From the standpoint of the redeemed, the punishment of the wicked is an act of unspeakable mercy. How dreadful would it be if the present order of things should continue forever, when the children of God are obliged to live in the midst of the children of the Devil. Heaven would at once cease to be Heaven if the ears of the saints still heard the blasphemous, filthy language of the reprobate. What a mercy that in the New Jerusalem “there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination” (Revelation 21:27)!
– A.W. Pink
1886 – 1952
Learn to apply Scripture. Take every word as spoken to yourselves. When the Word thunders against sin, think thus: “God means my sins.” When it emphasizes any duty, “God intends me in this.” Many put off Scripture for themselves, as if it only concerned those who lived in the time when it was written; but if you intend to profit by the Word, bring it home to yourselves: a medicine will do no good, unless it is applied.
He that says he will be good tomorrow, says he will be wicked today.
Any mother who walks into the average American church with six or seven children will tell you, the pagan, secular humanist culture at large is not alone in its negative attitude toward children. Moreover, look at the divorce rates among Christians compared to those of non-Christians, and you will see that our attitudes about and commitment to marriage is anything but exemplary.
Rome never changes. Rome will never admit that she has made mistakes. She burned our English Reformers 300 years ago. She tried hard to stamp out by violence the Protestantism which she could not prevent spreading by arguments. If Rome had only the power, I am not sure that she would not attempt to play the whole game over again.
All the while you delay, God is more provoked, the wicked one [Satan] more encouraged, your heart more hardened, your debts more increased, your soul more endangered, and all the difficulties of conversion daily more and more multiplied upon you, having a day more to repent of, and a day less to repent in.
The overwhelming majority of today’s evangelical sophisticates would clearly prefer it if no one ever criticized evangelical Golden Calves. Rampant error doesn’t unsettle them in the least. They are quite happy to live with it and even actively make peace with it.
The main business of entertainment is to please the crowd, but the main purpose of authentic Christianity is to please the Lord. Both the Bible and history have repeatedly shown that it is seldom possible to do both at the same time for very long.
The abuses of the tongue are many, one of which is the malignity of it. And whereas in David’s time a malignant and virulent tongue was the badge of an Atheist . . . now alas! this blotch [has] become the blotch of God’s children, and of high professors of religion.
We should often repeat to [our children] that God is so holy, and yet so gracious that, rather than He would on the one hand destroy man or on the other leave sin unpunished, He made His own Son a sacrifice for it, appointing Him to be humbled that we might be exalted, to die that we might live.
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.
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.