“Are you expecting the Lord? Are you living in this expectation? Is it a deep-seated, abiding, cherished hope? Is it a hope that tells upon your character, your life, your daily actings in public or private, your opinions, your whole man? Does it quicken you? Does it purify you? Does it keep you separate from the world? Does it keep you calm in the midst of earth’s most exciting events, or most untoward changes? Does it give you a new view of history as well as prophecy? …
“Let your expectation of the Lord’s coming be a calm and healthy one; not one that excites, but one that tranquilizes; not one that unfits for duty, but one that nerves you more firmly for it; not one that paralyzes exertion, but one that invigorates you for it; not one that makes you indifferent to present duty, but one that makes you doubly in earnest about everything that your hand findeth to do; not one that stops liberality, and prayer, and work, but one that increases all these a hundred fold; not one that dwells exclusively on the future’s dark side—the judgments that are at hand—but one that realizes the glory and the joy of Messiah’s approaching victory and triumphant reign.” —Horatius Bonar
Are You Expecting The Lord?
March 9, 2016 — Craig T. Owens6 More Quotes From “Light & Truth—Acts and the Larger Epistles”
February 17, 2016 — Craig T. Owens![Light & Truth [Acts]](https://craigtowens.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/light-truth-acts.jpg)
Horatius Bonar’s wisdom and insight in the Scriptures is still clear and relevant for us today. Here are some additional quotes I highlighted in his commentary. The reference in brackets is the passage in the Bible on which Bonar is commenting.
“We are described as feeble men, bearing on our shoulders a burden too heavy to be borne; the Holy Spirit comes up to us; not exactly to take away the burden; nor to strengthen us under it; but to put His own Almighty shoulder under it, in the room of, and along with ours; thus lightening the load, though not changing it; and bearing the heavier part of it with His own Almightiness. Thus it is that He ‘helps’ our infirmities; making us to feel both the burden and the infirmity all the while that He helps; nay, giving us such a kind and mode of help, as will keep us constantly sensible of both.” [Romans 8:26]
“How real, how true, how fast must that love have been. Here is its sincerity demonstrated. Here are its dimensions measured. What is its height? The answer is, ‘He spared not His Son.’ What is its depth? ‘He spared not His Son.’ What is its length? ‘He spared not His Son.’ What is its breadth? ‘He spared not His Son.’ Nay, He delivered Him up. Nay, He laid our sins upon Him; He made Him a curse for us. The more that we meditate on this one gift, the more does its greatness display itself. It passeth all measurement and all understanding.” [Romans 8:32]
“Prayer takes for granted that God is full, and we are empty; that He is infinitely full, and we unspeakably empty. … Prayer takes for granted that there is a connection between His fullness and our emptiness. The fullness is not inaccessible. It is not too high for us to reach, or for it to stoop. It is not too great for us, nor too distant, so as to be incommunicable. There is a connection, and it has been established by God Himself; it is a divine medium of communication: ‘Ask, and you shall receive.’ Prayer takes for granted that we are entitled to use this channel.” [Romans 12:12]
“If you are Christians then, be consistent. Be Christians out and out; Christians every hour, in every part, and in every matter. Beware of half-hearted discipleship, of compromise with evil, of conformity to the world, of trying to serve two masters. … Half-hearted Christianity will only dishonor God, while it makes you miserable. There is abundance of Christianity, so-called, in our day. Who does not call himself a Christian? But who cultivates the holiness, the blamelessness, the devotedness, the calm consistency of a follower of Christ? Who hates sin as it ought to be hated? Who separates from the world as he ought? Who follows Christ as He ought to be followed? Who walks in the footsteps of the holy Son of God?” [1 Corinthians 1:8]
“Let us walk worthy [of the blessings in Christ Jesus]; as men who really believe it; happy, holy, unworldly, zealous, generous, loving. Let us carry the consciousness of our calling into everything—great or small; into business, daily life, recreations, reading, education, everything; maintaining our true position before men; manifesting our proper character; letting the world know our prospects, and doing nothing inconsistent with what we profess to be now, and with what we shall be when the Lord comes.” [1 Corinthians 1:9]
“Thus, then, is our whole earthly life, in all its parts, to be regulated by the magnitude of the eternal. Things present must be subordinated to those which are to come, the seen to the unseen, the earthly to the heavenly. It is by the light of the coming glory that we must walk while here. It is from the clock of eternity that our time is to be always taken. Arrange your business, your recreations, your duties with reference to the invisible and unending future. Live, speak, work, move, as those who believe that the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” [1 Corinthians 7:29-31]
The first set of quotes I shared from this book can be read here. And my review of this book is posted here.
