Quotes by Clergymen - Page 17

What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use -- men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men -- men of prayer.
E.M.Bounds
We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense. We pray when there's nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all.Most of us would prefer, however, to spend our time doing something that will get immediate results. We don't want to wait for God to resolve matters in His good time because His idea of 'good time' is seldom in sync with ours.
Oswald Chambers
Preaching a man a sermon with a broken head and telling him to be right with God is equal to telling a man with a broken leg to get up and run a race.
Richard Baxter
We have to take the first step as though there were no God. It is no use to wait for God to help us, He will not: but immediately we arise we find He is there.
Oswald Chambers
Tears are the noble language of eyes, and when true love of words is destitute. The eye by tears speak, while the tongue is mute.
Robert Herrick
Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.
Charles Caleb Colton
Time is a river...and books are boats. Many volumes start down that stream, only to be wrecked and lost beyond recall in its sands. Only a few, a very few, endure the testings of time and live to bless the ages following.
Joseph Fort Newton
He that believeth that he believe, believeth himself and not God (333)[.]
Richard Baxter
Dec. 31… “Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ. Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.
Oswald Chambers
One best success comes after their greatest disappointments.
Henry Ward Beecher
Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge, and dares forgive an injury.
Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Moments of prayer intruded on by sloth cannot be made up. We may get experience, but we cannot get back the rich freshness and strength which were wrapped up in those moments.
Frederick W. Robertson
Tumble me down, and I will sitUpon my ruines (smiling yet:)Teare me to tatters; yet I'le bePatient in my necessitie.Laugh at my scraps of cloathes, and shunMe, as a fear'd infection:Yet scarre-crow-like I'le walk as one,Neglecting thy derision.
Robert Herrick
Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.
Ralph W Sockman
It is a good thing to be happy alone. It is better to be happy in company, but good to be happy alone. Men owe me the advantage of their society, but if they deny me that just debt, I will not be unjust to myself, and side with them in bereaving me. I will not be discouraged, lest I be miserable for company. More company increases happiness, but does not lighten or diminish misery.
Thomas Traherne
I also was persuaded that the woman most in need of liberation was the woman in every man just as the man most in need of liberation was the man in every woman.
William Sloane Coffin
It is a solemn thing, and no small scandal in the Kingdom, to see God's children starving while actually seated at the Father's table.
Oswald Chambers
If the good so loved and desired do appear possible and feasible in the attaining, then it exciteth the passion of hope, which is a compound of desire and expectation : when we look upon it as requiring our endeavour to attain it, and as it is to be had in a prescribed way, then it provokes the passion of courage or boldness, and concludes in resolution. Lastly, If this good be apprehended as preset, then ti provoketh to delight or joy. If the thing itself be present, the jy is greatest. If but the idea of it, either through the remainder or memory of the good that is past, or through the fore-apprehension of that which we expect, yet even this also exciteth our joy. And this joy is the perfection of all the rest of the affections, when it is raised on the full fruition of the good itself(575).
Richard Baxter
If your hope dieth, your duties die, your endeavors die, your joys die, and your souls die. And if your hope be not acted, but lie asleep, it is next to dead, both in likenss and preparation( 585).
Richard Baxter
There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.
Henry Ward Beecher
There is no joy in the soul that has forgotten what God prizes.
Oswald Chambers
We also wish warmly to affirm those sisters and brothers, already in membership with orthodox churches, who - while experiencing same-sex desires and feelings - nevertheless battle with the rest of us, in repentance and faith, for a lifestyle that affirms marriage [between a man and woman] and celibacy as the two given norms for sexual expression. There is room for every kind of background and past sinful experience among members of Christ's flock as we learn the way of repentance and renewed lives, for "such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:11).This is true inclusivity.
Richard Bewes
Yet I must tell you, that all these graces which are expressed by passions of sorrow, fear, joy, hope, love, are not so certainly to be tried by the passion that is in them, as by the will that is either contained in them, or supposed in them; not as acts of the sensitive, but of the rational appetite (358).
Richard Baxter
Never allow anything to divert you from your insight into Jesus Christ. It is the true test of whether you are spiritual or not. To be unspiritual means that other things have a growing fascination for you. Since mine eyes have looked on Jesus, I’ve lost sight of all beside, So enchained my spirit’s vision, Gazing on the Crucified.
Oswald Chambers
Many would be cowards if they had courage enough.
Thomas Fuller
We may reconcile ourselves to the world at our peril, but it will never reconcile itself to us. . . . This unwillingness to die, doth actually impeach us of high treason against the Lord : is it not a choosing of earth before him ; and taking these present things for our happiness, and consequently asking them our very God (469)?
Richard Baxter
What interest hath this empty world in me? and what is there in it that may seem so lovely, as to entice my desires and delight from thee, or make me loth to come away? When I look about me with a deliberate, undeceived eye, methinks this world is a howling wilderness, and most of the inhabitants are untamed, hideous monsters. All its beauty I can wink into blackness, and all its mirth I can think into sadness ; I can drown all its pleasures in a few penitent tears, and the wind of a sigh will scatter them away (650).
Richard Baxter
Never look for justice in this world, never cease to give it.
Oswald Chambers
Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.
