Do but stand still in the hour of trial, and you will see the help of God, if you trust in Him. But there is so often a forsaking the ways of the Lord in the hour of trial, and thus the food of faith, the means whereby our faith may be increased, is lost.
– George Müller –
from Answers to Prayer
Any great calamity in the natural world—death, disease, bereavement—will awaken a man when nothing else would, and he is never the same again. We would never know the “treasures of darkness” if we were always in the place of placid security.
– Oswald Chambers –
Every new act of sin requires a new act of faith and repentance (Isaiah 1:4, 16, 18).
– William Perkins –
Faith is the very shaping out of a man’s heart according to God’s device of salvation by Christ Jesus.
– William Guthrie –
from The Christians Great Interest, 1658
When God breaks into a life or a community, nothing else matters save the person of Jesus, the glory of Jesus, the name of Jesus.
– Stephen Olford –
Likewise today, some Christians are content to merely exist until they die. They don’t want to risk anything, to believe God, to grow or mature. They refuse to believe his Word, and have become hardened in their unbelief. Now they’re living just to die.
– David Wilkerson –
Preaching is the flexanima*, the allurer of the soul, by which our self-willed minds are subdued and changed from an ungodly and pagan lifestyle to a life of Christian faith and repentance.
– William Perkins –
from The Art of Prophesying, 1592
*(Flexanima is Latin for: moving, affecting, touching)
I believe that a ship will carry me across the ocean, because I have tried it. But, this will not help another man who wants to go, unless he acts on my knowledge. So knowledge of Christ does not help us unless we act on it. That is what it is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to act on what we believe.
As a man steps on board ship to cross the Atlantic, so we must take Christ and make a commitment of our souls to Him. He has promised to keep all who put their trust in Him. To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is simply to take Him at His word.
– DL Moody –
from The Way to God
Most people make so little personal use of the Bible that they do not know if an interesting preacher is preaching the Gospel or not. The real strength of a church is not the amount of its work but the quality of its faith. One man who truly knows his Bible is worth more to a church’s real strength than a crowd of workers who do not.
– PT Forsyth –
from Lectures on the Church and the Sacraments