8 Quotes From “Light & Truth—Acts and the Larger Epistles”
February 10, 2016 — Craig T. OwensHoratius Bonar had great insight into the application of Scriptures. Check out my review of this commentary from Dr. Bonar by clicking here. Below are a few quotes that caught my attention. The reference in brackets after the quote is the biblical passage on which Bonar is commenting.
“Our Bible is of God; yet it is also of man. It is both divine and human. It comes to us from God’s Spirit; it comes also from man’s spirit. It is written in the language of the earth, yet its words are the words of him ‘Who speaketh it from heaven.’ Natural, yet supernatural; simple, yet profound; undogmatical, yet authoritative; very like a common book, yet very unlike also; dealing often with seeming incredibilities and contradictions, yet never assuming any need for apology, or explanation, or retraction; a book for humanity at large, yet minutely special in its fitnesses for every case of every soul; throughout its pages, from first to last, one unchanging estimate of sin as an infinite evil, get always bringing out God’s gracious mind toward the sinner, even in his condemnation of the guilt; such is the great Book with which man has to do, which man has to study, out of which man has to gather wisdom for eternity.” [Acts 1:1]
“One of the great characteristics of the whole interval between Christ’s first and second coming is the world’s rage, secret and open, against the Father and the Son. … It is very useless anger. It accomplishes nothing. It is like an angry child striking a huge rock with its fist. It is the mere display of impotent hatred, or the temporary gratification of their dislike of God, and their rejection of His purpose regarding His Son. … It calls light darkness, and darkness light; good evil, and evil good; but the light and the darkness, the good and evil, still remain as they were. All the enlightenment of the age, all the appliances of modern progress, are impotent against God and His Christ, against His truth, and His church, and His Word.” [Acts 4:25]
“This is one of the many repetitions of the Pentecostal scene which occurred in early days. Most unscriptural is the statement of some that the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost was a thing done once for all, not to be repeated, and that we are not to pray for or expect such things again. The whole of the ‘Acts of the Apostles’ is a direct refutation of this piece of human fancy. Wherever the apostles went there was a repetition of Pentecost, whether at Jerusalem, or Samaria, or Antioch, or Corinth. Every conversion is the repetition of Pentecost; it is doing the same thing for an individual soul as was done for three thousand then, by a similar process, and by the same power—the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost is the heritage of the church. The Old Testament saints possessed Him; and still more the New. This is our heritage, the heritage of every believing man.” [Acts 11:15]
“Beware of seeking anything less than the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Our whole life is to be a reception of the Spirit. He is to be continually coming down on us, and filling us. Let us open our mouth wide that He may fill it. Let us beware of anything that would present itself as a substitute for the living Spirit. Many such things may we expect in these last days from satan as an angel of light.” [Acts 11:15]
“We are tempted in our day to be ashamed of the gospel. It is thought to be bare, unintellectual, almost childish by many. Hence, they would overlay it with argument and eloquence, to make it more respectable and more attractive. Every such attempt to add to it is being ashamed of it.” [Romans 1:16]
“We must have a righteousness, else we cannot stand before God; we cannot have merely a religion.” [Romans 4:6-8]
“The prodigal did not work for the ‘best robe,’ but got it all ready-made from his father’s hands; Joseph did not work for his coat of many colors, but received it as the gift of his father’s love; Adam did not work for the skins with which the Lord God clothed him: so it is with the sinner in his approach to God, and in God’s approaches to him. ‘Righteousness without works’ is given him; nay, put upon him as a raiment, a divine raiment, to fit him for drawing near to God.” [Romans 4:6-8]
“When the night is darkest, and the stars are hidden, and the clouds are black, then we think most of the clear fair day, and long for its dawn. When the storm is roughest, with the waves and wind roaring around the laboring vessel, then we are troubled, and look eagerly out for the glad and sunny calm. When winter binds the earth in its chain of frost, and wraps it in snow and ice, then we begin to ask for spring, with its flowers, and songs, and verdure. So with the saint, as represented by the apostle here. This is night, and storm, and winter to him; he is ever thinking of the day, and the calm, and the spring.” [Romans 8:19-23]
More quotes are here.
