"The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains, proves that he has no brains of his own."
--Charles Spurgeon
Happy the man who sees a God employed in all the good and ill that chequers life. --WILLIAM COWPER
A firm faith in the universal providence of God is the solution of all earthly problems. It is almost equally true that a clear and full apprehension of the universal providence of God is the solution of most theological problems. --B. B. WARFIELD, God's Providence Over All
I have no hope at all but in thy great mercy. Grant what thou commandest and command what thou wilt. --AUGUSTINE
God promises to deliver us from the penalty of sin (justification), the power of sin (sanctification) and the presence of sin (glorification). --DAVE BROWN
The greatest judgment which God Himself can, in this present life, inflict upon a man is, to leave him in the hand of his own boasted free-will. --AUGUSTUS TOPLADY
I do not believe we can preach the gospel... unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought through the Cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called. --CHARLES SPURGEON
Jesus Christ is the center of everything, and the object of everything, and he that does not know Him knows nothing of nature and nothing of himself. --BLAISE PASCAL
There is not an inch of any sphere of life over which Jesus Christ does not say, "Mine." --ABRAHAM KUYPER
So many Christians interpret Christ's words to witness rather than to be a witness. And they see it as an activity instead of what it really is; the state of our being--what you do emerges from who you are. --CHUCK COLSON
We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. --A.W. TOZER
Just as the sinner's despair of any hope from himself is the first prerequisite of a sound conversion, so the loss of all confidence in himself is the first essential in the believer's growth in grace. --ARTHUR W. PINK
Preaching duty, is preaching the law; preaching the free grace of God, and salvation by Christ, is preaching the gospel; to say otherwise, is to turn the gospel into law and to blend and confound both together. --JOHN GILL
Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next. --WILLIAM RALPH INGE
Everyone may be entitled to his own opinion but everyone is not entitled to his own truth. Truth is but one. --DOUG GROOTHIUS
I've learned to hold everything loosely because it hurts when God pries my fingers from it. --CORRIE TEN BOOM
The great paradox of faith is that we find our perfect freedom only when become slaves--slaves to God... In the ancient world, slaves judged their self-worth in relation to the importance of their masters. The greater the social status of a master, the greater the esteem of the slave. Christians are slaves of the greatest and kindest Master of all... --ALISTER McGRATH
I am convinced that the first step toward attaining a higher standard of holiness is to realize more fully the amazing sinfulness of sin. --J. C. RYLE
An ineffably holy God, who has the utmost abhorrence of all sin, was never invented by any of Adam's fallen descendants. --A. W. PINK
The London Times once asked a number prominent people to write essays on the topic, "What's Wrong with the World." G. K. Chesterton reply is the shortest and most to the point in history:
Dear Sirs:
I am.
Sincerely, G. K. CHESTERTON
We may think God wants actions of a certain kind, but God wants people of a certain kind. --C. S. LEWIS, Mere Christianity
The world invents its own good works and persuades itself that they are good. But Paul declares that good and right according to the world are to be judged by the commandments of God. --JOHN CALVIN
Sheep and swine can both end up in the mire. Yet the essential difference in their two natures is quiet visible from the reaction each has to its fallen condition. While sheep do stray and stumble into the mire, they quickly loathe the situation and struggle to get free. They may be dirty, but they desire to be clean. They may be stuck, but they bleat for their shepherd to come and save them out of the muck. But swine, in keeping with their nature, wallow in the muck, content to stay there all day. --JOHN ENSOR
It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bothers me, its the parts I do understand. --MARK TWAIN
"Suppose you were the victim of an accident and you were laying in the emergency room in pain... How would you feel if someone told you that God had nothing to do with what happened? How long would it take you to start thinking some very serious and logical questions like, "Where was God when this happened? Could He have prevented it? Why didn't He prevent it? Was the devil stronger than God in this situation? Did the devil really cause this accident, even though God was desperately trying to keep it from happening to me?" You would soon begin to wonder whether you were on the wrong side. You might think... maybe God is not nearly as powerful as you thought He was...
