Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Why would the disciples invent a God whose holiness was more terrifying than the forces of nature that provoked them to invent a god in the first place?
If the final decision for the salvation of fallen sinners were left in the hands of fallen sinners, we would despair all hope that anyone would be saved.
The very heart of worship, as the Bible makes clear, is the business of expressing, from the depths of our spirits, the highest possible honor we can offer before God.
God not only initiated my salvation, He not only sowed the seed, but He made sure that that seed germinated in my heart by regenerating me by the power of the Holy Ghost.
A faithful person is revealed by those who hate him or her. Are you hated for your faith or ethics? If nobody hates you, maybe you have not displayed Christ openly enough.
It is imperative that the Christian, at the beginning of his pursuit to understand what true worship is, gets it clear that the object of our worship is to be God and God alone.
The only way the kingdom of God is going to be manifest in this world before Christ comes is if we manifest it by the way we live as citizens of heaven and subjects of the King.
When God's justice falls, we are offended because we think God owes perpetual mercy. We must not take His grace for granted. We must never lose our capacity to be amazed by grace
Cynicism and skepticism are the crudest form of quasi-intellectualism... Let the cynic become cynical of his cynicism and the skeptic skeptical of his skepticism and join the battle.
The Bible alone is the only authority that can bind the conscience of a person absolutely because it is the only authority that carries with it the intrinsic authority of God Himself.
If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.
What is the difference between the Christian God, and the gods of the other religions?" He simply, yet profoundly answered, "The main difference is this: The God of Christianity exists.
Was Luther crazy? Perhaps. But if he was, our prayer is that God would send to this earth an epidemic of such insanity that we too may taste of the righteousness that is by faith alone.
We are puzzled and bewildered whenever we see suffering in this world because we have become accustomed to the mercy and the long-suffering of God. Amazing grace is no longer amazing to us.
The cross was a glorious outworking of the grace of God, by which the Father commissioned the Son to make full satisfaction so that sinners might be saved with no sacrifice of God’s justice.
God is the foundation of all authority, He exercises that foundation because He is the author and the owner of His creation. He is the foundation upon which all other authority stands or falls.
The power of the gospel is the word of God . . . nobody needs a gospel if there’s no judgment, or law, if God is not a God of judgment. If there is no such thing as hell, what good is the gospel?
The sweetest fragrance, the most beautiful aroma that God has ever detected emanating from this planet, was the aroma of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus that was offered once and for all on the cross.
To be a Christian is to be a theologian-a student of God and his will. The contemporary disdain for theological content and emphasis on self-image and emotions were not shared by the apostolic church.
Scratching people where they itch and addressing their 'felt needs' is a stratagem of the poor steward of the oracles of God. This was the recipe for success for the false prophets of the Old Testament.
Modern man has lost any sense of God's nearness, but Christianity teaches that God reveals himself through every single thing he has ever brought into being, whether a created object or historical event.
In Reformed theology, if God is not sovereign over the entire created order, then he is not sovereign at all. The term sovereignty too easily becomes a chimera. If God is not sovereign, then he is not God.
Christ told his disciples not to be anxious about tomorrow, but he never said not to consider tomorrow. Intelligent problem solving demands careful consideration of the future effects of present solutions.
The atonement is a multifaceted event-Jesus is shown providing surety for our debt to God, mediating the enmity between us and God, and offering Himself as a substitute to suffer God's judgment in our place.
People need a consistent explanation of the cross of Christ and what it accomplished. Christ's atoning work is the centerpiece of the gospel and the only solution for humanity's estrangement from our Creator.
Men and women who refuse to acknowledge God's existence do so, in the final analysis, because it is contrary to their manner of living. They do not want to bow to the moral claims of a holy God on their lives.
We talk about predestination because the Bible talks about predestination. If we desire to build our theology on the Bible, we run head on into this concept. We soon discover that John Calvin did not invent it.
People only have true understanding when they look at everything from God's perspective. Authentic wisdom begins when we understand that God is to be the object of our devotion, our adoration, and our reverence.
