A Body of Divinity - by Thomas Watson

"A humble confession exalts God.  How is God's free grace magnified in crowning those who deserve to be condemned! (pg. 11)

"We shall never enjoy ourselves fully till we enjoy God eternally." (pg. 26)

"It is limiting God to confine him within the narrow compass of our reason." (pg. 55)

"It is better to want comfort, and be humble, than to have it, and be proud." (pg. 76)

"We stagger through unbelief, as if the arm of God's power were shrunk, and he could not help in desperate cases." (pg. 80)

"We can never be thankful enough to God, that he has hid the knowledge of himself from the wise and prudent of the world, and has revealed it unto us." (pg. 108)

"...if there be not three persons in the Godhead, man's salvation cannot be wrought out; if there be no second person in the Trinity, there is no redeemer; if no third person, there is no comforter.  Thus the plank is taken away by which we get to heaven." (pg. 110)

"Providence is a Christian's diary, but not his Bible.  Sometimes a bad cause prevails and gets ground, but it is not to be liked because it prevails.  We must not think the better of what is sinful, because it is successful." (pg. 123)

"Though grace cannot make sin not to be, yet it makes it not to reign; though grace cannot expel sin, it can repel it.  And for our comfort, where grace makes a combat with sin, death shall make a conquest. (pg. 148)

"The light of knowledge is one thing, the savour another.  Christ makes us taste a savouriness in the word." (pg. 168)

"As Christ's assuming our human nature was a master-piece of wisdom, so it was a monument of free grace." (pg. 194)

"Great was the work of creation, but greater the work of redemption; it cost more to redeem us than to make us; in the one there was but the speaking of a word, in the other the shedding of blood." (pg. 209)

"Justification is a mercy spun out of the bowels of free grace.  God does not justify us because we are worthy, but by justifying us makes us worthy." (pg. 227)

"It is absurd to imagine that God should justify a people, and they should still go on in sin.  If God should justify a people and not sanctify them, he would justify a people whom he could not glorify.  A holy God cannot lay a sinner in his bosom." (pg. 229)

"In sanctification, there is a blessed pliableness in the will; it symbolizes and comports with the will of God." (pg. 241)

"Under these fair leaves of civility the worm of unbelief may be hid.  A moral person has a secret antipathy against grace: he hates vice, and he hates grace as much as vice." (pg. 243)

"The wicked may have something which looks like peace, but it is not.  They may be fearless and stupid; but there is a great difference between a stupified conscience, and a pacified conscience." (pg. 262)

"If faith does not grow, unbelief will; if heavenly-mindedness does not grow, covetousness will." (pg. 276)

Thomas Watson, A Body Of Divinity (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2015)

Christ the Controversialist - by John R. W. Stott

"We are to be dogmatic about what has been plainly revealed and agnostic about what has not; and it is this Christian combination of dogmatism and agnosticism which we find it difficult to preserve.  Our troubles begin when we allow our dogmatism to invade the realm of 'the secret things' or our agnosticism to obscure 'the things that are revealed'." (pg. 15)

"Dislike of dogmatism, hatred of controversy, love of tolerance, the call to close our ranks, and the spirit of ecumenism - these are some of the modern tendencies which are unfriendly to the purpose of this book." (pg. 26)

"The Christian's welcome to change must be discriminating, however.  It does not include the apostolic doctrine of the New Testament.  Our responsibility towards this is not to abandon it but to hold it fast, not to modify it but to maintain it in its pristine purity." (pg. 37)

"If God occupies only the gaps, then as scientific discoveries increase and the gaps decrease, God is gradually edged out of His own universe." (pg. 57)

"The true function of Scripture is to testify to Christ so plainly and powerfully that first we see Him, and secondly we believe in Him for life." (pg. 100)

"If the priesthood of all believers is the first fruit of justification, 'assurance' is the second, that is to say, the God-given certainty that through Christ our sins have been forgiven, we have peace with God and He has given us eternal life." (pg. 124)

"We need to remember that the living God of the biblical revelation is not only the Saviour and Father of His covenant people; He is also the Creator, Lord and Judge of all mankind." (pg. 146)

"...'pride' usually betrays its presence in haughty looks and vain practices, but even if the proud man succeeds in preserving a humble appearance, his secret pride is still an abomination to the Lord." (pg. 147)

"...although we are not sanctified by the law but by the Spirit, yet what the Spirit does in sanctifying us is precisely to write the law in our hearts!  Thus the observance of the law, though not the ground of our justification, is the result of it, and though not the means of our sanctification is the essence of it." (pg. 153)

"The only worship pleasing to God is heart-worship, and heart-worship is rational worship.  It is the worship of a rational God who has made us rational beings and given us a rational revelation so that we may worship Him rationally, even 'with all our mind'." (pg. 165)

"The history of the world has been soiled by the pursuit of religion without morality, of piety without love.  Sometimes the conscience of worshippers has been so blind or hard that they have actually introduced evil into their acts of worship and even identified the two." (pg. 170)

"So true Christian love will care for people as people, and will seek to serve them, neglecting neither the soul for the body nor the body for the soul." (pg. 188)

"...to practice our religion before men is certain to degrade it, to practice it before God is equally certain to ennoble it." (pg. 202)

John R. W. Stott, Christ the Controversialist (London, England: The Tyndale Press, 1970)

The Intolerance of Tolerance - by D. A. Carson

"The new tolerance suggests that actually accepting another's position means believing that position to be true, or at least as true as your own." (pg. 3)

"The issue ought to be whether any particular act of discrimination is good, sensible, and proper, for there are both good and evil forms of discrimination." (pg. 22)

"Genuine pluralism within the broader culture is facilitated when there is a strong Christian voice loyal to the Scriptures - as well as strong Muslim voices, skeptical voices, Buddhist voices, atheistic voices, and so forth.  Genuine pluralism within the broader culture is not fostered when in the name of tolerance none of the voices can say that any of the others is wrong, and when this stance is the only ultimate virtue." (pg. 35)

"...historically, toleration was tied to societies that had a shared moral vision and a conscience, while today it is far more tightly tied to individual freedom." (pg. 50)

"By some assessments, a nation may become more secularized and more religious at the same time.  It's just that the religious side does not matter very much anymore in the public square and therefore in the direction of the nation, in its public pulse." (pg. 71)

