If you are a preacher of Grace, then preach a true, not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly. For he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here we have to sin. This life in not the dwelling place of righteousness but, as Peter says, we look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells… . Pray boldly-you too are a mighty sinner.

(Weimar ed. vol. 2, p. 371; Letters I, “Luther’s Works,” American Ed., Vol 48. p. 281- 282) 

And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive’, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity’. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 1943

Knowledge without repentance will be but a torch to light men to hell.

Thomas Watson

The preacher’s job is to minimize his own opinions and deliver the truth of God.
John Piper (via thereforethecross)
Let us be honest enough to confront our culture in its entirety and ask: is it merely a coincidence that, in the midst of so much technological mastery and economic abundance, our art and thought continue to project a nihilistic image unparalleled in human history? Are we to believe there is not a connection between these facts?

Theodore Roszak

HT: David Wells

What Tim Keller Has Learned About Revival

A great description from this article on the Gospel Coalition:

“What I learned was this: Revivals can be longer, lasting several years, or shorter, enduring only a few weeks; they can be more widespread, affecting a whole town or region or country, or more narrow in scope, such as just one congregation. But they are seasons in which the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit are intensified many-fold. “Sleepy” and immature believers become electrified through joyful repentance and put Christ in the center of their lives. Nominal Christians within congregations get converted and testify to the fact, which leads to more sleepy believers waking up. In turn, non-believers are drawn in to the beautified Christian community and begin embracing Christ in numbers that defy normal explanations. The “church growth” can’t be accounted for by demographic-sociological shifts or efficient outreach programs in such cases. Most telling of all, the corporate worship gatherings are thick with a sense of the presence of God that is not orchestrated by the presiders.” (emphasis mine)