It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home.
– Hudson Taylor
1832 – 1905
Few things are so distasteful to the proud human heart as the truth that God does as He pleases, without consulting with the creature; that He dispenses His favors entirely according to His imperial will. Fallen man has no claims upon Him, is destitute of any merit, and can do nothing whatever to win God’s esteem.
– A.W. Pink
1886 – 1952
The problem is not that Christians have disappeared, but that Christian faith has become so deformed. Under the influence of modernity, we modern Christians are literally capable of winning the world while losing our own souls.
– Os Guinness
“‘Not called!” did you say? “Not heard the call,” I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face — whose mercy you have professed to obey — and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.
– William Booth
1829 – 1912
If man is merely a glorified single-celled organism run amok, he has no inherent worth, value, or dignity; ultimately man is then merely a cosmic accident, and the human community bestows any value he has upon him. It is not difficult to see how this would lead to a radical view on abortion. Peter Singer, a renowned bioethicist at Princeton University, argues that abortion should be legal prior to “personhood.” What makes this shocking is that Singer’s definition of personhood would carry the abortion question not into the second or third trimester of a pregnancy but into the second year after birth. That’s right, by Singer’s definition my thirteen-month-old son (due to the fact that he cannot communicate or sustain his own life without help) has not yet reached personhood, and to take his life now would be no more problematic than a pre-birth abortion. While this is shocking, I must ask a question: What is the difference between my thirteen-month-old son and a six-month-old fetus? The answer is, location. If it is acceptable to kill a child in the womb, it is also acceptable to do so outside the womb. Peter Singer is not being morbid, he is being consistent.
– Voddie Baucham
It was quite refreshing one night to find in the inquiry room a young man who thought he was not worth saving, he was so vile and wicked. There was hope for him because he was so desperately in earnest about his soul. He thought he was worthless. He had a sight of himself in God’s looking glass and had a very poor opinion of himself. One can always tell when a man is a great way from God–for he is always talking about himself, and how good he is. But the moment he sees God by the eye of faith, he is down on his knees, and, like Job, he cries, “Behold, I am vile.” All his goodness flees away.
– D.L. Moody
1837 – 1899
When God changes the heart and spirit, the physical changes also. If you want to meet the needs of the poor in this world, there is no better place to start than by preaching the Gospel. It has done more to lift up the downtrodden, the hungry, and the needy than all the social programs ever imagined by secular humanists.
– K.P. Yohannan
A man is either 100% righteous, or he is condemned. If a murderer is charged with seven counts of murder and only convicted of one, he’s still a condemned man! Reader, if you have even one sin that you have to pay for yourself, you will be in Hell forever.
– Charles Leiter
I read this book a couple years ago and found it to be an incredible warning to the churches. It also was part of several things God used to draw me out of the lukewarm, mile-wide, inch-deep “churches” that I was attending.
The back of the book sums it up succinctly:
Some of Ryle’s most pungent writings have hitherto tended to be lost in his larger volumes. This book brings together eight addresses with a common theme. Together they sound a prophetic and much needed warning to the churches.
I stumbled across this book by accident (divine providence) on Ebay. I believe this book is currently out of print but you can purchase it here on Amazon, and you can get its modern edition entitled Churches Beware here on Amazon.
If you can find yourself a copy, I strongly recommend you get it. This 171 page volume is a must-have for all Ryle fans and those who are dissatisfied with the current shameful state of the Church.
Here’s one review from Amazon:
Churches Beware, Indeed!, August 4, 2007Outstanding teaching from an old source, demonstrating the need for discernment in the Church today. Ryle tells us how we can avoid false teachings, by not even accepting a little error any more than we would accept a little poison. Well worth the reading for discerning Christians.
Catholic bishops have condemned us as heretics and have cursed us over 100 times with anathemas pronounced by the Council of Trent and the 2nd Vatican Council. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “Every heretic is to have part with the Devil and his angels in the flames of eternal fire, unless before the end of his life, he be restored to the Catholic Church.” What a paradox! Christians, who embrace God’s infallible truth, are eternally condemned by this apostate religion, and then called Catholic-bashers for trying to rescue Catholics who are enslaved by doctrines of demons (1 Tim. 4:1).
– Mike Gendron
Souls are deceived if a sentimental Christ is substituted for the Scriptural Christ, if His “Beatitudes” (Matthew 5) are emphasized and His “woes” (Matthew 23) ignored.
– A.W. Pink
1886 – 1952
Men tell us that our preaching should be positive and not negative, that we can preach the truth without attacking error. But if we follow that advice we shall have to close our Bible and desert its teachings. The New Testament is a polemic book almost from beginning to end . . . . It is when men have felt compelled to take a stand against error that they have risen to the really great heights in the celebration of the truth.
– J. Gresham Machen
1887 – 1937
Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
– Deuteronomy 8:11-14
To say that reunion with Rome would be an insult to our martyred Reformers is a very light thing; it is far more than this: it would be sin and an offense against God!
– J.C. Ryle
1816 – 1900
Modern American dating is no more than glorified divorce practice. Young people are learning how to give themselves away in exclusive, romantic, highly committed (at times sexual) relationships, only to break up and do it all over again. God never intended for His kids to live like this. And instead of stepping in and doing something, many Christian parents simply view these types of relationships as a normal and necessary part of growing up. Unless your child is wiser than Solomon, stronger than Samson, and more godly than David (all of whom sinned sexually), they are susceptible to sexual sin, and these premature relationships serve as open invitations. . . . Being involved in such exclusive relationships before you are ready to be married is like shopping without any money; either you will leave frustrated, or you will take something that doesn’t belong to you.
– Voddie Baucham
Our holy Lord requires absolute submission and obedience in all things, both in the inward life and the outward, even to “bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Alas that this is so little insisted upon in a day when the high claims of the Savior are whittled down in an attempt to render His Gospel more acceptable to the unregenerate.
– Matthew Henry
1662 – 1714
Saving faith and real converting grace will always produce some conformity to the image of Jesus (Col. 3:10).
– J.C. Ryle
1816 – 1900
We need to examine with double caution any religious views which deviate from the common teachings of the godly Reformers and Puritans. We need not be worshipers of antiquity as such, but we need to regard with suspicion those “broader” interpretations of God’s Word which have become in recent times.
– A.W. Pink
1886 – 1952
Temptations and occasions put nothing into a man, but only draw out what was in him before.
– John Owen
1616 – 1683
A faith that can be destroyed by suffering is not faith.
– Richard Wurmbrand
1909 – 2001
Christ Alone Wyoming 