What They Said

“It is as easy for him to save a great as a small sinner.  No one was ever saved because his sins were small; no one was ever rejected on account of the greatness of his sins.  Where sin abounded, grace shall much more abound.”

Archibald Alexander

"Whose fan is in His hand, and He will throughly purge His floor."—Matt. iii. 12.

“The fan of Jesus is in His hand, and He will throughly cleanse His threshing-floor.

The words are not words of terror alone. They do not tell me simply that He will separate false souls from true at last, those who have merely a name to live from those within whom the power of godliness dwells and advances. That is solemn fact which I have need to lay to heart; but there is more than that.

The words are words of richest comfort also. For the wheat and the chaff are within the same life—the life which the Saviour has redeemed and is regenerating from day to day. Is this life mine?

Then in my history He will employ His winnowing and cleansing fan. It is the fan of His testing and purifying providence. It is the fan of His teaching and purging Word. It is the fan of His sifting and sanctifying Spirit. Through one agency and through another He will busy Himself about my nature, until all that is worthless and all that is evil have gone from me completely and for ever.

He can be satisfied with nothing short of my absolute and stainless perfection. It will mean a long, long patience on His part. It will mean an arduous and sometimes an agonising discipline for me. But by and by the chaff will have disappeared from my soul. By and by I shall be pure and ripe and precious wheat, which, in His great harvest home, He will carry with joy into His heavenly garner. It is a hope which may bring tears of gladness to my eyes. It is an expectation to fill my heart with melody and music.”

Alexander Smellie

“Let us mark this well. It is high time to dismiss from our minds those loose ideas about idolatry, which are common in this day. We must not think, as many do, that there are only two sorts of idolatry–the spiritual idolatry of the man who loves his wife, or child, or money more than God; and the open, gross idolatry of the man who bows down to an image of wood, or metal, or stone, because he knows no better. We may rest assured that idolatry is a sin which occupies a far wider field than this. It is not merely a thing in pagan lands, that we may hear of and pity at missionary meetings; nor yet is it a thing confined to our own hearts, that we may confess before the mercy-seat upon our knees. It is a pestilence that walks in the Church of the Living Christ to a much greater extent than many suppose. It is an evil that, like the man of sin, “that sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4).”

J.C. Ryle

“Believe God's word and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your Rock is Christ, and it is not the Rock which ebbs and flows, but your sea.”

Samuel Rutherford

“God is incomparable in His work of creation.  The creature cannot create.  We can alter the form, but we cannot produce the matter.  A goldsmith can make a sparkling jewel, but he requires precious stones to do so.  He cannot make gold out of dust, or diamonds out of dirt.  We cannot create one grain of corn or one blade of grass.  We can put the matter unto a better form, but we cannot make matter when there is none.”

George Swinnock

“To be "born of God" is to be the SUBJECT OF AN INWARD CHANGE of heart, so complete, that it is like passing into a new existence. It is the introduction into the human soul of a seed from heaven, a new principle, a Divine nature, a new will. Certainly it is no outward bodily alteration; but it is no less certain that it is an entire alteration of the inward man. It adds no new faculties to our minds; but it gives an entirely new bent and bias to our old ones. The tastes and opinions of one "born of God," his views of sin, of the world, of the Bible, of God, and of Christ, are so thoroughly new, that he is to all intents and purposes what St. Paul calls "a new creature." In fact, as the Church Catechism truly says, it is "a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness.””

J.C. Ryle

“O, beloved, would to God we knew more of this joy of perfect and complete surrender. It is our will clashing with our Father's will that gives disquiet. Were our will but one with His, it would be utterly impossible for us ever to be anything else than serene, calm and happy. Within our soul would dwell a deep of calm contentedness. Having no- choice of our own, the soul would find equal joy in all.  The " even so Father" would prove perpetual music in the breast.”

Archibald Brown

"But let none think that public prayer will make up for closet communion."

George Muller

“I long for the day when the precepts of the Christian religion shall be the rule among all classes of men,in all transactions. I often hear it said " Do not bring religion into politics." This is precisely where it ought to be brought, and set there in the face of all men as on a candlestick. I would have the Cabinet and the Members of Parliament do the work of the nation as before the Lord, and I would have the nation, either in making war or peace, consider the matter by the light of righteousness. "We are to deal with other nations about this or that upon the principles of the New Testament I thank God that I have lived to see the attempt made in one or two instances, and I pray that the principle may become dominant and permanent We have had enough of clever men without conscience, let us now see what honest, God-fearing men will do. But we are told that we must study "British interests, as if it were not always to a nation's truest interest to do righteousness. "But we must follow out our policy." I say, No! Let the policies which are founded on wrong be cast like idols to the moles and to the bats. Stand to that most admirable of policies,—" As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." Whether we are kings, or queens, or prime ministers, or members of parliament, or crossing sweepers, this is our rule if we are Christians.”

