“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

“How many times have we prayed that God would make us Christlike, then begged him to take from us the very things he sent to make us Christlike? How many times has God heard our cries when we imagined he didn’t? How many times has he said no to our prayers when saying yes would have harmed us and robbed us of good? “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you’” (2 Cor. 12:9). – Randy Alcorn, Heaven

“A humble and prayerful person will find a thousand things in the Bible, which the proud student will utterly fail to discern.” – J.C. Ryle

“We are not loving people when we’re telling them that God accepts them as they are without repentance, because we’re lying to them.” – R.C. Sproul

“It was a great design of God to advance all the elect to an exceeding pitch of glory, such as eye has not seen. He intended to bring them to perfect excellency and beauty in his image and in holiness which is the proper beauty of spiritual beings, and to advance ‘em to a glorious degree of honor and also to an ineffable pitch of pleasure and joy. [In all this] God designed to accomplish the glory of the blessed Trinity in an exceeding degree.” (Jonathan Edwards, Personal Narrative, 125).

“There is not the slightest detail that is overlooked by the gaze of God.” – R.C. Sproul

“Humility makes a man richer than other men, and it makes a man judge himself the poorest among men.” – Thomas Brooks

“There is nothing new in theology but that which is false; only the old is true, for truth must be old, as old as God himself.” – C.H. Spurgeon

“We also, by God’s grace, briefly indicated the Word of the Father is Himself divine, that all things that are owe their being to His will and power, and that it is through Him that the Father gives order to creation, by Him that all things are moved, and through Him that they receive their being.” – Athanasius

“Any sin is more or less heinous depending upon the honor and majesty of the one whom we had offended. Since God is of infinite honor, infinite majesty, and infinite holiness, the slightest sin is of infinite consequence. The slightest sin is nothing less than cosmic treason when we realize against whom we have sinned.” – Jonathan Edwards

“Satan will come on with new temptations when old ones are too weak. In a calm prepare for a storm.” – Thomas Brooks

“Why is it that some have believed? It is because the Spirit has sanctified them, has set them apart, has called them out. It is the call of the Spirit; it is the work of the Spirit in conviction, and calling out, and giving power to believe.”- Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Because of common grace, pagans too can create inspiring pieces of music, breathtaking paintings, and thrilling works of fiction. None of them do it, however, as an act of worship to God and with the recognition that we are using the paint of God with which He makes astounding works of art in natural creation, which is still seen despite the groaning of the scarred universe under the curse of sin.” – Unknown

“…man is still free to choose what he desires, but because his desires are only wicked he lacks the moral ability to come to Christ.” – R.C. Sproul

“In too many churches, exposition has been replaced with entertainment, theology with theatrics, and the drama of redemption with just drama.” – Steve Lawson

“One’s mere word should be as trustworthy as a signed agreement attested by legal witnesses.” – Curtis Vaughan

“A low view of law always produces legalism; a high view of law makes a person a seeker after grace.” – J. Gresham Machen

“God Himself supplies the necessary condition to come to Jesus. That’s why it is sola gratia, by grace alone, that we are saved.” – R.C. Sproul

“The greatest evangelists this world has ever known have been men who have believed in the sovereign, free election of God. Let us not forget that! Two of the greatest evangelists that England has ever produced have been George Whitefield and Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and they both preached and believed in unconditional election. They said that no man is saved unless God has chosen him and set him apart for Himself — the doctrine of Romans 9 — yet they were two men who were indefatigable as evangelists, urging men and women to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The same thing can be said of others in other countries: Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland in Wales; Jonathan Edwards in America, Samuel Davies, the writer of many hymns, and David Brainerd, who evangelized the Indians. All these men held this high doctrine of election, but they were indefatigable in their evangelism and in their praying. But here is another interesting thing. The founders of the great missionary enterprise, the modern missionary movements, were all men who held to this high doctrine of Romans 9. William Carey believed that if someone was saved it was because this was the purpose of God according to election; and yet he was, in so many senses, the father of the modern missionary movement.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans – Saving Faith)

“Let all the ‘free-will’ in the world do all it can with all its strength; it will never give rise to a single instance of ability to avoid being hardened if God does not give the Spirit, or of meriting mercy if it is left to its own strength.” – Martin Luther

“God’s grace is not infinite. God is infinite, and God is gracious. We experience the grace of an infinite God, but grace is not infinite. God sets limits to His patience and forbearance. He warns us over and over again that someday the ax will fall and His judgment will be poured out.” – R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“When we pray to God for His blessing, He does not examine our performance to see if we are worthy. Rather, He looks to see if we are trusting in the merit of His Son as our only hope for securing His blessing.” Jerry Bridges

“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

“To love the doctrines of grace is to love God as He has revealed Himself in His Word.” – Richard Phillips

“An ambassador is not a man who voices his own thoughts or his own opinions or views, or his own desires. The very essence of the position of the ambassador is that he is a man who has been sent to speak for somebody else. He is the speaker for his Government or his President or his King or Emperor, or whatever form of government his country may have. He is not a man who speculates and gives his own views and ideas. He is the bearer of a message, he is commissioned to do this, he is sent to do this; and that is what he must do. In other words, the content of the sermon is what is called in the New Testament ‘The Word’. ‘Preach the word’, or ‘preach the Gospel’, or ‘the whole counsel of God.’ That being interpreted means the message of the Bible, the message of the Scriptures.” – MLJ, pg 61, ‘Preaching and Preachers’

“A man can have enough of the world to sink him, but he can never have enough to satisfy him.” – Thomas Brooks