"The impact of this increasing empirical pluralism is multiplied many times over by the digital revolution: with minimal effort we find ourselves exposed to an incredibly broad diversity of cultures, opinions, interpretations of history, languages, and so forth.  Moreover, in the virtual world we can create our own realities.  All of this conspires to push questions of truth to the margins while magnifying the importance of tolerance." (pg. 74)

"In the name of tolerant diversity and a free press, the agenda of hidden motives surfaces: a targeted contempt for and hatred of Christ and Christians, a contempt and hatred reserved for no other religion.  The current pattern of distinctly anti-Christian polemic is worse than bad taste: it betrays a myopia, not to say a willful ignorance of history, that is frankly shocking." (pg. 93)

"To talk about the tolerance of God apart from this richer biblical portrayal of God is to do him an injustice.  His love is better than tolerance; his wrath guarantees justice that mere tolerance can never imagine." (pg. 103)

"The failure to recognize the evil in our own hearts is precisely what convinces so many of us that our opinions and motives are above reproach while those who contradict us are stupid or malign." (pg. 130)

"...when the vision of what is 'the good' becomes hugely polarized in any culture, such that widespread consensus is no longer possible, then it is not only a question of who 'wins' or 'loses' on any particular issue, but also a matter of the extent to which the opposing view is tolerated." (pg. 146)

"No Christian should ever succumb to the idolatrous notion that the right party will bring in utopia.  That is not where our ultimate confidence lies." (pg. 157)

D. A. Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2012)

The Crook in the Lot - by Thomas Boston

"As to the crook in thy lot, God hath made it; and it must continue while He will have it so." (pg. 3)

"Since the crook in the lot is the special trial appointed for every one, it is altogether reasonable, and becoming the wisdom of God, that it fall on that which of all things doth most rival him." (pg. 12)

"The truth is, the crook in the lot is the great engine of Providence for making men appear in their true colours, discovering both their ill and their good: and if the grace of God be in them, it will bring it out, and cause it to display itself." (pg. 30)

"The truth is, the crook in the lot of a believer, how painful soever it proves, is a part of the discipline of the covenant, the nurture secured to Christ's children by the promise of the Father." (pg. 35)

"In managing of which exchange, God first puts out His hand and takes away some earthly thing from us: and it is expected we put out our hand next, and take some heavenly thing from Him in the stead of it, and particularly his Christ." (pg. 49)

"A serious view of death and eternity might make us set ourselves to behave rightly under our crook while it lasts." (pg. 55)

"A humble spirit is better than a heightened condition." (pg. 67)

"As you meet with crosses in your lot in the world, let your desire be rather to have your spirit humbled and brought down, than to get the cross removed.  I mean not but that you may use all lawful means for the removal of your cross, in dependence on God; but only that you be more concerned to get your spirit to bow and ply, than to get the crook in your lot evened." (pg. 84)

"Prosperity puffs up sinners with pride; for it is very hard to keep a low spirit with a high and prosperous lot." (pg. 93)

"Pride at every turn finds something that is below the man to condescend or stoop to, measuring by his own mind and will, not by the circumstances God has placed him in.  But humility measures by the circumstances one is placed in, and readily falls in with what they require." (pg. 96)

"Will nothing please you but two heavens, one here, another hereafter?  God has secured one heaven for the saints, one place where they shall get all their will, wish, and desire; where there shall be no weight on them to hold them down; and that is in the other world." (pg. 107)

"And so it is, that while the proud, through their obstinacy, do but wreath the yoke faster about their own necks, the humble ones, by their yielding, make their relief sure." (pg. 111ff)

"To conclude: we may assure ourselves, God will at length break in pieces the proud, be they ever so high; and He will triumphantly lift up the humble, be they ever so low." (pg. 143)

Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot (Choteau, MT: Old Paths Gospel Press)

The Anatomy of Secret Sins - by Obadiah Sedgwick

"...(1) pride is a bold and presuming sin; and (2) it is that which is the main ingredient of a presumptuous kind of sinning." (pg. 3)

"The heart of man is a scheme of wickedness.  A man says that in his heart which he dares not speak with his tongue, and his thought will do that which his hands dare not execute.  Well, then, sin may be called secret when it is sin and acted as sin even there, where none but God and conscience can see." (pg. 11)

"Satan shall not need to tempt him much who has already tempted himself: and he who will work sin in his heart, a weak occasion will draw it out into his life." (pg. 15)

"...Fore-past sins must be eyed with grief, present inclinations with combat, and future with fear." (pg. 61)

"...presumption disposes of mercy beyond all allowance and writes a pardon which God will never seal." (pg. 74)

"We carry about with us vile natures and treacherous hearts!  Even those abominations which sometimes we would have trembled at, unto them will our wicked selves deliver ourselves, if God does not keep us back." (pg. 103)

"Mercy is the tenderest goodness but, with all, it is a special goodness, and is set up not as a light by the sea, that a man may know thereby how to sail more freely, that a man should therefore sin more violently, but as a proclamation from a prince to draw in the rebel to sheath his sword, and to fall down on his knees." (pg. 123)

"Deliverance from the greatest evil is reason enough for great thanks.  It is more than if God had delivered you from hell if He has delivered you from the dominion of sin." (pg. 187)

"If ignorance rules the mind, then sin will easily rule the heart.  All sinful dominion is enabled by ignorance." (pg. 213)

"There are some graces which are, as it were, the guard of other graces.  Look, as faith is a grace which feeds all the rest, so fear is a grace which keeps all the rest." (pg. 223)

"A man's heart is upright when God alone, HIs ways alone, and His truth alone satisfy, order, and bound it; when a man can say in truth, as they in the matter of choice, 'Nay, but the Lord is our God, Him will we serve.'" (pg. 233)

"A hypocrite may do so much about duties as to manifest the excellency of his gifts, but he does not that regarding duties that will argue the efficacy of grace." (pg. 277)

"There are two things which show great rottenness of heart.  One is when any sin has our warrant sealed with secret allowance.  Another is when we drive on the sin with a customary trade and continuance." (pg. 310)

"Unbelief is the root of all hypocrisy and apostasy.  That men are but half in duties, is because they do not indeed believe the extent of obedience to God; and that they keep some private lust is because they do not indeed believe the truth of God's justice, power, and wrath." (pg. 329)

