyan

“It was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, and today, and forever” ~ John Bunyan

“Some who set out for this crown, even after they have gone quite a long ways, allow others who come along to snatch their victory from them. So hold fast to what you have, and let no man take away your crown.’ You are not yet out of reach of the gunshot of the Devil.” ~ John Bunyan

“There is a warning here for true pilgrims. Beware of the talker, but also be careful not to judge too quickly those whom God has blessed with both genuine grace and a fluency to speak of divine mercy in ways more eloquent than others. The proof is in the life-not a perfect life, but a life that both delights in divine truth and magnifies God, the only giver of the sovereign grace that always produces the truly fruitful, fragrant life.” ~ John Bunyan

“On the Day of Judgment , life and death are not determined by the world but by God’s wisdom and law.” ~ John Bunyan

“There is in Jesus Christ more merit and righteousness than the whole world has need of.” ~ John Bunyan

“A man may cry out against sin in principle; but he cannot abhor it except by virtue of a godly aversion against it. I have heard many cry out against sin in the pulpit, but who still live with it without any problem in their heart, house, and everyday life.” ~ John Bunyan

“He who is down, needs fear no fall; He who is low, has no pride. He who is humble ever shall Have God to be his guide.” ~ John Bunyan

“I also know that a man, by the way he lives his life, can quickly invalidate whatever arguments or advice he presents to others for their own good.” ~ John Bunyan

“If my life is fruitless, it doesn’t matter who praises me, and if my life is fruitful, it doesn’t matter who criticizes me.” ~ John Bunyan

“The reason why the Christians in this day are at such a loss as to some things is that they are contented with what comes from man’s mouth, without searching and kneeling before God to know of Him the truth of things.” ~ John Bunyan

“If people really see that Christ has removed the fear of punishment from them by taking it into Himself, they won’t do whatever they want, they’ll do whatever He wants.” ~ John Bunyan

“The difference between true and false repentance lies in this: the man who truly repents cries out against his heart; but the other, as Eve, against the serpent, or something else.” ~ John Bunyan

“No man, without trials and temptations, can attain a true understanding of the Holy Scriptures.” ~ John Bunyan

“The truths that I know best I have learned on my knees. I never know a thing well, till it is burned into my heart by prayer.” ~ John Bunyan

“The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and they that lack the beginning have neither middle nor end.” ~ John Bunyan

“To lay hold of and receive the gospel by a true and saving faith is an act of the soul that has been made a new creature, which is the workmanship of God… Wherefore whoever receiveth the grace that is tendered in the gospel, they must be quickened by the power of God, their eyes must be opened, their understandings illuminated, their ears unstopped, their hearts circumcised, their wills also rectified, and the Son of God revealed in them.” ~ John Bunyan

“It is sad to see how the most of men neglect their precious souls, turning their backs upon the glorious gospel, and little minding a crucified Jesus, when, in the meanwhile, their bodies are well provided for, their estates much regarded, and the things of this present life are highly prized, as if the darling was of less value than a clod of earth; an immortal soul, than a perishing body; a precious Saviour, than unsatisfying creatures.” ~ John Bunyan

“I have often thought that the best Christians are found in the worst of times.” ~ John Bunyan

“Pray and read, read and pray; for a little from God is better than a great deal from men.” ~ John Bunyan

“The best prayers have often more groans than words.” ~ John Bunyan

“Whatever contradicts the Word of God should be instantly resisted as diabolical.” ~ John Bunyan

“Our sins, when laid upon Christ, were yet personally ours, not His; so His righteousness, when put upon us, is yet personally His, not ours.” ~ John Bunyan

“It is possible to learn all about the mysteries of the Bible and never be affected by it in one’s soul. Great knowledge is not enough.” ~ John Bunyan

“You have chosen the roughest road, but it leads straight to the hilltops.” ~ John Bunyan

“The best prayer I ever prayed had enough sin to damn the whole world.” ~ John Bunyan

“Indeed, this is one of the greatest mysteries in the world; namely, that a righteousness that resides in heaven should justify me, a sinner on earth!” ~ John Bunyan

“It could be a sign of pride in your life if a word of reproof or admonition is not able to be received with the same grace, whether it be given by the poorest of saints or the most educated person.” ~ John Bunyan

“As your faith is, such your hope will be. Hope is never ill when faith is well, nor strong if faith be weak.” ~ John Bunyan

“Words easy to be understood do often hit the mark, when high and learned ones do only pierce the air.” ~ John Bunyan

“An idle man’s brain is the devil’s workshop.” ~ John Bunyan

“Run when I can, walk when I cannot run, and creep when I cannot walk.” ~ John Bunyan

“Great grace and small gifts are better than great gifts and no grace.” ~ John Bunyan

“In all your prayers forget not to thank the Lord for his mercies.” ~ John Bunyan

“Old truths are always new to us, if they come with the smell of heaven upon them.” ~ John Bunyan

“No child of God sins to that degree as to make himself incapable of forgiveness.” ~ John Bunyan

“Be of good cheer, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole.” ~ John Bunyan

“To run and work the law commands, but gives us neither feet nor hands. But better news the gospel brings, it bids us fly and gives us wings.” ~ John Bunyan

“Talkative represents the man or woman who delights in talking about divine things but has only theoretical knowledge of such things. No actual personal heart experience correlates to the matters they love to discuss so eloquently. They are often highly esteemed by others, but those closest to them would quickly betray a life out-of-sync with their words. The mask fashioned by fluency with all subjects divine hides their real life.” ~ John Bunyan

“If you are not a praying person, you are not a Christian.” ~ John Bunyan

“If thou hast sinned, lie not down without repentance; for the want of repentance, after one has sinned, makes the heart yet harder and harder.” ~ John Bunyan

“Sincerity is the same in a corner alone, as it is before the face of the world. It knows not how to wear two vizards, one for an appearance before men, and another for a short snatch in a corner; but it must have God, and be with him in the duty of prayer. It is not lip-labour that it doth regard, for it is the heart that God looks at, and that which sincerity looks at, and that which prayer comes from, if it be that prayer which is accompanied with sincerity.” ~ John Bunyan

“Hope has a thick skin and will endure many a blow; it will put on patience as a vestment and will endure all things (if they be of the right kind) for the joy that is set before it. Hence patience is called patience of hope,’ because it is hope that makes the soul exercise long-suffering under the cross until the time comes to enjoy the crown!” ~ John Bunyan

“The man who does not know the nature of the Law, cannot know the nature of sin.” ~ John Bunyan

“I love to hear my Lord spoken of, and wherever I have seen the print of His shoe in the earth, there have I coveted to put mine also.” ~ John Bunyan

“He hath given me rest by His sorrow, and life by His death.” ~ John Bunyan

“God, as I may say, is forced to break men’s hearts, before He can make them willing to cry to Him, or be willing that He should have any concerns with them; the rest shut their eyes, stop their ears, withdraw their hearts, or say unto God, be gone.” ~ John Bunyan

“Afflictions make the heart more deep, more experimental, more knowing and profound, and so, more able to hold, to contain, and beat more.” ~ John Bunyan

“He that forgets his friend is ungrateful to him; but he that forgets his Saviour is unmerciful to himself.” ~ John Bunyan

JOHN FLAVEL QUOTES

John Flavel (1627?–1691), was an English Presbyterian divine. Flavel, the eldest son of the Rev. Richard Flavel, described as ‘a painful and eminent minister,’ who was incumbent successively of Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, Hasler and Willersey, Gloucestershire (from which last living he was ejected in 1662), was born in or about 1630 at Bromsgrove.

Flavel was born at Bromsgrove in Wordesterchire. He was the elder son of Richard Flavel, described in contemporary records as “a painful and eminent minister.” After receiving his early education, partly at home and partly at the grammar-schools of Bromsgrove and Haslar, he entered University College, Oxford. Soon after taking orders in 1650 he obtained a curacy at Diptford, Devon, and on the death of the vicar he was appointed to succeed him. From Diptford he removed in 1656 to Dartmouth. He was ejected from his living by the passing of the Act of Uniformity in 1662, but continued to preach and administer the sacraments privately till the Five Mile Act of 1665, when he retired to Slapton, 5 miles away. He then lived for a time in London, but returned to Dartmouth, where he labored till his death in 1691. He was married four times. He was a vigorous and voluminous writer, and not without a play of fine fancy.

“Providence is wiser than you, and you may be confident it has suited all things better to your eternal good than you could do had you been left to your own option.” ~ John Flavel

“They that know God will be humble. They that know themselves cannot be proud.” ~ John Flavel

“Providence is like a curious piece of tapestry made of a thousand shreds, which, single, appear useless, but put together, they represent a beautiful history to the eye.” ~ John Flavel

“It would much conduce to the settlement of your heart, to consider that by fretting and discontent you do yourself more injury than all your afflictions could do. Your own discontent is that which arms your troubles with a sting; you make your burden heavy by struggling under it. Did you but lie quietly under the hand of God, your condition would be much more easy than it is.” ~ John Flavel

“There is not such a pleasant history for you to read in all the world as the history of your own lives, if you would sit down and record from the beginning hitherto what God has been to you, and done for you; what evidences and outbreakings of his mercy, faithfulness, and love there have been in all the conditions you have passed through.” ~ John Flavel

“Christ [is] the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is congregation or meeting-place of all waters in the world: so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet. . . .” ~ John Flavel

“There is not a greater discovery of pride in the world than in the contests of our wills with the will of God.” ~ John Flavel

“Suppose that by revenge you might destroy one enemy; yet, by exercising the Christian’s temper you might conquer three‌–‌your own lust, Satan’s temptation, and your enemy’s heart.” ~ John Flavel

“If we were to understand how dear we are to God, our relation to Him, our value in His eyes, and how He protects us by His faithful promises and gracious presence, we would not tremble at every appearance of danger.” ~ John Flavel

“Observed duties maintain our credit; but secret duties maintain our life.” ~ John Flavel

“The heart of man is his worst part before it be regenerate, and the best afterwards: it is the seat of principles, and fountain of actions. The eye of God is, and the eye of a Christian ought to be, principally fixed upon it. The greatest difficulty in conversion, is, to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion, is, to keep the heart with God.” ~ John Flavel

“In short, forbidden fear is merely concerned with self-preservation. It does not take God’s glory into account. On the contrary, it actually desires the removal of what it perceives as dangerous, meaning it desires the removal of God.” ~ John Flavel

“The state of the whole body depends upon the soundness and vigour of the heart, and the everlasting state of the whole man upon the good or ill condition of the soul.” ~ John Flavel

“A bad heart and a slippery memory deprive men of the comfort of many mercies, and defraud God of the glory due for them.” ~ John Flavel

“Oh, study your hearts, watch your hearts, keep your hearts” ~ John Flavel

“One word of God can do more than ten thousand words of men to relieve a distressed soul.” ~ John Flavel

“Two things destroy the peace and tranquility of our lives; our bewailing past disappointments, or fearing future ones.” ~ John Flavel

“It is a good sign that our troubles are sanctified to us when they turn our hearts against sin, and not against God.” ~ John Flavel

“The Providence of God is like Hebrew words – it can be read only backwards.” ~ John Flavel

“God rejects all duties (how glorious soever in other respects) which are offered him without the heart. He that performs duty without the heart, that is, heedlessly, is no more accepted with God than he that performs it with a double heart, that is, hypocritically.” ~ John Flavel

“Second, we are ignorant of others. We fear people because we do not know them. If we were to understand them better, we would fear them less. We overvalue them; therefore, we fear them. Apparently, the artist often paints the lion fiercer than he is. I am sure our imagination paints people more dreadful than they are. If wicked people, especially multitudes, align themselves against us, our hearts fail and we perceive inevitable ruin. “The floods of ungodly men made me afraid” (2 Sam. 22:5b).” ~ John Flavel

“What is a child, but a piece of the parent enrapt up in another skin? And yet our dearest children are but as strangers to us, in comparison of the unspeakable dearness that was between the Father and Christ. Now, that he should ever be content to part with a Son, and such an only One, is such a manifestation of love, as will be admired to all eternity.” ~ John Flavel

“Enjoyment of your desires is the thing that will please you, but resignation of your wills is that which is pleasing to God.” ~ John Flavel

“Providences in themselves are not a perfect guide. They often puzzle and entangle our thoughts; but bring them to the Word, and your duty will be quickly manifested.” ~ John Flavel

“The strength of our unmortified corruption shows itself in our pride and the swelling vanity of our hearts when we have a name and esteem among men. When we are applauded and honoured, when we are admired for any gift or excellence that is in us, this draws forth the pride of the heart and shows the vanity that is in it.” ~ John Flavel

“It is my ignorance of God’s design that makes me quarrel with him.” ~ John Flavel

“Every man loves the mercies of God, but a saint loves the God of his mercies. The mercies of God, as they are the fuel of a wicked man’s lusts, so they are fuel to maintain a good man’s love to God; not that their love to God is grounded upon these external benefits.” ~ John Flavel

“There is no sin in complaining to God, but much wickedness in complaining of him.” ~ John Flavel

“Some poor creatures are engaged in callings that eat up their time and strength, and make their lives very uncomfortable to them: they have not only spending and wasting employments in the world, but such as allow little or no time for their general calling; and yet all this doth but keep them and theirs alive.” ~ John Flavel

“If I yield to thy temptation, I must either feel the pangs of conscience, or the flames of hell.” ~ John Flavel

“We are inclined to a sinful trust and dependence upon each other, and to an inordinate fear and dread of each other. We act as if the creature were a god rather than a man, a spirit rather than flesh. Thus, our fear magnifies and exalts the creature, putting it (as it were) in God’s room and place. God rebukes this sin in His own people: “I, even I, am he that comforteth you: Who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; and forgettest the LORD thy maker?” (Isa. 51:12–13a). It is evident that fear exalts people and belittles God. It thinks upon a person’s harmful power so much that it forgets God’s saving power. In this way, a mortal worm, which perishes as the grass, eclipses the glory of the great God, who stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth.” ~ John Flavel

“But if you have derived any benefit from the reproaches and wrongs which you have received, if they have put you upon examining your own heart, if they have made you more careful how you conduct, if they have convinced you of the value of a sanctified temper; will you not forgive them? Will you not forgive one who has been instrumental of so much good to you? What though he meant it for evil? If through the Divine blessing your happiness has been promoted by what he has done, why should you even have a hard thought of him?” ~ John Flavel

“He has either strengthened your back to bear, or lightened your burden, or else opened an unexpected door of escape, according to promise (1 Corinthians 10:13), so that the evil which you feared did not come upon you.” ~ John Flavel

“O happy providences, however smart, that make the soul for ever afraid of sin!” ~ John Flavel

“The less fear a person has, the more happiness he has – unless, of course, it is that fear which is his happiness and excellence.” ~ John Flavel

“Sin had so shut up mercy from us, that had not Christ made an atonement by his death, we should never have obtained it to all eternity.” ~ John Flavel

“A cross without a Christ never did any man good.” ~ John Flavel

“The carnal person fears man, not God. The strong Christian fears God, not man. The weak Christian fears man too much and God too little.” ~ John Flavel

“The world is not a theater large enough to display the glory of Christ upon or unfold even half of the unsearchable riches that lie hidden in Him. And such is the deliciousness of this subject, Christ, that were there ten thousand volumes written upon it, they would never become tiring to the heart. We used to say that any one thing can finally tire us and this is true, except about this one eminent thing, Christ, and then one can never tire, for such is the variety of sweetness in Christ.” ~ John Flavel

“Thus, we may observe, it is usual with God to smite us in those very comforts which stole away too much of the love and delight of our souls from God; to cross us in those things from which we raised up too great expectations of comfort.” ~ John Flavel

“As God did not at first choose you because you were high, so he will not forsake you because you are low” ~ John Flavel

“That which begins not with prayer, seldom winds up with comfort.” ~ John Flavel

“Consider your spiritual mercies and privileges with which the Lord Jesus has invested you, and complain at your providential lot if you can. One of these mercies alone has enough in it to sweeten all your troubles in this world.” ~ John Flavel

“It is a greater mercy to descend from praying parents, than from nobles.” ~ John Flavel

“Affliction is a pill, which, being wrapt up in patience and quiet submission, may be easily swallowed; but discontent chews the pill, and so embitters the soul. God throws away some comfort which he saw would hurt you, and you will throw away your peace after it; he shoots an arrow which sticks in your clothes, and was never intended to hurt, but only to drive you from sin, and you will thrust it deeper, to the piercing of your very heart, by despondency and discontent.” ~ John Flavel

“Did Christ finish His work for us? Then there can be no doubt but He will also finish His work in us.” ~ John Flavel

“If you neglect to instruct children in the way of holiness, will the devil neglect to instruct them in the way of wickedness? No; if you will not teach them to pray, he will to curse, swear, and lie; if ground be uncultivated, weeds will spring.” ~ John Flavel

“The knowledge of Christ is profound and large. All other sciences are but shadows; this is a boundless, bottomless ocean. Though something of Christ be unfolded in one age, and something in another, yet eternity itself cannot full unfold him.” ~ John Flavel

“The law sends us to Christ to be justified, and Christ sends us to the law to be regulated.” ~ John Flavel

“He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in Him.” ~ John Flavel

“What a mercy was it to us to have parents that prayed for us before they had us, as well as in our infancy when we could not pray for ourselves!” ~ John Flavel

“The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.” ~ John Flavel

“He feels all our sorrows, needs, and burdens as his own. That is why it is said that the sufferings of believers are called the sufferings of Christ.” ~ John Flavel

“Look to it, my dear friends, that none of you be found Christless at your appearance before him. Those that continue Christless now, will be left speechless then. God forbid that you that have heard so much of Christ, and you that have professed so much of Christ, should at last fall into a worse condition than those that never heard the name of Christ.” ~ John Flavel

“What, at peace with the Father and at war with the children? It cannot be.” ~ John Flavel

“To see a man humble under prosperity is one of the greatest rarities in the world.” ~ John Flavel

“Jesus, our head, is already in heaven; and if the head be above water, the body cannot drown.” ~ John Flavel

“Surely if He would not spare His own Son one stroke, one tear, one groan, one sigh, one circumstance of misery, it can never be imagined that ever He should, after this, deny or withhold from His people, for whose sakes all this was suffered, any mercies, any comforts, any privilege, spiritual or temporal, which is good for them.” ~ John Flavel

“Christ is so in love with holiness, that at the price of His blood He will buy it for us.” ~ John Flavel

“Whatever be the ground of one’s distress, it should drive him to, not from God.” ~ John Flavel

“I think it is not very difficult to discern by the duties and converses of Christians, what frames their spirits are under. Take a Christian in a good frame, and how serious, heavenly, and profitable, will his converses and duties be! what a lovely companion is he during the continuance of it!” ~ John Flavel

“Tell me, you vain professor, when did you shed a tear for the deadness, hardness, unbelief, or earthliness of your heart? Do you think that such an easy religion can save you? If so, we may invert Christ’s words and say, ‘Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to life, and may there be that go in there.'” ~ John Flavel

“Guilt is to danger, what fire is to gunpowder; a man need not fear to walk among many barrels of powder, if he have no fire about him.” John Flavel

“Grace makes the promise and providence the payment.” ~ John Flavel

“When God gives you comforts, it is your great evil not to observe His hand in them.” ~ John Flavel

“The soul of man, like the bird in the shell, is still growing or ripening in sin or grace, till at last the shell breaks by death, and the soul flies away to the piece it is prepared for, and where it must abide forever.” ~ John Flavel

“The more afflictions you have been under, the more assistance you have had for this life of holiness.” ~ John Flavel

