Theology, Politics & Other Musings » Great Quotes

Hell or Heaven? Where Do You Believe You Will Go?

Mike Bond — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:57:54 +0000

The man who is seriously convinced that he deserves to go to hell is not likely to go there, while the man who believes that he is worthy of heaven will certainly never enter that blessed place.

-AW Tozer

Money Talks

Mike Bond — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:52:46 +0000

That money talks
I won’t deny.
I heard it once,
It said, “Goodbye.”

-Richard Armour

Pick and Choose from the Gospels

Mike Bond — Sat, 21 May 2011 18:20:08 +0000

“If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.”

–Augustine, Contra Faustum

Man Shall Not Live By Facebook Alone

Mike Bond — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 20:11:46 +0000

Man Shall Not Live By Facebook Alone

From John Piper’s blog.

To Label is to Libel

Mike Bond — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:45:01 +0000

God calls us to change the way we look at people. Not to see them as Gentiles or Jews, insiders or outsiders, liberals or conservatives. Not to label. To label is to libel….Let’s view people differently; let’s view them as we do ourselves. Blemished, perhaps. Unfinished, for certain. Yet once rescued and restored, we may shed light.

-Max Lucado, from his soon-to-be released book Outlive Your Life

Pride is the Worst Sin of All

Mike Bond — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 17:30:18 +0000

“Pride is the worst viper in the heart; it is the first sin that ever entered into the universe, lies lowest of all in the foundation of the whole building of sin. Of all lusts, it is the most secret, deceitful, and unsearchable in its ways of working. It is ready to mix with everything. Nothing is so hateful to God, contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, or of so dangerous consequence. There’s not one sin that does so much to let the devil into the hearts of the saints and expose them to his delusions.”

-Jonathan Edwards

A Simple Solution

Mike Bond — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 21:42:21 +0000

When the solution is simple, God is answering.

-Albert Einstein

How to Argue and Fight for Truth

Mike Bond — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:06:09 +0000

“As you are likely to be engaged in controversy, and your love of truth is joined with a natural warmth of temper, my friendship makes me solicitous on your behalf. . . . I would have you more than a conqueror and to triumph not only over your adversary but over yourself. If you cannot be vanquished, you may be wounded. To preserve you from such wounds as might give you cause of weeping over your conquests, I would present you with some considerations . . . .

As to your opponent, I wish that before you set pen to paper against him, and during the whole time you are preparing your answer, you may commend him by earnest prayer to the Lord’s teaching and blessing. This practice will have a direct tendency to conciliate your heart to love and pity him, and such a disposition will have a good influence on every page you write.

If you account him a believer, though greatly mistaken in the subject of debate between you, the words of David to Joab concerning Absalom are very applicable: “Deal gently with him for my sake.” The Lord loves him and bears with him; therefore you must not despise him or treat him harshly. The Lord bears with you likewise, and expects that you should show tenderness to others from a sense of the much forgiveness you need yourself. In a little while you will meet in heaven. He will then be dearer to you than the nearest friend you have upon earth is to you now. Anticipate that period in your thoughts. And though you may find it necessary to oppose his errors, view him personally as a kindred soul, with whom you are to be happy in Christ forever.

But if you look upon him as an unconverted person, in a state of enmity against God and his grace (a supposition which, without good evidence, you should be very unwilling to admit), he is a more proper object of your compassion than of your anger. Alas! “He knows not what he does.” But if God, in his sovereign pleasure, had so appointed, you might have been as he is now, and he, instead of you, might have been set for the defense of the gospel. If you attend to this, you will not reproach or hate him, because the Lord has been pleased to open your eyes, not his.

Of all people who engage in controversy, we who are called Calvinists are most expressly bound by our own principles to the exercise of gentleness and moderation.”

John Newton, writing to a young minister, The Works of John Newton, I:268-270.

I grabbed this from The Gospel Coalition and Truth Matters. Great insight!

Stand Firm

Mike Bond — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 05:05:10 +0000

“A man standing still is doing nothing, but a man standing still in a raging river is resisting.”

