Quotes 29 Jun

This is the ugly fact we have to face. The basic reason why prayer is hard is because the sinful, selfish heart does not want to pray. Prayer is in no sense technically difficult. It’s the easiest thing in the world: you just talk to God. The difficult thing is not the doing of it, but the desiring of it. In our fallen nature we do not have within us the desire that we should have for fellowship with the living God. This is the fundamental problem, and the reason why prayerlessness cannot be tackled as an isolated issue, unrelated to the rest of our Christian lives. To find prayer hard is normal, but to give up on prayer indicates a deep spiritual problem. There needs to be change at the level of the heart, coming from a deepening understanding of the gospel and a growing desire for fellowship with God in Christ." —Andrew Randall, 'Following Jesus'

"If we are not willing to confront, how can we report to the Lord Jesus Christ that we love our neighbour as ourselves?" Dr. Francis Schaeffer, Our Battle for Humanness, Moody Monthly, 1983

A wise man will let down the bucket of his tongue into the well of his reason before he pour forth words. —William Jenkyn

'For he is justly numbered among the hypocrites who turns the ministry of spiritual direction into an opportunity for domination.' Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule

Quotes 28 June

""[N]ever underestimate how much you encourage others just by being there, or discourage them by being absent. You need the help and support of your brothers and sisters in Christ, and they need yours. The Bible makes many commands about how we should love one another, serve one another, encourage one another, comfort one another and so on. You cannot obey those commands unless you are meeting with your fellow Christians week by week." —Andrew Randall, 'Following Jesus'

"Under our present circumstances Satan makes his attacks under
subterfuges and disguises.  The victim of his wiles proudly imagines
that the artful sophistries by which he evades truth, stifles
conscience, and justifies himself in his opposition to God, are the
product of his own superior wisdom and insight.  He regards the idea
of the existence of such a being as Satan as a weak superstition, and
the suggestion that he may be unconsciously acting under his
influence and control with contemptuous incredulity."
                -- John L. Nevius D.D. (1896)

‘It’s misleading to say God accepts us the way we are. Rather he accepts us DESPITE the way we are. He receives us only in Christ ... Nor does he mean to leave us the way he found us, but to transform us into the likeness of his Son.’ - Sinclair Ferguson, “The Whole Christ” p.154

Quotes Jun 27

In the presence of a great common foe, I have little time to be attacking my brethren who stand with me in defense of the Word of God.- J. Gresham Machen
@jg_machen

To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches- Margaret Thatcher@MrsMThatcher

'The decay of the church is never the fault of the world. Inward spiritual decline always precedes outward collapse' Sinclair B. Ferguson 'In the Year of our Lord' (Reformation Trust)

Quotes Jun 25

Perhaps one of the reasons that contemporary secularists not simply reflect religion but hate it is that they know that, while they can easily rise to the levels of hatred that religion has sometimes promoted, they will always find it difficult to rise to the levels of love that it has also encouraged. - Theodore Dalrymple, Anything Goes, p.107

The favoured tactic of the modern day pharisees s to disparage their opponents rather than engaging with their argument. So anyone who opposes abortion is a 'bigot', a term which ends debate. A special lexicon has been developed comprising a short list of words which are used to vilify social conservatives; it includes racist, homophobe, misogynist and Islamophobe. By deploying these terms it is possible to undermine the credentials of anyone making a counter argument and then denying them opportunities to justify their position. - - - Robin Aitken, The Noble Liar, p,208

Jefferson was concerned to resist anything that to him looked like tyranny over the human mind.; his goal was freedom from religion.  - Mostyn Roberts, The Subversive Puritan, Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience, p. 205

Quotes 24 Jun

"Don't pity me for my blindness, for the first face I ever see will be the face of my Lord Jesus." - Fanny Crosby

I've got a woman's ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it. - Margaret Thatcher@MrsMThatcher

State interference in the church, Williams concluded, will lead to the church becoming a wilderness. - Mostyn Roberts, The Subversive Puritan, Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience, p. 203 (But Williams joined no church in Rhode Island so the church was for him an uncultivated wilderness)

Quotes 24 Jun

God’s normal way of strengthening His ministers and making them fruitful is through suffering.-Andrew Randall,#Catalyst2019 https://blogofdan.co.uk/?p=24716

(Putin) may ... ask God:'Why didn't you put some mountains in Ukraine?' - Tim Marsahll, Prisoners of Geography, p.ix