“Growing in grace most certainly does not mean an increasing satisfaction with myself. No, it is the very opposite. The more I walk in the light of God, the more plainly can I see the vileness of the “flesh” within me, and there will be an ever-deepening abhorence of what I am by nature. “For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not” (Romans 7:18) is not the confession of an unbeliever, nor even of a babe in Christ, but of the most enlightened saint. The only peace for the renewed heart is to look away from self to Christ.” – Arthur Pink, from “The Doctrine of Salvation”

“What accounts for Luther’s behavior? One things is certain: Whatever defense mechanisms normal people have to mute the accusing voice of conscience, Luther was lacking… Was Luther crazy? Perhaps. But if he was, our prayer is that God would send to this earth an epidemic of such insanity that we too may taste of the righteousness that is by faith alone.” – R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“An individual person can be a Christian, but an individual person cannot be a church.” – Mark Driscoll

“There is nothing more important to learn about Christian growth than this: Growing in grace means becoming like Christ.” – Sinclair Ferguson

“A man’s most glorious actions will, at last, be found to be but glorious sins, if he has made himself, and not the glory of God, the end of those actions.” – Thomas Brooks (1608 – 1680)

“Things Jesus did not say at the cross: ‘Gee, I sure hope they choose Me.'” – Jules LaPierre

“If someone wants to argue that humans created God out of a psychological need for security, then it can just as easily be argued that atheism is driven from the felt need to be freed from responsibility, moral constraints and obligations.” – R. C. Sproul

“God would never permit evil, if He could not bring good out of evil.” – Augustine

“We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.” – A.W. Tozer

“The Calvinist recognizes that the death of Jesus saves everyone for whom it was designed.” – Tom Ascol

“Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry, for idolatry is at bottom a libel on His character. The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is.… Let us beware lest we in our pride accept the erroneous notion that idolatry consists only in kneeling before visible objects of adoration, and that civilized peoples are therefore free from it. The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.” (A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, p. 11.)

“One thing that disturbs me about contemporary Christian jargon is the inexact use of the word witness. Too often people use the terms evangelism and witnessing interchangeably, as if they were synonyms. They are not. All evangelism is witness, but not all witness is evangelism. Evangelism is a specific type of witnessing. Not everyone is called to be a pastor or teacher. Not everyone is called to administration or specialized ministries of mercy. Not everyone is called to be an evangelist (though we are all called to verbalize our faith). We are all called to be witnesses to Christ, to make His invisible kingdom visible. We witness by doing the ministry of Christ. We witness by being the church, the people of God. Some of us can plant. Some of us can water. When we plant and water, God will bring an increase.” – Ligonier Ministries

“The two poles shall sooner meet than the love of God and the love of money.” – John Trapp

“I see a problem with idolatry in the evangelical world. There is much that is orthodox within current evangelicalism. Sadly, there is also much that is not orthodox. I see the problem of idolatry, not as a slight deviation here and there, but as a major problem. Idolatrous views of God are rampant within current evangelicalism. I find a God who is not immutable, who is not infinite, who is not holy, and who is not sovereign. Such a god is simply not God. It is an idol.” – R.C. Sproul

“Depend on it, my hearer, you never will go to heaven unless you are prepared to worship Jesus Christ as God.” – C.H. Spurgeon

“We preachers do not preach hell enough, and we do not say enough about sin. We talk about the gospel and wonder why people are not interested in what we say. Of course they are not interested. No man is interested in a piece of good news unless he has the consciousness of needing it; no man is interested in an offer of salvation unless he knows that there is something from which he needs to be saved. It is quite useless to ask a man to adopt the Christian view of the gospel unless he first has the Christian view of sin.” – J. Gresham Machen

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.” – Margaret Thatcher

“…the weakest faith gets the same strong Christ as does the strongest faith.” – Sinclair Ferguson

“If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, He would have sent an economist.

If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist.

If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician.

If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor.

But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death, and he sent us a Savior.” – D. A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 109.

“There is mercy for a sinner, but there is no mercy for the man who will not own himself a sinner.” – C.H. Spurgeon

“The plan of redemption was an eternal plan of God, and which plan and which design was perfectly conceived and perfectly executed.” – R.C. Sproul

“Jesus is both Lord (Master) and Savior you cannot separate the two. That would be like me showing up at your house and you saying Steve can come in, but keep Lawson outside.” – Steve Lawson

“Magicians claim to bring us something from nothing. Darwinists claim to bring us everything from nothing.” – Dr. R. C. Sproul, Jr.

“The only thing of our very own which we contribute to our salvation is the sin which makes it necessary.” – William Temple

“If his first coming does not give you eternal life, his second coming will not. If you do not hide in his wounds when he comes as your Savior, there will be no hiding place for you when he comes as your Judge.” C. H. Spurgeon

“When the devil accuses us and says, ‘You are a sinner and therefore damned,’ we should answer, ‘Because you say I am a sinner, I will be righteous and saved.’ ‘No,’ says the devil, ‘you will be damned.’ And I reply, ‘No, for I fly to Christ, who gave himself for my sins. Satan, you will not prevail against me when you try to terrify me by setting forth the greatness of my sins and try to bring me into heaviness, distrust, despair, hatred, contempt and blasphemy against God. On the contrary, when you say I am a sinner, you give me armor and weapons against yourself, so that with your own sword I may cut your throat and tread you under my feet, for Christ died for sinners. . . . As often as you object that I am a sinner, so often you remind me of the benefit of Christ my Redeemer, on whose shoulders, and not on mine, lie all my sins. So when you say I am a sinner, you do not terrify me but comfort me immeasurably.’” – Martin Luther, commenting on Galatians 1:4, “. . . the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins.”