"John H. Jowett made a lifelong study of words and he found his highest joy in using them to body forth [sic] (represent) the glories which shine in the face of the Redeemer. His experience shows that whenever a man's heart is strongly moved, his words tend to flow in pleasing rhythm. To love holy words and use them well is to be at least a little like the Creator. He is the supreme Lover of Beauty." - Andrew Blackwood, Preaching From the Bible, p.192
"The Bible, that little volume to which our debt is infinite." - George Morrison, The Wind on the Heath, p.31 [Psalm 1:2]
"To 'exhort one another daily' is a duty to which all Christians are called; alas, how rarely is it performed these evil days. Yet, from the human side, such failure is hardly to be wondered at. The vast majority of professing Christians wish to be petted and flattered, rather than exhorted and cautioned. Most of them are so hyper-sensitive that the slightest criticism offends them. One who seeks grace to be faithful and to act in true 'love' to those whom he supposes are his brethren and sisters in Christ has a thankless task before him, so far as man is concerned; he will lose nearly all his 'friends' and sever the 'fellowship' which exists between him and them. But this will only give a little taste of the 'fellowship of His sufferings'. Hebrews 3:13 is still God's command!" - A.W. Pink, An Exposition On Hebrews, p. 608 [Hebrews 3:13, 10:24-25]
"Want of depth, want of sincerity, want of reality in religion - this is the want of our times. Want of an eye to God in religion, lack of sincere dealing with one's own soul, neglect of using the lancet with our hearts, neglect of the search warrant which God gives out against sin, carelessness concerning living upon Christ; much reading about Him, much talking about Him, but too little feeding upon His flesh, and drinking His blood - these are the causes of tottering professions and baseless hopes.... I have not designed to discourage any sincere soul. My aim is to 'Make your calling and election sure.' Build on Christ's love, sincerity, desire, the work of the Holy Spirit - and be not deceived." - Charles H. Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 16, pg. 28 [Matthew 7:24-27]
"My brothers, if our faith is worth calling faith at all, it rests so absolutely and confidingly upon God, that His bare Word becomes to us the infallible source of certitude with regard to all the shifting hours of time, and to the steadfast day of an eternity, whose change is blessed growth to an unreached and undeclining noon." - Alexander MacLaren, Expositions in Holy Scripture, Vol. 16, p.115
"Fellowship with God, then, is the source from which fellowship among Christians springs, and fellowship with God is the end to which Christian fellowship is a means. We should not, therefore, think of our fellowship with other Christians as a spiritual luxury, and optional addition to the exercises of private devotion. We should recognize that such fellowship is a spiritual necessity; for God has made us in such a way that our fellowship with Himself is fed by our fellowship with fellow-Christians, and requires to be so fed constantly for its own deepening and enrichment." - J.I. Packer, God's Words, p. 193 [re: 1John 1:3-4]
"Christ's great passion is to love and lift our fragmentary lives until they are brought into the image of His own." - George Morrison, Footsteps of the Flock, p. 96 [re: Matthew 14:13-21]
"Human teachers are given to verbiage; we multiply words to express our meaning, but the Lord is wondrously laconic [uses very few words]; He writes as it were in shorthand, and gives us much in little. One single grain of the precious gold of Scripture may be beaten out into acres of human gold leaf, and spread far and wide. A few books are precious as silver, fewer still are golden; but God's Book has a bank note in every syllable, and the worth of its sentences it were not possible for mortal intellect to calculate." - Charles H. Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Expository Encyclopedia, vol. 2, pg. 21
"We should vivify all our thoughts of God by turning them into material for devout reverence; awe-struck, considering meditation. There is nothing told us in the Bible about God simply in order that we may know it. It is all meant to be fuel to the fire of our divine affection; to kindle in us the sentiments of faith and love and rapturous adoration." - Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, Vol. 5, Pt.2, p. 316 [re: Jeremiah 17:12]
"The Bible is higher than our highest thought, and it is deeper than our deepest need. In it we find the language of our prayers; in it the passionate cry of our confession; in it the joys that bind us to the angels." - George Morrison, The Wind On The Heath, p. 31 [re: Psalm 119:96-97]
"You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed . . . . Pray often, for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge to Satan." - John Bunyan, from Prayer, Banner of Truth Trust, p.23]
