“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” – Winston Churchill

“Don’t give up what you want most for what you want now.” – Anonymous

“It ought to be the primary goal of every Christian to put aside confidence in works and grow stronger in the belief that we are saved by faith alone. Through this faith the Christian should increase in knowledge not of works but of Christ Jesus and the benefits of his death and resurrection.” – Martin Luther, The Freedom of the Christian (Minneapolis, 2008), page 55.

“People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” – D.A. Carson

“If we felt at liberty to leave out something, we should naturally omit that which is offensive, and away would go the tooth and edge of the gospel. That which is offensive in the gospel is just that which is effective. What men oppose is what God uses.” C. H. Spurgeon

“In the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is contained the whole salvation of men.” – Herman Bavinck, The Divine Trinity

“If Christ’s death fully paid the penalty for everyone’s sins – irrespective of faith or unbelief – it is impossible that these sins could be punished again in the court of a just God. That the Bible so clearly promises God’s vengeful judgment on the sins of unbelievers proves that Christ did not die for their sins.” – Richard D. Phillips

“Doctrinal preaching certainly bores the hypocrites; but it is only doctrinal preaching that will save Christ’s sheep. The preacher’s job is to proclaim the faith, not to provide entertainment for unbelievers—in other words, to feed the sheep rather than amuse the goats” – J.I. Packer

“We believe in the five great points commonly known as Calvinistic; but we do not regard these five points as being barbed shafts which we are to thrust between the ribs of our fellow Christians. We look upon them as being five great lamps which help to irradiate the cross; or, rather, five bright emanatations springing from the glorious covenant of our Triune God.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“Divisions and separations are most objectionable in religion. They weaken the cause of true Christianity…But before we blame people for them, we must be careful that we lay the blame where it is deserved. False doctrine and heresy are even worse than schism. If people separate themselves from teaching that is positively false and unscriptural, they ought to be praised rather than reproved. In such cases separation is a virtue and not a sin.” – JC Ryle, Warnings To The Churches

“Bad theology will eventually hurt people and dishonor God in proportion to its badness.” – John Piper (A Godward Life Volume Two, pg. 377)

“Compare Scripture with Scripture. False doctrines, like false witnesses, agree not among themselves.” -William Gurnall

“Christianity is no more a bondage to men than wings are to birds.” – O. Palmer Robertson

“Walker Percy, the novelist, has described humanity as ‘waiting for news.’ Christianity says that the news has come. It brings to the human situation the news that what we most need has been supplied: perfect atonement for guilt. It declares that what we know to be true about ourselves has been responded to decisively and eternally from outside ourselves. This confidence that there is good news for humanity in the place of our solitude is summed up in the words ‘Christ died for our sins.’” – Paul F. M. Zahl, Who Will Deliver Us? (Eugene, 2008), pages 37-38.

“It is not hard to deceive ministers, relatives, and friends. But it is impossible to deceive Christ.” – J.C. Ryle

“In the name of God, brethren, labor to awaken your own hearts, before you go to the pulpit, that you may be fit to awaken the hearts of sinners. Remember they must be awakened or damned, and . . . a sleepy preacher will hardly awaken drowsy sinners. Though you give the holy things of God the highest praise in words, yet, if you do it coldly, you will seem by your manner to unsay what you said in the matter… Speak to your people as to men that must be awakened, either here or in hell. Look around upon them with the eye of faith, and with compassion, and think in what a state of joy or torment they must all be for ever; and then, methinks, it will make you earnest, and melt your heart to a sense of their condition.” – Richard Baxter, quoted in J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness (Wheaton, 1990), 279.