-Chinese proverb

Sigmund Freud’s Thoughts About People

Mike Bond — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:24:45 +0000

“I have found little that is ‘good’ about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash.”

-Sigmund Freud

Now this doesn’t necessarily invalidate any system that Freud came up with. However, when you take into consideration that the system he invented, psychoanalysis, has as one of its primary goals to treat psychological and emotional illness, you have to ask yourself if a person who thought that most people are trash really had other people’s best interests at heart as he developed his system.

The First Official Thanksgiving Day

Mike Bond — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 04:15:54 +0000

“Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”

-President George Washington, October 3, 1789

Senator Kit Bond on Health Care Reform

Mike Bond — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:26:48 +0000

“Move over, Bernie Madoff. Tip your hat to a trillion-dollar scam.”

-Senator Kit Bond, R-MO, in reference to the government takeover of health care

Thank You, Martin Luther, for 492 Years of “Faith Alone”

Mike Bond — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:34:50 +0000

A great day to a be a Protestant! We are justified by faith alone. Sola Fide!

On this day in 1517, the great reformer, Martin Luther, nailed his 95 theses on the door of the church at Wittenburg. It created a firestorm. Eventually, Luther was called to the Diet of Worms in 1520 and asked to recant. His famous proclamation still rings true 489 years later:

“Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”

No Points for Calvinism

Mike Bond — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:44:57 +0000

“We’re no-point Calvinist: there’s no point in talking about it.”

–Matt Olson, Bible College President

This quote was just too funny to pass up. I’m sure some Arminians out there will have a great time with it.

Socialism

Mike Bond — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:52:17 +0000

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

–Margaret Thatcher

Todd Akin on Big Government

Mike Bond — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:20:25 +0000

“The government that can give you anything you want can also take away anything from you…including your freedom.”

-Todd Akin, US Representative from Missouri

John Gresham Machen

Mike Bond — Sat, 02 May 2009 18:23:15 +0000

Tidbit for the day:

When Machen was asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest “The first syllable is pronounced like May, the name of the month. In the second syllable the ch is as in chin, with e as in pen: may’chen. In Gresham, the h is silent: gres’am.”

How Does the Government Pay for the Stimulus Bill?

Mike Bond — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:32:26 +0000

There are one of three methods the government can take to pay for the Stimulus Bill and other spending bills that have passed.

Method 1 – The government can raise taxes and thus increase revenue.

Method 2 – The government can borrow the money.

Method 3 – The government can print the money.

There is no such thing as free money.

As Dr. Adrian Rogers notes, “The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.”

Adam Clarke on Being Called into the Ministry

Mike Bond — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:59:21 +0000

“Those who are really called of God to the sacred ministry are such as have been brought to a deep acquaintance with themselves, feel their own ignorance, and know their own weakness. They know also the awful responsibility that attaches to the work; and nothing but the authority of God can induce such to undertake it. They whom God never called run, because of worldly honour and emolument: the others hear the call with fear and trembling, and can go only in the strength of Jehovah.

How ready is the man to go, Whom God hath never sent! How timorous, diffident, and slow, God’s chosen instrument!”

–Adam Clarke, Commentary on Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 6

A Fitting Response

Mike Bond — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:52:38 +0000

“Never have so few spent so much so quickly to do so little.”

–Tom Cole, US Representative (R-Okla.), in response to his voting against the stimulus bill.

Preaching on the Gospels

Mike Bond — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:55:20 +0000

Too often preaching on the Gospels takes what I whimsically think of as the “Find Waldo Approach.” The underlying question in the sermon is “Where are you to be found in this story?” (are you Martha or Mary, James and John, Peter, the grateful leper . . .?). The question “Where, Who and What is Jesus in this story? Tends to be marginalized. The truth is it is far easier to preach about Mary, Martha, James, John, or Peter than it is about Christ. It is far easier to preach even about the darkness of sin and the human heart than to preach Christ. Plus my bookshelves are groaning with literature on Mary, Martha . . . the good life, the family life, the Spirit-filled life, the parenting life, the damaged self life . . . but most of us have only a few inches of shelf space on the person and work of Christ himself. Am I absolutely at my best when talking about him, or about us?

–Sinclair Ferguson