“Those who WANT to think the worst about you will always pass on a false report without checking to see if it’s true first.” Anon

“I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had time to make it shorter.” – Mark Twain

“There is as much providence in the creeping of an aphis upon a rose leaf as in the marching of an army to ravage a continent.” – 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

“If you follow this advice, if you first recognize that you are a child of wrath by nature, guilty of eternal death and damnation, from which no creature, either man or angel, is able to save you, and if you then grasp God’s promise, believing that he has sent Christ, his only Son, to render satisfaction for your sin, to give you his innocence and righteousness, and finally to redeem you from all danger and death, then do not doubt that you belong to the little flock of the elect.” – Martin Luther

“It is most misleading to call this soteriology “Calvinism” at all, for it is not a peculiarity of John Calvin and the divines of Dort, but a part of the revealed truth of God and the catholic (universal) Christian faith. “Calvinism” is one of the “odious names” by which down the centuries prejudice has been raised against it. But the thing itself is just the biblical gospel.” – J.I. Packer

“Reformed theology so far transcends the mere five points of Calvinism that it is an entire worldview.” – R.C. Sproul

“We have now seen the three tactics which the devil employed in his overall strategy to destroy the church. First, he tried through the Jewish authorities to suppress it by force; secondly through the married couple Ananias and Sapphira to corrupt it by hypocrisy; and thirdly through some squabbling widows to distract its leadership from prayer and preaching, and so expose it to error and evil. If he had succeeded in any of these attempts, the new community of Jesus would have been annihilated in its infancy. But the apostles were sufficiently alert to detect ‘the devil’s schemes.’ We need their spiritual discernment today to recognize the activity of both the Holy Spirit and the evil spirit. We also need their faith in the strong name of Jesus by whose authority alone the powers of darkness can be overthrown.” – John R. W. Stott, The Message of Acts (Downers Grove, 1990), page 124.

God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Romans 5:5

“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 doth 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, Works (Edinburgh, 1980), II:240.

“The little birds that sing, sing of God; the beasts clamor for him; the elements dread him, the mountains echo him, the fountains and flowing waters cast their glances at him, and the grass and flowers laugh before him.” – John Calvin, quoted in Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers (Nashville, 1988), pages 192-193.

“No man ever fell into error through being too watchful.” – C.H. Spurgeon

“Spiritual pride takes great notice of opposition and injuries that are received and is apt to be often speaking of them and to be much in taking notice of their aggravations, either with an air of bitterness or contempt. Whereas pure and unmixed Christian humility disposes a person rather to be like his blessed Lord, when reviled, dumb, not opening his mouth, but committing himself in silence to him that judges righteously… It becomes the followers of the Lamb of God, when the world is in an uproar about them and full of clamor against them, not to raise another noise to answer it but to be still and quiet… Meekness and quietness among God’s people, when opposed and reviled, would be the surest way to have God remarkably to appear for their defense… Nothing is so effectual to bring God down from heaven in the defense of his people as their patience and meekness under sufferings.” – Jonathan Edwards, “Thoughts on the Revival,” in Works (Edinburgh, 1979), I:401.

“Men will never worship God with a sincere heart, or be roused to fear and obey Him with sufficient zeal, until they properly understand how much they are indebted to His mercy.” – John Calvin

“Dead fish swim down the stream–living fish swim against it. To swim against the common stream of evil, shows grace to be alive.” – Thomas Watson

“Before He furnishes the abundant supply, we must first be made conscious of our emptiness. Before he gives strength, we must be made to feel our weakness. Slow, painfully slow, are we to learn this lesson; and slower still to own our nothingness and take the place of helplessness before the Mighty One.” – A.W. Pink

“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved to be steady… [It] is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point [of attack].” – Martin Luther

“In commanding us to glorify him, God is inviting us to enjoy him.” – C.S. Lewis

“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

“It is only those who truly love Christ that are fitted to minister to His flock! The work is so laborious, the appreciation is often so small, the response so discouraging, the criticisms so harsh, the attacks of Satan so fierce, that only the ‘love of Christ’ – His for us and ours for Him – can ‘constrain’ to such work. ‘Hirelings’ will feed the goats, but only those who love Christ can feed His sheep.” – A.W. Pink

“All the love and acceptance which perfect obedience could have obtained of God belong to you because Christ was perfectly obedient on your behalf. Those who set aside the atonement as a satisfaction for sin also murder the doctrine of justification by faith. They must do so. There is a common element which is the essence of both doctrines; so that, if you deny the one, you destroy the other.

