Holy Spirit

"So the Lord Christ would have us know this great truth, that the presence of the Holy Spirit with believers as Comforter and helper, sent by him as promised, is better and more profitable to believers than his bodily presence can ever be, now that he has made the one sacrifice for sin which he came into the world to offer."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 169

Possessions

"Unbelievers may have a civil right to many things of earth. But they do not have a spiritual, sanctified right to a place in the house of God or to any of the privileges of that house. Unbelievers do not use anything they have for the glory of God and have kept them from the children of God for whose sakes they (that is, unbelievers) are kept from destruction.  What judgement awaits them! God will say, 'I have allowed you to enjoy many things in this world. What have you laid out for the spread of the gospel? What have you given to the poor, especially the poor saints? Have you been willing to lay down all for my sake?"

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 166

Subordination

"The right that believers have is not the same right that Christ has. Christ has the sovereign supreme right to do what he will with his own. The right that believers have is subordinate to Christ. They are accountable for the use of those things to which they have a right and title. The right of Christ is the right of the Lord of the house. The right of the saints is the right of servants of the house."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 165

Inheritance

"Consider the privileges of that house. These privileges will not suit any others but the children of God. Is food given to a dead man? Will he grow strong by it? Will he thrive on it? The things of the family and house of God are food for living souls, and only God's children are alive. All others are dead in trespasses and sins. "

-John Owen , Communion With God, Pg. 162-163

Preaching

"It is true that the Word is preached to all the world, to gather in God's elect, who are scattered about the world, and to leave the rest without excuse. But the chief reason the Lord Christ had in setting up a preaching ministry is to gather in those heirs of salvation to the enjoyment of that feast of fat things which he has prepared for them in his house."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 162

Inheritence

"The whole aim of the Lord Jesus' ministry is 'for the perfecting of the saints for the work of ministry'. All is for them. All is for the family."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 161

Obedience

"When a person obeys out of love, then fear is cast out. Fear arises when our obedience is to be judged and may be condemned. So where there is life and love, there is freedom and a willing obedience."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 160

Obedience

"Slaves find freedom when released from their duties. Children find their freedom in doing their duty."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 160

Inheritance

"It is declared to Satan as the one who has been judged and condemned. When the Lord Christ delivers a soul from the power of that strong, armed one, he binds him, so that he can no longer exercise that power and dominion over the soul. So by this means, Satan knows that such a person has been set free from his family and that all his future attempts to try and get that soul back are doomed to failure, for that soul is now the possession and inheritance of the Lord Christ."

-John Owen, Communion With Christ, Pg. 156

Adoption

"Adoption is the authoritative transfer of a believer, by Jesus Christ, from the family of the world and Satan into the family of God with his being admitted into all the privileges and advantages of that family."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 153

Holiness

"One moment's communion with Christ by faith in this matter of cleansing is more effective to the purging of the soul and growing in grace that the utmost efforts made by self."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 150

Guilt

"A sense of guilt follows every conviction. But an awareness of sin's defilement only comes from an insight into the purity and holiness of God."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 150

Regeneration & The Holy Spirit

"In the work of communicating the Spirit to our souls, raising them from death to life, we have no kind of fellowship with Christ, but only what lies in a passive reception of that life-giving, quickening Spirit and power. We were but dead bones on which the wind blew and made them live (Ezek. 37) We were like Lazarus in the grave. Christ called and we came out because his call was accompanied with life and power."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 149 

The Spirit

"The Spirit is the fruit of the Father's love."

-John Owen, Communion With God, 147

Repentance & Obedience

"Communion with Christ produces repentance. When a person really sees the vileness of sin and what it cost Christ to bear it away, will he still want to continue in sin?

  Communion with Christ produces obedience. 'If Christ is so glorified and honored by taking our sins, the more we bring to him, the more he will be glorified.' A man could not suppose that this objection would be made, but that the Holy Spirit, who knows what is in man, has made it for them in their name (Rom. 6:1-3). If the gospel is properly preached, the objection 'shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?' will always be raised. But Paul says, 'God forbid!'- and then explains why not (Rom. 6)."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 145-146

Communion

"There is nothing that Jesus Christ is more delighted with than that his saints should always hold communion with him by giving him their sins and receiving his righteousness. This greatly honors him and gives him the glory that is his due. What great dishonor we do to Christ to try and get rid of our sins in any other way. "

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 144-145

Worship

"The great, solemn worship of the Christian church lies in honouring and glorifying the Lord Jesus (Phil. 3:8; Song 5:9-16)."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 143

Righteousness

"To come to such a hearty approval of Christ's righteousness we need first of all to be aware that we need a righteousness with which to appear before God. If God is holy and righteous and of purer eyes than to look at iniquity, we must have a righteousness with which we are able to stand before him.
We will only approve of Christ's righteousness when we are convinced that our righteousness has been weighed in the balances and found wanting. The Jews made the mistake of trutstin gin their own righteousness (Rom. 9:31,32). And so they were rejected (Rom. 10:1-4). (See Paul's judgment of man's righteousness in Phil. 3:8-10). God declares that 'there is none righteous, no not one'. Isaiah declares that 'our righteousnesses are like filthy rags' (Isa. 64:6).
He who has fellowship with Christ approves of, values and rejoices in his righteousness by which he is accepted by God (Isa. 45:24). This is the pearl of great price (Matt. 13:45,46)."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 141

Obedience

"Obedience is also a testimony and pledge of our adoption as children of God, a sign and evidence of grace and of our acceptance of God. Obedience is the best way of showing our gratitude to God for His grace."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 140

Obedience

"We have in us a new Creature (II Cor. 5:17). This new creature is fed, cherished, nourished, kept alive by the fruits of holiness. Why has God given us enw hearts an new natures? Is it in order that we should murder them?!"

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 140

Holiness

"Our holiness, that is, our obedience and works of righteousness, is one chief and special way by which God is glorified in our salvation.
It is the whole reason why the Father chose us (Eph. 1:4; Isa. 4:3, 4; II. Thess. 2:13). It is this love of the Father that is the motive to holiness (I John 4:8-10). It is why the Son loved us and gave himself to redeem us (Eph. 5:25-27; II Cor. 5:15; Rom. 6:11). It is why the Holy Spirit does his work of love in us. He prepares us for obedience (Titus 3:5; Gal. 5:22,23)."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 138-139

Righteousness

"Christ's obedience imputed to us and our obedience done to God have two different functions. Christ's obedience imputed to us is so that we might be counted righteous before God and so be justified. But our obedience is not the righteousness by which we are accepted by God and justified, but it is that for which God has created us and which we do out of love and gratitude to him for his grace (Eph. 2:8-10)."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 138

Righteousness

"Christ lived and died in order to work out a perfect righteousness for his people. He then tells them what he has done and finally he actually gives this righteousness to them and regards them as if they had worked out that righteousness themselves, so that by this righteousness they will be perfectly accepted with the Father."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 133

Redemption

"Christ paid the price for our redemption. Redemption is the deliverance of anyone from bondage or captivity and the miseries accompanying that condition by the paying of a price or ransom. The Redeemer pays the price to the one who holds authority over teh captive."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 125

Righteousness

"The righteousness we receive must be that righteousness which we would have had if we had obeyed the whole law. (Phil. 3:9). This is the obedience of Christ to the law. So he is 'made to us righteousness' (I Cor. 1:30)."


-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 123

Obedience

"Are we, then, freed from obedience? Yes. We are freed from obeying the law in our own strength, and we are freed from obeying it in order to obtain everlasting life. To say that we must still obey in order to obtain everlasting life is to say we are still under the terms of the old covenant. We are not freed from obedience as a way of walking with God, but we are freed fro mobedience as a means of making ourselves good enough to come to God."