“Turn in upon yourselves, get into your closets, and now resolve to dwell there. You have been strangers to this work too long; you have kept other vineyards too long; you have trifled about the borders of religion too long. Will you now resolve to look better to your hearts? Will you hate and come out of the crowds of business and clamors of the world and retire yourselves more than you have done? Oh, that this day you would resolve upon it!” ~ John Flavel

“If God has given you but a small portion of the world, yet if you are godly He has promised never to forsake you (Heb. 13:5). Providence has ordered that condition for you which is really best for your eternal good. If you had more of the world than you have, your heads and hearts might not be able to manage it to your advantage.” ~ John Flavel

“Let all Arminians know: we have as high an esteem for faith as any men in the world, but yet we will not rob Christ to clothe faith.” ~ John Flavel

“The opening of your hearts to receive the Lord Jesus Christ is not a work done by any power of your own, but the arm of the Lord is revealed therein.” ~ John Flavel

“All the tears of a penitent sinner, should he shed as many as there have fallen drops of rain, since the creation, to this day, cannot wash away one sin. The everlasting burnings in hell, cannot purify the flaming conscience, from the least sin.” ~ John Flavel

“And now let us consider and marvel that ever this great and blessed God should be so much concerned, as you have heard He is in all His providences, about such vile, despicable worms as we are! He does not need us, but is perfectly blessed and happy in Himself without us. We can add nothing to Him.” ~ John Flavel

“It is better to be as low as hell with a promise, than in Paradise without one.” ~ John Flavel

“The heart of a Christian, like the moon, commonly suffers an eclipse when it is at the full, and that by the interposition of the earth.” ~ John Flavel

“Look around in the world, and you may see some in every place who are objects of pity, bereaved by sad accidents of all the comforts of life, while in the meantime Providence has tenderly preserved you.” ~ John Flavel

“Brethren, it is easier to declaim against a thousand sins of others, than to mortify one sin in ourselves.” ~ John Flavel

“Sometimes God makes use of instruments for good to His people, who designed nothing but evil and mischief to them. Thus Joseph’s brethren were instrumental to his advancement in that very thing in which they designed his ruin (Gen. 50:20).” ~ John Flavel

“God’s unspotted faithfulness never failed any soul that durst trust himself in its arms.” ~ John Flavel

“Oh sirs, deal with sin as sin, and speak of heaven and hell as they are, and not as if you were in jest.” ~ John Flavel

“Providence is wiser than you, and you may be confident it has suited all things better to your eternal good than you could do had you been left to your own option.” ~ John Flavel

“Christ comes with kingly power, to rescue sinners, as a prey from the mouth of the terrible one.” ~ John Flavel

“Creatures, like pictures, are fairest at a certain distance, but it is not so with Christ; the nearer the soul approaches Him, and the longer it lives in the enjoyment of Him, still the sweeter and more desirable He becomes.” ~ John Flavel

“Afflictions have the same use and end to our souls, that frosty weather hath upon those clothes that are laid and bleaching, they alter the hue and make them white.” ~ John Flavel

“We are not distinguished from brutes by our senses, but by our understanding.” ~ John Flavel

“A hot iron, though blunt, will pierce sooner than a cold one, though sharper.” ~ John Flavel

JOHN OWEN QUOTES

John Owen (1616 – 1683) was an English theologian and “was without doubt not only the greatest theologian of the English Puritan movement but also one of the greatest European Reformed theologians of his day, and quite possibly possessed the finest theological mind that England ever produced” (“Owen, John”, in Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals, p. 494)

“Let no man pretend to fear sin that does not fear temptation also! These two are too closely united to be separated. He does not truly hate the fruit who delights in the root.” ~ John Owen

“If we do not abide in prayer, we will abide in temptation. Let this be one aspect of our daily intercession: ‘God, preserve my soul, and keep my heart and all its ways so that I will not be entangled.’ When this is true in our lives, a passing temptation will not overcome us. We will remain free while others lie in bondage.” ~ John Owen

“Without absolutes revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers.” ~ John Owen

“Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.” ~ John Owen

“Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until it be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so he who undertakes to deal with sin, and pursues it not constantly to the death.” ~ John Owen

“The vigor and power and comfort of our spiritual life depends on our mortification of deeds of the flesh.” ~ John Owen

“A minister may fill his pews, his communion roll, the mouths of the public, but what that minister is on his knees in secret before God Almighty, that he is and no more.” ~ John Owen

“See in the meantime that your faith brings forth obedience, and God in due time will cause it to bring forth peace.” ~ John Owen

“If we would talk less and pray more about them, things would be better than they are in the world: at least, we should be better enabled to bear them.” ~ John Owen

“All other ways of mortification are vain, all helps leave us helpless, it must be done by the Spirit.” ~ John Owen

“In the divine Scriptures, there are shallows and there are deeps; shallows where the lamb may wade, and deeps where the elephant may swim.” ~ John Owen

“Leanness of body and soul may go together.” ~ John Owen

“Temptation is like a knife, that may either cut the meat or the throat of a man; it may be his food or his poison, his exercise or his destruction.” ~ John Owen

“The custom of sinning takes away the sense of it, the course of the world takes away the shame of it.” ~ John Owen

“The house built on the sand may oftentimes be built higher, have more fair parapets and battlements, windows and ornaments, than that which is built upon the rock; yet all gifts and privileges equal not one grace.” ~ John Owen

“The most tremendous judgment of God in this world is the hardening of the hearts of men.” ~ John Owen

“When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone; but as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep when they are still, so ought our contrivances against it to be vigorous at all times and in all.” ~ John Owen

“Did you never run for shelter in a storm, and find fruit which you expected not? Did you never go to God for safeguard, driven by outward storms, and there find unexpected fruit?” ~ John Owen

“It is not the glorious battlements, the painted windows, the crouching gargoyles that support a building, but the stones that lie unseen in or upon the earth. It is often those who are despised and trampled on that bear up the weight of a whole nation.” ~ John Owen

“I will not judge a person to be spiritually dead whom I have judged formerly to have had spiritual life, though I see him at present in a swoon (faint) as to all evidences of the spiritual life. And the reason why I will not judge him so is this – because if you judge a person dead, you neglect him, you leave him; but if you judge him in a swoon, (faint) though never so dangerous, you use all means for the retrieving of his life.” ~ John Owen

“It is not the distance of the earth from the sun, nor the sun’s withdrawing itself, that makes a dark and gloomy day; but the interposition of clouds and vaporous exhalations. Neither is thy soul beyond the reach of the promise, nor does God withdraw Himself; but the vapours of thy carnal, unbelieving heart do cloud thee.” ~ John Owen

“When someone acts weak, negligent, or casual in a duty – performing it carelessly or lifelessly, without any genuine satisfaction, joy, or interest – he has already entered into the spirit that will lead him into trouble. How many we see today who have departed from warmhearted service and have become negligent, careless, and indifferent in their prayer life or in the reading of the Scriptures. For each one who escapes this peril, a hundred others will be ensnared. Then it may be too late to acknowledge, “I neglected private prayer,” or “I did not meditate on God’s Word,” or “I did not hear what I should have listened to.” ~ John Owen

“See in the meantime that your faith brings forth obedience, and God in due time will cause it to bring forth peace.” ~ John Owen

“Let our hearts admit, “I am poor and weak. Satan is too subtle, too cunning, too powerful; he watches constantly for advantages over my soul. The world presses in upon me with all sorts of pressures, pleas, and pretenses. My own corruption is violent, tumultuous, enticing, and entangling. As it conceives sin, it wars within me and against me. Occasions and opportunities for temptation are innumerable. No wonder I do not know how deeply involved I have been with sin. Therefore, on God alone will I rely for my keeping. I will continually look to Him.” ~ John Owen

“To believe that He will preserve us is, indeed, a means of preservation. God will certainly preserve us, and make a way of escape for us out of the temptation, should we fall. We are to pray for what God has already promised. Our requests are to be regulated by His promises and commands. Faith embraces the promises and so finds relief.” ~ John Owen

“Your state is not at all to be measured by the opposition that sin makes to you, but by the opposition you make to it.” ~ John Owen

“Temptations and occasions put nothing into a man, but only draw out what was in him before.” ~ John Owen

“A church full of love, is a church well built up. I had rather see a church filled with love a thousand times, than filled with the best, the highest, and most glorious gifts and parts that any men in this world may be made partakers of..I know the end of all Christ’s institutions is to increase love.” ~ John Owen

“Poor souls are apt to think that all those whom they read or hear of to be gone to heaven, went there because they were so good and holy..Yet not one of them, not any one that is now in heaven (Jesus Christ alone excepted), did ever come there any other way but by forgiveness of sins.” ~ John Owen

“What do we want? What would we be at? What do our souls desire? Is it not that we might have a more full, clear, stable comprehension of the wisdom, love, grace, goodness, holiness, righteousness, and power of God, as declared and exalted in Christ unto our redemption and eternal salvation?” ~ John Owen

“God sometimes marvelously raiseth the souls of his saints with some close and near approaches unto them – gives them a sense of His eternal love, a taste of the embraces of His Son and the inhabitation of the Spirit, without the least intervening disturbance; and then this is their assurance. But this life is not a season to be always taking wages in; our work is not yet done; we are not always to abide in this mount; we must down again into the battle – fight again, cry again, complain again. Shall the soul be thought now to have lost its assurance? Not at all. It had before assurance with joy, triumph, and exultation; it hath it now, or may have, with wrestling, cries, tears, and supplications. And a man’s assurance may be as good, as true, when he lies on the earth with a sense of sin, as when he is carried up to the third heaven with a sense of love and foretaste of glory.” ~ John Owen

“Christ is the meat, the bread, the food of our souls. Nothing is in him of a higher spiritual nourishment than his love, which we should always desire.” ~ John Owen

“How many plead for their “freedom,” as they call it. They argue that they can do what they like and try what they want, so they run here and there to every seducer and salesman of false opinions. And what is the result? Few go unhurt, and the majority lose their faith. Let no one fear sin without also fearing temptation. They are too closely allied to be separated. Satan has put them so close together that it is very hard to separate them. He hates not the fruit, who delights in the root.” ~ John Owen

“Being steadfast in belief does not exclude all temptations from without. When we say a tree is firmly rooted, we do not say the wind never blows upon it.” ~ John Owen

“On Christ’s glory I would fix all my thoughts and desires, and the more I see of the glory of Christ, the more the painted beauties of this world will wither in my eyes and I will be more and more crucified to this world. It will become to me like something dead and putrid, impossible for me to enjoy.” ~ John Owen

“To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect.” ~ John Owen

“Sin also carries on its war by entangling the affections and drawing them into an alliance against the mind. Grace may be enthroned in the mind, but if sin controls the affections, it has seized a fort from which it will continually assault the soul. Hence, as we shall see, mortification is chiefly directed to take place upon the affections.” ~ John Owen

“Before the work of grace the heart is ‘stony.’ It can do no more than a stone can do to please God.” ~ John Owen

“When we realize a constant enemy of the soul abides within us, what diligence and watchfulness we should have! How woeful is the sloth and negligence then of so many who live blind and asleep to this reality of sin. There is an exceeding efficacy and power in the indwelling sin of believers, for it constantly inclines itself towards evil. We need to be awake, then, if our hearts would know the ways of God. Our enemy is not only upon us, as it was with Samson, but it is also in us.” ~ John Owen

“Holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing and living out the gospel in our souls.” ~ John Owen

“The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to Him is not to believe that He loves you.” ~ John Owen

“Clearly the Holy Spirit is not merely a quality to be found in the divine nature … He is a holy intelligent person.” ~ John Owen

“When the Holy Spirit does His work of regeneration in the hearts of men He does not come on them with great powerful feelings and emotions which cannot be resisted. He does not possess men as evil spirits take possession of their victims.” ~ John Owen

“He that has slight thoughts of sin never had great thoughts of God.” ~ John Owen

“Trying to be holy from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world.” ~ John Owen

“The nature and end of judgment or sentence must be corrective, not vindictive; for healing, not destruction.” ~ John Owen

“Slothful and lazy souls never obtain one view of the glory of Christ.” ~ John Owen

“There is only one way to be revived and healed from our backslidings so that we may become fruitful even in old age. We must take a steady look at the glory of Christ in His special character, in His grace and work, as shown to us in the Scripture.” ~ John Owen

“Men are afraid to have good thoughts of God. They think it is a boldness to eye God as good, gracious, tender, kind, loving. I speak of saints. They can judge Him hard, austere, severe, almost implacable, and fierce (the very worst affections of the very worst of men, and most hated by God). Is not this soul-deceit from Satan? Was it not His design from the beginning to inject such thoughts of God? Assure yourself, then, there is nothing more acceptable to the Father than for us to keep up our hearts unto Him as the eternal fountain of all that rich grace which flows out to sinners in the blood of Jesus.” ~ John Owen

“We have so much of the Pharisee in us by nature, that it is sometimes well that our good is hid from us… It is a good life which is attended with a faith of righteousness and a sense of corruption. While I know Christ’s righteousness, I shall the less care to know my own holiness. To be holy is necessary; to know it, sometimes a temptation.” ~ John Owen

“Love precedes discipline.” ~ John Owen

“The Comforter gives a sweet and plentiful evidence and persuasion of the love of God to us, such as the soul is taken, delighted, satiated withal. This is His work, and He does it effectually. To give a poor sinful soul a comfortable persuasion, affecting it throughout, in all its faculties and affections, that God in Jesus Christ loves him, delights in him, is well pleased with him, hath thoughts of tenderness and kindness towards him; to give, I say, a soul an overflowing sense hereof, is an inexpressible mercy.” ~ John Owen

“A man may love another as his own soul, yet his love may not be able to help him. He may pity him in prison, but not relieve him, bemoan him in misery, but not help him, suffer with him in trouble, but not ease him. We cannot love grace into a child, nor mercy into a friend; we cannot love them into heaven, though it may be the greatest desire of our soul… But the love of Christ, being the love of God, is effective and fruitful in producing all the good things which He wills for His beloved. He loves life, grace and holiness into us; He loves us into covenant, loves us into heaven.” ~ John Owen

“How many millions of sins in every one of the elect, every one of which is enough to condemn them all, hath this love overcome! What mountains of unbelief doth it remove! Look upon the conduct of any one saint, consider the frame of his heart, see the many stains and spots, the defilements and infirmities with which his life is contaminated, and tell me whether the love that bears with all this is not to be admired. And is not the same towards thousands every day? What streams of grace, purging, pardoning, quickening, assisting, do flow from it every day! This is our Beloved.” ~ John Owen

“We are never nearer Christ than when we find ourselves lost in a holy amazement at His unspeakable love.” ~ John Owen

“Thoughts of the glory of Christ are too high and too hard for us. We cannot delight in them for very long without becoming weary and turning away from them. We are unspiritual, our thoughts and desires being taken up with other things. If we would stir ourselves to believe “the things the angels desire to look into”, our spiritual understanding and strength would increase daily. We would then show more of the glory of Christ by the way we live and death itself would be welcome to us!” ~ John Owen

“The heart in the Scripture is variously used; sometimes for the mind and understanding, sometimes for the will, sometimes for the affections, sometimes for the conscience, sometimes for the whole soul. Generally, it denotes the whole soul of man and all the faculties of it, not absolutely, but as they are all one principle of moral operations, as they concur in our doing good or evil…the seat and subject of the law of sin is the heart of man.” ~ John Owen

“If we do not have some knowledge by faith of the glory of Christ here and now, it means that we have no real desire for His presence in heaven.” ~ John Owen

“We shall not benefit from reading the Old Testament unless we look for and meditate on the glory of Christ in its pages.” ~ John Owen

“I do not understand how a man can be a true believer, in whom sin is not the greatest burden, sorrow and trouble.” ~ John Owen

“A sermon is not made with an eye upon the sermon, but with both eyes upon the people and all the heart upon God.” ~ John Owen

“Satan’s greatest success is in making people think they have plenty of time before they die to consider their eternal welfare.” ~ John Owen

“The best duties of unbelievers are but white lies.” ~ John Owen

“Sin aims always at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go out the utmost sin in that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, every thought of unbelief would be atheism, might it grow to its head.” ~ John Owen

“This is the saddest warfare that any poor creature can be engaged in (fighting against sin without the Holy Spirit). A soul under the power of conviction from the law is pressed to fight against sin, but hath no strength for the contest. They cannot but fight, and they can never conquer; they are like men thrust on the sword of enemies on purpose to be slain. The law drives them on, and sin beats them back.” ~ John Owen

“There is no death of sin without the death of Christ.” ~ John Owen

“The purpose of our holy and righteous God was to save His church, but their sin could not go unpunished. It was, therefore, necessary that the punishment for that sin be transferred from those who deserved it but could not bear it, to one who did not deserve it but was able to bear it.” ~ John Owen

“The Lord Christ comes to convinced sinners with His invitation: “Poor creatures! How sad is your condition! What has become of the beauty and glory of the image of God in which you were created? You are now in the deformed image of Satan and even worse, eternal misery lies before you. Yet look up once more; behold Me! I will put Myself in your place. I will bear that burden of guilt and punishment which would sink you to hell for ever. I will be made temporarily a curse for you, that you may have eternal blessedness.”” ~ John Owen

“When He took on Him the form of a servant in our nature, He became what He had never been before, but He did not cease to be what He always had been in His divine nature. He who is God cannot ever cease to be God.” ~ John Owen

“There is an infinite distance between God and His creatures, and it is an act of sheer grace for Him to take notice of earthly things. Christ, as God, is completely self-sufficient in His own eternal blessedness. How great, then, is the glory of His self-humiliation in taking our nature that He might bring us to God! Such humiliation was not forced on Him; He freely chose to do it.” ~ John Owen

“He who prays as he ought will endeavor to live as he prays.” ~ John Owen

“We cannot enjoy peace in this world unless we are ready to yield to the will of God in respect of death. Our times are in His hand, at His sovereign disposal. We must accept that as best.” ~ John Owen

“Unless we are thoroughly convinced that without Christ we are under the eternal curse of God, as the worst of His enemies, we shall never flee to Him for refuge.” ~ John Owen

“Only what God has commanded in His word should be regarded as binding; in all else there may be liberty of actions.” ~ John Owen

“The nearer anyone is to heaven, the more earnestly he desires to be there, because Christ is there.” ~ John Owen

“Why does the Lord Christ sometimes hide Himself and His glory from the faith of believers? There are many reasons but I will mention only one. He does it to stir us up to search for Him with all our heart. Our wretched laziness so often makes us neglect meditation on heavenly things. But Christ is patient with us. He knows that those who have seen something of His glory, although they have not valued it as they ought, cannot bear His absence for long.” ~ John Owen

“God speaks by the Church (the true Church we mean); but He speaks nothing by her but what He speaks in the Scriptures, which she does only ministerially declare to us; and therefore the authority of God and His law is above hers, who, though she publish, yet did not make it, but is herself subject to it.” ~ John Owen

“He that is more frequent in his pulpit to his people than he is in his closet for his people is but a sorry watchman.” ~ John Owen

“The person who never meditates with delight on the glory of Christ in the Scriptures now will not have any real desire to see that glory in heaven. What sort of faith and love do people have who find time to think about many other things but make no time for meditating on this glorious subject?” ~ John Owen

“If I have observed anything by experience, it is this: a man may take the measure of his growth and decay in grace according to his thoughts and meditations upon the person of Christ, and the glory of Christ’s Kingdom, and of His love.” ~ John Owen

JONATHAN EDWARDS QUOTES

Born October 5, 1703, Jonathan Edwards studied divinity at Yale College before taking the pulpit in Northampton, Massachusetts. His sermons and writings embraced the idea of free will, along with a firm confidence in God’s righteousness. During the fiery Great Awakening, Edwards became a lighting rod for a movement that became a widespread religious revival.