To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.- Margaret Thatcher@MrsMThatcher

Quotes 22 Jun

Three things it will cost you to know God: 1) It will cost you your pride; 2) It will cost you your ease; 3) It will cost you your everything.-Andrew Randall,#Catalyst2019 https://blogofdan.co.uk/?p=24716

"If I feel myself disinclined to pray, then is the time when I need to pray more than ever."- Charles Spurgeon

It is easier to give good advice than to take it. - La Rochefoucauld

Quotes 21 Jun

“Without prayer a minister is of no use to the church, nor of any advantage to mankind.” (Charles Bridges)

Knowing God is a team sport.  A whole-hearted commitment to the local church is not an optional extra.-Andrew Randall, #Catalyst2019 https://blogofdan.co.uk/?p=24716

. In its simplest form, the doctrine of providence is Jesus loves you and knows what He is doing.- Kevin De Young, #Catalyst2019 https://blogofdan.co.uk/?p=24716

Quotes 20 Jun

“The early church did not fear martyrdom nearly as much as it feared false teaching.” Sinclair Ferguson #Catalyst2019

... the ultimate answer the poem of he multicultural society s the melting pot, not the solution preferred by bureaucrats and their intellectual allies, the sale bowl (which perhaps one day in Europe at any rate will turn not the stir fry).- - Theodore Dalrymple, Anything Goes, p.38

The idea that all cultures are of equal worth - which is how multiculturalism cane to be interpreted in Britain - is pernicious and wrong. The example of female genital mutilation shows why. - - Robin Aitken, The Noble Liar, p,199

Quotes 19 Jun

'Are there apostles in the church today? Of course there are apostles in the church today. But they're all in the church triumphant.' Sinclair Ferguson

The family, with all its undoubted miseries, (as well, of course, as joys) has long been the object of hate 0f ambitious intellectuals, for the family stands between the state, to be directed by intellectuals, and total power. -  - Theodore Dalrymple,, Spoilt Rotten, p.36

It is perhaps not unfair to say that to this day, evangelicals, so deeply influenced by the Schaeffers and their many proteges, still produces better art critics than artists. - - Andy Crouch, Culture making, p. 87

Quotes 18 Jun

Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of it sorrow, it empties today of its strength - Corrie ten Boom, Clippings from my Notebook

The only way to change culture is to create more of it.- Andy Crouch, Culture making, p. 67

Name dropping is the self important person's low budget advertising business. - Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Reading for Preaching, p.14

The NHS. Nearest thing we have to a national religion.- David Drew@NHSwhistleblowr

Quotes 17 Jun

Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances
which we know to be desperate.
     --G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
      _Heretics_ [1905]

"Nothing, so it seems to me," said the stranger, "is
more beautiful than the love that has weathered the
storms of life. . . .
"The love of the young for the young, that is the
beginning of life.  But the love of the old for the
old, that is the beginning of--of things longer."
--Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927)
      _The Passing of the Third Floor Back_ [1908]

The essence of childhood is innocence. The essence of youth is awareness. The essence of adulthood is responsibility. - Andy Crouch, Culture Making, p.9

Quotes 15 Jun

“The foetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being and it is a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a foetus in the womb before it has come to light.” - John Calvin

The multicultural ideal of a patchwork quilt of different ethnic groups living side by side, each respecting the other's differences, is a utopian fantasy that can all too easily degenerate into a system of ethnic Bantustans with no trust - and sometimes outright hostility - between them. - - Robin Aitken, The Noble Liar, p,206

Just because you lop off your dick and then wear a dress doesn't make you a f***ing woman. I've asked my doctor to give me long wears and liver spots and I'm going to wear a brown coat but that won't turn me into a f***ing cocker spaniel. - Germaine Greer on Newsnight, 23 Oct 2015

Quotes 14 Jun

"Much as I would love to go along with the fashionable "born gay" consensus (it would be very politically convenient), I can't. The evidence does not support the idea that sexuality is a fixed biological given."
(Peter Tatchell, UK leading gay rights activist, Guardian 28th June 2006)

... custom is the lat resort of the scoundrel. - Theodore Dalrymple, Anything Goes, p.35

Fools favor fleeting pleasure; the wise seek virtue.
     --William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)
      _Thoughts Of A Christian Optimist_ [1968]

