Quotes (229)

If we have deficient and light views about sin, then we are liable to have defective views regarding the means necessary for the salvation of the sinner.

- W. J. Seaton

Quotes (228)

There are very few errors and false doctrines of which the beginning may not be traced up to unsound views about the corruption of human nature. Wrong views of a disease will always bring with them wrong views of a remedy. Wrong views of the corruption of human nature will always carry with them wrong views of the grand antidote and cure for the corruption.

- J. C. Ryle

1816 - 1900

Quotes (227)

   If you read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.

- C. S. Lewis

1898 - 1963

Quotes (226)

A man may believe what he pleases, provided he does not believe anything strongly enough to risk his life on it and fight for it. Tolerance is the great word.

- J. Gresham Machen

1881 - 1937

Quotes (225)

“Every branch in Me that does not bare fruit, He takes away.” What does He mean? Let me just make this statement: There are men and women, young and old in every congregation who identify with the people of God but are unbelieving and fruitless, and when they die they will go to Hell.

- Paul Washer

Quotes (224)

We who love Christ and believe the truth embodied in His teaching must awaken to the reality of the battle that is raging all around us. We must do our part in the ages-old truth war. We are under a sacred obligation to join the battle and contend for the faith.

- John MacArthur

Quotes (223)

What is the greatest privilege? To be able to preach like Spurgeon? No, to look like Jesus. When we talk about fruit we’re automatically in our American mindset thinking about activity instead of character, character, character; Chirst-likeness, Christ-likeness.

- Paul Washer

Quotes (222)

Jesus said the heart is where the treasures are kept. So what can we say about many evangelical Christians? Getting into debt for cars, homes and furnishings that probably are not needed and sacrificing family, church and health for corporate promotions and career advancement–I believe all this is deception, engineered by the god of this world to ensnare and destroy effective Christians and to keep them from sharing the Gospel with those who need it.

- K. P. Yohannan

Quotes (221)

Whatever we make the most of is our God.

- Martin Luther

1483 - 1546

Quotes (220)

Where faith is defective the result will be inward insensibility and numbness toward spiritual things. This is the condition of vast numbers of Christians today. No proof is necessary to support that statement. We have but to converse with the first Christian we meet or enter the first church we find open to acquire all the proof we need.

- A. W. Tozer

1897 - 1963

Quotes (219)

I admit fully that man has many grand and noble faculties left about him, and that in arts and sciences and literature he shows immense capacity. But the fact still remains that in spiritual things he is utterly “dead,” and has no natural knowledge, or love or fear of God.

- J.C. Ryle

1816 - 1900

Quotes (218)

It is quite true that faith cannot be reduced to mere assent to a finite set of propositions (James 2:19). . . . Saving faith is more than a merely intellectual nod of approval to the bare facts of a minimalist gospel outline. Authentic faith in Christ involves love for His person and willingness to surrender to His authority. The human heart, will, and intellect all consent in the act of faith. In that sense, it is certainly correct, even necessary, to acknowledge that mere propositions can’t do full justice to all the dimensions of truth.

- John MacArthur

Quotes (217)

No man knows the brightness of the gospel ’till he understands the blackness of those clouds which surround the law of the Lord.

- Charles Spurgeon

1834 - 1892

Quotes (216)

Once, on a 2,000-mile auto trip across the American West, I made it a point to listen to Christian radio all along the way. What I heard revealed much about the secret motivations that drive many Christians. Some of the broadcasts would have been hilarious if they weren’t exploiting the gullible–hawking health, wealth and success in the name of Christianity.

- Some speakers offered holy oil and lucky charms to those who sent in money and requested them.

- Some speakers offered prayer cloths that had blessed believers with $70,000 to $100,000, new cars, houses and health.

- One speaker said he would mail holy soap he had blessed. If used with his instructions, it would wash away bad luck, evil friends and sickness. Again he promised “plenty of money” and everything else the user wanted.

- K. P. Yohannan

Quotes (215)

We Christians too often substitute prayer for playing the game. Prayer is good; but when used as a substitute for obedience, it is nothing but blatant hypocrisy, a despicable Pharisaism.