Edwards became known widely for his fiery sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” which implored parishioners to embrace the teachings of Jesus Christ before they were banished to hell as nonbelievers.

The sermons and writings of Jonathan Edwards helped to shape the course of Protestant theology before, during, and after The Great Awakening of 1740-1742.

“God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is our proper; and is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of any, or all earthly friends. These are but shadows; but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“God’s purpose for my life was that I have a passion for God’s glory and that I have a passion for my joy in that glory, and that these two are one passion.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Of all the knowledge that we can ever obtain, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves, are the most important.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“All truth is given by revelation, either general or special, and it must be received by reason. Reason is the God-given means for discovering the truth that God discloses, whether in his world or his Word. While God wants to reach the heart with truth, he does not bypass the mind.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“A truly humble man is sensible of his natural distance from God; of his dependence on Him; of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom; and that it is by God’s power that he is upheld and provided for, and that he needs God’s wisdom to lead and guide him, and His might to enable him to do what he ought to do for Him.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts; the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the mind.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“He that has doctrinal knowledge and speculation only, without affection, never is engaged in the business of religion.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Truth is the agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“And yet some people actually imagine that the revelation in God’s Word is not enough to meet our needs. They think that God from time to time carries on an actual conversation with them, chatting with them, satisfying their doubts, testifying to His love for them, promising them support and blessings. As a result, their emotions soar; they are full of bubbling joy that is mixed with self-confidence and a high opinion of themselves. The foundation for these feelings, however, does not lie within the Bible itself, but instead rests on the sudden creations of their imaginations. These people are clearly deluded. God’s Word is for all of us and each of us; He does not need to give particular messages to particular people.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Godliness is more easily feigned in words than in actions” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“How can you expect to dwell with God forever, if you so neglect and forsake him here?” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Seek not to grow in knowledge chiefly for the sake of applause, and to enable you to dispute with others; but seek it for the benefit of your souls.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble broken-hearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires. Their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is a humble broken-hearted joy, and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, and more like a little child, and more disposed to a universal lowliness of behaviour.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“If the heart be chiefly and directly fixed on God, and the soul engaged to glorify Him, some degree of religious affection will be the effect and attendant of it. But to seek after affection directly and chiefly; to have the heart principally set upon that; is to place it in the room of God and His glory. If it be sought, that others may take notice of it, and admire us for our spirituality and forwardness in religion, it is then damnable pride; if for the sake of feeling the pleasure of being affected, it is then idolatry and self-gratification.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“From love arises hatred of those things which are contrary to what we love, or which oppose and thwart us in those things that we delight in.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“True Christian fortitude consists in strength of mind, through grace, exerted in two things; in ruling and suppressing the evil and unruly passions and affections of the mind; and in steadfastly and freely exerting and following good affections and dispositions, without being hindered by sinful fear or the opposition of enemies… Though Christian fortitude appears in withstanding and counteracting the enemies that are without us; yet it much more appears in resisting and suppressing the enemies that are within us; because they are our worst and strongest enemies and have greatest advantage against us. The strength of the good soldier of Jesus Christ appears in nothing more than in steadfastly maintaining the holy calm, meekness, sweetness, and benevolence of his mind, amidst all the storms, injuries, strange behaviour, and surprising acts and events of this evil and unreasonable world.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“One of these grand defects, as I humbly conceive, is this, that children are habituated to learning without understanding.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“If I murmur in the least at affliction, if I am in any way uncharitable, if I revenge my own case, if I do anything purely to please myself or omit anything because it is a great denial, if I trust myself, if I take any praise for any good which Christ does by me, or if I am in any way proud, I shall act as my own and not God’s.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Nothing sets a Christian so much out of the devil’s reach than humility.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“As God delights in his own beauty, he must necessarily delight in the creature’s holiness which is a conformity to and participation of it, as truly as [the] brightness of a jewel, held in the sun’s beams, is a participation or derivation of the sun’s brightness, though immensely less in degree.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Spiritual pride tends to speak of other persons’ sins with bitterness or with laughter and levity and an air of contempt. But pure Christian humility rather tends either to be silent about these problems or to speak of them with grief and pity. Spiritual pride is very apt to suspect others, but a humble Christian is most guarded about himself. He is as suspicious of nothing in the world as he is of his own heart. The proud person is apt to find fault with other believers, that they are low in grace, and to be much in observing how cold and dead they are and to be quick to note their deficiencies. But the humble Christian has so much to do at home and sees so much evil in his own heart and is so concerned about it that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts. He is apt to esteem others better than himself.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“All earthly desires are but streams, but God is the ocean. ” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Men will trust in God no further than they know Him; and they cannot be in the exercise of faith in Him one ace further than they have a sight of His fullness and faithfulness in exercise.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“The spirit of bondage works by fear for the slave fears the rod: but love cries, Abba, Father; it disposes us to go to God, and behave ourselves towards God as children; and it gives us clear evidence of our union to God as His children, and so casts out fear. So that it appears that the witness of the Spirit the apostle speaks of, is far from being any whisper, or immediate suggestion or revelation; but that gracious holy effect of the Spirit of God in the hearts of the saints, the disposition and temper of children, appearing in sweet childlike love to God, which casts out fear or a spirit of a slave.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“I claim no right to myself, no right to this understanding, this will, these affections that are in me. Neither do I have any right to this body or its members, no right to this tongue, to these hands, feet, ears or eyes. I have given myself clear away and not retained anything of my own.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“By the grace of God we will never pluck unripe fruit. We will never press people to decision, because we’ll lead them to damnation and not salvation.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“When indeed it is in God we live, and move, and have our being. We cannot draw a breath without his help.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“That the reason why they are not fallen already and do not fall now is only that God’s appointed time is not come. For it is said, that when that due time, or appointed time comes, their foot shall slide. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined by their own weight. God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then, at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction; as he that stands on such slippery declining ground, on the edge of a pit, he cannot stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is to life.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“In all your course, walk with God and follow Christ as a little, poor, helpless child, taking hold of Christ’s hand, keeping your eye on the mark of the wounds on his hands and side, whence came the blood that cleanses you from sin and hiding your nakedness under the skirt of the white shining robe of his righteousness.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“So that it must be only by the imagination that Satan has access to the soul, to tempt and delude it, or suggest anything to it. And this seems to be the reason why persons that are under the disease of melancholy are commonly so visibly and remarkably subject to the suggestions and temptations of Satan… Innumerable are the ways by which the mind may be led on to all kind of evil thoughts, by the exciting of external ideas in the imagination.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“A poor man is not disposed to quick and high resentment when he is among the rich: he is apt to yield to others, for he knows others are above him: he is not stiff and self-willed; he is patient with hard fare; he expects no other than to be despised, and takes it patiently; he does not take it heinously that he overlooked and but little regarded; he is prepared to be in a lowly place; he readily honours his superiors; he takes reproofs quietly; he readily honours others as above him; he easily yields to be taught, and does not claim much to his understanding and judgment; he is not over-nice or humoursome, and has his spirit subdued to hard things; he is not assuming, nor apt to take much upon him, but it is natural for him to be subject to others. Thus it is with the humble Christian.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.” ~ Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

“We ought not to limit God where He has not limited Himself.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“All our good is more apparently from God, because we are first naked and wholly without any good, and afterwards enrich with all good.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“My soul longs to feel itself more of a pilgrim and stranger here below; that nothing may divert me from pressing through the lonely desert, till I arrive at my Father’s house.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“When God is here spoken of as hardening some of the children of men, it is not to be understood that God by any positive efficiency hardens any man’s heart. There is no positive act in God, as though he put forth any power to harden the heart. To suppose any such thing would be to make God the immediate author of sin. God is said to harden men in two ways: by withholding the powerful influences of his Spirit, without which their hearts will remain hardened, and grow harder and harder; in this sense he hardens them, as he leaves them to hardness. And again, by ordering those things in his providence which, through the abuse of their corruption, become the occasion of their hardening. Thus God sends his word and ordinances to men which, by their abuse, prove an occasion of their hardening.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“There are always two sides to every story, and it is generally wise, and safe, and charitable, to take the best; and yet there is probably no one way in which persons are so liable to be wrong, as in presuming the worst is true, and in forming and expressing their judgement of others, and of their actions, without waiting till all the truth is known.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“People may love a God of their own imaginations, when they are far from loving such a God as reigns in heaven.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“None that will come to Christ, let his condition be what it will, need to fear but that Christ will provide a place suitable for him in heaven.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Nothing grieves me so much as that I cannot live constantly to God’s glory.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Oh, the closest walk with God is the sweetest heaven that can be enjoyed on earth!” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Religion consists much in holy affection; but those exercises of affection which are most distinguishing of true religion are these practical exercises. Friendship between earthly friends consists much in affection; but those strong exercises of affection that actually carry them through fire and water for each other are the highest evidences of true friendship.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“How can God be happy and decree calamity? Consider that he has the capacity to view the world through two lenses. Through the narrow one he is grieved and angered at sin and pain. Through the wide one he sees evil in relation to its eternal purposes. Reality is like a mosaic. The parts may be ugly in themselves, but the whole is beautiful.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“The good Lord grant, that false religion may cease, and true religion prevail through the earth!” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“The way to Heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Thus there is a difference between having an opinion that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man can’t have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Christians need constant reminders of how amazingly glorious our great God really is and what his glory means for our lives.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“The harder the heart is, the more dead is it in sin, and the more unable to exert good affections and acts.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“We can’t be saved without being good, but ’tis not because our goodness is sufficient, or can do anything of itself. But ’tis because all whose hearts come to Christ will be good, and if men aren’t good, their hearts never will come to Christ.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“True virtue never looks so lovely as when it is most oppressed, and the divine excellence of real Christianity is never demonstrated as clearly as when it faces trials.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“If we be never obliged to relieve others’ burdens, but when we can do it without burdening ourselves, then how do we bear our neighbor’s burdens, when we bear no burden at all?” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so ’tis easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by; thus easy is it for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell. What are we, that we should think to stand before him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before whom the rocks are thrown down!” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Till you have savingly believed in Christ, all your desires, and pains, and prayers lay God under no obligation” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“So if a man live in any way of lasciviousness, the more his impure lust prevails, the more sweet and pleasant will it make the sin appear, and so the more will he be disposed and prejudiced to think there is no evil in it.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Yea, God is a great deal more angry with great numbers that are now on earth, yea, doubtless, with many that are now in this congregation, that, it may be, are at ease and quiet, than He is with many of those that are now in the flames of Hell.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Sin is the ruin and misery of the soul; it is destructive in its nature; and if God should leave it without restraint, there would need nothing else to make the soul perfectly miserable.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“But here you are in the land of the living and in the house of God, and have an opportunity to obtain salvation. What would not those poor, damned, hopeless souls give for one day’s such opportunity as you now enjoy!” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“God has laid himself under no obligation, by any promise, to keep any natural man out of hell one moment. God certainly has made no promises either of eternal life, or of any deliverance or preservation from eternal death, but what are contained in the covenant of grace, the promises that are given in Christ, in whom all the promises are yea and amen.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“There are none in hell but what have been haters of God, and so have procured His wrath and hatred on themselves; and there they shall continue to hate Him forever.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger to irrational beings.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Those who are backslidden are much more hardened in their sin than they were before. They are like iron which being once heated and cooled again becomes much harder than before.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by his rules. And family education and order are some of the chief of the means of grace. If these fail, all other means are like to prove ineffectual. If these are duly maintained, all the means of grace will be like to prosper and be successful.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other, is by music. When I would form in my mind an idea of a society in the highest degree happy, I think of them as expressing their love, their joy, and the inward concord and harmony and spiritual beauty of their souls by sweetly singing to each other.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Arminian notion of Liberty of the Will, consisting in the will’s Self-determination, is repugnant to itself, and shuts itself wholly out of the world.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“A man never, in any instance, wills any thing contrary to his desires, or desires any thing contrary to his will.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“A moral Agent is a being that is capable of those actions that have a moral quality, and which can properly be denominated good or evil in a moral sense, virtuous or vicious, commendable or faulty.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Our having all of God shows the fullness of His power and grace: our having all through Him shows the fullness of His merit and worthiness; and our having all in Him demonstrates His fullness of beauty, love and happiness.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

“Faith abases men and exalts God, it gives all the glory of redemption to God alone.” ~ Jonathan Edwards

LEONARD RAVENHILL QUOTES

Very little biographical information is available for Leonard Ravenhill. He rarely spoke of himself which is likely a reflection of his belief in exalting Christ and not self. Most of what we know about Ravenhill is from sources that knew him and the details he provided in sermons. He was an evangelist born in Leeds, Yorkshire, England in 1907 and was used by God in revivals in Great Britain before moving to American in 1950. Leonard Ravenhill was known for his focus on revival and his writing on the subject including the popular title, Why Revival Tarries.

Ravenhill preached in churches of many denominations, but was not ordained by any. His preaching is marked by calling sinners to repentance, insisting Christians live lives marked by holiness, and encouraging deeper prayer lives. Ravenhill claims to have been saved at age 14, but says he was baptized by the Holy Spirit at age 18 indicating belief in a Pentecostal system. However, Ravenhill also said he never spoke in tongues and said that baptism of the Holy Spirit is the same thing Wesley called sanctification and also said the only evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit is holy living. He rejected Christian Perfection, but preached a Wesleyan-Holiness higher Christian life theology. Ravenhill speaks of John Wesley frequently and wrote a biographical sketch of him. Wesley’s influence on Ravenhill is apparent.

Leonard Ravenhill was a mentor to Keith Green of Last Days Ministries based in Texas. Later in his life, Leonard moved to Texas close to Last Day Ministries where he led a weekly prayer meeting and taught classes before dying in November of 1994.

“No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few prayers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Entertainment is the devil’s substitute for joy.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“The greatest miracle that God can do today is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world and make him holy, then put him back into that unholy world and keep him holy in it.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“How can you pull down strongholds of Satan if you don’t even have the strength to turn off your TV?” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“There are two kinds of people in the world – only two kinds. Not black or white, rich or poor, but those either dead in sin or dead to sin.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“If we displease God, does it matter whom we please? If we please Him does it matter whom we displease?” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Preacher, keep your knees on the ground & your eyes on the throne.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“You can’t live wrong and pray right.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“The early church was married to poverty, prisons and persecutions. Today, the church is married to prosperity, personality, and popularity.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“When there’s something in the Bible that churches don’t like, they call it legalism.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“One of these days some simple soul will pick up the book of God, read it, and believe it. Then the rest of us will be embarrassed.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“My goal is GOD HIMSELF. Not joy, not peace, not even blessing but HIMSELF…my GOD.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Entertainment is the devil’s substitute for joy. The more joy you have in the Lord the less entertainment you need.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“But you know if God should stamp eternity or even judgment on our eyeballs, or if you’d like on the fleshy table of our hearts I am quite convinced we’d be a very, very different tribe of people, God’s people, in the world today. We live too much in time, we’re too earth bound. We see as other men see, we think as other men think. We invest our time as the world invests it. We’re supposed to be a different breed of people. I believe that the church of Jesus Christ needs a new revelation of the majesty of God. We’re all going to stand one day, can you imagine it- at the judgment seat of Christ to give an account for the deeds done in the body. This is what- this is the King of kings, and He’s the Judge of judges, and it’s the Tribunal of tribunals, and there’s no court of appeal after it. The verdict is final.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“There are three persons living in each of us: the one we think we are, the one other people think we are, and the one God knows we are.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“LORD strengthen me where I am too weak and weaken me where I am too strong!” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Is the world crucified to you or does it fascinate you?” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Satan fools and feigns, blows and bluffs, and we so often take his threats to heart and forget the “exceeding greatness of God’s power to us.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“The Church right now has more fashion than passion, is more pathetic than prophetic, is more superficial than supernatural.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“The apostles had no gold, but lots of glory. We have lots of gold, but no glory.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“If Thou canst do something with us and through us, then please, God, do something without us! Bypass us and take up a people who now know Thee not!” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“The Christless cults and deity-dishonoring mushroom religions of this midnight hour tempt the Lord God. Will no one sound the alarm?” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“There is a world of difference between knowing the Word of God and knowing the God of the Word.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“The evangelists today are very often prepared to be anything to anybody as long as they can get somebody to the altar for something. They glibly call out: ‘‘Who wants help? Who wants more power? Who wants a closer walk with God?’’ Such a sinning, repenting ‘‘easy believeism’’ dishonors the blood and prostitutes the altar. We must alter the altar, for the altar is a place to die on. Let those who will not pay this price leave it alone!” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Sodom, which had no Bible, no preachers, no tracts, no prayer meetings, no churches, perished. How then will America and England be spared from the wrath of the Almighty, think you? We have millions of Bibles, scores of thousands of churches, endless preachers – and yet what sin!” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Notice, we never pray for folks we gossip about, and we never gossip about the folk for whom we pray! For prayer is a great deterrent.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Today God is bypassing men – not because they are too ignorant, but because they are too self-sufficient. Brethren, our abilities are our handicaps, and our talents our stumbling blocks!” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“We are not Protestants any more – just ‘‘non-Catholics’’! Of what and of whom do we protest? Were we half as hot as we think we are, and a tenth as powerful as we say we are, our Christians would be baptized in blood, as well as in water and in fire.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Prayer does not condition God; prayer conditions us. Prayer does not win God to our view; it reveals God’s view to us.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Christianity today is so subnormal that if any Christian began to act like a normal New Testament Christian, he would be considered abnormal” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“It has been well said that there are only three classes of people in the world today: those who are afraid, those who do not know enough to be afraid, and those who know their Bibles.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“The tragedy of this late hour is that we have too many dead men in the pulpits giving out too many dead sermons to too many dead people.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“At this grim hour, the world sleeps in the darkness, and the Church sleeps in the light” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“If you want to be popular, preach happiness. If you want to be unpopular, preach holiness.” ~Leonard Ravenhill

“Paul never glamorized the gospel! It is not success, but sacrifice! It’s not a glamorous gospel, but a bloody gospel, a gory gospel, and a sacrificial gospel! 5 minutes inside eternity and we will wish that we had sacrificed more! Wept more, bled more, grieved more, loved more, prayed more, given more!” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“In revival, God is not concerned about filling empty churches, He is concerned about filling empty hearts.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Prayer is not an argument with God to persuade him to move things our way, but an exercise by which we are enabled by his Spirit to move ourselves his way.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“A man who is intimate with God will never be intimidated by men.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Most Christians pray to be blessed. Few pray to be broken.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“You know, people say that today. “I am a saved sinner.” That is like saying you are a married bachelor. That is like saying you are an honest thief, or a pure harlot. you can’t be a saved sinner. You are either saved or you are a sinner. He came. “Thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall save his people from their sins.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Prayer is not a preparation for the battle; it is the battle!” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Five minutes after you die you’ll know how you should have lived.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Christians don’t tell lies, they just go to church and sing them. How many times have you stood and sang, “Take my life and let it be” when you haven’t given Him one ounce?” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“I’ve got the Father on my side, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and
2/3 of the angels. What do you think I’m going to do? Sit down and cry?” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“The Bible definitely is infallible, how else could it survive so many years of bad preaching?” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“You know, we live in a day when we are more afraid of holiness than we are of sinfulness.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“The self-sufficient does not pray, the self-satisfied will not pray, the self-righteous cannot pray. No man is greater than his prayer life.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Why do we expect to be better treated in this world than Jesus was?” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Smart men walked on the moon, daring men walked on the ocean floor, but wise men walk with God.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“If you’re going to be a true Christian, I’ll tell you one thing amongst others: it’ll be a lonely life. It’s a narrow way and it becomes narrower and narrower and narrower.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Christ has not conquered my affections if He has to compete for my attention.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“The sinner’s prayer has sent more people to Hell than all the bars in America.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Many pastors criticize me for taking the Gospel so seriously. But do they really think that on Judgment Day, Christ will chastise me, saying, ‘Leonard, you took Me too seriously’?” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“You can have all of your doctrines right – yet still not have the presence of God.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“The Church used to be a lifeboat rescuing the perishing. Now she is a cruise ship recruiting the promising.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“What are you going to do when you get to eternity, if you can’t stick in an hour with God down here?” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“To stand before men on behalf of God is one thing. To stand before God on behalf of men is something entirely different.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“It is much easier to wear a cross than to bear a cross.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Everyone recognizes that Stephen was Spirit-filled when he was performing wonders. Yet, he was just as Spirit-filled when he was being stoned to death.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“You can’t develop character by reading books. You develop it from conflict.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“If there are a million roads into Hell, there’s not one road out.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“I have no faith in my faith. My faith is in the faithful God.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“I find it most intriguing to contemplate the fact that while men are considering what place to give Jesus Christ in history, He has already decided what place to give them in eternity.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Get rid of this bunkum about the ‘carnal Christian’. Forget it! If you’re carnal, you’re not saved.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“The self-righteous never apologize.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Christianity is not being weighed in the balance and found wanting. It’s being tried, found difficult and rejected.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“Everyone wants to be clothed but no one wants to be stripped.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

“At any point in all of Eternity, we can say, ‘This is just the
beginning.’ How wonderful for those who are with Christ. How
unimaginably dreadful for those who are not.” ~ Leonard Ravenhill

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES QUOTES

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (December 20, 1899 – March 1, 1981) was a Welsh Protestant minister, preacher and medical doctor who was influential in the Reformed wing of the British evangelical movement in the 20th century. For almost 30 years, he was the minister of Westminster Chapel in London. Lloyd-Jones was strongly opposed to Liberal Christianity, which had become a part of many Christian denominations; he regarded it as aberrant. He disagreed with the broad church approach and encouraged evangelical Christians (particularly Anglicans) to leave their existing denominations. He believed that true Christian fellowship was possible only amongst those who shared common convictions regarding the nature of the faith. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones was married to Bethan Lloyd-Jones.

