Peace Without Misery

Sometimes we are inclined to think that a great portion of American revivalism has been more a curse than a blessing, because it has led thousands to a kind of peace before they have known their misery; restoring the prodigal to the Father’s house, and never making him say, ‘Father, I have sinned.’ The old-fashioned sense of sin is despised . . . The consequence is that men leap into religion and then leap out again. Unhumbled they come into the church, unhumbled they remain in it, and unhumbled they go from it.

—Charles Spurgeon, quoted in Iain Murray, The Old Evangelicalism (Banner of Truth, 2005)

Quote of the Day

“God is at peace in himself, and in his presence there is peace. The most repeated negative command in Scripture is ‘fear not.’ It appears 365 times — one for each day of the year — and is usually followed by ‘for I am with you.’ God would have us understand that factoring in his presence always changes the equation.”

— Ramon Presson

When Will My Life Not Suck?

Quote of the Day

“It is because we cannot be robbed of God’s providence that we know, amid whatever encircling gloom, that all things shall work together for good to those that love him. It is because we cannot be robbed of God’s providence that we know that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ–not tribulation, nor anguish, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor peril, nor sword. . . . Were not God’s providence over all, could trouble come without his sending, were Christians the possible prey of this or the other fiendish enemy, when perchance God was musing, or gone aside, or on a journey, or sleeping, what certainty of hope could be ours?

‘Does God send trouble?’ Surely, surely. He and he only. To the sinner in punishment, to his children in chastisement. To suggest that it does not always come from his hands is to take away all our comfort.”

– B. B. Warfield, ‘God’s Providence Over All,’ in Selected Shorter Writings of B. B. Warfield