-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 122-123

Christ's Obedience

"Christ's complete obedience to the law is reckoned to us. Death is the reward of sin, and so we cannot be freed from death, but by the death of Christ (Heb. 2:14-15). Man cannot be freed from the condemnation of death until he has done all the law requires (Matt. 19:17). As man cannot keep all the commandments, it must be done for him by a surety. Christ not only obeyed all the commandments on behalf of man, but he also bore the penalty of death. But though we are freed from the penalty of death, we are still bound to obey the law. Yet that obedience is not to gain acceptance with God, but rather it is an expression of gratitude to God for our deliverance from death.
Why did Christ die? He died because the law demanded the death of a sinner, and Christ was the surety for sinners."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 122

The Death Of Christ

"Christ's obedient life showed his willing submission to, and his complete fulfilling of, every law of god that any of the saints were obliged to obey. It is true that every act of Christ's obedience from the blood of his circumcision to the bood of the cross was attended with suffering so that his whole life might be seen as one long death."


-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 121

Righteousness

"So man's great question is, 'How can a man make himself righteousnes to stand in the presence of a righteous God?'. Unable to discover a perfect righteousness for themselves, men 'through the fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage' (Heb. 2:15). They are frightened to die lest their self-righteousness will not save them from death and destruction."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 94

Sin, Original

"The whole purpose of sin and why God allowed sin into the world is revealed only in Christ. Sin was allowed entry into the world in order that God's glorious grace may be praised in the pardoning and forgiveness of sin. Outside Christ, sin in its own nature only brings dishonour to God. But in Christ, God is seen to be a God pardoning iniquity, transgression and sin."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 93

Sin

" Christ was crucified for us, therefore sin was crucified in us. Christ died for us and so the body of sin was destroyed so that we should no longer serve sin. And as Christ was raised from the dead so that death shall have no more dominion over him, so also we are raised from sin that it should have no more dominion over us. This wisdom is hidden in Christ alone."


-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 93

Sin

"Sin is never more alive than when it is unable to serve its lusts."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 93

Self-Righteousness

"Man is utterly unable to obey God and to live in agreement with God. This is one truth that man finds the greatest difficulty in learning. He rises up in pride and anger at this truth, denying it with all his being. From where, then, can man learn this truth? Nature does not teach it. The law does not teach it. This truth lies hidden in the Lord Jesus (Rom. 8:2-4). The law can never bring man to a perfect righteousness, for man can never perfectly obey the law. Man's fleshly nature, being corrupted by sin, has been made weak and unable to obey the law.

  Only Christ can bring man to a perfect righteousness. Christ does this by paying the punishment for our sin and setting us free from its guilt, and by imputing to us his perfect righteousness and so setting us free from having to justify ourselves by our own attempted self-righteousness."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 92

Truth

"All truth outside Christ does not lead to the knowledge of salvation. It only leads to further corruption (Rom. 2:4, 5; 1:18-23)."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 87

God, All Sufficient

"In Christ, God's all-sufficiency is wonderful revealed. God's all-sufficiency is his absolute and universal perfection by which there is nothing lacking in him, and nor is he in need of anything outside of himself. Nothing can be added to his fulness and nor can he ever be emptied of his fulness."

-John Owen, Communion With God, Pg. 87

Holy Spirit, Gift of

I well remember the days of drudgery... then a small still voice said, "there standeth one among you whom ye know not." I had not grasped the truth that the Holy Spirit is a person, alive and with the church. With lightening came the climax, How many true Christians toil on bearing burdens far too great for their natural strength, utterly forgetful that the mighty burden bearer is with them to do for them and through them what they have undertaken to accomplish alone. As Christ, the second person of the Godhead came to make atonement for sink so the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead came to Earth to communicate power from on high. We as believers receive Him by faith in order to be qualified for service. Both gifts have been bestowed, but it is not what we have but what we know that we have by a conscience, appropriating faith, which determines our spiritual wealth. The true secret of service lies in yielding to the Holy Spirit to use me to do His work.

Adoniram Judson Gordon, They Found The Secret

Holy Spirit, Gift of

At last I realized that Jesus Christ was actually and literally within me, not a figure of speech. Even more, He constituted Himself my very life, taking me into union with Himself - my body, mind and spirit. While I still had my own identity and free will... it meant that I need never ask Him to help me as though He were one and I another; but rather simply to do His work, His will, in me and through me. Finally, there is the quiet act of faith, apart from any feeling or immediate evidence, that God does set the trusting soul wholly free from the law of sin.

Charles Trumbull, They Found The Secret

God's All-Sufficiency

In Christ, God's all sufficiency is wonderfully revealed. God's all-sufficiency is his absolute and universal perfection by which there is nothing lacking in him, and nor is he in need of anything outside of himself, Nothing can be added to his fulness and nor can he ever be emptied of his fulness.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 87

Sin

To be given up to our own heart's lusts and to be left to walk according to our own ideas is as dreadful a condition as a creature is capable of falling into in this world.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 84

Longsuffering & Forgiveness of God

In Christ, the patience, forbearance and longsuffering of God towards sinners is full of love, sweetness, kindness and grace. A sinner out of Christ thinks that because God does not at once punish sin, God will never call him to account. So he perishes full of faith in God's forbearance. but in Christ, God is revealed as waiting to be gracious to sinners; waiting to show them love and kindness (Isa. 30:18). When the soul sees and is convinced that God, for Christ's sake, has overlooked his many sins, he is astonished that God should do this. He is amazed that God did not cast him out of his sight. Instead, the redeemed soul finds that with infinite wisdom God has delivered his soul from the power of the devil, dealt with his sins and brought his soul into fellowship with himself. God has made a way for the complete forgiveness of our sins through his forbearance, and this was is to be found only in Christ.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 84

Sin / Judgment

To see Christ, the wisdom and the power of God, always beloved of the Father, fear and tremble, bow and sweat, pray and die; to see him lifted up on the cross, the earth trembling beneath him as if unable to bear his weight; to see the heavens darkened over him as if shut against his cry and himself hanging between both as if refused by each; and to see that all this is because of our sins is to see clearly the holy justice and wrath of God against sin. Supremely in Christ do we learn this great truth that God hates sin and judges it with a dreadful and fearful judgment.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 82-83

God's Justice

But God's justice shines most brightly in the Lord Christ. In Christ God has shown his righteousness. He showed that ti was impossible for his justice to be turned away from sinners without propitiation, a victim who would suffer in the place of sinners, so satisfying divine justice and so turning away God;s wrath on sinners. God did not spare his only Son, but made his soul an offering for sin, and would be satisfied with no atonement but that which he purchased by his blood, It has been abundantly shown that God;s righteousness and holiness required such an atonement to show God's wrath against sin and his determination to punish sin. To know that it was necessary for God's justice to be carried out on sin is the only true and useful knowledge of God's justice. To think that God can exercise justice as he pleases does not make justice a property of his nature, but a free act of his will. To condemn and punish where justice does not condemn nor require punishment is not justice, but an act of ill-will.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 81-82

Mercy

Pardoning mercy comes by Christ alone. This pardoning mercy is revealed in the gospel, and in this pardoning mercy God will be glorified for ever (Eph. 1:6). Pardoning mercy is not a vague general mercy which overlooks sin. This would be dishonoring to God. Pardoning mercy is God's free, gracious acceptance of a sinner because satisfaction was made to his justice consistent with his glory. It is a mercy of inconceivable wonder, for God came down from the heights of glory to bring forgiveness to sinners, whilst at the same time exacting justice and severity on sin.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 80

Wisdom

There are two sorts of wisdom in the world. There is civil wisdom and prudence for the managing of daily affairs, and there is the ability to learn and produce art and literature. But god rejects both these as of no use at all in the work which true wisdom intends to accomplish (1 Cor. 1:19-20). There is no true wisdom or knowledge apart from the knowledge of God (Jer. 8:9). True wisdom and knowledge are shut up in Jesus Christ. He alone is 'the true light which gives light to every man who comes into the world' (John 1:9). He who does not come to Christ walks in darkness.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 78-79

God, Judgment of

He fills his enemies with fear, terror and horror until they yield him pretended obedience. Sometimes with outward judgments, Christ bruises, breaks and crushes them, staining his robes with their blood, filling the earth with their corpses. And at the last, Christ will gather them all together, the beast, the false prophet and all nations and will cast them into that lake that burns with fire and brimstone (Psalm 110:6; Rev. 19:20).

