"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head." - C.S. Lewis
"We have too often reduced God to a formula, belief to a system and worship to a happy-clappy, feel-good floor show. Our God is too small. But that is because he is our God and not the God of the Bible." - David Robertson, The Dawkins Letters
"It is by God’s grace alone (sola gratia) that he justifies the sinner. God has every right to condemn the sinner but instead shows him mercy and shows him his grace. Justification is through Christ alone (solus Christus), as it is the work of Christ—his life, death, and resurrection—that serves as the judicial basis for the believer’s verdict of righteousness. And a sinner is justified by faith alone (sola fide)." - J.V. Fesko
"If no one less than the Eternal God, the Creator and Preserver of all things, could take away the sin of the world, sin must be a far more abominable thing in the sight of God than most men suppose. The right measure of sin's sinfulness is the dignity of Him who came into the world to save sinners. If Christ is so great, then sin must indeed be sinful!" - J.C. Ryle
"To be entrusted with the treasure of God’s gospel is not a responsibility that can be switched “off” and “on” at will. In a profound way, this calling consumes those who receive it, and its faithful fulfilment demands not only readiness to suffer but also a humble dependence on God’s sovereign Spirit to convey his life-giving good news through our weak words." - Dennis Johnson
"We are not to look upon our sins as insignificant trifles. On the other hand, we are not to regard them as so terrible that we must despair. Learn to believe that Christ was given, not for picayune and imaginary transgressions, but for mountainous sins; not for one or two, but for all; not for sins that can be discarded, but for sins that are stubbornly ingrained." - Martin Luther
"How ironic that sexuality and nudity, which are meant to be private, are now fare for public consumption while spiritual convictions, which are meant to strengthen public polity, are now for private expression only." - Ravi Zacharias
"Ignorance is brutal, arrogance is devilish. Pride only, the chief of all iniquities, can make us treat gifts as if they were rightful attributes of our nature, and, while receiving benefits, rob our Benefactor of His due glory." - Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God
"Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace." - Jerry Bridges
"The Christian religion flourishes not in the darkness, but in the light. Intellectual slothfulness is but a quack remedy for unbelief; the true remedy is consecration of intellectual powers to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ." - J. Gresham Machen "The Importance of Christian Scholarship in The Defense of The Faith"
"Teach us to study the work of Thy hands that we may subdue the earth to our uses, and strengthen our reason for Thy service; and so rescue Thy blessed Word, that we may believe on Him whom Thou hast sent to give us the knowledge of salvation and the remission of our sins." - James Clerk Maxwell
"Blasphemy is an artistic effect, because blasphemy depends upon a philosophical conviction. Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor. I think his family will find him at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion." - G.K. Chesterton
"According to Scripture, the Christian life is repentance from beginning to end! So long as the believer is simul justus et peccator (at the same time righteous and yet a sinner), it can be no other way." - Sinclair Ferguson
Sunday, 4 August 2013
Saturday, 27 July 2013
Hymn Story: Thine Be the Glory
1 Corinthians 15:57
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is possible that an Advent hymn by Friedrich-Heinrich Ranke (1798-1876), using the same tune by Handel, and published in Evangelisches Gesangbuch fur Elsass-Lothringern, could have been the basis for "Thine Be the Glory."
