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--- notes_quotes [2020/04/23 14:01] – gregkedro
+++ notes_quotes [2020/04/25 16:43] (current) – [Spurgeon: She is a Traitor] gregkedro
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ====== Quotes ======
+====== Chip's Practical Wisdom ======
+**Investments:** When asked about investing time and effort into pastor-level ministry vs. doing so in intentional evangelism, Chip says:
+>I like to think that sowing seed all over the place gets more done than limiting yourself to preaching to the same 50 people every week.
+**Calling:** When asked about a "call to ministry" for pastoral-level ministry, Chip says:
+>It's hard for me not to believe there was some kind of a calling going on in Philadelphia, but a calling now is kind of like updating a bathroom in a burned down house.
+**Church Shopping:** When asked about what he wants out of a church, Chip says
+>I'm looking for a church that will not oppose my evangelism ministry.
+----
 ====== A.W. Pink ======
@@ Line 5: / Line 21: @@
 [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Pink|Arthur Walkington Pink]] (1 April 1886 – 15 July 1952) was an English Bible teacher...
-As a young man, Pink joined the Theosophical Society and apparently rose to enough prominence within its ranks that Annie Besant, its head, offered to admit him to its leadership circle.[4] In 1908 he renounced Theosophy for evangelical Christianity.[5]
+In 1908 Pink renounced Theosophy for evangelical Christianity. Desiring to become a minister but unwilling to attend a liberal theological college in England, Pink very briefly studied at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago in 1910
-Desiring to become a minister but unwilling to attend a liberal theological college in England, Pink very briefly studied at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago in 1910
-Pink had become acquainted with prominent dispensationalist Fundamentalists, such as Harry Ironside and Arno C. Gaebelein, and his first two books, published in 1917 and 1918, were in agreement with that theological position.
+Pink had become acquainted with prominent dispensationalist Fundamentalists, such as Harry Ironside and Arno C. Gaebelein, and his first two books, published in 1917 and 1918, were in agreement with that theological position. Sadly, however, A.W. Pink became a staunch Calvinist.
-Sadly, however, A.W. Pink was became a staunch Calvinist. His writings, especially his work in pictures and types, is very valuable. If you do read Pink, read him critically lest you fall to the feet of Catholic Calvin and Augustinianism as he did...
+His writings, however, especially his work in pictures and types, are still valuable. If you do read Pink, read him critically lest you fall to the feet of Catholic Calvin and Augustinianism as he did...
 Suggested titles:
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 ----
+----
 ====== A.W. Tozer ======
@@ Line 92: / Line 106: @@
 ----
+===== Anger & Grief in My Spirit =====
+[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._W._Tozer|A.W. Tozer]] (1897-1963)
+>**There is grief in my spirit when I go into the average church**, for we have become a generation rapidly losing all sense of divine sacredness and reverence in our worship. God has been abridged, reduced, modified, edited, changed and amended--until He is no longer the God whom Isaiah saw, high and lifted up!
+>
+>We've reduced the God of Abraham and Jacob, to a "stuffed God" that can be appealed to by anybody at any time. The religious clown on the radio can break into his fun and say, "Now we will have a minute of prayer." In the religious concert, the half-converted cowboy dressed like an idiot will say after he's twanged out some catchy numbers, "Now I'll do a holy number for you."
+>
+>**The God of today's Christianity is a weakling**--a little cheap, palsy God that you can pal around with. He's "the man upstairs." He's the fellow that can help you when you're in difficulty--and not bother you too much when you're not.
+>
+>It is a major tragedy in the life of any man, to live in a church from childhood to old age with nothing more than some synthetic God compounded of sentimentality and logic--but having no eyes to see, no ears to hear and no heart to love the holy God of Scripture!
+>
+>**In the majority of our church meetings, there is scarcely a trace of reverent thought**, little sense of the divine Presence, no moment of stillness, no solemnity, no wonder, no holy fear. **But so often there is a dull or a breezy song leader full of awkward jokes**, in an effort to make everything hold together.
