To make converts, we are tempted to play down the difficulties and play up the peace of mind and worldly success enjoyed by those who accept Christ. We will never be completely honest with our hearers until we tell them the blunt truth that, as members of a race of moral rebels, they are in a serious jam, and one they will not get out of easily. If they refuse to repent and believe on Christ, they will most surely perish. If they do turn to Him, the same enemies that crucified Him will try to crucify them. - A.W. Tozer

A single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer. - Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

It is a part of my daily habit to look back to my slavery in Africa, and to retrace the path by which the Lord has led me, for about forty-seven years, since He called me from infidelity and madness!My astonishing unsought deliverance from the hopeless wickedness and misery into which I had plunged myself, taken in connection with what He has done for me since--make me say, with peculiar emphasis, "Oh to grace how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be!" - Letters of John Newton

The hand of Christ is strong enough to uphold the heavens and gentle enough to wipe away our tears.- William Barclay (1907-1978), The Revelation of John, v.I, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961, reprint, Saint Andrew Press, 1965, p. 63

A woman, especially if she has the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.- Jane Austen, 1775 - 1817

Truth's like a fire, and will burn through and be seen.- Maxwell Anderson, 1888 - 1959

A philosopher is a man who can look at an empty glass with a smile.- Thomas Robert Dewar, 1864 - 1930

A teetotaller is one who suffers from thirst instead of enjoying it.- Thomas Robert Dewar, 1864 - 1930

If you get to the top on your own, who'll take the picture?- Thomas Robert Dewar, 1864 - 1930

The road to success is filled with women pushing their husbands along.- Thomas Robert Dewar, 1864 - 1930

We have a great regard for old age when it is bottled.- Thomas Robert Dewar, 1864 - 1930

Are you a distressed believer? Is your heart pressed down with sickness, tried with disappointments, overburdened with cares? To you I say this day, "Behold the cross of Christ." Think whose hand it is that chastens you; think whose hand is measuring to you the cup of bitterness which you are now drinking. It is the hand of Him who was crucified! It is the same hand which, in love to your soul, was nailed to the accursed tree. Surely that thought should comfort and hearten you. Surely you should say to yourself, "A crucified Savior will never lay upon me anything that is not for my good. There is a needs be. It must be well."~ J.C. Ryle,Old Paths, “The Cross of Christ”, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1999], 261

Love is a medicine for the sickness of the world; a prescription often given, too rarely taken.- Karl Augustus Menninger, 1893 - 1990

There is need of a great revival of spiritual life, of truly fervent devotion to our Lord Jesus, of entire consecration to His service. It is only in a church in which this spirit of revival has at least begun, that there is any hope of radical change.-Andrew Murray

An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains.-Frédéric Amiel, 1821 - 1881

Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.-Frédéric Amiel, 1821 - 1881

Perfect happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.-Frédéric Amiel, 1821 - 1881

God is a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God. If you have never thought of Him in these terms, then you have not yet begun to think about Him in the way he wants you to. God’s Word describes those covenants, proclaiming Him to be a covenanting God. In a sense, the Bible is the book of His covenant. We even call it that – the Old and the New Covenants (Testaments)! --Sinclair Ferguson

A gentleman, who lived at Ealing, taught—

“There is no limit to the power of thought.”

I still, however, can’t help sometimes feeling

... That thought alone does not account for Ealing.

~GKC

Time bears away all things, even the mind. -Virgil (70-19 BC) _Eclogues_ Book IX, Line 51

The tests of life are to make, not break us. Trouble may

demolish a man's business but build up his character. The blow

at the outward man may be the greatest blessing to the inner

man. If God, then, puts or permits anything hard in our lives,

be sure that the real peril, the real trouble, is that we shall

lose if we flinch or rebel.- Maltbie D. Babcock (1858-1901), Thoughts for Eve

Let it be a settled principle with us, never to be satisfied with mere outward church-membership. We may be inside the net, and yet not be in Christ. The waters of baptism are poured on myriads who are never washed in the water of life. The bread and wine are eaten and drunk by thousands at the Lord's table, who never feed on Christ by faith. Are we converted? Are we among the "good fish?" This is the grand question. It is one which must be answered at last. The net will soon be "drawn to shore." The true character of every man's religion will at length be exposed. There will be an eternal separation between the good fish and the bad. There will be a "furnace of fire" for the wicked. ~ J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Matthew, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1986], 153, 154.