“In the last analysis it is not the temptations that meet us on the streets that determine our conduct; it is the heart of the man who faces them. Two men may face the same conditions; one falls, the other stands. The difference is not in the temptation but in the heart of the man.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“We have somehow got hold of the idea that error is only that which is outrageously wrong; and we do not seem to understand that the most dangerous person of all is the one who does not emphasize the right things.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“We must never separate the Spirit and the Word. The Spirit speaks to us through the Word; so we should always doubt and query any supposed revelation that is not entirely consistent with the Word of God. Indeed the essence of wisdom is to reject altogether the term “revelation” as far as we are concerned, and speak only of “illumination.” The revelation has been given once and for all, and what we need and what by the grace of God we can have, and do have, is illumination by the Spirit to understand the Word.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The Spirit does not glorify Himself; He glorifies the Son… This is, to me, one of the most amazing and remarkable things about the biblical doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit seems to hide Himself and to conceal Himself. He is always, as it were, putting the focus on the Son, and that is why I believe, and I believe profoundly, that the best test of all as to whether we have received the Spirit is to ask ourselves, what do we think of, and what do we know about, the Son. Is the Son real to us? That is the work of the Spirit. He is glorified indirectly; He is always pointing us to the Son.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The ultimate test of my understanding of the scriptural teaching is the amount of time I spend in prayer. As theology is ultimately the knowledge of God, the more theology I know, the more it should drive me to seek to know God. Not to know “about” Him but to know Him! The whole object of salvation is to bring me to knowledge of God… If all my knowledge does not lead me to prayer there is something wrong somewhere.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Their god is something which they created themselves, a being who is always prepared to oblige and excuse them. They do not worship him with awe and respect, indeed they do not worship him at all. They reveal that their so-called god is no god at all in their talk. For they are forever saying that “they simply cannot believe that God will punish the unrepentant sinner to all eternity, and this and that.” They cannot believe that God will do so, therefore, they draw the conclusion that God does not and will not. In other words, God does what they believe he ought to do or not do. What a false and blasphemous conception of God! How utterly untrue and unworthy! Such is the new paganism of today.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: “Why art thou cast down-what business have you to be disquieted?” You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: “Hope thou in God” -instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: “I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God.”” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“There is no purpose in having a basis or a confession of faith unless it is applied. So we must assert the element of discipline as being essential to the true life of the church. And what calls itself a church which does not believe in discipline, and does not use it and apply it, is therefore not a true church.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“To be a Christian is not only to believe the teaching of Christ, and to practice it; it is not only to try to follow the pattern and example of Christ; it is to be so vitally related to Christ that His life and His power are working in us. It is to be “in Christ,” it is for Christ to be in us.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“How do you know whether a man is a Christian? The answer is that his mouth is “shut”. I like this forthrightness of the Gospel. People need to have their mouths shut, “stopped”. They are forever talking about God, and criticizing God, and pontificating about what God should or should not do, and asking, “Why does God allow this and that?” You do not begin to be a Christian until your mouth is shut, is stopped, and you are speechless and have nothing to say.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“First of all, the evangelical is one who is entirely subservient to the Bible… This is true of every evangelical. He is a man of one Book; he starts with it; he submits himself to it; this is his authority.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Grace is favor shown to people who do not deserve any favor at all… We deserve nothing but hell. If you think you deserve heaven, take it from me, you are not a Christian.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“I sometimes think that the very essence of the whole Christian position and the secret of a successful spiritual life is just to realize two things: I must have complete, absolute confidence in God and no confidence in myself.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“If you do not desire to be holy I do not see that you have any right to think that you are a Christian.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Man is at his greatest and highest when upon his knees he comes face to face with God.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“You are always on duty in the Christian life, you can never relax. There is no such thing as a holiday in the spiritual realm.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Our supreme need, our only need, is to know God, the living God, and the power of His might. We need nothing else. It is just that, the power of the living God, to know that the living God is among us and that nothing else matters… I say, forget everything else. Forget everything else. We need to realize the presence of the living God amongst us. Let everything else be silent. This is no time for minor differences. We all need to know the touch of the power of the living God.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Revival, above everything else, is a glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is the restoration of Him to the center of the life of the Church. You find this warm devotion, personal devotion, to Him.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“What is preaching? Logic on fire! Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire. A true understanding and experience of the Truth must lead to this. I say again that a man who can speak about these things dispassionately has no right whatsoever to be in a pulpit; and should never be allowed to enter one.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“It is a kingdom which is to come, yes. But it is also a kingdom which has come. “The kingdom of God is among you” and “within you.” The kingdom of God is in every true Christian. He reigns in the Church when she acknowledges Him truly. The kingdom has come, the kingdom is coming, the kingdom is yet to come. Now we must always bear that in mind. Whenever Christ is enthroned as King, the kingdom of God is come, so that, while we cannot say that He is ruling over all in the world at the present time, He is certainly ruling in that way in the hearts and lives of all His people.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“We must be very careful to draw this distinction between essentials and non-essentials lest we become guilty of schism and begin to rend the body of Christ.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Would you like to be rid of this spiritual depression? The first thing you have to do is to say farewell now once and for ever to your past. Realize that it has been covered and blotted out in Christ. Never look back at your sins again. Say: “It is finished; it is covered by the Blood of Christ.” That is your first step. Take that and finish with yourself and all this talk about goodness, and look to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only then that true happiness and joy are possible for you. What you need is not to make resolutions to live a better life, to start fasting and sweating and praying. No! You just begin to say: “I rest my faith on Him alone who died for my transgressions to atone.”” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Man’s happiness was never meant to be determined by his circumstances, and that is the fatal blunder that we all tend to make… Man’s happiness depends on one thing only – and that is his relationship to God!… We cannot get it anywhere else. We must come back to the soul and to God who made it. We were made for Him, we are meant for Him, we have a correspondence with Him, and we will never come to rest until, like that needle on the compass, we strike that northern point, and there we come to rest – nowhere else.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“It was God’s hand that laid hold of me, and drew me out, and separated me to this work.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“You and I must never look at our past lives; we must never look at any sin in our past life in any way except that which leads us to praise God and to magnify His grace in Christ Jesus… When Paul looks at the past and sees his sin he does not stay in a corner and say, “I am not fit to be a Christian, I have done such terrible things.” Not at all. What it does to him, its effect upon him, is to make him praise God. He glories in grace and says, “And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.”” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Why believe the devil instead of believing God? Rise up and realize the truth about yourself – that all the past has gone, and you are one with Christ, and all your sins have been blotted out once and for ever. O let us remember that it is sin to doubt God’s Word. It is sin to allow the past, which God has dealt with, to rob us of our joy and our usefulness in the present and in the future.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“To dwell on the past simply causes failure in the present. While you are sitting down and bemoaning the past and regretting all the things you have not done, you are crippling yourself and preventing yourself from working in the present. Is that Christianity? Of course it is not.” ~Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Never look back; never waste your time in the present; never waste your energy; forget the past and rejoice in the fact that you are what you are by the grace of God, and that in the Divine alchemy of His marvelous grace you may yet have the greatest surprise of your life and existence and find that even in your case it will come to pass that the last shall be first. Praise God for the fact that you are what you are, and that you are in the Kingdom.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Our Lord does not promise to change life for us; He does not promise to remove difficulties and trials and problems and tribulations; He does not say that He is going to cut out all the thorns and leave the roses with their wonderful perfume. No; He faces life realistically, and tells us that these are things to which the flesh is heir, and which are bound to come. But He assures us that we can so know Him that, whatever happens, we need never be frightened, we need never be alarmed.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Not to be in fellowship with those who are born again is to be guilty of schism, which is sinful.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Whenever I see myself before God and realize something of what my blessed Lord has done for me at Calvary, I am ready to forgive anybody anything. I cannot withhold it. I do not even want to withhold it.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