Listen to it here: Thine Be the Glory
Friday, 26 July 2013
Ligonier Academy (June 2013)
"It is possible to preach about Jesus, and even mention grace in the process, and yet be preaching law, calling people to reform themselves with a little help from their heavenly Friend. Such a message breeds either self-deluded complacency or self-contemptuous despair." - Dennis E. Johnson
"Biblical public worship does not find its justification in what is thought to please me or the people around me, but in what is known to please God, according to what God has authorized in the Bible." - Daniel Hyde
"If you have a ministry of any sort—public or private—as a teacher, preacher, leader, helper, or as any kind of salt and light in the world (Mt. 5:13-16) —then take heed: you are a targeted man, a marked woman. The forces of evil have taken out a contract on you. There is a price on your head sufficient to make any bounty hunter salivate. Satan is out to get you. Why? Because he wants to nullify your ministry. Because you bear on your shoulders the reputation of Christ. The enemy scores a strategic victory in his assault on that sacred reputation if you lose your battle against sexual temptation. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in the invisible realm (Eph. 6:12). These desperately evil beings have vested interests in our moral collapse. They will do everything in their power to strike out at Christ and His church." - Randy Alcorn
"Although we often succeed in teaching our pupils subjects, we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think: they learn everything, except the art of learning." - Dorothy Sayers
"I think the reason we sometimes have the false sense that God is so far away is because that is where we have put him. We have kept him at a distance, and then when we are in need and call on him in prayer, we wonder where he is. He is exactly where we left him." - Ravi Zacharias
"God has made humans to reflect him, but if they do not commit themselves to him, they will not reflect him but something else in creation. At the core of our beings we are imaging creatures. It is not possible to be neutral on this issue: we either reflect the Creator or something in creation." - G.K. Beale
"If there is resistance in the heart to loving God, there will be resistance in the mind to knowing God-and therefore to listening to and seeking God. Only the truth can set us free." - Sinclair Ferguson
"The key to subduing the downward drag of sin in our lives is to know the impulse of gratitude that follows the experience of forgiveness and reconciliation. Law-keeping out of love is the true path of holiness." - Derek W.H. Thomas
"Malcolm Muggeridge famously said that 'without God we are left with a choice of succumbing to megalomania or erotomania.' The court's majority, in declaring by sheer judicial fiat the equal dignity under law of the family and sodomy, would appear to have gone Muggeridge one better by succumbing to both at once." - E. Feser.
"Biblical public worship does not find its justification in what is thought to please me or the people around me, but in what is known to please God, according to what God has authorized in the Bible." - Daniel Hyde
"If you have a ministry of any sort—public or private—as a teacher, preacher, leader, helper, or as any kind of salt and light in the world (Mt. 5:13-16) —then take heed: you are a targeted man, a marked woman. The forces of evil have taken out a contract on you. There is a price on your head sufficient to make any bounty hunter salivate. Satan is out to get you. Why? Because he wants to nullify your ministry. Because you bear on your shoulders the reputation of Christ. The enemy scores a strategic victory in his assault on that sacred reputation if you lose your battle against sexual temptation. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in the invisible realm (Eph. 6:12). These desperately evil beings have vested interests in our moral collapse. They will do everything in their power to strike out at Christ and His church." - Randy Alcorn
"I think the reason we sometimes have the false sense that God is so far away is because that is where we have put him. We have kept him at a distance, and then when we are in need and call on him in prayer, we wonder where he is. He is exactly where we left him." - Ravi Zacharias
"God has made humans to reflect him, but if they do not commit themselves to him, they will not reflect him but something else in creation. At the core of our beings we are imaging creatures. It is not possible to be neutral on this issue: we either reflect the Creator or something in creation." - G.K. Beale
"If there is resistance in the heart to loving God, there will be resistance in the mind to knowing God-and therefore to listening to and seeking God. Only the truth can set us free." - Sinclair Ferguson
"The key to subduing the downward drag of sin in our lives is to know the impulse of gratitude that follows the experience of forgiveness and reconciliation. Law-keeping out of love is the true path of holiness." - Derek W.H. Thomas
"Malcolm Muggeridge famously said that 'without God we are left with a choice of succumbing to megalomania or erotomania.' The court's majority, in declaring by sheer judicial fiat the equal dignity under law of the family and sodomy, would appear to have gone Muggeridge one better by succumbing to both at once." - E. Feser.
