1
2
3
5
8
12
20
33
52
83
133
213
340
543
867
1384
2208
3346
3522
5443
5619
6757
7581
7652
7653
7654
7655
7656
8098
8422
8625
8752
8832
8882
8913
8932
8945
8953
8957
8960
8962
8963
8964
8965
▲
▼
| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 46cb61b | For whenever we make the warrant to believe in Christ to any degree dependent upon our subjective condition, we distort it. Repentance, turning from sin, and degrees of conviction of sin do not constitute the grounds on which Christ is offered to us. They may constitute ways in which the Spirit works as the gospel makes its impact on us. But they never form the warrant for repentance and faith. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| eea398c | Then all my servile works were done A righteousness to raise; Now, freely chosen in the Son, I freely choose his ways. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 4746e5a | salvation becomes ours in Christ and not merely through Christ. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 83a1b5e | By way of contrast he wanted to stress that the gospel's center is found in Jesus Christ himself, who has been crucified for sin and raised for justification, with the inbuilt implication that Christ himself thus defined and described should be proclaimed as able to save all who come to him. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 9436b3c | You must first have Christ himself, before you can partake of those benefits by him.19 | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 59dac63 | Pharisees lived "according to the strictest party of . . . religion."3 The name itself is probably derived from the root "to separate." Pharisaism was essentially a conservative "holiness movement." So" | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 5975260 | But it is serpentine logic, for it simply compounds the old legal spirit. It is the natural instinct of the once-antinomian prodigal who, when awakened, thinks in terms of working his way back into the favor of his father.38 | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| af6b79c | These considerations give us some clues as to why legalism and antinomianism are, in fact, nonidentical twins that emerge from the same womb. Eve | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 7492159 | If the benefits of Christ's work (justification, reconciliation, adoption, and so on) are abstracted from Christ himself, and the proclamation of the gospel is made in terms of what it offers rather than in terms of Christ himself, the question naturally arises: To whom can I offer these benefits? | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 37936c3 | Whatever form, however, Antinomianism may assume, it springs from legalism. None rush into the one extreme but those who have been in the other. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 5c1ceaf | This is precisely why the cry, "Abba! Father," is so significant. It expresses, at a point of intense need, an instinct that is absent from the unbeliever's consciousness. At best such a person may (and often does) cry out, "O God!" but not instinctively, "O Father!" That cry is the fruit of the ministry of the Spirit; it is his co-testimony with our spirit; even in the hour of darkness the believer possesses an instinct, a testimony: he or.. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 9755d20 | Notice what this means. Gospel assurance is not withheld from God's children even when they have not shown themselves to be strong. What | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 86e9a14 | there are no new heresies, it seems, only old ones masquerading as new. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| eb6592a | Thus, for example, fruitful Christian service will encourage assurance; we recognize the work of the Spirit creating new desires and dispositions. We | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 4858df5 | Inconsistent Christian living leads to lack of assurance. At least, it leads to a lack of true assurance (although, alas, not necessarily to a lack of self-assurance). Where there is no actual obedience to Christ, there will be no evidence of present love for him as Savior. Where | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 6d89204 | The real enemy is indwelling sin. And the remedy for sin is neither the law nor its overthrow. It is grace, as Paul had so wonderfully exhibited in Romans 5:12-21, and that grace set in the context of his exposition of union with Christ in Romans 6:1-14. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 8a96aa3 | Failure to deal with the presence of sin can often be traced back to spiritual amnesia-forgetting our new, true, real identity. As a believer, I am someone who has been delivered from the dominion of sin and who therefore is free and motivated to fight against the remnants of sin in my heart. You must know, rest in, think through, and act upon your new identity-you are in Christ. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 853ce48 | The Church's Confession of Faith remained unaltered. But it would be naive scholarship that extrapolated from what was professed to what was preached and indeed from what was preached to what was possessed. Every pastor should know this and therefore should never assume that everyone listening to him has been gripped by the wonder of God's grace--even if they have confessed the church's creed. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| dd60abf | Only God-the One through whom "all things were made" (1:3, cf. v. 10), in whom "was life" and "light" (v. 4)-can reverse creation's death and dissipate the darkness caused by sin. 2. But since that death and darkness are within creation, within man, the Word must become flesh in order to restore it from within. The Creator must enter His own creation, groaning as it is under the burden of alienation from Him." | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 1543f6d | A wrong view of God leads inevitably to a failure to enjoy and grow in His grace. Failure to appreciate His love, His kindness and generous heart leads eventually to a life which bears no fruit and makes no progress. The lesson is clear: if you would grow in grace, learn what grace is. Taste and see that the Lord is good. --SINCLAIR B. FERGUSON (1948-), Scottish preacher and theologian | Cheri Fuller | ||
