“As to myself, I think I should have no more hope of success in preaching to men, than to horses or cows.” – John Newton in a letter to Rev. Thomas Jones (October 20, 1767)

“It is the Father who, as the divine Gardener, has grafted us into Christ.” – Sinclair Ferguson

“The Holy Spirit produces the new birth, not the lost sinner.” – Steven Lawson

“The excellence of the church does not consist in multitude but in purity.” – John Calvin

“Burning hearts are not nourished by empty heads” – R.C. Sproul

“The fear of punishment, the desire of reward, the sense of duty, are all useful arguments, in their way, to persuade people to holiness. But they are all weak and powerless, until a person loves Christ.” – J.C. Ryle

“If the natural man has a free will to believe the gospel, then why does he need grace? If his will is naturally free then it would do away with the need for grace altogether…Therefore, to teach that the natural man has a free will overthrows the gospel … it is precisely because man is in bondage to sin that he needs Christ to set him free.” (John 8:34, 36) – John Hendryx

“There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based on prior knowledge of the worst about me.” J.I. Packer

“We conclude that man, without the Holy Ghost and God’s grace, can do nothing but sin. Augustine has written, ‘without God’s grace and the Holy Ghost, man can do nothing but sin.’ A man without the Spirit of God does not do evil against his will, under pressure, as though he were taken by the scruff of the neck and dragged into it but he does it spontaneously and voluntarily. And this willingness of volition is something which he cannot in his own strength eliminate, restrain or alter. He goes on willing and desiring to do evil; and if external pressure forces him to act otherwise, nevertheless his will within remains averse to so doing and chafes under such constraint and opposition.” – Martin Luther

“Faith is nothing but the instrument of our salvation. Nowhere in Scripture will you find that we are justified because of our faith; nowhere in Scripture will you find that we are justified on account of our faith. The Scripture says that we are justified by faith or through faith. Faith is nothing but the instrument or the channel by which this righteousness of God in Christ becomes ours. It is not faith that saves us. What saves us is the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect work. It is the death of Christ upon Calvary’s Cross that saves us. It is His perfect life that saves us. It is His appealing on our behalf in the presence of God that saves us. It is God putting Christ’s righteousness to our account that saves us. That is the righteousness that saves; faith is but the channel and the instrument by which His righteousness becomes mine. The righteousness is entirely Christ’s. My faith is not my righteousness and I must never think of faith as righteousness. Faith is nothing but that which links us to the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness.” – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“He who looks sinward has his back to God—he who looks Godward has his back to sin.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“The New Testament preaches a Christ who was dead and is alive, not a Christ who was alive and is dead.” – James Denney

“The enjoyment of God 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. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the ocean.” (Jonathan Edwards, Heaven is a World of Love).

“If you do not desire to be holy I do not see that you have any right to think that you are a Christian.” – D. Martyn Lloyd Jones

“Has it never dawned upon us that God is valuable for His own sake, that just as personal communion is the highest thing that we know on earth, so personal communion with God is the sublimest height of all?” – The God-centered legacy of J. Gresham Machen.

“God does not crave your adulation, he offers it as your greatest pleasure.” – John Piper

“Men without Christ are death walking. The beauties of holiness do not attract man is his moral insensibility, nor do the miseries of Hell deter him”. – John Edie, 19th Century Scottish preacher

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky

“The nature of the Divine goodness is not only to open to those who knock. but also to cause them to knock and ask.”- Augustine

“The best of men are only men at their very best. Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, – martyrs, fathers, reformers, puritans, – all are sinners, who need a Savior: holy, useful, honorable in their place – but sinners after all.” – J.C. Ryle

“O that I could do more for Him! O that I was a flame of pure and holy fire and had a thousand lives to spend in the dear Redeemer’s Service. The sight of so many perishing souls affects me much and makes me long to go if possible from pole to pole, to proclaim redeeming love.” – George Whitefield

“It has been rightly said that the greatest joy is knowing Christ and the second greatest is making Him known.” – Steven Lawson

“By definition, the big difference between mercy and justice, is that mercy is never, never, never, obligatory.” – R.C. Sproul

“By taking upon Himself the punishment of our sins demanded by the Law, the Lord Jesus Christ was establishing the Law.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans – Atonement And Justification)

“He who believes the truth enters on the enjoyment of a happiness which is of the same nature, and springs from the same sources, as the happiness of God. Jehovah rests and rejoices in the manifestation made of His all-perfect character in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And he who believes enters into this rest and participates in this joy.” – John Brown, An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Edinburgh, 1862), I:210.

“Heaven would be hell to me without Christ.” – Thomas Goodwin

“Without God upholding the universe from moment to moment, nothing could continue to be.” – R.C. Sproul

“…the whole counsel of God must be proclaimed by men who are clothed in humility, bathed in tears, and who have endured through difficult trials.” – Rick Gamble

“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, Works (Edinburgh, 1980), II:35. Slightly updated.

