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Tuesday 26 October 2010

Let us beware of the beginnings of backsliding, however small. We never know what we may come to, if we once leave the king's highway. The professing Christian who begins to say of any sin or evil habit, "it is but a little one," is in imminent danger. He is sowing seeds in his heart, which will one day spring up and bear bitter fruit. It is a homely saying, that "if men take care of the pence the pounds will take care of themselves." We may borrow a good spiritual lesson from the saying. The Christian who keeps his heart diligently in little things shall be kept from great falls.~ J.C. Ryle Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke volume 2 , [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1998], 436, 437.

Let us remember what we are, corrupt, evil, and miserable sinners. Let us remember who the Lord Jesus is, the eternal Son of God, the maker of all things. And then let us remember that for our sakes Jesus voluntarily endured the most painful, horrible, and disgraceful death. Surely the thought of this love should constrain us daily to live not unto ourselves, but unto Christ. It should make us ready and willing to present our bodies a living sacrifice to Him who lived and died for us. (2 Cor. 5:4. Rom 12:1.) Let the cross of Christ be often before our minds. Rightly understood, no object in all Christianity is so likely to have a sanctifying as well as a comforting effect on our souls~ J.C. Ryle Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Mark, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1985], 344.

Hosanna to the King
    Of David's ancient blood;
    Behold, he comes to bring
    Forgiving grace from God:
        Let old and young
        Attend his way,
        And at his feet
        Their honors lay.
   
    Glory to God on high;
    Salvation to the Lamb;
    Let earth, and sea, and sky,
    His wondrous love proclaim:
        Upon his head
        Shall honors rest,
        And every age
        Pronounce him bless'd.
Isaac Watts (1674-1748), Hymns and Spiritual Songs [1707], in Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, ed. Samuel Melanchthon Worcester, Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1834, book 3, hymn 45, p. 496

We must never get into the habit of being preoccupied with the future.  There is no reason to do so.  God is there.-Mother Teresa

[Righteous] anger is not selfish and does not center on the pain you currently feel. To be free of sin such anger must be zealous for truth and purity, with the glory of God its chief objective.-Oswald Sanders
Spiritual Leadership, Moody Publishers, 1967, p. 70.

Monday 25 October 2010

Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.- Helen Keller

We might well pray for God to invade and conquer us, for
until He does, we remain in peril from a thousand foes. We bear
within us the seeds of our own disintegration... The strength
of our flesh is an ever present danger to our souls.
Deliverance can come to us only by the defeat of our old life.
Safety and peace come only after we have been forced to our
knees... So He conquers us and by that benign conquest saves us
for Himself -A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Divine Conquest, Harrisburg, Penn.: Christian Publications, Inc., 1950, Revell, 1950, p. 57

The nature of true repentance is clearly and unmistakably laid down in holy Scripture. It begins with knowledge of sin. It goes on to work sorrow for sin. It leads to confession of sin before God. It shows itself before man by a thorough breaking off from sin. It results in producing a habit of deep hatred for all sin. Above all, it is inseparably connected with lively faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance like this is the characteristic of all true Christians.~ J.C. Ryle Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke volume 2 , [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1998], 109.

Christians fight in the army as soldiers, but the church does not do so; Christians work in the tax office as civil servants, but the church does not do so; Christians should be involved in the political process as citizens (and, as with soldiers and civil servants, their behaviour there is shaped by their Christianity), but the church is not to be so engaged.  The church is rather to preach the good news of Christ's death and resurrection.- CARL TRUEMAN, Reformation 21

Cover, Lord, what has been: govern what shall be. Oh,
perfect that which Thou hast begun, that I suffer not shipwreck
in the haven.-Theodore Beza (1519-1605), his last words, quoted in Last Hours of Eminent Christians, Henry Clissold,London: Rivingtons, 1829, p. 169
God cleans His fish after He catches them. The fish don't clean themselves then get caught. - Lane Chaplin

