It is imperative that preachers of today learn how to declare the spritual law of God; for, until we learn how to wound consciences, we shall have no wounds to bind with Gospel bandages.
I believe that much of our evangelistic and personal work today is not clear simply because we are too anxious to get to the answer without having a man realize the real cause of his sickness, which is true moral guilt (and not just psychological guilt feelings) in the presence of God. Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 71
I know that some are always studying the meaning of the fourth toe of the right foot of some beast in prophecy and have never used either foot to go and bring men to Christ. I do not know who the 666 is in Revelation but I know the world is sick, sick, sick and the best way to speed the Lord's return is to win more souls for Him.
I am convinced that many men who preach the gospel and love the Lord are really misunderstood. People make a "profession," but because they haven't understood the message, they are not really saved. They feel a psychological need and they want psychological relief, but they don't understand that the Christian message is not talking only about psychological relief (though it includes that) but is talking about true moral guilt in the presence of a holy God who exists. The real need is salvation from true moral guilt, not just relief from guilt feelings. And I am certain many men who make a profession go away still unsaved, having not heard one word of the real gospel because they have filtered the message through their own thought forms and their own intellectual framework in which the word "guilt" equals "guilt feelings." Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 93
If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.
Many do not recognize the fact as they ought, that Satan has got men fast asleep in sin and that it is his great device to keep them so. He does not care what we do if he can do that. We may sing songs about the sweet by and by, preach sermons and say prayers until doomsday, and he will never concern himself about us, if we don't wake anybody up. But if we awake the sleeping sinner he will gnash on us with his teeth. This is our work - to wake people up.
All the church is to be made up of tellers. Not everyone is to be a missionary, not everyone a minister, but there is no Christian that's really become a Christian who doesn't have laid upon him the admonition of Paul to be a debtor. Everyone is bound to be a teller in his own place, in his own calling, according to the individual vocation which God has given him. Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 122
One must take comfort in remembering that God used an ass to convert the prophet; perhaps if we do our poor best we shall be allowed a stall near it in the celestial stable.
Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be clergymen or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon Earth.
Personal evangelism should be characterized by sensitivity. One is talking to another person, not into a tape recorder.
You are a Christian because somebody cared. Now it's your turn.
It is imperative that preachers of today learn how to declare the spritual law of God; for, until we learn how to wound consciences, we shall have no wounds to bind with Gospel bandages.
I believe that much of our evangelistic and personal work today is not clear simply because we are too anxious to get to the answer without having a man realize the real cause of his sickness, which is true moral guilt (and not just psychological guilt feelings) in the presence of God. Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 71
I know that some are always studying the meaning of the fourth toe of the right foot of some beast in prophecy and have never used either foot to go and bring men to Christ. I do not know who the 666 is in Revelation but I know the world is sick, sick, sick and the best way to speed the Lord's return is to win more souls for Him.
I am convinced that many men who preach the gospel and love the Lord are really misunderstood. People make a "profession," but because they haven't understood the message, they are not really saved. They feel a psychological need and they want psychological relief, but they don't understand that the Christian message is not talking only about psychological relief (though it includes that) but is talking about true moral guilt in the presence of a holy God who exists. The real need is salvation from true moral guilt, not just relief from guilt feelings. And I am certain many men who make a profession go away still unsaved, having not heard one word of the real gospel because they have filtered the message through their own thought forms and their own intellectual framework in which the word "guilt" equals "guilt feelings." Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 93
If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.
Many do not recognize the fact as they ought, that Satan has got men fast asleep in sin and that it is his great device to keep them so. He does not care what we do if he can do that. We may sing songs about the sweet by and by, preach sermons and say prayers until doomsday, and he will never concern himself about us, if we don't wake anybody up. But if we awake the sleeping sinner he will gnash on us with his teeth. This is our work - to wake people up.
All the church is to be made up of tellers. Not everyone is to be a missionary, not everyone a minister, but there is no Christian that's really become a Christian who doesn't have laid upon him the admonition of Paul to be a debtor. Everyone is bound to be a teller in his own place, in his own calling, according to the individual vocation which God has given him. Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 122
One must take comfort in remembering that God used an ass to convert the prophet; perhaps if we do our poor best we shall be allowed a stall near it in the celestial stable.
Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be clergymen or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon Earth.
Personal evangelism should be characterized by sensitivity. One is talking to another person, not into a tape recorder.
You are a Christian because somebody cared. Now it's your turn.
'It is more a question with me whether we, who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not, can be saved.
Gospellers have much to say about what Christ's death accomplished for those who believe in Him, but very little is said about what that Death accomplished Godwards. The fact is that the death of Christ glorified God if never a single sinner had been saved by virtue of it.
Gospel truth seeks no corners, because it fears no trials.
The nature of Christ's salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day evangelist. He announces a Savior from hell rather than a Savior from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of Fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness.
Alas! can we think that the reformation is wrought, when we cast out a few ceremonies, and changed some vestures,and gestures, and forms! Oh no, sirs!it is the converting and saving of souls that is our business.
Religion is a dish to be served hot; once it becomes lukewarm it is sickening. Our baptism must be with the Holy Ghost and with fire if we would win the masses to hear the gospel.
We shall have all eternity in which to celebrate our victories, but we have only one swift hour before the sunset in which to win them.
Trying to run a church without revivals can be done when you can run a gasoline engine on buttermilk.
Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry? Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die? Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand? Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you damned?
Preaching several easy steps to Heaven is not evangelism.