10 Benefits From Suffering
January 28, 2016 — Craig T. Owens
Commenting on one of the opening passages in Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, Horatius Bonar shares ten benefits to Christians who will cling to God during times of suffering.
“The meaning and use of trial:
- It shows God to be in earnest with us. He does not let us alone. He takes great pains with our spiritual education and training. He desires fruit and progress.
- It assures us of His love.
- It draws us to prayer. When one member suffers all the others suffer with it. As soon as it is said, ‘such a brother or sister is in sorrow,’ all who hear of this begin to pray for the afflicted one. Thus sorrow becomes a magnet which attracts the prayers of the church.
- It knits us in sympathy to the whole body.
- It teaches us sympathy with brethren.
- It brings us into a mood more receptive of blessing. It makes our spirits tender, it softens our hearts, it makes our consciences alive, it empties us of adverse influences.
- It makes us prize the Word.
- It shuts out the world.
- It bids us look up.
- It turns our hope to the Lord’s great coming.”
10 Quotes From “Our Portrait In Genesis”
October 7, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
Oswald Chambers has given us another valuable resource in Our Portrait In Genesis, as he walks through the first book of the Bible with us. You can read my full book review here. As usual, there are just way too many good quotes to share all at once, so here is the first batch of quotes from this book.
“It is not my faith laying hold of the Word, but the life in the Word laying hold on me.”
“We transgress a law of God and expect an experience akin to death, but exactly the opposite happens, we feel enlarged, more broad-minded, more tolerant of evil, but we are more powerless; knowledge which comes from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, instead of instigating to action, paralyzes.”
“No man can murder his brother who has not first murdered God in himself.”
“It is ingrained in our thinking that competition and rivalry are essential to the carrying on of civilized life; that is why Jesus Christ’s statements seem wild and ridiculous. They are the statements either of a man or of God Incarnate. To carry out the Sermon on the Mount is frankly impossible to anyone but a fool, and who is the fool? The man who has been born again and who dares to carry out in his individual life the teaching of Jesus. And what will happen? The inevitable result, not the success he would otherwise have. A hard saying, but true.”
“Grace is the overflowing immeasurable favor of God; God cannot withhold, the only thing that keeps back His grace and favor is our sin and perversity.”
“Faith un-tried has no character value for the individual. … Spiritual character is only made by standing loyal to God’s character no matter what distress the trial of faith brings.”
“We must be careful never to compromise over any promise of God when by reason of human limitation there has been only a partial fulfillment. Such a compromise is easily detected whenever you feel, ‘Oh well, I suppose that is all God meant.’ Every word God has spoken will be absolutely fulfilled; to climb down from that confidence is to be disloyal to God.”
“There is always the danger of becoming a fanatical adherent to what God has said instead of adhering to God who said it.”
“The only way to wait for the Second Coming is to watch that you do what you should do so that when He comes is a matter of indifference.”
“It is a question of faith in God, the rarest thing, we have faith only in our feelings. I don’t believe God unless He will give me something in my hand whereby I may know I have it, then I say, ‘Now I believe.’ There is no faith there.”