John Owen, Communion With God, P.68

Atonement

Christ had not been man, he could not have suffered for men, and if he had not been God, his suffering could not have satisfied infinite justice.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 66

Love of Christ

But the love of Christ, being the love of God, is infallibly effectual. It produces all the good things Christ desires to produce in his people. Christ loves life, grace and holiness into us. He loves us also into a covenant of love with himself. Christ loves us into heaven. Love in Christ is his will to do good to the one he loves. Whatever good Christ by his love wills to do to anyone is infallibly done to that person.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 63

Grace

If all the world should drink free grace, mercy and pardon from Christ, the well of salvation; if they should draw strength from one single promise, they would not be able to lower the level of the water of grace in that promise one hair's breadth. There is enough grace, mercy and pardon in one of God's promises for the sins of millions of worlds, if they existed, because the promise is supplied from an infinite, bottomless reservoir. What is one finite guilt before this infinite and eternal reservoir of grace? Show me the sinner who can spread out his sins to infinite dimensions and I will show him this infinite and eternal reservoir of grace and mercy.

John Owen, Communion With God, P.62

Grace & Compassion

Consider the endless, bottomless, boundless grace and compassion that is in Christ, the God of Zion. It is not the grace of a creature, nor all the grace that can possibly be found in any created nature, which will satisfy all our needs. We are too needy to be satisfied by a mere creature. But in Christ's human nature there is fulness of grace, for he did not receive 'the Spirit by measure' (John 3:34). In Christ there is a fulness like that of light in the sun, or of water in the sea. It is a fulness imcomparably above the fulness of angels. Yet in Christ's human nature, then thirsty, guilty souls, would soon drain him dry. Christ's human nature on its own would not meet all our needs except in a moral way. But when the well of his humanity is inseparably united to the infinite, inexhaustible reservoir of his deity, who can possibly drain him dry?

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 61

Communion with God

The soul willingly accepts Christ as its only Husband, Lord and Saviour. This is called 'receiving' Christ (John 1:12). This does not mean a once-for-all act of the will, but a continual receiving of Christ in abiding with him and owning him to be our Lord for ever. This is when the soul agrees to take Christ on his terms,...

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 59

Communion with God

The soul constantly prefers Christ to all else, counting everything else that seeks to possess the heart but rubbish in comparison to him. Beloved peace; beloved human relationships; beloved wisdom and learning; beloved righteousness; beloved duties are all but rubbish compared to Christ.

John Owen,Communion With God, P. 59

Prayer

The Lord Jesus Christ, then, was set up and prepared to be a husband to his saints, his church. He undertook the work of Mediator for which he was especially filled with the Spirit. As Mediator he purchased for his people grace and glory. Now he offers himself tothem in the promises of the gospel, making himself desirable to them. He convinces them of his good will, and that he is sufficient for all their needs. And when they agree to receive him, which is all he requires or expects from them, he enters into a marriage contract to be theirs for ever.

John Owen, Communing With God, P. 58

Prayer

Do not be timid and fearful like one that hides in the secret places and is afraid to come out. Do not be cast down at the weakness of your prayers. Let me hear you sighing and groaning for me. They are sweet and delightful to my ears. Let me see your spiritual face seeking for and desiring heavenly things. A look from you brings great joy and delight to me.

John Owen, Communing With God, P. 57

Grace (Hear His Voice)

Now a word to you that are young, who are full of health and strength and who are chasing after some beloved ambition or some beloved pleasure. Stop and consider. What are all your beloveds compared to Christ the true beloved? What satisfaction and happiness have your beloveds brought you? Show us the peace, quietness and assurance of everlasting blessedness that they have brought you. Their paths are crooked. Whoever walks in them shall not know peace. So look and see that there is a fit object for your highest love, one in whom you may find rest to your soul, one in whom you will find nothing to grieve and trouble you to eternity. Behold, he stands at the door of your souls and knocks. Do not reject him, lest you seek for him and do not find him. Why do you spend your time in idleness and foolishness, wasting your precious time? Why associate with those who scoff at religion and the things of God? You only do this because you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ. When he whom you have slighted and refused, how it will break your hearts and fill you with sorrow and remorse because you have neglected him. If you never come to know him, then it would have been better if you had never been born. 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.'

John Owen, Communion With God, P.52

Sin

Sin brought infinite punishment because it was committed against an infinite God. Chris, being the infinite God in human nature, could suffer the infinite punishment that the sinner deserved. And so, by this personal union in Christ we are saved.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 50

Grace

Grace is a word which has various meanings. But chiefly it means three things:

(1) Grace can mean grace of personal presence and beauty. So we say, 'He or she is a graceful and beautiful person'. The Song of Solomon deals mainly with the grace and beauty of Christ's person. See also Psalm 45:2.
(2) Grace can mean grace of free favour and acceptance. 'By grace you are saved'. That is, we are saved by the free favour and merciful acceptance of God in Christ. So the expression "If I have found grace in your sight' is often used. The person using this expression hopes that he will be freely and favourably accepted. So God 'gives grace', that is, favour, to the humble (james 4:6, Gen. 39:21, 41:37; Acts 4:10; 1 Sam. 2:26; 2 Kings 25:27).
(3) Grace can mean the fruit of the Spirit sanctifying and renewing our natures, enabling us to do those good things which God has purposed and planned for us to do, and holding us back from evil. 'My grace is sufficient for you,' say the Lord Christ. That is, the help which God gave was sufficient for Paul (2 Cor. 12:9; 8:6, 7; Col. 6:16; Heb. 12:28).

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 46-47

Holiness

Communion with God is wholly inconsistent with loose walking (1 John 1:6; 2:4). The one who claims to have fellowship with the Father and who does not keep his commandments is a liar. The love of the world and of the Father cannot dwell together.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 37

The Father's Love

And what a safe place the saints have to retreat to when they suffer the scorn, reproaches, scandals and misrepresentations of the world. When a child is bullied and hurt in the streets by strangers, he quickly runs home to the love and protection of his father. There he tells everything and is comforted. In all the hard words and slanders which the saints meet with in the streets of the world, they may come home to their Father and tell him all their troubles and sorrows and be comforted. 'As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you,' says the Lord (Isa. 66:13). And the soul may say, 'If I am hated in the world, I will go where I know I am loved. Though all others hate me, yet my Father is tender and full of compassion. I will go to him and find happiness in him. In the world I am considered vile. I am frowned on and rejected. But I have honour and love with the Father whose kindness is better than life itself. There I shall have all things in their fulness, which others have only in dribs and drabs. There is in my Father's love everything I desire. There I find the sweetness of all his infinite mercies.'

John Owen, Communion With God, P.35

God, Love of

...the more we see of God's love, so much more shall we delight in him. All that we learn of God will only frighten us away from him if we do not see him as loving and merciful to us. But if your heart is taken up with the Father's love as the chief property of his nature, it cannot help but choose to be overpowered, conquered and embraced by him. This, if anything, will arouse our desire to make our eternal home with God. If the love of a father will not make a child delight in him, what will? So do this: set your thoughts on the eternal love of the Father and see if your heart is not aroused to delight in him. Sit down for a while at this delightful spring of living water and you will soon find its streams sweet and delightful. You who used to run form God will not now be able, even for a second, to keep at any distance from him.

John Owen, Communion With God, P.32-33

God, Grace of

'I knew that you were a hard man', said the evil servant in the gospel. Now, there is nothing more grievous to the Lord, nothing that serves the purposes of Satan more than such thoughts as these. Satan rejoices when he can fill your heart with such hard thoughts of God. Satan's purpose from the beginning was to fill mankind with lies about God. The first blood that murderer shed was by this means. He led our first parents into hard thoughts about God. 'Has God said so? Has he threatened you with death? He knows well enough that if you eat of this fruit, it will by much better for you.' With these lies he succeeded in overthrowing all mankind at once. And remembering this great victory, he readily uses the same method with us. Now it is exceedingly grievous of the Spirit of God to be so slandered in the hearts of those whom he dearly loves.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 31

God, Love of

There was, there is, nothing in us to give God any reason why he should love us. If we deserved God's love, we would not value it so highly. Things which are owed to us are seljdom gratefully received.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 29

God, Kindness of

Let us see the Father as one who from eternity has always had kind thoughts towards us. It is a complete misunderstanding of the Father that makes us want to run away and hide from him.

