God’s Guidance: The Second Reason Christians Fail to Obtain it

Posted on May 7, 2013 by The Editor

Psalm 106:13-15
       They waited not for his counsel. But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert. And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul.

JOSEPH CARYL (1602-1673): They waited not for his counsel, which neglect of theirs may be understood two ways. First, that they waited not for His open or declared counsel, to direct them what to do, but without asking His advice would needs venture and run on upon their own heads, to do what seemed good in their own eyes. Secondly, that they waited not for the accomplishment of His hidden and secret counsel concerning them; they would not tarry God’s time for the bringing forth and bringing about His counsels. Not to wait upon God either way is very sinful. Not to wait for His counsel to direct us what to do, and not to wait for His doing or fulfilling His own counsel, argues at once a proud and an impatient spirit; in the one, men do even slight the wisdom of God, and in the other vainly presume and attempt to [rush] His providence.

RALPH ERSKINE (1685-1752): Now, who are these that wait upon God? I answer, in the words of the psalmist David, This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob, that is, O God of Jacob, Psalm 24:6. And hence seeking and waiting are joined together; The Lord is good to them that wait for Him, and to the soul that seeks Him, Lamentations 3:25. The true waiter is a seeker, and the true seeker is a waiter upon God.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Waiting upon the Lord describes an attitude of soul when we are engaged in true prayer, but waiting for the Lord is the exercise of patience while His answer tarries.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): While I wait upon God, I must also wait for Him, and integrity and uprightness are to preserve me while I do so.

A. W. PINK: But O how impatient is the flesh. It was at this point that Abraham failed: when Sarah bare not the promised son, he determined to have one by Hagar. It was at this point Moses first failed—taking things into his own hands (Exodus 2:11,12), instead of waiting God’s time.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): The insatiable nature of our desires is astonishing, in that scarcely a single day is allowed to God to gratify them. For should He not immediately satisfy them, we at once become impatient, and are in danger of eventually falling into despair. This, then, was the fault of the people, that they did not cast all their cares upon God, did not calmly call upon Him, nor wait patiently until He was pleased to answer their requests, but rushed forward with reckless precipitation, as if they would dictate to God what He was to do. And, therefore, to heighten the criminality of their rash course, He employs the term “counsel;” because men will neither allow God to be possessed of wisdom, nor do they deem it proper to depend upon His counsel, but are more provident than becomes them, and would rather rule God than allow themselves to be ruled by Him according to His pleasure.

R. C. CHAPMAN (1803-1902): Faith waits upon God; but she waits also for God. Jacob, in Genesis 32:9-12, waited upon God regarding Esau his brother: but he did not wait for God. Had he done so, he would not have bowed down seven times to his brother, (Genesis 33:3): Esau must have bowed down to him, (Genesis 27:29).

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): He that waiteth on his master shall be honoured, Proverbs 27:18, even though the waiting be almost passive. Sometimes our master may not require us to do anything more than stand still. But you know John, the footman, behind his master’s chair―if his master bids him stand there, he is as true a servant as the other attendant who is sent upon an errand of the utmost importance. The Lord for wise reasons may make us wait awhile.

R. C. CHAPMAN: The moment a servant acts independently, he acts from himself, and out of character.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): He that believeth doth not make haste, Isaiah 28:16. There is no time lost while we are waiting God’s time. It is as acceptable a piece of submission to the will of God to sit still contentedly when our lot requires it, as to work for Him when we are called to it.

ALEXANDER COMRIE (1706-1774): It is sweet to observe how graciously and how frequently the Lord mentions this exercise. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage and He shall strengthen thy heart: wait, I say, on the Lord, Psalm 27:14; Wait on the Lord and keep His way, Psalm 37:34; I will look unto the Lord: I will wait for the God of my salvation, Micah 7:7; and hundreds of other places.

C. H. SPURGEON: Waiting upon the Lord for direction will never fail to afford us timely intimation of His will, for though the ephod is no more worn by a ministering priest, the Lord still guides His people by His wisdom, and orders all their paths in love; and in times of perplexity, by ways mysterious and remarkable, He makes them to “hear a voice behind them, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it.” Probably, if our hearts were more tender, we might be favoured with more of these sacred monitions; but, alas! instead thereof, we are like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding, and therefore the bit and bridle of affliction take the place of gentler means, else might that happier method be more often used, to which the psalmist alludes when he says, “Thou shalt guide me with Thine eye,” Psalm 32:8.

JOHN CALVIN: And thus we are to learn to put a bridle on ourselves and not to be rash and unseasonably hasty, according to our usual habit.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): O that we better understand all this! Would that we knew more perfectly the meaning of divine guidance! How often do we vainly imagine, and confidently assert, that the cloud is moving in the very direction which suits the bent of our inclination! We want to do a certain thing, or make a certain movement, and we seek to persuade ourselves that our will is the will of God. Thus, instead of being divinely guided, we are self-deceived. Our will is unbroken, and hence we cannot be guided aright; for the real secret of being rightly guided—guided of God—is to have our own will thoroughly subdued. The meek will He guide in judgment; and the meek will teach his way, Psalm 25:9. And again, I will guide thee with mine eye. But let us ponder the admonition: Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding; whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee, Psalm 32:9. If the countenance be turned upwards, to catch the movement of the divine “eye,” we shall not need the “bit and bridle.” But here is precisely the point in which we so sadly fail. We do not live sufficiently near to God to discern the movement of His eye. The will is at work. We want to have our own way, and hence we are left to reap the bitter fruits thereof.

 C. H. SPURGEON: The old puritans said, “As sure as ever a Christian carves for himself he’ll cut his own fingers;” and that is a great truth.

 

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God’s Guidance: The First Reason Christians Fail to Obtain it

Posted on May 3, 2013 by The Editor

Ezekiel 14:3,4
       Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them? Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): What is the reason why many, in the greatness of their folly, forever go astray? They do not trust in the Lord with all their heart, but lean to their own understandings.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Do not do as some do. Many a person comes to me and says, “I want your advice, sir; as my minister, perhaps you could tell me what I ought to do.” Sometimes it is about their getting married. Why, they have made up their minds before they ask me, they know that; and then they come to ask my advice. “Do you think such and such a thing would be prudent, sir? Do you think I should change my position in life?” and so on. Now, first of all, I like to know, “Have you made your mind up?” In most cases they have—and I fear you serve God the same. We make up our mind what we are going to do, and then we go down on our knees, and say, “Lord, show me what I ought to do;” and then we follow out our intention and say, “I asked God’s direction.” My dear friend, you did ask it, but you did not follow it; you followed your own. You like God’s direction so long as it points you the way you wish to go; but if God’s direction lead contrary to what you considered your own interest, it might have been a very long while before you had carried it out.

STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): We make an idol of our own wills.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): Such as pretend to ask counsel from the Word, but it is according to the idol of their own hearts; that come with their own conclusions, and preconceptions, and prejudices, against God’s counsel: Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart―as those that came to Jeremiah the Prophet, and they were prepossessed, and had their resolutions aforehand.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): A remarkable instance of this we have in Jeremiah 42-44. After the destruction of Jerusalem, and the death of Gedaliah, the people that were left entreated the prophet to inquire of the Lord for them, concerning their intended removal into Egypt. Their request was fair: “That the Lord thy God may shew us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that we may do.” Their engagement was very solemn: “The Lord be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not even according to all things for the which the Lord they God shall send to us. Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God, to whom we send thee.” But their hypocrisy was most detestable. The Lord, who seeth the inmost purposes of the soul, could not be put off with their fair pretenses. He sent them in answer an express prohibition to go into Egypt; assuring them that His curse should follow them, and that there they should certainly perish. Yet they went, verifying what the prophet had told them: “For ye dissembled in your hearts, when ye sent me to the Lord your God, saying, Pray for us unto the Lord our God, and according to all that the Lord our God shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it.”

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): We do not truly desire to know the mind of God if we do not fully resolve to comply with it when we do know it.

WILLIAM JAY: If, therefore, I do not consult God sincerely, it would be better for me not to do it at all, for it can only dishonour Him, and delude myself…Shall I find fault with His decisions, after beseeching Him to decide? And with His guidance, after desiring Him to guide?

MARY WINSLOW (1774-1854): Beware of forming plans in your mind, and then coming to ask counsel of God.

JOHN NEWTON: It is indeed natural to us to wish and to plan; and it is merciful in the Lord to disappoint our plans, and to cross our wishes. For we cannot be safe, much less happy, but in proportion as we are weaned from our own wills, and made simply desirous of being directed by His guidance. This truth―when we are enlightened by His Word―is sufficiently familiar to the judgment; but we seldom learn to reduce it into practice, without being trained awhile in the school of disappointment. The schemes we form look so plausible and convenient, that when they are broken we are ready to say, What a pity! We try again, and with no better success: we are grieved, and perhaps angry, and plan out another, and so on: at length, in a course of time, experience and observation begin to convince us, that we are not more able than we are worthy to choose aright for ourselves. Then the Lord’s invitation to cast our cares upon Him, and His promise to take care of us, appear valuable; and when we have done planning, His plan in our favour gradually opens, and He does more and better for us than we could either ask or think.

MATTHEW HENRY: Those who know themselves cannot but find their own understanding to be a broken reed, which, if they lean to, will certainly fail them.

JOHN NEWTON: I can hardly recollect a single plan of mine, of which I have not since seen reason to be satisfied, that, had it taken place in season and circumstance just as I proposed, it would, humanly speaking, have proved my ruin; or, at least, it would have deprived me of the greater good the Lord had designed for me. We judge of things by their present appearances, but the Lord sees them in their consequences; if we could do so likewise, we should be perfectly of His mind; but as we cannot, it is an unspeakable mercy that He will manage for us, whether we are pleased with His management or not; and it is spoken of as one of His heaviest judgments, when He gives any person or people up to the way of their own hearts, and to walk after their own counsels.

THOMAS MANTON: O! when a man is brought off this spiritual idolatry of making his own bosom to be his oracle, and his own heart to be his counsellor; when he doth in the poverty of his spirit humbly and entirely cast himself upon the help of God, and acknowledge Him in all his ways, then he shall see a clear direction what God would have him to do. You have another place to this purpose: Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk: for I lift up my soul unto thee, Psalm 143:8.

MATTHEW HENRY: Those that resolve to follow God’s directions may in faith pray for it.

JOHN NEWTON: One thing is needful; an humble, dependent spirit, to renounce our own wills, and give up ourselves to His disposal without reserve. This is the path of peace; and it is the path of safety; for He has said, The meek He will teach His way, Psalm 25:9 and those who yield up themselves to Him He will guide with His eye, Psalm 32:8.

 

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Following the Lord’s Leading

Posted on April 26, 2013 by The Editor

Numbers 9:18-20
       At the commandment of the LORD the children of Israel journeyed, and at the commandment of the LORD they pitched: as long as the cloud abode upon the tabernacle they rested in their tents. And when the cloud tarried long upon the tabernacle many days, then the children of Israel kept the charge of the LORD, and journeyed not. And so it was, when the cloud was a few days upon the tabernacle; according to the commandment of the LORD they abode in their tents…Whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, remaining thereon, the children of Israel abode in their tents, and journeyed not.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): This pillar of cloud and fire directed and determined all the motions, marches, and encampments of Israel in the wilderness.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): A more lovely picture of absolute dependence upon, and subjection to, divine guidance it were impossible to conceive than that presented in the foregoing paragraph. There was not a footprint or a landmark throughout that “great and terrible wilderness.” It was therefore useless to look for any guidance from those who had gone before. They were wholly cast upon God for every step of the way. They were in a position of constant waiting upon Him.

MATTHEW HENRY: The people, being thus kept at a constant uncertainty, and having no time fixed for stopping or removing, were obliged to hold themselves in constant readiness to march upon very short warning.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: This, to an unsubdued mind—an unbroken will—would be intolerable; but to a soul knowing, loving, confiding, and delighting in God, nothing could be more deeply blessed. Here lies the real gist of the whole matter. Is God known, loved, and trusted? If He be, the heart will delight in the most absolute dependence upon Him. If not, such dependence would be perfectly insufferable…Thus it was with Israel, and thus it should be with us. We are passing through a trackless desert—a moral wilderness.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): A Christian, therefore, should take every step of importance—and what step may not be important?—feeling a responsibility that makes him tremble, and an anxiety that urges him to seek counsel from above. “I will hear what God the Lord will speak,” and regulate my marches by the cloud…We naturally wish to have things according to our mind, and make various attempts to govern our own affairs. But by degrees we are convinced that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps, Jeremiah 10:23.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Before we move, we should always desire to see the Lord lead the way.

WILLIAM JAY: How many have injured, if not ruined, their usefulness and comfort, by improper removals, or striking their tent without the cloud!

C. H. MACKINTOSH: Thus it was with Jonah. He was told to go to Nineveh, but he wanted to go to Tarshish; and circumstances seemed to favour it; providence seemed to point in the direction of his [own] will.

MATTHEW HENRY: He went to Joppa, a famous seaport in the land of Israel, in quest of a ship bound for Tarshish, and there he found one. Providence seemed to favour his design and give him an opportunity to escape. We may be out of the way of duty and yet may meet with a favourable gale. The ready way is not always the right way.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): A temptation comes very forcibly when it runs with the tide of our own wills.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: But, ah! Jonah had to find his place in the belly of the whale―yea, in “the belly of hell” itself, where “the weeds were wrapped around his head.” It was there he learnt the bitterness of following his own will. He had to be taught in the depths of the ocean the true meaning of the “bit and bridle,” because he would not follow the gentler guidance of the eye…Now this will surely involve the surrender of our own will, our own plans, our own management, altogether. We must follow the cloud; we must wait ever, and wait only, upon God.

