It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the most profound unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. God became man; nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the incarnation.
— J. I. Packer
War is not the vilest form of evil, not the most evil of evils. An unjust trial . . . that scalds the outraged heart is viler.
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
In the circumstances leading to the apprehension of Jesus, it has already become clear that the whole scenario was anticipated, even planned, by him. There is a strange sense of inevitability about his arrest and conviction. Jesus has come from the Father into the world. He goes from the world to the Father. His mission will not have a happy and triumphant conclusion in the eyes of the world. Its wicked rebellion against the claim of God will reach its awful climax in the murder of the Son of God. Only in this way, however, can the darkness be overcome, and the Father’s love for the world truly disclosed.
— Bruce Milne
Let us wait with . . . confidence; we have no cause to doubt; we have God’s word and guarantee; as sure as Christ is in heaven, we shall be there.
— Thomas Manton
In John 17, “Jesus is poised between the conclusion of his earthly task and the glory awaiting him at the Father’s side. Like a mountaineer gazing out from an eminence across the expanding vista as range succeeds range into the distant horizon, so Jesus gazes out across the rolling centuries. He beholds and embraces the harvest of the ages, the church of the Redeemer, gathered from every nation, people, language and tribe. He is praying for us.”
— Bruce Milne
Forever let us thank God that the hope of a Christian rests on such a solid foundation as a Divine Savior. He to whom we are commanded to flee for pardon and in whom we are bid to rest for peace is God as well as man. To all who really think about their souls and are not careless and worldly, the thought is full of comfort. Such people know and feel that great sinners need a great Savior, and that no mere human redeemer would meet their needs. Then let them rejoice in Christ and lean back confidently on Him.
— J. C. Ryle
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
— Revelation 7:9, 10
Forever let us thank God that the hope of a Christian rests on such a solid foundation as a Divine Savior. He to whom we are commanded to flee for pardon and in whom we are bid to rest for peace is God as well as man. To all who really think about their souls and are not careless and worldly, the thought is full of comfort. Such people know and feel that great sinners need a great Savior, and that no mere human redeemer would meet their needs. Then let them rejoice in Christ and lean back confidently on Him.
— J.C. Ryle
Order of Worship • Kids Guide
God’s people are always safe. “All the saints are in his hand;” and the hand of God is a place for safety, as well as a place of honour. Nothing can hurt the man who has made his refuge God. “Thou hast given commandment to save me,” said David; and every believing child of God may say the same. Plague, famine, war, tempest, —all these have received commandment of God to save his people. Though the earth should rock beneath the feet of man, yet the Christian, may stand fast, and though the heavens should be rolled up, and the firmament should pass away like a scroll that is burned by fervent heat, yet need not a Christian fear; God’s people shall be saved: if they cannot be saved under the heavens, they shall be saved in the heavens; if there be no safety for them in the time of trouble upon this solid earth, they shall be “caught up together with the Lord in the air, and so shall they be ever with the Lord,” and ever safe.
— C. H. Spurgeon
You [can] sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father.... Do I, as a Christian understand [this about] myself?... I am a child of God. God is my Father; heaven is my home; every day is one day nearer. My Savior is my brother; every Christian is my brother too. Say it over and over to yourself first thing in the morning, last thing at night, as you wait for the bus, any time when your mind is free, and ask that you may be enabled to live as one who knows it is all utterly and completely true.
— J. I. Packer
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
— Romans 8:18, 19
Sin, at root, is a refusal of grace, the proud titanic assertion that we can atone for ourselves.
— Bruce Milne
People claim the right to determine for themselves what will count as sin, what will be their standard of righteousness, and where judgment has, or has not, been properly expressed. Jesus, through the Holy Spirit’s witness, challenges this ethical autonomy, uncovers the rebellion against God which underlies it, and confronts the world with the true character of sin, the true meaning of righteousness and the true place of judgment.
— Bruce Milne
Christ's witnesses shall receive power for that work for which he calls them; those whom he employs in his service he will qualify for it, and will bear them out in it.
— Matthew Henry
Order of Worship • Kid’s Guide
Only at the cross can Jesus be rightly known, not simply as a great moral teacher or as the most noble person who ever lived; nor only as a miracle worker or as an answer to this or that pressing question of the world. At the cross Jesus is revealed as the suffering Son of God, whose rejection, suffering and death reveal the triumph of God. Only at Golgotha can Jesus be rightly known as God incognito who reveals himself to those who are willing to deny themselves and follow him in costly discipleship.
—James Edwards
Order of Worship • Kid’s Guide
So the mark of true love is not unbridled desire or passion; it is a giving of oneself. He himself underscored this when he told his disciples, “greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” If love is a giving of oneself, then the greatest love is done by laying down one's very life. And of course, such love was perfectly modeled by Christ.
— John MacArthur
Order of Worship • Kid’s Guide
And every time I embrace the means of grace, every time I read the Word of God and it convicts me of my sin, and every time I respond to God's wisdom in repentance and confession of sin . . . , I am risen from the tomb and resurrected into the light by the power of Jesus Christ himself, who declares to me that there is no condemnation for me any longer, because I am clothed in his righteousness by the power of his resurrection.
— Rosaria Butterfield
Peace is Christ’s distinctive gift – not money, not worldly ease, not temporal prosperity. These are at best very questionable possessions. They often do more harm than good to the soul. They act as clogs and weights to our spiritual life. Inward peace of conscience, arising from a sense of pardoned sin and reconciliation with God, is a far greater blessing. This peace is the property of all believers, whether high or low, rich or poor.
— J. C. Ryle
Order of Worship • Kid’s Guide
Him will I find, though when in vain
I search the feast and mart,
The fading flowers of liberty,
The painted masks of art,
I only find him at the last
On one old hill where nod
Golgotha’s ghastly trinity—
Three persons and one God.
— G. K. Chesterton
Follow thou me. I am the way and the truth and the life. Without the way there is no going; without the truth there is no knowing; without the life there is no living. I am the way which thou must follow; the truth which thou must believe; the life for which thou must hope. I am the inviolable way; the infallible truth, the never-ending life. I am the straightest way; the sovereign truth; life true, life blessed, life uncreated.
— Thomas à Kempis