Christian Writers and Preachers

As the fear of God, so the love of God is a principle of restraint from sin to the soul that is upright. This kept back Joseph from sin: How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?

—John Flavel

The Bible has a way of putting more in a single sentence than other writers can put in a whole book. Yet there are some who would tell us that the Bible is no more God’s book than other books. Either they have not read the Bible, or they have read it with their eyes closed.

—R. A. Torrey

Can you say, Christians, that you are willing to have your mistakes directed by God or men, your corruptions discovered, anything that helps to the pulling up the roots of corruption? Surely thus it must be if you will be for Christ, all faithful admonitions and afflictions.

—John Flavel

It is not a question of what we feel, but of what God says. God’s Word is always to be believed. Our own feelings are oftentimes to be doubted.

—R. A. Torrey

Still good advice (whether pocket Bibles or phones):

In everyone’s life many minutes each day are lost, waiting for meals, riding on trains, etc. … Carry a pocket Bible with you, and save those golden moments by putting them to the very best use, listening to the voice of God.

—R. A. Torrey

The gracious soul hates not only this or that particular sin, but the whole kind—everything that is sinful. True hatred is of the whole nature or kind. I hate every false way (Ps. 119:104).

—John Flavel

We can have no saving benefit separate and apart from the person of Christ: many would willingly receive his privileges, who will not receive his person; but it cannot be; if we will have one, we must take the other too.

—John Flavel

The Holy Spirit can take a man whose mind is blind to the truth of God, whose will is at enmity with God, whose affections are corrupt and vile, and transform that man, impart to him a new nature, so that he thinks God’s thoughts, love what God loves, and hate what God hates.

—R. A. Torrey

Begin the day with thanksgiving and prayer. Thanksgiving for the definite mercies of the past, prayer for the definite needs of the present day.

—R. A. Torrey

There is only one ground upon which man may meet God with joy and not with despair. That ground is the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.

—R. A. Torrey

There is nothing that reveals what is in the human heart so clearly as what a man does with Christ.

—R. A. Torrey

We live in a day in which false doctrine abounds on every hand and the only Christian who is safe from being led into error is the one who studies his Bible for himself daily.

—R. A. Torrey

The soul’s proper food is found in one book, the Bible.

—R. A. Torrey

Any one of us, no matter how outcast or vile, can go boldly into the Holy of Holies on the ground of the shed blood, and the best man or woman that ever walked this earth can meet God on no other ground than the shed blood.

—R. A. Torrey

An upright soul may fall into sin, yet he is restless and unquiet in that condition, like a bone out of joint, and that shows he is not one of sin’s servants.

—John Flavel

Your heart may be kept from shrinking back at [death] by considering the necessity of death, in order to the full fruition of God. Whether you are willing to die or not, I assure you there is no other way to obtain the full satisfaction of your soul and complete its happiness.

—John Flavel

We should confess Christ constantly. We should not be ashamed of our Lord and King. We should let people know that we are on His side. In the home, in the church, at our work, and at our play, we should let others know where we stand.

—R. A. Torrey

Unite with a church where they believe in the Bible and where they preach the Bible. Avoid the churches where words are spoken, open or veiled, that have a tendency to undermine your faith in the Bible as a reliable revelation from God, the only rule of faith and practice.

—R. A. Torrey

The soul is not at all times fit to pass judgment upon its own condition…Examine your hearts upon your beds, and be still (Ps. 4:4). This is rather a season for watching and resisting than for judging and determining.

—John Flavel

Christianity without the atoning blood is a Christianity without mercy for the sinner, without settled peace for the conscience, without genuine forgiveness, without justification, without cleansing, without power. It is not Christianity, but the devil’s own counterfeit.

—R. A. Torrey

If God be a God of so much mercy, how can I abuse so good a God? Shall I take so glorious an attribute as the mercy of God is and abuse it unto sin?

—John Flavel

If yet your heart hangs back (from thoughts of death), consider the great advantage you will have by death above all that ever you enjoyed on earth. For your communion with God, the time of perfecting that is now come.

—John Flavel

If you take your problem to God, leave it with God.

—Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Torrey said this when talking about missions.

“The stingy Christian cannot be a growing Christian. It is wonderful how a Christian begins to grow when he begins to give.”

—R. A. Torrey

Close the day with thanksgiving and prayer. Review all the blessings of the day and thank God in detail for them. Nothing goes farther to increase faith in God and in His Word than a calm review at the close of each day of what God has done for you that day.

—R. A. Torrey

The consideration of the sufferings of Christ for sin powerfully withholds a gracious soul from the commission of it.

—John Flavel

We must learn to see God in his holy temple above the flux of history, and above the changing scenes of time.

—Martyn Lloyd-Jones

God’s Word is pure, in spite of the devil, in spite of your fear, in spite of everything.

—R. A. Torrey

My one concern is that my soul should be right.

—Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Who is man that he can stand and look God in the face?

—Martyn Lloyd-Jones