“God warned Lot’s wife of the impending disaster. He tried to rescue her from His judgment. He even set her on the way to salvation, shepherding her to safety. But the bent of her heart was even more powerful than the grasp of the angels leading her by the hand. She gave proof that she had never taken God seriously when she would not sever her heart-ties with Sodom. She came as close to deliverance without receiving it as was possible. Looking to the past she destroyed her future. Having received the grace of God in vain, she passed the point of no return. Not even the fire and brimstone falling around her could heal her divided heart… We might feel inclined to ask why Lot’s wife paid such a price for her error. Oh, but she sinned grievously against the Lord. Not only did she lack the pioneering pilgrim spirit required of those who leave their former lives for a better city, but she was in love with the sinful world… What she left behind and still held in her heart obviously was very dear to her, dearer than the treasures of God.” – Cheryl Ford, Treasures from the Heart

“Every time you hear the Word of God preached, you come away from that exposure to his truth either a little closer to God or a little further way from God, either more softened toward God or more hardened toward God. But you are never just the same. And if you think you can hold… the gospel at arm’s length in critical detachment, that very posture reveals that you are already deadened. The same truth enlivening someone else is hardening you. And don’t tell yourself that if only God would perform a miracle in your life, you would believe and open up. Jesus performed miracles, and the people who saw them only became further hardened (John 12:37–41). And if God’s Word isn’t saving you, what will? “Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21).” – Raymond C. Ortlund, Jr and R. Kent Hughes, Isaiah : God Saves Sinners, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2005). 81.

“The work of redemption which the gospel makes known, above all things, affords motives to love. For that work was the most glorious and wonderful exhibition of love that ever was seen or heard of. Love is the principal thing that the gospel dwells on when speaking of God and of Christ. It brings to light the love eternally existing between the Father and the Son, and declares how that same love has been manifested in many things. The gospel manifests how Christ is God’s well-beloved Son, in whom He is ever well pleased and how He so loved Him, that He has raised Him to the throne of the mediatorial kingdom, and appointed Him to be the judge of the world, and ordained that all mankind should stand before Him in judgment. In the gospel, too, is revealed the love that Christ has to the Father, and the wonderful fruits of that love, particularly in His doing such great things, and suffering such great things in obedience to the Father’s will, and for the honour of His justice, and law, and authority, as the great moral governor. In the gospel there is revealed how the Father and Son are one in love, that we might be induced, in the like spirit, to be one with them, and with one another, agreeably to Christ’s prayer (John 17:21-23). The gospel also declares to us that the love of God was from everlasting, and reminds us that He loved those that are redeemed by Christ, before the foundation of the world and that He gave them to the Son and that the Son loved them as His own. The gospel reveals, too, the wonderful love of both the Father and the Son to the saints now in glory– that Christ not only loved them while in the world, but that He loved them to the end. And all this love is spoken of as bestowed on us while we were wanderers, outcasts, worthless, guilty, and even enemies. This is love, such as was never elsewhere known or conceived.” – Jonathan Edwards

“Predestination should be taught… Because Christ and the Apostles frequently taught it… Nor otherwise do Peter, James and John express themselves, who speak repeatedly of this mystery whenever occasion offered. Now if it was proper for them to teach, why is it not for us to learn? Why should God teach what would have been better to be unspoken? Why did he wish to proclaim those things which it would be better not to know? Do we wish to be more prudent than God, or to prescribe rules to Him?” – Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology

“Christ declares that the doctrine of the Gospel, though it is preached to all without exception, cannot be embraced by all, but that a new understanding and a new perception are requisite; and, therefore, that faith does not depend on the will of men, but that it is God who gives it.” – John Calvin, Commentary on John

“…faith is not bare or cold knowledge, since no man can believe who has not been renewed by the Spirit of God…faith itself is a work of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in none but the children of God. So then, in various respects, faith is a part of our regeneration, and an entrance into the kingdom of God, that he may reckon us among his children. The illumination of our minds by the Holy Spirit belongs to our renewal, and thus faith flows from regeneration as from its source; but since it is by the same faith that we receive Christ, who sanctifies us by his Spirit, on that account it is said to be the beginning of our adoption.” – John Calvin, Commentary on John