John Owen, Communion With God, P.27

Love For God

God's love comes down to us freely and richly. Our love ascends to him in duty and gratitude. God adds to us by his love. We add nothing to him by our love. Though our love is fixed directly on the Father, yet no actual fruit of our love reaches him direct from us, but only through Christ. Though the Father requires our love, he is not benefited by it.

John Owen, Communion With God, P.22

Love - God

The Father's love powerfully beautifies the object on which his love is poured, infusing into and creating goodness in the persons loved. He that loves desires only to do good to the object of his love.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 22

Love of God

The mutual love of God and the saints are similar also in that their communion of love is in Christ and through Christ. The Father communicates all his love to us through Christ and we pour out our love to the Father only through Christ.
...as the Son is our Mediator and the means by which the Father's love is conveyed to us.

John Owen, Communion With God, P.20

Love, God Of

To rest with contentment is expressed by being silent, that is, without grumbling and complaining. Because God's love is so full, so perfect and so absolute, it will not allow him to complain of anything in those whom he loves. So he is silent. When God is said to 'rest in his love,' it means he is satisfied with the object of his love and will no seek for a more satisfying object to love. His love will make its home in the soul on which it is fixed for ever.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 18

Love

Love is a feeling or emotion of union and delight and desire to be near to the object loved.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 18

God, Love of

The cheif way by which the saints have communion with the Father is love - free, undeserved, eternal love. This love the Father pours on the saints. Saints are to see God as full of love to them. They are to receive him as the One who loves them, and are to be full of praise and thanksgiving to God for his love. They are to show gratitude for his love by living a life which pleases him.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 12

Communication

The Father communicates with us on the basis of his being the origin of all authority. The Son communicates with us out of a purchased treasury. The Holy Spirit communicates with us by direct personal working in us.

John Owen, Communion With God, P.10

Sin, The Effect Of

Because of sin, no man in his natural state has fellowship with God. God is light, and we are darkness. What communion has light with darkness? God is life; we are dead. God is love; we are enmity. So what agreement can there be between God and man? Men, in such a condition, do not have Christ, and so they are without hope and without God in the world (Eph. 2:12). They are 'alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them' (Eph. 4:18). Two cannot walk together unless they agree with each other (Amons 3:3). Whilst there is this great distance between God and man, there can be no walking together in fellowship or communion. Our first relationship with God was so lost by sin that there was no possibility in ourselves of any return of God.

John Owen, Communion With God, P. 1-2

Fellowship With God

Christians in those days were poor and despised. Christian leaders were treated as the filth of the world. So to invite people to become Christians, to join in their fellowship and to enjoy the precious things they enjoyed, seemed to be the height of fololishness.

John Owen, Communion With God, p. 1

Apostolic Ministry, Gifts

"If we are going to say that the apostolic ministry sets the standard by which we should judge the gifts in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, we might be forced to conclude that no gifts, miraculous or non-miraculous, have been given since the days of the apostles! For who has measured up to the apostles in any respect?"

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 67

Gifts of the Spirit

"We should, of course, expect the healing ministry of the apostles to be greater than that of others in the body of Christ. They were specially chosen by the Lord to be his handpicked representatives, and they were given authority and power over all demons and over all disease (Matt. 10:1; Mark 3:13-15; Luke 9:1). They received a special promise to be "clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:49, cf. Acts 1:8). They possessed an authority that no one else in the body of Christ possessed. Paul, for example, actually had the authority to turn someone over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh (1 Cor. 5:1-5)."

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 67

Gifts of the Spirit

"Therefore, since no one has arisen with the gift of teaching that is equal to the apostle Paul's, should we conclude that the gift of teaching was withdrawn from the church?"

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 67

Gifts

"There is abundant evidence for this widespread distribution of gifts. Prophecy, for example, is found in the church at Thessalonica ( 1 Thess. 5:20), in Rome (Rom. 12:6), In Ephesus (Eph. 4:11), and in other locations throughout the book of Acts (11:27; 13:1; 15:32; 19:6; 21:9). Likewise, the gift of tougues is found in Jerusalem (Acts 2), Samaria (Acts 8:5ff.), Caearea (Acts 10:46), Ephesus (Acts 19:6), as well as Corinth. Miracles were being done in the churches of Galatia (Gal. 3:5)."

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg.64

Gifts

"It is common for charismatics to be accused of building their theology on experience. However, all cessationists ultimately build their theology of the miraculous gifts on their lack of experience. Even the appeal to contemporary abuse is an argument based on negative experience with the gifts.

What I am saying, therefore, is that the real reasons for disbelieving in the gifts of the Spirit today are not at all based on Scripture; they are based on experience."

Jack Deere, Surprised to the Power to the Spirit, Pg. 56

Gifts of the Spirit

"Let me repeat: Christians do not disbelieve in the raculous gifts of the Spirit because the Scriptures teach these gifts have passed away. Rather they disbelieve in the miraculous gifts of the Spirit because they have not experienced them."

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, PG. 55

Gifts of the Spirit

"There is one basic reason why Bible-believing Christians do not believe in the miraculous gifts of the Spirit today. It is simply this: they have not seen them."

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 55

Gifts

"If you were to lock a brand-new Christian in a room with a Bible and tell him to study what Scripture has to say about healing and miracles, he would never come out of the room a cessationist. "

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 54

Hermeneutics

"Employing these rules will assist us in determining the true sense of Scripture. If Christians would constantly unite a thorough investigation with these simple rules, differences of interpretation would practically disappear."

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 54

Hermeneutical

"Next, he cites three hermeneutical rules summarized by Charles Hodge to the effect that Scripture is to be interpreted in its grammatical historical sense, Scripture must interpret Scripture and cannot contradict itself, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit must be sought to interpret Scripture."

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg.54

Tradition

"All Christians are at once beneficiaries and victims of tradition-beneficiaries, who receive nurturing truth and wisdom from God's faithfulness in past generations' victims, who now take for granted things that need to be questioned, thus treating as divine absolutes patterns of belief and behavior that should be seen as human, provisional, and relative. We are all beneficiaries of good, wise, and sound tradition and victims of poor, unwise, and unsound traditions."

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 53

Tradition & Scriptures

"J.I. Packer writes, "Nobody can claim to be detached from traditions. In fact, one sure way to be swallowed up y traditionalism is to think that one is immune to it... The question, then, is not whether our traditions conflict with only absolute standard in these matters: Holy Scripture."

Jack Deere, Surprised and the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 52-53

Infulence

"Over the years, I have observed that the majority of what Christians believe is not derived from their own patient and careful study of the Scriptures. The majority of Christians believe what they believe because godly and respected teachers told them it was correct."

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 47

Infulence

"Our environment, our theological traditions, and our teachers have much more to do with what we believe than we realize. In some cases they have much more influence over what we believe than the Bible itself."

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 47

Influence

"The idea that fallen humanity, even redeemed fallen humanity, can arrive at pure biblical objectivity in determining all their practices and beliefs is an illusion. We are all significantly influenced by our circumstances: the culture in which we live, the family in which we grew up, the church we attend, our teachers, our desires, our goals, our disappointments, our tragedies and traumas. Our experience determines much of what we believe and do, and often it determines much more than we are aware of or would admit."

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 46

Arrogance

" I was one of those Christians who loved to tell themselves that they do not live by their experience but by the Word of God. My practice and my beliefs were determined by the teaching of the Holy Scriptures-or so I thought. Only in recent years has the arrogance of that kind of talk become apparent to me."

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 46

Humility

"Not only do we have to become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 18:3), but we have to continue in the humility of a little child if we want to progress in the kingdom (Matt. 18:4)."

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 29

Healing

"He then told me about a young child in Malaysia who was covered from head to toe in eczema. The eczema was raw in some places and oozing. The child was in such discomfort that he had kept his parents up for the previous thirty-six hours. The child was behaving so wildly that they had to catch him in order to pray for him.

