True repentance will entirely change you; the bias of your souls will be changed, then you will delight in God, in Christ, in His law, and in His people.
– George Whitefield –
Flesh – Carnal Nature – Selfishness
The Testing Time is Coming – DL Moody
There is no one beyond the reach of the tempter. Keep that in mind. Life may run smoothly for a while, but the testing time is coming.
– DL Moody –
How to Measure Your Growth in Grace – Oswald Chambers
Measure your growth in grace by your sensitivity to sin.
– Oswald Chambers –
Two Different Types of Fearing Sin – Andrew Willet
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” (Genesis 3:8-10 ESV)
He was more ashamed of his nakedness than of his sin. Thus do many fear rather to offend because of public shame than for any consciousness of sin just as Cain grieved more because he was made a vagabond than because he had killed his brother.
– Andrew Willet –
1562-1621
Do Not Merely Divert Sin – John Owen
A sin is not mortified when it is only diverted.
– John Owen –
from The Mortification of Sin, 1656
Don’t Run Into Sin – Thomas Watson
Many, to rid themselves out of trouble, run themselves into sin. When God has bound them with the cords of affliction, they go to the devil to loosen their bands. Better it is to stay in affliction than to sin ourselves out of it.
– Thomas Watson –
A Profession of Religion Without Practice – JC Ryle
I must honestly declare my conviction that, since the days of the Reformation, there never has been so much profession of religion without practice, so much talking about God without walking with Him, so much hearing God’s words without doing them, as there is in England at this present date. Never were there so many empty tubs and tinkling cymbals! Never was there so much formality and so little reality. The whole tone of men’s minds on what constitutes practical Christianity seems lowered. The old golden standard of the behaviour which becomes a Christian man or woman appears debased and degenerated. You may see scores of religious people (so-called) continually doing things which in days gone by would have been thought utterly inconsistent with vital religion. … The ancient tenderness of conscience about such things seems dying away and becoming extinct, like the dodo; and when you venture to remonstrate with young communicants who indulge in them, they only stare at you as an old-fashioned, narrow-minded, fossilized person, and say, “Where is the harm?” In short, laxity of ideas amoung young men, and “fastness” and levity among young women, are only too common characteristics of the rising generation of Christian professors.
– JC Ryle –
1816-1900 AD
Guard Against All Worldly Distractions – William Wilberforce
To so please God, it is also essential to guard against all the distractions of worldly cares. It needs the cultivation of heavenly-mindedness and a spirit of continual prayer. It requires you to watch incessantly over the workings of your own deceitful heart.
– William Wilberforce –
from Real Christianity, 1797
Falling Into Water – Thomas Watson
It is not falling into water that drowns, but lying in it. It is not falling into sin that damns, but lying in it without repentance.
– Thomas Watson –
from The Doctrine of Repentance, 1668