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The great concern of the New Testament is not about the size of the Church, it is about the purity of the Church.
Prayer is always essential, but thought is essential, too, because prayer can be just an escape mechanism, almost at times a cry in the dark by people who are desperate and defeated. Prayer must be intelligent, and it is only to those who realize that their bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost that the answer will be given and the power will come.Spiritual Depression (173)
With a perversity as pathetic as it is impoverishing, we have become preoccupied today with the extraordinary, sporadic, non-universal ministries of the Spirit to the neglect of the ordinary, general ones. Knowing God (The Love of God, 130)
Today the doctrine of the Holy Spirit's personal divinity is seldom given much attention. Books about him tend to gloss over who he is and concentrate almost entirely on what he does. This is a pity, because the works of the Holy Spirit cannot be understood unless his divine personhood is acknowledged.God Has Spoken (725)
It is tragic that we are so negligent about the eternal and are so concerned about that which must inevitably come to an end. It is better to be a cripple in this life, says our Lord, than to lose everything in the next. Put your soul and its eternal destiny before everything else.Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (217)
The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions also. If the Holy Ghost guides us at all, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them. Answers to Prayer (11)
And have we not all known what it is to find that, somehow, we have less to say to God when we are alone than when we are in the presence of others? It should not be so; but it often is.Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (322)
Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?
How easy it is to read the Scriptures and give a kind of nominal assent to the truth and yet never to appropriate what it tells us!
The glory of the gospel is that when the Church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first.Studies on the Sermon on the Mount (28)
There is nothing so likely to lead to heresy and error as to start with the parts rather than the whole.Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (24)
Your flesh is a square peg, and the Spirit is a round hole. The two don't go together!
I am profoundly grateful to God that He did not grant me certain things for which I asked, and that He shut certain doors in my face.
Be still, and know that I am God'. We must not interpret that 'Be still' in a sentimental manner. Some regard it as a kind of exhortation to us to be silent; but it is nothing of the sort. It means, 'Give up (or 'Give in') and admit I am God. God is addressing people who are opposed to Him
When a man truly sees himself, he knows nobody can say anything about him that is too bad.
The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ' Why art thou cast down'-- what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: 'Hope thou in God' instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God has done, and on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: 'I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God'.Spiritual Depression, p. 21
We cannot help it if the truth offends people, but we must always make sure that it is the truth that is offending them and not us.
When the church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first.
the greatest problem that any man who preaches the gospel ever has to face is that while he is preaching he is in danger of looking at himself and watching himself and always being conscious of himself.Spiritual Depression (125)
we must never look at any sin in our past life in any way except that which leads us to praise God and to magnify His grace in Christ Jesus.Spiritual Depression (75)
Let us remember that our justification means not only that our sins are forgiven and that we have been declared to be righteous by God Himself, not merely that we were righteous at that moment when we believed, but permanently righteous.Spiritual Depression (74)
The operation of the Spirit in believers, the communion of the Holy Ghost, is a great mystery. He works more on them than they feel and know; and they feel more than they can express in words; and they express more than any that have not received "the same spirit of faith" (2 Cor. 4:13) can understand. But this we know, that whenever the Spirit of Christ applies His grace and power to the heart of a sinner, there is something wrought that day which shall last to eternity. There is, by this finger of God, that impression made upon the soul and that mark left upon it that shall never wear out and that sin and Satan shall never be able to blot out again, but it shall remain and grow and be seen at the coming of Christ at the last day (Phil. 1:6).
The Holy Spirit is often moving in the consciences and affections of carnal creatures, counseling, rebuking, and exciting them, so that upon His suggestions, some warm affections are raised in them to that which is good, but presently all is quashed and comes to nothing and the Spirit driven away by the entertainment He finds. Again, you cannot know by the common gifts of the Spirit— illumination, conviction, restraining grace, and assistance to perform the external part of religious duties; these are gifts of the Spirit, but such as do not prove he hath the Spirit that hath them. These gifts are beamed from the Spirit of God and show that the kingdom of God is come nigh such an one, but they do not demonstrate that God is come into that soul and hath taken possession of it for His temple.
The Holy Spirit who is given to work grace in us, He is also given to witness grace unto us and to make us "know the things that are freely given to us of God" (1 Cor. 2:12). He is a free and sovereign agent indeed, and He works and witnesses in them in whom He worketh as He pleases. He giveth assurance of peace with God as much as He pleases and as soon, and no more and no sooner, than He pleases (1 Cor. 12:11).
But how shall I know the witness of the Spirit from a delusion? Answer: The Spirit of God always witnesses according to the word, as the echo answers the voice. Enthusiasts speak much of the Spirit, but they leave the word. That inspiration which is either without the word or against it is an imposture. The Spirit of God did indite the word (2 Peter 1:21). Now if the Spirit should witness otherwise than according to the word, the Spirit should be divided against itself; it should be a spirit of contradiction, witnessing one thing for a truth in the word and another thing different from it in a man's conscience.
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2. Charles Spurgeon (135)
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4. John Calvin (107)
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6. John Piper (87)
7. Thomas Brooks (82)
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16. B.B. Warfield (58)
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18. William Gurnall (55)
19. Heinrich Bullinger (53)
20. Matthew Henry (51)
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