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; or that I had a frame like iron, that I might visit every one and say, “Escape for thy life! Ah sinner! You little know how I fear that you will lay the blame of your damnation at my door.”
– Robert Murray M’Cheyne –
The man whose little sermon is “repent” sets himself against his age, and will for the time being be battered mercilessly by the age whose moral tone he challenges. There is but one end for such a man—”off with his head!” You had better not try to preach repentance until you have pledged your head to heaven.
– Joseph Parker –
A revival of religion is indispensable to avert the judgments of God from the church. … The fact is, Christians are more to blame for not being revived, than sinners are for not being converted. And if Christians are not awakened, they may know assuredly that God will visit them with His judgments. How often God visited the Jewish church with judgments because they would not repent and be revived at the call of His prophets.
– Charles Finney –
Will you say that godliness is unpleasant, because it makes a man sorry for his ungodliness?… Would you wish a man that hath lived so long in sin and misery, to have no sorrow for it in his return—especially when it is but a healing sorrow, preparing for remission, and not a sorrow joined with despair, as theirs will be that die impenitently?
– Richard Baxter –
1615-1691
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
It was wonderful love that Christ should die for such as we are. What are we? Not only vanity, but enmity. When we were fighting, he was dying; when we had the weapons in our hands, then he had the spear in his side (Romans 5:8).
– Thomas Watson –
from The Lords Supper, 1665
The first step towards the evangelizing of the world is the christianizing of the church.
– Vance Havner –
The most ordinary way by which many are brought to Christ, is by a clear and discernible work of the law, and humiliation; which we generally call the spirit of bondage. … But there is a conviction of sin, an awakening of conscience, and work of humiliation, which as we shall point out, rarely miscarries, or fails of a gracious issue, but ordinarily doth resolve into the Spirit of adoption, and a gracious work of God’s Spirit.
– William Guthrie –
from The Christians Great Interest, 1658