As soon as Dr. White and his wife, Lorrie, laid their hands on the child, he fell fast asleep. Within twenty minutes or so of their prayer, the oozing stopped and the redness began to fade. By the next morning the child's skin had returned to normal and was completely healed. Dr. White told me a second spectacular story of bone actually changing under his hands while he prayed for someone with a deformity."

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 20

Complacency, No need for God

"I certainly didn't need God to speak to me with any of those subjective methods he used with the people of the Bible. After all, I had the Bible now, and I was one of those few people who also had exceptionally good theology. No, neither I nor my circle of friends were looking for "something more" from God. If I had any problems at all, it was just figuring out how to give more of myself to God."

- Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Pg. 15

Sin, Death, Destruction

"No, I never intended to come here: I had laid out matters otherwise in my mind; I thought I should contrive well for myself-I thought my scheme was good. I intended to take effectual care; but it came upon me unexpected; I did not look for it at that time, and in that manner, it came as a thief-Death outwitted me: God's wrath was too quick for me. Oh, my cursed foolishness! I was flattering myself, and pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do hereafter; and when I was saying, peace and safety, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction came upon me."

Sinners In the Hands of An Angry God

Sin

"Sin is the ruin and misery of the soul; it is destructive in its nature; and if God should leave it without restraint, there would need nothing else to make the soul perfectly miserable."

Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God

Pleasure of God

"There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God."

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Core Ideology

" During our interview with Bill Hewlett, we asked him what he was most proud of in his long career. "As I look back on my life's work," he said, "I'm probably most proud of having helped create a company that by virtue of its values, practices, and success has had a tremendous impact on the way companies are managed around the world." The "HP Way," as it became known, reflected a deeply held set of core values that distinguished the company more than any of its products. These values included technical contribution, respect for the individual, responsibility to the communities in which the companies operates, and a deeply held belief that profit is not the fundamental goal of a company."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 193

Perserverence

"When teaching this point, I sometimes use an example from outside my research that perfectly illustrates the idea: The UCLA Bruins basketball dynasty of the 1960s and early 1970s. Most basketball fans know that the Bruins won ten NCAA Championships in twelve years, at one point assembling a sixty-one-game winning streak, under the legendary coach John Wooden.

But do you know how many years Wooden coached the Bruins before his first NCAA Championship? Fifteen. From 1948 to 1963, Wooden worked in relative obscurity before winning his first championship in 1964. Year by year, Coach Wooden built the underlying foundations, developing a recruiting system, implementing a consistent philosophy, and refining the full-court-press style of play. NO one paid too much attention to the quiet, soft-spoken coach and his team until-wham!-they hit breakthrough and systematically crushed every serious competitor for more than a decade."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 171-172

Perserverence

"'When... Kimberly-Clark decided to go head to head against P&G...this magazine predicted disaster. What a dumb idea. As it turns out, it wasn't a dumb idea. It was a smart idea.' The amount of time between the two Forbes articles? Twenty-one Years."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 169

Perserverence

Ken Iverson and Sam Siegel began turning the Nucor flywheel in 1965. For ten years, no one paid any attention, certainly not the financial press or the other steel companies. If you had asked executives at Bethlehem Steel or U.S. Steel about "The Nucor Threat" in 1970, they would have laughed, if they even recognized the company name at all (which is doubtful). By 1975, the year of its transition point on the stock chart, Nucor had already built its third mini-mill, long established its unique culture of productivity, and was well on its way to becoming the most profitable steel company in America. Yet the first major article in Business Week did not appear until 1978, thirteen years after the start of the transition, and not in Fortune until sixteen years out. From 1965 through 1975, we found only eleven articles on Nucor, none of them significant. Then from 1976 through 1995, we collected ninety-six articles on Nucor, forty of them being major profiles or nationally prominent features."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 167

Fear

"Those who built the good-to-great companies weren't motivated by fear. They weren't driven by fear of what they didn't understand. They weren't driven by fear of looking like a chump. They weren't driven by fear of watching others hit big while they didn't. They weren't driven by the fear of being hammered by the competition."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 160

Change & Technology

"Which brings me to the second incident. Taking a short break from the rigors of writing this book, I traveled to Minnesota to each sessions at the Masters Forum. The Masters Forum has held executive seminars for nearly fifteen years, and I was curious to know which themes appeared repeatedly over those years. "One of the consistent themes," said Him Ericson and Patty Griffin Jensen, program directors, "is technology, change - and the connection between the two."

"Why do you suppose that is?" I asked.

"People don't know what they don't know," they said. "And they're always afraid that some new technology is going to sneak up on them from behind and knock them on the head. They don't understand technology, and may fear it. All they know for sure is that technology is an important force of change, and that they'd better pay attention to it.""

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 154-155

Science & Technology

"In explaining their selection, Time editors wrote: "It's hard to compare the influence of statesmen with that of scientists. Nevertheless, we can note that there are certain eras that were most defined by their politics, others by their culture, and others by their scientific advances.... So, how will the 20th century be remembered? Yes, for democracy. And, yes, for civil rights. But the 20th century will be most remembered for its earthshaking advances in science and technology...[which]... advanced the cause of freedom, in some ways more than any statesman did. In a century that will be remembered foremost for its science and technology... one person stands out as the paramount icon for our age... Albert Einstein."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 154

Discipline

"A culture of discipline is not just about action. It is about getting disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought and who then take disciplined action."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 142

Dicipline

"Sustained great results depend upon building a culture full of self-disciplined people who take disciplined action, fanatically consistent with three circles."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 142

Discipline

"Whereas the good-to-great companies had Level 5 leaders who built an enduring culture of discipline, the unsustained comparisons had Level 4 leaders who personally disciplined the organization through sheer force."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 130

Stockdale Paradox

"Retain absolute faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 88

Calvin's Eschatology

"Torrance also maintains that Calvin's eschatology is closely tied in with his teaching on the union of the church with Christ, so that what happens to the Head happens also to the members: 'Or, to put it otherwise, eschatology is the doctrine of the Spirit and all that union with Christ through the Spirit involves.'"

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 297

Eschatology- The early church

"The evangelist [John], therefore, is deliberately subordinating the 'futurist' element in the eschatology of the early church to the 'realized eschatology' which, as I have tried to show, was from the first the distinctive and controlling factor in the Kerugma. His theme is life eternal, that is to say, in eschatological language, the life of the Age to Come, but life eternal as realized here and now through the presence of Christ by His Spirit in the Church."

Dodd, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 294 (appendix)

THe New Earth

"At the beginning of history God created the heavens and the earth. At the end of history we see the new heavens and the new earth, which will far surpass in splendor all that we have seen before. At the center of history is the Lamb that was slain, the first born from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Some day we shall cast all our crowns before him, "lost in wonder, love, praise.""

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 287

New Earth

"If an endless field of human knowledge and of human ability is now being formed by all that takes place in order to make the visible world and material nature subject to us, and if we know that this dominion of ours over nature will be complete in eternity, we may conclude that the knowledge and dominion we have gained over nature here can and will be of continued significance, even in the kingdom of glory."

Abraham Kuyper, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 286

New Earth

" The world into which we shall enter in the Parousia of Jesus Christ is therefore not another world; it is this world, this heaven, this earth; both, however, passed away and renewed. It is these forests, these fields, these cities, these streets, these people, that will be the scene of redemption. At present they are battlefields, full of the strife and sorrow of the not yet accomplished consummation; then they will be fields of victory, fields of harvest, where out of seed that was sown with tears and everlasting sheaves will be reaped and brought home."

Edward Thurneysen, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 281

The New Earth

"The work of Christ, therefore, is not just to save certain individuals, not even to save an innumerable throng of blood-bought people. The total work of Christ is nothing less than to redeem this entire creation from the effects of sin. That purpose will not be accomplished until God has ushered in the new earth, until Paradise Lost has become Paradise Regained. We need a clear understanding of the doctrine of the new earth, therefore, in order to see God's redemptive program in cosmic dimensions. We need to realize that God will not be satisfied until the entire universe has been purged of all the results of man's Fall."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 275 

Hell- Eternal Suffering

" The point of the figures, however, is that the inner anguish and torment symbolized by the worm will never end, and that the outer suffering symbolized by the fire will never cease."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 268

Service of Christ

"Here and now the man who gives himself wholeheartedly to the service of Christ knows more of the joy of the Lord than the half-hearted. We have no warrant from the New Testament for thinking that it will be otherwise in Heaven."

