Quote 1620
Prayer is the very life-breath of true Christianity. It is in prayer, that true religion begins. It is in prayer, that true religion flourishes. It is in prayer, that it decays. Prayer is one of the first evidences of conversion. (Acts 9:11.) Neglect of prayer, is the sure road to a fall. (Matthew 26:40, 41.) Whatever throws light on the subject of prayer, is for our soul's health.
J.C. Ryle
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Tell me not of your justification, unless you have also some marks of sanctification.Holiness, Ch3
Prayer is always essential, but thought is essential, too, because prayer can be just an escape mechanism, almost at times a cry in the dark by people who are desperate and defeated. Prayer must be intelligent, and it is only to those who realize that their bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost that the answer will be given and the power will come.Spiritual Depression (173)
Let us beware of supposing that any hope is good which is not founded on Christ. All other hopes are built on sand. They may look well in the summer time of health and prosperity, but they will fail in the day of sickness and hour of death.Old Paths, 48
The election which is not "unto sanctification" is not of God, but of the devil. The hope that does not make a man holy is no hope at all.
Prayer is the answer to the disease of self-confidence.
I believe that prayer is the measure of the man, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is.
Without justification it is impossible to have real peace.Old Paths, Chapter 8
We live in an age where there is a false glare on the things of time, and a great mist over the things of eternity.Old Paths, 22
I take occasion to make the general remark that the great thing I always desired to find was a woman who was a real Christian, who was a real lady, and who was not a fool.AutoBiography (73)
A regeneration that a man can have, and yet live carelessly in sin or worldliness, is a regeneration invented by uninspired theologians, but never mentioned in scripture. Holiness (Chapter 2)
One fervent prayer in secret will speak more for our sincerity than many in public.
the abuse and perversion of a truth must never be allowed to rob us of the use of it. When all has been said that can be said against fanaticism and enthusiasm, it is still undeniable that religious feelings are plainly spoken of and described in Scripture.
When I turn to the map of the world I must say the same thing. It matters not what quarter I examine: I find men's hearts are everywhere the same, and everywhere wicked. Sin is the family disease of all the children of Adam.Old Paths, Ch 7
Let us settle in our minds that the Christian fight is a good fight-really good, truly good, emphatically good. We see only part of it as yet. We see the struggle, but not the end; we see the campaign, but not the reward; we see the cross, but not the crown. We see a few humble, broken-spirited, penitent, praying people, enduring hardships and despised by the world; but we see not the hand of God over them, the face of God smiling on them, the kingdom of glory prepared for them. Holiness (Chapter 4)
I know well that many do not believe what I am saying, because they think there is an immense quantity of death-bed repentance. They flatter themselves that multitudes who do not live religious lives will yet die religious deaths. They take comfort in the thought that vast numbers of persons turn to God in their last illness and are saved in the eleventh hour. I will only remind such persons that all the experience of ministers is utterly against the theory. People generally die just as they have lived. True repentance is never too late:- but repentance deferred to the last hours of life is seldom true.Old Paths, 40
If you could be brought once to love secret prayer, and to converse feelingly with God in his word, your heaven will begin on earth; you will enjoy more pleasure than in all manner of riches.
Let us beware of despising preaching. In every age of the Church, it has been God's principal instrument for the awakening of sinners and the edifying of saints. The days when there has been little or no preaching have been days when there has been little or no good done in the Church. Let us hear sermons in a prayerful and reverent frame of mind, and remember that they are the principal engines which Christ Himself employed when He was upon earth. Not least, let us pray daily for a continual supply of faithful preachers of God's Word. According to the state of the pulpit will always be the state of a congregation and of a Church.Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke volume 1, (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1986) 128, 129
God ordains our prayers as means of receiving what he plans to give, all to enrich our relationship to him. As the perfect Father of his children, he reserves the right to answer the requests we should have made rather than those we actually made when we have asked for the wrong thing; but he will take action one way or another in every situation of need that we bring before him. Systematic Theology A Lecture
In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. N/A
Prayer must be fired with zeal and fervency.
What is prayer? It is an offering up of our desires to God for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ.Ten Commandments, 239
All the prayers in the Scripture you will find to be reasoning with God, not a multitude of words heaped together.
I never know a thing well, till it is burned into my heart by prayer.
The secret of praying is praying in secret. A sinning man will stop praying, and a praying man will stop sinning.
If you and sin are friends, you and God are not yet reconciled.Old Paths, Chapter 7
Top Authors
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2. J.C. Ryle (111)
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4. John Calvin (83)
5. John Piper (82)
6. J.I. Packer (76)
7. George Swinnock (69)
8. Louis Berkhof (62)
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18. Abraham Kuyper (40)
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