[Protestant liberalism’s message is] A God without wrath, brought men without sin, into a world without judgment, through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.
– H. Richard Niebuhr
The so-called humanist gospel—which isn’t really the “good news” at all—is called by many names. Some argue for it in familiar biblical and theological terms; some call it the “social gospel” or the “holistic gospel,” but the label is not important. You can tell the humanist gospel because it refuses to admit that the basic problem of humanity is not physical, but spiritual. The humanist won’t tell you sin is the root cause of all human suffering.
– K.P. Yohannan
Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit: these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul.
1897 – 1963
One of the most fearful things about sin is its power to harden the one who practices it. The deeper a man goes in sin, the less sin bothers him. . . . Every sinner finds himself now committing sins that he once despised, and the sins that he now despises, he will someday find himself committing. It should shock us to remember that Adolph Hitler was once a little boy playing with toys just like other little boys. Man knows the beginning of sin, but no man has ever known the end of sin.
– Charles Leiter
The simple truth of life in this world for the Christian is that the more he is like the world, the more the world loves him. The more he is like Christ, the less this world loves him. The obedient believer must learn to accept the scorn of this world for his faith, intellect, and morals.
– John Ashbrook
God has often forgiven sinners, but He never forgives sin; the sinner is only forgiven on the ground of Another having borne his punishment; for “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22). . . . For one sin God banished our first parents from Eden; for one sin all the posterity of Canaan fell under a curse which remains over them to this day; for one sin Moses was excluded from the promised land; Elisha’s servant smitten with leprosy; Ananias and Sapphira were cut off from the land of the living.
– A.W. Pink
1886 – 1952
The Spirit is compared to the wind, and, like the wind, He cannot be seen by our bodily eyes. But just as we know there is a wind by the effect it produces on waves, and trees, and smoke, so we may know the Spirit is in a man by the effects he produces in the man’s conduct. . . . We may depend on it as a positive certainty that where there is no holy living, there is no Holy Ghost.
– J. C. Ryle
1816 – 1900
The biggest tragedy in the world tonight is a sick Church in a dying world. There’s no hope for the world unless the Church is revived.
– Leonard Ravenhill
1907 – 1994
The campaign to make Christianity seem “contemporary” and sophisticated in the world’s eyes is proving especially disastrous right now. As postmodern culture becomes more and more hostile to authority, clarity, and authoritative proclamations of truth, evangelicalism is blithely drifting more and more into postmodern ways of thinking about truth, imagining that this is the way to “reach” the culture. Consequently, Christians are less and less willing to fight for truth.
– John MacArthur
The movement which Dr. Harold Ockenga christened neo-evangelism in 1948, has become an explosion . . . . It has been like a cluster bomb streaking in every direction. . . . It is amazing how innocuous the disease has been to liberals and how virulent it has been to fundamentalists. Wherever the explosion has reverberated, it has destroyed sound doctrine, reverent worship and holy living among the Lord’s people.
– John Ashbrook
We must never let doctrinal error go unabated because it dishonors God and deceives the unsuspecting. It defiles the conscience, corrupts the heart, and destroys the soul. According to Scripture, that which flows from the lips of false teachers includes: “strange doctrines,” “commandments of men,” “doctrines of devils,” “damnable heresies,” “traditions of men,” “lies,” “falsehood,” “vain deceit,” and “deceptive philosophy.” Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord at all times and in all cases (Prov. 12:22). Knowing the fruit of false teachers, we must earnestly contend against them.
– Mike Gendron
The unregenerate do not really believe in the holiness of God. Their concept of His character is altogether one-sided. They fondly hope that His mercy will override everything else. . . . They think only of a god patterned after their own evil hearts, hence their continuance in a course of mad folly.
– A.W. Pink
1886 – 1952
It may be that a certain profession of religion has become so fashionable and comparatively easy in the present age that the streams which were once narrow and deep have become wide and shallow, and what we have gained in outward show we have lost in quality. It may be that the vast increase of wealth in the last twenty-five years has insensibly introduced a plague of worldliness, and self-indulgence, and love of ease into social life. What were once called luxuries are now comforts and necessaries, and self-denial and “enduring hardness” are consequently little known.
– J.C. Ryle
1816 – 1900
And lest you think that your sins do not deserve this kind of wrath, ponder these four things:
– John Piper