| 2e697e6 | This is thought to be Jesus's best-loved parable, usually because our eyes are on the prodigal and his father. But as with jokes, so with parables: there is a principle in both of "end stress." The "punch line" comes at the end. That being the case the alarming message here is that the spirit of the elder brother, the legalist, is more likely to be found near the father's house than in the pig farm--or in concrete terms, in the congregation.. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 1812b3c | God possesses personal being in a unified, uncreated, eternal, tri-personal manner. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| f30feff | There had been occasions when David could have seized position and power by means that would have compromised his commitment to the Lord. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 33950b0 | The offer of the gospel is to be made not to the righteous or even the repentant, but to all. There are no conditions that need to be met in order for the gospel offer to be made. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| dcc768e | One day Christ will return in the full glory of His resurrection power. The light will be switched on permanently. The Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world will be present in the new heavens and earth as their lamp. Neither sun nor moon will be needed (Rev. 21:23). As He will be the Life, so He will be the Light of the new world. "Jesus said to her, `I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he .. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 06f4bba | What the prophets of God did spiritually, the Prophet of God did quite literally and physically. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 873c42d | Love empowers the engine; law guides the direction. They are mutually interdependent. The notion that love can operate apart from law is a figment of the imagination. It is not only bad theology; it is poor psychology. It has to borrow from law to give eyes to love. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 2f613a6 | True Christian liberty, unlike the various "freedom" or "liberation" movements of the secular world, is not a matter of demanding the "rights" we have." | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 82095cd | This is the key to the enjoyment of assurance precisely because assurance is our assurance that he is a great Savior and that he is ours. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 9fecea6 | Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. | Sinclair Ferguson | ||
| cd411ae | So what is the place of the Law in the life of the Christian? Simply this: We are no longer under the Law to be condemned by it, we are now 'in-lawed' to it because of our betrothal to Christ! He has written the Law, and love for it, into our hearts!"--Sinclair B. Ferguson" | Lance Colkmire | ||
| f48af39 | An inability to encourage someone else is usually rooted in an absorption with self that is blind to the needs or gifts of others, or a pride that cannot bring itself to praise God's grace in them. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| efc04e1 | So we are Ephesians 2:15-16 Christians: the ceremonial law is fulfilled. We are Colossians 2:14-17 Christians: the civil law distinguishing Jew and Gentile is fulfilled. And we are Romans 8:3-4 Christians: the moral law has also been fulfilled in Christ. But rather than being abrogated, that fulfillment is now repeated in us as we live in the power of the Spirit.40 | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| c375026 | Such experiences can make us bewail how the Western world gives itself over annually to its Claus-mass or commerce-mass. We celebrate a reworked pagan Saturnalia of epic proportions, one in which the only connection with the incarnation is semantic. Santa is worshiped, not the Savior; pilgrims go to the stores with credit cards, not to the manger with gifts. It is the feast of indulgence, not of the incarnation. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 674334b | Evil deeds are the fruit of an evil heart. They are not an aberration from our true self but a revelation of it. | religion-christianity | Sinclair B. Ferguson | |
| ae2e072 | Our problem, like Jonah's, does not lie in the parts of Scripture we find difficult to understand. Like him, we turn away from the word of the Lord that we do understand. We do not read it, we do not love it, we have become almost incapable of meditating upon it; we are careless, if not actually callous about submitting to it. | religion-christianity | Sinclair B. Ferguson | |
| 99ef1bf | The invisible is more substantial than the visible; ?he future shapes the past; The new is more fundamental than the old. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| b5c4261 | There is a kind of orthodoxy in which the several loci of systematic theology, or stages of redemptive history, are all in place, but that lacks the life of the whole, just as arms, legs, torso, head, feet, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth may all be present--while the body as a whole lacks energy and perhaps life itself. The form of godliness is not the same as its power. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| c0fbe0a | But, as Paul is at pains to stress, the law is good, and just, and holy.50 And we need to understand, sense, feel, and then delight in the grace of law.51 For unless we are persuaded that God has shown his grace in his law as well as in his Son, all we will hear and see at Sinai is thunder and lightning. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| c3bb8a5 | God demonstrated His wisdom in that, even as people in Europe began despising the gospel, He was already preparing to go somewhere else. | europe joel-beeke michael-haykin missionary missions revival | Sinclair B. Ferguson | |
| 66df3e3 | If you are going to resist the desires of the flesh (negative), you will need to live in the power of the Holy Spirit and walk according to his disciplines (positive). | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 6b51dd1 | Growth in grace sometimes depends on the relatively mundane expedient of knowing ourselves well enough to recognise what are the points of lowest resistance in our lives. | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| e88df19 | The Father of Glory does not lurk behind His Son with sinister intent to do us ill, restrained only by the cruel and bloody sacrifice His Son has made! No, a thousand times no! The Father loves us in the love of the Son and the love of the Spirit (John 16:27). | Sinclair B. Ferguson | ||
| 1080e66 | If I insist on knowing exactly what God is doing and what He plans to do with my future, if I demand to understand His ways with me in the past, I can never be content until I am equal with God. | Sinclair B. Ferguson |