Leon Morris, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 264

Faith Evidenced

"It is... faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone."

-John Calvin, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 261

Future Judgement

"What is very clear, therefore, is that men will be judged on the basis of the light they had, and not on the basis of a revelation they did not receive. Those who had many privileges will have the greater responsibility; those who had fewer privileges will have less responsibility. There will therefore be "gradations" in the sufferings of the lost. Jesus indicates this in Luke 12:47-48."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 260

Judgement- Believers (2)

"All his enemies and mine

 he will condemn to everlasting punishment:

 but me and all his chosen ones 

 he will take along with him

 into the joy and the glory of heaven."

Heidelberg Catechism, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 258

Judgement- Believers

" In all my distress and persecution 

   I turn my eyes to the heavens

   and confidently await as judge the very One

   who has already stood trial in my place before God

   and so has removed the whole curse from me."

Heidelberg Catechism, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 257

Millennial Views- Revelation 20:4-6

"The anomaly confronting us here is that one can read the whole Bible without discovering an inkling of this doctrine [the doctrine of two resurrections separated by a thousand years] until he arrives at its third from the last chapter. If, on coming to that chapter, he shall give a literal interpretation to one sentence of a highly symbolical passage, he will then find it necessary to retrace his steps and interpret all the eschatological teachings of the Bible in a manner agreeable to this one sentence. The recognized rule of exegesis is to interpret an obscure passage of Scripture in the light of a clear statement. In this case, clear statements are being interpreted to agree with the literal interpretation of one sentence from a context replete with symbolism, the true meaning of which is highly debatable."

George L. Murray, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 242

Man of Lawlessness

" ... This man is not merely a pre-eminently godless individual, but... in him the humanity hostile to God comes to a definitive, eschatological revelation.... The figure of the 'man of lawlessness' is clearly intended as the final, eschatological counterpart of the man Jesus Christ, who was sent by God to overthrow the works of Satan."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 160

Parousia is impending

" Live as though Christ died yesterday, arose this morning, and is coming again tomorrow."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 136

John & The second coming

"If believers like John the Baptist could have problems of this sort with predictions about Christ's first coming, what guarantee do we have that believers will not have similar difficulties with predictions about Christ's second coming? We are confident that all predictions about Christ's return and the end of the world will be fulfilled, but we do not know exactly how they will be fulfilled."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 133

Christ as King

"First Advent of Christ, no one knew exactly how these prophecies would be fulfilled until Christ had actually come: "Christ was indeed a king, but no such king as the world had ever seen, and such as no man expected; He was a priest, but the only priest that ever lived of whose priesthood He was Himself the victim; He did establish a kingdom, but it was not of this world."

Hodge, The Bible & The Future-- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 132

Certain Types of Dispensationalism

"The first point to be considered [in the interpretation of prophecy] is the true design of prophesy, and how that design is to be ascertained. Prophecy is very different from history. It is not intended to give us a knowledge of the future analogous that that which history gives us of the past."

Charles Hodge, The Bible & The Future--Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 132

Eschatology- Being Ready

"The word translated 'watch' in these several verses [verses like those just quoted] does not mean 'to look for' but 'to be awake'. It does not denote an intellectual attitude but a moral quality of spiritual readiness for the Lord's return. 'You must also be ready' (Luke 12:40). The uncertainty as to the time of the parousia means that men must be spiritually awake and ready to meet the Lord whenever he comes."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 121

A Christian Death

"Our present life is actually a being away from the Lord, a kind of pilgrimage. Death for the Christian, however, is a homecoming. It is the end of his pilgrimage; it is his return to his true home."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 108

Faith

"Author of Da Vinci Code:

Are you a Christian?

Yes. Interestingly, if you ask three people what it means to be Christian, you will get three different answers. Some feel being baptized is sufficient. Others feel you must accept the Bible as absolute historical fact. Still others require a belief that all those who do not accept Christ as their personal savior are doomed to hell. Faith is a continuum, and we each fall on that line where we may. By attempting to rigidly classify ethereal concepts like faith, we end up debating semantics to the points where we entiresly miss the obvious--that is, that we are all trying to decipher life's big mysteries, and we're each following our own paths of enlightenment. I consider myself a student of many religions. The more I learn, the more questions I have. For me, the spiritual quest will be a life-long work in progress."

Repentance in the Church

"I firmly believe that the church of God will have to confess her own sins, before there can be any great work of grace. There must be a deeper work amond God's believing people. I sometimes think it is about time to give up preaching to the ungodly, and preach to those who confess to be Christians. If we had a higher standard of life in teh Church of God, there would be thousands more flocking into the Kingdom. So it was in the past; when God's believing children turned away from their sins and thier idols, the fear of God fell upon the people round about. Take up the history of Israel, and you will find that when they put away their strange gods, God visited the nation, and there came a mighty work of grace... The judgement of God must begin with us.

If... confession of sin is deep among believers, it will be so among the ungodly also. I never knew it to fail. I am now anxious that God should revive His work in the hearts of His children, so that we may see the exceeding sinfulness of sin."

- Dwight L Moody (Repentance Begins in the Church)

Contemporary Pentecost

"What I hear from people today is an agnosticism about the Holy Spirit. Not disbelief, but an aching, 'I just don't know' - and a longing to understand who He is and how to live in the flow of His power... The greatest longing in the church today, stated both directly and indirectly, is teh quest for soemthing more than dull religion. People are in need of the intimacy, inspiration, and impelling power of the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to live the Christian life without the indwelling Spirit... The greatest need in the church today is for contemporary Pentacost."


- Lloyd Ogilvie

Politics

"... Theological conservatives have tended to respond to the demans of politics in one of two ways. At worst, they have shunned politics as a dirty, worldly, and humanistic endeavor alien to the concerns of the gospel. At best, they have regarded politics as a legitimate enterprise only when placing it at a level of secondary importance to the "church's primary task of preaching the gospel." What both groups of conservatives have failed to see is that the gospel itself is, among other things, a gospel of political redemption. Conservatives have so often spiritualized the gospel as to be guilty of practicing a modern form of Gnosticism-surely a heresy no worse than the humanism of the theological liberals. Theological conservatives must recognize that political concers are not simply incidental to the message of the gospel, but integral to the very meaning of the gospel itself.

Conservatives have virtually immunized themselves from recognizing the political dimensions of the gospel. They are almost blind to the fact that the birth, life, and death of the Messiah were interpreted among his contemporaries in political terms. Conservatives have emphasized the priestly function of the incarnation at the expense of the prophetic and kingly functions which were all to be united in the Messiah."

Paul B. Henry (Son of theologian Carl F.H. Henry)

Ray Ortlund Jr. on the Importance of the Local Church

“. . . the church of the living God, the pillar and buttress of the truth.” 1 Timothy 3:15

The church is suffering massive loss of prestige in our time. This may be the most salient and abiding mark of our generation. Does it matter? Why fight to re-dignify the church? What is at stake here?

“The church of the living God." A church is where the idols of our culture can be clearly discredited and the living God rallied around, rejoiced in, worshiped, studied, loved and obeyed. If the church is dead, God’s own appointed testimony to his living reality powers down. The felt reality of God in the world today is at stake in our churches.

“The pillar and buttress of the truth.” A "pillar" holds something up high for all to see. In this world, the one truth that will not only outlast America but will outlast the universe needs to be put on clear display rather than submerged under all the stuff that’s demanding our attention week in and week out. A church can make the gospel obvious and accessible through preaching, teaching, memorizing, catechizing, blogging, etc.

A "buttress" firms something up, makes it strong. For many, the gospel does not feel strong. Other things hold them together. A church buttresses the gospel by showing that it really works. Not only does the gospel create the church, but a church also buttresses the gospel. The gospel starts feeling solid and believable and urgently needed as our greatest resource in all of life.

By divine appointment, the church makes the real God seem real, it shouts the truth loudly enough that busy people actually start paying attention, and it embodies living proof that the gospel is a saving power for real people living real lives today.

