Those who resemble God are the most likely to understand God. If a man is not willing to turn from sin, he will not know God’s will. God will not reveal His secrets to him. But, if a man is willing to turn from sin, he will be surprised to see how the light will come in!
– DL Moody –
from The Way to God
Nothing but intense, believing prayer can meet the intense spirit of worldliness,
which is complained of everywhere.
– Andrew Murray –
I believe the holier a man becomes, the more he mourns over the unholiness which remains in him.
– Charles Spurgeon –
It is no fault of Christianity if a hypocrite falls into sin.
– Jerome –
374-420 AD
Sin is, in truth, the hardest of all masters. In its service there is plenty of fair promises, but an utter dearth of performance. Its pleasures are but for a season. Its wages are sorrow, remorse, self-accusation, and too often death. They that sow to the flesh, do indeed reap corruption.
– JC Ryle –
from Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Matt 27:1-10], 1856
We are called to change the world, not be changed by the world.
– Eric Ludy –
Have I obtained a view of God’s fatherly countenance that I might behold his face and provoke him to his face? Was my soul washed that room might be made for new defilements? Shall I endeavour to disappoint the end of the death of Christ? Shall I daily grieve the Spirit whereby I am sealed to the day of redemption?
– John Owen –
Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer.
– John Bunyan –
A revival breaks the power of the world and of sin over Christians. It brings them to such vantage ground that they get a fresh impulse toward heaven. They have a new foretaste of heaven and new desires after union with God; and the charm of the world is broken, and the power of sin overcome. When the churches are thus awakened and reformed, the reformation and salvation of sinners will follow, going through the same stages of conviction, repentance, and reformation. Their hearts will be broken down and changed. Very often the most abandoned profligates are among the subjects. Harlots and drunkards and infidels and all sorts of abandoned characters are awakened and converted. The worst among human beings are softened, and reclaimed, and made to appear as lovely specimens of the beauty of holiness. “O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known, in wrath remember mercy” ( Hab. 3:2).
– Charles G. Finney –