Ligonier Academy (February 2013)

“[The Bible] is utterly opposed to the view that God does not know what man will decide, and it is equally opposed to the view that what God foreknows he does not foreordain. Over against such views, it tells us in the clearest possible way, not only in general that God has foreordained all things according to the counsel of his will but also in particular that he has foreordained the salvation of some men and the loss of others.” - J. Gresham Machen

 

"Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according as we find His mind described in Scripture. It is the habit of agreeing in God's judgment, hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word" - J.C. Ryle

When one of his hearers was asked whether Jonathan Edwards was an eloquent preacher, replied: "If you mean by eloquence, what is usually intended by it in our cities; he had no pretensions to it. He had no studied varieties of voice, and no strong emphasis. He scarcely gestured or even moved; and he made no attempt, by the eloquence of his style, or the beauty of his pictures, to gratify the taste, and fascinate the imagination. But, if you mean by eloquence the power of presenting an important truth before an audience, with overwhelming weight of argument, and with such intenseness of feeling that the whole soul of the speaker is thrown into every part of the conception and delivery, so that the solemn attention of the whole audience is riveted, from the beginning to the close, and impressions are left that cannot be effaced, Mr. Edwards was the most eloquent man I ever heard speak"

 "The more objects you set your heart upon, the more thorns there are to tear your peace of mind to shreds." - Charles Spurgeon
 
According to this truth and this Word of God, we believe in one only God, who is one single essence, in which are three persons, really, truly, and eternally distinct according to their incommunicable properties; namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is the cause, origin, and beginning of all things visible and invisible. The Son is the Word, the wisdom, and the image of the Father. The Holy Spirit is the eternal power and might who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Nevertheless, God is not by this distinction divided into three, since the Holy Scriptures teach us that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit each has His personal existence, distinguished by Their properties; but in such a way that these three persons are but one only God.

It is therefore evident that the Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Father, and likewise the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. Nevertheless, these persons thus distinguished are not divided, nor intermixed; for the Father has not assumed our flesh and blood, neither has the Holy Spirit, but the Son only. The Father has never been without His Son, or without His Holy Spirit. For these three, in one and the same essence, are equal in eternity. There is neither first nor last; for They are all three one, in truth, in power, in goodness, and in mercy.

- The Belgic Confession

 

"Every sufferer who bears pain, or slander, or loss, or personal unkindness for Christ’s sake, is filling up that amount of suffering which is necessary to the bringing together of the whole body of Christ, and the up building of His elect Church." - Charles Spurgeon

 

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)

 "Behold in faith the sinless, spotless Lamb of God as having already borne that weight, as having suffered for those sins, as having died for those transgressions, and accept the precious truth that it was God's eternal love that laid them all on Jesus, and that nothing is left for you to do but to believe in Jesus, that He saves to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him." - Octavius Winslow

"The more purely God's word is preached, the more deeply it pierces and the more kindly it works." - William Gouge

"The state of unregeneracy is a state of impotency... The Spirit finds sinners in as helpless a condition, as unable to repent, or believe on Christ for salvation, as they were of themselves to purchase it. Confounded therefore for ever be the language of those sons of pride, who cry up the power of nature, as if man with his own brick and slime of natural abilities were able to rear up such a building, whose top may reach heaven itself... God himself hath scattered such Babel-builders in the imagination of their hearts, who raiseth this spiritual temple in the souls of men... And therefore, if any yet in their natural estate would become wise to salvation, let them first become fools in their own eyes, and renounce their carnal wisdom, which perceives not the things of God, and beg wisdom of God, who giveth and upbraideth not. If any man would have strength to believe, let them become weak, and die to their own." - William Gurnall
 

"Painfully do I call to mind hearing one Sabbath evening a deliverance called a sermon, of which the theme was a clever enquiry as to whether an angel did actually descend, and stir the pool at Bethesda, or whether it was an intermitting spring, concerning which Jewish superstition had invented a legend. Dying men and women were assembled to hear the way of salvation, and they were put off with such vanity as this! They came for bread, and received a stone ; the sheep looked up to the shepherd, and were not fed." - Charles Spurgeon

"Those, and those only, can expect to be taught by God, who are ready and willing to do as they are taught... Those who go up to the house of the Lord with an expectation that He will teach them His ways, must go with a humble resolution that they will walk in His paths." - Matthew Henry

 

"He that commandeth heaven and earth, commandeth thee to turn, and presently without delay, to turn... God is not a man that thou shouldst dally and play with him... Who is it that will have the worst of this? Dost thou know whom thou disobeyest and contendest with, and what thou art doing?.. Whosoever else be mocked, God will not; you had better play with the fire in your thatch than with the fire of his burning wrath." - Richard Baxter

 

“If two angels were to receive at the same moment a commission from God, one to go down and rule earth’s grandest empire, the other to go and sweep the streets of its meanest village, it would be a matter of entire indifference to each which service fell to his lot, the post of ruler or the post of scavenger; for the joy of the angels lies only in obedience to God’s will, and with equal joy they would lift a Lazarus in his rags to Abraham’s bosom, or be a chariot of fire to carry an Elijah home.” ― John Newton

 

"When a man is converted, he is forever at enmity with sin; yes, he is at enmity with all sin, but most of all with his own sins, and especially with his bosom sin. Sin is now the object of his indignation. His sin swells his sorrows. It is sin that pierces him and wounds him; he feels it like a thorn in his side, like a prick in his eyes... He is not impatient of any burden so much as of his sin. If God should give him his choice, he would choose any affliction so that he might be rid of sin." - Joseph Alleine