You wonder why people choose fields away from the States when young people at home are drifting because no one wants to take time to listen to their problems. Ill tell you why I left. Because those Stateside young people have every opportunity to study, hear, and understand the Word of God in their own language, and these Indians have no opportunity whatsoever. I have had to make a cross of two logs, and lie down on it, to show the Indians what it means to crucify a man. When there is that much ignorance over here and so much knowledge and opportunity over there, I have no question in my mind why God sent me here. Those whimpering Stateside young people will wake up on the Day of Judgment condemned to worse fates than these demon-fearing Indians, because, having a Bible, they were bored with it—while these never heard of such a thing as writing.
– Jim Elliot
1927 – 1956
HT: Desert Pastor
The Gospel contemplates every descendant of Adam as a fallen, polluted, Hell-deserving, and helpless sinner. The grace which the Gospel publishes is his only hope.
Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.
It’s easier to cry against a thousand sins in others than it is to mortify one sin in ourselves.
If a man is so proud that he will not see his faults, he will only quarrel with you for pointing them out.
Mere head knowledge will be as unhelpful to the soul on judgment day, as a painted fire is unhelpful to the frozen body on a cold day. Theoretical knowledge may make the head giddy, but it will never make the heart holy. He who lives in sin, without repentance, shall die in sin, without forgiveness.
The servants of God consider the matter of religion more seriously than others do; and therefore their differences are more observable to the world. They cannot make light of the smallest truth of God . . . whereas the ungodly differ not about religion, because they have hardly no religion to differ about. Is this a unity and peace to be desired? I would rather have discord of the saints, than such a concord of the wicked. [The saints] are so careful about their duty that they are afraid of misusing it in the least particular; and this (with their imperfect light) is the reason of their disputings about these matters. But you that are careless concerning your duty, can easily agree about the ways of sin, or anything that comes along. The saints honor the worship of God so much that they would not have anything out of order; but you consider it so unimportant that you will be of the same religion as the king . . . . The controversies of lawyers, historians, chronologers, geographers, physicians, and such like, never trouble the brains of the ignorant; but for all that, I would rather be in controversy with the learned, than without such controversy with you. If you scatter a handful of gold or diamonds in the street, perhaps men will scramble for them, and quarrel about them, while swine will trample on them and quietly despise them, because they do not know their worth.
Why are we here? Does our family exist to prepare children for the Major Leagues? If so, then baseball will be the center of our family’s universe, and everything else will bow to the whims and wishes of the baseball god. Does our family exist to produce socialites? If so, then our family must revolve around the social calendars of our overloaded teenagers and their hectic schedules. However, if our family exists to glorify and honor God and to lay a biblical foundation in the lives of our children, then we must not allow anything to interfere with our commitment to family worship, prayer, and Bible study.
The Reformation found Englishmen steeped in ignorance and left them in possession of knowledge. It found them blind and left them seeing. It found them without Bibles and left them with a Bible in every parish. It found them priest-ridden and left them enjoying the liberty which Christ bestows. It found them strangers to saving faith, and grace, and holiness and left them with the key to those things in their hands. It found them slaves and left them free.
Even while the New Testament was still being written, the church was contending with serious heresies and dangerous false teachers who seemed to spring up everywhere. This was so much a universal problem that Paul made it one of the qualifications of every elder that he be strong in doctrine and able to refute those who contradict (Titus 1:9). So the church has always been beset by heretics and false teachings, and church history is full of the evidence of this. Obviously, then, we who love the truth cannot automatically shy away from every fight over doctrine. Especially in an era like ours when virtually every doctrine is deemed up for grabs, Christians need to be willing and prepared to contend earnestly for the faith. . . . Clearly, there are two extremes to be avoided. One is the danger of being so narrow and intolerant that you create unnecessary divisions in the body of Christ. The other is the problem of being too broad-minded and sinfully tolerant—so ecumenically minded that you settle for a shallow, false unity with people whom we are commanded to avoid or whose errors we are morally obligated to refute.
I am Reformed because of one thing: Consistently, honestly, and thoroughly read, God’s Word, the Bible, teaches that God is sovereign over all things, that man is a fallen creature, and that God saves perfectly in Jesus Christ. It is the consistent application of sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) and tota Scriptura (all of Scripture) that leads inevitably to the doctrines of grace. 
In order to qualify yourselves for instructing and preparing your children for God’s service, you [must] diligently study His Word to ascertain what He requires of them and frequently pray for the assistance of His Spirit, both for them and yourselves. . . . You will carefully guard against saying or doing anything which may, either directly or indirectly, lead them to consider religion as an object of secondary importance. On the contrary, you will constantly labor to impress upon their minds a conviction that you consider religion as the great business of life, the favor of God as the only proper object of pursuit, and the enjoyment of Him hereafter as the only happiness, while everything else is comparatively of no consequence, however important it may be otherwise.
A man may be theologically knowing and spiritually ignorant. . . . A man may be excellent in the grammar of Scripture, yet not understand the spiritual sense of it. . . . The highest rational knowledge of God cannot profit without the knowledge of faith. . . . It can be of no more advantage to us than it was to the Jews knowing Him, or to Judas living with Him. In the Scriptures, Christians are not called knowing persons, but believers.
Christ Alone Wyoming 