““Schism” – People who were agreed about the centralities of the faith dividing and separating from one another over matters that were not essential to salvation, not absolutely vital. This is always one of the dangers afflicting us as evangelicals… We can be so rigid, so over-strict, and so narrow that we become guilty of schism.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Our justification means not only that our sins are forgiven and that we have been declared to be righteous by God Himself, not merely that we were righteous at the moment when we believed, but permanently righteous. For justification means this also, that we are given by God the positive righteousness of His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Though we are all Christians together, we are all different, and the problems and the difficulties, the perplexities and the trials that we are likely to meet are in a large measure determined by the difference of temperament and of type. We are all in the same fight, of course, as we share the same common salvation, and have the same common central need. But the manifestations of the trouble vary from case to case and from person to person. There is nothing more futile, when dealing with [a] condition, than to act on the assumption that all Christians are identical in every respect. They are not, and they are not even meant to be.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“If we only spent more of our time in looking at Him we should soon forget ourselves.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Faith is a refusal to panic.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Faith is this extraordinary principle which links man to God; faith is this thing that keeps a man from hell and puts him in heaven; it is the connection between this world and the world to come; faith is this mystic astounding thing that can take a man dead in trespasses and sins and make him live as a new being, a new man in Christ Jesus.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The greatest of all the temptations that assail a preacher is pride. Pride, because he is set up there almost on a pedestal. He is standing in a pulpit, he is above the people, all of whom are looking to him. He has this leading place in the Church, in the community; and so his greatest temptation is that of pride. Pride is probably the deadliest and the most subtle of all sins, and it can assume many forms; but as long as one realizes this all is well.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The main trouble with the Christian Church today is that she is too much like a clinic, too much like a hospital; that is why the great world is going to hell outside!… Look at the great campaign, look at it objectively, look at it from God’s standpoint. Forget yourself and your temporary troubles and ills for the moment; fight in the army. It is not a clinic you need; you must realize that we are in a barracks, and that we are involved in a mighty campaign.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“I am a Calvinist; I believe in election and predestination; but I would not dream of putting it under the heading of essential. I put it under the heading of non-essential… You are not saved by your precise understanding of how this great salvation comes to you. What you must be clear about is that you are lost and damned, hopeless and helpless, and that nothing can save you but the grace of God in Jesus Christ and only Him crucified, bearing the punishment of your sins, dying, rising again, ascending, sending the Spirit, regeneration. Those are the essentials… While I myself hold very definite and strong views on the subject, I will not separate from a man who cannot accept and believe the doctrines of election and predestination, and is Arminian, as long as he tells me that we are all saved by grace, and as long as the Calvinist agrees, as he must, that God calls all men everywhere to repentance. As long as both are prepared to agree about these things I say we must not break fellowship. So I put election into the category of non-essentials.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The gospel is open to all; the most respectable sinner has no more claim on it than the worst.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“That is what preaching [the Bible] is meant to do. It addresses us in such a manner as to bring us under judgment; and it deals with us in such a way that we feel our whole life is involved, and we go out saying, “I can never go back and live just as I did before. This has done something to me; it has made a difference to me. I am a different person as the result of listening to this.”” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Above all – and again this I regard as most important of all – always respond to every impulse to pray… It is the work of the Holy Spirit… So never resist, never postpone it, never push it aside because you are busy. Give yourself to it, yield to it; and you will find not only that you have not been wasting time with respect to the matter with which you are dealing, but that actually it has helped you greatly in that respect.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“As Christians we should never feel sorry for ourselves. The moment we do so, we lose our energy, we lose the will to fight and the will to live, and are paralyzed.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“I have known men…who have been utterly, entirely orthodox, but the churches to which they belonged not only did not have prayer meetings, but they did not believe in prayer meetings. You could not wish for anything better from the standpoint of orthodoxy, but they do not believe in prayer meetings. Prayer has very little place in their lives. Now while they may be orthodox, I take leave to suggest that they are not truly evangelical. This element of prayer is essential to the evangelical; it is his life; it is vital to him.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“When a man is speaking to God he is at his very acme. It is the highest activity of the human soul, and therefore it is at the same time the ultimate test of a man’s true spiritual condition. There is nothing that tells the truth about us as Christian people so much as our prayer life. Everything we do in the Christian life is easier than prayer.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Does it grieve you my friends, that the name of God is being taken in vain and desecrated? Does it grieve you that we are living in a godless age…But, we are living in such an age and the main reason we should be praying about revival is that we are anxious to see God’s name vindicated and His glory manifested. We should be anxious to see something happening that will arrest the nations, all the peoples, and cause them to stop and to think again.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Even adultery is not the unforgivable sin. It is a terrible sin, but God forbid that there should be anyone who feels that he or she has sinned himself or herself outside the love of God or outside His kingdom because of adultery. No; if you truly repent and realize the enormity of your sin and cast yourself upon the boundless love and mercy and grace of God, you can be forgiven and I assure you of pardon. But hear the words of our blessed Lord: “Go and sin no more.”” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The glory of the gospel is that when the church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“If you do not believe in the unique deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are not a Christian, whatever else you may be. We are not looking at a good Man only, we are not interested merely in the greatest Teacher the world has ever seen; we are face to face with the fact that God, the Eternal Son, has been in this world, and that He took upon Him human nature and dwelt among us, a Man amongst men – God-Man. We are face to face with the mystery and the marvel of the Incarnation and of the Virgin Birth. It is all here, and it shines out in all the fullness of its amazing glory. “What manner of Man is this?” He is more than Man. That is the answer – He is also God.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“You must be made miserable before you can know true Christian joy. Indeed the real trouble with the miserable Christian is that he has never been truly made miserable because of conviction of sin. He has by-passed the essential preliminary to joy, he has been assuming something that he has no right to assume.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Prayer, in many ways, is the supreme expression of our faith in God.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“We all desire to be happy. That is something that is innate in human nature; nobody wants to be miserable, though I am aware of the fact that there are people who seem to enjoy being miserable and some who seem to find their happiness in being unhappy!” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“We must come back to the soul and to God who made it. We were made for Him, we are meant for Him, we have a correspondence with Him, and we will never come to rest until, like that needle on the compass, we strike that northern point, and there we come to rest – nowhere else.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The ultimate test of our spirituality is the measure of our amazement at the grace of God.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Repentance means that you realize that you are a guilty, vile sinner in the presence of God, that you deserve the wrath and punishment of God, that you are hell-bound. It means that you begin to realize that this thing called sin is in you, that you long to get rid of it, and that you turn your back on it in every shape and form. You renounce the world whatever the cost, the world in its mind and outlook as well as its practice, and you deny yourself, and take up the cross and go after Christ. Your nearest and dearest, and the whole world, may call you a fool, or say you have religious mania. You may have to suffer financially, but it makes no difference. That is repentance.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Do we realize that if we truly understand the doctrine of justification by faith we have already grasped the essence and the nerve of the New Testament teaching about holiness and sanctification? Have we realized that to be justified by faith guarantees our sanctification, and that therefore we must never think of sanctification as a separate and subsequent experience?” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“There is nothing which so certifies the genuineness of a man’s faith as his patience and his patient endurance, his keeping on steadily in spite of everything.” ~Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The man who is meek is not even sensitive about himself. He is not always watching himself and his own interests. He is not always on the defensive… To be truly meek means we no longer protect ourselves, because we see there is nothing worth defending… The man who is truly meek never pities himself, he is never sorry for himself. He never talks to himself and says, “You are having a hard time, how unkind these people are not to understand you.” The man who is truly meek never pities himself, he is never sorry for himself. He never talks to himself and says, “You are having a hard time, how unkind these people are not to understand you.”” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Philosophy has always been the cause of the church going astray, for philosophy means, ultimately, a trusting to human reason and human understanding. The philosopher wants to encompass all truth; he wants to categorize and explain everything, and that is why…(philosophy is) diametrically opposed to the preaching of the gospel.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“I do not know what you feel, but I never cease to be grateful to these disciples. I am grateful for the record of every mistake they ever made, and for every blunder they ever committed, because I see myself in them. How grateful we should be to God that we have these Scriptures, how grateful to Him that He has not merely given us the gospel and left it at that. How wonderful it is that we can read accounts like this and see ourselves depicted in them, and how grateful we should be to God that it is a divinely inspired Word which speaks the truth, and shows and pictures every human frailty.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“So the Cross does not merely tell us that God forgives, it tells us that that is God’s way of making forgiveness possible. It is the way in which we understand how God forgives. I will go further: How can God forgive and still remain God? – That is the question. The Cross is the vindication of God. The Cross is the vindication of the character of God. The Cross not only shows the love of God more gloriously than anything else, it shows His righteousness, His justice, His holiness, and all the glory of His eternal attributes. They are all to be seen shining together there. If you do not see them all you have not seen the Cross.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The church is always to be under the Word; she must be; we must keep her there. You must not assume that because the church started correctly, she will continue so. She did not do so in the New Testament times; she has not done so since. Without being constantly reformed by the Word the church becomes something very different. We must always keep the church under the Word.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“False teaching can appear in many different forms; but we can divide them into two main sections. Sometimes it takes the form of a blatant denial of the Truth and of the cardinal principles and tenets of the Christian faith… But false teaching does not always take that form. There is another form… Here it is not so much a denial of the faith, not so much a contradiction of the cardinal elements, as a teaching which suggests that something else is required in addition to what we have already believed.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Feelings must be engaged. They are meant to be involved… [Yet] our danger is to submit ourselves to our feelings and to allow them to dictate to us, to govern and to master us and to control the whole of our lives.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“We must not concentrate overmuch upon our feelings. Do not spend too much time feeling your own pulse taking your own spiritual temperature, do not spend too much time analyzing your feelings. That is the high road to morbidity.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Faith, obviously, is not a mere matter of feeling. It cannot be, because one’s feelings in this kind of condition can be very changeable. A Christian is not meant to be dejected when everything goes wrong. He is told to “rejoice”. Feelings belong to happiness alone, rejoicing takes in something much bigger than feelings; and if faith were a matter of feelings only, then when things go wrong and feelings change, faith will go. But faith is not a matter of feelings only, faith takes up the whole man including his mind, his intellect and his understanding. It is response to truth.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Holiness is not something we are called upon to do in order that we may become something; it is something we are to do because of what we already are.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“As Christian people we must learn to appropriate by faith the fact that God is our Father. Christ taught us to pray “Our Father.” This eternal everlasting God has become our Father and the moment we realize that, everything tends to change. He is our Father and He is always caring for us, He loves us with an everlasting love, He so loved us that He sent His only begotten Son into the world and to the Cross to die for our sins. That is our relationship to God and the moment we realize it, it transforms everything.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Nothing is a cause for divorce save fornication. It does not matter how difficult it may be, it does not matter what the stress or the strain, or whatever can be said about the incompatibility of temperament. Nothing is to dissolve this indissoluble bond save this one thing… It is this question of the “one flesh” again; and the person who is guilty of adultery has broken the bond and has become united to another. The link has gone, the one flesh no longer obtains, and therefore divorce is legitimate. Let me emphasize again, it is not a commandment. But it is a ground for divorce, and a man who finds himself in that position is entitled to divorce his wife, and the wife is entitled to divorce the husband.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“A sinner does not “decide” for Christ; the sinner “flies” to Christ in utter helplessness and despair saying – Foul, I to the fountain fly, Wash me, Saviour, or I die. No man truly comes to Christ unless he flies to Him as his only refuge and hope, his only way of escape from the accusations of conscience and the condemnation of God’s holy law. Nothing else is satisfactory. If a man says that having thought about the matter and having considered all sides he has on the whole decided for Christ, and if he has done so without any emotion or feeling, I cannot regard him as a man who has been regenerated. The convicted sinner no more “decides” for Christ than the poor drowning man “decides” to take hold of that rope that is thrown to him and suddenly provides him with the only means of escape. The term is entirely inappropriate.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The ultimate cause of all spiritual depression is unbelief. For if it were not for unbelief even the devil could do nothing. It is because we listen to the devil instead of listening to God that we go down before him and fall before his attacks. That is why this psalmist keeps on saying to himself: “Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise Him…” He reminds himself of God. Why? Because he was depressed and had forgotten God, so that his faith and his unbelief in God and in God’s power, and in his relationship to God, were not what they ought to be. We can indeed sum it all up by saying that the final and ultimate cause is just sheer unbelief.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Light entertainment, easy familiarity and jocularity are not compatible with a realization of the seriousness of the condition of the souls of all men by nature, the fact that they are lost and in danger of eternal perdition, and their consequent need of salvation. Not only that, such methods cannot bring out the Truth; and our business is to preach the Truth. These methods may affect people psychologically and in other respects, and they may lead to “decisions”; but our object is not merely to get decisions, it is to bring people to a knowledge of the Truth.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“There is something essentially wrong with a man who calls himself a Christian and who can listen to a truly evangelistic sermon without coming under conviction again, without feeling something of his own unworthiness, and rejoicing when he hears the Gospel remedy being presented.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“There are people who have an almost perfect knowledge of the letter of the Scripture but have never known the message of the Scripture.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“My dear friends, from the devil’s standpoint there is not the slightest difference between being puffed up with pride in yourself or spending the whole of your time condemning yourself. Either way the devil is very well-pleased. Any concentration upon self in any shape or form is of the devil.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The Son of God became man that the children of men might become children of God.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“This life is a kind of preparatory school for the great life that is awaiting us beyond death and time.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“So there is nothing more vital for us to realize than this very thing: the Christian life, the Christian faith, is not something that we add on to what we have; it is something that is done to us.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The chief thing is the love of God, the love of souls, a knowledge of the Truth, and the Holy Spirit within you.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“We are all fighting the same enemy. If you read through the Bible, you will find that. Read through the subsequent history of the Christian church, and you will find that God’s people in times of persecution have always been driven together and cemented together in a much closer manner than they had ever been at any other time. They are fighting the same common foe, so they draw together. And as Christians become fewer in number year by year in this country, it should have this effect upon us: we are aware of one another, and we draw closer together; our love for one another is increased because of our circumstances.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Adam, where are you?” In every respect, where are you, man? Where are you, woman? Come out of that hiding place and face the truth, for you have to. You are in God’s world. You are God’s creature, and you cannot avoid him. You cannot evade him. You have to deal with him. And if you do not listen to him in life, you will have to listen to him in death. When your name is called out at the great judgment throne in eternity, you will have to step forward and listen to the verdict.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“An ambassador from any country is always conscious of the fact that he has a tremendous responsibility because he is the representative by whom his country is going to be judged. And to us is given the privilege and responsibility of being the representatives of the Son of God in this world. We stand for him, people judge him by what they see in us, and they are perfectly entitled to do so because we are the ones through whom and in whom he is glorified. Do we, I wonder, always realize this?” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Faith means that I deliberately shut myself down to this Book, the Bible. I refuse to philosophize. I refuse to ask certain questions. People are always asking them. They want to understand the doctrine of the Trinity. You cannot. You will never understand it. It is too great. So you accept it; and you stop asking questions.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Thank God that it is not a matter of intellect, because if the recognition of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ were a matter of intellect and ability, then the way of salvation would not be a fair one. People with brains would have a great advantage over everybody else, and those who were ignorant and had not much intellectual power, would not be able to understand and grasp the truth. Consequently, they would not be saved and it would be a salvation for certain special intellectual people only. But thank God it is not that at all! In this matter of the recognition of the Lord Jesus Christ we are all exactly on a level, we are all in the same position. The greatest brain is never big enough to understand and to grasp it, but the Holy Spirit can enable the most ignorant unintelligent to understand.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Oh, yes, there are ways in which men can be destroyed short of murder. We can destroy a man’s reputation, we can shake somebody else’s confidence in him by whispering criticism or by deliberate fault finding. That is the kind of thing which our Lord is here indicating, and His whole purpose is to show that all that is included in this commandment: `Thou shalt not kill.’ Killing does not only mean destroying life physically, it means still more trying to destroy the spirit and the soul, destroying the person in any shape or form.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“There can be no more urgent question at this present time than just this: What is Christianity? I say that because this Gospel is the only hope in the world today. Everything else has been tried and found wanting. Everything else has failed. You will not find hope with the philosophers or with the statesmen, and you will not find it in the so-called religions of the world. Here is hope, and here alone.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“It is possible for a Christian to be perfectly orthodox and yet to be defeated, and to be living a defeated and a useless life.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“It is an essential part of the gospel that conviction must always precede conversion; the gospel of Christ condemns before it releases.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“I cannot help feeling that the final explanation of the state of the Church today is a defective sense of sin and it defective doctrine of sin. Coupled with that, of course, is a failure to understand the true nature of Christian joy. There is the double failure. There is not the real, deep conviction of sin as was once the case; and on the other hand there is this superficial conception of joy and happiness which is very different indeed from that which we find in the New Testament. Thus the defective doctrine of sin and the shallow idea of joy, working together, of necessity produce a superficial kind of person and a very inadequate kind of Christian life.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“If only we saw the things of which we are guilty so continually in the sight of God, and in the sight of utter holiness, we should hate them even as God Himself does.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“That, surely, gives us a picture of a great deal that is happening at the present time. This is one of the problems confronting the Christian Church today. This ‘affluent society’ in which we are living is drugging people and making them feel that all is well with them. They have better wages, better houses, better cars, every gadget desirable in the home; life is satisfactory and all seems to be well; and because of that people have ceased to think and to face the real problems. They are content with this superficial ease and satisfaction, and that militates against a true and a radical understanding of their actual condition. And, of course, this is aggravated at the present time by many other agencies. There is the pleasure mania, and television and radio bringing their influence right into the home. All these things persuade man that all is well; they give him temporary feelings of happiness; and so he assumes that all is well and stops thinking. The result is that he does not realize his true position and then face it.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“No man can tell what he will feel like tomorrow morning; you do not control that. Our business is to do something about these changing moods and not to allow ourselves to become victims of them.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Never do anything which you know perfectly well is going to be the means of temptation to you. If you know that certain things, which may not be bad in and of themselves, generally get you down and you are a worse person afterwards than you were before, do not do them; never, as it were, provide yourself with the occasion to sin.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“If one feels anything in the presence of God save an utter poverty of spirit, it ultimately means that you have never faced Him.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The real trouble with the Jews at the time of our Lord was that they stopped at the letter and never arrived at the spirit.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“What a gospel! What a glorious message! It can satisfy man’s mind completely, it can move his heart entirely, and it can lead to wholehearted obedience in the realm of the will. That is the gospel.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“You see, the joy of the Christian is a holy joy, the happiness of the Christian is a serious happiness.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“If my preaching of this cross is not an offense to the natural man, I am misrepresenting it.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“When we realize truly what we have to be, and what we have to do, we become inevitably `poor in spirit’. That in turn leads to that second state in which, realizing our own sinfulness and our own true nature, realizing that we are so helpless because of the indwelling of sin within us, and seeing the sin even in our best actions, thoughts and desires, we mourn and we cry out with the great apostle, `O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ But here, I say, is something which is still more searching-‘Blessed are the meek’.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“It is a terrible thing when a man reaches that point when he knows that he must die, and the gospel which he has argued about and reasoned about and even ‘defended’ does not seem to help him because it has never gripped him. It was just an intellectual hobby.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Mercy and truth are met together’, and if I can think of mercy only at the expense of truth and law, it is not true mercy, it is a false understanding of the term.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“According to Scripture, the trouble with man by nature is not that he is incomplete but that he is dead.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Thus the defective doctrine of sin and the shallow idea of joy, working together, of necessity produce a superficial kind of person and a very inadequate kind of Christian life.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Like many of my fellow preachers I acknowledge that my best and severest critic is my wife.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“If a man says that having thought about the matter and having considered all sides he has on the whole decided for Christ, and if he has done so without any emotion or feeling, I cannot regard him as a man who has been regenerated. The convicted sinner no more ‘decides’ for Christ than the poor drowning man ‘decides’ to take hold of that rope that is thrown to him and suddenly provides him with the only means of escape.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The meek already inherit the earth in this life, in this way. A man who is truly meek is a man who is always satisfied, he is a man who is already content.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“To rejoice is a command, yes, but there is all the difference in the world between rejoicing and being happy. You cannot make yourself happy, but you can make yourself rejoice, in the sense that you will always rejoice in the Lord. Happiness is something within ourselves, rejoicing is ‘in the Lord’.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“All the trouble in the world today is due to the fact that man is not right with God, for it is because he is not right with God that he has gone wrong everywhere else.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“My friends, one of the most glorious things I have ever seen is a man who has become a Christian in the slums and then, though remaining in the same place, has transformed his home and house there.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“According to the Scriptures happiness is never something that should be sought directly; it is always something that results from seeking something else.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“If only we knew something of the glory and the wonder of this new life of righteousness, we should desire nothing else.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“It is a very terrible sermon, this Sermon on the Mount. Be very careful as you read it, and especially when you talk about it. If you criticize this Sermon at any point you are really saying a great deal about yourself.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“A man who is truly Christian, as we have already seen, never objects to being humbled.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The way to love God is to begin to know God’s love to you.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“There are so many people trying to diagnose the human situation; and they come to the conclusion that man is sick, man is unhappy, man is the victim of circumstances. They believe therefore that his primary need is to have these things dealt with, that he must be delivered from them. But I suggest that that is too superficial a diagnosis of the condition of man, and that man’s real trouble is that he is a rebel against God and consequently under the wrath of God.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“I preached as never sure to preach again And as a dying man to dying men.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“For it is when a man sees himself in this unutterable hopelessness that the Holy Spirit reveals unto him the Lord Jesus Christ as his perfect satisfaction. Through the Spirit he sees that Christ has died for his sins and is standing as his advocate in the presence of God. He sees in Him the perfect provision that God has made and immediately he is comforted. That is the astounding thing about the Christian life. Your great sorrow leads to joy, and without the sorrow there is no joy.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The tragedy of sin, is that it affects man in his highest faculties.
Sin causes us to become fools, and behave in an irrational manner.
Modern man, far from being ruled by reason, is ruled by lust and passion.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The man who refuses to face the fact of his own death, is a fool!” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“I’d rather hobble into Heaven, than walk into Hell!” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The Cross not only shows the love of God more gloriously than anything else – it also shows His righteousness, His justice, His holiness, and all the glory of His eternal attributes. They are all to be seen shining together there.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“We must never parade ourselves.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“If you claim to love Christ and yet are living an unholy life, there is only one thing to say about you: You are a bare-faced liar!” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“To divorce forgiveness of sins from the actual living of the Christian life, is nothing but rank heresy.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The state of the world today, is nothing but an appalling monument to human failure.” ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

MATTHEW HENRY QUOTES

Matthew Henry (18 October 1662 – 22 June 1714) was a nonconformist minister and author, born in Wales but spending much of his life in England. He was born at Broad Oak, Iscoyd, a farmhouse on the borders of Flintshire and Shropshire. His father, Philip Henry, was a Church of England cleric and had just been ejected under the Act of Uniformity 1662. Unlike most of his fellow-sufferers, Philip possessed some private means, and was thus able to give his son a good education. Henry’s sister was diarist Sarah Savage.[1] Matthew went first to a school at Islington, at that time a village just outside London, and then to Gray’s Inn, in the heart of the capital. He soon gave up his legal studies for theology, and in 1687 became minister of a Presbyterian congregation at Chester.[2] While in Chester, Henry founded the Presbyterian Chapel in Trinity Street.[3] He moved again in 1712 to Mare Street, Hackney. Two years later, on 22 June 1714, he died suddenly of apoplexy at the Queen’s Aid House (41 High Street) in Nantwich, while on a journey from Chester to London.

“The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Peace is such a precious jewel that I would give anything for it but truth.” ~ Matthew Henry

“The fear of God reigning in the heart is the beauty of the soul.” ~ Matthew Henry

“It is easy to be religious when religion is in fashion; but it is an evidence of strong faith and resolution to swim against a stream to heaven, and to appear for God when no one else appears for Him.” ~ Matthew Henry

“A modest dress is a very good thing, if it be the genuine indication of a humble heart, and is to instruct; but it is a bad thing if it be the hypocritical disguise of a proud ambitious heart, and is to deceive. Let men be really as good as they seem to be, but not seem to be better than really they are.” ~ Matthew Henry

“The way to preserve the peace of the church is to preserve its purity.” ~ Matthew Henry

“No man will say, “There is no God” ’till he is so hardened in sin that it has become his interest that there should be none to call him to account.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Men cannot expect to do ill and fare well, but to find that done to them which they did to others.” ~ Matthew Henry

“The beauty of holiness is that which the grave, that consumes all other beauty, cannot touch, or do any damage to.” ~ Matthew Henry

“As if men did not die fast enough, they are ingenious at finding out ways to destroy one another.” ~ Matthew Henry

“To wait on God is to live a life of desire towards him, delight in him, dependence on him, and devotedness to him.” ~ Matthew Henry

“We must believe that He is able to do what He will, wise to do what is best, and good, according to His promise, to do what is best for us, if we love Him, and serve Him.” ~ Matthew Henry

“When God intends great mercy for his people, he first of all sets them praying.” ~ Matthew Henry

“The anger of a meek man is like fire struck out of steel, hard to be got out, and when it is, soon gone.” ~ Matthew Henry

“For us to err, with the Bible in our hands, is the effect of pride, sloth, and carelessness.” ~ Matthew Henry

“There may be idols in the heart, where there are none in the sanctuary.” ~ Matthew Henry

“When men drive God’s word from them he justly permits their delusions, and answers them according to the multitude of their idols.” ~ Matthew Henry

“All those who rejoice in the success of the church’s enemies will share with them in their downfall; and those who have most indulged themselves in pride and pleasure are the least able to bear calamities; their sorrows will be as excessive as their pleasure and jollity were before.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Note, It is common for those that are indulgent to their own sin to be severe against the sins of others.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Even when God is coming towards his people in ways of mercy, he sometimes takes such methods as that they may think themselves but ill treated.” ~Matthew Henry

“All obedience begins in the affections, and nothing in religion is done right, that is not done there first.” ~ Matthew Henry

“He that is in haste may contract much guilt in a little time. What we say or do unadvisedly when we are hot, we must unsay or undo again when we are cool, or do worse.” ~ Matthew Henry

“When we begin to fret and be uneasy, we ought to consider that God hears all our murmurings, though silent, and only the murmurings of the heart.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Though Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, yet not from the command of it” ~ Matthew Henry

“Events are not determined by the wheel of fortune, which is blind, but by the wheels of Providence, which are full of eyes” ~ Matthew Henry

“Outward losses drive good people to their prayers, but bad people to their curses.” ~ Matthew Henry

“The wits or wills of men, their inventions or their injunctions, cannot make that to be sin which the law of God has not made to be so.” ~ Matthew Henry

“That creature which we idolize God justly removes from us, or embitters to us.” ~ Matthew Henry

“The treasures of wisdom are hidden not from us, but for us, in Christ.” ~ Matthew Henry

“God will always have a church on earth; but he never said it should be infallible, or perfectly pure from corruption on this side heaven.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Those that name the name of Christ, but do not depart from iniquity, as that name binds them to do, name it in vain; their worship is vain” ~ Matthew Henry

“The way to forget our miseries, is to remember the God of our mercies.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Note, Our sorrow upon any account is sinful and inordinate when it diverts us from our duty to God and embitters our comfort in Him” ~ Matthew Henry

“It is a great mercy to be reclaimed and called home when we go astray, though it be by a tempest.” ~ Matthew Henry

“God’s time to help is when things are at the worst; and Providence verifies the paradox, The worse the better.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Pride makes a god of self, covetousness makes a god of money, sensuality makes a god of the belly; whatever is esteemed or loved, feared or served, delighted in or depended on, more than God, that (whatever it is) we do in effect make a god of.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Those that look with contempt upon worldly honours shall be recompensed with the honour that cometh from God, which is the true honour.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Note, Religion teaches good manners, and obliges us to give honour to those to whom honour is due.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Prayer is a salve for every sore, even the sorest, a remedy for every malady, even the most grievous.” ~ Matthew Henry

“None talk more absurdly than murmurers.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Wherever there is true grace, there is a desire for more grace.” ~ Matthew Henry

“We must first see the righteousness of God condemning, and then the righteousness of God justifying will appear worthy of all acceptation.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Sin is the death of the soul.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Those that multiply gods multiply griefs to themselves; for, whoever thinks one God too little, will find two too many, and yet hundreds not enough.” ~ Matthew Henry

“We may be in the way of our duty, and yet may meet with troubles, which Providence brings us into for the trial of our faith, and that God may be glorified in our relief.” ~ Matthew Henry

“God gives us of the good things of this life, not only for necessity, but for delight, that we may not only serve him, but serve him cheerfully.” ~ Matthew Henry

“By having fellowship with sin, which is abominable, we make ourselves abominable.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Strong faith is often exercised with strong trials and put upon hard services.” ~ Matthew Henry

“He will come quickly; let this word be always sounding in our ear” ~ Matthew Henry

“Those who are unconcerned in the affairs of their brethren, and take no care, when they have opportunity, to prevent their hurt in their bodies, goods, or good name, especially in their souls, do, in effect, speak Cain’s language.” ~ Matthew Henry

“The greatest sign of God’s displeasure against any person or people is His taking His law from them.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Those who complain most are most to be complained of.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Those that would be kept from bad courses must keep from bad company; it is dangerous living in a bad neighbourhood; others’ sins will be our snares, if we look not well to ourselves.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Many mourn for their sins that do not truly repent of them, weep bitterly for them, and yet continue in love and league with them.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Be not desirous to know what people say; if they speak well of thee, it will feed thy pride, if ill, it will stir up thy passion. See that thou approve thyself to God and thine own conscience, and then heed not what men say of thee; it is easier to pass by twenty affronts than to avenge one. When any harm is done to us, examine whether we have not done as bad to others.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked; what can be expected from unrighteous men but more unrighteousness?” ~ Matthew Henry

“Those that would find mercy with men must seek it of God, who has all hearts in His hands, and turns them as He pleases.” ~ Matthew Henry

“The law only shows us our disease; the gospel shows us our help in Christ.” ~ Matthew Henry

“The greatest and best man in the world must say, By the grace of God I am what I am, but God says absolutely… “I am that I am.”” ~ Matthew Henry

“Grace does not run in the blood, but corruption does. A sinner begets a sinner, but a saint does not beget a saint.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Christ’s followers cannot expect better treatment in the world than their Master had.” ~ Matthew Henry

“As God’s mercies are new every morning toward His people, so His anger is new every morning against the wicked.” ~ Matthew Henry

“When we take least notice of our good deeds ourselves, God takes most notice of them.” ~ Matthew Henry

“A lion in God’s cause must be a lamb in his own.” ~ Matthew Henry

“It is a good thing to have a heart within us smiting us for sins that seem little; it is a sign that conscience is awake and tender, and will be the means of preventing greater sins.” ~ Matthew Henry

“He whose head is in Heaven need not fear to put his feet into the grave.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Idleness gives great advantage to the tempter. Standing waters gather filth.” ~ Matthew Henry

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW QUOTES

ROBERT MURRAY M’CHEYNE QUOTES

Rev Robert Murray M’Cheyne (21 May 1813 – 25 March 1843) was a minister in the Church of Scotland from 1835 to 1843. He was born at 14 Dublin Street in Edinburgh on 21 May 1813, the son of Adam McCheyne W.S. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh and at the Divinity Hall of his native city, where he was taught by Thomas Chalmers. He first served as an assistant to John Bonar in the parish of Larbert and Dunipace, near Falkirk, from 1835 to 1836. After this he served as minister of St. Peter’s Church (in Dundee) until his early death at the age of 29 during an epidemic of typhus.