Charles Spurgeon

“Sometimes we don't need another chance to express how we feel or to ask someone to understand our situation.  Sometimes we just need a firm kick in the pants.  An unsmiling expectation that if we mean all these wonderful things we talk about and sing about, then lets see something to prove it.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.”

Augustine

“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.”

Thomas A’ Kempis

"Men, for the most part, are not lost enough in their own feeling for a Saviour.  A holy despair in ourselves is the ground of true hope. In God the fatherless find mercy (Hos. 14:3); if men were more fatherless, they should feel more God’s fatherly affection from heaven, for the God who dwells in the highest heavens dwells likewise in the lowest soul (Isa. 57:15).  Christ’s sheep are weak sheep, and lacking in something or other; he therefore applies himself to the necessities of every sheep. He seeks that which was lost, and brings again that which was driven out of the way, and binds up that which was broken, and strengthens the weak (Ezek. 34:16).  His tenderest care is over the weakest."

Richard Sibbes 

“Let us carry ourselves as God’s children in humility. ‘Be ye clothed with humility’ (1 Peter 5:5). It is a becoming garment. Let a child of God look at his face every morning in the glass of God’s Word and see his sinful spots. This will make him walk humbly all the day after. God cannot endure to see his children grow proud. He suffers them to fall into sin, as he did Peter, that their plumes may fall, and that they may learn to go on lower ground.”

Thomas Watson

“Above all pray and labour for a truly humble mind, that is well acquainted with its own defects ; and fear and fly from a proud, overvaluing of your own understanding.”

Richard Baxter

“Remember that only a broken heart can receive a bruised and crucified Savior!”

George Everard

“Assurance grows by repeated conflict, by our repeated experimental proof of the Lord’s power and goodness to save; when we have been brought very low and helped, sorely wounded and healed, cast down and raised again, have given up all hope, and been suddenly snatched from danger, and placed in safety; and when these things have been repeated to us and in us a thousand times over, we begin to learn to trust simply to the word and power of God, beyond and against appearances: and this trust, when habitual and strong, bears the name of assurance; for even assurance has degrees.”

John Newton

“Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.”

Oswald Chambers

“Whatever is done, even in the commonest matters of life, the food we eat, our conduct at the breakfast table or the dinner table, is to be done for the glory of the Father and the Son.

George Everard

“I call upon you not to forget the book of the soul.  Let not newspapers, novels and romances be read, while the prophets and apostles are despised.  Let not the exciting and licentious swallow up your attention, while the edifying and sanctifying can find no place in your mind.”

J.C. Ryle

“See what cause the saints have to be frequent in the work of thanksgiving. Christians are herein defective; though they are much in supplication, yet they are little in gratulation. The apostle saith, "In everything give thanks.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18” 

Thomas Watson

“”Give thanks in everything, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."  Thanksgiving should never be lacking in a Christian life. It is not enough to observe one day in the year for 'Thanksgiving' although that is a beautiful thing to do. Nor is it enough to put a sentence of thanksgiving into our daily prayers, although that, also, is proper. It is the grateful spirit which pleases God, the spirit that is always full of praise. There should be a note of thanksgiving running through all our life.

Too many of us go to God only with requests, with our burdens, our worries, our troubles; while we but rarely go to him with any word of thanks. We are not to be thankful only for the pleasant and agreeable things that come into our days—we are to be thankful, too, for the things that appear to us to be adversities. "Give thanks in everything." That means,—in the sad days as well as in the glad days, when clouds are in the sky, as well as when the sunshine is pouring everywhere. It is said here that this is the will of God for us. The Christliest life—is the one that is always keyed to the note of praise and thanksgiving.”

J.R. Miller

(On 1 Thess 5:14-24)

“Here in the text the covetous man's belly is his eye, and nothing of this world can fill that, and yet he neither desires nor endeavours to have it filled with any thing but the world.”

Joseph Caryl

(Exposition on Job 20:20)

“What, at peace with the Father and at war with His Children? It cannot be.  Do not some that hope they have made their peace with God, hate, revile, and persecute the children of God?  Surely, when we are reconciled to the Lord, we are reconciled to his people: we shall then love a christian as a christian, and by this we may know that we have passed from death to life.”