Obadiah Sedgwick, The Anatomy of Secret Sins (Morgan, PA:Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1995)

The Weight of Glory - by C. S. Lewis

"Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object." (pg. 29)

"To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son - it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain.  But so it is." (pg. 39)

"We can be left utterly and absolutely outside - repelled, exiled, estranged, finally and unspeakably ignored.  On the other hand, we can be called in, welcomed, received, acknowledged.  We walk every day on the razor edge between these two incredible possibilities." (pg. 41ff)

"The main difference between Reason and Conscience is an alarming one.  It is thus: that while the unarguable intuitions on which all depend are liable to be corrupted by passion when we are considering truth and falsehood, they are much more liable, they are almost certain to be corrupted when we are considering good and evil." (pg. 68)

"The attempt to discover by introspective analysis our own spiritual condition is to me a horrible thing which reveals, at best, not the secrets of God's spirit and ours, but their transpositions in intellect, emotion, and imagination, and which at worst may be the quickest road to presumption or despair." (pg. 106ff)

"As long as this deliberate refusal to understand things from above, even where such understanding is possible, continues, it is idle to talk of any final victory over materialism.  The critique of every experience from below, the voluntary ignoring of meaning and concentration on fact, will always have the same plausibility." (pg. 114)

"Of all passions the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things." (pg. 154)

"We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy, and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship." (pg. 160)

"There is, in fact, a fatal tendency in all human activities for the means to encroach upon the very ends which they were intended to serve." (pg. 162)

"The Christian is called not to individualism but to membership in the mystical body.  A consideration of the differences between the secular collective and the mystical body is therefore the first step to understanding how Christianity without being individualistic can yet counteract collectivism." (pg. 163)

"Obedience is the road to freedom, humility the road to pleasure, unity the road to personality." (pg. 167)

"Authority exercised with humility and obedience accepted with delight are the very lines along which our spirits live." (pg. 170)

"Neither the individual nor the community as popular thought understands them can inherit eternal life, neither the natural self, nor the collective mass, but a new creature." (pg. 176)

C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (New York, NY:HarperCollins, 2001)

The Power In Praising God - by Charles Spurgeon

"There is no activity under heaven that is more exalting than praising God.  However great may be the work for which we are responsible, we will always do well if we pause to spend time in sacred praise." (pg. 7)

"There is, perhaps, no exercise that, on the whole, strengthens us as much as praising God." (pg. 23)

"If we are always blessing the Lord, we will be saved from complaining; the spirit of discontent will be ejected by the spirit of thankfulness." (pg. 48)

"When your mind finds all its joy in God, then it is clear that God and you, as much as can be, are standing on the same plane and moving in the same direction.  Then you will have the desire of your heart because the desire of your heart is the desire of God's heart. (pg. 74)

"...it does not matter what you think or what you know, unless it leads you to glorify God and to be thankful.  In fact, your knowledge may be a millstone around your neck that will plunge you to eternal misery unless your knowledge is turned to holy practice." (p.g 148)

"No song is so sweet, I think, in the ear of God as the song of a man who blesses Him for grace he has not tasted yet - for what he has not received, but what he is sure will come.  The praise of gratitude for the past is sweet, but that praise is sweeter that adores God for the future in full confidence that all will be well." (pg. 166)

Charles Spurgeon, The Power In Praising God (New Kensington, PA:Whitaker House, 1998)

Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the soul - by Octavius Winslow

"We often think of faith and love, and their kindred graces, as though they were essentially omnipotent; forgetting that though they undoubtedly are divine in their origin, spiritual in their nature, and sanctifying in their effects, they yet are sustained by no self-supporting power, but by constant communications of life and nourishment from Jesus; that, the moment of their being left to their inherent strength, is the moment of their certain declension and decay." (pg. 10)

"Rocked to sleep by a mere formal religion, the believer is beguiled into the delusion that his heart is right, and his soul prosperous in the sight of God.  Even more than this, - a declining believer may have sunk so deeply into a state of formality, as to substitute the outward and the public means of grace for a close and secret walk with God." (pg. 16)

"All soul-declension arises from the admission of things into the mind contrary to the nature of indwelling grace." (pg. 35)

"Love, flowing from the heart of Jesus into the heart of a poor, believing sinner, expelling selfishness, melting coldness, conquering sinfulness, and drawing that heart up in a simple and unreserved surrender, is, of all principles of action, the most powerful and sanctifying." (pg. 44)

"No mind is so powerful as a renewed and sanctified mind." (pg. 68)

"Nothing perhaps more tends to unhinge the soul from God, engender distrust, hard thoughts, and rebellious feelings, than thus to doubt his loving-kindness and faithfulness in the discipline he is pleased to send." (pg. 82)

"If the soul is in a spiritually healthy, growing state, prayer will be vigorous, lively, spiritual, and constant; if, on the contrary, an incipient process of declension is going forward in the soul - if the heart is wandering, and love waxeth cold, and faith is decaying, the spirit and the habit of prayer will immediately betray it. " (pg. 94)

"The sacred Word, inspired though it be, is but a dead letter, unclothed with the life-giving power of the Holy Ghost." (pg. 113)

"The 'Sun of righteousness' might have risen upon the world in all his peerless splendour; but until the mental eye had been opened by the Holy Spirit, not a beam had found its way into the dark chambers of the understanding and the heart." (pg. 128)

"The work of the Spirit is, not to atone, but to reveal the atonement; not to obey, but to make known the obedience; not to pardon and justify, but to bring the convinced, awakened, penitent soul to receive the pardon and embrace the justification already provided in the work of Jesus." (pg. 136)

"We are but imperfect judges of what tends best to our spiritual or temporal benefit.  That which we may deem absolutely essential to both, the Lord in his wisdom and love may see proper to remove; and as frequently, that for the removal of which we had often besought the Lord, he may see fit to retain." (pg. 162)

"There is no more self-recovery after, than there is before, conversion; it is entirely the Lord's work." (pg. 174)

"...no creature ever has or ever can, by any innate, inherent strength or power of his own, help himself; that moment God leaves him to himself, that moment he falls." (pg. 190)

Octavius Winslow, Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul (Edinburgh, Scotland: The Banner Of Truth Trust, 2000)

The Gospel Comes with a House Key - by Rosaria Butterfield

"Radically ordinary hospitality is this: using your Christian home in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God.  It brings glory to God, serves others, and lives out the gospel in word and deed." (pg. 31)