I have no doubt that where there is much love, there

will be much to love, and where love is scant,

faults will be plentiful. -Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) _John Ploughman's Talk_ [1880]

There's always been a market for self-loathing in free societies:

after all, the most effectively anti-western idea of all was itself an

invention of the West, cooked up by Karl Marx while sitting in the

Reading Room of the British Library. The obvious defect in Communism

is that it's decrepit and joyless and therefore of limited appeal.

Fascism, likewise, had many takers in those parts of the cultural West

that were politically deficient - i.e., continental Europe - but it

had minimal support in the heart of the political West - i.e., the

English-speaking world. So the counter-tribalists came up with

something subtler and suppler than Communism and Fascism - the

slipperiest -ism of all. The great strength of "multiculturalism" is

not that it's an argument against the West but that it short-circuits

the possibility of argument. If there's no difference between English

Common Law and native healing circles and Tamil Tiger fundraisers and

gay marriage and sharia, then what's to discuss? Even to want to

debate the merits is to find oneself on the wrong side - for, if the

core belief of multiculturalism is that there's nothing to discuss and

everything's equally nice and fluffy, then to favour honest argument

puts you, by definition, on the extremist side.

-- Mark Steyn, The Slipperiest Ism, http://www.steynonline.com/4527/the-apathy-of-defeat

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear

bright until you hear them speak.

You're never too old to learn something stupid.

When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire

Department usually uses water.

One cold night they were sitting before the fire, where pine logs were hissing and spitting as they were burnt away. Churchill watched the blaze in silence. Then he growled: "I know why logs spit. I know what it is to be consumed."- John Gray, Churchill, chance and the 'black dog', http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15033046

God having forgiven sin, he will no longer call it to remembrance (Jer. 31:34)The Lord will make an act of indemnity. He will not upbraid us with former unkindness, nor sue us with a cancelled bond. 'He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea' (Mic. 7:19). Sin shall not be cast in like cork which rises up again, but like lead which sinks to the bottom. How we should all labour for this covenant blessing!~Thomas Watson, The Godly Man's Picture (Edinburgh, Scotland; The Banner of Truth Trust; 1992) p. 9.

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 (1816-1900), Expository thoughts on the Gospels, with the text complete, St. Matthew,Ipswitch: William Hunt, 1856, p. 202

Security is the mother of danger and the grandmother of destruction. - Thomas Fuller, 1608 - 1661

There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of the comfortable past which , in fact, never existed.- Robert F. Kennedy, 1925 - 1968

For social liberals, it sometimes seems that they think a family is just any group of people who share a refrigerator. Unk via Bruce Thompson

If we have a faith worth living for we have a faith worth dying for. Don't you compromise the faith that we are living and dying for - Archbishop Ben Kwashi

If you do not resist (Islam) now your grandchildren are going to have to fight a battle you do not have courage to fight.- Archbishop Ben Kwashi

Let us learn the high authority of the Bible, and the immense value of a knowledge of its contents. Let us read it, search into it, pray over it, diligently, perseveringly, unweariedly. Let us strive to be so thoroughly acquainted with its pages, that its text may abide in our memories, and stand ready at our right hand in the day of need. Let us be able to appeal from every perversion and false interpretation of its meaning, to those thousand plain passages, which are written as it were with a sunbeam. The Bible is indeed a sword, but we must take heed that we know it well, if we would use it with effect.~ J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke volume 1, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1986], 111, 112.

Salvation is complete; it involves justification, sanctification, and glorification. By grace, through faith, God justifies believers in an instantaneous act. That is to say, Christ died for His people in order that the penalty for their sins might be paid and His righteousness might be counted to them. They are declared just before God when they believe. Once justified, Christ saves them from the power of their sins through the lifelong process of sanctification. In sanctification, Christians are made more and more like Jesus Christ. But a lifelong process never ends, and the final goal is never reached until death. At death, Christians are glorified; they are then made completely perfect for the first time. - Jay E. Adams, Christian Living in the Home, P&R Publishing, 1972, p. 10-11