"No saint, no minister, no priest, no person ordained or unordained, no one stands between us and God, but Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus in the Holy of Holies, is the meeting point between the sinner and the Triune God." - Chaplain Philip Veitch
"Oh, better were it for you to die in a jail, in a ditch, in a dungeon, than to die in your sins. If death, as it will take away all your comforts, would take away all your sins too, it were some mitigation; but your sins will follow you when your friends leave you, and all worldly enjoyments shake hands with you. Your sins will not die with you as a prisoner's other debts will; but they will go to judgement with you there to be your accusers; and they will go to hell with you there to be your tormentors."
-- Joseph Alleine
"God takes it unkindly if we weep too much and over-grieve for the loss of a spouse, child, or friend, or for any cross in the things of this life, for it is a sign we do not derive from Him the comfort which we should and may do. Even if our weeping is for our sins, we must be moderate in that: we must with one eye look upon our sins, and with the other look upon God's mercy in Christ. So if the best grief must be moderated, much more must the other." -- Richard Sibbes, paraphrased
"Few think it worth the while to spend half that time in prayer, in meditation, in the exercise of self-denial, mortification, and holy obedience, doing the will of Christ, that they may know of His word, to the attaining of a due comprehension of the mystery of godliness, as some do in diligence, study,and trial of experiments, who design to excel in natural or mathematical sciences." -- John Owen
"The 'free thinker' is the man whose understanding has become
emancipated from his conscience."
-- Charles Hodge
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor also commands that you SHALL sincerely, freely, clearly, and fully speak the truth and only the truth at all times. Obedience to God in this area requires a readiness of mind to receive a good report about another, and a reluctance to entertain a bad report. The Ninth Commandment also instructs you to discourage tale-bearers (gossips), flatterers, and slanderers, and to protect and defend the good name of your neighbor as well as your own." -- based on the Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 144
Bil Keane, creator of the Family Circus cartoon strip, tells of a time when he was penciling one of his cartoons and his son Jeffy said,
"Daddy, how do you know what to draw?"
Bil said, "God tells me."
Jeffy said, "Then why do you keep erasing parts of it?"
"Humanity cannot be saved by measuring up to a code, regardless of its simplicity. Adam failed to keep a single commandment, and Israel could not keep ten. If we are to be saved, we must seek resources outside of ourselves. We have been contaminated by personal sin, our powers have been weakened, and our resources polluted. It would be easier for an unconscious person on a life support system to win a marathon race than for us to be justified by our own deeds." -- Given O. Blakely
"It may rather be called the gospel than the prophecy of Isaiah. It contains so ample and clear a discovery of Jesus Christ, that one would rather account it historical than prophetical. Other prophecies are explained by the history of Christ in the New Testament, but this prophecy explains the history..." -- Thomas Manton, referring to the 53rd chapter of Isaiah
"A believer in Jesus Christ might be described as one who - often strenuously - battles against doubt! Along with temptation and that tireless enemy called indwelling sin, doubt wages war against the believer's soul.
An unbeliever often gives outward assent to the form of religion. The thought might occasionally arise in his mind, 'what if this is all true?' Yet he lives according to his own will and desires, and imagines that somehow all will be well for him in the Day of Judgment."
"To err is human; to blame it on somebody else is even more human." -- John Nadeau
It shall be useful then for the saints, when the Spirit cometh in His stirrings and impetuous acts, to co-operate with Him, and to answer His wind-blowing. It is good to hoist up sail, and make out, when a fair wind and a strong tide calleth. - Samuel Rutherford, 1600-1661
"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge pope and king unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power...power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." -- Lord John Emerich Edward Dalbert-Acton, speaking to the Bishop of London
"We are ensnared by the wisdom of the serpent;
we are set free by the foolishness of God." -- Augustine
"When they would have fastened him to the stake, he said, 'Leave me as I am; for He Who giveth me strength to sustain the fire, will enable me also, without your securing me with nails, to remain without flinching in the pile'. Upon which they bound him without nailing him. So he said thus: - O Father, I bless Thee that Thou hast counted me worthy to receive my portion among the number of martyrs'." -- the martyr Polycarp of Smyrna, second century.