Links & Quotes
July 30, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
In The Screwtape Letters, in which an older demon is writing to an apprentice demon, the ‘Enemy’ is God, and the ‘Father’ is the devil. “The Enemy’s demand on humans takes the form of a dilemma; either complete abstinence or unmitigated monogamy. Ever since our Father’s first great victory, we have rendered the former very difficult to them. The latter, for the last few centuries, we have been closing up as a way of escape. We have done this through the poets and novelists by persuading the humans that a curious, and usually shortlived, experience which they call ‘being in love’ is the only respectable ground for marriage; that marriage can, and ought to, render this excitement permanent; and that a marriage which does not do so is no longer binding. This idea is our parody of an idea that came from the Enemy. The whole philosophy of Hell rests on recognition of the axiom that one thing is not another thing, and, specially, that one self is not another self. My good is my good and your good is yours. What one gains another loses. Even an inanimate object is what it is by excluding all other objects from the space it occupies; if it expands, it does so by thrusting other objects aside or by absorbing them. A self does the same. With beasts the absorption takes the form of eating; for us, it means the sucking of will and freedom out of a weaker self into a stronger. ‘To be’ means ‘to be in competition.’” —C.S. Lewis, in The Screwtape Letters
“Commend me to the Christian who says, ‘I bless God I am saved; now what can I do for others?’ The first thing in the morning he prays, ‘God help me to say a word to some soul this day.’ During the day, wherever he may be, he is watching his opportunity, and will do good if he can. He is concerned about his children: it sometimes breaks his heart to think that they are not saved. If he happens to have an ungodly wife, it is his daily burden, ‘O God, save my wife!’ When he goes to a place of worship he does not expect the minister to make sermons always on purpose for him, but he says, ‘I shall sit here and pray God to bless the word,’ and if he looks round the chapel and sees one that he loves, he prays for him, ‘God send the word home to him.’ When service is over, a man of this kind will waylay the unconverted, and try to get a personal word with them, and see if he cannot discover some beginnings of grace in their souls. This is how earnest Christians live; and let me tell you, as a rule, though they have the griefs of other men’s souls to carry, they do not have much grief about their own; they are watering others and they are watered themselves also. May this be your work and mine!” —Charles Spurgeon
“Paul wrote to the Ephesians about the true character of a healthy, growing church. He said nothing about numbers of people, size of budget, variety of programs and facilities, or whether or not it had a great worship band. He emphasized two characteristics—unity and maturity—which are in short supply in America’s churches today (Ephesians 4:11-16).” —T.M. Moore
Dr. George O. Wood says, “If even the angels do not know, and Jesus did not know, why do we have so many ‘date-setters’ even today? You can research and discover that there have been numerous false prophecies in the past centuries where authors and so-called prophets set a date for the return of Christ. Date-setters will always be wrong; you can count on it.” Read the rest of his post about Christ’s return here.
I like this: 5 reasons the church should embrace science.
Fight The New Drug asks: Is there a difference between pornography and prostitution?
8 Quotes From Horatius Bonar
July 9, 2015 — Craig T. OwensThere is a series of book by Horatius Bonar called Light And Truth. I am currently reading one of the books in the series as I read through the New Testament in my personal devotional time. Typically I post a book review after I’ve finished a book (which I will do with Light And Truth [update: the review is posted here]), and then I share some quotes from that book. In this case I’m mixing things up a bit: I’m sharing some quotes from the first half of this book today, and then I’ll post a review and more quotes after I finish the book. Enjoy!
(Note: Scripture references appearing in brackets following the quote reflects the passage or verse on which Bonar was commenting.)
