Christian Writers and Preachers

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

For never was any wound healed by a prepared, but unapplied plaster. Nor was it ever known, that a poor deceived, condemned sinner, was actually delivered out of that woeful state, until of God, Christ was made unto him, wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption.

—John Flavel

Happy is the Christian that has a little band of friends that meet together regularly for prayer.

—R. A. Torrey

Unite with a church where there is a spirit of prayer, where the prayer-meetings are well kept up.

—R. A. Torrey

What is it that is chiefly worrying us as Christians?

—Martyn Lloyd-Jones

The sincerity of our profession much depends upon the care we exercise in keeping our hearts. Most certainly, that man who is careless of the frame of his heart, is but a hypocrite in his profession, however eminent he be in the externals of religion.

—John Flavel

There is wonderful freedom in this life of simply following Jesus. This path is straight and plain.

—R. A. Torrey

The intrinsic evil and filthiness that is in sin keeps back the gracious soul from it: Abhor that which is evil; hate it as hell itself (Rom 12:9).

—John Flavel

Not only is the whole course of history known to God, and His purpose for the Church made plain, but what he has decreed will most certainly come to pass.

—Martyn Lloyd-Jones

There are men who worship gold just as really as if they had a sovereign hung up in their bedchamber, and said their prayers to it.

—R. A. Torrey

There are men and women who have a sorrow of such a character that they cannot confide it to any human ear; and they say: “Nobody knows it. Nobody sympathizes with me.” Yes, there is One who knows, and He sympathizes with you—God.

—R. A. Torrey

The Holy Spirit never leads anyone to disobey the Word of God.

—R. A. Torrey

The world has turned its back on God.

—Martyn Lloyd-Jones

The very greatness of God makes it impossible for us by our own efforts ever to arrive at God.

—Martyn Lloyd-Jones

If you will be Christ’s, you must submit to all those means Christ has appointed for the mortification of your corruptions, be they never so hard: rebukes from God, rebukes from men, by afflictions, and by the Word, for the mortification of sin.

—John Flavel

A truly gracious soul cannot long subsist without secret prayer. It is true – there is not always an equal freedom and delight, a like enlargement and comfort in those retirements, but yet he cannot be without them.

—John Flavel

When a man compares himself with others: thus measuring ourselves by ourselves, and comparing ourselves among ourselves, we show our folly and nourish our pride; but if any man will compare his own life with Christ’s, he will find abundant cause at every time to be humbled.

—John Flavel

There are some people who have lived forty or fifty years in the world, and have had scarcely one hour’s discourse with their own hearts.

—John Flavel

The sincere soul hates sin with an irreconcilable hatred. There was a time when sin and his soul fell out, but there never will be a time of reconciliation between them again.

—John Flavel