"Failing to discern rightly who we are renders us unable to accurately discern anything we touch, feel, think, or dream.  Failing to discern rightly who we are renders us unable to properly know who God is.  We are truly lost in a darkness of our own making." (pg. 60)

"Because Christian conversation always comes in exchange for the life you once loved, not in addition to it, people have much to lose in coming to Christ - and some people have more to lose than others." (pg. 95)

"Radically ordinary hospitality begins when we remember that God uses us as living epistles and that the openness or inaccessibility of our homes and hearts stands between life and death, victory and defeat, and grace or shame for most people." (pg. 109)

"Grace does not make the hard thing go away; grace illumines the hard thing with eternal meaning and purpose.  Grace gives you company in your affliction, in Christ himself and in the family of God." (pg. 200ff)

"One reason that too many Christians fail to practice ordinary, radical, Christian hospitality is that we have become so duped and distracted by its counterfeit that we don't know what we need." (pg. 216)

"The household that has too much and thinks too highly of material possessions has become seduced by the idols of acquisition and achievement.  If you love acquisition and achievement, you will never practice hospitality." (pg. 216)

Rosaria Butterfield, The Gospel Comes with a House Key (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018)

The Godly Man's Picture - by Thomas Watson

"Grace is called 'the new man' (Col. 3:10), not a new eye, or tongue, but a new man.  He who is godly is good all over; though he is regenerate only in part, yet it is in every part." (pg. 13)

"He will never be a priest to intercede unless your heart is the throne where he sways his scepter.  A true applying of Christ is when we so take him as a husband that we give up ourselves to him as Lord." (pg. 22)

"A humble Christian studies his own infirmities and another's excellences and that makes him put a higher value upon others than himself." (pg. 79)

"There is no idol like self; the proud man bows down to this idol." (pg. 83)

"A godly man cannot live without prayer.  A man cannot live unless he takes his breath, nor can the soul, unless it breathes forth its desires to God." (pg. 88)

"A godly man spiritualizes duty; he is not only for the doing of holy things but for the holy doing of things." (pg. 161)

"For a man to become a fool that he may be wise, to be saved purely by the righteousness of another, to keep all by losing all - this the natural man will by no means put in his creed." (pg. 177)

"A godly man should not only honour God while he lives, but do something that may promote God's glory when he is dead.  If our children are seasoned with gracious principles, they will stand up in our place when we have gone, and will glorify God in their generation." (pg. 187)

"Serious meditation represents everything in its native colour.  It shows an evil in sin and a lustre in grace." (pg. 206)

"Why are people so hasty in abandoning religion if not because they were so hasty in taking it up? (pg. 212)

"Self-love is self-hatred.  The man who cannot get beyond himself will never get to heaven." (pg. 214)

"Unbelief is worse than any other sin, because it brings God into suspicion with the creature.  It robs him of the richest jewel in his crown, which is his truth: 'He that believeth not God hath made him a liar' (1 John 5:10)." (pg. 225ff)

"It may humble the best to consider how much corruption is interlarded with their grace." (pg. 230)

"Rejoicing brings credit to your husband.  Christ loves a cheerful bride, and indeed the very purpose of God's making us sad is to make us rejoice.  We sow in tears, so that we may reap in joy." (pg. 251)

Thomas Watson, The Godly Man's Picture (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1999)

The Improvement of The Mind - by Isaac Watts

"...it appears to be the necessary duty and the interest of every person living to improve his understanding, to inform his judgment, to treasure up useful knowledge, and to acquire the skill of good reasoning, as far as his station, capacity, and circumstances furnish him with proper means for it." (pg. 2)

"...if upon some few superficial acquirements you value, exalt, and swell yourself, as though you were a man of learning already, you are thereby building a most impassable barrier against all improvement; you will lie down and indulge idleness, and rest yourself contented in the midst of deep and shameful ignorance." (pg. 6)

"Bishop Saunderson says, that study without prayer is atheism, and that prayer without study is presumption." (pg. 18)

"The eyes of a man in the jaundice make yellow observations on every living thing; and the soul tinctured with any passion or prejudice, diffuses a false colour over the real appearances of things, and disguises many of the common occurrences of life:  it never beholds things in a true light, nor suffers them to appear as they are." (pg. 35)

"In all our studies and pursuits of knowledge, let us remember that virtue and vice, sin and holiness, and the conformation of our hearts and lives to the duties of true religion and morality, are things of far more consequence than all the furniture of our understandings, and the richest treasures of mere speculative knowledge; and that, because they have a more immediate and effectual influence upon our eternal felicity or eternal sorrow." (pg. 46)

"...but where, to the advantage of learned lectures, living instructions, and well chosen books, diligence and study are superadded, this man has all human aids concurring to raise him to a superior degree of wisdom and knowledge." (pg. 124)

"Attention is a very necessary thing in order to improve our minds.  The evidence of truth doth not always appear immediately, nor strike the soul at first sight.  It is by long attention and inspection that we arrive at evidence, and it is for want of it we judge falsely of many things." (pg. 135)

"The passions call away the thoughts with incessant importunity towards the object that excited them; and if we indulge the frequent rise and roving of passions, we shall thereby procure an unsteady and inattentive habit of mind.  Yet this one exception must be admitted, viz.  If we can be so happy as to engage any passion of the soul on the side of the particular study which we are pursuing, it may have a great influence to fix the attention more strongly to it." (pg. 138)

"The mind that deals only in vulgar and common ideas is ready to imagine the nature and powers of man to come something too near to God his maker, because we do not see or sensibly converse with any beings superior to ourselves." (pg. 144)

"There is no reason whatsoever that can prove or establish any authority so firmly as to give it power to dictate in matters of belief what is contrary to all the dictates of our reasonable nature." (pg. 262)

"Over-hastiness and vehemence in arguing is oftentimes the effect of pride; it blunts the poignancy of the argument, breaks its force, and disappoints the end." (pg. 267)

Isaac Watts, The Improvement of the Mind (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1998)

Growing In Christ - by J. I. Packer

"Men treat God's sovereignty as a theme for controversy, but in Scripture it is matter for worship." (pg. 31)

"The key to understanding the New Testament view of the Spirit's work is to see that his purpose is identical with the Father's - namely, to see glory and praise come to the Son." (pg. 72)