“What is at the bottom of all the persecutions of various ages? It is Christ troubling the world. If He would let it alone, it would let Him alone. What means the outcry, and alarm, and misrepresentation, and anger, in days of revival? It is Christ troubling the world. What means the resistance to a fully preached gospel? It is Christ troubling the world. A fettered gospel, a circuitous gospel, a conditional gospel—a gospel that does not truly represent Christ—troubles no man; for in such cases it is another Christ that is announced, and not the Christ, the King of the Jews, that troubled Jerusalem. But a large, free, happy, unconditional gospel, that fully represents Jesus and His grace, Jesus and His completeness, does trouble men. It troubles all to whom it comes, in some measure. Some it troubles and then converts; some it only troubles. … The world’s only hope is to be ‘troubled’ by Christ. … Yet all this troubling is in love. He sounds His trumpet to awake the sleepers.” [Matthew 2:3]
“The Lord ends speaking and begins working; He comes down from the pulpit and enters the hospital. Such is His whole life: words and deeds intermingled; words of health and deeds of health. His lips breathe fragrance, and in His hand is the balm of Gilead. … [The leper] wants to be made clean, and he casts himself on Christ for this. He is the hyssop, the water, the blood, the ashes, the priest, the physician, all in one. Thus we still come, doubting neither the willingness nor the power, yet casting ourselves on the will of the Lord; not presuming to dictate, yet appealing to His sovereign Grace. As the needy, the sick, the unclean, we come; for the whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” [Matthew 8:1-3]
“It is the voice of authority. It reminds us of Genesis 1:2-3. He speaks as one who knew that He could cure. Not hesitatingly. Nor are the words a prayer, but a command. He speaks, and it is done. … Thus love, authority, and power are all conjoined. It is the voice of Omnipotence. … He is the same Christ still; with the same love, and authority, and power. He is still a Healer, and the worst of diseases fly from His touch and voice. Let us go to Him with all that afflicts us. He calls and He will heal us of all. … Be persuaded to present thyself to Him, just as thou art give this divine Healer thy simple confidence. Take Him for what He is, and He will take thee for what thou art. Thus shalt thou meet in love; thou to be healed, and He to heal; thou to have the joy of being healed, and He to have the joy of healing thee, and to announce to heaven, in the presence of the angels of God, that another leper has been healed!” [Matthew 8:1-3]
“And is not this oftentimes the very point of the difficulty we experience in believing? We cling to the visible, the palpable prop—the human rope which we hold in our hand, unwilling to let go. We speak of our inability to believe; but what is this save our tenacity in holding on to the very things which God asks us to quit? We say that we ‘cannot lay hold’; should we not rather say that we ‘cannot let go’? We complain that we have no power to cling and grasp; whereas it should be that we have no will to let go.”
“As iniquity increases, faith decreases. … As iniquity increases, truth decreases. … As iniquity increases, righteousness and holiness decrease. … As iniquity increases, religion decreases. … As iniquity increases, delight in the things of God decreases. … But the special thing of which Our Lord predicts the decrease is love—love to God, love to himself, love to one another.” [Matthew 24:12]
“Our Lord will come! This is one of the great certainties of the unknown future. He may tarry, but He will come at last. Many obstacles made seem to rise up, but He will come. Men may not desire Him, but He will come. The Church may be cold, but He will come. Earth may think she has no need of Him, but He will come! The scoffer may say, where is the promise of His coming? but He will come. satan may do His utmost to oppose; but He will come. This is the great future certainty which Christ and His apostles have proclaimed to us. Our Lord will come! … The hour is, no doubt, fixed in God’s purpose, but the knowledge of that time is kept from us. They do wrong, then, who try to fix the hour, thus seeking to extract a secret from God. They do wrong who neglect the whole subject because this secret is connected with it. They do wrong who scoff at the whole subject because of the rash attempts or wretched failures of some pretended interpreters of prophecy. Thus, ‘we know,’ and ‘we know not’: we know that He will come, we do not when. … Beware of falling under any influences that would make you indifferent to the Lord’s appearing. Beware of worldly arguments; beware of pretended spiritual arguments; beware of confounding death and Christ’s coming; beware of the errors and seductions of the age.” [Matthew 22:42, 44]