“What a man is on his knees before God, that he is, and nothing more.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“The seed of every sin known to man is in my heart.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Live near to God, and so all things will appear to you little in comparison to eternal realities.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“I know well that when Christ is nearest, Satan also is busiest.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Some believers are very surprised when they are called to suffer. They thought they would do some great thing for God, but all God permits them to do is to suffer. Just suppose you could speak with those who have gone to be with the Lord; everyone has a different story, yet everyone has a tale of suffering. One was persecuted by family and friends…another was inflicted with pain and disease, neglected by the world…another was bereaved of children…another had all these afflictions. But you will notice that though the water was deep, they all have reached the other side. Not one of them blames God for the road He led them; “Salvation” is their only cry. Are there any of you, dear children, murmuring at your lot? Do not sin against God. This is the way God leads all His redeemed ones.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Learn that urgency in prayer does not so much consist in vehement pleading, as in vehement believing. He that believes most the love and power of Jesus will obtain the most in prayer.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“It is the mark of a hypocrite to be a Christian everywhere but home.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“When God gives a promise, He always tries our faith. Just as the roots of trees take firmer hold when they are contending with the wind, so faith takes a firmer hold when it struggles with adverse appearances.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“We do not know the value of Christ, if we will not cleave to Him unto death!” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“There are many hearing me who now know well that they are not Christians because they do not love to give. To give largely and liberally, not grudging at all, requires a new heart.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“God’s children should not doubt His love when He afflicts. Christ loved Lazarus peculiarly, and yet He afflicted Him very sore. Your afflictions may only prove that you are more immediately under the Father’s hand. There is no time that the patient is such an object of tender interest to the surgeon, as when he is bleeding beneath his knife. So you may be sure if you are suffering from the hand of a reconciled God, that His eye is all the more bent on you.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“It is the voice of Christ that wakens the dead soul. Jesus speaks through the Bible, through ministers, through providences. His voice can reach the dead. He quickeneth whom He will. They that hear, live.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Christ frequently gives us the desires of our heart, though not at the peculiar time we desired, but a better time.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“The nearer you take anything to the light, the darker its spots will appear; and the nearer you live to God, the more you will see your own utter vileness.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Some of you seek for faith much in the same way as you would dig for a well. You turn the eye inward upon yourself and search admidst the depths of your polluted heart to find if faith is there; you search admid all your feelings at sermons and sacraments to see if faith is there; and still you find nothing but sin and disappointment… Look full in the face of Jesus… Drink in His Word… Faith comes by hearing the voice of Jesus.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“O believing brethren! What an instrument is this which God hath put into your hands! Prayer moves Him that moves the universe.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“If nothing else will do to sever me from my sins, Lord, send me such sore and trying calamities as shall awake me from earthly slumbers. It must always be best to be alive to Thee, whatever be the quickening instrument.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Set not your hearts on the flowers of this world. They shall fade and die. Prize the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley. He changes not! Live nearer to Christ than to any person on this earth; so that when they are taken, you may have Him to love and lean upon.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Ah! believers, you are a tempted people. You are always poor and needy. And God intends it should be so, to give you constant errands to go to Jesus. Some may say, it is not good to be a believer; but ah! see to whom we can go.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“A man who loves you the most is the man who tells you the most truth about yourself.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Self-righteousness….is the largest idol of the human heart – the idol which man loves most and God hates most. Dearly beloved, you will always be going back to this idol. You are always trying to be something in yourself, to gain God’s favour by thinking little of your sin, or by looking to your repentance, tears, prayers ; or by looking to your religious exercises, your frames, etc; or by looking to your graces, the Spirit’s work in your heart. Beware of false Christs. Study sanctification to the utmost, but make not a Christ of it.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Remember, you are not a tree, that can live or stand alone. You are only a branch. And it is only while you abide in Christ, as the branch in the vine, that you will flourish or even live.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely . . . . Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in His beams. Feel His all-seeing eye settled on you in love. And repose in His almighty arms.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Most of God’s people are contented to be saved from the hell that is without; they are not so anxious to be saved from the hell that is within.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Remember also, the present is your only time to be saved. There is no believing, no repenting, no conversion in the grave – no minister will speak to you there. This is the time of conversion.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“There is nothing a natural man hates more than prayer.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Depend upon it, it is God’s Word, not our comment upon God’s Word, that saves souls.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“If Christ justifies you, He will sanctify you! He will not save you and leave you in your sins.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“When old companions, old lusts, and sins crowd in upon you, and when you feel that you are ready to sink, what can save you, sinking sinner ? This alone – I have a high priest in heaven, and he can support in the hour of affliction. This alone can give you peace-I have a high priest in heaven. When you are dying – when friends can do you no good – when sins rise up like spectres around your bed – what can give you peace ? This – “I have a high priest in heaven”.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“For every look at self, take 10 looks at Christ.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Unfathomable oceans of grace are in Christ for you. Dive and dive again, you will never come to the bottom of these depths. How many millions of dazzling pearls and gems are at this moment hid in the deep recesses of the ocean caves.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Get your texts from God – your thoughts, your words, from God… It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God. A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear, and your heart full of God’s Spirit, is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Rose early to seek God and found Him whom my soul loveth. Who would not rise early to meet such company?” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“There cannot be a secret Christian. Grace is like ointment hid in the hand; it betrayeth itself. If you truly feel the sweetness of the cross of Christ, you will be constrained to confess Christ before men.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“A calm hour with God is worth a whole lifetime with man.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Do not fear the face of man. Remember how small their anger will appear in eternity.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“I ought to spend the best hours of the day in communion with God. It is my noblest and most fruitful employment, and is not to be thrust into any corner.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Even in the wildest storms the sky is not all dark; and so in the darkest dealings of God with His children, there are always some bright tokens for good.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“A dark hour makes Jesus bright.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“You will be incomplete Christians if you do not look for the coming again of the Lord Jesus.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“I tell you, brethren, if mercies and if judgments do not convert you, God has no other arrows in His quiver.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Watch against lip religion. Above all abide in Christ and He will abide in you.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Lord make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“We must not close with Christ because we feel Him, but
We must not close with Christ because we feel Him, but because God lias said it, and we must take God’s word even in the dark.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Ah! Believers, you are a tempted people. You are always poor and needy. And God intends it should be so, to give you constant errands to go to Jesus. Some may say, it is not good to be a believer; but ah! see to whom we can go.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Go on, dear brother; but an inch of time remains, and then eternal ages roll on for ever–but an inch on which we can stand and preach the way of salvation to a perishing world.” ~ Robert Murray M’Cheyne

RICHARD SIBBES QUOTES

Richard Sibbes was born at Tostock, Suffolk, in 1577 and went to school in Bury St Edmunds. His father, ‘a good sound-hearted Christian’, at first intended that Richard should follow his own trade as a wheelwright, but the boy s ‘strong inclination to his books, and well-profiting therein’ led to his going up to St John’s College, Cambridge in 1595. He was converted around 1602 or 1603 through the powerful ministry of Paul Bayne, the successor of William Perkins in the pulpit of Great St Andrew’s Church.

After earning his B.D. in 1610, Sibbes was appointed a lecturer at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge. Later, through the influence of friends, he was chosen to be the preacher at Gray’s Inn, London, and he remained there until 1626. In that year he returned to Cambridge as Master of St Catherine’s Hall, and later returned to Holy Trinity, this time as its vicar. He was granted a Doctorate in Divinity in 1627, and was thereafter frequently referred to as ‘the heavenly Doctor Sibbes’. He continued to exercise his ministry at Gray’s Inn, London, and Holy Trinity, Cambridge, until his death on 6 July 1635 at the age of 58.

“Satan gives Adam an apple (fruit), and takes away Paradise. Therefore in all temptations let us consider not what he offers, but what we shall lose.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“It is atheism to pray and not wait on hope.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“It is a destructive addition to add anything to Christ.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Measure not God’s love and favour by your own feeling. The sun shines as clearly in the darkest day as it does in the brightest. The difference is not in the sun, but in some clouds which hinder the manifestation of the light thereof.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Those that look to be happy must first look to be holy.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Christ chiefly manifests Himself in times of affliction, because then the soul unites itself most closely by faith to Christ. The soul, in time of prosperity, scatters its affections, and looses itself in the creature; but there is a uniting power in sanctified afflictions, by which a believer, (as in rain a hen collects her brood) gathers his best affections unto his Father and his God.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Poverty and affliction take away the fuel that feeds pride.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Confession is verbal humiliation.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Self-emptiness prepares us for spiritual fullness.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“God is goodness itself, in whom all goodness is involved. If therefore we love other things for the goodness which we see in them, why do we not love God, in whom is all goodness? All other things are but sparks of that fire, and drops of that sea. If you see any good in the creature, remember there is much more in the Creator. Leave therefore the streams, and go to the fountainhead of comfort.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“God’s goodness is near us. It is not a goodness far away, but God follows us with His goodness in whatever situation we are. He attaches Himself to us, He has made Himself close, that He might be near us in goodness. He is a father, and everywhere to maintain us. He is a husband, and everywhere to help. He is a friend, and everywhere to comfort and counsel. His love is a near love. He has taken upon Himself the closest kinds of relationships, so that we may never lack God and the evidences of His love.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“The winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified prepare the soul for glory.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“There can be no victory where there is no combat.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“The depths of our misery can never fall below the depths of mercy.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“It is evident that our conversion is sound when we loathe and hate sin from the heart.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“God’s truth always agrees with itself.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“See the contrary disposition of Christ and Satan and his instruments. Satan attacks us when we are weakest. But Christ will mend in us all the breaches sin and Satan have made. He “binds up the brokenhearted” (Isaiah 61:1). And as a mother treats most tenderly the most diseased and weakest child, so does Christ most mercifully bend down to the weakest people. He puts an instinct into the weakest things to rely for support on something stronger than themselves. So the vine clings to the elm. The church’s awareness of her weakness makes her willing to lean on her Beloved.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“The whole life of a Christian should be nothing but praises to God.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Is it not an unreasonable speech for a man at midnight to say, It will never be day? It is as unreasonable for a man in trouble to say, O Lord, I shall never get free; it will be always thus!” ~ Richard Sibbes

“God takes it unkindly if we weep too much for the loss of a wife, or child, or friend, or for any cross in this life; for it is a sign that we do not fetch our comfort from him. Nay, though our weeping be for sin, we must keep moderation, with one eye looking on our sins, and the other on God’s mercy in Christ. If, therefore, the best grief should be moderated, how much more the other!” ~ Richard Sibbes

“When thou art disappointed with men, retire to God and to his promises; and build upon this, that the Lord will not be wanting in anything to do thee good.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Sin is not so sweet in the committing as it is heavy and bitter in the reckoning.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Most of our disquietness in our calling is that we trouble ourselves about God’s work. Trust God and be doing, and let Him alone with the rest.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“God is never nearer his church than when trouble is near.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Every Christian may truly say, God loves me better than I do myself.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“God hath two sanctuaries; He hath two heavens: the heaven of heavens and a broken spirit.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“The tenets of [the Christian life] seem paradoxes to carnal men; as first, that a Christian is the only freeman, and other men are slaves; that he is the only rich man, though never so poor in the world; that he is the only beautiful man, though outwardly never so deformed; that he is the only happy man in the midst of all his miseries.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Death is only a grim porter to let us into a stately palace.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“This is a life of faith, for God will try the truth of our faith, so that the world may see that God has such servants as will depend upon His bare word.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“The love of a wife to her husband may begin from the supply of her necessities, but afterwards she may love him also for the sweetness of his person; so the soul first loves Christ for salvation but when she is brought to Him and finds what sweetness there is in Him then she loves Him for Himself.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“God takes a safe course with His children, that they may not be condemned with the world, He permits the world to condemn them, that they may not love the world, the world hates them…” ~ Richard Sibbes

“God can pick sense out of a confused prayer.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“As men cherish young plants at first and fence them about with hedges to keep them from hurt, but when they are grown they remove these things and leave them to the wind and weather, so God sustains His children at first with props of inward comforts, but afterwards He exposes them to storms and winds because they are better able to bear them. Therefore let no man think himself the better because he is more free from troubles than others; it is because God sees him not fit to bear greater.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“When we grow careless of keeping our souls, then God recovers our taste of good things again by sharp crosses.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Let weak Christians know that a spark from heaven, though kindled under green wood that sobs and smokes, yet it will consume all at last.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“We should take heed with whom we join in league and amity. Before we plant our affections, consider the persons what they are; if we see any signs of grace, then it is good; but if not there will be a rent. Throughout our whole life this ought to be our rule; we should labor in all company either to do good or receive good; and where we can neither do nor receive good we should avoid such acquaintance. Let men therefore consider and take heed how they stand in combination with any wicked persons.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Partial obedience is not obedience at all; to single out easy things that do not oppose our lusts, which are not against our reputation, therein some will do more than they need; but our obedience must be universal to all God’s commandments, and that because He commands it. Empty relationships are nothing; if we profess ourselves God’s servants and do not honor Him by our obedience, we take but an empty title.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“If believers decay in their first love, or in some other grace, yet another grace may grow and increase, such as humility, their broken heartedness; they sometimes seem not to grow in the branches when they may grow at the root; upon a check grace breaks out more; as we say, after a hard winter there usually follows a glorious spring.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Glory follows afflictions, not as the day follows the night but as the spring follows the winter; for the winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified prepare the soul for glory.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Weakness with watchfulness will stand, when strength with too much confidence fails. Weakness, with acknowledgement of it, is the fittest seat and subject for God to perfect his strength in; for consciousness of our infirmities drives us out of ourselves to him in whom our strength lies.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“God knows we have nothing of ourselves, therefore in the covenant of grace He requires no more than He gives, but gives what He requires, and accepts what He gives.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Better to be in trouble with Christ, than in peace without Him.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“See here, for our comfort, a sweet agreement of all three persons: the Father giveth a commission to Christ; the Spirit furnisheth and sanctifieth to it; Christ himself executeth the office of a Mediator. Our redemption is founded upon the joint agreement of all three persons of the Trinity.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Heaven is not Heaven without Christ. It is better to be in any place with Christ than to be in Heaven itself without Him. All delicacies without Christ are but as a funeral banquet. Where the master of the feast is away, there is nothing but solemnness. What is all without Christ? I say the joys of Heaven are not the joys of Heaven without Christ; He is the very heaven of Heaven.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“It were a good strife amongst Christians, one to labour to give no offence, and the other to labour to take none. The best men are severe to themselves, tender over others.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“As when things are cold we bring them to the fire to heat and melt, so bring we our cold hearts to the fire of the love of Christ; consider we of our sins against Christ, and of Christ’s love towards us; dwell upon this meditation. Think what great love Christ hath showed unto us, and how little we have deserved, and this will make our hearts to melt, and be as pliable as wax before the sun.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“The whole conduct of a Christian is nothing else but knowledge reduced to will, affection and practice.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“We must neither bind where God looseth, nor loose where God bindeth, nor open where God shutteth, nor shut where God openeth; the right use of the keys is always successful.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“What do the Scriptures speak but Christ’s love and tender care over those that are humbled?” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Proud men are the devil’s pipes, and flatterers the musicians to blow these pipes.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“A sharp reproof sometimes is a precious pearl, and a sweet balm. The wounds of secure sinners will not be healed with sweet words.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“What the heart liketh best, the mind studieth most.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Gospel repentance is not a little hanging down of the head. It’s a working of the heart until your sin becomes more odious to you than any punishment for it.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Times are bad, God is good.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“The life of a Christian is wondrously ruled in this world, by the consideration and meditation of the life of another world.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“It is better to go bruised to Heaven than sound to Hell.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“When we go to God by prayer, the devil knows we go to fetch strength against him, and therefore he opposes us all he can.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“It would be a good contest amongst Christians, one to labour to give no offence, and the other to labour to take none. The best men are severe to themselves, tender over others.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“What coward would not fight when he is sure of victory?” ~ Richard Sibbes

“A Christian is the greatest freeman in the world; he is free from the wrath of God, free from hell and damnation, from the curse of the law; but then, though he be free in these respects, yet, in regard of love, he is the greatest servant. Love abaseth him to do all the good that he can; and the more the Spirit of Christ is in us, the more it will abase us to anything wherein we can be serviceable.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Whatsoever God takes away from His children, He either replaces it with a much greater favor or else gives strength to bear it.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“The way to cover our sin is to uncover it by confession.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“When we shoot an arrow, we look to the fall of it; when we send a ship to sea, we look for its return; and when we sow seed, we look for a harvest; so likewise when we sow our prayers, through Christ, in God’s bosom, shall we not look for an answer and observe how we speed? It is a seed of atheism to pray and not to look how we speed. But a sincere Christian will pray and wait, and strengthen his heart with promises out of the Word, and never leave praying and looking up till God gives him a gracious answer.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“In trouble we are prone to forget all that we have heard and read that makes for our comfort. Now what is the reason that a man comes to think of that which otherwise he should never have called to mind? The Holy Spirit brings it to his remembrance; He is a Comforter, bringing to mind useful things at such times when we have most need of them.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“What is the gospel itself but a merciful moderation, in which Christ’s obedience is esteemed ours, and our sins laid upon Him, wherein God, from being a judge, becomes our Father, pardoning our sins and accepting our obedience, though feeble and blemished? We are now brought to heaven under the covenant of grace by a way of love and mercy.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“There is not a minute of time in all of our life but we must either be near to God or we will be undone.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Providence is the perpetuity and continuance of creation.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“What unthankfulness is it to forget our consolations, and to look upon matters of grievance. To think so much upon two or three crosses as to forget an hundred blessings.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“It is Christ’s manner to trouble our souls first, and then to come with healing in his wings.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“The soul is never quiet till it comes to God . . . and that is the one thing the soul desireth.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“The wronged side is always the safest.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“That which is begun in self-confidence will end in shame.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“We cannot say this or that trouble shall not befall, yet we may, by help of the Spirit, say, nothing that doth befall shall make me do that which is unworthy of a Christian.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“Christ does not choose you because you are good, but to make you good.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“A man may be a false prophet and yet speak the truth.” ~ Richard Sibbes

“God’s children improve all advantages to advance their grand end; they labour to grow better by blessings and crosses, and to make sanctified use of all things.” ~ Richard Sibbes

SAMUEL RUTHERFORD QUOTES

Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661) was a minister, covenanter, and one of the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly. Rutherford was born about the year 1600 near Nisbet, Scotland. Little is known of his early life. In 1627 he earned a M.A. from Edinburgh College, where he was appointed Professor of Humanity. He became pastor of the church in Anwoth in 1627, was a rural parish, and the people were scattered in farms over the hills. He had a true pastor’s heart, and he was ceaseless in his labors for his flock. We are told that men said of Rutherford, “He was always praying, always preaching, always visiting the sick, always catechising, always writing and studying.”

