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 –
O Christian, never be proud of things that are so transient, injurious, and uncertain as the riches of this evil world! But set your heart on the true and durable riches of grace in Christ Jesus.
– Isaac Ambrose –
When the Messiah comes, many will try to play their own songs on His harp. The results will be tragically dissonant. On the Messiah’s harp, you must play His own song — the song of His eternal glory with God; the song of His humiliation as a babe in a manger; the song of a life in sorrow, opposition and poverty on Earth; the song of His being whipped and crucified and buried; and finally the song of His resurrection, ascension and enthronement in heaven. “Then the harp will give a beautiful sound. His congregation will shine like a sun.”
– Richard Wurmbrand –
Nothing but intense, believing prayer can meet the intense spirit of worldliness,
which is complained of everywhere.
– Andrew Murray –
Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up in life. These are words by which the slanderers of the nature, of the body, the impeachers of our flesh, are completely overthrown … We do not wish to cast aside the body, but corruption: not the flesh, but death. The body is one thing, corruption another; the body is one thing, death another… What is foreign to us is not the body but corruptibility.
– John Chrysostom –
Exercise great self-denial: “Let him deny himself” (Matthew 16:24). Self-ease, self-ends, whatever comes in competition with (or stand in opposition to) Christ’s glory and interest must be denied. Self is the great snare; self-love undermines the power of godliness. The young man in the Gospel might have followed Christ, but something of self-hindered (Matthew 19:20-22). Self-love is self-hatred. The man who cannot get beyond himself will never get to heaven.
– Thomas Watson –
from The Godly Man’s Picture, 1666
There is no rowing to paradise except upon the stream of repenting tears. Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.
– Thomas Watson –
The neglected heart will soon be a heart overrun with worldly thoughts; the neglected life will soon become a moral chaos; the church that is not jealously protected by mighty intercession and sacrificial labors will before long become the abode of every evil bird and the hiding place for unsuspected corruption. The creeping wilderness will soon take over that church that trusts in its own strength and forgets to watch and pray.
– AW Tozer –
The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven’t yet come to the end of themselves. We’re still trying to give orders, and interfering with God’s work within us.
– AW Tozer –