Where God guides he provides.  He is responsible for our upkeep if we follow his directions.  He is not responsible for expenses not on his schedule.- Vance Havner

One of the greatest favors bestowed on the soul transiently
in this life is to enable it to see so distinctly and to feel
so profoundly that it cannot comprehend God at all. These souls
are herein somewhat like the saints in heaven, where they who
know Him most perfectly perceive most clearly that He is
infinitely incomprehensible; for those who have the less clear
vision do not perceive so clearly as do these others how
greatly He transcends their vision.- St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), The Spiritual Canticle, VII.9

The standard of the world, and the standard of the Lord Jesus, are indeed widely different. They are more than different. They are flatly contradictory one to the other. Among the children of this world, he is thought the greatest man who has most land, most money, most servants, most rank, and most earthly power. Among the children of God, he is reckoned the greatest who does most to promote the spiritual and temporal happiness of his fellow-creatures. True greatness consists not in receiving, but in giving - not in selfish absorption of good things, but in imparting good to others - not in being served, but in serving - not in sitting still and being ministered to, but in going about and ministering to others.
~ J.C. Ryle Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Matthew, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1986], 256.

If a man fights his way through his doubts to the
conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained to a
certainty that the man who unthinkingly accepts things can
never reach.-William Barclay (1907-1978), The Gospel of John, v. 2, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, p. 322

Saturday 23 October 2010

Whether we like it or not, a breakdown in home-life will eventually lead to a breakdown everywhere. This is, surely, the most menacing & dangerous aspect of the state of society at this present time. Once the family
idea, the family unit, the family life is broken up, soon you will have no other allegiance. ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.-  George Orwell, 1903 - 1950

In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer.-  George Orwell, 1903 - 1950

Since the days before Pentecost, has the whole church ever
put aside every other work and waited upon Him for ten days,
that [the Spirit's] power might be manifested? ... We give too
much attention to method and machinery and resources, and too
little to the source of power.- J. Hudson Taylor (1832-1905), "The Source of Power for Christian Missions", in The Missionary Review of the World, v. LIII, Missionary Review Publishing Co., Inc., 1930, p. 516

Vice does not lose its character by becoming fashionable.- John Wesley, 1703 - 1791

Friday 22 October 2010

We ought not to withdraw entirely from all communion with unconverted people. It would be cowardice and indolence to do so, even if it were possible. It would shut us out from many opportunities of doing good. But we ought to go into their society moderately, watchfully, and prayerfully, and with a firm resolution to carry our Master and our Master's business with us.~ J.C. Ryle Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke volume 2 , [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1998], 147

In the ordinary business of life, industry can do anything which genius can do, and very many things which it cannot.- Henry Ward Beecher, 1813 - 1887

It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Worry is rust upon the blade.- Henry Ward Beecher, 1813 - 1887

If you are humble, nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.-Mother Teresa

We must not conceal from ourselves that true Christianity brings with it a daily cross in this life,
while it offers us a crown of glory in the life to come.
The flesh must be daily crucified.
The devil must be daily resisted.
The world must be daily overcome.
There is a warfare to be waged, and a battle to be fought.
All this is the inseparable accompaniment of true religion. Heaven is not to be won without it.
Never was there a truer word than the old saying, "No cross, no crown!"
If we never found this out by experience, our souls are in a poor condition. ~ J.C. Ryle

Thursday 21 October 2010

Not to decide is to decide. - Harvey Cox

Somebody said to me, 'But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, 'Now, let's write a swimming pool.'-Paul McCartney

Imagine.... no possessions. - John Lennon

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.- Elbert Hubbard, 1856 - 1915

Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage.- Jean Anouilh, 1910 - 1987
You are not a reservoir with a limited amount of resources; you are a channel attached to unlimited divine resources. - Unknown

Life is a voyage in which we choose neither vessel nor weather, but much can be done in the management of the sails and the guidance of the helm.-Unknown