Ligonier Academy (May 2013)
"However much we may delude ourselves, there is no such thing as a theoretical Christian. It is possible to hold the doctrine of the faith in the lecture room, to give an intellectual assent to these things, but that does not make us Christian." - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
"It is just as impossible that any one for whom Christ rose from the dead should fail to receive the righteousness of God as it is that God should undo the resurrection of Christ itself. Consequently, knowing ourselves one with Christ, we find in the resurrection the strongest possible assurance of pardon and peace." - Geerhardus Vos
"Sovereign grace is dear to those who have groaned deeply because they see what grievous sinners they are." - Charles Spurgeon
"Our nature is so corrupt, the power of sin is so great, that unless God does a supernatural work in our souls we will never choose Christ. We do not believe in order to be born again; we are born again in order that we may believe." - R.C. Sproul
"God is seen on almost every page of Holy Writ as He reveals Himself in words and actions. This revelation of God is the basis of our faith in the existence of God, and makes this an entirely reasonable faith." - Louis Berkhof
"It is not great talents God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.” - Charles Spurgeon
"Thus it came about that in the hands of the great Protestant leaders of the sixteenth century, and of their successors, the Protestant systematisers of the seventeenth century, the threefold doctrine of imputation — of Adam’s sin to his posterity, of the sins of His people to the Redeemer, and of the righteousness of Christ to His people — at last came to its rights as the core of the three constitutive doctrines of Christianity — the sinfulness of the human race, the satisfaction of Jesus Christ, and justification by faith. The importance of the doctrine of imputation is that it is the hinge on which these three great doctrines turn, and the guardian of their purity." - B.B. Warfield
"That which we know to be grounded upon the Scriptures we must receive, not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God. We must with reverence attend to it; we must in our hearts believe, and we must in our lives obey it." - William Gouge
"If the church as a whole is losing its ability to be “salt and light” in the culture, it is not because its members have no opinion of the films of Bernardo Bertolucci, no appreciation for the poetry of Emily Dickinson, and no regular slot on The Charlie Rose Show. More likely, it is because they do not have a solid grasp of the basic elements of the faith, as taught in Scripture and affirmed by the confessions and catechisms of the church." - Carl Trueman
"Paul, then, does not see evil in all its varied forms simply as so many ethical misdemeanours. He relates it all to God. It is a dishonouring of God, a failure to fear God, a hostility to God, and more. And God takes knowledge of it. People are responsible for their actions." - Leon Morris
"The spiritual security of believers, therefore, depends primarily not on their hold of God but on God's hold of them." - Anthony Hoekema
"Christ died"--that is history; "Christ died for our sins"--that is doctrine. Without these two elements, joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no Christianity." - J. Gresham Machen
"It is just as impossible that any one for whom Christ rose from the dead should fail to receive the righteousness of God as it is that God should undo the resurrection of Christ itself. Consequently, knowing ourselves one with Christ, we find in the resurrection the strongest possible assurance of pardon and peace." - Geerhardus Vos
"Sovereign grace is dear to those who have groaned deeply because they see what grievous sinners they are." - Charles Spurgeon
"Our nature is so corrupt, the power of sin is so great, that unless God does a supernatural work in our souls we will never choose Christ. We do not believe in order to be born again; we are born again in order that we may believe." - R.C. Sproul
"God is seen on almost every page of Holy Writ as He reveals Himself in words and actions. This revelation of God is the basis of our faith in the existence of God, and makes this an entirely reasonable faith." - Louis Berkhof
"It is not great talents God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.” - Charles Spurgeon
"Thus it came about that in the hands of the great Protestant leaders of the sixteenth century, and of their successors, the Protestant systematisers of the seventeenth century, the threefold doctrine of imputation — of Adam’s sin to his posterity, of the sins of His people to the Redeemer, and of the righteousness of Christ to His people — at last came to its rights as the core of the three constitutive doctrines of Christianity — the sinfulness of the human race, the satisfaction of Jesus Christ, and justification by faith. The importance of the doctrine of imputation is that it is the hinge on which these three great doctrines turn, and the guardian of their purity." - B.B. Warfield
"That which we know to be grounded upon the Scriptures we must receive, not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God. We must with reverence attend to it; we must in our hearts believe, and we must in our lives obey it." - William Gouge
"If the church as a whole is losing its ability to be “salt and light” in the culture, it is not because its members have no opinion of the films of Bernardo Bertolucci, no appreciation for the poetry of Emily Dickinson, and no regular slot on The Charlie Rose Show. More likely, it is because they do not have a solid grasp of the basic elements of the faith, as taught in Scripture and affirmed by the confessions and catechisms of the church." - Carl Trueman