"Lord, High and Holy, meek and lowly, let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high, that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit, that the repenting soul is the victorious soul, that to have nothing is to possess everything, that to bear the cross is to wear the crown, that to give is to receive. Let me find Thy light in my darkness, Thy joy in my sorrow, Thy grace in my sin, Thy richness in my poverty, Thy glory in my valley, Thy life in my death." - Valley of Vision, compiled by Arthur Bennett, Banner of Truth, c. 1975
" 'Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled'. I do not know of a better test that anyone can apply to himself or herself in this whole matter of Christian profession than a verse like this. If this verse is to you one of the most blessed statements of the whole of Scripture, you can be quite certain you are a Christian; if it is not, then you had better examine the foundations again." - D.M. Lloyd-Jones, Studies In The Sermon On The Mount, Vol. 1, p.74 (Matthew 5:6, Psalm 39:3)
"We who have had the Gospel passed to us by martyr hands dare not trifle with it, nor sit by and hear it denied by traitors, who pretend to love it, but inwardly abhor every line of it. The faith I hold bears upon it marks of the blood of my ancestors. . . . Shall we cast away the treasure which was handed to us through the bars of prisons, or came to us charred with the flames of Smithfield?" - Charles H. Spurgeon, Sermons, ppgs. 83-84, 1988
(Regarding the Bible): "There is no Book in the whole world that takes such a dark view of what you and I are; there is none animated with so bright and confident a hope of what you and I may become." - Alexander MacLaren, MacLaren's 1024 Best Illustrations, p. 105
"I would not for a moment say anything to retard Christian unity, but there is something before unity, and that is, 'truth in the inward parts' and honesty before God. I dare not be a member of a church whose teaching I know to be false in vital points. I would sooner go to heaven alone than compromise my conscience for the sake of company." - Charles H. Spurgeon, Treasury of Scripture, Vol. 2, pg. 244
"I hold no theory of inspiration; I accept the inspiration of the Scriptures as fact." - Charles H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 34, pg. 152
"We should 'meditate day and night' in the sacred Word, that we should feast upon it every hour of the day and night. When the business of life compels our attention we may yet, by a kind of blessed mental reflex, keep the Word of Truth ever before our minds." - A.W. Tozer, The Divine Conquest, p. 127
"God uses holiness to assist the preaching of the Gospel and to build up the credit of the Christian faith, which is dishonored by the carelessness of Christians and hypocrites who often serve as Satan's best allies. Our lives are always doing good or harm; they are an open epistle for all to read (2Cor 3:2). Holy living preaches reality. It influences and impresses like nothing else can; no argument can match it. It displays the beauty of religion; it gives credibility to witness and to evangelism (Phil. 2:15). Holiness is the most effective way of influencing unconverted people and creating within them a willingness to listen to the preaching of the gospel." - J.C. Ryle, Holiness, pg. 27
Make it your prayer today: "Lord, grant that I might cultivate holiness today - not out of merit, but out of gratitude, by Thy grace through faith in Christ Jesus. Sanctify me by the blood of Christ, the Spirit of Christ, and the Word of God." Pray with Robert Murray M'Cheyne, "Lord, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be." - John Blanchard, Gathered Gold, pg. 146
"Crossbearing is continuous. It is the heroism of the dull common hour. Thank God, there is something else which is continuous, and that is the sufficient grace of Him, whose strength is made perfect in our weakness, and who will never leave us or forsake us." - George Morrison, Highways of the Heart, pg.126
"Every situation in life is the unfolding of some manifestation of God's love and goodness. Therefore my business is to look for this peculiar manifestation of God's goodness and kindness and to be prepared for surprises and blessings." - D.M. Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, p.284
"There are bits of human PRAISE which God loves to hear and see, and for that reason they are altogether lovely. It is PRAISE that shares something of the strength and beauty which pervade the adoration of the saints around the throne of God. It is the sincere expression of holy contemplation and desire. It is filled with the exhilarating gratitude which springs from the sacred joy." - John H. Jowett, Springs in the Desert
"Praise consists in high thinking and deep feeling.... It is the rhapsody of love in the presence of the Beloved." - John H. Jowett, Springs in the Desert
"Prayer is not an overcoming of God's reluctance; it is rather a laying hold of His highest willingness." - Richard Trench, Parables
"Amen has four meanings in Scripture: 'Lord, let it be so' - it is the heart's desire.... It means the affirmation of our faith.... It often expresses the joy of the heart.... It means, 'I, in the name of God, solemnly pledge myself that in His strength I will seek to make it so; to Him be glory both now and forever'." - Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of the Bible, Vol.8