The church matters. Your church matters. God bless you this Sunday.

- Ray Ortlund Jr. (blog post)

The Hammer of the Gospel

"Beloved, if we want to have fruit in our ministry, if we want to see sinners
converted, we must preach up Christ’s death. As the blacksmith strikes the
hot iron upon the anvil, we must keep the hammer of the gospel at work
upon this great foundation truth, “Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures.” It is no talking to men upon other topics in the hope that it will
lead to their conversion. The great soul-quickening agency is “Jesus Christ,
and him crucified.” Whoever will come and trust in the God-appointed
Substitute for sinners shall be eternally saved, for life comes only through
his death. The salvation of sinners is not even by preaching the great and
glorious truth of Christ’s second Advent, nor by preaching about Christ’s
millennial and eternal glory, but by incessantly pointing to Christ lifted up
upon the cross. There is the grain of wheat that, put into the ground, brings
forth much fruit; and we must keep to that theme beyond all others."

- C.H. Spurgeon

Worship, Praise in response to God's works

"If we consider either creation or providence, we shall find overflowing reasons for joy; but when we come to review the work of redemption, gladness knows no bounds, but feels that she must praise the Lord with all her might. There are times when in the contemplation of redeeming love we feel that if we did not sing we must die; silence would be as horrible to us as if we were gagged by inquisitors, or stifled by murderers."

- Charles Spurgeon, commenting on Psalm 92:4

Joy as a measuring stick of our spiritual condition

"Joy in the Lord is the ripest fruit of grace, all revivals and renewals lead up to it. By our possession of it we may estimate our spiritual condition, it is a sure gauge of inward prosperity."

-Charles Spurgeon, commenting on Psalm 86:5

Life - Significant

...what believers do in this life will have consequences for the life to come - figures like those of sowing and reaping, grain and ear, ripening and harvest. Paul teaches that a person may build on the foundation of faith in Christ with lasting materials like gold, silver, or precious stones, so that in the consummation his or her work may survive and he may receive a reward (1 Cor. 3:10-15). The book of Revelation speaks about the deeds which shall follow those who have died in the Lord (14:13). It is clear from passages of this sort that what Christians do for the kingdom of God in this life is of significance also for the world to come. There is continuity, in other words, between what is done for Christ now and what we shall enjoy in the hereafter - a continuity expressed in the New Testament in terms of reward or joy (1 Cor. 3:14; Matt. 25:21,23).

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 74

Tension

The people of God are not to be addressed as new creatures in christ. At the same time, however, it must be remembered that God's people are still imperfect, Christians should therefore deal with each other as forgiven sinners. There must always be a readiness to accept and forgive brothers who have sinned against us. Whatever correction is to be done, further, should take place in the spirit of Galatians 6:1, "Even if a man should be detected in some sin, my brothers, the spiritual ones among you should quietly set him back on the right path, not with any feeling of superiority but being yourselves on guard against temptation".

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 70

Martyrdom, Suffering for Christ

"Fire, and cross, and exposure to beasts, scattering of the bones, hewing of the limbs, crushing of the whole body, wicked torments of the devil, may come upon me, if they only make me partaker of Jesus Christ ... My love is crucified, and there is no fire in me, which loves earthly stuff ... I rejoice not in the food of perishableness, nor in the pleasures of this life. The bread of God would I have, which is the flesh of Christ; and for drink I wish his blood, which is imperishable love.”

- Ignatius

Humility

"It is glorious to go down in the world, in order to go up into God."

- Ignatius

Holy Spirit

"The Spirit belongs primarily to the future, in the sense that what we witness of teh post-resurrection action of teh Spirit can be understood only when viewed as a breaking-in of the future into the present. In ohter words, on the basis of the work of Christ, the power of the redeemed future has been released to act in the present in the person of the Holy Spirit."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible And The Future, Pg. 58

Eschatology

"Being a citizen of the kingdom, therefore, means that we should see all of life adn all of reality in the light of the goal of the redpmtion of the cosmos. This implies, as Abraham Kuyper once said, that there is not a thumb-breadth of the universe about which Christ does not say, "It is mine." This implies a Christian philsophy of history: all of history must be seen as teh working out of God's eternal purpose. This kingdom vision includes a Chrstian philosophy of culture: art and science reflect the glory of God and are therefore to be pursued for his praise. It also includes a Christian view of vocation: all callings are from God, and all that we do in everyday life is to be done to God's praise, whether this be study, teaching, preaching, business, industry, or housework."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible And The Future, Pg. 54

Past & Future

"The church has expereinced the victory of the Kingdom of God; and yet the church is, like other men, at the mercy of the powers of this world.... This very situation creates a severe tension-indeed, acute conflict; for the church i the focal point of the conflict between good and evil, God and Satan, until the end of the age. The church can never be at rest or take her ease but must always be the church in struggle and conflict, often persecuted, but sure of the ultimate victory."

George Ladd (quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema), The Bible And The Future, Pg. 52

Eschatology

"Invisibly, history has fundamentally changed; visibly, it is still the same, for the Kingdom of God is already at hand, and yet, as an eschaton, still to come. This ambiguity is essential to all history after Christ: the time is already fulfilled adn yet not consummated.... On account of this profound ambiguity of the historical fulfillment where everything is "already" what is is "not yet," the Christian believer lives in a radical tension between present and future. He has faith and he does hope. Being relaxed in his present experience and straining toward the future, he confidently enjoys what he is anxiously waiting and stiving for."

Karl Lowith (quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema), The Bible And The Future, Pg. 34

In Faith For The Future

"Hitler has occupied Norway, but in 1945 it was liberated. Suppose that up in the almost inaccessible north some small village with a Nazi overlord failed to hear the news of the liberation for some weeks. During that time, we might put it, the inhabitants of the village were living in the 'old' time of Nazi occupation instead of the 'new' time of Norwegian liberation.
... Any person who now lives in a world that has been liberated from the tyranny of evil powers either in ignorance of, or in indifference to, what Christ has done, is precisely in the position of those Norwegians to whom the good news of deliverance had failed to penetrate. In other words, it is quite easy for us to see that men can live B.C. in A.D."

John Marsh (quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema), The Bible And The Future, Pg. 31

Joy and the Honor of God

"If joy were more general among the Lord's people, God would be more glorified among men; the happiness of the subjects is the honor of the sovereign."

- Charles Spurgeon on Psalm 20:5

Apostle Paul

"... Before everything else, he [Paul] was the proclaimer of a new time, the great turning point in the history of redemption, the intrusion of anew world aeon. Such was the dominating perspective and foundation of Paul's entire preaching. it alone can illuminate the many facets and interrelations of his preaching, e.g., justification, being-in-Christ, sufferin, dying, and rising agin with Christ, the conflict between teh spirit and the flesh, the cosmic drama, etc.
The person of Jesus Christ forms the mystery and the middle point of this great historical redepmtive revelation. Because christ is revealed a new aeon has been ushered in, the old world has ended, and the enw world has begun."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible And The Future, Pg. 31

History

...The theologically decisive and interesting point is not the fact that goes back to Dionysius Exiguus, that the birth of Christ was taken as the starting point of subsequent enumeration... The decisive thing is rather the practice, which has been in vogue only for the last two centuries, of numbering both forward and backward from the birth of Christ. Only when this is done is the Christ-event regarded as the temporal mid-point of the entire historical process.

We say "Christian system of reckoning time." but it is the common system in the Western world... Yet today scarcely anyone thinks of the fact that this division is not merely a convention resting upon Christian tradition, but actually presupposes fundamental assertions of New Testament theology concerning time and history.

Oscar Cullmann, quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 28

History

"God is King and acts in history to bring history to a divinely directed goal."

George Ladd, quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 27

Redemption

For the Greeks, the idea that redemption is to take place through divine action in the course of events in time is impossible. Redemption in Hellenism can consist only in the fact that we are transferred from existence in this world, ...into that Beyond which is removed from time and is already and always available.

