There never has been a culture since this world began in which a New Testament Christian could feel at home.
I have often been reminded of the wild duck that came down on migration into a barnyard and liked it so well that he stayed there. In the fall his erstwhile companions passed overhead and his first impulse was to rise and join them, but he had fed too well and could rise no higher than the eaves of the barn. The day came when his old fellow travelers could pass overhead without his even hearing their call. I have seen men and women who once mounted up with wings like eagles but are now content to live in the barnyard of this world.
We are the salt of the earth, mind you, not the sugar. Our ministry is to truly cleanse and not just to change the taste.
Faith doesn't wait until it understands; in that case it wouldn't be faith.
More Bibles are bought and fewer read than any other book.
We have suffered from the preaching of cheap grace. Grace is free, but it is not cheap. People will take anything that is free, but they are not interested in discipleship. They will take Christ as Savior but not as Lord.
Our Lord approved neither idol worship or idle worship but ideal worship in Spirit and truth.
We may never be martyrs but we can die to self, to sin, to the world, to our plans and ambitions. That is the significance of baptism; we died with Christ and rose to new life.
A preacher who is too big for a little crowd would be too little for a big crowd.
I preach on specific sins because people are not convicted by sermons on sin in general. It was when our Lord said to the Samaritan woman, 'Go call thy husband...' (John 4:16), that she really faced up to her sinfulness.
Because the Lord loves us He chastens and rebukes us. Modern sentimentality has reduced God to a tolerant indulgent grandfatherly being who winks at our transgressions.
The alternative to discipline is disaster
Satan does some of his worst work on exhausted Christians when nerves are frayed and the mind is faint.
Plenty of church members are shaky about what they believe, while not many are shaken by what they believe.
We justify ourselves when we should judge ourselves. If we learned humility, it might spare us the humiliation.
Somehow the idea has gotten around that it is unchristian to take a stand against heresy. Some of us need to read the New Testament again.
A soft and sheltered Christianity, afraid to be lean and lone, unwilling to face the storms and brave the heights, will end up fat and foul in the cages of conformity.
Some preachers ought to put more fire into their sermons or more sermons into the fire.
A revival is the church falling in love with Jesus Christ all over again.
Before we can strengthen believers or win the lost, we must be converted from the self-life to the Christ-life. . . "Not I, but Christ."
The early Christians condemned false doctrine in a way that sounds almost unchristian today.
The devil will let a preacher prepare a sermon if it will keep him from preparing himself.
Nobody in pulpit or pew needs a revival more than a bitter-spirited fundamentalist with his dispensations right and his disposition wrong.
It is not that God is stingy and must be coaxed, for He "giveth liberally and upbraideth not." It is that we ourselves are so shallow and sinful that we need to tarry before Him until our restless natures can be stilled and the clamor of outside voices be deadened so that we can hear His voice. Such a state is not easily reached, and the men God uses have paid a price in wrestlings and prevailing prayer. But it is such men who rise from their knees confident of His power and go forth to speak with authority.
The church is so subnormal that if it ever got back to the New Testament normal it would seem to people to be abnormal.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: