“The New Testament Bereans tested even apostolic preaching against Scripture (Acts 17:11). If apostolic teaching was commendably tested by Scripture, how much more must the voices of later centuries, whether patristic or medieval, be subjected to the Word of God. (Eastern) Orthodoxy claims her tradition merely interprets Scripture, citing Paul’s exhortation to ‘hold fast the traditions’ (2 Thess. 2:15). Yet Paul’s ‘traditions’ were his own apostolic teaching, not later inventions. EO’s tradition functions as an independent source, smothering the sufficiency of Scripture with speculative accretions.” – Craig Ireland
“In an interview published in Christianity Today in April 1977, W. Ward Gasque asked Hal Lindsey about his 1948-1988 prediction about the ‘rapture.’ “But what if you’re wrong?” Lindsey replied: “Well, there’s just a split second’s difference between a hero and a bum. I didn’t ask to be a hero, but I guess I have become one in the Christian community. So I accept it. But if I’m wrong about this, I guess I’ll become a bum.”
Lindsey later revised his thinking on the length of a generation.
Subsequent to the publication of The Late Great Planet Earth, Lindsey wrote that he did not know “how long a Biblical generation is. Perhaps somewhere between sixty and eighty years. The state of Israel was established in 1948. There are a lot of world leaders who are pointing to the 1980s as being the time of some very momentous events. Perhaps it will be then. But I feel certain that it will take place before the year 2000.” “Future Fact? Future Fiction?,” Christianity Today (April 15, 1977), 40.”
“A new and more powerful proclamation of that law is perhaps the most pressing need of the hour; men would have little difficulty with the gospel if they had only learned the lesson of the law. . . . So it always is: a low view of law always brings legalism in religion; a high view of law makes a man a seeker after grace. Pray God that the high view may again prevail.” – John Machen
“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.” – John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad, p. 17
“It’s possible to be a zealous defender of Reformed orthodoxy, a vigorous apologist, and a stalwart polemicist against error and heresy — AND have a kind and gracious heart, filled with the love and mercy of Jesus!” – Matthew Everhard
“Sometimes, anecdotes have force in them on account of their appealing to the sense of the ludicrous. Of course, I must be very careful here, for it is a sort of tradition of the fathers that it is wrong to laugh on Sundays. The eleventh commandment is, that we are to love one another, and then, according to some people, the twelfth is, “Thou shalt pull a long face on Sunday.” I must confess that I would rather hear people laugh than I would see them asleep in the house of God; and I would rather get the truth into them through the medium of ridicule than I would have the truth neglected, or leave the people to perish through lack of reception of the truth. I do believe in my heart that there may be as much holiness in a laugh as in a cry; and that, sometimes, to laugh is the better thing of the two, for I may weep, and be murmuring, and repining, and thinking all sorts of bitter thoughts against God; while, at another time, I may laugh the laugh of sarcasm against sin, and so evince a holy earnestness in the defence of the truth. I do not know why ridicule is to be given up to Satan as a weapon to be used against us, and not to be employed by us as a weapon against him. I will venture to affirm that the Reformation owed almost as much to the sense of the ridiculous in human nature as to anything else, and that those humorous squibs and caricatures, that were issued by the friends of Luther, did more to open the eyes of Germany to the abominations of the priesthood than the more solid and ponderous arguments against Romanism. I know no reason why we should not, on suitable occasions, try the same style of reasoning. “It is a dangerous weapon,” it will be said, “and many men will cut their fingers with it.” Well, that is their own look-out; but I do not know why we should be so particular about their cutting their fingers if they can, at the same time, cut the throat of sin, and do serious damage to the great adversary of souls.” – [Spurgeon, C. H. (2009). Lectures to my Students, Vol. 3: The Art of Illustration; Addresses Delivered to the students of the Pastors’ College, Metropolitan Tabernacle (43–44). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.]