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 24

Meaning of History

"The twentieth-century Church of Christ is spiritually unable to stand against the rapid changes that take place around her because she has not learned to view history from the perspective of the reign of Christ. For that reason, she thinks of the events of her own time in entirely secular terms. She is overcome with fear in a worldly manner, and in a worldly manner she tries to free herself from fear. In this process God functions as no more than a beneficent stop-gap."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 23

Meaning of History

"Our generation is strangled by fear: fear for man, for his future, and for the direction in which we are driven against our will and desire.l And out of this comes a cry of illumination concerning the meaning of the existence of mankind, and concerning the goal to which we are directed. It is a cry for an answer to the old question of the meaning of history."

Hendrikus Berkhof, quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 23

Hope

"With us human beings, hope for a happy future usually rises from poverty and uncertainty; the Christian hope, however, rises from a possession which opens many more vistas for the future. That is why hope is regularly found in connection with faith and love, which are both possessions. But the very fact that we possess makes us feel painfully what we still miss; it 'tastes like more.' Hope therefore is the fruit of both possession and lack."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 21

Eschatology

What is unique about New Testament eschatology, therefore, is that it expects a future consummation of God's purposes based on Christ's victory in the past.

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 21

Eschatology

Chrisitianity, therefore, from the beginning exhibits an essential bipolarity. The end has come! The end has not come! And neither grace nor glory, neither present proleptic fruition nor future perfection of life in God can be omitted from the picture without the reality being destroyed.

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 14

Eschatology

The supreme sign of the Eschaton is the Resurrection of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Church. The Resurrection of Jesus is not simply a sign which God has granted in fabour of His Son, but is the inquguration, the entrance into history, of the times of the End.

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 14

Eschatology

The biblical idea of redemption always includes the earth. Hebrew thought saw an essential unity between man and nature. The prophets do not think of the earth as merely the indifferent theater on which man carries out his normal task but as the expression of the divine glory. The Old Testament nowhere holds forth the hope of a bodiless, non material, purely "spiritual" redemption as did Greek thought. The earth is the divinely ordained scene of human existence. Furthermore, the earth has been involved in the evils which sin has incurred. There is an interrelation of nature with the moral life of man; therefore the earth must also share in God's final redemption.

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 11

Eschatology

"From first to last, and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present. The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but it is the medium of the Christian faith as such, the key in which everthing in it is set... Hence eschatology cannot really be only a part of Christian doctrine. Ranther, the eschatological outlook is characteristic of all Christian procalamation, and of every Christian existence and of the whole Church."

Jurgen Moltmann, quoted byAnthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p.3

human ability

"If an endless field of human knowledge and of human ability is now being formed by all that takes place in or der to make the visible world and material nature subject to us, and if we know that this dominion of ours over nature will be complete in eternity, we may conclude that the knowledge and dominion we have gained over nature here can and will be continued significance, even in the kingdom of glory."

Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 286

New Earth

"The world into which we shall enter in the Parousia of Jesus Christ is therefore not another world; it is this world, this heaven, this earth; both however, passed away and renewed. It is these forests, these fields, these cities, these streets, these people, that will be the scene of redemption. At present they are battlefields, full of the strife and sorrow of the not yet accomplished consummation; then they will be fields of victory, fields of harvest, where out of seed that was sown with tears the everlasting sheaves will be reaped and brough home."

Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 281

Faith

"I didn't say anything for many minutes, and we continued the slow walk toward the faculty club, Stockdale limping and arc-swinging his stiff leg that had never fully recovered from repeated torture. Finally, after about a hundred meters of silence, I asked, "Who didn't make it out?"

"Oh, that's easy," he said. "The optimists."

"The optimists? I don't understand," I said, now completely confused, given what he'd said a hundred meters earlier.

"The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart."

Another long pause, and more walking. Then he turned to me and said, "This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end-which you can never afford to lose-with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

To this day, I carry a mental image of Stockdale admonishing optimists: "We're not getting out by Christmas; deal with it!" "

Jim Collins, Good To Great, Pg. 85

Suffering

"Throughout our research, we were continually reminded of the "hardiness" research studies done by the International Committee for the Study of Victimization. These studies looked at people who had suffered serious adversity-cancer patients, prisoners of war, accident victims, and so forth-and survived. They found that people fell generally into three categories: those who were permanently dispirited by the event, those who got their life back to normal, and those who used the experience as a defining event that made them stronger."

Jim Collins, Good To Great, Pg. 82

Service of Christ

"Here and now the man who gives himself wholeheartedly to the service of Christ knows more of the joy of the Lord than the half-hearted. We have no warrant from the New Testament for thinking that it will be otherwise in heaven."

Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 264

Humility

"Hundreds, if not thousands, of people hours had been spent in autopsies of the 7UP case. Yet, as much as they talked about this conspicuous failure, no one pointed fingers to single out blame. There is only one exception to this pattern: Joe Cullman, standing in front of the mirror, pointing the finger right at himself. "[It]... became apparent that this was another Joe Cullman plan that didn't work," he writes. He goes even further, implying that if he'd only listened better to the people who challenged his idea at the time, the disaster might have been averted. He goes out of his way to give credit to those who were right in retrospect, naming those specific individuals who were more prescient than himself."

Jim Collins, Good To Great, Pg. 77

Leadership

"Leading from good to great does not mean coming up with the answers and then motivating everyone to follow your messianic vision. It means having the humility to grasp the fact that you do not yet understand enough to have the answers and then to ask the questions that will lead to the best possible insights."

Jim Collins, Good To Great, Pg. 75

Leadership

"The moment a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse. This is one of the key reasons why less charismatic leaders often produce better long-term results than their more charismatic counterparts."

Jim Collins, Good To Great, Pg. 72

Life

"Adherence to the idea of "first who" might be the closest link between a great company and a great life. For no matter what we achieve, if we don't spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect, we cannot possibly have a great life."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 62

Millenial Views

"The anomaly confronting us here is that one can read the whole Bible without discovering an inkling of this doctrine [the doctrine of two resurrections separated by a thousand years] until he arrives at its third from the last chapter. If, on coming to that chapter, he shall give a literal interpretation to one sentence of a higly symbolical passage, he will then find it necessary to retrace his steps and interpret an obscure passage of Scripture in the light of a clear statement. In this case, clear statements are being interpreted to agree with symbolism, the true meaning of which is highly debatable." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 242

Eschatology

"This man is not merely a pre-eminently godless individual, but...in him the humanity hostile to God comes to a definitive, eschatological revelation....The figure of the 'man of lawlessness' is clearly intended as the final, eschatological coutnerpart of the man Jesus Christ, who was sent by God to overthrow the works of Satan."

Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 160

Christ coming

"Live as though Christ died yesterday, arose this morning, and is coming again tomorrow." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 136

First Coming

"If believers like John the Baptist could have problems of this sort with predictions about Christ's first coming, what guarantee do we have that believers will not have similar difficulties with predictions about Christ's second coming? We are confident that all predictions about Christ's return and the end of the world will be fulfilled, but we do not know exactly how they will be fulfilled." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 133

Prophecy

"Christ was indeed a king, but no such king as the world has ever seen, and such as no man expected; He was a priest, but the only priest that ever lived of whose priesthood He was Himself the victim; He did establish a kingdom, but it was not of this world." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 132

Prophecy

"The first point to be considered [ in the interpretation of prophecy] is the true design of prophecy, and how that design is to be ascertained. Prophecy is very different from history. It is not intended to give us a knowledge of the future analogous to that which history gives us of the past." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 132

Eschatology

"Whatever the reasons may be, the loss of a lively, vital anticipation of the Second Coming of Christ is a sign of a most serious spiritual malady in the church. Though there may be differences between us on various aspects of eschatology, all Christians should eagerly look forward to Christ's return, and should live in the light of that expectation every day anew."

Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 111

Realm of the Dead

"Persons do not go totally out of existence after death but go to a "realm of the dead". In this realm of the dead the ungodly shall remain, with death as their shepherd. The New Testament adds the detail that after death the ungodly will suffer torment, already before the resurrection of the body (Luke 16:19-31). God's people, however, knowing Christ was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, have the firm hope that they too shall be delivered from the power of Sheol. The New Testament again carries this hope one step further when it suggests that after death the godly are comforted (Luke 16:25)." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 101