ALEXANDER COMRIE (1706-1774): It will mean also to remain faithful at one’s post; a well-taught soul frequently finds that she desires to be relieved from her post before God’s appointed time…However, where there is a true “waiting upon” Him, the soul reminds herself, “God has placed me at this post, I must remain here faithfully, for as long as the Divine will ordains.”

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): They kept the charge of the LORD―the commandment of God as mentioned before, that they should stay as long as the cloud staid.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): The Lord has given you a little charge; be faithful in it, and in His good time He will advance you―but let His providence evidently open the door to you, and be afraid of moving one step before the cloud and pillar.

MATTHEW HENRY: As long as the cloud rested upon the tabernacle, so long they continued in the same place, and never stirred; though no doubt they were very desirous to be pressing forward in their journey towards Canaan, where they longed to be and hoped to be quickly, yet as long as the cloud rested, if it was a month or a year, so long they rested.

C. H. SPURGEON: Israel went into Canaan well enough when the Lord led the way; but when the people before the set time presumed to go up of their own head, they brought defeat upon themselves. It is never well either to run before the cloud, or to stay behind it; in either case we may expect to fall under clouds of another sort, which will darkness our way and becloud our peace.

WILLIAM JAY: But while I wait upon God, I must also wait for Him, and integrity and uprightness are to preserve me while I do so.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: We should not know how to walk, or where to go, were it not for that one most precious, most deep, most comprehensive sentence which fell from the lips of our blessed Lord, I am the way. Here is divine, infallible guidance. We are to follow Him. I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life, John 8:12. This is living guidance. It is not acting according to the letter of certain rules and regulations. It is following a living Christ—walking as He walked, doing as He did, imitating His example in all things. This is Christian movement—Christian action. It is keeping the eye fixed upon Jesus, and having the features, traits, and lineaments of His character imprinted on our new nature, and reflected back or reproduced in our daily life and ways.

MARY WINSLOW (1774-1854): Take no step without Him.

JOHN NEWTON: Be afraid of acting in your own spirit, or under a wrong impression: however honestly you mean, you may be mistaken.

MATTHEW HENRY: In every difficult doubtful case our eye must be up to God for direction…In doubtful cases, we should pray earnestly that God would make it plain to us what He would have us to do.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Until I am sure of His will I must continue to wait upon Him; once it is clear to me, I must set out on the performance of it, and nothing must move me to turn aside.

MATTHEW HENRY: When the cloud was taken up, they removed, how comfortably soever they were encamped. Whether it moved by day or night, they delayed not to attend its motions.

C. H. SPURGEON: Never move or stay for selfish reasons, but hold yourself at your great Captain’s beck and call.

MATTHEW HENRY: He will guide you, as the camp of Israel was guided through the wilderness by the pillar of cloud and fire.

 

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Pulpit Oratory

Posted on April 23, 2013 by The Editor

I Corinthians 2:1,4,5
       And I brethren, when I came unto you, came not with excellency of speech, or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God…And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom but in demonstration of Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): The apostle signifies he was not sent with, or to preach, with words of man’s wisdom, with human eloquence and oratory, with great swelling words of vanity, but in a plain, humble, modest manner…the witness of God, which is greater than that of men, needed no art nor oratory of men to recommend it: it was enough in plain words, and easy language, to declare it, with the evidence by which it was supported―and for this reason, that faith in Christ, and in the doctrines of His Gospel, which comes by hearing, might not be attributed to the force of human eloquence and oratory; or stand upon so sandy a foundation, as that which might, if that was the case, be puffed away by a superior flow and force of words; but that it might be ascribed, as it ought to be, to almighty power―stand in it, be supported by it, and at last be finished and fulfilled with it.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The way of salvation is far too important a matter to be the theme of oratorical displays. The cross is far too sacred to be made a pole on which to hoist the flags of our fine language.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Preach simply. The Word of God is too sacred a thing, and preaching too a solemn a work, to be toyed and played with, as is the usage of some, who make a sermon but a matter of wit and fine oratory.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): It is most interesting and instructive in this connection to note the attitude of the great Puritan Thomas Goodwin who was himself a great preacher—one of the greatest of them all. Thomas Goodwin tells us that as a young man he greatly admired the preaching of a certain Dr. Senhouse in Cambridge; but he found it to be “distinguished rather for its ostentatious display of rhetoric than for its clear statement of evangelical truth.” He said it was characterized primarily by “literary distinction.” Goodwin contrasted the “solemnity of preaching” with these “fine sermons” and this “vainglorious eloquence.” Poor Thomas Goodwin! He was a man born with a gift of natural eloquence, and in his early days he greatly admired these oratorical eloquent preachers in Cambridge. It was his ambition to emulate them and to become such a preacher himself. He said that the greatest fight of his life was to conquer this “master lust.” His “master lust” was nothing physical or moral; it was the desire to obtain distinction and honour by eloquent preaching.

JOHN FLAVEL (1630-1691): In all my observation I have not found, that ever God hath made much use of laboured periods, rhetorical flowers, and elegancies to improve the power of religion in the world.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): The kingdom of heaven does not consist in fine rhetoric, but in the power of God.

WILLIAM GURNALL: If we mean to do good, we must come not only in word, but with power. Satan budges not for a thousand such squibs and witcracks.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): I am tired and sick of your “silver-tongued orators.” I used to mourn because I couldn’t be an orator. I thought, “Oh, if I could only have the gift of speech like some men!” I have heard men with a smooth flow of language take the audience captive, but they came and they went, their voice was like air, there wasn’t any power back of it; they trusted in their eloquence and their fine speeches.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: [Those men] were called “the great pulpiteers,” especially in the second half of the [19th] century. They were to be found in great numbers in England and also in the USA. I always feel that the man who was most typical in this respect in the USA was Henry Ward Beecher. He illustrates perfectly the chief characteristics of the ‘pulpiteer.’ The term itself is very interesting, and I believe it is a very accurate one. These men were pulpiteers rather than preachers. I mean that they were men who could occupy a pulpit and dominate it, and dominate the people. They were professionals. There was a good deal of showmanship in them, and they were experts at handling congregations and playing on their emotions. In the end they could do almost what they liked with them. These pulpiteers were to me—with my view of preaching—a great abomination…You see, the form became more important than the substance, the oratory and eloquence became things in and of themselves, and ultimately preaching became a form of entertainment. The Truth was noticed, they paid a passing respect to it, but the great thing was the form.

ROBERT HALL (1764-1831): A consummate orator is a character which we despair of ever seeing perfectly associated with that of a Christian teacher. The minister of the Gospel is called to declare the testimony of God, which is always weakened by a profuse employment of the ornaments of secular eloquence. The imagination is too much excited and employed by those exquisite paintings and nice touches of art, not interfere with the awful functions of conscience—the hearer is absorbed in admiration, and the exercise, which ought to be the instrument of conviction, becomes a feast of taste.

C. H. SPURGEON: If you aim at the exhibition of rhetorical talent, you will not be fit for the Master’s use. God would not have us entangled with subordinate designs. You do not keep a servant to go to the door so that people may say, “What a fine girl she is, and how charmingly she dresses!”

AUGUSTUS TOPLADY (1713-1778): Seek rather to profit than to be admired.