“Ah, does not our faith often thus fail just at this point? We can go to Him for a little thing; we cannot go to Him for a great thing. We count it presumption to expect much. Instead of feeling that the worse the case, the greater the glory to His power and love, we stop short, and cease to expect anything from Him at all. I need not trouble the Master, we say, my case is so desperate; instead of saying, because my case is so desperate, I will trouble Him, I will give Him this opportunity of magnifying His skill and grace.” [Mark 5:36]
“Understand what is passing day by day; interpret events; connect them with the coming of the Son of Man. You see false Christs; you hear a Babel of opinions; you mark the new forms of immorality and infidelity; you are startled with the bold assaults made on Scripture, and on the Christ of God, on His blood, and Cross, and righteousness—connect all these with the coming of the Lord; interpret them as signs of the last days; do not treat them as common things; do not close your eyes upon them; do not be indifferent to them; do not admire them as tokens of intellectual development and human progress. Understand them all according to God’s purpose and mind. Examine them in the light of apostolic teachings and warnings. Be not deceived concerning them. Beware of the strong delusion. … Pray, then, for a needy church, that in all these respects God would visit her; raising her up; reviving her; rekindling her light; reinvigorating her strength; re-adorning her with all gifts and graces; reclothing her in apostolic raiment, and sending her forth to do His work with the old power and success of primitive days. Pray for a needy world. It is blind, and knows it not; poor, and thinks itself rich; foolish, and thinks itself wise. It is doubly needy. It is not aware of the extent of its ruin, and alienation, and depravity; not alive to its danger and hopeless prospects; not anticipating its doom. There is a hardening, and searing, and blinding process going on in connection with ‘modern progress.’” [Mark 13:33]
Links & Quotes
June 15, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
“It is the disagreeable things which make us exhibit whether we are manifesting the life of the Son of God, or living a life which is antagonistic to Him. When disagreeable things happen, do we manifest the essential sweetness of the Son of God or the essential irritation of ourselves apart from Him?” —Oswald Chambers
“Without the Holy Spirit no good thing ever did or ever can come into any of your hearts—no sigh of penitence, no cry of faith, no glance of love, no tear of hallowed sorrow. Your heart can never beat with life divine, except through the Spirit; you are not capable of the smallest degree of spiritual emotion, much less spiritual action, apart from the Holy Spirit. Dead you lie, living only for evil, but absolutely dead for God until the Holy Spirit comes and raises you.” —Charles Spurgeon
“Man was created ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ Whether that is best pictured as being in love, or like being one of an orchestra who are playing a great work with perfect success, or like surf bathing, or like endlessly exploring a wonderful country or endlessly reading a glorious story—who knows? Dante says Heaven ‘grew drunken with its universal laughter.’” —C.S. Lewis
“Our Lord will come! This is one of the great certainties of the unknown future. He may tarry, but He will come at last. Many obstacles may seem to rise up, but He will come. Men may not desire Him, but He will come. The Church may be cold, but He will come. Earth may think she has no need of Him, but He will come! The scoffer may say, ‘Where is the promise of His coming?’ but He will come. satan may do his utmost to oppose, but He will come. This is the great future certainty which Christ and His apostles have proclaimed to us. Our Lord will come!” —Horatius Bonar
“[God] does not bless us begrudgingly. There is a kind of eagerness about the beneficence of God. He does not wait for us to come to Him. He seeks us out, because it is His pleasure to do us good. God is not waiting for us, He is pursuing us. That, in fact, is the literal translation of Psalm 23:6, ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life.’ … God is never irritable or edgy. His anger never has a short fuse. Instead He is infinitely energetic with absolutely unbounded and unending enthusiasm for the fulfillment of His delights.” —John Piper
“When it comes to spiritual matters, you and I will never know our potential under God until we step out and take risks on the front line of battle. … Sitting safely in the shelter of Bible discussions among ourselves, or complaining to one another about the horrible state of today’s society, does nothing to unleash the power of God.” Read more of this post from Jim Cymbala.
Putting a probe on a moving comet is just too cool! Check out the latest news from the Philae lander.
Alan Trammell has always been one of my all-time favorite Detroit Tigers. Here’s proof that he is just as classy off the field as he was on it.