"Youthful piety is a very touching thing to me; I see the grace of God in men and women with much thankfulness, but I cannot perceive it in children without shedding tears of delight. There is an exceeding beauty about these rosebuds of the Lord's garden; they have a fragrance which we find not in the fairest of earth's lilies. Love is won for the Lord Jesus in many a heart by these tiny arrows of the Lord, whose very smallness is a part of the power to penetrate the heart." - Charles Spurgeon, Come Ye Children, pp. 137-138
"It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face, and then descends from contemplating Him to scrutinize himself." - Institutes of Christian Religion (quoting John Calvin)
" 'Whosoever drinketh. . . shall never thirst'. That does not mean that in the Christian life desire is ended. The ill of all ills is the death of desire. In the redeemed life desire is intense and wakeful. There is desiring, but no despairing. There is longing, but no languishing. There is fervor, but no fever." - J.H. Jowett, Thirsting for the Springs
" I am sometimes tempted to believe that it is one of the most perilous signs of the times. We have to make everything pleasant to entice the palates of men. We are in danger of changing the strait and narrow way into a way of light and pleasing entertainment, and of smothering the hard, grim, bloody cross under an avalanche of flowers." - J.H. Jowett, Thirsting for the Springs
"Let us not rest, therefore, in our knowledge of the contents of this Book, as if that were all that is required; for, unless we believe its statements and obey its precepts, our acquaintance with them will only increase our wickedness and aggravate our guilt. The Bible believed will be to us the richest of blessings; but disbelieved and disregarded, it will become to us the blackest of curses." - Dr. William Taylor, Elijah the Prophet
" 'Believing is seeing.' For there is a clearer insight, and a more immediate, direct contact with the thing beheld, and a deeper certitude in the vision of faith than in the poor, purblind sight of sense, all full of illusions, and which has no real possession in it of the things which it beholds. The sight that faith gives is solid, substantial, clear, certain." - Alexander McLaren, 19th century Scottish preacher
"As well a chariot without its steeds, as sun without its beams, a heaven without its joy, as a man of God without zeal." - Charles H. Spurgeon
"We may rest assured that the road to the Kingdom is not enlightened by the sunshine of the world’s favor, nor strewed with the roses of its prosperity. If a Christian is advancing in the world, he has much reason to apprehend that he is not walking in company with Christ." - C.H. MacKintosh, (19th century English preacher), from "Notes in Genesis"
"Someone has defined worship as the 'adoring contemplation of God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ'. Love that stoops down is grace. Love that reaches out on our level from one person to another is affection. Love that rises up to God is worship." - Donald Grey Barnhouse
"I have often felt vexed with the man, whoever he was, who chopped up the New Testament into verses. He seems to have let the hatchet drop indiscriminately here and there; but I forgive him a great deal of blundering for his wisdom in letting these two words make a verse by themselves: 'Jesus wept.' This is a diamond of the first water, and it cannot have another gem set with it, for it is unique. Shortest of verse in words, but where is there a longer one in sense? Add a word to the verse, and it would be out of place. No, let it stand in solitary sublimity and simplicity. You may even put a note of exclamation after it, and let it stand in capitals, 'JESUS WEPT!' There is infinitely more in these two words than any sermonizer, or student of the Word, will ever be able to bring out of them, even though he should apply the microscope of the most attentive consideration. 'Jesus wept.' Instructive fact; simple but amazing; full of consolation; worthy of our earnest heed. Come, Holy Spirit, and help us discover for ourselves the wealth of meaning contained in these two words!" - Charles H. Spurgeon
Re: Matthew 26:39 - "All that He has said - all that He has done, from the very beginning, indicates that it was ever uppermost in His heart. And no wonder! His dear and well-beloved Son was to hang there, between heaven and earth, the object of all the shame and suffering that men and devils could heap upon Him, because he loved to do His Father’s will, and redeem the children of His grace. It will be the grand center of attraction, as the fullest expression of His love, throughout eternity." - C.H. MacKintosh, Notes in Genesis (19th century preacher)
"The heart must be vehement in desire, panting continually for God’s glory, or else we shall never attain to anything like the zeal God would have us know." - Charles Spurgeon
"There is no one of us who can read the Beatitudes, for example, slowly and thoughtfully, with an honest attempt to apply them to his own life without being painfully aware of how far short his life comes of his Christian profession." - Hugh Martin, Parable of the Gospels
"If men would be as businesslike in the pursuit of holiness as they are in their pursuit of gold, they would speedily become spiritual millionaires, wealthily endowed with the unsearchable riches of Christ." - John Henry Jowett