"Paul, then, does not see evil in all its varied forms simply as so many ethical misdemeanours. He relates it all to God. It is a dishonouring of God, a failure to fear God, a hostility to God, and more. And God takes knowledge of it. People are responsible for their actions." - Leon Morris
"The spiritual security of believers, therefore, depends primarily not on their hold of God but on God's hold of them." - Anthony Hoekema
"Christ died"--that is history; "Christ died for our sins"--that is doctrine. Without these two elements, joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no Christianity." - J. Gresham Machen
Thursday, 25 July 2013
Ligonier Academy (April 2013)
"The grace of God in pardoning and justifying the ungodly sinner, is founded upon the propitiatory sacrifice of the death of Christ; and grace’s administration being built upon this ground, God is just in pardoning the sinner that believes in Jesus. The government of grace is founded on righteousness; that is, upon the righteousness of Christ, by which justice was satisfied in the execution of judgment upon the Surety." - Ebenezer Erskine
"But the gospel of Christ is entirely different. It is for anyone, for everyone. Its secret is that it postulates nothing in man except failure and sin and weakness. All those other ideas appeal only to certain types of psychological make-up and temperament, they have to presuppose something in us. And without that they fail of necessity. A man glories in his own country and not in another. A man without brains and natural ability cannot truly learn and understand. And so on through the entire list of proposals and panaceas. But the gospel is not concerned about our natural differences. It centres on that which we share in common--sin and rebellion against God, failure in our lives, and a sense of shame. It demolishes all distinctions by placing us all together before God. And it does so, further, by postulating our weakness and helplessness, and relying for its efficacy upon the power of God Himself.
It matters not therefore who we are nor what we are. None can be too high or too low for this. There is no such thing as wise and unwise, great and small, learned and ignorant, wealthy or poor. There is no longer Jew and Gentile, Barbarian or Scythian, male or female, bond or free. God sees us as souls lost and desperate, helpless and forlorn. And He offers us the same salvation." - Martyn Lloyd-Jones
"They hear indeed that there are but few saved, and that the greater part of men that have died heretofore are gone to hell; but each one imagines that he lays out matters better for his own escape than others have done." - Jonathan Edwards
"It is cold comfort to be told that God never thought on me before I repented and believed. But to know and feel that God had purposes of mercy toward me before the foundation of the world, and that all the work of grace in my heart is the result of an everlasting covenant and an eternal Election, is a thought full of sweet and unspeakable consolation. A work that was planned before the foundation of the world, by an Architect of almighty power and perfect wisdom, is a work which will never be allowed to fail and be overthrown." - J.C. Ryle
"What is a little money, health or liberty, to wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption?" - John Flavel
"God loves His saints as the purchase of His Son's blood... He that was willing to expend His Son's blood to gain them, will not deny His power to keep them." - William Gurnall
"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
"Death taketh all from us - honours and riches, and strength, and life; but it cannot take God and Christ from us. They are ours, and everlastingly ours." - Thomas Manton
"The gospel of Jesus Christ is thoroughly realistic, and it starts with us exactly where we are, and that is, at the bottom of a pit of corruption." - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
"Some anti-intellectualism is nothing but a thoughtless reaction to the skepticism toward Christianity found in many academic circles. But some of it is the pride of those who can do things with their hands but who do not or cannot make much of intellectual pursuits. Intellectual arrogance is still arrogance; blue-collar arrogance is still arrogance." — Don Carson
"There are many who are interested in 'religion' who are actually antagonistic to the things of the Spirit... You may be very interested in religious organizations, in religious activities, in denominations, in activities of your particular church, and so on, but it may have nothing to do with minding the things of the Spirit." - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones "Heretics, like nurses, may put meat or poison into their mouths who are babes in understanding; they that are children in knowledge will be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. The blind man eats many a fly, and the ignorant man swallows many an error. Men will easily be brought to deny the truths which they understand not, and to speak evil of the things which they know not." - George Swinnock
"But the gospel of Christ is entirely different. It is for anyone, for everyone. Its secret is that it postulates nothing in man except failure and sin and weakness. All those other ideas appeal only to certain types of psychological make-up and temperament, they have to presuppose something in us. And without that they fail of necessity. A man glories in his own country and not in another. A man without brains and natural ability cannot truly learn and understand. And so on through the entire list of proposals and panaceas. But the gospel is not concerned about our natural differences. It centres on that which we share in common--sin and rebellion against God, failure in our lives, and a sense of shame. It demolishes all distinctions by placing us all together before God. And it does so, further, by postulating our weakness and helplessness, and relying for its efficacy upon the power of God Himself.
