Backsliding, generally first begins with neglect of private prayer.
We can never hear too much about Jesus Christ.
Ignorance of Scripture is the root of every error in religion, and the source of every heresy.
There are many things which are not needful. Riches are not needful. Health is not needful. Fine clothes are not needful. Noble friends are not needful. The favour of the world is not needful. Gifts and learning are not needful. Millions have reached heaven without these things. Thousands are reaching heaven every year without them. But no one ever reached heaven without “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
As the sun gazed upon makes everything else look dark and dim, so does the cross darken the false splendour of this world.
Worst of all, there are hundreds of young unestablished believers who are so infected with the same love of excitement, that they actually think it a duty to be always seeking it. Insensibly almost to themselves, they take up a kind of hysterical, sensational, sentimental Christianity, until they are never content with the “old paths,” and, like the Athenians, are always running after something new.
Fear puts an end to openness of manner; fear leads to concealment; fear sows the seed of much hypocrisy, and leads to many a lie.
So that the best believer, if he knows what he says, and says the truth, is but a sinner at the best.
The heart of man is the same in every age. The spiritual medicine which it requires is always the same.
He that would be safe from the acts of evil, must widely avoid the occasions.
We may be very sure that men fall in private long before they fall in public. They are backsliders on their knees long before they backslide openly in the eyes of the world. Like Peter, they first disregard the Lord’s warning to watch and pray; and then, like Peter, their strength is gone, and in the hour of temptation they deny their Lord. The world takes notice of their fall, and scoffs loudly. But the world knows nothing of the real reason.
Hell, hell fire, the damnation of hell, eternal damnation, the resurrection of the damnation, everlasting fire, the place of torment, destruction, outer darkness, the worm that never dies, the fire that is not quenched, the place of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, everlasting punishment... these are the words which the Lord Jesus Christ Himself employs. Away with the miserable nonsense which people talk in this day who tell us that the ministers of the gospel should never speak of hell.
Faith is to prayer what the feather is to the arrow: without it prayer will not hit the mark.
It is poor philosophy to say we will believe nothing unless we can understand everything!
There are no spiritual games without pains. I would soon expect farmer just prosper in business who contended himself with sowing fields and never looking at them till harvest as expect a believer to attain much holiness who is not diligent in his Bible reading, his prayers, and his use of Sundays.
Anything is better than apathy, stagnation, deadness, and indifference.
This is the way to enjoy much inward comfort in this world, to have bright assurance in death, to leave broad evidences behind us. and at last to receive a great crown.
One thief was saved that no sinner might despair, but only one, that no sinner might presume.
Never be ashamed of letting men see that you want to go to heaven. Do not think it a disgrace to show that you are a servant of God. Never be afraid of doing what is right.
Think too about what the promise contains, before you refuse to take comfort from it. It speaks of a certain time when good training will bear fruit – when a child is old. Surely, there is comfort in this. You may not see with your own eyes the result of careful training, but you don’t know what blessed fruits will spring from it long after you are dead and gone.
I will never shrink from declaring my belief that there are no “spiritual gains without pains.