there is something far more dreadful than physical calamity and suffering, namely, moral delinquency and spiritual apostasy. Alas, that this is so rarely perceived today!The Life of Elijah. Chapel Library.
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)
Here then is the design of prayer: not that God's will may be altered, but that it may be accomplished in His own good time and way. It is because God has promised certain things that we can ask for them with the full assurance of faith.https://www.monergism.com/sovereignty-god-unabridged
How many a young man, never called of God, has been pressed into the ministry by well-meaning friends who had more zeal than knowledge. None may rightly count upon the divine blessing in the service of Christ unless he has been expressly set apart thereto by the Holy Spirit (Ac 13:2)Gleanings from Elisha (18)
False theology makes God's foreknowledge of our believing the cause of His election to salvation; whereas, God's election is the cause, and our believing in Christ is the effect
True sanctification then does not consist in talk about religion. This is a point that ought never to be forgotten. The vast increase of education and preaching in these latter days makes it absolutely necessary to raise a warning voice. Holiness (Chapter 2)
we would say to any young man who is seriously contemplating entering the ministry, Abandon such a prospect at once if you are not prepared to be treated with contempt and made 'as the filth of the world, the off-scouring of all things'The Life of Elijah (chap 30)
Every good deed we do in dependence on God does just the opposite of paying Him back; it puts us ever deeper in debt to His grace. And that is exactly where God wants us to be through all eternity. Brothers, We are Not Professionals (33)
We must remember that the Christian belongs to the spiritual realm
as well as the natural, and so he has spiritual as well as natural foes;
hence he needs spiritual strength as well as physical.
When faith be not exercised upon Christ,
it nods and ceases to produce good works. When hope languishes
and becomes inactive, the heart is no longer lifted above the things of
time and sense by a desirous expectation of good things to come.
Then love declines and is no longer engaged in pleasing and
glorifying God. Zeal slumbers and instead of fervour there is
heartless formality in the use of means and performance of duties
A slumbering faith is an inactive one. It is not exercised upon its
appointed Objects nor performing its assigned tasks. It is neither
drawing upon that fullness of grace which is available in Christ for
His people, nor is it acting on the precepts and promises of the Word.
Though there still be a mental assent to the Truth, yet the heart is no
longer suitably affected by that which concerns practical godliness.
Where such be the case a Christian will be governed more by
tradition, sentiment, and fancy, rather than by gratitude, the fear of
the Lord, and care to please Him
If the Christian would meet with and have blessed fellowship with
Christ, he must not only walk in separation from all intimacy with
the profane world, but turn his back on every section of the religious
world which gives not Christ the pre-eminence.
What an anomaly! Drowsing on the verge of eternity! A Christian is
one who, in contrast to the unregenerate, has been awakened from
the sleep of death in trespasses and sins, made to realize the unspeakable awfulness of endless misery in hell and the ineffable joy of everlasting bliss in heaven, and thereby brought to recognize the
seriousness and solemnity of life.
This entire sanctification of our whole inner and outer man is absolutely indispensable. As there must be a change of state before there can be of life — "make the tree good, and his fruit (will be) good" (Matthew 12:33) — so there must be sanctification before there can be glorification
In sanctification something is actually imparted
to us, in justification it is only imputed. Justification is based entirely upon the work Christ wrought for us, sanctification is principally a work wrought in us.
Let us now amplify our definition of prayer. What is prayer? Prayer is not so much an act as it is an attitude-an attitude of dependency, dependency upon God. Prayer is a confession of creature weakness, yea, of helplessness. Prayer is the acknowledgment of our need and the spreading of it before God. We do not say that this is all there is in prayer, it is not: but it is the essential, the primary element in prayerhttps://www.monergism.com/sovereignty-god-unabridged
God has decreed that certain events shall come to pass through the means He has appointed for their accomplishment. God has elected certain ones to be saved, but He has also decreed that these shall be saved through the preaching the Gospel. The Gospel, then, is one of the appointed means for the working out of the eternal counsel of the Lord; and prayer is another. God has decreed the means as well as the end, and among the means is prayer. Even the prayers of His people are included in His eternal decrees. Therefore, instead of prayers being in vain they are among the means through which God exercises His decrees.https://www.monergism.com/sovereignty-god-unabridged
Why has God appointed that we should pray? The vast
majority of people would reply, In order that we may obtain from
God the things which we need. While this is one of the purposes of prayer it is by no means the chief one. Moreover, it considers prayer only from the human side, and prayer sadly needs to be viewed from the Divine side.https://www.monergism.com/sovereignty-god-unabridged
In the great majority of the books written and in the
sermons preached upon prayer the human element fills the scene
almost entirely: it is the conditions which we must meet, the
promises we must "claim," the things we must do in order to get our requests granted; and God's claims, God's rights, God's glory are disregarded.https://www.monergism.com/sovereignty-god-unabridged