D. L. MOODY: It is said of Cicero, the great Roman orator, that when he had spoken every one would go out of the building saying, “What a magnificent address! What an orator!” But when Demosthenes, the Greek orator, had finished, the people would say, “Let us go and fight Philip!” He had fired them up with the cause; and what we want is to get the attention of the people away from ourselves and on to the subject.

ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER (1772-1851): There is indeed a sort of pulpit fire which is rhetorical—proceeds from no warmth within, and diffuses no warmth without; the less of it the better. But genuine ardour must arise from the habitual thought and temper of the life. He with whom the ministry is a secondary thing, may be a correct, a learned, an elegant, even an oratorical [preacher], but he will never be a powerful preacher.

ROBERT MURRAY M’CHEYNE (1813-1843): It is not so much great talents that God blesses, as great likeness to Christ.

C. H. SPURGEON: There is a something in the very tone of the man who has been with Jesus which has more power to touch the heart than the most perfect oratory: remember this and maintain an unbroken walk with God.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): He is the best preacher, not that tickles the ear, but that breaks the heart.

 

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The Spiritual Realities of Scripture Allegories & Types

Posted on April 19, 2013 by The Editor

Hebrews 10:1; Galatians 4:22-24
       For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things.
      For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Paul did not mean that they were not literal facts, but that, being literal facts, they might also be used instructively as an allegory.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Paul certainly does not mean that Moses wrote the history for the purpose of being turned into an allegory, but points out in what way the history may be made to answer the present subject. This is done by observing a figurative representation of the Church there delineated. And a mystical interpretation of this sort was not inconsistent with the true and literal meaning, when a comparison was drawn between the Church and the family of Abraham.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): “These things,” saith he, “are an allegory,” wherein, besides the literal and historical sense of the words, the Spirit of God might design to signify something further to us.

C. H. SPURGEON: Just as we give our children pictures that we may win the attention, and may by pleasing means fix truth upon their memories, so the Lord with loving inventiveness has become the author of many a charming metaphor, type, and allegory, by which He may gain our interest, and through His Holy Spirit enlighten our minds.

ROBERT MURRAY M’CHEYNE (1813-1843): When you would teach a little child in the simplest and most interesting way, you do it by means of pictures. In the very same way did God teach Israel concerning Him who was the consolation of Israel…When they followed the light of the pillar of fire, God wanted to teach them that Christ was the light of this world; that whoso followeth Him shall not walk in darkness. When they gathered the snow-white manna, and ground it in mills, and baked it pans, God wanted to teach them that a bruised Saviour must be the daily food of our soul. When they drank of the gushing river that flowed out of the smitten rock, God wanted to teach them that they might daily receive the full streams of the Holy Spirit from the smitten Saviour—that if any man thirst, he should come to Christ and drink.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): Look, therefore, always for Christ in the Scripture. He is the treasure hid in the field, both of the Old and New Testament. In the Old, you will find Him under prophecies, types, sacrifices, and shadows; in the New, manifest in the flesh, to become a propitiation for our sins as a Priest, and as a Prophet to reveal the whole will of His heavenly Father.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): The types of Christ in the Old Testament may be considered as twofold—personal and relative: the former describing, under the veil of history, His character and offices as considered in Himself; the latter teaching, under a variety of metaphors, the advantages those who believe in Him should receive from Him. Thus Adam, Enoch, Melchizedec, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Samson, David, Solomon, and others, were, in different respects, types or figures of Christ. Some more immediately represented his person; others prefigured his humiliation; others referred to his exaltation, dominion, and glory.

J. C. PHILPOT (1802-1869): The chief difference between a typical thing or type, in the strict sense of the word, and a typical person being this, that the [type] is more marked, distinct, and clear than the latter. In a type every part, or well nigh every part, has its significance, as you would see by carefully reading and spiritually understanding the solemn transactions on the great day of atonement. But you could not say that every part of Joseph’s or of David’s life was typical and representative…Thus that Joseph was sold by his brethren for the price of a servant, that though cruelly treated by them he still loved them, that he delivered them from famine, made himself known to them, bore with all their ingratitude, fed and nourished them—in these various points Joseph resembled and typified Jesus. But we cannot take every event of Joseph’s life and say that it was typical representation which found its fulfilment in the Lord Jesus. So with David, who was eminently a typical representative of the Lord Jesus. But who could take all the events of David’s life and make out of them a typical representation of what Christ was in the flesh?

JOHN NEWTON: As to allegory, the whole Scripture is allegorical in one sense. There is not an idea there of the eternal world, but is represented to us under the image of sensible things…The ark of Noah, the rainbow, the manna, the brazen serpent, the cities of refuge, were so many emblems pointing out the nature, necessity, means, and security of that salvation which the Messiah was to establish for his people. Nor are these fanciful delusions of our own making, but warranted and taught in Scripture, and easily proved from thence, would time permit; for indeed there is not one of these persons or things which I have named, but would furnish matter for a long discourse, if closely considered in this view as typical of the promised Redeemer.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): Many Christian people say that they find the books of Exodus and Leviticus so boring. “Why all this detail,” they ask, “about the meal and the salt and all these various other things?” Well, all these are just types, and they are all prophecy, in their way, of what was done perfectly once and for ever by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

JOHN NEWTON: The like may be said of the Levitical ceremonies. The law of Moses, is, in this sense, a happy schoolmaster to lead us unto Christ, Galatians 3.

C. H. SPURGEON: Hidden within their letter, like pearls in oyster shells, lie grand spiritual truths couched in allegory and metaphor.

JOHN NEWTON: The ark of the covenant, the mercy-seat, the tabernacle, the incense, the altar, the offerings, the high priest with his ornaments and garments, the laws relating to the leprosy, the Nazarite, and the redemption of lands;—all these, and many more which I have not time to mention, had a deep and important meaning beyond their outward appearance: each, in their place, pointed to “the Lamb of God who was to take away the sins of the world,” John 1, derived their efficacy from Him, and received their full accomplishment in Him. Thus the Old and New Testament do mutually illustrate each other; neither can be well understood singly. The Old Testament, in histories, types, prophecies, and ceremonies, strongly delineate Him who, in the fullness of time, was to come into the world to effect a reconciliation between God and man.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): It is failure to discern the typical import of the Old Testament Scriptures which has cause so great a part of them to be slighted by so many readers of the Bible.

C. H. SPURGEON: It is our firm conviction and increasing belief, that the historical books of Scripture were intended to teach us by types and figures spiritual things. We believe that every portion of Scripture history is not only a faithful transcript of what did actually happen, but also a shadow of what happens spiritually in the dealings of God with His people, or in the dispensation of His grace towards the world at large. We do not look upon the historical books of Scripture as being mere rolls of history, such as profane authors might have written, but we regard them as being most true and infallible records of the past, and also most bright and glorious foreshadowings of the future, or else most wondrous metaphors and marvellous illustrations of things which are verily received among us, and most truly felt in the Christian heart. We may be wrong—we believe we are not.