It matters not therefore who we are nor what we are. None can be too high or too low for this. There is no such thing as wise and unwise, great and small, learned and ignorant, wealthy or poor. There is no longer Jew and Gentile, Barbarian or Scythian, male or female, bond or free. God sees us as souls lost and desperate, helpless and forlorn. And He offers us the same salvation." - Martyn Lloyd-Jones
"They hear indeed that there are but few saved, and that the greater part of men that have died heretofore are gone to hell; but each one imagines that he lays out matters better for his own escape than others have done." - Jonathan Edwards
"It is cold comfort to be told that God never thought on me before I repented and believed. But to know and feel that God had purposes of mercy toward me before the foundation of the world, and that all the work of grace in my heart is the result of an everlasting covenant and an eternal Election, is a thought full of sweet and unspeakable consolation. A work that was planned before the foundation of the world, by an Architect of almighty power and perfect wisdom, is a work which will never be allowed to fail and be overthrown." - J.C. Ryle
"You know so little of God, my reader, because you live at such a distance from God; you have so little transaction with Him- so little confession of sin, so little searching of your own conscience, so little probing of your own heart, so little dealing with Him in the blood and righteousness of Christ, so little transaction with Him in the little things of life. You deal with God in great matters; you take great trials to God, great perplexities, great needs; but in the minutiae of each day's history, in what are called the little things of life, you have no dealings with God whatever; and consequently you know so little of the love, so little of the wisdom, so little of the glory, of this glorious covenant God and reconciled Father.
I tell you, the man who lives with God in little matters, who walks with God in the minutiae of his life, is the man who becomes the best acquainted with God- with His character, His faithfulness, His love. To meet God in my daily trials, to take to Him the trials of my calling, the trials of my church, the trials of my family, the trials of my own heart- to take to Him that which brings the shade upon my brow, that rends the sigh from my heart- to remember it is not too trivial to take to God- above all, to take to Him the least taint upon the conscience, the slightest pressure of sin upon the heart, the softest conviction of departure from God- to take it to Him, and confess it at the foot of the cross, with the hand of faith upon the bleeding sacrifice- oh! these are the paths in which a man becomes intimately and closely acquainted with God!" - Octavius Winslow
"Many will be affected with some gross sins of theirs against the law, who never see the venom of their unbelief of the gospel. But this is the sin that draws deepest; and therefore that is the sin which the Spirit is in a special manner to convince of." - Thomas Boston
"There is something of a secret atheism in all, which is the fountain of the evil practices in their lives, not an utter disowning of the being of a God, but a denial or doubting of some of the rights of his nature." - Stephen Charnock
I tell you, the man who lives with God in little matters, who walks with God in the minutiae of his life, is the man who becomes the best acquainted with God- with His character, His faithfulness, His love. To meet God in my daily trials, to take to Him the trials of my calling, the trials of my church, the trials of my family, the trials of my own heart- to take to Him that which brings the shade upon my brow, that rends the sigh from my heart- to remember it is not too trivial to take to God- above all, to take to Him the least taint upon the conscience, the slightest pressure of sin upon the heart, the softest conviction of departure from God- to take it to Him, and confess it at the foot of the cross, with the hand of faith upon the bleeding sacrifice- oh! these are the paths in which a man becomes intimately and closely acquainted with God!" - Octavius Winslow
"Many will be affected with some gross sins of theirs against the law, who never see the venom of their unbelief of the gospel. But this is the sin that draws deepest; and therefore that is the sin which the Spirit is in a special manner to convince of." - Thomas Boston
"There is something of a secret atheism in all, which is the fountain of the evil practices in their lives, not an utter disowning of the being of a God, but a denial or doubting of some of the rights of his nature." - Stephen Charnock
"What is a little money, health or liberty, to wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption?" - John Flavel
"God loves His saints as the purchase of His Son's blood... He that was willing to expend His Son's blood to gain them, will not deny His power to keep them." - William Gurnall
"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
"Death taketh all from us - honours and riches, and strength, and life; but it cannot take God and Christ from us. They are ours, and everlastingly ours." - Thomas Manton
"The gospel of Jesus Christ is thoroughly realistic, and it starts with us exactly where we are, and that is, at the bottom of a pit of corruption." - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
"Some anti-intellectualism is nothing but a thoughtless reaction to the skepticism toward Christianity found in many academic circles. But some of it is the pride of those who can do things with their hands but who do not or cannot make much of intellectual pursuits. Intellectual arrogance is still arrogance; blue-collar arrogance is still arrogance." — Don Carson
"There are many who are interested in 'religion' who are actually antagonistic to the things of the Spirit... You may be very interested in religious organizations, in religious activities, in denominations, in activities of your particular church, and so on, but it may have nothing to do with minding the things of the Spirit." - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones "Heretics, like nurses, may put meat or poison into their mouths who are babes in understanding; they that are children in knowledge will be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. The blind man eats many a fly, and the ignorant man swallows many an error. Men will easily be brought to deny the truths which they understand not, and to speak evil of the things which they know not." - George Swinnock
Wednesday, 24 July 2013
Ligonier Academy (March 2013)
"Regenerating grace elevates the soul, translates it into the spiritual world, from whence this earth cannot but appear a little, yea, a very little thing; even as heaven appeared before, while the soul was grovelling in the earth. Grace brings a man into a new world: where this world is reputed but a stage of vanity, a howling wilderness, a valley of tears." - Thomas Boston
"There are many who are interested in 'religion' who are actually antagonistic to the things of the Spirit... You may be very interested in religious organizations, in religious activities, in denominations, in activities of your particular church, and so on, but it may have nothing to do with minding the things of the Spirit" - D. M. Lloyd-Jones
"Glory in nothing, but only in this, that you are in Christ. For God chose you in him; the being you had was in him before the world was." - Thomas Goodwin
"When you hear of a notorious sinner, instead of thinking you do well to be angry, beg of Jesus Christ to convert, and make him a monument of his free grace." - George Whitefield
"The nature of a truly Christian love is love that arises from apprehension of the wonderful riches of the free grace and sovereignty of God's love to us in Christ Jesus; being attended with a sense of our own utter unworthiness, as in ourselves the enemies and haters of God and Christ, and with a renunciation of all our own excellency and righteousness." - Jonathan Edwards
"Self-righteousness is as rapid a road to ruin as outward sin itself. We may as certainly destroy ourselves by opposing the righteousness of Christ as by transgressing the law of God. Self-righteousness is as much an insult to God as blasphemy is, and God will never accept it, neither shall any soul enter Heaven by it." - Charles Spurgeon
"We are one in Christ; let us be friends with one another; but let us never be friends with one another’s error. If I be wrong, rebuke me sternly; I can bear it, and bear it cheerfully; and if ye be wrong, expect the like measure from me, and neither peace nor parley with your mistakes." - Charles Spurgeon
"I hear one say, “Well, sir, you seem to be a fatalist!” No, far from it. There is just this difference between fate and providence. Fate is blind; providence has eyes. Fate is blind, a thing that must be; it is just an arrow shot from a bow, that must fly onward, but has no target. Not so, providence; providence is full of eyes. There is a design in everything, and an end to be answered; all things are working together, and working together for good." - Charles Spurgeon
"There is an atheism in the heart as well as in the judgment. Atheism in the judgment is when we are not convinced of the being of God; in the heart, when our affections are not set on God: this is more incurable, because the dogmatic atheist may be convinced by reason, but the practical atheist can only be reformed by grace." - Thomas Manton
“Ah! from how great bitterness of soul have you often delivered me, O Good Jesus, coming to me!… How often has prayer taken me, on the brink of despair, and restored me to the state of soul of one exulting in joy and confident forgiveness. Those who are afflicted in this way, behold they know that the Lord Jesus is truly a Physician Who healeth the broken of heart and bindeth up their bruises” - Bernard of Clairvaux
"The proper intent of mercies is to draw us to God. When the heart is full of a sense of the goodness of the Lord, the tongue cannot hold its peace. Self love may lead us to prayers, but love to God excites us to praises: therefore to seek and not to praise, is to be lovers of ourselves rather than of God." - Thomas Manton
