“People are backsliders on their knees long before they backslide openly in the eyes of the world.” – J.C. Ryle
“Christianity which is from the Holy Spirit will always have a very deep view of the sinfulness of sin. It will not merely regard sin as a blemish and misfortune, which makes men and women objects of pity, and compassion. It will see in sin the abominable thing which God hates, the thing which makes man guilty and lost in his Maker’s sight, the thing which deserves God’s wrath and condemnation. It will look on sin as the cause of all sorrow and unhappiness, of strife and wars, of quarrels and contentions, of sickness and death–the curse which cursed God’s beautiful creation, the cursed thing which makes the whole earth groan and struggle in pain. Above all, it will see in sin the thing which will ruin us eternally, unless we can find a ransom,–lead us captive, except we can get its chains broken,–and destroy our happiness, both here and hereafter, except we fight against it, even unto death. Is this your religion? Are these your feelings about sin? If not, you should doubt whether your religion is “authentic.” – J. C. Ryle
“In my opinion Charles Wesley is the finest English hymnwriter, Thomas Cranmer the best liturgist, William Tyndale the most perceptive Bible translator, Hugh Latimer the finest preacher, and the Westminster divines the ablest catechists. Imagine all of these gifted people gathered up into one individual. What it took a dozen Englishmen two hundred years to do Martin Luther did in twenty.” – Victor Shepherd, Witnesses to the Word: Fifty Profiles of Faithful Servants (Clements, 2001), 33
“You are not truly offering people the kingdom unless you are also exhorting then to repent (Matt. 3:2).” – Kevin DeYoung
“Apart from the law we are only offering people a Savior they don’t need for sins they are not aware of.” – Kevin DeYoung
“To be saved, one must confess Jesus as Lord & Savior, but you cannot BELIEVE in him as Lord or Savior unless he first rescues us from our bondage to sin. “…no one can say “Jesus is Lord” apart from the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3) So grace is not a reward for confessing Jesus as Lord and Savior, it is the cause of it.” – John Hendryx
“A man’s treatment of money is the most decisive test of his character – how he makes it and how he spends it.” – James Moffat
“The loving and much loved wife is satisfied with the love of her husband; his smile is her joy, she cares little for any other. So, if you have come to Christ, thy Maker is thine husband – His free love to you is all you need, and all you can care for – there is no cloud between you and God – there is no veil between you and the Father; you have access to Him who is the fountain of happiness – what have you to do any more with idols? Oh! if your heart swims in the rays of God’s love, like a little mote swimming in the sunbeam, you will have no room in your heart for idols.” – Robert Murray McCheyne
“There are no crown-wearers in heaven who were not cross-bearers here below.” – C.H. Spurgeon
Luther, in a sermon on John 16:33:
It is as though Christ wanted to say: “My dear friend, write the word ‘I’ with a very large capital letter, in order that you may see it well and take it into your heart. . . . It does not matter that you are small and weak; I am all the larger and stronger. . . .”
Christ declares: I have already overcome the world. Thus the great and the small, the rich and the poor, will join hands and be a match for the great monster behemoth. If he tries to swallow and devour you as if you were a little gnat, I will become a big camel in his throat and tear My way through his belly until he bursts and has to return you in one piece, whether he wants to or not. I am the One who says this to you.
But you must turn your eyes from yourselves and be sure to consider who I am, in order that you may be able to say: “Listen, death, devil, pope, emperor, and world, you are really putting on airs. You are showing your long, sharp teeth and are opening your jaws wide. Compared with you I am a poor little worm. This is true. But what do you think about Him who says: ‘I am the One’ and ‘I have overcome the world’–says this to me and tells me to rely confidently on it?” – Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 24: Sermons on the Gospel of St. John Chapter 14-16, p. 415-17
“Christ, according to Paul, will do everything or nothing; if righteousness is in slightest measure obtained by our obedience to the law, then Christ died in vain; if we trust in slightest measure in our own good works, then we have turned away from grace and Christ profiteth us nothing.
To the world, that may seem to be a hard saying; but it is not a hard saying to the man who has ever been at the foot of the cross; it is not a hard saying to the man who has first known the bondage of the law, the weary effort at establishment of his own righteousness in the presence of God, and then has come to understand, as in a wondrous flash of light, that Christ has done all, and that the weary bondage was vain. What a great theologian is the Christian heart–the Christian heart that has been touched by redeeming grace!
. . . That is the centre of the Christian religion–the absolutely undeserved and sovereign grace of God, saving sinful men by the gift of Christ upon the cross. . . . Everywhere the basis of the NT is the same–the mysterious, incalculable, wondrous, grace of God.” – J. Gresham Machen, What Is Faith? (1925), 193-95
“Compare Scripture with Scripture. False doctrines, like false witnesses, agree not among themselves.” – William Gurnall
“God cannot be known otherwise than in Christ, all who believe they know God apart from Christ contrive an idol in place of God.” – John Calvin
“The law serves to show us the gap between God’s standard and our reality.” – Kevin DeYoung
“What does ‘dead in sin’ mean? (Eph. 2:1) What is the purpose of this phrase in Paul’s mind? Its primary purpose is to show that a person is dead to spiritual things (1 Cor 2:14)… that the person is wholly unable to help himself in any way toward his most basic need. That he first must be resurrected spiritually to have a heart which loves God (Ezek 36:26). We must remember however, that those who are ‘DEAD TO SPIRITUAL THINGS’ are VERY ALIVE to carnal things. They love darkness and hate the light ( John 3:19, 20). – John Hendryx
“You are to follow no man further than he follows Christ.” – John Collins
“Reader, would you have more faith? Then seek to become more acquainted with Jesus Christ. Study your blessed Savior more and more, and strive to know more of the length and breadth and height of His love. Study Him in all His offices, as the Priest, the Physician, the Redeemer, the Advocate, the Friend, the Teacher, the Shepherd of His believing people.
Study Him as one who not only died for you—but is also living for you at the right hand of God; as one who not only shed His blood for you—but daily intercedes for you at the right hand of God; as one who is soon coming again for you, and will stand once more on this earth.
The miner who is fully persuaded that the rope which draws him up from the pit will not break, is drawn up without anxiety and alarm. The believer who is thoroughly acquainted with the fullness of Jesus Christ, is the believer who travels from grace to glory with the greatest comfort and peace.” – J. C. Ryle, Faith in Christ
“At the bar of God’s justice, justification takes place when God declares that a person is deemed to be just in His sight.” – R.C. Sproul
“Difficulties in the way to heaven serve to bring us to a despair of ourselves, not of God.” – Thomas Manton
“Nothing sets a person so much out of the devil’s reach as humility.” – Jonathan Edwards
“It is only against the pitch blackness of the night that we see the glory of the stars. And it is only against the pitch blackness of man’s radical depravity that we can begin to see the glories of the gospel.” – Paul Washer
Gen 3:1-6 reveals the satanic strategy of every sin: undermine God’s authority and oversell the allure of disobedience.
Any would-be pilot engages in intense, rigorous training and testing before he is ever allowed to fly a commercial airplane, and rightly so. People’s lives depend on a wise and safe operator of the plane in all weather conditions.
The instrument panel in the cockpit is a highly expensive part of the plane, if not the most expensive. It is absolutely vital that the gage readings are accurate, allowing the pilot to determine the pitch, altitude and speed of the aircraft. The pilot learns to trust the instruments more than his own feelings and perceptions.
Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.