 

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Are Scripture Impressions Firm Evidences of Salvation?

Posted on April 16, 2013 by The Editor

Romans 8:16
       The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): Nothing is more important in this life, and in this world, as that we should be absolutely certain that we are the children of God.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): What concerns us most to be assured of [is] whether we have experimentally known the power of His resurrection; that is, whether or not we have received the Holy Ghost, and by His powerful operations on our hearts, have been raised from the death of sin, to a life of righteousness, and true holiness.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): Surely the graces of the Holy Ghost are not of so little force as that we cannot perceive whether we have them or not. If we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us, which He will not do unless we be regenerate, certainly we must be sensible of it. If we never can have any certainty of being in a state of salvation, good reason is it that every moment should be spent, not in joy, but in fear and trembling; and then, undoubtedly, in this life we are of all men most miserable. God deliver us from such a fearful expectation as this.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: That brings me to say just a little more about this whole question of assurance, because in many ways it was the distinguishing mark of Methodism and the same thing that was common to [Calvinistic and Arminian] Methodism. They divided over holiness teaching, and over other matters, but here there was this great unity, this teaching concerning assurance. What was it? It was this, that our assurance of salvation is not only―and not merely―something that is to be deduced from the Scriptures. They agreed that was part of it. I would say that the bulk of evangelical people today, in this and other countries, stop at that. That is their only assurance, that which you deduce from Scriptures. “Whosoever believeth in Him is not condemned.” So they say, “Do you believe in Him?” “Yes.” “Very well, you are not condemned, and there is your assurance. Do not worry about your feelings.”
      Now Methodism taught the exact opposite. That is the point at which you start, and you can go on and test yourself in terms of the teaching of the first Epistle of John. As you do, you will get a better assurance; an assurance which will save you from a kind of “believism,” or an intellectualism that just says that it believes and accepts all this, and [on to a better assurance] which emphasizes the importance of evidences of new life.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD: Has the Lord God wrought a change of heart in thee, and a change of life as a consequence of that?

JOHN WESLEY: A holy life is the best evidence of a gracious state.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: But these men were concerned to go on to a further source of assurance, which to them was the one that they desired and coveted above everything else. That was the direct witness of the Spirit himself to the fact that they were the children of God. So they made much, of course, of Romans 8:15 and 16; and also of Galatians 2:20: “The Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” This, I repeat, was common to all of them. We are all familiar with the experience of John Wesley in Aldersgate Street on May 24, 1738.

JOHN WESLEY: My heart was strangely warm, and I did know that my sins had been forgiven.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD: The most of you may have peace, but for Christ’s sake examine upon what this peace is founded, and see if Christ be brought home to your souls, if you have had a feeling application of the merits of Christ brought home to your souls. Is God at peace with you? Did Jesus Christ ever say, “Peace to you”—“Be of good cheer”—“Go thy way, thy sins are forgiven thee”—“My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you”—Did God ever bring a comfortable promise with power to your soul? And after you have been praying, and fearing you would be damned, did you ever feel peace flow in like a river upon your soul? so that you could say, Now I know that God is my friend, now I know that Jesus is my Saviour, now I can call him, “My Lord and my God;” now I know that Christ hath not only died for others, but I know that Jesus hath died for me in particular.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): If [assurance] is expected as an instantaneous impression of the Spirit of God upon the mind, independent of His Word, or to arise from some sudden and powerful application of a particular text of Scripture, this persuasion will end in disappointment. For though it must be allowed that the Lord does at times favour His people with peculiar manifestations of His goodness, and perhaps seal some promise especially suited to their present circumstances, with a remarkable sweetness and evidence upon their minds; yet these do rarely produce the [firm] assurance we are speaking of. These are but visits, seldom vouchsafed, and quickly suspended; and those who depend chiefly upon such impressions, instead of endeavouring to grow in the Scriptural knowledge of Christ, are generally as changeable in their hopes as in their frame. While their affections are thus engaged, “their mountain stands strong, and they think they shall never be moved;” but when the cause is withdrawn, the effect ceases, and they presently relapse into their former fears and inquietudes.

HUGH LATIMER (1483-1555): When I live in a settled and steadfast assurance about the state of my soul, methinks I am as bold as a lion. I can laugh at all tribulation: no afflictions daunt me. But when I am eclipsed in my comforts, I am of so fearful a spirit that I can run into a very mouse-hole.

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): Vague and fanciful impressions, visions and voices, received and rested upon as evidences of salvation are fearful delusions.

ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): Suppose, for example, a person to be under great dejection and fear respecting his interest in Christ, and while he is poring over his case the passage is suggested to his mind, “I am thy salvation,” Psalm 35:3. Some would suppose this was no other than the voice of God speaking peace to his soul, and that for him to question the goodness of his state after this would be unbelief…Godly persons are not the only characters who have passages of Scripture impressed upon their minds, and that “with power,” as it is often termed.*

JOHN NEWTON: Expectations of this sort have a tendency to great inconveniences, and often open a door to the delusions of enthusiasm [mysticism] and dangerous impositions; for Satan, when permitted, knows how to transform himself into an angel of light.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Of all the Diabolians that ever stole into the city of Mansoul, Mr. Live-by-feeling was one of the worst of villains, though he had the fairest face. Brethren, you had better live by works than live by feelings; both are damning forms of trust, but the one is more deceptive and more delusive than the other by far. You are justified by faith, not by feelings; you are saved by what Christ felt for you, not by what you feel; and the root and basis of salvation is the cross, and “other foundation shall no man lay than that which is laid;” and even though he place his experience there, he builds “wood, hay, and stubble,” and not the corner stone, which is Christ Jesus the Lord.

WILLIAM TYNDALE (1490-1536): Remember―Christ only is our resting-place, and He is our peace.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): The best thing is, to judge not by the manner of the operation, but the influence itself, and its effects, or by the fruit of the Spirit; and the “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” “And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.”

__________________________________________
*Editor’s Note: Remember, the Spirit of God actually came upon Balaam, a false prophet, and spoke a true prophecy through him (Numbers 24). King Saul also prophesied by the Spirit of the Lord, and yet was an ungodly man (I Samul 10:6-10). In the New Testament, Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest, spoke a similar true prophecy concerning Christ, (John 11:49-52), and then immediately began to plan Christ’s murder. Given these Scriptural examples, one would be very wise to be wary of basing his assurance of salvation solely upon a strong Scripture impression.

 

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Old Mrs. Much Afraid

Posted on April 12, 2013 by The Editor

John 5:24; John 6:47; Romans 4:3, 21-25
       Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
       Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
      What saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness…And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): It is a clear understanding of the doctrine of justification by faith only that should lead to an assurance of salvation. “Therefore,” says the Apostle in Romans 5:1, “being justified by faith,” or―having been justified by faith―“we have peace with God.”

