R. C. Sproul Quotes
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It is important for us to make a distinction between the spiritual fruit of joy and the cultural concept of happiness. A Christian can have joy in his heart while there is still spiritual depression in his head. The joy that we have sustains us through these dark nights and is not quenched by spiritual depression. The joy of the Christian is one that survives all downturns in life.
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For the Arminian, salvation is possible for all but certain for none. In the Calvinist position, salvation is sure for God's elect.
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Reformed theology does NOT teach that God brings the ELECT kicking and screaming, against their will, into His kingdom. It teaches that God so-works in the hearts of the Elect as to make them willing and pleased to come to Christ. They come to Christ because they want to. They want to because God has created in their hearts a desire for Christ.
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It’s dangerous to assume that because a person is drawn to holiness in his study that he is thereby a holy man. There is irony here. I am sure that the reason I have a deep hunger to learn of the holiness of God is precisely because I am not holy. I am a profane man—a man who spends more time out of the temple than in it. But I have had just enough of a taste of the majesty of God to want more. I know what it means to be a forgiven man and what it means to be sent on a mission. My soul cries for more. My soul needs more.
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When God writes our names in the 'Lamb's Book of Life' He doesn't do it with an eraser handy. He does it for eternity.
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Scratching people where they itch and addressing their 'felt needs' is a stratagem of the poor steward of the oracles of God. This was the recipe for success for the false prophets of the Old Testament.
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The wearing of fabric head coverings in worship was universally the practice of Christian women until the twentieth century. What happened? Did we suddenly find some biblical truth to which the saints for thousands of years were blind? Or were our biblical views of women gradually eroded by the modern feminist movement that has infiltrated the Church.
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Holiness provokes hatred. The greater the holiness, the greater the human hostility toward it. It seems insane. No man was ever more loving than Jesus Christ. Yet even His love made people angry. His love was a perfect love, a transcendent and holy love, but HIs very love brought trauma to people. This kind of love is so majestic we can't stand it.
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It's easy to be an educated fool.
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In the psalms, we have a collection of 150 prayers that were inspired originally by the Holy Ghost. If you want to know how God is pleased and honored in prayer, why not immerse yourself in the prayers that he himself has inspired?
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Most Christians salute the sovereignty of God but believe in the sovereignty of man.
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One can have knowledge without having wisdom, but one cannot have wisdom without having knowledge.
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Without the gospel, a gathering of people, though they claim otherwise, cannot be an authentic church.
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Confession should be a daily activity for the Christian, whose entire pilgrimage is characterized by the spirit of repentance.
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Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. He is the Seeker; we are the ones who are running.
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We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners.
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We are all servants. The only question is whom we will serve.
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We have a tendency to think of GOD being glorified only in the manifestation of his mercy----- He is just as glorified by His justice.
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People need a consistent explanation of the cross of Christ and what it accomplished. Christ's atoning work is the centerpiece of the gospel and the only solution for humanity's estrangement from our Creator.
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Only a true faith that applies God’s Word to everything-incl uding economics-will lead to the revival and reformation our culture needs so badly.
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To call a Christian a theist is roughly equivalent to calling the space shuttle Atlantis a glider.
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We want to be saved from our misery, but not from our sin. We want to sin without misery, just as the prodigal son wanted inheritance without the father. The foremost spiritual law of the physical universe is that this hope can never be realized. Sin always accompanies misery. There is no victimless crime, and all creation is subject to decay because of humanity’s rebellion from God.
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Our prayers cannot force God to do anything, but He uses them as His own instruments to bring about His will.
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Reformed theology so far transcends the mere five points of Calvinism that it is an entire worldview.