We have a tragic situation today when men in the pulpits say that they believe the doctrines of grace but they refuse to preach and teach them to their people.
– William Payne
1938 – 1997
It is not one or two good actions, but a consistent conduct, that tells whether a man is a true Christian. . . . Sheep may fall into the mire, but swine love day and night to wallow in it. A Christian may stumble, he may even fall, but he gets up and walks on in the way of God’s commandments; the bent of his heart is right, and the scope of his life is straight, and thus he is considered sincere.
– George Swinnock
1627 – 1673
Christendom has not fallen into its present condition all of a sudden; rather its present state is the outcome of a long and steady deterioration. The deadly poison of error was introduced here a little, there a little, with the quantity increased as less opposition came against it. As the acquiring of “converts” absorbed more and more of the attention and strength of the Church, the standard of doctrine lowered, sentiment displaced convictions, and fleshly methods were introduced. In a comparatively short time many of those sent out to “the foreign field” were rank Arminians, preaching “another gospel.” This reacted upon the homeland, and soon the interpretations of Scripture given out from the pulpits moved into line with the “new spirit” which had captivated Christendom.
– A.W. Pink
1886 – 1952
Under the law, if a man who was unclean by a dead body, carried a piece of holy flesh in his lower garment, the holy flesh could not cleanse him, but he polluted it (Hag, 2:12-13). Till the kingdom of grace is in our hearts, ordinances will not purify us, but we will pollute them. . . . In what a sad condition is a man before God’s kingdom of grace is set up in his heart! Whether he comes or comes not to the ordinance, he sins. If he does not come to the ordinance, he is a condemner of it; if he does come, he a polluter of it. A sinner’s work are opera mortua, dead works which are dead cannot please God. A dead flower has no sweetness.
– Thomas Watson
1620 – 1686
Christianity is not pragmatic. It is authoritarian, with God as the authority. God never has commanded us to cooperate with apostasy and then evaluate the results. Rather, God says, “Come out from among them and be ye separate.”
– John Ashbrook
I charge you never to give up the old doctrine of the blood of Christ, the complete satisfaction which that atoning blood made for sin, and the impossibility of being saved except by that blood. Let nothing tempt you to believe that it is enough to look only at the example of Christ, or only to receive the sacrament which Christ commanded to be received, for which many nowadays worship like an idol. When you come to your deathbed, you will want something more than an example and a sacrament. Take heed that you are found resting all your weight on Christ’s substitution for you on the cross, and His atoning blood, or it will be better if you had never been born.
– J. C. Ryle
1816 – 1900
Give Christians the need-oriented pop-psychology that they had grown to love, . . . just alter it a bit with some verses and some references to Jesus–they would never catch on that what they were swallowing was not biblical Christianity at all, but an almost unrecognizable perversion. Whether this approach was calculated or naively taken matters little. The result is the same: a psychologized Christian community which no longer recognizes the difference between the teachings of the Bible and the teachings of Carl Rogers and no longer cares.
– Gary Gilley
God has designed your family—not the youth group, not the children’s ministry, not the Christian school, but your family—as the principle discipling agent in your children’s lives.
– Voddie Baucham
The family, too, is in decline among Christians. Believing fathers generally fail to play their God-given role as the spiritual leader of their families. Christian fathers in times past led their families in twice-daily family worship. Today most Christian fathers reinforce the pervasive humanism of our culture, denying the practical relevance of God to the lives of their children by failing to worship Him together with their families in the home.
– Philip Lancaster
When a man has really been convicted by the supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit, the first effect on him is complete and abject despair. His case appears to be utterly hopeless. He now sees he has sinned so grievously that it appears impossible for a righteous God to do anything but damn him for eternity. He sees what a fool he has been in heeding the voice of temptation, fighting against the Most High, and in losing his own soul. He recalls how often God has spoken to him in the past—as a child, as a youth, as an adult, upon a bed of sickness, in the death of a loved one, in adversities—and how he refused to listen and deliberately turned a deaf ear. He now feels he has sinned away his day of grace. But the ground must be plowed and harrowed before it is receptive to seed. So the heart must be prepared by these harrowing experiences, the stubborn will broken, before it is ready for the healing of the Gospel.
