Inspirational Quotes by R. C. Sproul

“the unity of which the New Testament speaks is a unity of faith, a unity where people come together because of a common commitment to truth and to the gospel.”

“Christians get excited about the return of Jesus. Oh, happy day! Yes, it is a happy day for the saved, but for the unsaved the return of Jesus is the worst of all conceivable calamities.”

“It is an undeniable truth that when musical forms and styles change in the secular world, the new styles inevitably find their way into the church.”

“[W]e are saved by two things -- the death of Christ and the life of Christ. The death of Christ covers our sin, but the life of Christ provides the merit and the righteousness that we must have in order to enter into heaven. So Jesus' life is as important for us as His death. He lived to fulfill all of the law of God.”

“Lord Jesus, I acknowledge that I have been attempting to find significance in an inappropriate way. As a result, I have sinned against You. Thank You for dying on the cross for me and forgiving my sins. As an act of faith, I invite You to come into my life and direct me. Take control of my life, and make me into the kind of man You want me to be. Amen.”

“TIMOTHY AND THE PAROUSIA. 1 TIM. 6:14: - [I give thee charge] ‘that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in his times he shall show,’ etc. This implies that Timothy might expect to live until that event took place. The apostle does not say, ‘Keep this commandment as long as you live;’ nor, ‘Keep it until death;’ but ‘until the appearing of Jesus Christ.’ These expressions are by no means equivalent. The ‘appearing’ [έπιφάνωια] is identical with the Parousia, an event which St. Paul and Timothy alike believed to be at hand. Alford’s note on this verse is eminently unsatisfactory. After quoting Bengel’s remark ‘that the faithful in the apostolic age were accustomed to look forward to the day of Christ as approaching; whereas we are accustomed to look forward to the day of death in like manner,’ he goes on to observe: - ‘We may fairly say that whatever impression is betrayed by the words that the coming of the Lord would be in Timotheus’s life-time, is chastened and corrected by the καιρόις ίδίοις [his own times] of the next verse.’ dldl In other words, the erroneous opinion of one sentence is corrected by the cautious vagueness of the next! Is it possible to accept such a statement? Is there anything in καιρόις ίδίοις to justify such a comment? or is such an estimate of the apostle’s language compatible with a belief in his inspiration? It was no ‘impression’ that the apostle ‘betrayed,’ but a conviction and an assurance founded on the express promises of Christ and the revelations of His Spirit. No less exceptionable is the concluding reflection: - ‘From such passages as this we see that the apostolic age maintained that which ought to be the attitude of all ages, - constant expectation of the Lord’s return.’ But if this expectation was nothing more than a false impression, is not their attitude rather a caution than an example? We now see (assuming that the Parousia never took place) that they cherished a vain hope, and lived in the belief of a delusion. And if they were mistaken in this, the most confident and cherished of their convictions, how can we have any reliance on their other opinions? To regard the apostles and primitive Christians as all involved in an egregious delusion on a subject which had a foremost place in their faith and hope, is to strike a fatal blow at the inspiration and authority of the New Testament. When St. Paul declared, again and again, ‘The Lord is at hand,’ he did not give utterance to his private opinion, but spoke with authority as an organ of the Holy Ghost. Dean Alford’s observations may be best answered in the words of his own rejoinder to Professor Jowett: - ‘Was the apostle or was he not writing in the power of a spirit higher than his own? Have we, in any sense, God speaking in the Bible, or have we not? If we have, then of all passages it is in these which treat so confidently of futurity that we must recognise His voice: if we have it not in these passages, then where are we to listen for it at all?”

“. 5[✞] Keep your life a free from love of money, and b be content with what you have, for he has said, c “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 6[✞] So we can confidently say, d “The Lord is my helper; e I will not fear; what can man do to me?”

“grant him mercy in the sight of this man.”

“] m For the sake of Christ, then, n I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For o when I am weak, then I am strong.”

“] But God said to him, b ‘Fool! z This night c your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, d whose will they be?’ 21[✞] So is the one e who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

“k I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love l with which you have loved me may be in them, and m I in them.”

“✞] When Christ gwho is your 1 life happears, then you also will appear with him iin glory.”

“Indeed, truth itself may be defined as that which corresponds to reality as perceived by God.”

“There can be nothing in the heart that is not first in the mind.”

“The lack of deficiency in general revelation is rooted not so much in man's natural composition as in his disposition. That is, the matter of the knowledge of God the Creator is not so much an intellectual problem as it is a moral problem. It becomes an intellectual problem because the mind is darkened by man's indisposition or psychological bias against the light. As Jesus said, "The light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil (John 3:19).”

“The symbol not only points beyond itself, but is itself part of the reality, so that the symbol escalates the intensity of the sign to another level.”

“We should be concerned with our environment because God placed man in His garden and made Him responsible to dress, fill, keep, and replenish it. Adam and Eve were not given the right to exploit or abuse the created world. They were, however, made superordinate, not subordinate, to the animals. Animals are here for our well-being. We do not exist to serve them; they exist to serve us, and we are to rule them benevolently. Today, naturalism has replaced God with Mother Earth, and we do more to protect fish eggs than human fetuses. Our priorities are out of order.”

“Being righteous is not all that complicated; it means doing what is right. We have to have a passion to do what is right.”

“Albert Einstein noted, “God does not play dice.”

“We were made for holiness. And when we reject it, we suffer a deprivation—a deep-rooted sense of lostness and restlessness because we are out of sync with the nature for which we were made.”