Modern thought is nothing but an attempt to bring back the legal system of salvation by works. Our battle is the same as that which Luther fought at the Reformation. If you go to the very ground and root of it, grace is taken away, and human merit is substituted. The gracious act of God in pardoning sin is excluded, and human effort is made all in all, both for past sin and future hope. Every man is now to set up as his own saviour, and the atonement is shelved as a pious fraud.

I will not foul my mouth with the unworthy phrases which have been used in reference to the substitutionary work of our Lord Jesus Christ; but it is a sore grief of heart to note how these evil things are tolerated by men whom we respect…

I must have a righteousness, perfect and Divine; yet it is beyond my own power to create. I find it in Christ: I read that it will become mine by faith, and by faith I take it. My conscience tells me that I must render to God’s justice a recompense for the dishonour that I have done to His law, and I cannot find anything which bears the semblance of such a recompense till I look to Christ Jesus…” – C.H. Spurgeon

“As a pastor few things affect me more than interacting with those who are unaware of God’s personal love for them. Normally there isn’t a week that goes by where I’m not talking with someone who hasn’t understood this truth – Christ loved me and gave Himself for me – in personal experience… very small errors in a person’s understanding of the Gospel seemed to result in very big problems in that person’s life. For when you are deeply aware of your sin, and of what an affront it is to God’s holiness, and how impossible it is for Him to respond to this sin with anything other than furious wrath — you can only be overwhelmed with how amazing grace is… Legalism is seeking to achieve forgiveness from God and justification before God through obedience to God. A legalist is anyone who behaves as if they can earn God’s forgiveness through personal performance. It says to God in effect, ‘Your plan didn’t work. The cross wasn’t enough and I need to add my good works to it to be saved’ — legalism is essentially self-atonement for self-glorification, and ultimately for self-worship.” – C. J. Mahaney

“‘Keeping’ is a more comprehensive word than ‘guarding’, and the idea behind the word can perhaps best be illustrated by a shepherd’s care for his sheep. It is the business of the shepherd to ‘keep’ the sheep. That means that he always keeps his eye on them. He watches them, supervising them the whole time and taking care of them in the fields so that none stray away or get lost. When they have to be moved he sees to it that they are not driven too quickly, and he always makes sure that they are fed at the right time. Constant care, that is the meaning of the word ‘keep’. Now the word ‘guard’ is a lesser term. To guard means simply to protect against attacks, so you see this covers a more restricted area than the other. Guarding means just that one thing – there are enemies around, and it is the business of the shepherd to protect the flock against them.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Safe in the World)

“God never gives strong faith without fiery trial; He will not build a strong ship without subjecting it to very mighty storms; He will not make you a mighty warrior if He does not intend to try your skill in battle.” – C.H. Spurgeon

“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

“I thank Thee that many of my prayers have been refused. I have asked amiss and do not have, I have prayed from lusts and have been rejected, I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness. Go on with Thy patient work, answering ‘no’ to my wrongful prayers, and fitting me to accept it.” – Puritan Prayer

“We spend our years with sighing; it is a valley of tears; but death is the funeral of all our sorrows.” – Thomas Watson

“The basis and groundwork of Arminian theology lies in attaching undue importance to man, and giving God rather the second place than the first.” – C.H Spurgeon

“Remember that it is not hasty reading—but serious meditation on holy and heavenly truths, which makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the mere touching of the flower by the bee which gathers honey (cp Ps 19:10-note; Ps 119:103-note)—but her abiding for a time on the flower which draws out the sweet. It is not he who reads most, but he who meditates most—who will prove to be the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest Christian.” – Thomas Brooks