+>
+>The most pressing need just now is that we who call ourselves Christians should frankly acknowledge to each other and to God that **we are gone far astray**. We should confess that we are worldly, that our moral standards are low, and that we are spiritually cold and lethargic.
+>
+>We need to cease our multitude of **unscriptural activities**, and cease trying to sanctify **carnal and worldly projects** by promoting them "in the name of the Lord" and "for the glory of God."
+>
+>We need to return to the message, methods and objectives of the New Testament!
+>
+>We need boldly and **indignantly to cleanse the temple** of all who sell cattle in the holy place, and overthrow the tables of the money-changers! This must be done in our own lives first--and then in the churches of whom we are a part!
+>
+>We need men and women who love the Savior, until adoration becomes the music of their soul--until they don't have to be fooled with entertainment and amusement!
+----
+===== Another Kind of Religious Leader =====
+[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._W._Tozer|A.W. Tozer]] (1897-1963), from his book [[https://www.amazon.com/Size-Soul-Principles-Revival-Spiritual/dp/087509497X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0|The Size of the Soul]] (pp. 128-29).
+>If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation, it must be by other means than any now being used. If the Church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher.
+>
+>The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay, and asks no questions; nor the smooth-talking pastor type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting.
+>
+>Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type...
+>
+>When he comes (and I pray there will be not one but many), he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce, and protest in the name of God, and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom. Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken, and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the One and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.
+----
 ===== The Average Church Member =====
@@ Line 119: / Line 174: @@
 >Those Christians who belong to the Evangelical wing of the Church have over the last half-century shown an increasing impatience with invisible and eternal things--and have demanded and gotten a host of visible and temporal things to satisfy their fleshly appetites.
 >
->The temptation to introduce "new" things into the work of God, has always been too strong for some people to resist. The Church has suffered untold injury at the hands of well-intentioned but misguided persons, who have felt that they know more about running God's work, than Christ and His apostles did! A solid train of boxcars would not suffice to haul away the religious gimmicks which have been brought into the service of the Church with the hope of improving on the original pattern. These things have been, one and all, great hindrances to the progress of the Truth, and have so altered the divinely planned structure that the apostles, were they to return to earth today, would scarcely recognize the misshapen thing which has resulted!
+>The temptation to introduce "new" things into the work of God, has always been too strong for some people to resist. The Church has suffered untold injury at the hands of well-intentioned but misguided persons, who have felt that they know more about running God's work, than Christ and His apostles did! A solid train of boxcars would not suffice to haul away the **religious gimmicks** which have been brought into the service of the Church with the hope of **improving on the original pattern**. These things have been, one and all, great hindrances to the progress of the Truth, and have so altered the divinely planned structure that the apostles, were they to return to earth today, would scarcely recognize the misshapen thing which has resulted!
 >
->Every generation is sure to have its ambitious amateur to come up with some shiny gadget which he proceeds to urge upon the church. That the Scriptures do not justify its existence--does not seem to bother him at all. It is brought in anyway and presented in the very name of orthodoxy. Soon it is identified in the minds of the Christian public, with all that is good and holy. Then, of course, to attack the gadget is to attack the Truth itself. This is an old familiar technique so often and so long practiced by the devotees of error, that I marvel how the children of God can be taken in by it!
+>Every generation is sure to have its **ambitious amateur** to come up with some **shiny gadget** which he proceeds to urge upon the church. That the Scriptures do not justify its existence--does not seem to bother him at all. It is brought in anyway and presented in the very name of orthodoxy. Soon it is identified in the minds of the Christian public, with all that is good and holy. Then, of course, to attack the gadget is to attack the Truth itself. This is an old familiar technique so often and so long practiced by the devotees of error, that I marvel how the children of God can be taken in by it!
 >
->We of the evangelical faith are in the rather awkward position of criticizing Roman Catholicism for its weight of unscriptural impediments--and at the same time tolerating in our own churches a world of religious fribble as bad as holy water or the adored host. Heresy of method may be as deadly as heresy of message! Evangelicalism has been smothered to death by extra-Scriptural rubbish! Unless we in gospel churches wake up soon, we shall most surely die by the same means!