“The first thing to remember is that we must never separate the benefits (regeneration, justification, sanctification) from the Benefactor (Jesus Christ). The Christians who are most focused on their own spirituality may give the impression of being the most spiritual but from the New Testament’s point of view, those who have almost forgotten about their own spirituality because their focus is so e…xclusively on their union with Jesus Christ and what He has accomplished are those who are growing and exhibiting fruitfulness. Historically speaking, whenever the piety of a particular group is focused on OUR spirituality, that piety will eventually exhaust itself on its own resources. Only where our piety forgets about us and focuses on Jesus Christ will our piety be nourished by the ongoing resources the Spirit brings to us from the source of all true piety, our Lord Jesus Christ.” – Sinclair Ferguson

“Election can only be known by its fruits. The Elect of God can only be discerned from those who are not Elect by their faith and life. We cannot climb up into the secret of God’s eternal counsels. We cannot read the book of life. The fruits of the Spirit, seen and manifested in a man’s conversation, are the only grounds on which we can ascertain that he is one of God’s Elect. Where the marks of God’s Elect can be seen, there, and there only, have we any warrant for saying “this is one of the Elect.” How do I know that yon distant ship on the horizon of the sea has any pilot or steersman on board? I cannot with the best telescope discern anything but her masts and sails. Yet I see her steadily moving in one direction. That is enough for me.” – J.C. Ryle

“Do not think Christians are made by education; they are made by creation. The vital spark must come from above! Regeneration is not of the will of man, nor of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but by the power and energy of the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God alone!” – C. H. Spurgeon, “Light, Natural and Spiritual” No. 660.

“Christ declares that the doctrine of the Gospel, though it is preached to all without exception, cannot be embraced by all, but that a new understanding and a new perception are requisite; and, therefore, that faith does not depend on the will of men, but that it is God who gives it.” – John Calvin, Commentary on John Chapter 6

“Today, let us rise and go to our work. Tomorrow, we shall rise and go to our reward.” – Richard Fuller

“Like Christ’s redeeming work, then, faith is not merely offered but is actually conferred, by sheer grace and without any obligation to grant it.” – Michael Horton

“Why is it that some have believed? It is because the Spirit has sanctified them, has set them apart, has called them out. It is the call of the Spirit; it is the work of the Spirit in conviction, and calling out, and giving power to believe.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans – The Sons Of God

“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

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.” – Jewel the unicorn, upon entering the final, perfected Narnia, in The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis

“John Owen on the Bible: O heavenly, O blessed depositum of divine grace and goodness! . . . although every humble soul may learn and receive from it what is absolutely sufficient for itself on all occasions, with respect to its own duty and eternal welfare, yet the whole church of God, neither jointly nor severally, from the beginning to the end of the world, have been, are, or shall be, able to examine these stores to the bottom and to find out perfectly all its truths, in all their dimensions, concerns, and extent, that are contained therein.” – quoted in Sinclair Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Banner of Truth, 1987), 189-90

“We may depend upon it—that knowledge of Christ, obedience to Christ, and the fruits of the Spirit—are the only tests by which God weighs and measures any Church. If these are absent, He cares nothing for beautiful buildings, fine singing, and a pompous ceremonial. These are ‘leaves,’ and He desires to see not leaves only, but ‘fruit’. The tree of the Church of England perhaps never had so many leaves on it, as it has just now. I wish there was a corresponding quantity of fruit!” – J.C. Ryle

“… there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology (the study of salvation): the point that God saves sinners.

“God – the Triune Jehovah, Father, Son and Spirit; three Persons working together in sovereign wisdom, power and love to achieve the salvation of a chosen people, the Father electing, the Son fulfilling the Father’s will by redeeming, the Spirit executing the purpose of Father and Son by renewing.

“Saves – does everything, first to last, that is involved in bringing man from death in sin to life in glory: plans, achieves and communicates redemption, calls and keeps, justifies, sanctifies, glorifies.

