It is here, in the thing that happened after the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. 'The Word became flesh' (Jn. 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. ... The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets.Knowing God
the association of a Christian festival as important as that of the Nativity with paganism would have been completely antithetical to the mindset of believers at the time. Countless sermons and books by preachers and leaders of the young Church stressed the need to avoid any association with the world of idols and state cults. Their desire to abstain from attendance at the games and the sacrifices that were so much a part of Roman life was noted by their fellow citizens and gained the new religion an unsavory reputation for atheism.Christmas in the Crosshairs, 7
Jesus miraculous birth does in fact point to his deity and also to the reality of the creative power that operates in our new birth (John 1:13).Concise Theology, Section 41
the true celebration of the feast of Christmas, is, to meditate (and as it were to ruminate in the secret cogitations of our minds) upon the incarnation and birth of Jesus Christ, God and man: not only at that time, but all the times and days of our life, and to show ourselves thankful to his blessed majesty for the same
I saw the other day in an Italian grotto a little fern, which grew where its leaves continually glistened and danced in the spray of a fountain. It was always green, and neither summer's drought nor winter's cold affected it. So let us for ever abide under the sweet influence of Jesus' love.
Lectures to my Students
It is here, in the thing that happened after the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. 'The Word became flesh' (Jn. 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. ... The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets.Knowing God
When Jesus speaks of God as Father, he is implying that he is divine, an implication that is not lost on those around him. The God Who Is Triune: Revisioning the Christian Doctrine of God (Kindle Locations 261-262). Kindle Edition.
Providence is wiser than you, and you may be confident it has suited all things better to your eternal good than you could do had you been left to your own option.
Let us be content that God should rule the world; learn to acquiesce in his will, and submit to his providence. Does any affliction befall you? Remember God sees it is that which is fit for you, or it would not come. Your clothes cannot be so fit for you as your crosses. God's providence may sometimes be secret—but it is always wise; and though we may not be silent under God's dishonor—yet we should learn to be silent under his displeasure.A Body of Divinity p. 125 Banner of Truth
the Lord usually adapts means to ends, from which the plain lesson is, that we shall be likely to accomplish most when we are in the best spiritual condition; or in other words, we shall usually do our Lord's work best when our gifts and graces are in good order, and we shall do worst when they are most out of trim.
Lectures to my Students
A firm faith in the universal providence of God is the solution of all earthly problems. It is almost equally true that a clear and full apprehension of the universal providence of God is the solution of most theological problems.
Years are slipping away and time is flying. Graveyards are filling up and families are thinning. Death and judgement are getting nearer to us all. And yet you live like one asleep about your soul! What madness! What folly! What suicide can be worse than this? Awake before it is too late; awake, and arise from the dead, and live to God. Turn to Him who is sitting at the right hand of God, to be your Saviour and Friend. Turn to Christ, and cry mightily to Him about your soul. Holiness (Chapter 6)
It is not the distance of the earth from the sun, nor the sun's withdrawing itself, that makes a dark and gloomy day; but the interposition of clouds and vaporous exhalations. Neither is thy soul beyond the reach of the promise, nor does God withdraw Himself; but the vapours of thy carnal, unbelieving heart do cloud thee.
atheism results from the perverted moral state of man and from his desire to escape from God. It is deliberately blind to and suppresses the most fundamental instinct of man, the deepest needs of the soul, the highest aspirations of the human spirit, and the longings of a heart that gropes after some higher Being. This practical or intellectual suppression of the operation of the semen religionis often involves prolonged and painful struggles.Systematic Theology, 22
Patience is a grace made and cut out for suffering; patience is a sweet submission to the will of God, whereby we are content to bear anything that He is pleased to lay upon us. Patience makes a Christian invincible; it is like the anvil that bears all strokes. We cannot be men without patience. Passion does unman a man; it puts him beside the use of reason. We cannot be martyrs without patience; patience makes us endure (James 5:10).