Links & Quotes
January 18, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
“You may claim to love Jesus but your life proves you are still walking in darkness—confused, befuddled and foggy! When you are truly in love with Jesus, conversing with Him, He turns up the light. There is no darkness at all in His presence. The worst possible darkness to mankind is not in the hearts of God-hating Communist leaders or Christ-hating atheists. It is, rather, the horrible darkness that blinds so-called Christians who refuse to walk in the light.” —David Wilkerson
“It is not your business to succeed (no one can be sure of that) but to do right: when you have done so, the rest lies with God.” ―C.S. Lewis
“O how quickly we are given to defending God, or sometimes the truth, from words that are only for the wind. If we had discernment, we could tell the difference between the words with roots and the words blowing in the wind. There are words with roots in deep error and deep evil. But not all grey words get their color from a black heart. Some are colored mainly by the pain, the despair. What you hear is not the deepest thing within. There is something real within where they come from. But it is temporary—like a passing infection—real, painful, but not the true person. Let us learn to discern whether the words spoken against us or against God or against the truth are merely for the wind—spoken not from the soul, but from the sore. If they are for the wind, let us wait in silence and not reprove. Restoring the soul, not reproving the sore, is the aim of our love.” —John Piper
“What must you do so that you may know that your sins are taken away by the blood of Christ, and that, when He comes, He will shield you from the wrath of God and bring me into eternal life? The answer is this: trust Christ in a way that makes you eager for Him to come.” —John Piper
John Stonestreet has a great take on worldviews in Radical Islam, Secularism & Christianity.
“O beloved, what a defense is God to His church! Ah, the devil cannot cross this broad river of God. Between me and you, O fiend of hell, is my God. Do remember this, Christian; between you and your arch-enemy is your God; satan has to stand on the other side, and how he wishes he could dry up that stream, but God is omnipotent.” —Charles Spurgeon
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6 More Quotes From “Light & Truth—Revelation”
October 27, 2016 — Craig T. Owens“What man needs, then, is Jesus; not mere knowledge or wisdom. What humanity—unconsciously and ignorantly, it may be—sighs for, is Jesus. What earth, ruined and accursed because of sin, groans for, is Jesus—nothing less than this. No other prophet or priest or king can meet the exigencies of the race and its dwelling, the earth, but Jesus only.”
“What is your hope? What is judgment to do for you? What is resurrection to bring? Look at the following alternatives, and ask which is to be yours: Everlasting gladness, or everlasting sorrow? Everlasting glory; or everlasting shame? Everlasting songs, or everlasting wailing? The marriage supper of the Lamb, or the perpetual banishment from all that is good and holy? The new heavens and earth, or the eternal wilderness, with its parched and burning wastes? The heavenly Jerusalem, with the Lamb as its light, or the blackness of darkness? The fruit of the tree of life and the waters of the celestial river, or the eternal hunger and the unquenchable thirst? (Luke 16:24). The first resurrection, or the second death? These are the alternatives before you; and there is no middle room.”
“The first book of Scripture and the last fit well into each other; the first two chapters of Genesis and the last two of Revelation fit together like the two halves of a golden clasp set in gems. Enclosed between the two is the history of six thousand years. And what a history! What a beginning, and what an ending! It began with the new, and it ended with the new—the strange checkered ‘old’ lying mysteriously between. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ ‘I saw new heavens and a new earth.’”
“Such is the love of God. It is the love of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Father chooses in His own sovereignty; the Son washes in His own blood; the Spirit purifies and prepares by His mighty power. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us! It is free love; sovereign love; eternal love; unchanging love; boundless love; love which not merely delivers from wrath, but which makes the delivered one an heir of God, nay, the bride, the Lamb’s wife.”
“Our title to all this surpassing and eternal glory is simply the blood of the Lamb. He has bought it for His Church; and it is hers forever. The nightless day, the unsetting sun, the incorruptible life, the undefiled inheritance, the new name, the heavenly city, the everlasting kingdom— all are hers; hers through ‘the blood of the everlasting covenant.’ She is to walk worthy of it here—worthy of such a crown, such a heritage, such a city, such a Bridegroom, such a joy. ‘Be holy;’ ‘be perfect;’ ‘walk worthy of the Lord.’”
“Christian parents! For which of the two worlds are you training your children? For this world, or that which is to come? Be assured that the same training will not do for both.”
If you haven’t checked out my review of Light & Truth—Revelation, please click here. You can also read the first set of quotes I shared from this book by clicking here.
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