+>We of the evangelical faith are in the rather awkward position of criticizing Roman Catholicism for its weight of unscriptural impediments--and at the same time **tolerating** in our own churches a world of **religious fribble** as bad as holy water or the adored host. **Heresy of method** may be as **deadly** as **heresy of message**! Evangelicalism has been **smothered to death by extra-Scriptural rubbish**! Unless we in gospel churches wake up soon, we shall most surely die by the same means!
 ----
@@ Line 151: / Line 206: @@
 ----
+===== Retarded Saints & Entertainment =====
+[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._W._Tozer|A.W. Tozer]] (1897-1963)
+**2Timothy 4.3-4:** For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
+>The great god 'Entertainment' amuses his devotees mainly by telling them stories. The love of stories, which is characteristic of childhood, has taken fast hold of the minds of the **retarded saints** of our day, so much so that many manage to make a comfortable living by spinning yarns and serving them up in various disguises to church people. What is natural and beautiful in a child, may be shocking when it persists into adulthood, and more so when it appears in the sanctuary and seeks to pass for true religion!
+>
+>So today we have the astonishing spectacle of millions of dollars being poured into the unholy job of providing earthly entertainment for the so-called people of God. **Religious entertainment** is in many places rapidly **crowding out** the **serious things of God**. Many churches these days have become little more than poor theaters, where fifth-rate 'producers' peddle their shoddy wares with the approval of evangelical leaders who can even quote a holy text in defense of their delinquency. **//And hardly a man dares raise his voice against it//!**
+>
+>**Martyn Lloyd-Jones:** "Once you have lost the division between the world and the Church--the Church ceases to be truly Christian!"
+>
+>**Charles Spurgeon:** "Pleasure, so called, is the murderer of serious thought. This is the age of excessive amusement. Everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle!"
+----
+====== MacLeod: In the Market Place ======
+[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_MacLeod|George MacLeod]] (1938–1967)
+>I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the center of the market place as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on a town garbage heap; at a crossroad of politics so cosmopolitan that they had to write His title in Hebrew and Latin and in Greek... at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse and soldiers gamble. Because that is what He died about. And that is where Christ's men ought to be, and what church people ought to be about.
+----
+====== Ruckman on Life ======
+[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ruckman|Dr. Peter S. Ruckman]] (1921-2016)
+>I find life to be, from an individual standpoint, an outstanding example of God giving a sinner break, after break, after break that he didn’t deserve; and reward, after reward, after reward, that he didn’t earn; and has let not handfuls of purpose, but barrels full of purpose fall his way.
+----
+====== Spurgeon: She is a Traitor ======
+[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Spurgeon|Charles H. Spurgeon]] (1834-1892)
+>She is a traitor to the Master who sent her if she is so beguiled by the beauties of taste and art as to forget that to "preach Christ... and Him crucified" is the only object for which she exists among the sons of men. The business of the Church is salvation of souls.
+----
+====== Worship ======
+by Gary Gilley, in his book [[https://www.amazon.com/That-You-Lord-Biblical-Perspective/dp/0852346522/ref=sr_1_1|Is that You Lord?]] (p. 23), quoting Monte E. Wilson.
+>Take worship for example. Monte E. Wilson has noted, "For the modern evangelical, worship is defined exclusively in terms of the individual's experience. Worship, then, is not about adoring God but about being nourished with religious feelings, so much so that the worshiper has become the object of worship."
+>
+>The cause for this type of worship, Wilson believes, is the loss of devotion to Scripture...
+>
+>[Wilson] writes... "Others... have utterly neglected any commitment to the content of the Word and have ended with narcissistic 'worship' services where everyone drowns in a sea of subjectivism and calls it 'being bathed in the presence of the Holy Spirit.' These people come to church exclusively to 'feel' God."
+>
+>Some churches have even decided to call their worship services "experiences."
+----