Overall between 1997 and 2011 a total of 2.2 million people arrived and settled in the UK. -- - Robin Aitken, The Noble Liar, p,108

Quotes 13 Jun

.. in the years between 2005 and 2015, of the 4275 guests invited on the talk abut the EU, only 132 - amounting to 3.2% - supported the UK leaving the EU. - Tim Shipman, All Out War: The Full Story go How Brexit Sank Britain's Political Class

"Racist" is a politically weaponised term abuse designed to smear the opposition and close down the debate - for who can prove themselves innocent? - - Robin Aitken, The Noble Liar, p,103

All that is necessary for untruth to become orthodoxy is for men to be afraid to utter what they think odd the truth. - Theodore Dalrymple, Anything Goes, p.6

Quotes 11 Jun

The church is not meant to call men and women out of the world into a safe religious enclave but to call them out in order to send them back as agents of God's kingship.- Lesslie Newbigin@LesslieNewbigin

“The church did not begin that day, and it is incorrect to call the Day of Pentecost ‘the birthday of the church’. For the church as the people of God goes back at least 4,000 years to Abraham. What happened at Pentecost was that the remnants of God’s people became the Spirit-filled body of Christ.” John Stott

 Brexit is a function of the European political classes' failure to persuade ordinary people of the desirability, or even the plausibility, of the project—even though they have had nearly fifty years to do so.- Carl Trueman, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/06/brexit-did-not-cause-brexit

I have often repented of speech but hardly ever of silence. —C.S. Lewis

Quotes Jun 12

We have a saying, When you are persecuted, thank God that you have not been thrown into prison. If you have been thrown into prison, thank God that you have not been beaten. If you have been beaten, thank God that you have not been killed. And if you have been killed, thank God that you are with Him in heaven. - A convert from Islam quoted in David Garrison, A Wind in the House of Islam p.155

Many of the world's most attractive temptations are
like some television commercials: frequently
deceptive, and frightfully costly.
     --William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)
      _Thoughts Of A Christian Optimist_ [1968]

I may be on the devil's hit list, but I'm on Jesus'
mailing list!
     --"Eulis 'Sonny' Dewey" (Robert Duvall)
       (In the film _The Apostle_ [1997], written
        and directed by Robert Duvall)

Quotes Jun 10

There is nothing more bitter and fearful than death, and yet to die 'in the Lord' (Rev. 14:13), is sweet and blessed to the children of God, for then they rest from their labours.- Samuel Rutherford@SR_SDG

The Wise Men were truly Wise Men.  Unlike most men,
they stopped to ask for directions.
     --George E. Franke
      (In Cal and Rose Samra's
      _More Holy Humor_ [1997])

"It is possible to tolerate a little elevation, when a man takes a drink or two too much after working hard and when he is feeling low. This must be called a frolic. But to sit day and night, pouring it in and pouring it out again, is piggish... all food is a matter of freedom, even a modest drink for one's pleasure. If you do not wish to conduct yourself this way, if you are going to go beyond this and be a born pig and guzzle beer and wine, then, if this cannot be stopped by the rulers, you must know that you cannot be saved. For God will not admit such piggish drinkers into the kingdom of heaven [cf. Gal. 5:19-21]... If you are tired and downhearted, take a drink; but this does not mean being a pig and doing nothing but gorging and swilling... You should be moderate and sober; this means that we should not be drunken, though we may be exhilarated."
— Martin Luther, Sermon on Soberness and Moderation (May 18, 1539)

Quote Jun 8

...the way God's sovereign will unfolds for us is through our knowledge of , and submission too, his revealed will.-  Sinclair Ferguson, Maturity,88

A document alleged to have come into the possession of a Field Director of the American Security Council in the 1960s ...Revolution by Stealth listed the objectives of atheistic communism that could be achieved without any resort to arms. Some of these were as follow:
   Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.
   Eliminate all laws governing obscenity bu calling them 'censorship' and 'a violation of free speech and free press'.
   Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
   Gain control of key positions in radio, TV and motion pictures.
   Present homosexuality, degeneracy, and promiscuity as 'normal, natural and healthy'. -  Sinclair Ferguson, Maturity,p105

A prosperous condition is not always a safe one. A person is usually better in adversity than in prosperity. —THOMAS WATSON