"Sanctification . . . is the invariable result of that vital union with Christ which true faith gives to a Christian. 'He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.' The branch which bears no fruit is no living branch of the vine. The union with Christ which produces no effect on the heart and life is a mere formal union, which is worthless before God. The faith which has not a sanctifying influence on the character is no better than the faith of devils. Is is a 'dead faith, because it is alone.' It is not the gift of God. It is not the faith of God’s elect. In short, where there is no sanctification of life, there is no real faith in Christ. True faith worketh by love. It constrains a man to live unto the Lord from a deep sense of gratitude for redemption. It makes him feel that he can never do too much for Him that died for him. Being much forgiven, he loves much. He whom the blood cleanses walks in the light. He who has real lively hope in Christ purifies himself even as He is pure." - J.C. Ryle, 18th century evangelical preacher
Re: Matthew 14:14: "And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and He healed their sick." "The fragment of a day, how He employed it! The fragment of a life, how He redeemed it! The fragment of a character, how He enobled it! Yes, that is Christ’s great passion - to love and lift our fragmentary lives till they are brought into the image of His own." - George Morrison, 19th Century Scottish Preacher
Re: The Word "Believe in the inspired Volume up to the hilt. Believe it with the whole strength of your being. Let the truths of Scripture become the chief factors in your life, the chief operating forces of your action." - Charles Spurgeon, from The Greatest Fight in the World, C.H. Spurgeon's Final Manifesto, pg.24
"So far gone was Israel that only God's interposition could preserve it from utter destruction. How often have we seen churches in this condition, and how suitable is the prayer before us, in which the extremity of the need is used as an argument for help... For the truth's sake, and because the true God is on our side, let us in these modern days of warfare emulate the warriors of Israel and unfurl our banner to the breeze with confident joy." - Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Psalm 60
" 'As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, even for the living God.' In these words you have David's strong, earnest, and vehement desires; here you have desire upon desire; here you have the very flower, and vigor of his spirit, the strength and sinews of his soul, the prime and top of his inflamed affections, all strongly working after a fuller enjoyment of God... So doth a soul, that hath met with God in His ordinances, long to meet with God in heaven." - Thomas Brooks, Heaven on Earth, re: Psalm 42:1-2, 63:1-2
"It is a hard matter, therefore, my brethren, to be converted and turned to God; it is hard for a man to come out of this world, to swim against the this stream.... Therefore, my brethren, take it for a certain sign of an unregenerate estate, to be carried thus along with the stream, and to be moulded to the same principles the generality of the most of men are; and the generality of the most men are civil men. It is a sign, I say, of death." - Thomas Goodwin, re: 1 John 2:15
"We want churches that know the truth, and are well taught in the things of God. If we taught better they would learn better. See how little many professors know; not enough to give them discernment between living truth and deadly error. Old-fashioned believers could give you chapter and verse for what they believed; but how few of such remain! To try to shake them was by no means a hopeful task: you might as well as hoped to shake the pillars of the universe; for they were steadfast, and could not be carried about with every wind of doctrine. They know what they knew, and they held fast that which they had learned. Oh, for a church of out-and-out believers, impervious to the soul-destroying doubt which pours upon us in showers!" - C.H. Spurgeon
"Many [modern Christians] have zeal without knowledge, enthusiasm without enlightenment. In more modern jargon, they are keen but clueless. We have lots of passion, often of a sentimental and crassly narcissistic sort, but little thinking. Mindlessness is virtually equated with godliness in the modern church. The video age has swamped us, and the result is the loss of clear thinking with more sound bites, i.e., little bits of information (we even have longer infomercials now) which move the will almost directly, without prompting serious reflection and thought. Preaching, if we can still even call it that, is aimed at being short, relevant and moving. Modern worshipers(?) do not want to think; they want to feel something, and to take away something which will help them cope with fast-paced, busy, modern life." - Editor’s Introduction [to an edition on the Christian mind], Reformation and Revival 3, no. 3 [1994]: 1011; italics in the original. Stott quotation from John R.W. Stott, Your Mind Matters [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1972], 7)
"Contentment with earthly goods is the mark of a saint; contentment with our spiritual state is a mark of inward blindness." - A. W. Tozer