The attentive reader will notice two items about the New
Testament, as he comes to the end of it. For one thing, there
is no book of church order, laying down a code of rules for the
worship and organization of the communities: [there is] no book
corresponding to the Book of Leviticus. The other thing is that
the writings are all meant for communities, not for
individuals: they reflect and presuppose the life of a society
or fellowship. Even the private notes of Paul to Philemon and
of the presbyter John to Gaius are addressed to these
individuals as members of the church;- James Moffatt (1870-1944), A New Translation of the Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments, London:
Hodder and Stoughton, 1935, New York: Harper, 1935,Introduction, p. xxxv

The evils of riches, to the Christian, are the evils of distraction (the distraction that keeps men from thinking about God), the evils of a false dependence on the created order, and a would-be security that fails to take account o the inevitable fragility of human destiny on this earth.- D. L. Munby

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose. - Mario Cuomo

Tuesday 19 October 2010

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.-Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVII, 1782

If Islam teaches peace, why do so many of its students flunk?
And after 14 centuries, why haven't its adherents noticed?-Josh Korn, National Post, October 19

We note that the elements appointed by the Lord Jesus are "bread and wine" and that the right to determine these rests with him alone, and not with the temperance movement  of the nineteenth century. While Jesus changed the water into wine, the temperance movement changed wine into grape juice concentrate [or Ribena]. No one has any right to change the elements of the Lord's Supper, any more than water may be replaced in baptism by orange juice. To do this is to usurp the authority of Christ. Robert Letham , The Westminster Assembly: Reading its theology in historical context, P&R, 2009, p. 351, n. 76.

So free we seem, so fettered fast we are.- Robert Browning, 1812 - 1889

The purpose of Christianity is not to avoid difficulty, but to produce a character adequate to meet it when it comes. It does not make life easy; rather it tries to make us great enough for life. - James L. Christensen

Monday 18 October 2010

I regret the behavior of the Arabs… They brought African children to North Africa, they made them slaves, they sold them like animals, and they took them as slaves and traded them in a shameful way. I regret and I am ashamed when we remember these practices. I apologize for this ...Today we are embarrassed and shocked by these outrageous practices of rich Arabs who had treated their fellow Africans with contempt and condescension.- Moammar Gaddafi, second Afro-Arab summit, Libya 9 Oct 2010

After 9/11 I found it impossible to ignore his (Osama Bin Ladan's) claims that the murderous destrucion of innocent (if infidel) lives is consistent with the Quraan. I looked at the Quran and found it to be so. To me this meant I could no longer be a Muslim. - Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nomad: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations

The veil deliberately marks women as private and restricted property, nonpersons. The veil sets women apart from men and apart from the world; it restrains them, confines them, grooms them for docility. A mind can be cramped just as a body may be, and a Muslim veil blinkers both your vision and your destiny. It is the mark of a kind of Apartheid, not the domination of a race, but of a sex. - Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nomad: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations   

All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. ... It is part of Muslim culture to oppress women. ... The culture of the Western Enlightenment is better.- Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nomad: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations

The England admired throughout the world is the England that keeps open house.- J B Priestley quoted in We Are a Muslim, Please by Zaiba Malik

History shows us that the countries that have opened their doors have gained. - J B Priestley quoted in We Are a Muslim, Please by Zaiba Malik
Peace if possible, truth at all costs. ~Martin Luther

Let the man who would hear God speak read Holy Scripture ~Martin Luther

Free will is corrupted nature's deformed darling, the Pallas or beloved self-conception of darkened minds.~John Owen

Peace is but an illusion when Truth is scourged for the sake of it.~Joel Schaible

Grace is a provision for men who are so fallen that they cannot lift the axe of justice, so corrupt that they cannot change their own natures, so averse to God that they cannot turn to Him, so blind that they cannot see Him, so deaf that they cannot hear Him, and so dead that He Himself must open their graves and lift them into resurrection. -G.S. Bishop