“Sinners – men as God finds them, guilty, vile, helpless, powerless, unable to lift a finger to do God’s will or better their spiritual lot. God saves sinners – and the force of this confession may not be weakened by disrupting the unity of the work of the Trinity, or by dividing the achievement of salvation between God and man and making the decisive part man’s own, or by soft-pedalling the sinner’s inability so as to allow him to share the praise of his salvation with his Saviour. This is the one point of Calvinistic soteriology which the “five points” are concerned to establish and Arminianism in all its forms to deny: namely, that sinners do not save themselves in any sense at all, but that salvation, first and last, whole and entire, past, present and future, is of the Lord, to whom be glory for ever; amen.” – J. I. Packer, “Introductory Essay,” in The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, by John Owen (London: Banner of Truth, 1959) 4-5.

“Grace proves irresistible just because it destroys the disposition to resist.” – J. I. Packer

“To bring our minds under Christ’s yoke is not to deny our rationality but to submit to his revelation.” – John Stott

“If, as some Christians maintain, salvation can be forfeited, it then would be obvious that God’s grace lacks everlasting power, that the life He bestows on believers is not eternal. A believer’s hope could only be temporary. He would be in continual danger of losing salvation, because it would be dependent on his own faithfulness and power to avoid sin that would cast him back into lostness. If that were true, one’s own power to sin would be greater than God’s power to save, and any testimony given to unbelievers to bring them to salvation would be undermined.” – John MacArthur

“The elect person is a gift from God to Christ based on Christ’s satisfactory work, not on my satisfactory work. If a person could lose his salvation, it could only be on the basis of God’s dissatisfaction with the finished work of Christ. But He has declared once and for all, and it is written infallibly in the pages of Scripture, that He is satisfied. And if God is satisfied with what Christ has done, the issue is settled.” – Don Kistler, Redemption Planned

“Christ is to be answerable for all those that are given to Him, at the last day, and therefore we need not doubt but that He will certainly employ all the power of His Godhead to secure and save all those that He must be accountable for. Christ’s charge and care of these that are given to Him, extends even to the very day of their resurrection, that He may not so much as lose their dust, but gather it together again, and raise it up in glory to be a proof of His fidelity; for, saith He, ‘I shall lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last day.'” – Thomas Brooks, A Puritan Golden Treasury

“Once enrolled in the lists of this Church, sinners are safe for eternity; they are never cast away. The election of God the Father, the continual intercession of God the Son, the daily renewing and sanctifying power of God the Holy Ghost, surround and fence them in like a garden enclosed. Not one bone of Christ’s mystical Body shall ever be broken; not one lamb of Christ’s flock shall ever be plucked out of His hand.” – J.C. Ryle

“The doctrine of assurance looks into eternity past to the eternal purposes of God, looks into history to the accomplished work of Christ, and looks to the future toward the perfect fulfillment of God’s purpose to redeem a people through His Son.” – R. Albert Mohler Jr., Assured by God

“If the elect could perish then Jesus Christ should be very unfaithful to His Father because God the Father hath given this charge to Christ, that whomsoever He elected, Christ should preserve them safe, to bring them to heaven. John 6:39.” – Christopher Love, A Puritan Golden Treasury,

“Converting grace, for Augustine, is God’s giving us a joy in God that conquers all other joys and therefore sways the will.” – John Piper

“Winners of souls must first be weepers for souls.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“A man is not saved against his will, but he is made willing by the operation of the Holy Ghost. A mighty grace which he does not wish to resist enters into the man, disarms him, makes a new creature of him, and he is saved.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 10, p. 309).

“We are secure, not because we hold tightly to Jesus, but because He holds tightly to us.” – R. C. Sproul

“LORD, when we are wrong, make us willing to change; and when we are right, make us easy to live with.” – Peter Marshall

“People tell me ‘Judge not lest ye be judged.’ I always tell them, ‘Twist not scripture lest ye be like Satan.’” – Paul Washer

“Theology, even sound theology, if it doesn’t reach our hearts and come out our fingers, is too busy tickling our ears.” R. C. Sproul, Jr.