“Christ and His cross are not separable in this life, howbeit Christ and His cross part at heaven’s door, for there is no house-room for crosses in heaven. One tear, one sigh, one sad heart, one fear, one loss, one thought of trouble cannot find lodging there.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Believe God’s love and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your rock is Christ, and it is not the rock that ebbs and flows but the sea.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“I know that, as night and shadows are good for flowers, and moonlight and dews are better than a continual sun, so is Christ’s absence of special use, and that it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger, and funisheth a fairfield to faith to put forth itself, and to exercise its fingers in gripping it seeth not what.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“I assure you by the Lord, your adversaries shall get no advantage against you, except you sin, and offend your Lord, in your sufferings.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord’s choicest wines.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Since He looked upon me my heart is not my own, He hath run away to heaven with it.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Set no time to the Lord the creator of time, for His time is always best.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“I rejoice in the hope of that glory to be revealed, for it is no uncertain glory that we look for. Our hope is not hung upon such an untwisted thread as, “I imagine so,” or “It is likely,” but the cable, the strong tow of our fastened anchor, is the oath and promise of Him who is eternal verity. Our salvation is fastened with God’s own hand, and with Christ’s own strength, to the strong stake of God’s unchangeable nature.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“O my Lord Jesus Christ, if I could be in heaven without Thee, it would be hell; and if I could be in hell, and have Thee still, it would be heaven to me, for Thou are all the heaven I want.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Our little time of suffering is not worthy of our first night’s welcome home to Heaven.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Next to Christ I have one joy: to preach Christ my Lord.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Why should I tremble at the plow of my Lord that makes deep furrows on my soul? For He is no idle husbandman, He purposes a crop.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“You will not be carried to Heaven lying at ease upon a feather bed.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“My faith has no bed to sleep upon but omnipotence.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“We never with our eyes saw our own soul; yet we have a soul. We see many rivers, but we know not their first spring and original fountain; yet they have a beginning. …When ye are come to the other side…set down your foot on the shore of glorious eternity, and look back again to the waters and to your wearisome journey, and shall see, in that clear glass of endless glory, nearer to the bottom of God’s wisdom, ye shall then be forced to say, ‘If God had done otherwise with me than He hath done, I had never come to the enjoying of this crown of glory.’ It is your part now to believe, and suffer, and hope, and wait on…” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Of all created comforts, God is the lender; you are the borrower, not the owner.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Millions of hells of sinners cannot come near to exhaust infinite grace.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Think it not hard if you get not your will, nor your delights in this life; God will have you to rejoice in nothing but Himself.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Jesus Christ came into my prison cell last night, and every stone flashed like a ruby.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Grace tried is better than grace, and more than grace; it is glory in its infancy.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Verily, we know not what an evil it is to indulge ourselves, and to make an idol of our will.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“See that you buy the field where the Pearl is; sell all, and make a purchase of salvation. Think it not easy: for it is a steep ascent to eternal glory: many are lying dead by the way, slain with security.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“I have been benefited by praying for others; for by making an errand to God for them I have gotten something for myself.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“To believe Christ’s cross to be a friend, as he himself is a friend, is also a special act of faith.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Oh my debt of praise, how weighty is it, and how far run up! Oh that others would lend me to pay, and teach me to praise!” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“We take nothing to the grave with us, but a good or evil conscience… It is true, terrors of conscience cast us down; and yet without terrors of conscience we cannot be raised up again.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Come all crosses, welcome, welcome! so I may get my heart full of my Lord Jesus.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“If ye never had a sick night and a pained soul for sin, ye have not yet lighted upon Christ.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“It is in some respect greater love in Jesus to sanctify than to justify, for He maketh us most like Himself, in His own essential portraiture and image in sanctifying us.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Make not Christ a liar by distrusting His promise.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Welcome, welcome cross of Christ, if Christ be with it.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Through many afflictions we must enter into the kingdom of God … It is folly to think to steal to heaven with a whole skin.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“I find my Lord Jesus cometh not in the precise way that I lay wait for Him. He hath a manner of His own. Oh, how high are His ways above my ways.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“My desire is that my Lord would give me broader and deeper thoughts, to feed myself with wondering at His love.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“The hope of Heaven under troubles is like wind and sails to the soul.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“There is as much in our Lord’s pantry as will satisfy all his children and as much wine in his cellar as will quench all their thirst. Hunger on, for there is meat in hungering for Christ; go never from him, but seek him who is yet pleased with the importunity of hungry souls until he fills you; if he delays, yet do not go away, even if you faint at his feet.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Build your nest in no tree here…for the Lord of the forest has condemned the whole woods to be demolished.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“I see Christ’s love is so kingly, that it will not abide a marrow it must have a throne all alone in the soul.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Christ has no velvet crosses.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Show yourself a Christian by suffering without murmuring. In patience possess your soul – they lose nothing who gain Christ.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Every day we may see some new thing in Christ. His love hath neither brim nor bottom.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Faint not; the miles to Heaven are but few and short.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“My dear friend, venture to take the wind on your face for Christ.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Be not cast down. If ye saw Him who is standing on the shore, holding out His arms to welcome you to land, ye would wade, not only through a sea of wrongs, but through hell itself to be with Him.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“When the race is ended, and the play is either won or lost, and ye are in the utmost circle and border of time, and shall put your foot within the march of eternity, all the good things of your short nightdream shall seem to you like ashes of a blaze of thorns or straw.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Your heart is not the compass that God steers by.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Live on Christ’s love while ye are here, and all the way.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Keep God’s covenant in your trials; hold you by His blessed word, and sin not; flee anger, wrath, grudging, envying, fretting; forgive a hundred pence to your fellow-servant, because your Lord hath forgiven you ten thousand talents: for, I assure you by the Lord, your adversaries shall get no advantage against you, except you sin, and offend your Lord, in your sufferings.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“I wonder many times that ever a child of God should have a sad heart, considering what the Lord is preparing for him.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Let us be faithful and care for our own part, which is to do and suffer for Him, and lay Christ’s part on Himself, and leave it there; duties are ours, events are the Lord’s.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“There is nothing that will make you a Christian indeed, but a taste of the sweetness of Christ.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“It is certain that this is not only good which the Almighty has done, but that it is best; He hath reckoned all your steps to heaven.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“The devil is but a whetstone to sharpen the faith and patience of the saints.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“The weightiest end of the cross of Christ that is laid upon you, lieth upon your strong Savior.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“My Lord Jesus has fully recompensed my sadness with his joys, my losses with his own presence. I find it a sweet and rich thing to exchange my sorrows with Christ’s joys, my afflictions with that sweet peace I have with himself.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Praise God for the hammer, the file, and the furnace. The hammer molds us, the file sharpens us, and the fire tempers us.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“We are as near to Heaven as we are far from self, and far from the love of a sinful world.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Grace grows best in winter.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“How soon would faith freeze without a cross!” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“They lose nothing that gain Christ.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Set not your heart upon the world, since God hath not made it your portion.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Christ chargeth me to believe His daylight at midnight.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Be not proud of race, face, place, or grace.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“But the way to overcome is by patience, forgiving and praying for your enemies, in doing whereof you heap coals upon their heads, and your Lord shall open a door to you in your trouble: wait upon Him, as the night watch waiteth for the morning. He will not tarry. Go up to your watch-tower, and come not down, but by prayer, and faith, and hope, wait on.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Were there ten thousand millions of heavens created above these highest heavens, and again as many above them, and as many above them, till angels were wearied with counting, it were but too low a seat to fix the princely throne of that Lord Jesus (whose ye are) above them all.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“I find that when the saints are under trial and well humbled, little sins raise great cries in the conscience; but in prosperity, conscience is a pope that gives dispensations and great latitude to our hearts. The cross is therefore as needful as the crown is glorious.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Oh, thrice fools are we, who like new-born princes weeping in the cradle, know not that there is a kingdom before them; then, let our Lord’s sweet hand square us, and hammer us, and strike off the knots of pride, self-love, and world-worship, and infidelity, that He may make us stones and pillars in His Father’s house.” ~Samuel Rutherford

“We may sing beforehand, even in our winter storm, in the expectation of a summer sun at the turn of the year; no created powers can mar our Lord Jesus’ music, nor spill our song of joy. Let us then be glad and rejoice in the salvation of our Lord; for faith had never yet cause to have wet cheeks, and hanging-down brows, or to droop or die.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“The cross of Christ is the sweetest burden that I ever bore; it is such a burden as wings are to a bird, or sails to a ship, to carry me forward to my harbor.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“I but mar His praises; nay, I know no comparison of what Christ is, and what His worth is: all the angels, and all the glorified, praise Him not so much as in halves: who can advance Him or utter all His praises?” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“The thorn is one of the most cursed, and angry, and crabbed weeds that the earth yieldeth, and yet out of it springeth the rose, one of the sweetest-smelled flowers, and most delightful to the eye, that the earth hath. Your Lord shall make joy and gladness out of your afflictions; for all His roses have a fragrant smell. Wait for the time when His own holy hand shall hold them to your nose…” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“You must learn to make your evils your great good; and to spin comforts, peace, joy, communion with Christ, out of your troubles, which are Christ’s wooers, sent to speak for you from Himself.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“If ye were not Christ’s wheat, appointed to be bread in His house, He would not grind you.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“There is none like Him; I would not exchange one smile of His lovely face with kingdoms.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Christ is a well of life, but who knoweth how deep it is to the bottom? This soul of ours hath love, and cannot but love some fair one; and O, what a fair One, what an only One, what an excellent, lovely, ravishing One is Jesus.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Heaven is but a company of noble venturers for Christ. They are not worthy of Him who will not take a blow for the Master’s sake.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

“Dry wells send us to the fountain.” ~ Samuel Rutherford

THOMAS WATSON QUOTES

Thomas Watson (c. 1620—1686) was an English, non-conformist, Puritan preacher and author. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was noted for remarkably intense study. In 1646 he commenced a sixteen year pastorate at St. Stephen’s, Walbrook. He showed strong Presbyterian views during the civil war, with, however, an attachment to the king, and in 1651 he was imprisoned briefly with some other ministers for his share in Christopher Love’s plot to recall Charles II of England. He was released on 30 June 1652, and was formally reinstated as vicar of St. Stephen’s Walbrook. He obtained great fame and popularity as a preacher until the Restoration, when he was ejected for nonconformity. Not withstanding the rigor of the acts against dissenters, Watson continued to exercise his ministry privately as he found opportunity. Upon the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672 he obtained a license to preach at the great hall in Crosby House. After preaching there for several years, his health gave way, and he retired to Barnston, Essex, where he died suddenly while praying in secret. He was buried on 28 July 1686.

(Information from wikipedia.org)

“God sweetens outward pain with inward peace.” ~Thomas Watson

“The pleasure of sin is soon gone, but the sting remains.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Until sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.” ~ Thomas Watson

“When you find a chillness upon your souls, and that your former heat begins to abate, ply yourselves with warm clothes, get those good books that may acquaint you with such truths as may warm and affect your hearts.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A weak faith can lay hold on a strong Christ.” ~ Thomas Watson

“It is our work to cast care, and it is God’s work to take care.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Eternity to the godly is a day that has no sunset; eternity to the wicked is a night that has no sunrise.” ~ Thomas Watson

“It was wonderful love that Christ should rather die for us than for the angels that fell. They were creatures of a more noble extract, and in all probability might have brought greater revenues of glory to God; yet that Christ should pass by those golden vessels, and make us clods of earth into stars of glory — Oh, the hyperbole of Christ’s love!” ~ Thomas Watson

“Do we prize it (the Word) in our judgments? Do we receive it into our hearts? Do we fear the loss of the Word preached more than the loss of peace and trade? Is it the removal of the ark that troubles us? Again, do we attend to the Word with reverential devotion? When the judge is giving the charge on the bench, all attend. When the Word is preached, the great God is giving us his charge. Do we listen to it as to a matter of life and death? This is a good sign that we love the Word.” ~ Thomas Watson

“We pray, ‘lead us not into temptation’. Do we then lead ourselves into temptation?” ~ Thomas Watson

“Knowledge is the eye that must direct the foot of obedience.” ~ Thomas Watson

“It is easy to catch a disease from another, but not to catch health. The bad will sooner corrupt the good, than the good will convert the bad.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The gospel sweetens the law.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Men could be content to have the kingdom of heaven; but they are loathe to fight for it. They choose rather to go in a feather bed to hell than to be carried to heaven in a ‘fiery chariot’ of zeal and violence.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Unless we deny our own will, we shall never do God’s will.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Ministers can but speak to the ear, the Spirit speaks to the heart.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Satan loves to fish in the troubled waters of a discontented heart.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A man may read the figure on the dial, but he cannot tell how the day goes, unless the sun shines upon the dial: we may read the Bible over, but we can not learn the purpose, till the Spirit of God shines into our hearts. O implore this blessed Spirit! It is God’s prerogative-royal to teach: “I am the Lord thy God, which teacheth thee to profit.” Is. 48. 17. Ministers may tell us our lesson, God only can teach us; we have lost both our hearing and eye-sight, therefore are very unfit to learn. Ever since Eve listened to the serpent, we have been deaf; and since she looked on the tree of knowledge we have been blind; but when God comes to teach, he removes these impediments.” ~ Thomas Watson

“No flattery can heal a bad conscience, so no slander can hurt a good one.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Better is that sin which humbles me, than that duty which makes me proud.” ~ Thomas Watson

“When promises are verified, God’s truth is magnified.” ~ Thomas Watson

“We must love God more for what He is, than for what He bestows.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A Christian is a military person, he fights the Lord’s battles, he is Christ’s ensignbearer. Now, what though he endures hard fate, and the bullets fly about? He fights for a crown!” ~Thomas Watson

“The worst that God does to His children is to whip them to heaven.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Neither deficiencies nor disappointments, losses nor crosses, can cause disquieting discontents in that bosom where faith is commander in chief.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The more bitterness we taste in sin, the more sweetness we shall taste in Christ.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Great was the work of creation, but greater was the work of redemption. Great wisdom was seen in making us, but more miraculous wisdom in saving us. Great power was seen in bringing us out of nothing, but greater power in helping us when we were worse than nothing.
In the creation, God gave us ourselves; in the redemption, He gave us Himself.” ~ Thomas Watson

“In a word a contented Christian, being sweetly captivated under the authority of the Word, desires to be wholly at God’s disposal and is willing to live in that sphere and climate where God has set him.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Obedience without knowledge is blind, and knowledge without obedience is lame.” ~ Thomas Watson

“God comes down to us by his Spirit, and we go up to him by prayer.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The prayer that is faithless is fruitless.” ~ Thomas Watson

“We pray most fervently when we pray most feelingly.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Be like Noah’s dove. She made use of her wings to fly, but trust in the ark for safety.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Affliction promotes holiness. The more the diamond is cut, the more it sparkles!” ~ Thomas Watson

“Our sins should humble us, but they must not discourage us from coming to Christ.” ~ Thomas Watson

“It is better to go to heaven with a few, than to hell in the crowd.” ~ Thomas Watson

“If God should show mercy only to such as deserve it, he must show mercy to none.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The bare knowledge of God’s will is inefficacious, it doth not better the heart. Knowledge alone is like a winter sun, which hath no heat or influence; it doth not warm the affections, or purify the conscience. Judas was a great luminary, he knew God’s will, but he was a traitor.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Humility was never a loser.” ~ Thomas Watson

“We may hold the world as a posy in our hand, but it must not lie too near our heart.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Either sin must drown in the tears of repentance, or the soul must burn in hell.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A pagan sins less than a baptised renegade.” ~ Thomas Watson

“If God spares us as a father does his son, let us imitate God. It is natural for children to imitate their parents. Let us imitate God in this one thing: As God spares us, and passes by many failures, so let us be sparing in our censures of others; let us look upon the weaknesses and indiscretions of our brethren with…a more tender, compassionate eye. How much God bears with us!” ~ Thomas Watson

“If we do not regard God when he speaks to us, he will not regard us when we pray to him.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The race is short between the cradle and the grave!” ~ Thomas Watson

“No man did ever come off a loser by his acquaintance with God.” ~ Thomas Watson

“When we profess God’s name, but do not live answerably to it, we take it in vain.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Love is such a grace as we know not how to be without. A soldier may as well be without his weapons, an artist without his pencil, a musician without his instrument, as a Christian can be without love.” ~ Thomas Watson

“If you set your love on worldly things, they will not satisfy.” ~ Thomas Watson

“If we bring forth any good fruit, it is not of our own growth, it comes from him, the true vine.” ~ Thomas Watson

“It is not how much we do, but how much we love.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Many like to hear of the love of Christ, but not of loving their enemies; they like the comforts of the word, but not its reproofs.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A contented Christian does not seek to choose his cross but leaves God to choose for him. He is content with both for the kind and the duration. A contented spirit says, ‘let God apply what medicine he pleases and let it remain as long as it will, I know that when it has done it’s cure and eaten the venom of sin out of my heart, God will take it off again.” ~ Thomas Watson

“What is the duty which God requireth of man? Obedience to his revealed will. It is not enough to hear God’s voice, but we must obey. Obedience is a part of the honour we owe to God.” ~ Thomas Watson

“If God justify a man, who shall condemn him? But if God condemn him, who shall justify him?” ~ Thomas Watson

“We love a saint, though he has many personal failings. There is no perfection here. In some, rash anger prevails; in some, inconstancy; in some, too much love of the world. A saint in this life is like gold in the ore, much dross of infirmity cleaves to him, yet we love him for the grace that is in him. A saint is like a fair face with a scar: we love the beautiful face of holiness, though there be a scar in it. The best emerald has its blemishes, the brightest stars their twinklings, and the best of the saints have their failings. You that cannot love another because of his infirmities, how would you have God love you?” ~ Thomas Watson

“To have a thankful heart for deliverance is a greater blessing than the deliverance itself.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Godly sorrow goes deep, like a vein which bleeds inwardly. The heart bleeds for sin: “they were pricked in their heart” (Act 2:37). As the heart bears a chief part in sinning, so it must in sorrowing.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The jewel of faith is always put in the cabinet of a good conscience.” ~ Thomas Watson

“King’s crowns are only crosses, but the cross of Christ is the only crown.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Christians are condemned who profess to own God for their God and yet do not live as if he were their God.” ~ Thomas Watson

“He who is called of God, walks directly contrary to what he did before.” ~ Thomas Watson

“He who loves money is not weary of telling it: and he who loves God is not weary of serving him.” ~ Thomas Watson

“None can do as God; he brought the world out of nothing; ‘And hangeth the earth upon nothing.’ Job 26: 7.” ~ Thomas Watson

