by J.C. Ryle
Think, you who take comfort in some fancied ideas of your own goodness – think, you who wrap up yourselves in the notion, “all must be right, if I keep to my Church,” – think for a moment what a sandy foundation you are building upon! Think how miserably defective your hopes and pleas will look in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment! Whatever people may say of their own goodness while they are strong and healthy, they will find but little to say of it when they are sick and dying. Whatever merit they may see in their own works here in this world, they will discover none in them when they stand before the tribunal of Christ. The light of that great day of judgment will make a wonderful difference in the appearance of all their doings. It will strip off the tinsel, shrivel up the complexion, expose the rottenness of many a deed that is now called good. Their wheat will prove nothing but chaff, their gold will be found nothing but dross. Millions of so-called ‘good works’ will turn out to have been utterly defective and graceless. They passed current here in this world, and were valued among people, but they will prove light and worthless in the balance of God. They will be found to have been like the whitened sepulchers of old – fair and beautiful on the outside – but full of corruption on the inside. Alas, for the person who can look forward to the day of judgment, and lean their soul in the smallest degree on anything of his own now!
by J.C. Ryle
by Vance Havner
The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. Acts 11:26
In this modern Babel we would do well to get back to Antioch again. Well might some “Jesus man” call us back to Christ Himself and the glorious privilege of being “just Christians.”
The traveler has been lost in the baggage. We are so cluttered with all the things that go with the Christian life that we can hardly identify the Christian. We become so identified with a fragment of the truth or a segment of the church that it is hard for people to think of us as representatives of Christ Himself.
Continue Reading »
by Vance Havner
Ye are yet carnal. 1 Corinthians 3:3
Now concerning spiritual gifts… 1 Corinthians 12:1
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan has pointed out that Paul in First Corinthians begins with the carnalities and then moves in the latter part of the book to the spiritualities. In doing so he runs counter to the modern policy of “accentuating the positive” and not dealing with sins in the church on the premise that if we emphasize love the problems in the church will vanish. If the modern approach is correct, then Paul should have begun with the thirteenth chapter of this epistle. Instead, he dealt with definite sins, following pet preachers, schisms, immorality, disorders at the Lord’s table. Then he was ready to consider spiritual gifts, preach on love and the resurrection – and even take a collection!
Continue Reading »
by Vance Havner
This is a day of amalgamation and homogenization. The churches are being fused into a world church, the nations into a world state. We hear of a syncretism of world religion. “Syncretism” is a dignified word for “hash.” I never eat hash away from home because I don’t know what it is made of, and I don’t eat it at home because I do know what it is made of! We are not going to improve the bad eggs of humanity by stirring all kinds of eggs into one omelet.
by Vance Havner
by Grant Phillips
When Jesus set up His Church by the Apostles in the first century, many local churches were dirt poor. Some had a little money or other goods, and shared with other churches in need. Nothing existed at that time however, on the scale of today.
Today’s churches are much larger and very wealthy.
Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Titus, Peter, Mark, etc. did not have the luxury of the simplest things we take for granted, such as electricity. Everything you can think of in a church auditorium that requires electricity, they did not have. Air-conditioning, forget it? Thermostat controlled heat in winter, forget it? My goodness! They had no sound equipment! Alas, not even modern kitchen/cafeteria conveniences. Their mode of transportation would more than likely have been their two feet. Therefore, no parking lots, automobiles and buses. They had no cushy padded pews or soft carpet to walk on.
Continue Reading »
by Michael Youssef
The evangelical church is under constant threat to compromise its reliance on biblical truth. The human desire to be accepted, to not be seen as “outside the mainstream,” can be overwhelming. But that desire is our weakness, our downfall. It does not always immediately destroy the dam we build to protect the waters of truth, but instead it leads to tiny fissures that grow until destruction is inevitable.
Twenty years ago, I experienced the painful demise of the Episcopal Church, who once was a bastion of biblical truth. It was not a pretty picture. It was a picture painted in the primary colors of relentlessness and deception.
The combination of those elements inevitably led some sincere folks to weariness, and willingness to compromise, and yes, ultimately to surrender. For those who sought peace at any price, conformity over conviction, and popularity over principle, capitulation seemed the easier way out.
Continue Reading »
by J.C. Ryle
Take any church on earth, the most renowned for wisdom, the most famous for age, the most apostolic in her government; and we are bold to tell you if that church is unfaithful to the Bridegroom Christ Jesus, if she does not hold forth the light of the pure gospel, if she leaves her first love, if she allows false prophets to teach and seduce, if she becomes lukewarm, and says “I am rich and increased with goods,” if she rests content with having a name to live while she is dead, and plumes herself on keeping hold of the truth while she does not witness to it—we are bold to tell you, however long God’s mercy may spare her, her candlestick shall sooner or later be removed, for we know this fearful threat has been over and over again made good.
by J.C. Ryle
by J.C. Ryle