“The elect are gathered into Christ’s flock by a call not immediately at birth, and not all at the same time, but according as it pleases God to dispense his grace to them. But before they are gathered unto that supreme Shepherd, they wander scattered in the wilderness common to all; and they do not differ at all from others except that they are protected by God’s especial mercy from rushing headlong into the final ruin of death. If you look upon them, you will see Adam’s offspring, who savor of the common corruption of the mass. The fact that they are not carried to utter and even desperate impiety is not due to any innate goodness of theirs but because the eye of God watches over their safety and his hand is outstretched to them!” – John Calvin
“I have taken all my good deeds, and all my bad, and cast them in a heap before the Lord, and fled from both, and betaken myself to the Lord Jesus Christ, and in him I have sweet peace.” – David Dickson, 1663
“You will find all true theology summed up in these two short sentences: Salvation is all of the grace of God. Damnation is all of the will of man.” – C. H. Spurgeon
“Remember God has accepted us. The gospel of grace is a message of breathtaking freedom. It must be embraced with faith and thanksgiving. You are thoroughly accepted just as you are. Jesus Christ is your righteousness and he is never going to change. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. When you wake tomorrow, he will still be your righteousness, before you have done anything to enjoy God’s favour. You have to earn nothing. Your spirit needs to bask in the brilliant sunlight of this reality. You need to know it inwardly and celebrate it on a daily basis.” – Terry Virgo
In April 1983 Jack Miller wrote to a young woman, responding to her concerns as to whether she is truly repentant, a real Christian. Here is the opening to Jack’s letter.
Dear Elise,
Thank you for your recent letter concerning your desire to know whether you have had a God-centered repentance. So set aside any fears that I might be unwilling to take time to help you. Perhaps I can help you if you will recognize that all I can do is be a small finger pointing to a large Christ. But if you trust yourself to Him be confident He is not only willing to help you but has the power to help you.
What do you need to know?… When you turn to Christ, you don’t have a repentance apart from Christ, you just have Christ. Therefore don’t seek repentance or faith as such but seek Christ. When you have Christ you have repentance and faith. Beware of seeking an experience of repentance; just seek an experience of Christ.
The Devil can be pretty tricky. He doesn’t mind you thinking much about repentance and faith if you do not think about Jesus Christ… Seek Christ, and relate to Christ as a loving Savior and Lord who wants to invite you to know him.
– The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R, 2004), 244-45
“Five ways believers should be an example:
1. In the way we talk
2. In the way we act
3. In the way we love
4. In the way we trust God
5. In the way we seek holiness
- 1 Timothy 4:12″ – Kevin Hay
Real hard work — the kind that changes your life, your income, and your future — isn’t a schedule. It’s a mindset. It’s what you do when no one’s watching. It’s the standard you hold when it’s inconvenient. It’s showing up when there’s no immediate reward… and doing it anyway.
“Almost all high profile evangelical preachers teach that hearing the voice of God is crucial in our walk with Christ. If you don’t hear God’s voice (regularly apparently) then you don’t have much of a relationship with God at all. If that is true, have you ever wondered why it is, that God gives us absolutely no instruction on how to hear Him speak?
In the New Testament, we have the Gospels, which give us the accounts of the birth, life, ministry, teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In Acts we have the birth of the church and spread of the gospel. Throughout the rest of the New Testament, we have loads and loads of doctrine and theology, we have instructions on ecclesiology, qualifications of Elders, conflict resolution, church discipline, preaching, evangelism, spiritual gifts, trials, enduring persecution, eschatology and on and on and on.
And yet, God does not offer us so much as one single syllable of instruction on this one thing, that is supposedly at the very heart of our relationship with Him, how to hear His voice? In none of the pastoral epistles, exactly where you would expect to find it, is there any help on how to hear God’s voice, not one syllable. Why? Could it be, that there is no need for such instruction today, because God speaks to us today, through, and only through, His word?” – Justin Peters
“An anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.” – Charles Spurgeon
“The very essence of anxious care is the imagining that we are wiser than God.” (Charles Spurgeon)
“The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.” – George Mueller
“Pray and let God worry.” – Martin Luther
“There is unspeakable comfort in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good.” – J.I. Packer
“Let your cares drive you to God. I shall not mind if you have many of them if each one leads you to prayer.” – Charles Spurgeon
“Faith is not the absence of anxiety. Faith is the refusal to let anxiety have the final word.”