John Flavel

“Adoption gives us the privilege of sons, regeneration the nature of sons.”

Stephen Charnock

“Converting grace puts God on the throne, and the world at His footstool; Christ in the heart, and the world under His feet.”

Joseph Alleine

“Christ must be served heartily. We must not be ὀφθαλμοδουλίαν, eye-servants, we must "do the will of God from the heart," Eph. 6:6; Col. 3:23.”

William Jenkyn

“Before we can pray, "Lord, Thy Kingdom come," we must be willing to pray, "My Kingdom go.””

Alan Redpath

“Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.”

Samuel Johnson 

“To walk with God is also to live ever as in His sight. To realize His presence, to abide continually under His eye, to recognize our Father as close by our side, is the secret of much peace.”

George Everard

“We ought to be such husbands that every husband in the parish may safely be such as we are. Is it so? We ought to be the best of fathers. Alas! Some ministers, to my knowledge, are far from this, for as to their families, they have kept the vineyards of others, but their own vineyards they have not kept. Their children are neglected, and do not grow up as a godly seed. Is it so with yours?”

Charles Spurgeon

"Many are ashamed to be seen as God made them; few are ashamed to be seen what the devil hath made them.  Many are troubled at small defects in the outward man; few are troubled at the greatest deformities of the inward man; many buy artificial beauty to supply the natural; few spiritual, to supply the defects of the supernatural beauty of the soul." 

“We take it for granted that the sun, the moon, Jupiter, and the rest are exactly where they should be, and move just as they ought.  But if we are content that the Lord should manage the heavenly bodies without our assistance, we are ready enough to advise Him how He should dispose of our insignificant selves.  We think we could point at twenty things in our situation that might be mended, and that we should serve Him much better than we do, if we were at liberty to choose where and how we would be placed.”

John Newton

“Our weakness should be prized as making room for divine strength. We might never have known the power of grace if we had not felt the weakness of nature. Blessed be the Lord for the thorn in the flesh, and the messenger of Satan, when they drive us to the strength of God.”

Charles Spurgeon

“It is the common method of Satan, in the height and fury of a temptation, to persuade the heart, either that it is no sin, or else a small venial one. If this deceit prevail and take place, the work of mortification can never go on vigorously.”

Ezekiel Hopkins

“The virtue of contentment is the acquiescence of the mind in the lot God has given”

William Ames

“Use sin as it will use you.  Spare it not, for it will not spare you.  It is your murderer, and the murderer of the world.  Use it therefore as a murderer should be used.  Kill it before it kills you; and then, though it kill your bodies, it shall not be able to kill your souls; and though it bring you to the grave, as it did your Head, it shall not be able to keep you there.”

Richard Baxter

“Note this, I beseech you: in active obedience we worship God by doing what pleases God, but by passive obedience we do as well worship God by being pleased with what God does.”

Jeremiah Burroughs

“Heaven would be hell to me without Christ.”

Thomas Goodwin

“Christ is our justification, from which follows that our good works, if they are of Christ, are good; but if ours, they are neither right or good.”

Ulrich Zwingli 

“Men are always quarreling with God because he will not submit his will to their dictation.”

Charles Spurgeon

“Only those who have learned well to be earnestly dissatisfied with themselves, and to be confounded with shame at their wretchedness truly understand the Christian gospel.”

John Calvin

“Far more precious to us than even the development of human life, is the crown which ennobles it, and this noble crown of life for you and for me rests in the Christian name. That crown is our common heritage. It was not from Greece or Rome that the regeneration of human life came forth;—that mighty metamorphosis dates from Bethlehem and Golgotha; and if the Reformation, in a still more special sense, claims the love of our hearts, it is because it has dispelled the clouds of sacerdotalism, and has unveiled again to fullest view the glories of the Cross. But, in deadly opposition to this Christian element, against the very Christian name, and against its salutiferous influence in every sphere of life, the storm of Modernism has now arisen with violent intensity.”

Abraham Kuyper

“Christ crucified is the sum of the Gospel, and contains all the riches of it. Paul was so much taken with Christ, that nothing sweeter than Jesus could drop from his pen and lips. It is observed that he hath the word ‘Jesus’ five hundred times in his Epistles.”

Stephen Charnock

“A wretched plight for a nation to be in when its justices know no justice, and its judges are devoid of judgment.”

Charles Spurgeon