Quote 358
You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true. 
R.C. Sproul
Chosen by God, p. 1210.8K
Other Quotes from the Author & Topic
We must not talk to our congregations as if we were half asleep. Our preaching must not be articulate snoring. There must be power, life, energy, vigour. We must throw our whole selves into it, and show that the zeal of God's house has eaten us up.Lectures to my Students
Hard words, if they be true, are better than soft words, if they be false. 63 Volume Sermon Set - 1940.34
No man preaches a sermon well to others who does not first preach it to his own heart.
God is never, never, never obligated to be merciful to sinners. That is the point we must stress if we are to grasp the full measure of God's grace.Chosen by God (26)
we live in what may be the most anti-intellectual period in the history of Western civilization. "Burning Hearts Are Not Nourished by Empty Heads", Christianity Today (Sep 3 1982)
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
In order to get attention, the first golden rule is, always say something worth hearing.Lectures to my Students
Preachers should not give sinners what they desire; but give them True Food until, by the Spirit, they taste and see that the Lord is good!
Saying, 'Preach the gospel daily, use words if necessary', is like saying, 'Feed the hungry, use food if necessary.'
it is common for modern preachers to use the proverbial "we" in an effort to place themselves, humbly it is thought, within the mass of those needing the same message. Although there is a nugget of truth to this modern approach, it nevertheless undermines the basic essence of preaching--the prophetic.Deep Discipleship, 24
Ministers must not flatter, preach pleasing things, sow pillows under people's elbows, or throw sugar on them, when salt is necessary.
for the Jerusalem dialect has this one distinguishing mark, that it is a man's own mode of speech, and it is the same out of the pulpit as it is in it.Lectures to My Students, 113
I wonder how long we might beat our brains before we could plainly put into words what is meant by preaching with unction; yet he who preaches knows its presence, and he who hears soon detects its absence;Lectures to My Students (p. 50).
Abhor, dear brethren, the thought of being clockwork ministers who are not alive by abiding grace within, but are wound up by temporary influences; men who are only ministers for the time being, under the stress of the hour of ministering, but cease to be ministers when they descend the pulpit stairs. True ministers are always ministers.Lectures to My Students (Kindle Locations 256-259). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
For a work to be considered good it must not only conform outwardly to the law of God, but it must be motivated inwardly by a sincere love for GodChosen by God, 107
Here, then, is the real problem of our negligence. We fail in our duty to study God's Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy. Knowing Scripture (Page 20)
He is your friend who pushes you nearer to God.
I'll tell you a story. The Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1675 was acquainted with Mr. Butterton the [actor]. One day the Archbishop . . . said to Butterton . . . 'pray inform me Mr. Butterton, what is the reason you actors on stage can affect your congregations with speaking of things imaginary, as if they were real, while we in church speak of things real, which our congregations only receive as if they were imaginary?' 'Why my Lord,' says Butterton, 'the reason is very plain. We actors on stage speak of things imaginary, as if they were real and you in the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imaginary.' Stout, Divine Dramatist (239-240)
the crucial way to fight against false teaching is to preach the gospel of Christ well. Good News for Anxious Christians (190)
When I think I am unfairly hated, I try to remember that I am unfairly loved.
The universe is no democracy. It is a monarchy. God himself has appointed his beloved Son as the preeminent King. Jesus does not rule by referendum, but by divine right. In the future every knee will bow before him, either willingly or unwillingly. Those who refuse to do so will have their knees broken with a rod of iron.
To be burning at the lip and freezing at the soul is a mark of reprobation. God deliver us from being superfine and superficial: may we never be the butterflies of the garden of God.Lectures to my Students
There are preachers who in their sermons seem to take their hearers one by one by the button-hole, and drive the truth right into their souls, while others generalise so much, and are so cold withal, that one would think they were speaking of dwellers in some remote planet, whose affairs did not much concern them. Learn the art of pleading with men.Lectures to my Students
A very useful help in securing attention is a pause. Pull up short every now and then, and the passengers on your coach will wake up. The miller goes to sleep while the mill wheels revolve; but if by some means or other the grinding ceases, the good man starts and cries, "What now?" On a sultry summer's day, if nothing will keep off the drowsy feeling, be very short, sing more than usual, or call on a brother or two to pray. A minister who saw that the people would sleep, sat down and observed, "I saw you were all resting, and I thought I would rest too."Lectures to my Students
If there is no sanctification, it means that there never was any justification.
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