"I am sure you can see that if God isn't big enough to control the bad things as well as the good things, then we are in deep trouble. When the bad things get more numerous than the good things (in times like today), then it looks as if we are losing the war. It looks like "our side" is the weak side. Whether you realize it or not, that is exactly what has happened in the hearts of many present-day Christians...
This generation has forgotten the sovereignty of God and exalted the sovereignty of man's "free will." We have forgotten the holiness of God and exalted man's personal happiness to be the chief goal and obligation of the gospel. We are so occupied with ourselves and our own pleasure that we literally believe that God exists for the sole purpose of making us "happy"... He is viewed as a heavenly bellhop that is ready to carry our suitcase of self-ambition anywhere we instruct Him--we call it "praying in faith." When we do not get what we want, then we either condemn ourselves for lack of faith or lose confidence in God's promises (what we falsely believed were His promises)...
Blaming all of our difficulties on the devil is a backhanded way of strengthening our own self-righteous conceit: "We really must be super-spiritual Christians to be attacked so strongly by the devil." Until you see the hand of God in all things, you will fight both God and the very purpose for which He sends the problem. There is nothing so tragic as listening to a sincere, but misguided, believer blame the devil for the fruits of his own stupidity; he then feels the devil did it just because he was so spiritual! It never occurs to him that he was believing and expecting something that God never promised, and at the same time was refusing to accept his circumstances as having been sent by God. His bad theology keeps him from hearing God speak to him in his trials; and worse yet, it hardens him in his false spirituality." --JOHN G. REISINGER
A Method to The Madness...
James Montgomery Boice recounts an incidence when Methodists George Whitefield and John Wesley were preaching together:
"They conducted several services during the day and returned exhausted to their room together in a boarding house each night. One evening after a particularly strenuous day, the two of them returned to prepare for bed. When they were ready each knelt beside his bed to pray. Whitefield, the Calvinist, prayed like this: 'Lord, we thank Thee for all those with whom we spoke this day, and we rejoice that their lives and destinies are entirely in thy hand. Honor our efforts according to thy perfect will. Amen.' He then climbed in bed. Wesley, who had hardly gotten past the invocation of his prayer in this length of time, looked and said, 'Mr. Whitefield, is this where your Calvinism leads you?' Then he put his head down again and went on praying. Whitefield stayed in bed and went to sleep. About two hours later he woke up, and there was Wesley still on his knees beside the bed. Whitefield got up, went around to where Wesley was kneeling and touched him. Wesley was asleep. Whitefield said, 'Mr. Wesley, is this where your Arminianism leads you?'"
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES being interviewed by a Canadian reporter in 1932:
"Which kind of church are you the minister of in Wales?"
"Really a Presbyterian Church, the name of the denomination--the strongest one in Wales--is the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church."
"Surely there's a mistake somewhere," I opined, "please say that over again."
Once more the name rolled out, a civil war in language.
"I'm bewildered," was my confession. "Surely the term 'Calvinistic Methodist' is about as harmonious as 'white black-bird' or 'east-west wind'. Are they not antipodal terms?"
"Not at all--you evidently think that John Wesley was the only Methodist who ever lived. George Whitefield was a Calvinist--that's why he and Wesley quarrelled."
Alas, I never read anything that Calvin wrote; my doctrines I had from Christ and His apostles; I was taught them of God...The doctrines of our election, and free justification in Christ Jesus are daily more and more pressed upon my heart. They fill my soul with a holy fire and afford me great confidence in God my Saviour. --George Whitefield
There are two great truths which from this platform I have proclaimed for many years. The first is that salvation is free to every man who will have it; the second is that God gives salvation to a people whom He has chosen; and these truths are not in conflict with each other in the least degree. --CHARLES SPURGEON
"Christ is either Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all."
--J. Hudson Taylor
Quotes mostly taken from:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/3505/WebPageQuotes.html
