“We know from Genesis 1:1 that there was no creation before ‘the beginning.’ Creation is not coeternal with God. Before the beginning of the created world, God dwelled alone. The universe was made by him, is providentially sustained by him, and is utterly dependent on him. However, God is not in any way dependent on this created universe, nor is his being to be confused with created reality (Acts 17:24–25), nor can we act on him or coerce from him what we want by our actions. He is completely independent of his creation. That is the biblical starting point.” – David F. Wells
“One who cannot state the doctrine of justification by faith clearly should never stand in a pulpit.” – Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“Marriage manifests who we really are: If we are loving, generous, and Christlike, marriage gives us an opportunity to be more so. If we are selfish and prideful, marriage also gives us the opportunity to practice our sin on someone in the same household.” – Jeff Hoots
“A Christian cannot have a boring testimony. Being raised from the dead is not boring.” – Unknown
“It is a poor sermon that gives no offense; that neither makes the hearer displeased with himself nor with the preacher.” – George Whitefield
“We need to make plain that total depravity is not just badness, but blindness to beauty and deadness to joy; and unconditional election means that the completeness of our joy in Jesus was planned for us before we ever existed; and that limited atonement is the assurance that indestructible joy in God is infallibly secured for us by the blood of the covenant; and irresistible grace is the commitment and power of God’s love to make sure we don’t hold on to suicidal pleasures, and to set us free by the sovereign power of superior delights; and that the perseverance of the saints is the almighty work of God to keep us, through all affliction and suffering, for an inheritance of pleasures at God’s right hand forever.” – John Piper, The Legacy of Sovereign Joy: God’s Triumphant Grace in the Lives of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin, p. 73.
“Reading through the Bible from beginning to end is like watching a painter transform a blank canvas into a masterpiece.” – T.D. Alexander
“I can say from experience that 95% of knowing the will of God consists in being prepared to do it before you know what it is.” – Donald Gray Barnhouse
“My car won’t move without two things: gas and an ever-present library of instructional CDs. We average 12,000 miles a year; that’s 300 hours! Brian Tracy taught me early to turn my car into a mobile classroom. Listen to instructional CDs as you drive & each year is the equivalent of two semesters of an advanced degree. Combined with a reading routine, you can separate yourself from the herd of average, CD by CD, book by book!” – Darren Hardy
A Puritan once said, “The same sun that melts wax, hardens clay”. When the Gospel is preached, God always, without fail, accomplishes His purpose.
“A golden coffin will be a poor compensation for a damned soul.” – C.H. Spurgeon
“There are no lessons so useful as those learned in the school of affliction.” – J.C. Ryle
“The longer I live, the more faith I have in providence, and the less faith in my interpretation of providence.” – Jeremiah Day
“It is all too plainly apparent men are willing to forgo the old for the sake of the new. But commonly it is found in theology that that which is true is not new, and that which is new is NOT true.” – C.H. Spurgeon
“This eclipse [of the teaching of the Reformation, particularly justification by faith alone in Christ alone] is tragic not because it represents a break with a ‘golden age’ that we recall with sentimental nostalgia. Rather, it concerns us because it indicates a break with the authority, sufficiency, and in many respects even the content of Scripture – gains that were made by the Reformation at enormous cost. Like the prodigal son, the evangelical movement has preferred the excitement of the culture to the privileged life of an heir in the Father.s house. It is not difficult to discern that our churches by and large are increasingly less shaped by Scripture than by the managerial, pragmatic, marketing, entertainment, therapeutic, and technological values of our day.. Quoted in ‘Whatever Happened to the Reformation?’ edited by Johnson and White.” – Dr. Michael Horton
“It is not until the sunlight floods a room that the grime and dust are fully revealed. So, it is only as we really come into the presence of Him who is the light, that we are made aware of the filth and wickedness which indwell us, and which defile every part of our being.” – A. W. Pink
“The Christian gospel offers salvation freely in Jesus Christ. It is a work of God from beginning to end. God is the active giver: He chooses, He draws, He saves, and He keeps. It is all His doing. Anything less is not the gospel.” – Unknown
“When we sin we can receive both the accusation of Satan and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. What is the difference? The goal of Satan’s accusation is to harm us. He wants to drive us away from God. The goal of the Spirit’s conviction is to turn us from sin. He wants our awareness of sin to bring us close to God. Satan would have us perish in our guilt. The Spirit seeks to save us from our guilt. They both may call attention to the same sin. But their goals are radically different.” – R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God (p. 106):
“How then can where we are acutely conscious of His love?The answer is through the gospel… As we continually reflect upon that gospel, the Holy Spirit floods our hearts with a sense of God’s love to us in Christ. And that sense of His love motivates us in a compelling way to live for Him.” – Jerry Bridges
The covenant of redemption is a term we all should get to know – also known by its Latin name, the “pactum salutis,” this covenant was made in eternity past between the three Divine Persons of the holy Trinity. The Father planned redemption, choosing a people to save for Himself; the Son accomplished redemption, living a perfect life of righteousness and as their spotless and holy Substitute, He died for their sins and rose from the grave victorious; and the Spirit applies this redemptive work of Christ to this same elect group, bringing each of them from death to spiritual life and sealing them for the day of redemption. Nothing God planned to do from eternity will ever fail to come to pass. In this failproof plan, all three persons of the Trinity work together, each with their differing but entirely complimentary roles. This then is the starting point to talk about salvation. To start anywhere else, especially to start with man as the creature, and salvation becomes impoverished, meager and very fragile. Yet ours is so great a salvation, for just this reason – salvation is of the Lord!
Below is a transcript from a C. H. Spurgeon sermon where he describes the covenant of redemption and then wonders what it would have been like to be to hear this sacred promise being made.