- C. T. Studd

1860 - 1931

Quotes (214)

The fairest babe that has entered life this year, and become the sunbeam of a family, is not, as its mother perhaps fondly calls it, a little “angel,” or a little “innocent,” but a “sinner.” Alas! as it lies smiling and crowing in its cradle, that little creature carries in its heart the seeds of every kind of wickedness! Only watch it carefully, as it grows in stature and its mind develops, and you will soon detect in it an incessant tendency to that which is bad, and a backwardness to that which is good. You will see in it the buds and germs of deceit, evil temper, selfishness, self-will, obstinacy, greediness, envy, jealousy, passion–which, if indulged and let alone, will shoot up with painful rapidity. Who taught the child these things? Where did he learn them? The Bible alone can answer these questions! Of all the foolish things parents say about their children, there is non worse than the common saying, “My son has a good heart at the bottom.” . . . The truth, unhappily, is diametrically the other way. The first cause of all sin lies in the natural corruption of the boy’s own heart . . . .

- J.C. Ryle

1816 - 1900

Quotes (213)

First, then, before you can speak peace to your hearts, you must be made to see, made to feel, made to weep over, made to bewail, your actual transgressions against the law of God.

- George Whitfield

1714 - 1770

Quotes (212)

If you were to challenge me to boil down postmodern thought into its pure essence and identify the gist of it in one single, simple, central characteristic, I would say it is the rejection of every expression of certainty. In the postmodern perspective, certainty is regarded as inherently arrogant, elitist, intolerant, oppressive–and therefore always wrong.

- John MacArthur

Quotes (211)

You can never magnify Christ enough, and you can never abase yourself enough and Christ is most exalted when you are most abased . . . and if Christ is to be precious to you, you must be vile in your own sight.

- Thomas Manton

1620 - 1677

HT: Bororean

Quotes (210)

For those of you that are in here living a double life–coming here on Sunday but living like the Devil during the week, and thinking that no one knows about it–understand that you are absolutely living on borrowed time. God will expose your sin either in this life or when the judgment comes, take your pick, neither one is going to be very pretty. So you might as well just get serious about repentance now and try and–like Nineveh–call on and see if God won’t relent and withdraw His burning anger against your hypocrisy. Because . . . you do not get away with sin –ever!

- Don Green

Quotes (209)

Postmodernism’s one goal and singular activity is the systematic deconstruction of every other truth claim. The chief tools being employed to accomplish this are relativism, subjectivism, the denial of every dogma, the dissection and annihilation of every clear definition, the relentless questioning of every axiom, the undue exaltation of mystery and paradox, the deliberate exaggeration of every ambiguity, and above all the cultivation of uncertainty about everything.

- John MacArthur

Quotes (208)

The trouble with people who are not seeking for a Savior, and for salvation, is that they do not understand the nature of sin. It is the peculiar function of the law to bring such an understanding to a man’s mind and conscience. That is why the great evangelical preachers 300 years ago in the time of the Puritans, and 200 years ago in the time of Whitfield and others, always engaged in what they called a preliminary law work.

- Martin Lloyd-Jones

1899 - 1981

Quotes (207)

Beware of letting small faults pass unnoticed under the idea it is a little one. There are no little things in training children; all are important. Little weeds need plucking up as much as any. Leaven them alone and they will soon be great.

- J.C. Ryle

1816 - 1900

Quotes (206)

The only way we can know whether we are sinning is by knowing His moral law.

- Jonathan Edwards

1703 - 1758

Quotes (205)

Over the past generation–and especially the past two decades–we have seen conclusive changes in society’s moral values, philosophy, religion, and the arts. The upheaval has been so profound that our grandparents’ generation (and practically every prior generation of human history) scarcely would have thought the landscape could possibly change so quickly. Almost no aspect of human discourse has been left unaffected. The traditional, nominal, devotion to ideals and moral standards derived from Scripture is dying with the senior generation. Many believe the paradigm shift has already brought us beyond the age of modernity to the next great epoch in the development of human thought: the postmodern era.

- John MacArthur

Quotes (204)

The true function of the Law is to accuse and to kill; but the function of the gospel is to make alive.

- Martin Luther

1483 - 1546

Quotes (203)

Instruction and advice and commands will profit little, unless they are backed up by the pattern of your own life. Your children will never believe you are in earnest, and really wish them to obey you, so long as your actions contradict your counsel. Archbishop Tillotson made a wise remark when he said, “To give children good instruction, and a bad example, is but beckoning to them with the head to show them the way to Heaven, while we take them by the hand and lead them in the way to Hell.”

- J. C. Ryle

1816 - 1900

Quotes (202)

Sinners must hear the thundering of Mount Sinai before we bring them to Mount Zion.