It is either all of Christ or none of Christ! I believe we need to preach again a whole Christ to the world--a Christ who does not need our apologies, a Christ who will not be divided, a Christ who will either be Lord of all or will not be Lord at all!
Those that are good ministers themselves wish that there were more good ministers, for there is work for more. It is common for tradesmen not to care how few there are of their own trade; but Christ would have the labourers in his vineyard reckon it a matter of complaint when the labourers are so few.
The world is my parish.
Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.
There can be no revival when Mr. Amen and Mr. Wet-Eyes are not found in the audience.
I like to hear a man dwell much on the same essentials of Christianity. For we have but one God, and one Christ, and one faith to preach; and I will not preach another Gospel to please men with variety, as if our Saviour and our Gospel were grown stale.
When we evangelize, our trust must be in God who raises the dead.
If the great objective assigned to us by Jesus Christ is to "preach the gospel to every creature," then the smallest whole number of that objective is one single person.
If sinners be dammed, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for.
I read of the revivals of the past, great sweeping revivals where thousands of men were swept into the Kingdom of God. I read about Charles G. Finney winning his thousands and his hundreds of thousands of souls to Christ. Then I picked up a book and read the messages of Charles G. Finney and the message of Jonathan Edwards on 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,' and I said, 'No wonder men trembled; no wonder they fell in the altars and cried out in repentance and sobbed their way to the throne of grace!'
The Church is the one institution that exists for those outside it.
Much of modern preaching is anaemic, with the life-blood of God's nature absent from the message. Evangelists centre their message upon man...Christ's Gospel sends men to beg pardon of the Holy One.
Perhaps if there were more of that intense distress for souls that leads to tears, we should more frequently see the results we desire. Sometimes it may be that while we are complaining of the hardness of the hearts of those we are seeking to benefit, the hardness of our own hearts and our feeble apprehension of the solemn reality of eternal things may be the true cause of our want of success.
Matrimony is nowhere named among the means of conversion. Remember Lot's choice.
No translation is quite as effective as the flesh-and -blood edition. Alas, some of these are very incomplete and some are parodies of the text. Some are private revisions, not translations, of the original. Remember, a world is watching us. May our translationsbe true in letter and spirit.
Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't.
Gospellers have much to say about what Christ's death accomplished for those who believe in Him, but very little is said about what that Death accomplished Godwards. The fact is that the death of Christ glorified God if never a single sinner had been saved by virtue of it.
Gospel truth seeks no corners, because it fears no trials.
The nature of Christ's salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day evangelist. He announces a Savior from hell rather than a Savior from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of Fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness.
Alas! can we think that the reformation is wrought, when we cast out a few ceremonies, and changed some vestures,and gestures, and forms! Oh no, sirs!it is the converting and saving of souls that is our business.
Religion is a dish to be served hot; once it becomes lukewarm it is sickening. Our baptism must be with the Holy Ghost and with fire if we would win the masses to hear the gospel.
We shall have all eternity in which to celebrate our victories, but we have only one swift hour before the sunset in which to win them.
Trying to run a church without revivals can be done when you can run a gasoline engine on buttermilk.
Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry? Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die? Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand? Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you damned?
Preaching several easy steps to Heaven is not evangelism.
It is either all of Christ or none of Christ! I believe we need to preach again a whole Christ to the world--a Christ who does not need our apologies, a Christ who will not be divided, a Christ who will either be Lord of all or will not be Lord at all!
Those that are good ministers themselves wish that there were more good ministers, for there is work for more. It is common for tradesmen not to care how few there are of their own trade; but Christ would have the labourers in his vineyard reckon it a matter of complaint when the labourers are so few.
The world is my parish.
Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.
There can be no revival when Mr. Amen and Mr. Wet-Eyes are not found in the audience.
I like to hear a man dwell much on the same essentials of Christianity. For we have but one God, and one Christ, and one faith to preach; and I will not preach another Gospel to please men with variety, as if our Saviour and our Gospel were grown stale.
When we evangelize, our trust must be in God who raises the dead.
If the great objective assigned to us by Jesus Christ is to "preach the gospel to every creature," then the smallest whole number of that objective is one single person.
If sinners be dammed, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for.
I read of the revivals of the past, great sweeping revivals where thousands of men were swept into the Kingdom of God. I read about Charles G. Finney winning his thousands and his hundreds of thousands of souls to Christ. Then I picked up a book and read the messages of Charles G. Finney and the message of Jonathan Edwards on 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,' and I said, 'No wonder men trembled; no wonder they fell in the altars and cried out in repentance and sobbed their way to the throne of grace!'
The Church is the one institution that exists for those outside it.
Much of modern preaching is anaemic, with the life-blood of God's nature absent from the message. Evangelists centre their message upon man...Christ's Gospel sends men to beg pardon of the Holy One.
Perhaps if there were more of that intense distress for souls that leads to tears, we should more frequently see the results we desire. Sometimes it may be that while we are complaining of the hardness of the hearts of those we are seeking to benefit, the hardness of our own hearts and our feeble apprehension of the solemn reality of eternal things may be the true cause of our want of success.
Matrimony is nowhere named among the means of conversion. Remember Lot's choice.
No translation is quite as effective as the flesh-and -blood edition. Alas, some of these are very incomplete and some are parodies of the text. Some are private revisions, not translations, of the original. Remember, a world is watching us. May our translationsbe true in letter and spirit.
Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't.