"There are many Christian people today, it seems to me, who claim to be believers in the inspiration of the Scriptures but who nevertheless quite deliberately avoid large portions of Scripture simply because they are difficult. But if you believe that the whole of Scripture is the Word of God, such an attitude is sinful; it is our business to face the Scriptures." - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
"See the dignity of all true believers. They are joined in marriage with Christ. There is not only assimilation but union; they are not only like Christ but one with Christ. All the saints have this honour. When a king marries a beggar, by virtue of the union she is ennobled and made of the blood royal. As wicked men are united to the prince of darkness, and he settles hell upon them as their inheritance, so the godly are divinely united to Christ, who is King of kings, and Lord of Lords (Rev. 19:16). By virtue of this sacred union the saints are dignified above the angels. Christ is the Lord of the angels, but not their husband." - Thomas Watson
"The man who is trying to be a Christian is trying to hold on to something. The man who is a Christian feels that he is being held by something. It has been put to him, it is there; it may even seem to be in spite of him, but it is there. It is not what he is doing that matters to him; it is what has been done to him, it is what he has become, it is the awareness of this power within him -- life." - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
"The ultimate sin is intellectual pride... There is no point in saying that you accept the Bible as the Word of God if you are determined to reject statements which you cannot understand." - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
"Our Saviour Christ never expostulated for himself; never said, Why scourge you me? why spit you upon me? why crucify you me? As long as their rage determined in his person, he opened not his mouth; when Saul extended the violence to the church, to his servants, then Christ came to that, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Here is a holy league, defensive and offensive; God shall not only protect us from others, but he shall fight for us against them; our enemies are his enemies." -- John Donne
O what a Saviour is Jesus Christ! He is the chief among ten thousand! Look at His sinless, yet real humanity — without a single taint, yet sympathizing with us in all our various conditions — our afflictions — our temptations — our infirmities — our griefs. Now that He is in glory, He is still cherishing a brother’s heart, bending down His ear to our petitions — ever standing near to catch our sighs, to dry our tears, to provide for our needs, to guide us by His counsel, and afterwards to receive us to glory!
O what a Saviour is Jesus Christ! When He is known — all other beings are eclipsed.
When His beauty is seen — all other beauty fades.
When His love is felt — He becomes supremely enthroned in the affections.
To know Him more, becomes the one desire of the renewed mind; and to make Him more known, is the one aim of the Christian life.
O what a Saviour is Jesus Christ!
---Octavius Winslow
"There are many who are interested in 'religion' who are actually antagonistic to the things of the Spirit... You may be very interested in religious organizations, in religious activities, in denominations, in activities of your particular church, and so on, but it may have nothing to do with minding the things of the Spirit" - D. M. Lloyd-Jones
"Glory in nothing, but only in this, that you are in Christ. For God chose you in him; the being you had was in him before the world was." - Thomas Goodwin
"When you hear of a notorious sinner, instead of thinking you do well to be angry, beg of Jesus Christ to convert, and make him a monument of his free grace." - George Whitefield
"The nature of a truly Christian love is love that arises from apprehension of the wonderful riches of the free grace and sovereignty of God's love to us in Christ Jesus; being attended with a sense of our own utter unworthiness, as in ourselves the enemies and haters of God and Christ, and with a renunciation of all our own excellency and righteousness." - Jonathan Edwards
"Self-righteousness is as rapid a road to ruin as outward sin itself. We may as certainly destroy ourselves by opposing the righteousness of Christ as by transgressing the law of God. Self-righteousness is as much an insult to God as blasphemy is, and God will never accept it, neither shall any soul enter Heaven by it." - Charles Spurgeon
"We are one in Christ; let us be friends with one another; but let us never be friends with one another’s error. If I be wrong, rebuke me sternly; I can bear it, and bear it cheerfully; and if ye be wrong, expect the like measure from me, and neither peace nor parley with your mistakes." - Charles Spurgeon
