Sin, in short, is that vast moral disease which affects the whole human race, of every rank and class and name and nation and people and tongue, a disease from which there never was but one born of woman that was free. Need I say that One was Christ Jesus the Lord?
For my part I am persuaded the more light we have, the more we see our own sinfulness: the nearer we get to heaven, the more we are clothed with humility.
The very animals whose smell is most offensive to us have no idea that they are offensive, and are not offensive to one another.
The greater are our affections the deeper are our afflictions, and the more we love the more we have to weep.
A deep sense of sin, a humble willingness to be saved in God’s way, a teachable readiness to give up our own prejudices when a more excellent way is shown, these are the principal things. These things the two disciples possessed, and therefore our Lord “went with them” and guided them into all truth.
The love of Christ to sinners is the very essence and marrow of the Gospel.
A holy violence, a conflict, a warfare, a fight, a soldier’s life, a wrestling, are spoken of as characteristic of the true Christian.
It is a true saying of good Archbishop Leighton: ‘The way of sin is down hill; a man cannot stop when he would.
He and sin must quarrel, if he and God are to be friends.
The banknote without a signature at the bottom is nothing but a worthless piece of paper. A few strokes of a pen confer on it all its value. The prayer of a poor child of Adam is a feeble thing in itself, but once endorsed by the hand of the Lord Jesus it accomplishes much.
If the Bible is not the Word of God and inspired, the whole of Christendom for 1800 years has been under an immense delusion – half the human race has been cheated and deceived, and churches are monuments of folly. If the Bible is the Word of God and inspired, all who refuse to believe it are in fearful danger; they are living on the brink of eternal misery. No man, in his sober senses, can fail to see that the whole subject demands most serious attention.
The effects of preaching are a miracle.” A good preacher converts persons; he casts out devils from the hearts of those whom he changes from sin to holiness. This he could not do without power from God. But what seems good, is often not good.
Prayer and temptation, the Bible and meditation, make a true minister of the gospel.
Yet sanctification, in its place and proportion, is quite as important as justification. Sound protestant and evangelical doctrine is useless if it is not accompanied by a holy life. It is worse than useless: it does positive harm. It is despised by keen-sighted and shrewd men of the world, as an unreal and hollow thing, and brings religion into contempt.
Pride makes us rest content with ourselves – think we are good enough as we are – keep us from taking advice – refuse the gospel of Christ – turn every one to his own way. But pride never reigns anywhere so powerfully as in the heart of a young man.
Pride sits in all our hearts by nature. We are born proud. Pride makes us rest satisfied with ourselves, thinking we are good enough as we are. It closes our ears against all advice, refuses the gospel of Christ and turns every one to his own way.
Pride cast Adam out of paradise. He was not content with the place God assigned him. He tried to raise himself, and fell. Thus sin, sorrow and death entered into this world by pride.
El pecado nos llega, como Judas, con un beso y, como Joab, con una mano extendida y palabras halagadoras.
Let us never forget that truth, distorted and exaggerated, can become the mother of the most dangerous heresies.
The man who is content to sit ignorantly by his own fireside, wrapped up in his own private affairs, and has no public eye for what is going on in the Church and the world, is a miserable patriot, and a poor style of Christian. Next to our Bibles and our own hearts, our Lord would have us study our own times.