Saturday 16 October 2010

I believe that pluralistic secularism, in the long run, is a more deadly poison than straightforward persecution. - Francis Schaeffer

In passing, we should note this curious mark of our own age: the only-absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute. -Francis Schaeffer

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.- Max Luc

When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.- Corrie Ten Boom, 1892 - 1987

Christ would have lived, and taught, and preached, and prophesied, and wrought miracles in vain, if he had not crowned all by dying for our sins as our substitute! His death was our life. His death was the payment of our debt to God. Without his death we should have been of all creatures most miserable.-J. C. Ryle

Friday 15 October 2010

As I have said,countless sinners truly experience the saving grace of Jesus Christ and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit when their notions about both are erratic and largely incorrect - J.I. Packer

Christianity is the greatest intellectual system the mind of man has ever touched. - Francis Schaeffer

Christianity provides a unified answer for the whole of life. - Francis Schaeffer

Doctrinal rightness and rightness of ecclesiastical position are important, but only as a starting point to go on into a living relationship - and not as ends in themselves. - Francis Schaeffer

The inward area is the first place of loss of true Christian life, of true spirituality, and the outward sinful act is the result. - Francis Schaeffer

Thursday 14 October 2010

Welfare recipients come in all shapes and sizes. The honest ones sign on the dole, the dishonest ones do a non-job for the state.- Shaun Pilkington

There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice.- Ulysses S. Grant, 1822 - 1885

We are not our own, any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves; we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We cannot be our own masters. We are God's property by creation, by redemption, by regeneration.- John Henry Newman

Some of the roads most used lead nowhere.- Jewish proverb

Christianity is the greatest intellectual system the mind of man has ever touched. -Francis Schaeffer
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. - Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara,

I was with God and I was with the Devil. They
fought and God won. Mario Sepulveda (1970- ) (The second of 33 Chilean miners rescued after being trapped in the San Jose mine for 69 days.)
_CNN.COM_ [October 13, 2010],

There are three kinds of giving: grudge giving,
duty giving, and thanksgiving.
Grudge giving says, "I hate to." Duty giving says,
"I ought to." Thanksgiving says, "I want to." The
first comes from constraint, the second from a
sense of obligation, the third from a full heart.
Nothing much is conveyed in grudge giving since
"the gift without the giver is bare." Something
more happens in duty giving but there is no song
in it. Thanksgiving is an open gate into the
love of God. - Robert N. Rodenmayer _Thanks Be To God_ [1960]

The saving power of the cross does not depend on
faith being added to it; its saving power is such that faith flows from
it - J.I. Packer.

Economy is half the battle of life; it is not so hard to earn money as to spend it well.-Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are. Chinese proverb

Tuesday 12 October 2010

As Christians we accept one foundational truth - God - and everything else makes sense. An atheist denies God and has to accept incredible explanations for everything else. It takes more faith to deny God than to believe in Him. - John MacArthur

At last, here is Asia without the inferiority complex. - of Afghanistan, Robert Byron (1905 - 24 February 1941) British travel writer

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin.
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before during
and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy's OK
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything's getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated.
You can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there's something in horoscopes,
UFO's and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha
Mohammed and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher although we think
his good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same,
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation sin heaven hell God and salvation.

We believe that after death comes The Nothing
because when you ask the dead what happens
they say Nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied,
then it's compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin and Genghis Khan.

We believe in Masters and Johnson.
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between
warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behaviour that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth
that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust. History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds.
Steve Turner

How to Hide Jesus


There are people after Jesus.
They have seen the signs.
Quick, let's hide Him.
Let's think; carpenter,
fishermen's friend,
disturber of religious comfort.
Let's award Him a degree in theology,
a purple cassock
and a position of respect.
They'll never think of looking here.
Let's think;
His dialect may betray Him,
His tongue is of the masses.
Let's teach Him Latin
and seventeenth century English,
they'll never think of listening in.
Let's think;
humble,
Man of Sorrows,
nowhere to lay His head.
We'll build a house for Him,
somewhere away from the poor.
We'll fill it with brass and silence.
It's sure to throw them off.

