No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion;
many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.
– Leonard Ravenhill –
When there’s something in the Bible that churches don’t like, they call it legalism.
– Leonard Ravenhill –
Christianity especially has always thrived under persecution. For at such times it has no lukewarm professors. The Christian is then reminded that his Master’s kingdom is not of this world. When all on earth looks black, he looks up to heaven for consolation. Then he sees himself as a pilgrim and a stranger. For it is then as in the hour of death that he will examine well his foundations and cleave to the fundamentals.
But when religion is in a state of quiet and prosperity, the opposite effect tends to take place. The soldiers of the church militant will then tend to forget they are at war. Their ardor slackens and their zeal languishes. John Owen has made an apt comparison: Religion in a state of prosperity is like a colony that is long settled in a strange country. It is gradually assimilated in feature, demeanor, and language to the native inhabitants, until at length every vestige of its distinctiveness has died away.
– William Wilberforce –
from the book Real Christianity, 1797
The greatest hinderances to the evangelization of the world are those within the Church.
– John R. Mott –
As I was walking in the fields, the thought came over me with almost overwhelming power, that every one of my flock must soon be in heaven or hell. Oh how I wished that I had a tongue like thunder, that I might make all hear.
– Robert Murray McCheyne –
When the Lord’s sheep are a dirty grey, all black sheep are more comfortable.
– Vance Havner –
Troublous times, departures from the faith, evil men waxing worse and worse, love waxing cold, are things distinctly predicted.
– JC Ryle –
The world will never believe in a religion in which there is no power.
– Samuel Chadwick –
What is Christianity all about? It is about an intimate relationship with God. And I HATE a christendom, a churchianity that God is not big enough and glorious enough so that we have to give them other things.
– Paul Washer –