Quotes Jun 7th

God's centre is everywhere, his circumference nowhere.—Thomas Watson

You that are believers must never expect any pleasure in sin; for you can neither commit it without regret, nor reflect upon it without shame and confusion: expect no better consequents of sin than the woundings of conscience and the dismal cloudings of the face of God. - John Flavel

Lord, put me into thy service when and where thou pleasest. In thy hand all my qualities will be put to their appropriate end.- Robert M. McCheyne@McCheyneQuotes

What a deal of sorrow and after-complaining might
this small labour prevent!  How many miles travel,
besides the vexation, may a traveller save by
inquiring of the way!
     --Richard Baxter (1615-1691)
      (In Isaac David Thomas' _The Golden Treasury Of

Quotes Jun 6

It is axiomatic then that we cannot enjoy a high degree of assurance if we persist in living at a low level of obedience. - Sinclair Ferguson, Maturity,p73

The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics. - Kepler cited in Morris Kline, Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty, - quoted in THE SOUL OF SCIENCE by PEARCEY & THAXTON, p.126

There is little ethical difference in principle between private counterfeiting and government money supply expansion, though there is some difference politically. - E Calvin Beisner, Prosperity and Poverty p. 135

As some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there.
     --Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
      _An Essay On Criticism_ [1711]; Part II, Line 142

God has made thee to love Him, and not to understand Him.
     --Voltaire (1694-1778)
      _La Henriade_ [1723], "Canto VII"

Quotes Jun 5th

In the 'General Scholium" Newton writes: The most beautiful system of sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the council and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. - quoted in - THE SOUL OF SCIENCE by PEARCEY & THAXTON, p.91

Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving. His origin, his growth, his hopes and fears and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collations of jatos. - Bertrand Russell, A Free Man's Worship, - quoted in THE SOUL OF SCIENCE by PEARCEY & THAXTON, p.117

Everything we find difficult we describe as a 'problem'. But difficulties we need to overcome are nt necessarily problems we need to solve. -  Sinclair Ferguson, Maturity,p.57

Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. - E Calvin Beisner, Prosperity and Poverty p. 132

The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.
     --Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
      _Moral Essays_ [1731-1735], Epistle III

Quotes Jun 4th

If you want to influence people, tell the what they want to hear. - Theodore Dalrymple, The Knife Went In, P. 187

Scripture is medicine for our sick souls. The label says 'Take daily' not "Take when you feel like it!' If we do only the latter it is likely that we will never 'feel better'! - Sinclair Ferguson, Maturity,p.49

... the driving impulse of Newton's scientific work was , as we have seen, to defend Christian faith against what he saw as an encroaching mechanistic materialism. - quoted in - THE SOUL OF SCIENCE by PEARCEY & THAXTON, p.75

By 1930, only about 25% of the American population lived on farms, and only 10% was involved in agriculture. By 1982, only about 2.4% of the American population lived on farms, and only 1.6% was involved in agriculture. Yet those 3,773,000 people raises enough food to feed over 234 million Americans and still have huge surpluses to ship overseas and fill government warehouses. The average American farm worker today raises enough food to feed himself and over 61 others. - E Calvin Beisner, Prosperity and Poverty p.86

Quotes Jun 3rd

"We live in a continent where increasingly powers have gone to a group of people who are NOT elected, CANNOT be removed and DON'T have to listen to us!"- Tony Benn

When few lived long, old age was respected.But now that almost everyone seems to go on for ever and, thanks to a declining birthrate, youth is a rare commodity, it is the young who are looked up to and accorded the kind of reverence African tribes once accorded their elders.This is why so much attention is paid to that odious Swedish girl (Thunberg), who makes Mr Podsnap in Our Mutual Friend seem about as self-doubting as Hamlet, and whose face oozes sanctimony almost as a secretion.She needs to be sent to her room and told not to come down before breakfast....the cult of youth is, at heart, a very sad one. It implies that the peak of life is reached early and thence forward it is downhill all the way.-- Theodore Dalrymple https://theodoredalrymple.wordpress.com

As John Owen notes somewhere, we need to be aware that spiritual growth is not measured so much by height as it is by the obstacles that an individual has overcome in the process if reaching that height. - Sinclair Ferguson, Maturity, p22

And in 'Opticks' he (Newton) writes that the business of science is to ' deduce causes for effects, till we come to the very first cause, which is certainly not mechanical.' - - THE SOUL OF SCIENCE by PEARCEY & THAXTON,