I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love.
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon
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The good news is God is here. The bad news is God is here. It depends which side of the line you’re standing on.
Let [a person] consider Christianity. Let him be offended, he is still human; let him despair of ever himself being a Christian, he is yet perhaps nearer than he believes; let him fight to the last drop of blood for the extermination of Christianity, he is still human — but if he is to say: it is true to a certain degree, then he is stupid.
No one in this room has a choice, of whether or not your life is going to glorify God. You are going to glorify Him by being a trophy of His grace and mercy, or you are going to glorify Him by being an object of His justice.
Many Christians today do not want to think. They do not want to grapple with the content of the Word of God. They want their religion to be one of feeling. ‘God calls us to have a childlike faith,” they say. They are right about that, but it is not to be a childish faith.
I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.
I know nothing, nothing again, that is more humbling for us than this doctrine of election. I have sometimes fallen prostrate before it, when endeavoring to understand it. I have stretched my wings, and, eagle-like, I have soared towards the sun. Steady has been my eye, and true my wing, for a season; but, when I came near it, and the one thought possessed me,—”God hath from the beginning chosen you unto salvation,” I was lost in its lustre, I was staggered with the mighty thought; and from the dizzy elevation down came my soul, prostrate and broken, saying, “Lord, I am nothing, I am less than nothing. Why me? Why me?
Sometimes I think, I glimpse eternity.
Healed before going to the hospital? That's stupid.
Fred: If you were caught for drunken driving, and the headlines in your local newspaper that Sunday morning said, 'So-and-so arrested for drunken driving,' would you go to church that Sunday?
Steve: Fred, I'm the preacher. I'd have a serious problem if I were caught for drunken driving.
Fred: Would you go to church?
Steve: No. I'd take a sabbatical for about a month and then try to weasel back in if I could.
Fred: Steve, that's stupid. It's sort of like a man who's hit by an automobile, and he's got blood all over the place, and his bones are broken, and they try to take him to the hospital, and he says, 'Wait. I'm a mess. Let me go home and get cleaned up. Let me get these bones set, let me heal, and then I'll go to the hospital.'
solideogloriaa:
“it will cost him his self-righteousness. He must cast away all pride and high thoughts, and conceit of his own goodness. He must be content to go to heaven as a poor sinner, saved only by free grace, and owing all to the merit and righteousness of another.”
- J. C. Ryle
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