“If it is I who determine where God is to be found, then I shall always find a God who corresponds to me in some way… But if God determines where he is to be found, then it will be in a place which is not at all congenial to me…whoever would find him must go to the foot of the Cross…This is not according to our nature at all, it is entirely contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“The very center and core of the whole Bible is the doctrine of the grace of God — the grace of God which depends not one whit upon anything that is in man, but is absolutely undeserved, resistless and sovereign. The theologians of the Church can be placed in an ascending scale according as they have grasped that one great central doctrine, that doctrine that gives consistency to all the rest; and Christian experience also depends for its depth and for its power upon the way in which that blessed doctrine is cherished in the depths of the heart. The center of the Bible, and the center of Christianity, is found in the grace of God; and the necessary corollary of the grace of God is salvation through faith alone.” – J. Gresham Machen, quoted in Ned B. Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir (Grand Rapids, 1955), page 396.
“The church is not perfect, but woe to the man who finds pleasure in pointing out her imperfections. Christ loved his church, and let us do the same. I have no doubt that the Lord can see more fault in his church than I can; and I have equal confidence that he sees no fault at all. Because he covers her faults with his own love—that love which covers a multitude of sins; and he removes all her defilement with that precious blood which washes away all the transgressions of his people.” – C. H. Spurgeon
Scottish-born reformed theologian John Murray taught for many years at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. In the 1920s he was a seminary student at Princeton. For his final homiletics class he wrote a sermon on John 3:30–John the Baptist’s words, ‘He must increase, I must decrease.’ Murray wrote:
We are not to think of these words as spoken in stoical, disappointed submission, but as the expression of a heart full of holy joy that the goal on which he had set his heart had now been actually achieved. His popularity, his increase at the expense of the honor of Christ, would have been his deepest sorrow. . . .
The desire for self-supremacy is an expression of the sin which above all others seeks to undermine the very purpose of the gospel and the gospel ministry, which is the restoration of the kingdom of God and the rule and supremacy of God alone in all spheres and departments of life. May God grant that we follow in the footsteps of John and imitate his self-effacement, self-abasement, self-renunciation, self-forgetfulness! ‘God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world.’
– Iain H. Murray, The Life of John Murray (Banner of Truth, 1984), 2
“The friendly preacher who fails to warn of the reality of Hell, betrays the Son of God with a kiss.” – Ray Comfort
“It is part of the character and genius of the Church that its foundation members were discredited men; it owed its existence not to their faith, courage, or virtue, but to what Christ had done with them; and this they could never forget.” – C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge University Press, 1968), 416 n. 1
Don’t be surprised when lost people in your church who think they’re saved don’t evangelize.
“Our works do not generate righteousness, rather our righteousness in Christ generates works.” – Martin Luther
“God never clothes men until He has first stripped them, nor does He quicken them by the gospel till first they are slain by the law.” – C. H. Spurgeon
“A good teacher like John the Baptist, clears the way, declares the way, and then gets out of the way.” – Derek Prime & Alistair Begg
“Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him, for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low, could still be saved; the bitterest enemy and also he who was your friend could again be your friend; love that has grown cold can kindle.” – Søren Kierkegaard
“If the professed convert distinctly and deliberately declares that he knows the Lord’s will but does not mean to attend to it, you are not to pamper his presumption, but it is your duty to assure him that he is not saved. Do not suppose that the Gospel is magnified or God glorified by going to the worldlings and telling them that they may be saved at this moment by simply accepting Christ as their Savior, while they are wedded to their idols, and their hearts are still in love with sin. If I do so I tell them a lie, pervert the Gospel , insult Christ, and turn the grace of God into lasciviousness.” – C. H. Spurgeon
“It is easier to cry against one-thousand sins of others than to kill one of your own.” – John Flavel
“You cannot reason with people who are deceived by the devil; it needs the trumpet call of God, it needs the power of the Spirit.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Ephesians – Darkness And Light)
“Our Lord’s thirty-three years of loving his Father with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and his neighbor as himself, is the basis for our acceptance before God.” – Michael Horton
“Sex is from God. He gave it to us as a gift. It’s a wedding gift.” – Bill Shannon
“God propitiates his own wrath. Know anybody else like that? Will China pay off the US debt? Will any of the victims of Bernie Madoff personally pay his financial debts? When does the offended personally provide the means to take away his own offense? Only God. This is why he is love.” – Steve DeWitt
“Self-reliance is the unspoken claim that I can do it myself. It is behind our ever-present bent toward self-righteousness. We need to intentionally bathe our minds and hearts in the gospel every day. Remember, we need the gospel not only as a door into an initial saving relationship with Christ, but also to keep our daily lives from becoming a performance treadmill.” – Jerry Bridges
“It is not your hold of Christ that saves you, but His hold of you.” – C. H. Spurgeon
“A great attitude is not the result of success; success is the result of a great attitude.” – Earl Nightingale
?”Not only is grace irresistible, it must be irresistible. For if grace were not irresistible no one would ever have been saved… The idea that grace presents itself to us, but that the final choice remains with us as to whether we are going to take advantage of it or not, is not only a contradition of the verse we are considering, it is a contradiction of the entire biblical teaching concerning the way of salvation.” – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Stand over this volume [the Bible], we might reject them; but O let me think the solemn thought, that this book is God’s handwriting– that these words are God’s! Let me look at its date; it is dated from the hills of heaven. Let me look at its letters; they flash glory on my eye. Let me read the chapters; they are big with meaning and mysteries unknown. Let me turn over the prophecies; they are pregnant with unthought- of wonders. Oh, book of books! And wast thou written by my God? Then will I bow before thee. Thou book of vast authority! thou art a proclamation from the Emperor of Heaven; far be it from me to exercise my reason in contradicting thee. Reason, thy place is to stand and find out what this volume means, not to tell what this book ought to say.
“If I please God it doesn’t matter who I displease; and if I displease God it doesn’t matter who I please.” – Dr. Steven Lawson