Conversion is not the smooth, easy-going process some men seem to think it; otherwise man’s heart would never have been compared to fallow ground and God’s Word to a plough. – John Bunyan

The uniform report of sacred Scripture is that every human being who ever is exposed to the holiness of God trembles in His presence. – R.C. Sproul

When Christ as the Mediator pays the price for our sins & God declares us just in Christ, the war is over. – R.C. Sproul

Believe not half you hear; repeat not half you believe; when you hear an evil report, halve it, then quarter it, and say nothing about the rest. – C.H. Spurgeon

One common formulation of the cosmological argument begins, “everything that exists requires a cause.” Smart people sometimes formulate the argument this way, but it is actually not correct. A better (let’s call it “the correct”) formulation is, “Everything that comes into existence has a cause.” Under the incorrect formulation you either have contradiction or infinite regress. Under the correct formulation you have a singularity. A first cause who is uncaused. As a result, that uncaused cause must never have come into being: he must always have been. This is because if that cause had come into existence, there would have to be a still earlier cause. On the other hand, if that cause did not exist at all, and consequently never came into existence in that sense, nothing could exist. This causeless first Cause, without whom nothing would exist, is God. – TurretinFan

Nothing gives such offence, and stirs up such bitter feeling among the wicked, as the idea of God making any distinction between man and man, and loving one person more than another. – J.C. Ryle

Christ regenerates to a blessed life those whom he justifies, and after rescuing them from the dominion of sin, hands them over to the dominion of righteousness, transforms them into the image of God, and so trains them by his Spirit into obedience to his will, there is no ground to complain that, by our doctrine, lust is left with loosened reins. – John Calvin, Reply To Cardinal Sadolet

When the well-known twentieth-century conservative scholar A. Schlatter was considered for a professorial appointment to the university in Berlin, he was asked by a churchman on the committee whether, in his academic work, he ‘stood on the Bible.’

Schlatter’s reply: ‘No, I stand under the Bible!’

– Andreas Kostenberger, Scott Kellum, and Charles Quarles, The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (B&H, 2009), 52

I should add that Schlatter did receive this appointment and one deciding factor was the university’s desire to have someone on the faculty opposite Adolf von Harnack. While Schlatter wound up having a very positive relationship with him, Harnack was the poster-boy of the day for Ritschlian liberalism that read the Bible as inspiring spiritually but fictitious historically. That was the culture into which Schlatter was heading when he stood before that august committee and proclaimed his submission to the Bible. – Dane Ortlund

A day is coming when banknotes will be as useless as rags, and gold will be as worthless as the dust of the earth. A day is coming when thousands will care nothing for the things for which they once lived, and will desire nothing so much as the things which they once despised. The mansions and palaces will be forgotten in the desire of a “house not made with hands.” The favor of the rich and great will be remembered no more, in the longing for the favor of the King of kings. The silks, and satins, and velvets, and laces, will be lost sight of in the anxious need of the robe of Christ’s righteousness. All will be altered, all will be changed in the great day of the Lord’s return. – Bishop J. C. Ryle, Practical Religion pg. 40 Continue reading →