Christ's Victory

But the most astonishing thing is that evil and suffering were Christ's appointed way of victory over evil and suffering. Every act of treachery and brutality against Jesus was sinful and evil. But God was in it. The Bible says, "Jesus [was] delivered up [to death] according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). The lash on his back, the thorns on his head, the spit on his cheek, the bruises on his face, the nails in his hands, the spear in his side, the scorn of rulers, the betrayal of his friend, the desertion by his disciples - these were all the results of sin, and all designed by God to destroy the power of sin.

John Piper

The Passion of Jesus Christ

Crossway

p119

Preachers

Since the Lord established His church, there have been preachers - lots of preachers. Through all its centuries of existence, the church has heard good preachers and it has endured bad preachers. It has gloried in faithful preachers and lamented faithless preachers. It has listened with rapt attention to masters of eloquence, and it has wondered at the loquacity of pulpit babblers. Humorists and bawlers, expositors and storytellers, thematic preachers, evangelistic preachers, literary preachers, sawdust preachers, postmodern preachers, seeker-seeking preachers, famous preachers, infamous preachers - the church has had them all.

RA Mohler

He is Not Silent

Moody

p145

Prayer

It is useless to say you know not how to pray. Prayer is the simplest act in all religion. It is simply speaking to God. It needs neither learning, nor wisdom, nor book-knowledge to begin it. It needs nothing but heart and will. The weakest infant can cry when he is hungry. The poorest beggar can hold out his hand for an alms, and does not wait to find fine words. The most ignorant man will find something to say to God, if he has only a mind.

JC Ryle

Practical Religion

Banner of Truth

p83

Gospel & Church

It is appropriate that [Paul] should move on to examine the gospel, for gospel and church are inexplicably bound up with one another. The church comes into being when the gospel is proclaimed, yet the call to proclaim the gospel is the responsibility of the church.

P Arthur

Patience of Hope

EP

p30

Worship

I wonder if in our worship we encounter anything like this vision of God [in Isaiah 6]. Do those who come to our services of worship come face-to-face with the reality of God? Or do they go away with a vision of some lesser God, some dehydrated deity?

RA Mohler

He is not Silent

Moody

p30

Ascension

His ascension was indeed a return to the glory from which he first descended; but it was a return with a difference. He left as the Son of God. He returned both as Son of God and also, by reason of the incarnation, as Son of man. He left as Lord. He returned both as Lord and also as Minister on our behalf in the presence of the Father. He left as King. He returned both as King and also as High Priest and Intercessor for those whom he is not ashamed to call his brethren. He left as Sovereign. He returned also as Saviour.

PE Hughes

A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews

Eerdmans

p283

The Cost of Discipleship

On Matthew 8:19-22:

It would be well for the churches of Christ, if these sayings of our Lord were more remembered than they are. It may well be feared, that the lesson they contain is too often overlooked by the ministers of the Gospel, and that thousands are admitted to full communion, who are never warned to "count the cost." Nothing, in fact, has done more harm to Christianity than the practice of filling the ranks of Christ's army with every volunteer who is willing to make a little profession, and talk fluently of his experience. It has been painfully forgotten that numbers alone do not make strength, and that there may be a great quantity of mere outward religion, while there is very little real grace. Let us all remember this. Let us keep back nothing from young professors and inquirers after Christ. Let us not enlist them on false pretenses. Let us tell them plainly that there is a crown of glory at the end. But let us tell them no less plainly, that there is a daily cross in the way.

JC Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Vol 1)

Baker

p78

Forgiveness

The incomparable goodness of God is that he deigns to forget all our sis as soon as he sees us earnestly desirous of returning to him.

John Calvin

365 Days with Calvin

Day One

7th May

God's love

There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion Him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench His determination to bless me.

JI Packer

Knowing God

Hodder & Stoughton

p41

Grace

[God] is better to the worst of us than the best of us deserves.

D Macleod

Behold Your God

CFP

p78

The Father's love for the Son

It is important to remember the cost to the Father arising out of his love for His Son. How Abraham felt as he brought to the altar his son, his only son, Isaac whom he loved; how David felt as he cried, 'Absalom, my son, my son! Would I had died for thee Absalom, my son, my son!' - These are but shadows of the cost to God, as the love of these fathers for their sons was but a faint reflection of God's love for His. We lose much if our doctrine of the impassibility of God obscures from us the implications of the depth of the Father's affection.

D Macleod

Behold Your God

CFP

p148

You are the glory of God

You are not an animal. You are the glory of God.

You are not a pervert. You are the glory of God.

You are not an addict. You are the glory of God.

You are not a victim. You are the glory of God.

You are not a fool. You are the glory of God.