We may live in a culture that believes everyone will be saved, that we are 'justified by death' and all you need to do to go to heaven is die, but God’s Word certainly doesn’t give us the luxury of believing that.
Without God man has no reference point to define himself. 20th century philosophy manifests the chaos of man seeking to understand himself as a creature with dignity while having no reference point for that dignity.
It is important that when we are engaged in admonition or exhortation or confrontation with a brother who is overcome in sin, we call attention to the truth in an extraordinarily compassionate and tender and loving spirit.
No Christian can avoid theology. Every Christian has a theology. The issue, then, is not, dowe want to have a theology? That's a given. The real issue is, do we have a sound theology.? Do we embrace true or false doctrine?
If God is the Creator of the entire universe, then it must follow that He is the Lord of the whole universe. No part of the world is outside of His lordship. That means that no part of my life must be outside of His lordship.
God just doesn't throw a life preserver to a drowning person. He goes to the bottom of the sea, and pulls a corpse from the bottom of the sea, takes him up on the bank, breathes into him the breath of life and makes him alive.
It's dangerous to assume that because a man is drawn to holiness in his study that he is thereby a holy man. I am sure that the reason that I have a deep hunger to learn of the holiness of God is precisely because I am not holy.
Your task, O preacher, is to make sure that you are faithful to the text, that you are faithful to the proclamation of that gospel, that you are faithful to set forth the whole counsel of God, and then step back and let it happen.
The modern movement of worship is designed to break down barriers between man and God, to remove the veil, as it were, from the fearsome holiness of God, which might cause us to tremble. It is designed to make us feel comfortable.
In the psalms, we have a collection of 150 prayers that were inspired originally by the Holy Ghost. If you want to know how God is pleased and honored in prayer, why not immerse yourself in the prayers that he himself has inspired?
But the blessing Christ promised, the blessing of great reward, is a reward of grace. The blessing is promised even though it is not earned. Augustine said it this way: Our rewards in heaven are a result of God's crowning His own gifts.
In every age the church is threatened by heresy, and heresy is bound up in false doctrine. It is the desire of all heretics to minimize the importance of doctrine. When doctrine is minimized, heresy can exercise itself without restraint.
The great misconception in our day is this: that God isn´t concerned to protect His own integrity. He´s a kind of wishy-washy deity, who just waves a wand of forgiveness over everybody. No. For God to forgive you is a very costly matter.
I’ve often wondered where Jesus would apply His hastily made whip if He were to visit our culture. My guess is that it would not be money-changing tables in the temple that would feel His wrath, but the display racks in Christian bookstores.
Seeking God? We have totally revised corporate worship services to be sensitive to "seekers." If worship were to be tailored for seekers, it would be directed exclusively to believers, for no one except believers ever seeks God (Rom. 3:9-12).
Apostasy occurs when a church leaves its historic moorings, abandons its historic confessional position, and degenerates into a state where either essential Christian truths are blatantly denied or the denial of such truths is widely tolerated.
Christ is still in Christmas, and for one brief season the secular world broadcasts the message of Christ over every radio station and television channel in the land. Never does the church get as much free air time as during the Christmas season.
If you are of the truth, if you have learned the truth, if you see the sanctity of the truth, then speak truth. We are not called to be deceivers or liars. God is a God of truth, and His people are called to have an enormously high standard of truth.
Change marriage and you change the world. Convince people that government, not God, lays down the rules for marriage, and they will believe more strongly that they determine right and wrong, that not even the world's rulers are subject to a higher authority.
There are only two ways that God’s justice can be satisfied with respect to your sin. Either you satisfy it or Christ satisfies it. You can satisfy it by being banished from God’s presence forever. Or you can accept the satisfaction that Jesus Christ has made.
For a Christian to be a Christian, he must first be a sinner. Being a sinner is a prerequisite for being a church member. The Christian church is one of the few organizations in the world that requires a public acknowledgement of sin as a condition for membership.
Hope is called the anchor of the soul because it gives stability to the Christian life. But hope is not simply a 'wish' I wish that such-and-such would take place rather, it is that which latches on to the certainty of the promises of the future that God has made.