It is an office of love here to take away the stones and to smooth the way to heaven. Therefore, we must take heed that under pretense of avoidance of disputes we do not suffer an adverse party to get ground upon the truth, for thus may we easily betray both the truth of God and souls of men.
The work of the ministry is not to contend with ghosts and opinions antiquated, but the errors and sins of the present time. Look, as it is the duty of Christians to spend the heat of their indignation on the main sin with which they are surprised: "I kept myself from mine iniquity" (Ps. 18:23); so must ministers chiefly bend their zeal and strength against the present guilt.
Indeed, few or none will speak against learning but those that have not so much of it as to make them understand its use. I dare not bid ministers, as some fanatics have done, burn all their books but the Bible. No, but I would exhort them to prefer it above all their other books and to direct all their other studies to furnish them with Scripture knowledge; as the bee that flies over the whole garden and brings all the honey she gets from every flower therein into her hive, so should the minister run over all his other books and reduce their notions for his help in this, as the Israelites offered up the jewels and earrings borrowed of the Egyptians to the service of the tabernacle.
My dear flock, I have, according to the grace given me, labored in the course of my ministry among you to feed you with the heartstrengthening bread of practical doctrine; and I do assure you, it is far better you should have the sweet and saving impressions of gospel truths feelingly and powerfully conveyed to your hearts than only to understand them by a bare ratiocination or a dry syllogistical inference.
Those ministers that give men no rest nor quietness in their sins must expect but little rest or quietness themselves. What is it for ministers to preach home to the consciences of others but to pull down the rage of the world upon their own heads?
Let us see that our knowledge of Christ is not a powerless, barren, unpractical knowledge. Oh that in its passage from our understanding to our lips it might powerfully melt, sweeten, and delight our hearts! Remember, brethren, a holy calling never saved any man without a holy heart; if our tongues only be sanctified, our whole man must be condemned. Oh, let the keepers of the vineyard look to and keep their own vineyard! We have a heaven to win or lose as well as others.
Vinedressers are rewarded according to their diligence and faithfulness, though some vines never bear nor bring forth fruit at all. As ministers are diligent and faithful, so the reward, the crown shall be given full at last. This is many a faithful minister's grief, that he takes a great deal of pains in rubbing and washing, as it were, to make souls white and clean, pure and holy, and yet they remain, after all, as black as hell; but surely their reward shall never be the less with God. The nurse looks not for her wages from the child, but from the parent.
The worst of men are in a dead sleep, and the best of men are too often in a sinful slumber; and therefore faithful ministers have need to cry aloud, they have need to be courageous and zealous, to awaken both sinners and saints, that none may go sleeping to hell. Cowardice in a minister is cruelty; if he fears the faces of men, he is a murderer of the souls of men. Smooth Stones
Ordinances—they are the golden ladder by which the soul climbs up to heaven; they are conduits of the water of life. O how precious should these be to us! They that are against ordinances are against being saved.
The ordinances. These are the conduits Jesus Christ hath instituted and appointed His ordinances to be the means of carrying His nourishing virtue to the soul. The ordinances are the dishes of gold upon which this heavenly meat is brought. Prayer, reading, preaching, meditation, holy conference, the sacrament—in these Christ presents Himself to the soul. He that forsakes these can expect no feeding from Christ.
Remember that the ordinances of Christ are not His grave wherein he lies but the throne whereon He sits as king of His church; that you should never be above ordinances until you are above temptations; and that they lose not their authority because sometimes we miss their influence; and that they are appointed not only to bring men to but also to build men up in Christ.
He that walketh with God sees, by the eye of faith, God present with him in all his actions; seriously thinking of Him upon all occasions, remembering Him in his ways, setting the Lord always before him as David did; seeing Him that is invisible as Moses did; doing all things as St. Paul did, as of God in the sight of God. Now he who so walketh that he always observeth God's presence and keepeth Him still in his view in the course of his life not only with a general and habitual but, as much as he can, with an actual intention to please and glorify God, this man may be said to walk with God. Christians Daily Walk