– A.W. Pink
1886 – 1952
The worst of the heathen, who never had Christ preached to them, and salvation offered Him, shall fare better in the day of judgment, than those that continue impenitent under the Gospel.
– Matthew Barker
1619 – 1698
The doctrine of Salvation by Sacraments is a deadly delusion, the overthrow of the gospel, the destruction of souls and the path to perdition.
–John Campbell
So many of our children have little idea what they believe or why they believe it. Couple this with the fact that they are fallen human beings whose natural bent is to sin, and it is not difficult to see their dilemma. Failing to catechize our children is tantamount to surrendering to the culture. . . . Failing to catechize our children only makes it that much easier for the Secular Humanism with which they are constantly bombarded in school, on television, and through friends, neighbors, and coaches to take root and become the guiding principle by which they live.
– Voddie Baucham
Love for sin makes men impatient under reproof. When a person’s sin is to him as “the apple of his eye,” no wonder he is offended at any that touches it.
– George Swinnock
1627 – 1673
There is a voice in the blood of the martyrs. What does that voice say? It cries aloud from Oxford, Smithfield, and Gloucester,- “Resist to the death the Popish doctrine of the Real Presence, under the forms of the consecrated bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper!”
– J. C. Ryle
1816 – 1900
When was the last time you heard of a church rebuking members for gossip, admonishing men for the immodest dress of their wives and daughters, or excommunicating a member for adultery? Today’s evangelical church may take a strong stand on fundamental doctrines like the divine nature of Christ and the inspiration of Scripture, but it too often denies this Christ and this inspired Word by not practicing a true Christian lifestyle. The pattern of life of most Christians is so much like the world around them that they blend right in and cannot serve as salt and light.
– Philip Lancaster
In the great things as well as the small things you choose according to what seems good to you, and your choice is going to determine whether you are a good or bad person. If the perfect Son of God is unattractive to you, then obviously you are an unattractive person. If the perfect Son of God is irresistible to you, then you are a good person, because a good person, by definition, is a person who is inclined to the good, and the good is in Jesus Christ, the divine and perfect Son of God. If you are repelled by Him, you are a bad person because you are repelled by the quintessence of the good. What attracts you must be the rejection of what is good. A person who is attracted by that which is evil and repelled by that which is good is an evil person.
– John H. Gerstner A Primer on Free Will
(Available from P&R Publishing)
The Word declares, “The carnal mind is enmity against God” (Romans 8:7). Multitudes go through the form of paying homage to God, but of a “god” of their own imagination. They hate the living God, and, were it possible, would rid the universe of Him. This is clear from their treatment of Christ, for He was none other than “God . . . manifest in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16). They hated and hounded Him to death, and nothing short of death by crucifixion would appease them. At Calvary the real character of man was revealed, and the desperate wickedness of his heart laid bare.
– A.W. Pink
1886 – 1952
If our homes are to reflect our position as the people of God in the midst of the opposition of a pagan culture, we, like the Israelites, must learn to love. Our homes must be rife with the aroma of love. Those who visit us should notice immediately that they have left the world of self-serving, egocentric narcissism and have entered a safe harbor where people value and esteem others above themselves. Outsiders should enter our homes and never want to leave. Our neighbors should find excuses to visit us just to get another whiff of the fragrant aroma of love. The brokenhearted should long to be near us. The downtrodden and the abused should seek us out. Families on the brink of disaster should point to us and say, “Why can’t out homes be like that?”
– Voddie Baucham
This is the thought that should be uppermost on your mind in all you do for your children. In every step you take about them, in every plan and scheme and arrangement that concerns them, do not leave out that mighty question, “How will this affect their souls?”
– J.C. Ryle
1816 – 1900