"What the Spirit's witnessing effects is not private revelation of something hitherto undisclosed, but personal reception of God's public testimony which was 'there' all along in the Scriptures, but went unheeded." (pg. 73)

"The evangelical theology of revival, first spelled out in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the present-day emergence of 'charismatic renewal' on a worldwide scale, reminds us of something which Roman Catholic and Protestant disputers, in their concentration on doctrinal truth, tended to miss - namely, that church must always be open to the immediacy of the Spirit's Lordship, and that disorderly vigor in a congregation is infinitely preferable to a correct and tidy deadness." (pg. 77)

"The root reason for the practice of baptizing is to please Jesus Christ our Lord." (pg. 97)

"For Paul and all New Testament writers the link between believing and being baptized is evidently like that between inheriting the throne and being crowned: through the public ceremony the already existing reality of royal privilege is declared, confirmed, celebrated, and formally regularized." (pg. 100)

"Is there more to Christianity than practicing morality and supporting a church?  Many think not, but there is.  Christianity is a new life, consisting of new relationships with God, men, and things; and it all springs from one source - a unique link between the Christian and his Master, Jesus Christ." (pg. 119)

"If Christ is to be formed in me, doctrine, experience, and practice must all be there together." (pg. 127)

"The vitality of prayer lies largely in the vision of God that prompts it." (pg. 167)

"When Christians examine themselves, it is for omissions that they should first look, and they will always find that their saddest sins take the form of good left undone." (pg. 192)

"No statement starting, 'This is how I like to think of God' should ever be trusted.  An imagined God will always be more or less imaginary and unreal." (pg. 244)

"Is it not maddening when, after correcting someone's wrong ideas, you find that he was not listening, and is still trotting out his old mistake?  Measure by this the provocation offered to God if we fail to take note of what he has shown us of himself." (pg. 244)

J. I. Packer, Growing in Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994)

The Next Story: Faith, Friends, Family, And The Digital World - by Tim Challies

"...if technology is a good gift from God, with the potential to help us fulfill our God-given calling and purpose, why does it so often feel like we are slaves to our technology, like we are serving it instead of demanding that it serve us?" (pg. 13)

"We dream; we imagine new possibilities; we think of creative solutions.  And in all of these activities we resemble our Creator.  Ultimately, then, God himself is the author of all technology." (pg. 22)

"The things we create to assist us in overcoming the consequences of the curse also seek to dominate us, drawing our hearts away from God rather than drawing us toward him in dependence and faith." (pg. 24)

"Technology becomes an idol when we start to believe that humanity's hope, humanity's future, will be found in more and better technology." (pg. 30)

"Meanwhile, the digital explosion has even changed the way the adult brain functions.  It has placed many of us into what has been described as a state of continuous partial attention, a state in which we devote partial attention to many tasks simultaneously, most of them having to do with communication." (pg. 45)

"Until the telegraph, information was valued for its ability to assist in understanding and solving particular problems.  It was relevant for its ability to be a means toward a greater end. ... Even as the telegraph made people feel less isolated and developed communal identity around common experiences and shared knowledge, it also began to eliminate those features that had made each community different." (pg. 51)

"Learning through images and visual media is directly opposed to learning by reading, which requires a more sustained focus and actually generates new skills and capacities in the brain." (pg. 54)

"As we began to give our thoughts and our memories - our very identities in many cases - over to computers, we allowed them to do more and more things that could have been done in other ways.  We found that if we could have it done by computer, we wanted it done that way.  And eventually we began to forget how to do certain things without a computer." (pg. 58)

"...the invention of a technology almost always precedes its function.  Technology is generally created independently from the way it will eventually be used.  It is usually only after a new technology is invented that we use our creativity and ingenuity to find ways of integrating it into our lives.  This exacerbates its unintended consequences." (pg. 62)

"In almost every case, a new technology will solve some kind of a problem, but it may not be our problem." (pg. 63)

"At a time when we are increasingly disconnected from place, a cell phone seems to represent home.  As long as we have a phone, we can find and be found." (pg. 73)

"We are created with an innate desire for unmediated contact and communication with God." (pg. 93)

"The new, postmodern form of Gnosticism that we see today also promotes a fluidity of identity. ...  What we are in virtual worlds is just an expression of what we believe culturally." (pg. 102)

"Mediated communication gives us the ability to dedicate less of ourselves to more people." (pg. 112)

"Here is one of the great dangers we face as Christians: With the ever-present distractions in our lives, we are quickly becoming a people of shallow thoughts, and shallow thoughts will lead to shallow living." (pg. 117)

"As our technologies promote speed and capacity, the ability to do more in less time, they may promote a new form of idolatry.  They push us to make productivity and efficiency ends in themselves, idols we worship and serve." (pg. 126)

"The danger today, in an era of skimming and fragmentation, is that we will fragment the Bible into small bits and have no time or ability to craft unity from the parts." (pg. 129)

"...information has become an end in itself.  We have begun to believe that the accumulation of information somehow leads to wisdom, that more information will solve society's ills and improve our lives.  We place our faith in information." (pg. 141)

"A trend we see today through our digital technologies is the exaltation of knowledge about, a kind of knowledge composed of cold facts.  This comes at the expense of a more intimate kind of knowledge." (pg. 148)

"The wiki model tells us that truth is what the majority determines it to be. ... Truth does not have its source in God; it has its source in us - the majority opinion." (pg. 166)

"New digital technologies function as a great leveler, reducing the authority of the expert and elevating the authority of the amateur.  The lifelong theologian has no more authority than the young child; the teacher has no more authority than the pupil; the parent has no more authority than the child." (pg. 172)

"Truth is not what is relevant or what is popular, but what God thinks." (pg. 174)

Tim Challies, The Next Story: Faith, Friends, Family, And The Digital World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015)

Devoted To God: Blueprints For Sanctification - by Sinclair B. Ferguson

"Holiness is the intensity of the love that flows within the very being of God, among and between each of the three persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." (pg. 2)

"Knowing (i) whose you are, (ii) who you are, and (iii) what you are for, settles basic issues about how you live." (pg. 7)

"...God has in the past destined us, and in the present is transforming us, so that in the future we will 'be conformed to the image of his Son'." (pg. 17)

