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.
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)
the very manner of their publication plainly showed that God Himself assigned to the Decalogue peculiar importance. The Ten Commandments were uttered by God in an audible voice, with the fearful adjuncts of clouds and darkness, thunders and lightnings and the sound of a trumpet, and they were the only parts of Divine Revelation so spoken—none of the ceremonial or civil precepts were thus distinguished. Those Ten Words, and they alone, were written by the finger of God upon tables of stone, and they alone were deposited in the holy ark for safekeeping. Thus, in the unique honor conferred upon the Decalogue, we may perceive its paramount importance in the divine government.https://www.monergism.com/ten-commandments-ebook-1
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
I find our Savior taking for granted the continuance of the Sabbath when He foretells the destruction of Jerusalem. "Pray ye," He says to the disciples, "that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day" (Matt 24:20).
There are five things that were given to the father of the human race in the day that he was made. God gave him a dwelling place, a work to do, a command to observe, a help meet to be his companion, and a Sabbath Day to keep. I am utterly unable to believe that it was in the mind of God that there ever should be a time when Adam's children should keep no Sabbath.
It seems clear that the apostles taught Christians to worship on "the first day of the week" (Acts 20:7), the day of Jesus's resurrection, "the Lord's day" (Rev. 1:10), treating it as the Christian Sabbath. These changes were momentous, but the pattern of praise, thanks, desire, trust, purity, and service, which constitutes true worship, continues unchanged to this day.Concise Theology, Ch 37
Under the new covenant... the Sabbath is renewed, with a casuistry of doing good rather than doing nothing (Luke 13:10-16; 14:1-6), and is recounted, on the basis of one-plus-six rather than six-plus-one.Concise Theology, Ch 37
The day was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, not on the ground of a particular command, but by the free spirit of the gospel and by the power of certain great facts which he at the foundation of the Christian church. It was on that day that Christ rose from the dead; that he appeared to Mary, the disciples of Emmaus, and the assembled apostles; that he poured out his Spirit and founded the churchHistory of the Christian Church: https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc1/hcc1.i.IX.57.html
the Jewish Sabbath was hedged around by many national and ceremonial restrictions, which were not intended to be permanent, but were gradually made so prominent as to overshadow its great moral aim, and to make man subservient to the sabbath instead of the sabbath to man.History of the Christian Church: https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc1/hcc1.i.IX.57.html
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)
True, the Christian is not under the Law as a Covenant of Works nor as a ministration of condemnation, but he is under it as a rule of life and a means of sanctification.https://www.monergism.com/ten-commandments-ebook-1
the people were commanded to spend two days in preparing themselves, by a ceremonial cleansing from all external pollution, before they were ready to stand in the presence of God ( Exodus 19:10,11). This teaches us that serious preparation of heart and mind must be made before we come to wait before God in His ordinances and receive a word at His mouth
we should celebrate the Sabbath not in such a manner (nor with such a strict and exact observance) as was required by Judaism or as superstition had imposed, but with a moderate, reverent rest of the sort that is needed for the worship of God.Synopsis of a Purer Theology, Disputation 21
Why, then, did He "rest," and why is it recorded on the top of the second page of Holy Writ? Surely, there can be only one answer: as an example for man!