Charles Caleb Colton
Every family has in fact a sacred character belonging to it, which may indeed be forgotten or disdained; but the family is constituted, and ought therefore to be conducted, with the prospect of the rising generation following that which precedes it, not only to the grave, but to eternity"(Christopher Anderson). Every member of every household is an immortal creature; every one that leaves the circle by death, goes into an eternity of torment or bliss. And, since all the ordinances of God look to another world as their chief and ultimate reference, surely, surely, that institute which is the most powerful of all in the formation of character, must be considered as set up with a special intention to prepare the subjects of it for "glory, honour, immortality, and eternal life.
John Angell James
The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of principles to be obeyed apart from identification with Jesus Christ. The Sermon on the Mount is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is getting his way with us.
Oswald Chambers
He may be a Christian by common profession; but, in a saving sense, no man is a Christian, in whose soul any thing hath a greater and higher interest than God the Father, and the Mediator (352).
Richard Baxter
To him who prays, and as he prays, the hour is sacred because it is God's hour
E.M.Bounds
As we should not own our duties further than somewhat of Christ is in them, so should we no further our own hearts ; and as we should delight in the creatures no further than they have reference to Christ and eternity, so should we no further approve of our own hearts (483).
Richard Baxter
Sirs, so much as your hearts as is empty of Christ and heaven, let it be filled with shame and sorrow, and not with ease (483).
Richard Baxter
The falseness of your own hearts, if you look not to them, may undo you(15).
Richard Baxter
A heartless Christian must be a terrible grief to our Lord.
Oswald Chambers
Our income are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and trip.
Charles Caleb Colton
Let [the wife] guard, as much as possible, against a gloomy and moody disposition, which causes her to move about with the silence and cloudiness of a spectre; for who likes to dwell in a haunted house?
John Angell James
Well married, a man is winged—ill-matched, he is shackled.
Henry Ward Beecher
Do not pray for easy lives.Pray to be stronger men.Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers.Pray for powers equal to your tasks.Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.
Phillips Brooks
If little labour, little are our gains:Man's fortunes are according to his pains.
Robert Herrick
There are more quarrels smothered by just shutting your mouth, and holding it shut, than by all the wisdom in the world.
Henry Ward Beecher
...there is something which impresses the mind with awe in the shade and silence of these vast forests. In the deep solitude, alone with nature, we converse with God.
Thaddeus Mason Harris
Jesus doesn't bring anything up from the wells of human nature--He brings them down from above.
Oswald Chambers
He that planteth a tree is a servant of God, he provideth a kindness for many generations, and faces that he hath not seen shall bless him.
Henry Van Dyke
He that plants trees loves others besides himself.
Thomas Fuller
Spiritual work is taxing work, and men are loath to do it. Praying, true praying, costs an outlay of serious attention and of time, which flesh and blood do not relish.
E.M.Bounds
There is a vast world of work out there in this country, where at least 111 million people are employed in this country alone--many of whom are bored out of their minds. All day long. Not for nothing is their motto TGIF -- 'Thank God It's Friday.' They live for the weekends, when they can go do what they really want to do.
Richard N. Bolles
what a silly, frail, and forward pieces are the best of men (647)!
Richard Baxter
The degree of panic activity in my life is equal to the degree of my lack of personal spiritual experience.
Oswald Chambers
Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.
Henry Ward Beecher
As most of us know, the proper attitude toward ourselves is called “good self-esteem.” But self-esteem isan art. An art of balance. A balance between thinking too little of ourselves, and thinking too much ofourselves.The name for thinking too much of ourselves is “egotism.” So, how do we adopt the proper attitude toward our gifts—speaking of them honestly, humbly,gratefully—without sounding egotistical? Just this: the more you see your own gifts clearly, the more youmust pay attention to the gifts that others have. The more sensitive you become to how unusual you are, themore you must become sensitive to how unusual those around you are. The more you pay attention toyourself, the more you must pay attention to others. The more you ponder the mystery of You, the more youmust ponder the mystery of all those you encounter, every loved one, every friend, every acquaintance,every stranger.Self-esteem is an art. It is the art of balance. A balance between thinking too little of ourselves, andthinking too much of ourselves. But we can only think too much of ourselves if we lose sight of others.Look at yourself, but equally look at them—with wonder.That is the proper attitude we all should set as our goal.
Richard N. Bolles
Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.
Henry Ward Beecher
Tis skill, not strength, that governs a ship
Thomas Fuller
Show me the man you honor and I will know what kind of man you are.
Thomas John Carlisle
Thou I cannot so freely say, My heart is with thee, my soul longeth after thee ; yet can I say, I long for such a longing heart (648).
Richard Baxter
The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.
Henry Ward Beecher
now why is the devil's money accepted, the world's offer embraced, and God's rejected? Truly, men do not know the worth of what God offers them. The money the devil and the world offer is in their own currency, and is familiar to them. Swine trample on pearls, because they do not know their value. Men prefer the poor things they have because they are in their current possession. The devil seeks to peck out the eyes of men, that they do not see the blessed God and the happiness that is to be enjoyed in him. O how dull is the world's glass in the presence of true crystal! The magnet of earth will not draw man's affections while heaven is visible. He that has fed on the heavenly banquet cannot savor anything else.
George Swinnock
In every sound convert the judgement is brought to approve of the laws and ways of Christ, and subscribe to them as most righteous and reasonable; the desire of the heart is to know the whole mind of Christ; the free and resolved choice of the heart is determined for the ways of Christ, before all the pleasures of sin, and prosperities of the world; it is the daily care of his life to walk with God.
Joseph Alleine