"If holiness is our heavenly happiness, and true happiness is, ultimately, holiness, then the prospect of the future will influence and shape our lives here and now.  How strange it is that people think (as many seem to do) that they will be happy pursuing holiness there and then in heaven, if they are singularly unhappy about the calling to pursue it here and now on earth! ...if we do not desire heaven as a world of holiness and freedom from the presence of sin, a world of delight in Jesus Christ here and now, what possesses us to think we will love it and enjoy it - or him - then?  There could surely be no greater self-delusion." (pg. 28ff)

"God's truth (given now to us in Scripture) expresses the power of Christ and the grace of Christ that transforms and renews our way of thinking and then our manner of living." (pg. 48ff)

"To understand rightly how baptism functions in our Christian lives we must first recognize that it points to Jesus Christ and to union with him by faith.  It does not point at faith so much as summon us to faith." (pg. 75)

"...we have lost hold of baptism's power and usefulness in our lives.  We do not get much beyond thinking about ourselves, and our faith in or 'decision for' Christ.  We therefore forfeit the life-long blessing baptism is intended to be.  And so our baptism fails to accomplish its purpose of defining our daily life in Christ." (pg. 87)

"Exhortations to be holy are always derived from an exposition of what God has done and provided for us in Christ and through the gift of the Spirit." (pg. 93)

"...You cannot have the Spirit as your Leader unless you have Christ as your Savior, because you cannot have the Spirit without having Christ, and vice-versa." (pg. 106ff)

"When we have rejected or denied our basic created desire for God (we were, after all, made for him), we do not destroy our need; we only distort it.  In its place we deify something that God has made." (pg. 117)

"Growing in holiness, enjoying closer fellowship with God, brings with it an ongoing and very painful revelation of layers of sin that have been subtly hidden in our hearts but rarely if ever exposed." (pg. 143)

"This spirit of the age has undoubtedly bled into the life of the church.  Now to place any emphasis on the law of God is often regarded by professing Christians as 'legalism'.  A new 'narrative' has arisen to interpret the 'old evangelicalism' which is now characterized - actually caricatured - as a religion of the 'dos and don'ts'.  Now we frequently hear that God loves us the way we are.  Any element of divine demand is seen as a return to the bad old ways and days - in a word to legalism." (pg. 173)

"Without the power of the Spirit we would lack the love for God that energizes us to keep his law.  But without the law of God our love for him would lack direction.  Thus we discover that the way of Christ leads us more and more into obedience to God's law." (pg. 187)

"Indwelling corruption has the potential to express itself in any and every from of sin.  Yet, as Augustine argued, sin is not an objective, quantifiable 'something' which attaches itself to us.  Rather it is the distortion of our persons.  Sin is not 'it' but 'I'!" (pg. 198)

"...we must make sure that these two things are held together - on the one had our own pursuit of Jesus Christ and on the other our desire to see others running with us." (pg. 212)

"...God's ultimate goal provides a touchstone by which we regulate our lives.  Nothing now is seen as an end in itself; the end of everything we do becomes glorifying God in the knowledge that we will enjoy him both now and for ever." (pg. 220)

"Likeness to Christ is the ultimate goal of sanctification.  It is holiness.  It is therefore also the ultimate fruit of being devoted to God." (pg. 235)

Sinclair B. Ferguson, Devoted To God: Blueprints For Sanctification (Edinburgh, UK: The Banner of Trust Trust, 2016)

The Person of Jesus: Radio Addresses on the Deity of the Savior - by J. Gresham Machen

"Pure feeling, if such a thing exists, is non-moral.  That can be observed in the sphere of human relationships.  What makes my affection for a human friend such an ennobling thing is the knowledge that I have of the character and the needs of my friend." (pg. 2)

"It is not a sin to worship the Jesus who is God and man.  But it is a sin to manufacture a Jesus who was man only and not God, and then after you have manufactured that purely human Jesus to bow down and worship him." (pg. 25)

"The upshot of what I have been saying is this: when men today say that Christ is God they often do so not because they think high of Christ but because they think desperately low of God." (pg. 26)

"...the gospel of Jesus was also a gospel about Jesus; the gospel that he preached was also a gospel that offered him as Savior.  He did not say merely: 'Have faith in God like the faith that I have in God,' but he said: 'Have faith in me.'" (pg. 40)

"If the Jesus of the Gospels were a purely natural and not a supernatural person, then we should have no difficulty in believing that such a person lived in the first century of our era.  Even skeptics would have no difficulty in believing it.  Defenders of the faith would have an easy victory indeed.  Everybody would believe.  But then there would be one drawback.  It would be this: the thing that everybody would believe would not be worth believing.  A purely natural, as distinguished from a supernatural, Christ would be just a teacher and example." (pg. 74ff)

"What those men had from the appearances of the risen Christ was not merely the conviction that Jesus was still alive.  No, what they had was the conviction that he had risen.  It was not merely the state of Jesus resultant upon the resurrection which was valuable for them, but the act of the resurrection.  At the heart of their faith was the conviction that Jesus had done something for them by his death and resurrection.  The Christian religion in other words is rooted in an event." (pg. 91)

"The evidence of the truth of Christianity must be taken as a whole.  The direct evidence for the resurrection must be taken together with the total picture of Jesus in the Gospels, and then that must be taken in connection with the evidence for the existence of God and the tremendous need of man which is caused by sin.  If you take the Bible as a whole you have a grand consistent account of God, of the world, and of human life.  If you reject the Bible, and particularly if you reject the fact of the resurrection, you have a jumble of meaningless and detached bits of information that dance before your imagination in a wild and riotous rout." (pg. 100ff)

J. Gresham Machen, The Person of Jesus: Radio Addresses on the Deity of the Savior (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 2017)

The Disciple-Making Parent: A Comprehensive Guidebook for Raising Your Children to Love and Follow Jesus Christ - by Chap Bettis

"This book is not a cookbook.  A cookbook lists the ingredients to include, the mixing method, and the needed cooking temperature.  Followed exactly, the dish turns out perfectly every time.  As parents it's easy to assume that if we give our children the right ingredients, keep out the wrong ingredients, and put them in the right environment for the right amount of time, we are guaranteed a certain result.  Parenting doesn't work that way. ... Instead, it's better to think of this material as a guidebook to help you on your parenting journey.  A guidebook is written by someone who has been where you are going.  While not feeling compelled to do everything the guidebook says, it is still helpful to learn from someone else's experience as you forge your own path.  Or, alternatively, you can think of this as a playbook.  Every football team has a collection of plays, called a playbook.  Any of these can be executed during the course of a game.  The goal of the team is to win the game, not execute every play in the playbook." (pg. XIIIff)