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): A very large proportion of Christian people can only say of Christ that they hope they love Him; they trust they love Him; but this is a very poor and shallow experience which is content to stay there. It seems to me that no one ought to give any rest to his spirit till he feels quite sure about a matter of such vital importance. We are not content to have a hope of the love of our parents, or of our spouse, or of our children; we feel we must be certain there; and we ought not to be satisfied with a hope that Christ loves us, and with a bare trust that we love Him. The old saints did not generally speak with buts, and ifs, and hopes, and trusts, but they spoke positively and plainly. “I know whom I have believed,” saith Paul. “I know my Redeemer liveth,” saith Job. “He whom my soul loveth,” saith Solomon.

RICHARD SIBBES (1577-1635): Some think they have no faith at all because they have no full assurance, whereas the fairest fire that can be will have some smoke.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): It is no easy thing, when persons are pressed down by a sense of their vileness and imperfections, to keep them from fearing that they have no part nor lot in the matter, and that their hearts are not right in the sight of God. They are prone to judge of the truth of their grace by the degree of it and lose the comfort derivable from what they have, in thinking of what they have not.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: This happens generally because of defective teaching, or because the devil has persuaded us in some way or another to be looking too much inwardly at ourselves…We spend so much time in feeling our own pulse, taking our own spiritual temperature, considering our moods, and states, and fears.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The assurance of some of God’s dear children has been hindered by a defective ministry. They have sat under teaching which was too one-sided…They have been encouraged to be far more occupied with self than with Christ. Knowing that many are deceived, fearful lest they also should be, their main efforts are directed to self-examination. Disgusted too by the loud boastings of empty professors, perceiving the worthlessness of the carnal confidence voiced by the frothy religionists all around them, they hesitate to avow the assurance of salvation lest they be guilty of presumption or be puffed up by the Devil.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: They say, “Who am I to say that I am a child of God, and that I am saved? I am so unworthy, I am aware of so much blackness and evil in myself. Surely,” they say, “this is presumption.”

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): They seem to think it proper humility never to be confident and to live in a certain degree of doubt. This is to be regretted.

A. W. PINK: Yea, they have come to regard doubtings, fears, and uncertainty as the best evidence of spiritual humility.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: I have known some very godly people, some of them very active workers in the Christian Church, who have been in this position. I have known devout Christians who regard the claim to assurance of salvation as the hall-mark of superficiality and ignorance of doctrine―I am not exaggerating―there have been sections of the Church that have been so much afraid of false joy that they have gone to the other extreme and, as I say—ridiculous though it is and sounds—they have a kind of contentment only when they have felt utterly miserable and complete failures.

C. H. SPURGEON: Among my early hearers at Waterbeach was one good old woman whom I called “Mrs. Much-afraid.” I feel quite sure she has been many years in heaven, but she was always fearing that she should never enter the gates of glory. She was very regular in her attendance at the house of God, and was a wonderfully good listener. She used to drink in the gospel; but, nevertheless, she was always doubting, and fearing, and trembling about her own spiritual condition. She was a believer in Christ, I should think, but for fifty years, yet she had always remained in that timid, fearful, anxious state.
      One day, when I was talking with her she told me that she had not any hope at all; she had no faith; she believed that she was a hypocrite. I said, “Then don’t come to the chapel any more; we don’t want hypocrites there. Why do you come?”
      She answered, “I come because I can’t stop. I love the people of God; I love the house of God; and I love to worship God.”
      “Well,” I said, “you are an odd sort of hypocrite; you are a queer kind of unconverted woman.”
      “Ah!” she sighed, “you may say what you please, but I have not any hope of being saved.”
      So I said to her, “Well, next Sunday, I will let you go into the pulpit, that you may tell the people that Jesus Christ is a liar, and that you cannot trust Him.”
      “Oh!” she cried, “I would be torn in pieces before I would say such a thing as that. Why, He cannot lie! Every word He says is true.”
      “Then,” I asked, “why do you not believe it?”
      She replied, “I do believe it; but, somehow, I do not believe it for myself; I am afraid whether it is for me.”
      “Have you not any hope at all?” I asked.
      “No,” she answered.
      So I pulled out my purse, and I said to her, “Now, I have got £5 here, it is all the money I have, but I will give you that £5 for your hope if you will sell it.”
      She looked at me, wondering what I meant. “Why!” she exclaimed, “I would not sell it for a thousand worlds.” She had just told me that she had not any hope of salvation, yet she would not sell it for a thousand worlds!
      I fully expect to see that good old soul when I get to Heaven, and I am certain she will say to me, “O dear sir, how foolish I was when I lived down there at Waterbeach! I went groaning all the way to glory when I might just as well have gone there singing. I was always troubled and afraid, but my dear Lord kept me by His grace, and brought me safely here.”

JOHN BERRIDGE (1716-1793): The Lord washed our hearts here, and He will wash our brains in heaven.

 

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Drama Plays & Skits, ‘Jesus’ Movies, & Television Bible Serials

Posted on April 9, 2013 by The Editor

Malachi 2:11
       Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god.

A. W. TOZER (1897-1963): For centuries the Church has stood solidly against every form of worldly entertainment, recognizing it for what it was―a device for wasting time, a refuge from the disturbing voice of conscience, a scheme to divert attention from moral accountability. For this she got herself abused roundly by the sons of the world. But of late she has become tired of the abuse and has given over the struggle. She appears to have decided that if she cannot conquer the great god Entertainment she may as well join forces with him and make what use she can of his powers.

R. C. CHAPMAN (1803-1902): The so-called ‘innocent’ amusements of the world are only contrivances to forget God.

C. H. SPURGEON: Pleasure, so called, is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement. Everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.

A. W. TOZER: The great god Entertainment amuses his devotees mainly by telling them stories. The love of stories, which is characteristic of childhood, has taken fast hold of the minds of the retarded saints of our day, so much so that not a few persons manage to make a comfortable living by spinning yarns and serving them up in various disguises to church people. What is natural and beautiful in a child may be shocking when it persists into adulthood, and more so when it appears in the sanctuary and seeks to pass for true religion.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): We are told today they cannot think and follow reasoned statements, that they are so accustomed to the kind of outlook and mentality produced by newspapers, television, and the films, that they are incapable of following a reasoned, argued statement. We must therefore give them films and filmstrips, and get filmstars to speak to them, and pop-singers to sing to them and give ‘brief addresses’ and testimonies, with just a word of Gospel thrown in. ‘Create your atmosphere’ is the great thing, and then just get a very brief word of Gospel in at the end.

A. W. TOZER: So today we have the astonishing spectacle of millions of dollars being poured into the unholy job of providing earthly entertainment for the so-called sons of heaven. Religious entertainment is in many places rapidly crowding out the serious things of God. Many churches these days have become little more than poor theatres where fifth-rate “producers” peddle their shoddy wares with the approval of evangelical leaders who can even quote a holy text in defence of their delinquency. And hardly a man dares raise his voice against it.

HORATIUS BONAR (1808-1889): Nay, we glory in this as “progress,” “culture,” and “enlightenment,” as freedom from the bigotry of other centuries and the narrowness of our half-enlightened ancestors, who did not know how to reconcile contraries and to join what God has put asunder; how to believe everything alike; how to combine earth’s pleasures and gaieties with the joy of God; how to both pray and dance; how to revel and to weep for sin; how to wear both the “white raiment” and the jeweled ball dress; how to maintain friendship both with God and His enemies.