"When God calls a man, He does not repent of it. God does not, as many friends do, love one day, and hate another; or as princes, who make their subjects favourites, and afterwards throw them into prison. This is the blessedness of a saint; his condition admits of no alteration. God's call is founded on His decree, and His decree is immutable. Acts of grace cannot be reversed. God blots out His people's sins, but not their names." -- Thomas Watson
"And unto Him Who mounts the whirlwind and directs the storm, I will cheerfully leave the ordering of my lot and whether adverse or prosperous days should be my future portion, I will trust in His right hand to lead me safely through, and after a short rotation of events, fix me in a state immutable and happy..." -- Abigail Adams, founding mother of America (wife of second president John Adams and mother of sixth president John Quincy Adams)
"Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus' earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of god. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer that died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing." -- G. Richard Bozarth, The Meaning of Evolution, American Atheist, p. 30, Sept. 20, 1979
"If you're GREEN with envy now, you'll soon be RIPE for trouble." -- heard on Tom McDonald's morning radion program, June 2, 1998
"God is able to do above our wants, above our deserts, above our prayers, and above our thoughts; we cannot want more than He can give; we cannot pray for so much as He can bestow; we are not able to think what He can do." -- Ralph Erskine, 1730 A.D.
"I believe in an America where the separation of Church and State is absolute." -- John F. Kennedy, to the Houston Ministerial Association, September 12, 1960
"Assurance grows by repeated conflict, by our repeated experimental proof of the Lord's power and goodness to save; when we have been brought very low and helped, sorely wounded and healed, cast down and raised again, have given up all hope, and been suddenly snatched from danger, and placed in safety; and when these things have been repeated to us and in us a thousand times over, we begin to learn to trust simply to the word and power of God, beyond and against appearances; and this trust, when habitual and strong, bears the name of assurance, for even assurance has degrees." -- John Newton, taken from one of his letters
"The safest general characterisation of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." - Alfred Whitehead, 1929 Anno Domini
Is the Lord Jesus Christ an accessory for you, or is He your full dress? The inward thoughts of many are that they are basically well-clothed; Christianity simply adds the finishing touches to an already impressive outfit. Where true faith and repentance exist, one sees his or her wretched nakedness, and desperate need to be wrapped in the glorious robes of Christ's righteousness. How surpassingly gorgeous are the garments which the Lord Jesus has in mind at Matthew 6:30: "If God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?"
"Sins of omission argue as much hatred of God as sins of commission. If two should live in the same house, and never speak to one another, it would be taken for an argument of as great hatred as to fight one with another. When God is in us and round about us, and we never take time to confer with Him, it argues much hatred and neglect of Him." -- Thomas Manton
"Justification is not sanctification. It is an old Popish error, sown in the heads of a great many Protestants, to think that justification and sanctification are the same. Justification and sanctification are as far different as these two — There is a man condemned for high treason against the king by the judge. The same man is sick of a lethal disease. If he does not die by the hands of the hangman today, he may die of his disease tomorrow: it is the work of the physician to cure the disease, but it is an act of mercy from the king that must save him from the law's condemnation." -- Robert Traill, 1642 - 1716 (paraphrased)
"The good (in the United States) would never have come into being without the blessing and power of Jesus Christ...Whoever tries to conceive the American world without taking full account of the suffering and love and salvation of Christ is only dreaming.
I know how embarrassing this matter is to politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, and cynics; but, whatever these honored men think, the irrefutable truth is that the soul of America is at its best and highest, Christian." -- former Ambassador to the U.N. from Lebanon, Charles Habib Malik, d. 1967
"You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast howling wilderness. Then he is like a rose blooming in the midst of the desolation, a rock rising above the storm." -- Robert Murray McCheyne
"God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off His authority. It is not enough that we be just, that we be righteous, and walk with God in holiness; but we must also serve our generation, as David did before he fell asleep. God hath a work to do; and not to help Him is to oppose Him." -- John Owen
"To take God as source and end of all that exists and happens, and to hold such a view suffused with warmth of genuine devotion, stands not only related to theology as the fruit stands to the tree: it is by reason of its essence a veritable theological tree of life." -- Geerhardus Vos
"The deformity of sin is never truly and fully discerned till the evil of our thoughts be disclosed: and it is this which highly aggravates the faults of our tempers and lives—that the imagination of the thoughts of the heart is evil, Gen. 6:5. 3" -- Matthew Henry
"In theology, endless mistakes result from supposing that the conditions, bounds, and limits of our own finite existence apply to God. The doctrine of His aseity stands as a bulwark against such mistakes. In our life of faith, we easily impoverish ourselves by embracing an idea of God that is too limited and small, and again the doctrine of God's aseity stands as a bulwark to stop this happening." -- J.I. Packer, Concise Theology. (the "aseity" of God means His self-existence. - ed.)