"God's intent in giving you the privilege of creating new lives is for you to raise them to know and love him." (pg. 5)

"Children are God's means to transform us.  Their sin reveals our sin.  Their questions reveal our ignorance.  All of these are God's prompts for us to grow." (pg. 15)

"The first battleground of family discipleship is not my child's heart; it is my heart.  Each parent must decide whether he is more concerned that this child is accepted into Heaven or 'Harvard.'" (pg. 17)

"Before God commands us to teach our children, he reminds us of the need we have to love God and to carry his Word in our hearts.  It is impossible to pass on something we do not possess.  Example has always been and will always be the most powerful teacher." (pg. 40)

"A child is God's sanctification machine, calling you to die to yourself daily.  Children are a floodlight on the idols of the heart.  Idols like comfort, looking good before others, control, success, or peace are all revealed by my little sinner!" (pg. 51)

"Circumstances don't cause the reaction of the heart; they merely reveal the true heart." (pg. 52)

"Unfortunately, a shallow view of sin will produce a shallow view of the cross and shallow Christians, as well.  Sin is much deeper than our actions.  It is also wrong attitudes toward God and others.  And deeper than wrong attitudes are wrong affections." (pg. 87)

"...talking together, learning the Word together, and serving others together are all effective means of grace to your children." (pg. 131)

"Your child is made to live for this purpose, battling real spiritual enemies and living a life of kingdom expansion.  He or she cannot be entertained enough to stay in the kingdom.  Why, then, do most youth groups base their ministry on entertainment?  Where is the youth group based on cosmic war?" (pg. 167)

"If spiritual leadership is moving God's people in God's direction through God's means, then prayer is a foundational means." (pg. 187)

Chap Bettis, The Disciple-Making Parent: A Comprehensive Guidebook for Raising Your Children to Love and Follow Jesus Christ (Diamond Hill Publishing, 2016)

The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, & Gospel Assurance - Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters - by Sinclair B. Ferguson

"The benefits of the gospel (justification, reconciliation, redemption, adoption) were being separated from Christ, who is himself the gospel.  The benefits of the gospel are in Christ.  They do not exist apart from him.  They are ours only in him.  They cannot be abstracted from him as if we ourselves could possess them independently of him." (pg. 44)

"Wherever the benefits of Christ are seen as abstractable from Christ himself, there is a decreasing stress on his person and work in preaching and in the books that are published to feed that preaching. This is accompanied by an increased stress on our experience of salvation rather than on the grace, majesty, and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ." (pg. 49ff)

"The root of legalism is almost as old as Eden, which explains why it is a primary, if not the ultimate, pastoral problem.  In seeking to bring freedom from legalism, we are engaged in undoing the ancient work of Satan." (pg. 80)

"It is this - a failure to see the generosity of God and his wise and loving plans for our lives - that lies at the root of legalism and drives it.  It bears repeating:  in Eve's case antinomianism (her opposition to and rejection of God's law) was itself an expression of her legalism!" (pg. 82ff)

"...legalism and antinomianism are, in fact, nonidentical twins that emerge from the same womb." (pg. 84)

"The ongoing function of God's law is not to serve as a standard to be met for justification but as a guide for Christian living." (pg. 114)

"In contemporary terms God stated the indicative - his commitment to his people; this in turn give rise to the imperative - the implications for the lifestyle of his people.  The implications are the outworking of his declarations." (pg. 116)

"It is, after all, through the gospel-gift of the Spirit that 'the law' is written in the heart - not as a 'covenant of works,' but as a 'rule of life.'" (pg. 121)

"At root then antinomianism separates God's law from God's person, and grace from the union with Christ in which the law is written in the heart.  In doing so it jeopardizes not simply the Decalogue; it dismantles the truth of the gospel." (pg. 154)

"There is only one genuine cure for legalism.  It is the same medicine the gospel prescribes for antinomianism: understanding and tasting union with Jesus Christ himself." (pg. 157)

"Love empowers the engine; law guides the direction.  They are mutually interdependent.  The notion that love can operate apart from law is a figment of the imagination.  It is not only bad theology; it is poor psychology.  It has to borrow from law to give eyes to love." (pg. 169)

"Obedience strengthens faith and confirms it to us because it is always marked by what Paul calls 'the obedience of faith.'" (pg. 201)

"We must never confuse the heart of assurance in faith with its confirmation in a life of service." (pg. 214)

Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, & Gospel Assurance - Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016)

The Puritans on Loving One Another - from the writings of Ralph Venning, Thomas Manton, Joseph Caryl & John Ball - edited by Rev. Don Kistler

"Indeed, the glory of all our hereafter glory will be oneness of communion with the Father, Son, Spirit, and one another in God, who is one in all and all in one." (pg. 8)

"It is true that the multitude of years teaches wisdom, and so may the youth of days; it is truth, and nothing but the truth, and all the truth, which should have our esteem, whether it is old or young, whether it is the firstborn of time or the last." (pg. 17)

"Jealousy is as quick as martial law: it arraigns, condemns, and executes all in a moment." (pg. 23)

"When we are inferior and others superior, we beg (as did the servant in Matthew 18:26), 'Have patience a little.' Have a little patience! But when we are superior and others inferior, we have no patience at all." (pg. 26)

"Nature is so in love with unity that particular beings will forsake their own interests, their elements and centers which are their rest and happiness, rather than there should be a breach or vacuity in nature. And it is but reasonable that particulars should serve the universal (for they who so lose, shall save), seeing that unless the vessel be preserved their cabins cannot." (pg. 28)

"...none must look upon love as an indifferent thing, which we may practice or forbear at our own pleasure. No, it is a debt or duty by virtue of Christ's express command, a duty to Christ, a debt that we owe to God more than to our neighbor. (pg. 62)

"Those works of love, of love toward man, much more of love toward God, which are the end of the commandment, must flow from a good spring, from a gracious principle, a principle of grace." (pg. 79)