SAMUEL RUTHERFORD (1600-1661): The way that is halfer and co-partner with the smoke of this fat world and with ease, smelleth strong of a foul and false way.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Now we know that the Reformation…swept away the medieval “mystery plays” as they are called, and dramatic performances in the church. The Reformation got rid of all that and it is very sad to observe that people who claim an unusual degree of spirituality should be trying to lead us back to that which the Reformers saw clearly had been concealing the gospel and the Truth from the people.

C. H. SPURGEON: There are many in the present day who tell us that the theatre is a great school for morals. That must be a strange school where the teachers never learn their own lessons. In God’s school the teachers must be masters of the art of holiness.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): The theaters are fountains and means of vice.

C. H. SPURGEON: Jesus said, Preach the gospel to every creature. But men are getting tired of the divine plan; they are going to be saved by the priest, going to be saved by the music, going to be saved by theatricals, and nobody knows what! Well, they may try these things as long as ever they like; but nothing can ever come of the whole thing but utter disappointment and confusion, God dishonoured, the gospel travestied, hypocrites manufactured by thousands, and the church dragged down to the level of the world.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Opposites are opposites, and you will never get a mean between them. Here it is. There is no possibility of mixing light and darkness. It is no longer light if you do, and it is no longer darkness. Neither can you mix God and mammon, for no man can serve two masters. It is one or the other, “for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.” These are absolutes, and if we were capable of thinking clearly we should recognize them as such. They are both totalitarian. Both demand our entire allegiance, and therefore they cannot be mixed.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Let it be remembered, that God never honours a compromising spirit.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Is not the failure to recognize this the whole trouble with [the church] today? The Church of God for many a day has been trying to mix certain incompatibles. If it is a spiritual society, then we cannot mix the world with it in any shape or form. It does not matter what the form is…It is this constant compromising in the life of the Church that has been her ruination ever since the days of Constantine. Once you have lost the division between the world and the Church, the Church ceases to be truly Christian. But, thank God, there have been revivals, there have been people who have seen this truth and who have refused to compromise. It is the only hope for the Church. We have been trying to sustain her by worldly methods, and it is not surprising that she is as she is. And she will continue to be like this as long as we continue to attempt the impossible. It is only when we come to realize that we are God’s people, and a spiritual people, and that we live in the realm of the spirit, that we shall be blessed and shall begin to se a revival. We can introduce our worldly methods, and we may appear to be having success, but the Church will not improve. No! the Church is spiritual, and her spiritual life must be nurtured and sustained in a purely spiritual manner.

 

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The Divine Inspiration of Scripture

Posted on April 5, 2013 by The Editor

2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21
       All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.
       The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Here is a proof of the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The most convincing of all the proofs and arguments for the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures is the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ regarded them and treated them as such. He Himself submitted to their authority. When assaulted by Satan, three times He replied, “It is written,” and it is particularly to be noted that the point of each reply lay in a single word—“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.”

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): He citeth Scripture…This weapon Christ used all along with success, and therefore it is well called, “the Sword of the Spirit,” Ephesians 6:17―because the Spirit is the Author of it: Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

ROBERT HALDANE (1764-1842): The uniform language of Jesus Christ, and His Apostles, respecting the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures, proves that, without exception, they are “the Word of God.” On what principle but that of verbal inspiration of Scripture, can we explain our Lord’s words, John 10:35, “The Scripture cannot be broken”?

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): Therefore you have Moses and the prophets, when they came to deliver their errand, their message to the people, still saying, “Hear the Word of the Lord,” “Thus saith the Lord,” and the like. So when Ezekiel was sent to the house of Israel, in their state of religion, thus was he bid to say unto them, “Thus saith the Lord God,” Ezekiel 2:4; 3:11. This is the honour and majesty, then, that God hath put upon His written Word, and thus He hath done even of purpose, that we might make them the rule and directory of our fear, and that we might stand in awe of, and tremble at them.

HUGH LATIMER (1483-1555): The Author of Holy Scripture is the Mighty One, the Everlasting―God Himself!

A. W. PINK: This was the position taken by our Lord Himself…At the beginning of His public ministry, when He went to Nazareth where most of his thirty years had been lived, He performed to no wonderful miracle, but entered the synagogue, read from the prophet Isaiah and said, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears,” Luke 4:21.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): I maintain fully that the Old Testament is of equal authority with the New, and that they stand or fall together. You cannot separate them, any more than you can separate the warp and woof in a piece of woven cloth. The writers of the New Testament continually quote the words of the Old Testament as of equal authority with their own, and never give the slightest hint that these quotations are not to be regarded as the Word of God.

ROBERT HALDANE: The Apostle Peter classes all the Epistles of Paul, which he ascribes to the wisdom given to him, with “the other scriptures,” 2 Peter 3:15,16, thereby declaring them to be of the same authority, and showing that the writings both of the Old and New Testament, were designated the “Scriptures.”

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): By the Scriptures, I understand the law and the prophets, and those books which have in all ages been accounted canonical, and which made up that volume commonly called the Bible. These are emphatically styled the Scriptures, and, in one place, the “Scriptures of truth,” as though no other books deserved the name of true writings, or Scriptures, in comparison of them.

ROBERT HALDANE: The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are not only genuine and authentic, but also inspired writings. The claim of inspiration which they advance, is a claim of infallibility and of perfection. It is also a claim of absolute authority, which demands unlimited submission. It is a claim which, if set up for any other book, might, with the utmost ease, be shown to be unfounded.

E. W. BULLINGER (1837-1913): The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, and therefore its Divine authorship and authority, lies at the root and foundation of true Christianity.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): This is a principle which distinguishes our religion from all others, that we know that God hath spoken to us, and are fully convinced that the prophets did not speak at their own suggestion, but that, being organs of the Holy Spirit, they only uttered what they had been commissioned from heaven to declare.

A. W. PINK: Upon the foundation of the Divine inspiration of the Bible stands or falls the entire edifice of Christian truth—if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Surrender the dogma of verbal inspiration and you are left like a rudderless ship on a stormy sea—at the mercy of every wind that blows. Deny that the Bible is, without any qualification, the very Word of God, and you are left without any ultimate standard of measurement and without any supreme authority.

J. C. RYLE: If Christians have no Divine book to turn to as the warrant of their doctrine and practise, they have no solid ground for present peace or hope, and no right to claim the attention of mankind. They are building on a quicksand, and their faith is vain.

ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): We must, therefore, either admit these writings to be the Word of God, or consider them as mere imposture.

JOHN BUNYAN: Ungodly men undervalue the Scriptures, and give no credit to them…because they do not believe they are the Word of God, but rather suppose them to be the inventions of men, written by some politicians, on purpose to make poor ignorant people to submit to some religion and government.

