Quote 627
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)
A.W. Pink
Gleanings from Elisha (18)Other Quotes from the Author & Topic
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.
Almost all doctrinal error is really truth perverted. Truth wrongly divided. Truth disproportionately held and taught.
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
Everything about God is great, vast, incomparable. He never forgets, never fails, never falters, never forfeits His word.
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
When young fellows say that they have not made up their minds upon theology, they ought to go back to the Sunday-school until they have. For a man to come shuffling into a College, pretending that he holds his mind open to any form of truth, and that he is eminently receptive, but has not settled in his mind such things as whether God has an election of grace, or whether he loves his people to the end, seems to me to be a perfect monstrosity.Lectures to My Students (p. 39). Zondervan.
One brother I have encountered - one did I say? I have met ten, twenty, a hundred brethren, who have pleaded that they were sure, quite sure that they were called to the ministry - they were quite certain of it, because they had failed in everything else. This is a sort of model story: "Sir, I was put into a lawyer's office, but I never could bear the confinement, and I could not feel at home in studying law; Providence clearly stopped up my road, for I lost my situation." "And what did you do then?" "Why sir, I was induced to open a grocer's shop." "And did you prosper?" "Well, I do not think, Sir, I was ever meant for trade, and the Lord seemed quite to shut my way up there, for I failed and was in great difficulties. Since then I have done a little in life-assurance agency, and tried to get up a school, besides selling tea; but my path is hedged up, and something within me makes me feel that I ought to be a minister." My answer generally is, "Yes, I see; you have failed in everything else, and therefore you think the Lord has especially endowed you for His service; but I fear you have forgotten that the ministry needs the very best of men, and not those who cannot do anything else." A man who would succeed as a preacher would probably do right well either as a grocer, or a lawyer, or anything else. A really valuable minister would have excelled at anything. There is scarcely anything impossible to a man who can keep a congregation together for years, and be the means of edifying them for hundreds of consecutive Sabbaths; he must be possessed of some abilities, and be by no means a fool or ne'er-do-well. Jesus Christ deserves the best men to preach His cross, and not the empty-headed and the shiftless.Spurgeon, Charles H.; Spurgeon, Charles H.. Lectures to My Students (pp. 37-38). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
Young brethren apply who earnestly desire to enter the ministry, but it is painfully apparent that their main motive is an ambitious desire to shine among men. These men are from a common point of view to be commended for aspiring, but then the pulpit is never to be the ladder by which ambition is to climb. Lectures to my Students (Location 614)
Do not run about inviting yourselves to preach here and there; be more concerned about your ability than your opportunity, and more earnest about your walk with God than about either.Lectures to My Students (p. 32). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
When the opportunity comes then comes our trial. Standing up to preach, our spirit will be judged of the assembly, and if it be condemned, or if, as a general rule, the church is not edified, the conclusion may not be disputed, that we are not sent of God.Lectures to My Students (p. 32). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
If Scripture teaches the imputation of sin, we should not stumble when we find it affirming the imputation of righteousness.
An ineffably holy God, who has the utmost abhorrence of all sin, was never invented by any of Adam's fallen descendants!
One great matter is to know what particular office and to what particular part Jesus Christ has called each of you... Different persons have different gifts and graces. Some have popular gifts fit for large auditories. Others move best in a more contracted sphere, and may be exceedingly useful in the private Societies. Those who are called out to act in a public manner, I think ought to give themselves wholly to the work... Others who can only serve privately, may mind their secular employ and give their leisure time to the service of the Church.Original letter in the British Museum, 29960. b. Lot 368.
That which finally evidences a proper call, is a correspondent opening in providence, by a gradual train of circumstances pointing out the means, the time, the place, of actually entering upon the work.
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)
The wrath of God is as much a divine perfection as is His faithfulness, power, or mercy
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
Evangelical holiness consists not only in external works of piety and
charity, but in pure thoughts, impulses and affections of the soul, chiefly
in that unselfish love from which all good works must flow if they are to
receive the approbation of Heaven. Not only must there be an abstinence
from the execution of sinful lusts, but there must be a loving and delighting to do the will of God in a cheerful manner, obeying Him without repining or grudging against any duty, as if it were a grievous; yoke to be borne. Evangelical sanctification is that holiness of heart which
causes us to love God supremely, so as to yield ourselves wholly up to His
constant service in all things, and to His disposal of us as our absolute Lord, whether it be for prosperity or adversity, for life or death; and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
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
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