"Christ centered. A well worn phrase, but a good one. The Lord our God must be the hub around which the whole wheel of life spins. One who says he is led by His Holy Spirit will be leading a life that is also Christ submitted, for He is our Lord and the Lord is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17). Our lives should also have our Savior undergirding them; they must be Christ based (1 Corinthians 3:11). For of Him, through Him, and to Him are all things!"
"Most of God's people are contented to be saved from the hell that is without; they are not so anxious to be saved from the hell that is within." -- Robert Murray McCheyne
"Indeed, I have been listed under Jesus' banner only for a few years; but I have enjoyed more solid pleasure in one moment's communion with my God, than I should or could have enjoyed in the ways of sin, though I had continued to have gone on in them for thousands of years." - George Whitfield
"There are many who talk much in the present day about 'the voice of the primitive Church.' They would have us believe that those who lived nearest the time of the Apostles, must of course know more about truth than we can. There is no foundation for any such opinion. It is a fact, that the most ancient writers in the Church of Christ are often at variance with one another. It is a fact that they often changed their own minds, and retracted their own former opinions. It is a fact that they often wrote foolish and weak things, and often showed great ignorance in their explanations of Scripture. It is vain to expect to find them free from mistakes. Infallibility is not to be found in the early fathers, but in the Bible." -- J. C. Ryle
"...those trying to discover the origins of life and study the earliest stages of biological evolution have an uphill quest: Over and over it happens that a theory or explanation believed to be well established has to be abandoned or rethought in the light of new findings." -- Antonio Lazcano, professor, National Autonomous University of Mexico and president of the International Society for the Study of the Origins of Life, "The Never-Ending Story," American Scientist vol. 91, no. 5, 2003.
"It is principal in the New Covenant that men are primarily motivated by the truth, for it is the truth that "makes" us free (John 8:32). Power comes to us on the wings of a message, not on the tablets of a law. The Gospel is essentially a message, not a system." - Given O. Blakely
"Whoever is separated from the Church is yoked with an adultress...Who has not the Church for mother can no longer have God for father." - Cyprian of Carthage, beheaded 258 A.D.
Democracy, I do not conceive that ever God did ordain it as a fit government either for church or commonwealth. If the people be governors, who will be governed? As for monarchy, and aristrocracy, they are both of them clearly approved, and directed in Scripture, yet so as referreth the sovereignty to Himself, and setteth theocracy in both, as the best form of government in the commonwealth, as well as in the church. — John Cotton (1584 - 1652), Puritan minister, American colonist.
Religion and liberty are the meat and drink of the body politic. Withdraw one of them and it languishes, consumes, and dies...Without religion we may possibly retain the freedom of savages, bears, and wolves but not the freedom of New England. If our religion were gone, our state of society would perish with it, and nothing would be left. — Timothy Dwight (1752 - 1817), President of Yale, grandson of Jonathan Edwards.
"The foes who wield terror against us are not animated by grievances, real or perceived, as much by a totalitarian political ideology. Its stated goal is a global caliphate under a Taliban-like religious code. Withdrawal under fire — surrender by any other name — will not 'stop the terror.' It will ensure there is more of it here, en route to subjecting the U.S. and every other nation to the Islamofascists' dominance and Shari'a." — Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
God's Law, the royal Law, His perfect (Psalm 19:7) moral standard for mankind:
"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength." — Corrie Ten Boom
The only possible reason for disagreeing with literal six day creation, that I can foresee, is an attempt to make the Scriptures more compatible with the religion of Evolutionism and her god of 'Chance'. Since the beginning, men have tried to combine worldly false doctrine with the one true faith and, of course, it can't be done. God's ways are not our ways; in fact, they're not even close." — Sam Derr, Ruling Elder at Calvary Reformed Presbyterian Church, Hampton, VA, c. 1998.
"A delight there is in the holiness of prayer; a natural man under some troubles may delight in God's comforting and easing presence, but not in His sanctifying presence. He may delight to pray to God as a store-house to supply his wants, but not as a refiner's fire to purge away his dross." — Stephen Charnock
"When we understand that He is Lord of our time, we realize that interruptions are of His planning. They become opportunities to serve rather than plagues to keep us from functioning." — Karen Burton Mains.
"Look upon all the things of this world as you will look upon them when you come to die. At what a poor rate do men look on the things of this world when they come to die! What a low value do men set upon the pomp and glory of it, when there is but a step between them and eternity!" — Thomas Brooks
Unattributed quotes are the words of the web site editor.
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