- George Whitfield

1714 - 1770

Quotes (201)

Controversy and conflict in the church are never to be relished or engaged in without sufficient cause. But in every generation, the battle for the truth has proved ultimately unavoidable, because the enemies of truth are relentless. Truth is always under assault. And it is actually a sin not to fight when vital truths are under attack. That is true even though fighting sometimes results in conflict within the visible community of professing Christians. In fact, whenever the enemies of gospel truth succeed in infiltrating the church, faithful believers are obliged to take the battle to them even there. That is certainly the case today, as it has been since apostolic times.

- John MacArthur

Quotes (200)

You won’t hear much about this in modern day Christianity in America, but one of the greatest signs of God being with a people is His discipline. And one of the greatest signs of God not being with a people is the lack thereof.

- Paul Washer

Quotes (199)

To most people God is an inference, not a reality. He is a deduction from evidence which they consider adequate; but He remains personally unknown to the individual. “He must be,” they say, “therefore we believe He is.” Others do not go even so far as this; they know of Him only by hearsay. They have never bothered to think the matter out for themselves, but have heard about Him from others, and have put belief in Him into the back of their minds along with the various odds and ends that make up their total creed. . . . These notions about God are many and varied, but they who hold them have one thing in common: they do not know God in personal experience. The possibility of intimate acquaintance with Him has not entered their minds. . . . Christians, to be sure, go further than this, at least in theory. . . . This is admitted, I say, in theory, but for millions of Christians, nevertheless, God is no more real that He is to the non-Christian. They go through life trying to love an ideal and be loyal to a mere principle.

- A. W. Tozer

1897 - 1963

Quotes (198)

The Law searches to the dividing asunder of joints and marrow, and it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Its excessive light strikes us like Saul of Tarsus, to the earth, and makes us cry for mercy.

- Charles Spurgeon

1834 - 1892

Quotes (197)

As always, a war is being waged against the truth. We are on one side or the other. There is no middle ground–no safe zone for the uncommitted. Lately the question of truth itself–what it is and whether we can truly know it at all–has become one of the major points of contention. We also happen to be living in a generation when many so-called Christians have no taste for conflict and contention. Multitudes of biblically and doctrinally malnourished Christians have come to think of controversy as something that should always be avoided, whatever the cost. Sadly, that is what many weak pastors have modeled for them.

- John MacArthur

Quotes (196)

The all-important words are “while we were enemies.” This is when “we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son” (Romans 5:10). While we were enemies. In other words, the first “change” was God’s, not ours. We were still enemies. Not that we were consciously on the warpath. Most people don’t feel conscious hostility to God. The hostility is manifest more subtly with a quiet insubordination and indifference. The Bible describes it like this: “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot” (Romans 8:7).

- John Piper

Quotes (195)

There has been somewhat of a reformation going on in American Christianity. It’s underground–not too many people know about it–but it’s true.

- Paul Washer

Quotes (194)

Thousands [of professing Christians] will crowd to hear a new voice and a new doctrine, without considering for a moment whether what they hear is true. There is an incessant craving after any teaching which is sensational, and exciting, and rousing to the feelings. There is an unhealthy appetite for a sort of spasmodic and hysterical Christianity. The religious life of many is little better than spiritual dram-drinking, and the “meek and quiet spirit” which St. Peter commends is clean forgotten (1 Pet. 3:4). Crowds, and crying, and hot rooms, and high-flown singing, and an incessant rousing of the emotions are the only things which many care for. Inability to distinguish differences in doctrine is spreading far and wide, and so long as the preacher is “clever” and “earnest,” hundreds seem to think it must be all right, and call you dreadfully “narrow and uncharitable” if you hint that he is unsound!

- J. C. Ryle

1816 - 1900

Quotes (193)

The doctrinal ignorance of the evangelical church is shocking; matched only by its cowardice.

- John MacArthur

Quotes (192)

One of the greatest problems in American households today . . . regarding parent children relationships . . . is this: children want to be recognized–they want to have the authority and the rights of an adult–without being willing or without being able to assume the responsibility.

- Paul Washer

Quotes (191)

While very few Mormons today would try to defend Joseph Smith’s ideas about the “inhabitants of the moon,” the Church still teaches that the Book of Mormon is scripture, that Adam’s altar is in Missouri, and that the Book of Abraham was translated from Egyptian papyrus.

- Jerald and Sandra Tanner

Quotes (190)

   The fact that a just and righteous God holds both unbelievers and believers alike responsible for obedience to His revelation is irrefutable proof that He has made the truth sufficiently clear to us. To claim that the Bible is not sufficiently clear is to assault God’s own wisdom and integrity.

- John MacArthur