Category: Quotes

And consider now not only the life that Jesus sacrificed for us, but consider also what the sacrifice involved. To get to the point where he could die, Jesus had to plan for it. He left the glory of heaven and took on human nature so that he could hunger and get weary and in the end suffer and die. The incarnation was the preparation of nerve endings for the nails of the cross. Jesus needed a broad human back for a place to be scourged. He needed a brow and skull as a place for the thorns. He needed cheeks for Judas’ kiss and soldiers’ spit. He needed hands and feet for spikes. He needed a side as a place for the sword to pierce. And he needed a brain and a spinal cord, with no vinegar and no gall, so that he could feel the entire excruciating death—for you.  – John Piper in a sermon entitled The Depth of Christ’s Love: Its Cost

Who knows not Love, let him assay
And taste that juice, which on the cross a pike
Did set again abroach, then let him say
If ever he did taste the like.
Love is that liquor sweet and most divine,
Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine.

  – From The Agony by George Herbert

Ceremonial symbolism in the Old Testament uses the fundamental distinction between the clean and the unclean.  The comparison of sin to filth is linked with the need for cleanness to approach holy things of the holy Lord.  The prevailing power of sin is shown in the fact that the unclean pollutes the clean, never the other way round.  Haggai’s message focuses on this feature (Hag. 2:10-14).  In fulfillment, the prevailing power of Christ reveres this principle.  When Jesus touches a leper, Jesus is not defiled, the leper is cleansed…  – Edmund Clowney in Preaching Christ in All of Scripture

I am 258 years removed from Joanthan Edwards sermon, “There Never Was Any Love That Could Be Paralleled with the Dying Love of Christ”, on Romans 5:7-8, and it came on me ministering great grace.  It ministered Christ to me in a fresh way.  Meditate on these five reasons he gives why the love of our Lord is unparalleled.

Never was there a love that fixed upon an object so much below the lover.

Never was there any instance of such love to those who were so far from being capable of benefiting the lover.

Never was there any who set his love upon those in whom he saw so much filthiness and deformity.

Never was there anyone who set his love upon those who were so far from loving him and so unreasonably averse to him as Jesus Christ in his dying love to sinners.

There never was any love that appeared in so great and wonderful expressions

And lastly, never was there any love that was so beneficial to the beloved.

In a sermon taking Genesis 32:26-29 as his text, Jonathan Edwards gives four reasons why God chooses to bestow His blessing on fervent, persistent prayer.  I found these so refreshing and encouraging.

1.  ‘Tis very suitable and becoming that before men have the blessing they should this way show their sense of their need of it and of the value of it.  ‘Tis very suitable that before God bestows his blessing upon them, persons should be sensible they need it.  And ‘tis by their importunity and earnest seeking of it – their not listening God go except he bestows it – that they show their sense of their need of it.

‘Tis very suitable that before God bestows his blessing persons should be sensible of the great value of the blessing and the advantage it will be to them.  They show also a sense of this by the not letting God go except he bestows it.

2.  God’s seeming to deny persons the blessing for a while when they seek tends to lead persons to reflect on their unworthiness of the blessing.  They have that seeming denial to put them upon thinking what they have done to provoke God to withhold a blessing from them.  While Christ seemed to deny the woman of Canaan what she sought, she was put in mind of her unworthiness.  Jesus said, ‘It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and cast it to dogs” (Matt. 15:26).  The leads them to seek in a more humble manner.

3.  ‘Tis very suitable before God bestows the blessing upon a person that he should this way acknowledge him to be the author of the blessing.  This earnestly seeking of it of God so as not to let him go ’til he bestows is a becoming acknowledgement that God is the fountain of blessing and that no other can bestow it but he.

4.  The person by such seeking of the blessing is prepared for it.  He is put into a suitable disposition to receive it, to entertain it joyfully and thankfully, and to make much of it when it is obtained and to give God the glory of it.

One of the struggles of our gospel ministry is going to be to help our people also to see through their ears. – Sinclair Ferguson

Nor all that twitters is evil.  I thought this was a piece of gold.

Tremble, O proud snake king. The spike-scabbed foot on your skull isn’t dead tissue anymore.  – Russel Moore

HT: Justin Taylor

 Even an apostle must read. Some of our very ultra Calvinistic brethren think that a minister who reads books and studies his sermon must be a very deplorable specimen of a preacher. A man who comes up into the pulpit, professes to take his text on the spot, and talks any quantity of nonsense, is the idol of many. If he will speak without premeditation, or pretend to do so, and never produce what they call a dish of dead men’s brains—oh! that is the preacher. How rebuked are they by the apostle! He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a men to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, “Give thyself unto reading.” The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible. We are quite persuaded that the very best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master’s service. Paul cries, “Bring the books”—join in the cry.  – C.H. Spurgeon

One of my favorite modern hymns is In Christ Alone by Keith Getty.  I started reading Sinclair Ferguson’s book by the same title and it opens with his translation of a passage in Calvin’s Institutes that ministered to me.  I would encourage you to read both the song and the passage slowly and several times, meditate on Christ – look nowhere else.

(21st Century Version)

In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev’ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain;
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am His and He is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow’r of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand.

–  Keith Getty and Stuart Townend

(16th Century Version)

When we see salvation whole,
its every single part
is found in Christ,
And so we must beware
lest we derive the smallest drop
from somewhere else.

For if we seek salvation, the very name of Jesus
teaches us
that he possesses it.

If other Spirit-given gifts are sought–
in his anointing they are found;
strength–in his reign;
and purity–in his conception;
and tenderness–expressed in his nativity,
in which in all respects like us he was,
that he might learn to feel our pain:

Redemption when we seek it, is in his passion found;
acquiital–in his condemnation lies;
and freedom from the curse–in his own cross is given.

If satisfaction for our sins we seek–we’ll find it in his sacrifice;
and cleansing in his blood.
If reconciliation now we need, for this he entered Hades,
To overcome our sins we need to know
that in his tomb they’re laid.
Then newness of our life–his resurrection brings
and immortality as well comes also with that gift.

And if we also long to find
inheritance in heaven’s reign,
his entry there secures it now
with our protection, safety, too, and blessings that abound
–all flowing from his royal throne.

The sum of all this:
For those who seek
this treasure-trove of blessings of all kinds,
in no one else can they be found
than him,
for all are given
in Christ alone.

– John Calvin (Translated by Sinclair Ferguson in  In Christ Alone)