J. C. RYLE: When you read the Bible, you are not reading the unaided, self-taught composition of erring men like yourselves, but thoughts and words which were suggested by the eternal God. The men who were employed to indite the Scripture “spake not of themselves.” They “spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”—He that holds a Bible in his hand should remember that he holds not the word of man, but of God. He holds a volume which not only contains, but is God’s Word.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): This is no common book. It is not the sayings of the sages of Greece; here are not the utterances of philosophers of past ages. If these words were written by man, we might reject them; but oh, let me think the solemn thought—that this book is God’s handwriting, that these words are God’s―Oh, tremble, tremble, lest any of you despise it; mark its authority, for it is the Word of God…Today it is still the self-same mighty Word of God that it was in the hands of our Lord Jesus.

ROBERT HALDANE: By often referring to the “Scriptures,” which He declared “cannot be broken,” the Lord Jesus Christ has given His full attestation to the whole of them as the unadulterated Word of God…He told the Jews that they made the Word of God of none effect through their traditions, Mark 7:13. By calling them “the Word of God,” He indicated that these Scriptures proceeded from God Himself.

HENRY CLAY FISH (1820-1877): The Lord hath spoken, is enough. This cuts short all debate, and hushes to silence every objection. The Word of the Lord is infallible, and so it becomes a foundation for the most certain truths.

MILES COVERDALE (1488-1568): Whosoever believeth not the Scripture, believeth not Christ; and whosoever refuseth it, refuseth God also.

C. H. SPURGEON: “Thus saith the Lord” is the end of discussion to Christian minds; and even the ungodly cannot resist Scripture without resisting the Spirit who wrote it…Believe in the inspiration of Scripture, and believe it in the most intense sense. You will not believe in a truer and fuller inspiration than really exists.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): What! it may be said in reply, do you mean to say that every sentence, from the opening lines of Genesis to the close of Revelation, is divinely inspired? Yes; that is precisely the ground we take. We claim for every line between the covers of the volume a Divine origin.

J. C. RYLE: Stand firm on the grand old text, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.”

 

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The Pope’s Mass: A Great Public Denial of Christ’s Finished Work

Posted on March 24, 2013 by The Editor

Hebrews 9:28; Romans 6:9,10; Hebrews 10:10-12; Isaiah 66:3
      Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.
      Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once.
      We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.
      He that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog’s neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine’s blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations.

JOHN FOXE (1517-1587): In the year 1538, one Collins, a madman, suffered death with his dog in Smithfield. The circumstances were as follows: Collins happened to be in church when the priest elevated the host; and Collins, in derision of the sacrifice of the mass, lifted up his dog above his head. For this crime, Collins, who ought to have been sent to a madhouse…was brought before the Bishop of London; and…such was the force of popish power, such the corruption in the Church and state, that the poor madman, and his dog, were both carried to the stake in Smithfield, where they were burned to ashes.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): No one knows, but he who has endured it, the solitude of a soul which has outstripped its fellows in zeal for the Lord of hosts: it dare not reveal itself, lest men count it mad…We do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it.

JOHN KNOX (1514-1572): The Papists have boldly affirmed that the Mass is the ordinance of God, and the institution of Jesus Christ, and a sacrifice for the sins of the quick and the dead. We deny both the one and the other. We affirm that the Mass, as it is now used, is nothing but the invention of man, and, therefore, is an abomination before God, and no sacrifice that ever God commanded.

C. H. SPURGEON: To invent our own forms of worship is to insult God; and every mass that is ever offered upon the Romish altar is an insult to heaven, and a blasphemy to God―the blasphemy of supposing that any so-called “priest” can offer up Christ. There are men who say that, in the unbloody sacrifice of the mass, “there is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead.”

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): The Roman Catholic priests declare that, in the mass, they offer a continual sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead. There are many things that Protestants might be able to condone. But this is the central, the root blasphemy―the denial of the finished work of the Lord Jesus on Calvary’s cross―the one, only and all sufficient offering for the sins of a guilty world. Every time the priest stands at Rome’s altar to offer the sacrifice of the mass, he denies the unchanging efficacy of the work wrought by the Lord Jesus on Calvary’s cross.

C. H. SPURGEON: This He did once, when He offered up himself, Hebrews 7:27; and yet these shavelings say that they offer him again―then it follows that the great High Priest, when “when he offered up himself,” did not perform an effectual work. That would be a terrible imputation upon His honour. God forbid that we should entertain it for a single moment!

H. A. IRONSIDE: Every Roman Catholic priest will tell you that all the claims of the Church of Rome stand or fall with the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Mass―[that] the bread and wine used in the Sacrament of the Mass, when consecrated by the priest, are changed in some mysterious way into the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ…I have often pressed this question home to Catholic priests: “What is your function as a sacrificing priest?” They say, “It is my privilege to offer up the Lord Jesus from time to time as a continual sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead.”
       I generally put it like this: “Well, Christ has to be slain that He may be offered up; doesn’t He?”
       “Yes.”
       “You claim then that every time you pronounce the blessing, you are sacrificing Christ for the sins of the living and the dead?”
       “Yes.”
       “Well then, you kill Christ afresh every time you offer that sacrifice!”
       Then they begin to hedge. But there is no escape from that horrible conclusion. The Roman priest says that when he offers the sacrifice of the mass he is presenting Christ again for the sins of the living and the dead. And the only way the Christ can be a sacrifice is to be put to death; therefore, the priest kills Him afresh every time he offers. They cannot get away from it. The apostle Peter said at Pentecost, “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: whom God hath raised up...” If Christ has to be offered continually, then every priest is guilty of murdering the Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God.

JOHN KNOX: What our Master Jesus Christ did, we know by His Evangelists; what the priest doeth at his Mass, the world seeth. Now, doth not the Word of God plainly assure us, that Christ Jesus neither said Mass, nor yet commanded Mass to be said, at His Last Supper, seeing that no such things as their Mass is made mention of within the whole Scriptures?

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): It’s man adding his works to the grace of God, which is essentially Roman Catholic teaching―the grace of God plus―what man does, what the church does, and so on. Well, my friends, let’s get rid of it; let’s not waste our time on it.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): The abolition of the mass, as you say, is conformable to Scripture.

C. H. SPURGEON: A ‘mass’ of profanity, indeed it is!

MARTIN LUTHER: Agreed…The mass is a bad thing: God is [opposed] to it: it must be abolished, and I wish that over the whole world it were supplanted by the supper of the Gospel.

J. H. MERLE d’AUBIGNÉ (1794-1872): So long as the mass remains, Rome has gained everything: so soon as the mass falls, Rome has lost all. The mass is the creative principle of the whole system of Popery.

H. A. IRONSIDE: It was because the great reformers of the sixteenth century saw this clearly and were assured in their own hearts that the doctrine of the Church of Rome in regard to the Eucharist or the Mass was absolutely opposed to the Word of God and was not only blasphemous but idolatrous, that they came out in protest against that apostate system and they won for us at a tremendous cost of Christian blood the liberty that we now possess. And yet we, unworthy children of such worthy sires, are frittering away our liberty and we are allowing our children to be ensnared again by this evil system from which our fathers escaped with such tremendous effort.

 

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