There are people after Jesus.
Quick, let's hide Him.
Steve Turner

Faith is the channel of salvation, not the fountain and source of it. -– C.H. Spurgeo

Monday 11 October 2010

I was a young man with uninformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.- Charles Darwin

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. -Mark Twain

It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible. - George Washington

To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selections, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree.-Charles Darwin

Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such fine graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory.- Charles Darwin
We profess that we know God, but by works we deny Him; for
beatitude doth not consist in the knowledge of divine things,
but in a divine life, for the devils know them better than man.- Walter Raleigh (1552?-1618), The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, Kt., v. II, Oxford: The University press, 1829, p. 32

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.- Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106 - 43 BC

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another.- Edward R. Murrow, 1908 - 1965

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.- Edward R. Murrow, 1908 - 1965

To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.- Edward R. Murrow, 1908 - 1965

Saturday 9 October 2010

Ecclesia semper reformanda est ("he church must always be reforming) - Jodocus van Lodenstein, Dutch Puritan

Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God as can be your own. Those hill tribes had committed no real offence against us. We, in the pursuit of our political objects, chose to establish military positions in their country. If they resisted, would not you have done the same? ... The meaning of the burning of the village is, that the women and the children were driven forth to perish in the snows of winter ... Is that not a fact – for such, I fear, it must be reckoned to be – which does appeal to your hearts as women ... which does rouse in you a sentiment of horror and grief, to think that the name of England, under no political necessity, but for a war as frivolous as ever was waged in the history of man, should be associated with consequences such as these?- William Ewart Gladstone:on the Second Afghan War

Conscience warns us as a friend before it punishes us as a judge.-King Stanislas I

We see in the risen Christ the end for which man was made,
and the assurance that the end is within reach.- Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), The Revelation of the Risen Lord, London: Macmillan, 1881, p. xiv

Not praying is a clear proof that a person is not yet a
true Christian. They cannot really feel their sins. They cannot
love God. They cannot feel themselves a debtor to Christ. They
cannot long after holiness. They cannot desire heaven. They
have yet to be born again. They have yet to be made a new
creature. They may boast confidently of election, grace, faith,
hope and knowledge, and deceive ignorant people. But you may
rest assured it is all vain talk if they do not pray. - J. C. Ryle (1816-1900), A Call to Prayer, published in the 1850's as a pamphlet, p. 1

Friday 8 October 2010

Freedom has ceased to be a birthright; it has come to mean whatever we are still permitted to do. - Joseph Sobran

I'm against sin. I'll kick it as long as I've got a foot. I'll fight it as long as I've got a fist. I'll butt it as long as I've got a head. I'll bite it as long as I've got a tooth. And when I'm old, fistless, footless, and toothless, I'll gum it till I go home to glory and it goes home to perdition! -Billy Sunday (1862-1935)

Derrida was, in short, the mad axeman of Western philosophy. He tried to hack apart the very basis of our thought - language, reason and the attempt to tell big stories about how we became as we are. Johann Hari

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.-John Muir, 1838 - 1914

It is always interesting to see people in dead earnest, from whatever cause, and earthquakes make everybody earnest.-John Muir, 1838 - 1914

Thursday 7 October 2010

The keystone of Kuyper's reasoning is that all the spheres of life are independent of each other. The state is the highest, to be sure, because it "protects the individual and defines the mutual lawful relations of the visible spheres of life,"yet the states sovereignty only extends over and does not penetrate into these spheres. The sovereignty of the state is a sovereignty derived from the only real, that is to say, divine sovereignty. And just as the state has receied its sovereignty from God, all spheres possess their sovereignty by the grace of God. Science to is such a sphere. it is free from the state, because the state cannot determine what is scientific. it is likewise free from the church. The church may never rule science by telling it what it has to think. And although there is a danger here that the church may suffer damage from science, it must recognize its limits. A church that remain spiritually alert will actually have nothing to fear from science. It can in fact eve confidently urge "that science, without ever becoming a slave, maintain the sovereignty that belongs to it in its own house and grounds and flourish by the grace of God."- Van Deursen, The Distinctive Character of the Free University in Amsterdam 1880-2005 on Kuyper's inaugural address (pp. 20-21):