"I hear one say, “Well, sir, you seem to be a fatalist!” No, far from it. There is just this difference between fate and providence. Fate is blind; providence has eyes. Fate is blind, a thing that must be; it is just an arrow shot from a bow, that must fly onward, but has no target. Not so, providence; providence is full of eyes. There is a design in everything, and an end to be answered; all things are working together, and working together for good." - Charles Spurgeon
"There is an atheism in the heart as well as in the judgment. Atheism in the judgment is when we are not convinced of the being of God; in the heart, when our affections are not set on God: this is more incurable, because the dogmatic atheist may be convinced by reason, but the practical atheist can only be reformed by grace." - Thomas Manton
“Ah! from how great bitterness of soul have you often delivered me, O Good Jesus, coming to me!… How often has prayer taken me, on the brink of despair, and restored me to the state of soul of one exulting in joy and confident forgiveness. Those who are afflicted in this way, behold they know that the Lord Jesus is truly a Physician Who healeth the broken of heart and bindeth up their bruises” - Bernard of Clairvaux
"The proper intent of mercies is to draw us to God. When the heart is full of a sense of the goodness of the Lord, the tongue cannot hold its peace. Self love may lead us to prayers, but love to God excites us to praises: therefore to seek and not to praise, is to be lovers of ourselves rather than of God." - Thomas Manton
"There are many Christian people today, it seems to me, who claim to be believers in the inspiration of the Scriptures but who nevertheless quite deliberately avoid large portions of Scripture simply because they are difficult. But if you believe that the whole of Scripture is the Word of God, such an attitude is sinful; it is our business to face the Scriptures." - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
"See the dignity of all true believers. They are joined in marriage with Christ. There is not only assimilation but union; they are not only like Christ but one with Christ. All the saints have this honour. When a king marries a beggar, by virtue of the union she is ennobled and made of the blood royal. As wicked men are united to the prince of darkness, and he settles hell upon them as their inheritance, so the godly are divinely united to Christ, who is King of kings, and Lord of Lords (Rev. 19:16). By virtue of this sacred union the saints are dignified above the angels. Christ is the Lord of the angels, but not their husband." - Thomas Watson
"The man who is trying to be a Christian is trying to hold on to something. The man who is a Christian feels that he is being held by something. It has been put to him, it is there; it may even seem to be in spite of him, but it is there. It is not what he is doing that matters to him; it is what has been done to him, it is what he has become, it is the awareness of this power within him -- life." - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
"The ultimate sin is intellectual pride... There is no point in saying that you accept the Bible as the Word of God if you are determined to reject statements which you cannot understand." - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
"Our Saviour Christ never expostulated for himself; never said, Why scourge you me? why spit you upon me? why crucify you me? As long as their rage determined in his person, he opened not his mouth; when Saul extended the violence to the church, to his servants, then Christ came to that, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Here is a holy league, defensive and offensive; God shall not only protect us from others, but he shall fight for us against them; our enemies are his enemies." -- John Donne
O what a Saviour is Jesus Christ! He is the chief among ten thousand! Look at His sinless, yet real humanity — without a single taint, yet sympathizing with us in all our various conditions — our afflictions — our temptations — our infirmities — our griefs. Now that He is in glory, He is still cherishing a brother’s heart, bending down His ear to our petitions — ever standing near to catch our sighs, to dry our tears, to provide for our needs, to guide us by His counsel, and afterwards to receive us to glory!
O what a Saviour is Jesus Christ! When He is known — all other beings are eclipsed.
When His beauty is seen — all other beauty fades.
When His love is felt — He becomes supremely enthroned in the affections.
To know Him more, becomes the one desire of the renewed mind; and to make Him more known, is the one aim of the Christian life.
O what a Saviour is Jesus Christ!
---Octavius Winslow
Tuesday, 23 July 2013
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
"The more purely God's word is preached, the more deeply it pierces and the more kindly it works." - William Gouge
"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 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
"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
"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
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