“And let us not take it into our heads either to seek out God anywhere else than in his Sacred Word, or to think anything about him that is not prompted by his Word, or to speak anything that is not taken from that Word.” – John Calvin, Institutes, Book 1

“A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.” – Alexander Pope

“In God’s workshop in this world, suffering is the raw material out of which glory is forged.” – Sinclair Ferguson

“When we bless God for mercies, we usually prolong them. When we bless God for miseries, we usually end them. Praise is the honey of life which a devout heart extracts from every bloom of providence and grace.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“The heart of most religions is good advice, good techniques, good programs, good ideas, and good support systems. These drive us deeper into ourselves, to find our inner light, inner goodness, inner voice, or inner resources. Nothing new can be found inside us. These is no inner rescuer deep down in my soul; I just hear echoes of my own voice telling me all sorts of crazy things to numb my sense of fear, anxiety, and boredom, the origins of which I cannot truly identify. But the heart of Christianity is Good News. It comes not as a task for us to fulfill, a mission for us to accomplish, a game plan for us to follow with the help of life coaches, but as a report that someone else has already fulfilled, accomplished, followed, and achieved everything for us. Good advice may help us in daily direction; the Good News concerning Jesus Christ saves us from sin’s guilt and tyranny over our lives and the fear of death. It’s Good News because it does not depend on us. It is about God and his faithfulness to his own purposes and promises.” – Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life, p.20

“Every sin is an act of cosmic treason, a futile attempt to dethrone God in His sovereign authority.” – R. C. Sproul

“Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Preaching is the public exposition of Scripture by the man sent from God, in which God himself is present in judgement and in grace.” – John Calvin

“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 McCheyne

“A real man doesn’t love a million girls, he loves one girl a million ways.” – Paul Lewin

“And they shall never perish” (Jn. 10:28). Literally [we can translate this] they shall not, by no means ever, perish. This is an absolute, unequivocal, unassailable negative. Would Jesus have said this if in fact many of his sheep shall perish? If so much as one true child of God can ever perish, Jesus has deceived us…. If the Father was pleased to make a gift of certain sinners to His most blessed Son, you may rest assured that the Son will neither despise nor deny His Father’s gracious generosity. [There is] the certainty of ultimate and absolute salvati…on for those who come to the Son… Their life in Christ is eternal and irrevocable because that is the will of the Father; a will or a purpose that the whole of Christ’s person and work was designed to secure, a will or purpose that shall ultimately be (Psm. 115:3; 135:6; Dan. 4:34-35; Eph. 1:11; Ac. 4:28). What did Jesus come to do? He came to do the Father’s will (Jn. 6:38). What is the Father’s will? The Father’s will is that all those He has given to the Son be fully and finally saved (Jn. 6:39). Oh, what a glorious thought it is! Sam Storms, A Defense of the Perseverance of the Saints

“If a true believer could fully and finally fall away, what it would mean for God the Son?

1. Christ will have failed in the purpose for which He died (Jn. 6:37-40; 10:14-18, 27-30).

2. Christ will have failed in the purpose for whic…h He was raised (Rom. 4:24-25).

3. Christ will have failed in the purpose for which He now intercedes in the presence of the Father (Rom. 8:31-34; 1 Jn. 2:1-2; Heb. 7:25).

4. Christ will fail to accomplish the goal for which He is to return to this earth (Jn. 6:40b).

5. Christ will prove to have been a liar (Jn. 6:37; 10:27-28).

If a true believer could fully and finally fall away, what it would mean for God the Holy Spirit?

1. The Holy Spirit will have failed in his work of sealing (2 Cor. 1:21-22; Eph. 1:13-14; 4:30).

2. The Holy Spirit will have failed i…n his ministry as a pledge of the future consummation of our redemption (2 Cor. 1:21-22; 5:5).

3. The Spirit will have failed in his ministry as firstfruits (Rom. 8:23).” – Sam Storms, A Defense of the Perseverance of the Saints – Part II