“As children grow older, the care of parents grows greater. They are afraid of their children falling when young, and of worse than falls when they are older.” ~ Thomas Watson

“O let us look to our ends in obedience; it is possible the action may be right, and not the heart.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The mercies of God make a sinner proud, but a saint humble.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Men think it a shame to be ignorant of their trade—but no shame to be ignorant of God. There is no going to heaven blindfold.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Every time we draw our breath we suck in mercy.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The more helpful we are to others, the more like we are to God.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Father, my heart, my heart; my dead heart, quicken it; my hard heart, soften it in Christ’s blood. Father, my heart, my heart.’ Surely God, who hears the cry of ravens, will hear the cry of his children!” ~ Thomas Watson

“He that leaves off prayer leaves off to fear God.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A godly man is careful about moral righteousness He makes conscience of equity as well as piety. The Scripture has linked both together: “that we might serve him in holiness and righteousness” (Luke 1:74,75). Holiness: there is the first table of the law; righteousness: there is the second table of the law. Though a man may be morally righteous, and not godly—yet no one can be godly, unless he is morally righteous. This moral righteousness is seen in our dealings with men. A godly man observes that golden maxim, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matt. 7:12).” ~ Thomas Watson

“Oh, Christian, if you are overspread with this fretting leprosy, you carry the man of sin about you, for you set yourself above God and act as if you were wiser than He, and would sassily prescribe to Him what condition is best for you.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The word preached is not only to inform you but reform you” ~ Thomas Watson

“As our sin is ever before us, so God’s promise must be ever before us. As we much feel our sting, so we must look up to Christ, our “brazen serpent” (Num 21:8-9).” ~ Thomas Watson

“The God whom we worship is holy, the work we are employed in is holy, the place we hope to arrive at is holy; all this calls for holiness.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Hence I infer that where there is no sight of sin, there can be no repentance. Many who can spy faults in others see none in themselves. They cry that they have good hearts. Is it not strange that two should live together, and eat and drink together, yet not know each other? Such is the case of a sinner. His body and soul live together, work together, yet he is unacquainted with himself. He knows not his own heart, nor what a hell he carries about him. Under a veil, a deformed face is hid. Persons are veiled over with ignorance and self-love; therefore they see not what deformed souls they have.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Has Christ provided such a blessed banquet for us? He does not nurse us abroad, but feeds us with His own breast, nay, with His own blood! Let us, then, study to respond to this great love of Christ. It is true, we can never parallel His love. Yet let us show ourselves thankful. We can do nothing satisfactory, but we may do something out of gratitude. Christ gave Himself as a sin-offering for us. Let us give ourselves as a thank-offering for Him. If a man redeems another out of debt, will he not be grateful? How deeply do we stand obliged to Christ, who has redeemed us from hell!” ~ Thomas Watson

“The holiness of the saints will not excuse them from sufferings.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Were our love more set upon the preached word, our minds would be more fixed upon it; and surely there is enough to make us love the word preached; for it is the word of life, the inlet to knowledge, the antidote against sin, the quickener of all holy affections.” ~ Thomas Watson

‘Many Christians are full of murmuring and discontent, but seldom bring glory to God by giving Him praise due to His name. We read of the saints having harps in their hands, the emblems of praise. Many Christians today have tears in their eyes and complaints in their mouths, but few have harps in their hand, blessing and glorifying God. Let us honor God in this way.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A Christian is commanded to warm-hearted service; he must charge through the whole army of his lusts, every one of which is stronger than Goliath.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The world can create trouble in peace, but God can create peace in trouble.” ~ Thomas Watson

“This marriage union with Christ is the most noble and excellent union” ~ Thomas Watson

“God did not choose us because we were worthy, but by choosing us He makes us worthy.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Those who are patterns of mercy should be trumpets of praise.” ~ Thomas Watson

“You may as well bid an elephant fly in the air, as a covetous man live by faith.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Who can have a better right to us than he that gives us our breath?” ~ Thomas Watson

“What greater dignity can be put upon a mortal man, than to converse with his Maker, and to walk with God every day?” ~ Thomas Watson

“Lusts within are worse than lions without.” ~ Thomas Watson

“An upright man is always worth beholding, but then he is most to be admired when like a bright star, he shines in the dark, and having lost all, he holds fast his integrity.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Repentance is of such importance, that there is no being saved without it.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Daily bread may make us live comfortably but forgiveness of sins will make us die comfortably.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Can the spouse be better than in her husband’s company? Where can the soul be better than in drawing near to God?” ~ Thomas Watson

“He who does not believe God’s promises will never love him.” ~ Thomas Watson

“This sin cleaves to us as a leprosy. This original pollution makes us guilty before the Lord; and even though we would never commit actual sin, it merits hell. The meditation of this would be a means to pull down our pride. Nay, even those who have grace have cause to walk humbly be- cause they have more corruption in them than grace: their dark side is broader than their light.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Though God is the fountain of grace, yet the saints are the pipes which transmit the living streams to others.” ~ Thomas Watson

“How far from godliness, are those who are unspiritual in their worship, who do not do duties from a renewed principle and with the utmost intention of soul, but merely to stop the mouth of conscience! Many people look no further than the bare doing of duties, but never heed how they are done. God does not judge our duties by their length, but by love.” ~ Thomas Watson

“God can turn stones into bread, and a sinner can turn bread into stones; the bread of life into the stone of stumbling.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Glorifying God has respect to all the persons in the Trinity; it respects God the Father who gave us life; God the Son, who lost his life for us; and God the Holy Ghost, who produces a new life in us; we must bring glory to the whole Trinity.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Where there is union in fundamentals, there ought to be union in affections.” ~ Thomas Watson

“To seem to be zealous, if it be not according to the word, is not obedience, but will-worship.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Let us show ourselves godly by being more spiritual in duty. It is not the quantity, but the quality which God is concerned with. It is not how much we do but how well.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The spiritualizing of duty gives life to it. Without this it is only dead praying, dead hearing, and dead things are not pleasing. A dead flower has no beauty, a dead breast has no sweetness.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Where does Christ rule as king? His kingdom is spiritual. He rules in the hearts of men. He sets up his throne where no other king does; he rules the will and affections; his power binds the conscience; he subdues men’s lusts. “He will subdue our iniquities.” Mic 7:19.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Love is an industrious affection; it sets the head studying for God, hands working, feet running in the ways of his commandments.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Let us beg from God, a spiritual palate to relish a sweetness in holy things. For lack of spiritual hearts, we come to duty without delight, and go away without profit!” ~ Thomas Watson

“God sometimes afflicts with infirmity of body. Sickness takes away the comfort of life, and makes one in deaths oft.” ~ Thomas Watson

“To compare other things with God, is to debase Deity; as if you should compare the shining of a glow-worm with the sun.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Christ was born of a virgin, that we might be born of God. He took our flesh, that He might give us His Spirit. He lay in the manger that we might lie in paradise. He came down from heaven, that He might bring us to heaven. And what was all this but love? If our hearts be not rocks, this love of Christ should affect us. Behold, love that surpasses knowledge!” ~ Thomas Watson

“It is more honour to serve God, than to have kings serve us.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Bad aims will spoil good actions.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Do not rest in baptism; what is it to have the water, and want the Spirit?” ~ Thomas Watson

“The pardoned soul is out of the gunshot of hell (Rom. 8:33).” ~ Thomas Watson

“The world is but a great inn, where we are to stay a night or two, and be gone; what madness is it so to set our heart upon our inn, as to forget our home?” ~ Thomas Watson

“Contentment doth not appear only now and then, as some stars which are seen but seldom; it is a settled temper of heart.” ~ Thomas Watson

“God often goes by contrary means, and makes the enemy do his work. He can make a straight stroke with a crooked stick.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The wisdom of God is seen in making the most desperate evils turn to the good of his children. As several poisonable ingredients, wisely tempered by the skill of the artist, make a sovereign medicine, so God makes the most deadly afflictions co-operate for the good of his children. He purifies them, and prepares them for heaven. 2 Cor 4: I7. These hard frosts hasten the spring flowers of glory.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A man is known by the company he keeps. A company is known by the men it keeps.” ~ Thomas Watson

“To sweat in some duties of religion, and freeze in others is the symptom of a disordered Christian.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A good Christian holds secret communication with heaven. Private prayer keeps up the trade of godliness. When private holiness is laid aside, a stab is given to the heart of piety.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Many Christians are like sieves. Put a sieve into the water, and it is full; but take it out of the water, and it all runs out. So, while they are hearing the sermon, they remember something of value. But, like the sieve, as soon as they have left the church, all is forgotten.” ~ Thomas Watson

“To obey God, is not so much our duty, as our privilege; his commands carry food in the mouth of them. He bids us repent, and why? That our sins may be blotted out. Acts 3:19. He commands us to believe, and why? That we may be saved. Acts 16:31. There is love in every command. It is as if a king should bid one of his subjects dig in a gold mine, and then keep the gold for himself.” ~ Thomas Watson

“An idle person is the devil’s tennis ball, which he bandies up and down with temptation until at last the ball goes out of play.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A hypocritical faith is lame on one hand. With one hand it would take up Christ. But it does not with the other hand give itself up to Christ.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Morality shoots short of heaven. It is only nature refined. A moral man is but old Adam dressed in fine clothes. The king’s image counterfeited and stamped upon brass will not go current.” ~ Thomas Watson

“It [repentance] is not so much to endear us to Christ as to endear Christ to us. Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The motion of our praise must be like the motion of our pulse, which beats as long as life lasts.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Carnal Protestants, who are strangers to godly sorrow. They cannot endure a serious thought, nor do they love to trouble their heads about sin. Paracelsus[34] spoke of a frenzy some have which will make them die dancing. Likewise, sinners spend their days in mirth; they fling away sorrow and go dancing to damnation. Some have lived many years, yet never put a drop in God’s bottle, nor do they know what a broken heart means. They weep and wring their hands as if they were undone when their estates are gone, but have no agony of soul for sin.” ~ Thomas Watson

“When men throw off the Word, then God throws them off, and then Satan takes them by the hand, and leads them into snares at his pleasure. He who thinks himself too good to be ruled by the Word, will be found too bad to be owned by God; and if God does not, or will not own him, Satan will by his stratagems overthrow him.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Every cross, to a child of God, is like Paul’s cross wind, which, though it broke the ship, it brought Paul to shore upon the broken pieces.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A Christian without meditation is like a soldier without weapons, or a workman without tools.” ~ Thomas Watson

“As therefore we cherish our salvation and the honor of true religion, let us shine in that orb of relationships where God has placed us.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The tree of the promise will not drop its fruit unless shaken by the hand of prayer.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Take every word as spoken to yourselves. When the word thunders against sin, think thus: “God means my sins;” when it presseth any duty, “God intends me in this.” Many put off Scripture from themselves, as if it only concerned those who lived in the time when it was written; but if you intend to profit by the word, bring it home to yourselves: a medicine will do no good unless it be applied.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Love ‘thinketh no evil.’ 1 Cor 13: 5. It puts the best interpretation upon another’s words.” ~ Thomas Watson

“God so values his people that he will give kingdoms for their ransom (Isaiah 43:3); He put his best Jewel (Christ) in pawn for them (John 3:16).” ~ Thomas Watson

“Three wishes Paul had, and they were all about Christ; that he might be found in Christ, be with Christ, and magnify Christ.” ~ Thomas Watson

“God would have us part with nothing for Him, but that which will damn us if we keep it.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A godly man will forgive those who have wronged him Revenge is sweet to nature. A gracious spirit passes by affronts, forgets injuries and counts it a greater victory to conquer an enemy by patience than by power. It is truly heroic “to overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). Though I would not trust an enemy, yet I would endeavor to love him. I would exclude him from my creed, but not from my prayer (Matt. 5:44).” ~ Thomas Watson

“There is no one member of the body breaks forth more in God’s dishonour than the tongue.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Upon our turning to God, we have more restored to us in Christ, than ever was lost in Adam. God says to the repenting soul, “I will clothe you with the robe of righteousness; I will enrich you with the jewels and graces of my Spirit. I will bestow my love upon you! I will give you a kingdom! Son, all I have is yours!” ~ Thomas Watson

“is the soul’s retiring of itself, that by a serious and solemn thinking upon God, the heart may be raised up to heavenly affections.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Some complain they find no benefit by the word preached; perhaps they did not pray for their minister as they should.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Glorious things are spoken of God; he transcends our thoughts, and the praises of angels. God’s glory lies chiefly in his attributes, which are the several beams by which the divine nature shines forth. Among other of his orient excellencies, this is not the least, The Lord is a God of knowledge; or as the Hebrew word is, ‘A God of knowledges.” ~ Thomas Watson

“It is better that men should reproach you for repenting than that God should damn you for not repenting.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The godly understand the mystery of living by faith: “The just shall live by faith” (Heb. 10:38). They can trust God’s heart where they cannot trace his hand. They can get comfort out of a promise, as Moses got water out of the rock (Exod. 17:6).” ~ Thomas Watson

“A man may as well go to hell for not working in his calling, as for not believing.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The hypocrite is fair to look on. He has a devout eye, but a hollow heart. But he who is sincere, his inside is his best side!” ~ Thomas Watson

“We should look upon sin in two looking-glasses, the glass of Christ’s blood, and the glass of death.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Read not the word carelessly, but with seriousness and affection; as the oracle of heaven, the well of salvation, the book of life.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A shaking hand may as well write a line steadily, as we can keep our hearts fixed in prayer without the Spirit of God.” ~ Thomas Watson

“It was more for Christ to suffer one hour than for us to have suffered forever.” ~ Thomas Watson

“He who has no love in his heart to God, you may set him down for an apostate.” ~ Thomas Watson

“When men have hearts of stone and foreheads of brass, it is a sign that the devil has taken full possession of them.” ~ Thomas Watson

“This light does that which no other light can. It makes a man perceive himself to be blind.” ~ Thomas Watson

“There are no sins God’s people are more subject to than unbelief and impatience.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A godly man puts a kind interpretation upon providence.” ~ Thomas Watson

“When Satan has by his witcheries lulled men asleep in sloth, then he destroys them. Some report that while the crocodile sleeps with its mouth open, the Indian rat gets into its belly and eats up its entrails. So while men sleep in security they are devoured.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Evangelical obedience is true in its essence, though not perfect in its degree; and where it comes short, Christ puts his merits into the scales, and then there is full weight.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A judge judges only matters of fact, but God judges the heart. He not only judges wicked actions, but wicked designs. He sees the treason of the heart and punishes it.” ~ Thomas Watson

“By endeavoring to bring up our children in the fear of the Lord, we shall provide for God’s glory when we are dead. A godly man should not only honor God while he lives—but do something that may promote God’s glory when he is dead. If our children are seasoned with gracious principles, they will stand up in our place when we have gone, and will glorify God in their generation. A good piece of ground bears not only a fore-crop but an after-crop. He who is godly does not only bear God a good crop of obedience himself while he lives—but by training his child in the principles of piety, he bears God an after-crop when he is dead.” ~ Thomas Watson

“He whose heart is divinely touched with the magnet of God’s Spirit, will endeavor to attract those who are near him to Christ.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Another sign of our effectual calling is diligence in our ordinary calling. Some boast of their high calling, but they lie idly at anchor. Religion does not seal warrants to idleness. Christians must not be slothful. Idleness is the devil’s bath; a slothful person becomes a prey to every temptation. Grace, while it cures the heart, does not make the hand lame. He who is called of God, as he works for heaven, so he works in his trade.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A godly person chooseth Christ and grace before the most illustrious things under the sun” ~ Thomas Watson

“Sin is not only a defection, but a pollution. It is to the soul as rust is to gold, as a stain to beauty. It makes the soul red with guilt, and black with filth. Sin in Scripture is compared to a “menstruous cloth,” and to a “plague-sore.” ~ Thomas Watson

“They who pray that they may not be led into temptation, must not lead themselves into temptation.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Love is a holy fuel. It fires the affections, steels the courage, and carries a Christian above the love of life, and the fear of death.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The glory we give God is nothing else but our lifting up his name in the world, and magnifying him in the eyes of others. Phil 1:10. Christ shall be magnified in my body.” ~ Thomas Watson

“What the heart does not do, is not done.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Worry that is either untrusting or distracting is very dishonorable to God.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Faith and fear go hand in hand. When the soul looks at God’s holiness, he fears. When he looks at God’s promises, he believes. A godly man trembles, yet trusts. Fear preserves reverence, faith preserves cheerfulness. Fear keeps the soul from lightness, faith keeps it from sadness.” ~ Thomas Watson

“If, when God speaks to us in his word, we are deaf, when we speak to him in prayer, he will be dumb.” ~ Thomas Watson

“God’s providence, which is nothing but the fulfillment of His decree, should be a guarantee and an opposing force against discontent. In His wisdom, God has set us in our current station.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Why are Christians so disquieted in their minds? They are taking care when they should be casting care.” ~ Thomas Watson

“He that commands us, will enable us.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The hypocrite suspects others of sin but has charitable thoughts of himself! The sincere Christian has charitable thoughts of others and suspects himself of sin.” ~ Thomas Watson

“None ever complained of serving God: it was their comfort and their crown on their death-bed.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A believer triumphs more in the righteousness of Christ imputed, than if he had Adam’s righteousness in innocency, nay, than if he had the angels’ righteousness, for now he hath the righteousness of God. “That we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Grace makes the heart tender, it causes sympathy and charity. As it melts the heart in contrition towards God, so in compassion towards others.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A carnal person can no more value spiritual blessings than a baby can value a diamond necklace.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The outward call may bring men to a profession of Christ, the inward call brings them to a possession of Christ. The outward call curbs a sinner, the inward call changes him.” ~ Thomas Watson

“Self-love raises a sickbed vow, and love of sin will prevail against it. Trust not to a passionate resolution; it is raised in a storm and will die in a calm.” ~ Thomas Watson

“God’s glory is more worth than heaven, and more worth than the salvation of all men’s souls. It would be better that kingdoms be thrown down, better men and angels be annihilated, than God should lose one jewel of his crown, one beam of his glory!” ~ Thomas Watson

“Love not the world” (1 John 2:15). Many would like to be godly, but the honors and profits of the world divert them. Where the world fills both head and heart—there is no room for Christ.” ~ Thomas Watson

“A godly man spiritualizes duty; he is not only for the doing of holy things but for the holy doing of things.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The reason why God has given us a thinking faculty, is that we may think on his Name. When our thoughts run out in vain things, we should think with ourselves thus: Did God give us this talent to misemploy? Did he give us thoughts that we should think of everything but him?” ~ Thomas Watson

“Worldly business often crowds into our duties, and while our mouths are speaking to God, our hearts are thinking of the world” ~ Thomas Watson

“Make spending your time a matter of conscience. “Redeeming the time” (Eph. 5:16). Many people fool away their time, some in idle visits, others in recreations and pleasures which secretly bewitch the heart and take it away from better things. What are our golden hours for—but to attend to our souls? Time misspent is not time lived but time lost! Time is a precious commodity.” ~ Thomas Watson

“The serious thoughts of our short stay here would be a great means of promoting godliness. What if death should come before we are ready? What if our life should breathe out before God’s Spirit has breathed in? Whoever considers how flitting and winged his life is, will hasten his repentance!” ~ Thomas Watson

“Be often among the godly. They are the salt of the earth—and will help to season you. Their counsel may direct you; their prayers may enliven you. Such holy sparks may be thrown into your breasts as may kindle devotion in you. It is good to be among the saints, to learn the trade of godliness: “He who walks with wise men shall be wise” (Proverbs 13:20).” ~ Thomas Watson

Collected Quotes From Church Fathers

ANDREW MURRAY QUOTES