"...the heart is evangelically pure though there is sin dwelling in us, or an indwelling sin; and though sin is stirring, having strong motions in us, it makes war in our souls from day to day, though sin sometimes prevails and gives us that foil; yet, notwithstanding all this, when: First, the soul is free from the command of every sin. Second, when the soul is free from the customary practice of every sin. And, third, when the soul is free from the love of any sin, then the soul is evangelically pure." (pg. 101)

"It is an easy matter to be pure in our own eyes and yet remain altogether unclean." (pg. 102ff)

"Love causes the soul of him who loves to be more where it loves than where it lives." (pg. 119)

Venning, Manton, Caryl, Ball, edited by Rev. Don Kistler, The Puritans on Loving One Another (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1997)

Rediscovering Holiness: Know the Fullness of Life with God - by J. I. Packer

"The recovering of old truth, truth that has been a means of blessing in the past, can under God become the means of blessing again in the present, while the quest for newer alternatives may well prove barren." (pg. 13)

"Holiness is always the saved sinner's response of gratitude for grace received." (pg. 22)

"Genuine holiness is genuine Christlikeness, and genuine Christlikeness is genuine humanness - the only genuine humanness there is. Love in the service of God and others, humility and meekness under the divine hand, integrity of behavior expressing integration of character, wisdom with faithfulness, boldness with prayerfulness, sorrow at people's sins, joy at the Father's goodness, and single-mindedness in seeking to please the Father morning, noon, and night, were all qualities seen in Christ, the perfect man." (pg. 27)

"To long for total spiritual well-being is right and natural, but to believe that one is anywhere near it is to be utterly self-deceived." (pg. 39)

"Our time will surely go down in history, at least as far as the West is concerned, as the age of the God-shrinkers. Mainstream thinkers, inside as well as outside the church, have affirmed either the bloodless deism of a God who is cool, faraway, and uninvolved, and who lets His world run free; or the static monism of a God whose achievement is limited to unifying reality by linking all entities and processes with Himself in an interdependent whole; or the pathetic impotence of a God who is revealed in Jesus as an unsuccessful lover; or the faceless force of a God who animates all religions equally, so that none should dream of displacing any other." (pg. 64)

"When almighty love has thus totally taken over the task of getting me home to glory, responsive love, fed by gratitude and expressed in thanksgiving, should surface spontaneously as the ruling passion of my life." (pg. 71)

"Spirituality without ethics corrupts itself by becoming morally insensitive and antinomian, more concerned to realize God's presence than to keep His law. Ethics without spirituality corrupts itself by becoming mechanical, formalistic, proud, and unspiritual." (pg. 86)

"All ventures in holiness go rotten at the core when gain in any form, rather than gratitude, motivates them." (pg. 97)

"Godly Christians have always been marked by a two-sided perception of the numinous [the sense of divine holiness]. On the one hand, the transcendent glory of God's purity and love, as focused in the plan of salvation, fascinates them. On the other hand, the transcendent glory of God's sovereignty, as focused in the divine threat of judgment for impiety, alarms them. This characteristically Christian sense of the mercy and the terror (fear) of the Lord is the seed-bed in which awareness grows that life-long repentance is a 'must' of holy living." (pg. 120ff)

"Some forms of so-called holiness teaching encourage us to be insensitive to, or unconcerned about, the ungodly thoughts and motives that lurk within us, but one index of true holiness is an increasing awareness of them, a growing hatred toward them, and a deepening repentance for them, when we find ourselves harboring them in our hearts." (pg. 136)

"The fact is that Christians today are all victims of our decadent late twentieth century ethos that wrenches public orthodoxy and personal morality apart, implying that the latter does not matter so long as one is valiant for the truth." (pg. 140)

"The point I am trying to drive home is that holiness is the healthy growth of morally misshapen humans toward the moral image of Jesus Christ, the perfect man. This growth is supernatural. It takes the sanctifying work of the indwelling Holy Spirit to effect it." (pg. 152)

"Law-keeping love is the epitome of holiness, though love in any other sense negates it. Law-keeping love is God's prescription for the fulfilling of our humanity." (pg. 163)

"It has been truly said that the greatest social problem of the modern world is extreme emotional immaturity masquerading as an adult lifestyle. In God's ordering of things, the human family is meant to function as a relational network in which the lesson of responsible love and life-strategy will be thoroughly learned. But with the weakening of family life almost everywhere this is not happening." (pg. 182ff)

"Christian endurance, as we have seen, means living lovingly, joyfully, peacefully, and patiently under conditions that we wish were different." (pg. 227)

"...Christian contentment, cheerfulness and joy are fed, not directly by spiritual experiences - feelings, visions, raptures, thrills, which come and go, and in particular cases may hardly come at all - but by cognitive meditation and reflection - that is, by thinking, and thinking often - about the goodness, glory, and grace of the holy Three." (pg. 262ff)

J. I. Packer, Rediscovering Holiness: Know the Fullness of Life with God (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2009)

Famine In The Land: A Passionate Call For Expository Preaching - by Steven J. Lawson

"This is the true nature of preaching. It is the man of God opening the Word of God and expounding its truths so that voice of God may be heard, the glory of God seen, and the will of God obeyed." (pg. 18)

"In seeking to capture the upper hand in church growth, a new wave of pastors is reinventing church and repackaging the gospel into a product to be sold to 'consumers.'" (pg. 25)

"While evangelicals affirm the inerrancy of Scripture, many have apparently abandoned their belief in its sufficiency to save and to sanctify." (pg. 26)

"Rather than expounding the depths of God's Word, many Bible-believing ministers have chosen the path of least resistance, content to scratch the surface of shallow souls and tickle the ears of languid listeners. The result is congregations are starving - even though many of the famished may not be aware of it - settling for sickly sweet, yet totally inadequate, spiritual pabulum." (pg. 38)

"This present-day 'famine' of 'hearing the words of the Lord' (Amos 8:11) must be traced back to a famine of preaching the Word. Surely John Stott is right when he observes, 'The low level of Christian living is due more than anything else to the low level of Christian preaching.' May preachers today expound the Book, the whole Book, and nothing but the Book - so help them God!" (pg. 98ff)

"...the ultimate goal of Bible exposition is changed lives. Preaching must do more than simply inform the mind; it must grip the heart and challenge the will. The entire person - mind, emotion, and will - must be impacted." (pg. 114)

Steven J. Lawson, Famine In The Land: A Passionate Call For Expository Preaching (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2003)