Mark Driscoll in

Tim Chester

Captured by a Better Vision

IVP

p159

God speaking from Mount Zion

The God who once to Israel spoke
From Sinai’s top, in fire and smoke,
In gentler strains of gospel grace
Invites us, now, to seek his face.

He wears no terrors on his brow,
He speaks, in love, from Zion, now;
It is the voice of JESUS’ blood
Calling poor wand’rers home to GOD.

The holy Moses quaked and feared
When Sinai’s thund’ring law he heard;
But reigning grace, with accents mild,
Speaks to the sinner, as a child.

Hark! how from Calvary it sounds;
From the Redeemer’s bleeding wounds!
“Pardon and grace, I freely give,
Poor sinner, look to me, and live.”

John Newton

365 Days with Newton

Day One

21st August

Against you, you only, have I sinned

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgement. (Psa 51:4)

I believe that David is saying here that even if the world pardoned him, God was the judge before whom David had to appear. Conscience hailed him to God's bar. Thus the voice of man offered no relief to him, however much others might be disposed to forgive or to excuse or to flatter. David's eyes and soul were directed to God, regardless of what man might think or say.

John Calvin

365 Days with Calvin

Day One

25th February

Prayer

Pausing briefly from prayer, David takes time to meditate upon the goodness of God so that he may return with renewed ardour to prayer.

Likewise the faithful feel that their hearts will soon languish in prayer unless they stir themselves up with new incitements. It is difficult to steadfastly and unweariedly persevere in prayer. Indeed, as fuel must frequently be added to preserve a fire, so prayer requires helps so that it will not languish and at length be extinguished.

John Calvin

365 Days with Calvin

Day One

13th February

Flattery

If gossip is saying something behind a person's back that we would never say to his face, then flattery is saying to a person's face what we would never say behind his back.

Alistair Begg

Pathway to Freedom

Moody

p199

Freedom

The ultimate question is not who you are but whose you are. Of course, many people think they are nobody's slave. They dream of total independence. Like a jellyfish carried by the tides feels free because it isn't fastened down with the bondage of barnacles.

John Piper

The Passion of Jesus Christ

Crossway

p64

Marriage

George Orwell said that a restatement of the obvious is sometimes the first duty of a responsible man. It is therefore worth restating what was once obvious and commonly held: Marriage involves a man and a woman. From the very creation of mankind and the foundation of civil order, God intended marriage to be an inseparable union between husband and wife. In that context only is it possible to make sense of the biblical injunction: "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28). The most obvious argument against the lesbian and homosexual agenda is human physiology! A light bulb needs a socket if there is to be illumination. Two sockets on their own are incapable of light, and the same is true for two bulbs. Homosexuality in practice involves a perverted use of the human body, and it is a forsaking of the natural for the unnatural. It is not a marriage. It cannot be.

Alistair Begg

Pathway to Freedom

Moody

p157

Heaven

Eternal life is not merely the extension of this life with its mix of pain and pleasure. As hell is the worst outcome of this life, so "eternal life" is the best. It is supreme and ever-increasing happiness where all sin and all sadness will be gone. All that is evil and harmful in this fallen creation will be removed. All that is good - all that will bring true and lasting happiness - will be preserved and purified and intensified.

John Piper

The Passion of Jesus Christ

Crossway

p57

Wisdom

Wisdom is the skill of godly living.

John Frame
The Doctrine of God
P&R
p507

The Law

God intended the law to reveal sin and drive men to Christ; Satan uses it to reveal sin and to drive men to despair.

John Stott
The Message of Galatians
IVP
p105

Idols

When most people think of "idols" they have in mind literal statues - or the next pop star anointed by Simon Cowell. Yet while traditional idol worship occurs in many places of the world, iternal idol worship, within the heart, is universal. In Ezekieal 14:3, God says about the elders of Israel, "These men have set up their idols in their hearts." Like us, the elders must have responded to this charge, "Idols? What idols? I don't see any idols." God was saying that the human heart takes good things like a sucessful career, love, material posessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfillment, if we attain them.

Tim Keller
Counterfeit gods
Hodder & Stoughton
p xiv

Nicene Creed

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

On forgiveness

There is all the difference in the world between believing that God does forgive sins, and knowing that God has forgiven my sins, my personal sins.

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Living Water, Vol 1
David Cook
p520

Hatred of Christ

Nothing raises the wonder and disgust of the world more than the high regard believers pay to the Lord Jesus. If they would only speak seriously of God, his goodness and providence, they might be borne with - but so much of Christ is offensive. Those who know him, however, will never think they can say enough of him.

John Newton
365 days with Newton
Day One
6th December

New Life

I have decided to give this blog a new lease of life, and start again.

I hope to mainly have various quotations from books and articles I am reading. I hope they interest you.