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. Corrie Ten Boom

Sometimes He calms the storm
With a whispered peace be still
He can settle any sea
But it doesn’t mean He will
Sometimes He holds us close
And lets the wind and waves go wild
Sometimes He calms the storm
And other times He calms His child
Scott Krippane (from CD Wild Imagination)

I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books, than a king without the desire to read. Thomas Babington Macauley

But if vengeance is God's, I want to be His instrument.-Jerry B. Jenkins (1949- ) _The Last Operative_ [2010], Chapter 6

Wednesday 6 October 2010

A genuine Christian dreads sin. He will not say,
"Is it not a little one?" for he knows that a little
sin is like a small dose of a very potent poison.
It is sufficient to destroy our peace and comfort. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) _Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit_, Volume 12 [1866]

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Being a Christian is more than just an instantaneous conversion- it is a daily process whereby you grow to be more and more like Christ.- Billy Graham

Sacrifice? I never made a sacrifice. It is no sacrifice to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Rather, it is the highest privilege any man or woman could ever ask for. -- David Livingstone

No man can break any of the Ten Commandments. He can only break himself against them.- G. K. Chesterton

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Long before I believed Theology to be true, I had already
decided that the popular scientific picture at any rate was
false. One absolutely central inconsistency ruins it... The
whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed
facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears.
Unless we can be sure that reality in the remotest nebula or
the remotest part obeys the thought-laws of the human scientist
here and now in his laboratory--in other words, unless Reason
is an absolute--all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to
believe this world-picture also ask me to believe that Reason
is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless
matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here
is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept
a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that
conclusion can be based. The difficulty is to me a fatal one;
and the fact that when you put it to many scientists, far from
having an answer, they seem not even to understand what the
difficulty is, assures me that I have not found a mare's nest
but detected a radical disease in their whole mode of thought
from the very beginning. The man who has once understood the
situation is compelled henceforth to regard the scientific
cosmology as being, in principle, a myth--though no doubt a
great many true particulars have been worked into it.- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), "Is Theology Poetry?", in They Asked for a Paper, London: Geoffrey Bles, 1962, p.162

Ye choirs of New Jerusalem,
Your sweetest notes employ,
The Paschal victory to hymn
In songs of holy joy!

For Judah's Lion burst his chains
And crushed the serpent's head;
Christ cries aloud through death's domains
To wake the imprisoned dead.

Triumphant in his glory now,
To him all power is given;
To him in one communion bow
All saints in earth and heaven.

All glory to the Father be,
All glory to the Son,
All glory to the Spirit be
While endless ages run.
Fulbert of Chartres (11th century), tr. Robert Campbell
(1814-1868), Songs of Praise, enl. ed., Ralph Vaughan
Williams, et al., ed., Oxford University Press, 1931,p. 44

Cheerfulness is health; its opposite, melancholy, is disease. - Thomas C. Haliburton, 1796 - 1865

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.- Thomas Jefferson, 1743 - 1826

Graham J Weeks M.R.Pharm.S
http://christianquoter.blogspot.com/ My blog
http://www.christiansquoting.org.uk 10201 quotes 654 topics 2452 authors
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http://www.ipc-ealing.co.uk/ Our church
-----------------------------
Question reality. Question authority.
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Monday 4 October 2010