“A Christian is distinguished by his conversation. He will often trim a sentence where others would have made it far more luxuriant by a jest which was not altogether clean. If he would have a jest, he picks the mirth but leaves the sin; his conversation is not used to levity; it is not mere froth, but it ministers grace to the hearers. He has learned where the salt-box is kept in God’s great house, and so his speech is always seasoned with it, so that it may do no hurt but much good. Oh! commend me to the man who talks like Jesus, who will not for the world suffer corrupt communications to come out of his mouth. I know what people will say of you if you are like this: they will say you are straight-laced, and that you will not throw much life into company. Others will call you mean-spirited. Oh, my brethren! bold-hearted men are always called mean-spirited by cowards. They will admonish you not to be singular, but you can tell them that it is no folly to be singular, when to be singular is to be right. I know they will say you deny yourselves a great deal, but you will remind them that it is no denial to you.” – Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Clean and the Unclean, 1863.

“The Lord knows very well that you cannot change your own heart and cannot cleanse your own nature. However, He also knows that he can do both. Hear this and be astonished. He can create you a second time. He can cause you to be born again.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“The true way of salvation can be summed up like this: it is entirely the result of God’s election. There is only one explanation of why any single person has ever been saved, and it is the action and the choice of God. There is nothing in us that contributes to salvation – nothing at al!” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans – Saving Faith)

“Satan can do only what the sovereign God allows him to do.” – R.C. Sproul

“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

“The greatest danger to the pilgrim is growing to love something, anything, more than one loves the celestial city.” – Voddie Baucham

“Let the man who would hear God speak read Holy Scripture.” – Martin Luther

“Have thou ever in thy mind this seal, which for the present has been lightly touched in my discourse, by way of summary, but shall be stated, should the Lord permit, to the best of my power with the proof from the Scriptures. For concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the Faith, not even a casual statement must be delivered without the Holy Scriptures; nor must we be drawn aside by mere plausibility and artifices of speech. Even to me, who tell thee these things, give not absolute credence, unless thou receive the proof of the things which I announce from the Divine Scriptures. For this salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning, but on demonstration of the Holy Scriptures.” – Cyril of Jerusalem, 313 – 386 AD – Catechetical Lecture 4, 17)

“We love people by telling them the best news in all the world: The God against whom you have committed treason, offers complete amnesty, freely. He will commute your death sentence. He will forgive your treasonous intentions and actions and feelings. He will put away his just and holy anger against you. And not only that, he will adopt you into his royal family and make you an heir with his Son. And lest you doubt that this is possible for him to simply justify the wicked, he put forward his Son to bear the death sentence and duty that you have failed to perform, if you would have him. He raised him from the dead so to show that the death of his Son was sufficient. He offers you now all of this through his Son. It is all free. You cannot earn it. You cannot deserve it. The condition is to lay down the arms of treason, the arms of rebellion, and bow in humble helpless dependence on free mercy from the King and receive his full pardon and amnesty and acceptance. We preach that, indiscriminately, to everybody.” – John Piper

“Christ did not die on the cross for us because we are so valuable. We are so valuable because Christ died on the cross for us.” – R. C. Sproul, Jr.

“‘Be still and know that I am God’ is not first about inner peace but about beholding God’s self-exalting work among the nations.” (Ps 46:8-10) – Justin Taylor

“…the higher purpose of the cross was that the Father would be glorified by the satisfaction of His justice.” – R.C. Sproul

“What has exceedingly hurt you in time past, nay, and I fear, to this day, is lack of reading. I scarce ever knew a preacher who read so little. And perhaps, by neglecting it, you have lost the taste for it. Hence your talent in preaching does not increase. It is just the same as it was seven years ago. It is lively, but not deep; there is little variety; there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this, with meditation and daily prayer. You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it, any more than a thorough Christian. Oh begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercise. You may acquire the taste which you have not; what is tedious at first will afterward be pleasant. Whether you like it or not, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way; else you will be a trifler all your days, and a pretty, superficial preacher. Do justice to your own soul; give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer. Take up your cross and be a Christian altogether. Then will all the children of God rejoice (not grieve) over you, and in particular yours.” – John Wesley, writing to a younger minister, quoted in D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge, Letters Along The Way (Wheaton, 1993), page 169.

“He that will play with Satan’s bait, will quickly be taken with Satan’s hook.” – Thomas Brooks

“My God, I have never thanked you for my thorn! I have thanked you a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my thorn. Teach me the glory of the cross I bear; teach me the value of my thorns. Show me that I have climbed to you by the path of pain. Show me that my tears have made my rainbow.” – George Matheson // “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses” (2 Cor. 12:9).

“Salvation isn’t about praying a special prayer, walking an aisle, or any other ritual. It’s about bowing to the Lord in repentance and faith, submitting to His Word, and worshiping Him in spirit and truth. Anything short of that is empty religion.” – John MacArthur

“Advice to aspiring ministers: Get in the Word. Stay in the Word. Master the Word. And for heaven’s sake, preach the Word!” – R. C. Sproul

“There will be three effects of nearness to Jesus—humility, happiness, and holiness.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“The first act of redemption was God stooping to cover the shame of his creatures.” – R.C. Sproul