“Millions of people profess and call themselves Christians, whom the Apostle Paul would not have called Christians at all.” – J.C. Ryle

“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

“You might as well expect to raise the dead by whispering in their ears, as hope to save souls by preaching to them, if it were not for the agency of the Spirit.” – C.H. Spurgeon

“I have now concentrated all my prayers into one, and that one prayer is this, that I may die to self, and live wholly to Him.” – C.H. Spurgeon

“We can never be too frequent or too solemn in the general surrender of our souls to God and binding our souls by a vow to be the Lord’s forever: to love Him above all things, to fear Him, to hope in Him, to walk in His ways in a course of holy obedience, and to wait for His mercy and eternal life.” – Isaac Watts

“Theology is a serious quest for the true knowledge of God, undertaken in response to His self-revelation, illumined by Christian tradition, manifesting a rational inner coherence, issuing in ethical conduct, resonating with the contemporary world and concerned for the greater glory of God.” – John Stott

“If God is not sovereign in the decisions and actions of other people as they affect us, then there is a whole major area of our lives where we cannot trust God; where we are left, so to speak, to fend for ourselves.” – Jerry Bridges

“A “god” whose will is resisted, whose designs are frustrated, whose purpose is checkmated, possesses no title to Deity, and so far from being a fit object of worship, merits nought but contempt.” – A.W. Pink

“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 the meeting-place of all the waters in the world, so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet.” – John Flavel

“Questions of who God is and of what He is like can never be considered irrelevant to the practical matters of church life. Different understandings of God will lead you to worship Him in different ways, and if some of those understandings are wrong, some of those ways in which you approach Him could be wrong as well.” – Mark Dever

“The sweetest fragrance, the most beautiful aroma that God has ever detected emanating from this planet, was the aroma of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus that was offered once and for all on the cross.” – R.C. Sproul

“Christ took your cup of grief, your cup of the curse, pressed it to his lips, drank it to its dregs, then filled it with His sweet, pardoning, sympathizing love, and gave it back for you to drink, and to drink forever!” – Octavius Winslow

“The summary of the gospel is that our Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, has revealed the will of His heavenly Father to us, and with His innocence has redeemed us from death, and has reconciled us with God. Therefore, Christ is the only way to salvation for all those who have been, are, and will be.” – Ulrich Zwingli

“Christianity insists that everyone is a sinner through and through. Our minds, hearts, wills, and emotions are in rebellion against God. When it comes right down to it, the problem is not that there is only one way to God (through Christ). The real problem is that human beings will not follow God at all.” – Philip Graham Ryken

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

“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 emanations springing from the glorious covenant of our Triune God, and illustrating the great doctrines of Jesus crucified.” C.H. Spurgeon

“Knowledge without repentance will be but a torch to light men to Hell.” – Thomas Watson

“For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by His fatherly care, that He is the Author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond Him – they will never yield Him willing service. Nay, unless they establish their complete happiness in Him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to Him.” – John Calvin

“We must learn to measure ourselves, not by our knowledge about God, not by our gifts and responsibilities in the church, but by how we pray and what goes on in our hearts. Many of us, I suspect, have no idea how impoverished we are at this level. Let us ask the Lord to show us.” – J.I. Packer

“The emphasis of the Bible, in other words, is on the work of the Redeemer, not on the work of the redeemed. As important as how we live is, the spotlight of Scripture is on Christ, not the Christian.” – T. Tchividjian

“Accept his naked word, for it is surer than the sight of the eye or the hearing of the ears.” – Spurgeon
No doctrine in the whole Word of God has more excited the hatred of mankind than the truth of the absolute sovereignty of God. The fact that “the Lord reigneth” is indisputable, and it is this fact that arouses the utmost opposition in the unrenewed human heart.” – C.H. Spurgeon

“If you do not listen to theology, that will not mean you have no ideas about God, rather it will mean you have a lot of wrong ones.” – C.S. Lewis

“As to his deity Christ had no mother, and as to his humanity he had no father.” – Robert Clarke

Don’t Seek Repentance: Seek Christ – 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

“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.]