That Churches flourish most richly when the government allows them to live from their
own strength on the voluntary principle. And that therefore neither the
Caesaropapy of the Czar of Russia; nor the subjection of the State to the
Church, taught by Rome nor the “Cuius regio eius religio” of the
Lutheran jurists; nor the irreligious neutral standpoint of the French
revolution; but that only the system of a free Church, in a free State,
may be honored from a Calvinistic standpoint. The sovereignty of the State and the sovereignty of the Church exist
side by side, and they mutually limit each other. - Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism

God's plan will continue on God's schedule.-A. W. Tozer

"Being in anguish--He prayed more fervently." Luke 22:44
We see the Master at prayer in Gethsemane. It was here that He prepared for His Cross. We should notice that His refuge in His exceeding sorrow--was prayer; and that, as the sorrow deepened--the refuge still was prayer. Prayer is the only refuge in sorrow. The lesson from the garden prayer is that we should take all the hard things, the anguishes, the insufferable pains, the bitter griefs of our lives--to God in prayer. We may be sure, too, that God will answer. If He does not relieve us of the suffering, He will strengthen us so that we can keep it, and still go on trusting and singing. "Do not worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses every thought, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7- J. R. Miller, "Counsel and Help" 1907
Thou are preparing joy for me and me for joy;
I pray for joy, wait for joy, long for joy;
Give me more than I can hold, desire, or think of.
Measure out to me my times and degrees of joy,
at my work, business, duties.
If I weep at night, give me joy in the morning.
Let me rest in the thought of thy love,
pardon for sin, my title to heaven,
my future unspotted state. - A Bennett, Valley of Vision)

A Lottery is a Taxation,
Upon all the Fools in Creation;
And Heav’n be praised,
It is easily raised,
Credulity’s always in Fashion:
For, Folly’s a Fund,
Will Never Lose Ground,
While Fools are so rife in the Nation.
Henry Fielding, "The Lottery", 1731

A good upbringing means not that you won't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won't notice it when someone else does.- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, 1860 - 1904

It's when we start working together that the real healing takes place, ... It's when we start spilling our sweat, and not our blood.- David Hume, 1711 - 1776

He who distributes the milk of human kindness cannot help but spill a little on himself.- James Matthew Barrie, 1860 - 1937

Saturday 2 October 2010

God will either give you what you ask, or something far better.- Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1813-1843), The Life and Remains, Letters, Lectures, and Poems of the Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne, Andrew Alexander Bonar, New York: R. Carter, 1866, p. 168

Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good.- Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 1927 - 2003

The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.- Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 1927 - 2003

"Christ died for the ungodly." (Romans 5:6)
O what a melting consideration is this! That . . .
out of His agony, comes our victory;
out of His condemnation, comes our justification;
out of His pain, comes our ease;
out of His stripes, comes our healing;
out of His gall and vinegar, comes our honey;
out of His curse, comes our blessing;
out of His crown of thorns, comes our crown of glory;
out of His death, comes our life! - John Flavel, "The Fountain of Life" 1671

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.- Eugene McCarthy, 1916 - 2005




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Friday 1 October 2010

There came a gentle tapping ‘let me in!’
I opened and beheld a very little sin.
He entered with apologies and scarcely raised his eyes
As if abashed to contemplate tempting one so wise.
I found myself amused at this and set out to explore
This little cunning sin I’d let inside my door.
I petted him and teased him and gave him bread and wine,
Grew fond of him, then adopted him, this little sin of mine.
He twined around my heartstrings and grew so very dear
I loved him and assured myself he was too small to fear.
He soon spied out my weakness and therein was the rub,
He built himself a treadmill, my weakness at the hub.
With every revolution my darling little sin
Enlarged himself and multiplied over and over again.
At last he stooped and lifted me and placed me on his knee,
Now he is my besetting sin and makes a pet of me.
-- credited to Irene Holsted

The best Christian is still a poor Christian - R.B. Kuiper

Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God- Martin Luther

The Kingdom must be advanced not merely extensively, but also intensively. The Church must seek to conquer not merely every man for Christ, but also the whole of man - Greg Bahnsen

Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth. -John Wesley