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Nations have no future; hence the Judge of nations must chastise them here. 426.630
Who will deny, again, that the Christian, the true Christian promotes morality—that
his godly life settles the foundation of order? Where are the most revolutions? Where
is the least of religion? Where has the guillotine fallen with its fatal drop? Where
have heads rolled by hundreds in a basket? Where have streams of blood crimsoned
the street? Where is there an empire, never safe except as the throne is supported by
bayonets? Look across the Channel, and you will see that the absence of religion is
the absence of order in the State. 543.680
He punishes nations in this present life. Seeing that there will be no resurrection for
nations as nations, and no judgment day for nations as nations, they are judged in
time, and their sins are followed up by national judgments. 1828.135
Have you ever noticed that when nations fall they seldom rise again? 2125.41
We talk now-a-days as if we were living in a world of machinery—as if the Lord
had gone away and left the wheels of nature to go on working till the weights run
down, or the great pendulum of time shall stop; but I hope every Christian heart
revolts from such a view of the world as this. 670.26
One standing up in the street, venting his infidelity, said that we could not do better
on Sunday than go abroad and worship Nature. There was nothing that was so
refining and elevating to the mind than Nature. Nature did everything. A Christian
man in the crowd ventured to ask, “What is Nature?” And the gentleman said, “Well,
Nature—well—it is Nature. Don’t you know what it is. It is Nature.” No further
definition was forthcoming; I fear the term is only useful as enabling men to talk of
creation without being compelled to mention the Creator. 1763.63
None but God can create either a new heart or a new earth. TD51:10
Old things have passed away. He loves what he hated, and hates what he loved. He
believes what he denied, and disbelieves what he formerly accepted. 1213.42
If any man be in Christ it is not only said that he is a creation, but a new creation,
and the word here translated “new,” as has been well observed, does not signify
recent, but something altogether different from that which previously existed. 1328.691
Do you not observe that new things have come, “Behold all things are become new.”
Now the man has new views, new notions, new ambitions, new convictions, new
desires, new hopes, new deeds, new aims, new principles, and new affections: he is
led by a new spirit and follows a new course of life; everything in fact about him is as
if he had come fresh from the hand of God. 1328.693
Have you been raised from death unto life? Have you been made to feel new
emotions, new desires, new longings, new pains, and new joys? 2396.26
God works in man a change so great that no reformation can even so much as
thoroughly imitate it. It is an entire change—a change of the will, of the being, of the
desires, of the hates, of the dislikings, and of the likings. In every respect the man
becomes new when divine grace enters into his heart. 3332.589
Why, I think if some of us were to meet our old selves walking down the street, we
should hardly know ourselves. 3536.523
Preparation for heaven consists still further in something that must be wrought in us,
for observe, brethren, that if the Lord were to blot out all our sins we should still be
quite incapable of entering heaven unless there was a change wrought in our
natures. 3538.543
But, brethren, we cannot go to heaven as worldly men; for there would be nothing
there to gratify us. 3538.544
The natural birth communicates nature’s filthiness, but it cannot convey grace. CC22
The old nature never does improve, it is as earthly, and sensual, and devilish in the
saint of eighty years of age as it was when he first came to Christ; it is unimproved
and unimprovable; towards God it is enmity itself: every imagination of the thoughts
of the heart is evil, and that continually. 999.380
The eggs of all crimes are within our being: the accursed virus, from whose deadly
venom every foul design will come, is present in the soul. 1687.605
One of the best men I ever knew said, at eighty years of age, “I find the old man is
not dead yet.” Our old man is crucified, but he is long a-dying. He is not dead when
we think he is. You may live to be very old; but you will have need still to watch
against the carnal nature, which remains even in the regenerate. 2151.350
There is not a complimentary word to human nature within the covers of the Bible.
3369.411
Men by nature need something to be done for them before they can enter heaven, and
something to be done in them, something to be done with them, for by nature they
are enemies of God. 3538.542
If hunger brings us to our knees it is more useful to us than feasting; if thirst drives
us to the fountain it is better than the deepest draughts of worldly joy; and if fainting
leads to crying it is better than the strength of the mighty. TD107:6
We pray best when we are fallen on our faces in painful helplessness. TD107:13
In the dogmas of modern thought there is not enough mental meat to bait a
mouse-trap: as to food for a soul, there is none of it; an ant would starve on such
small grain. No atonement, no regeneration, no eternal love, no covenant: what is
there worth thinking upon? “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where
they have laid him.” 1933.669
To this end let us revise our doctrines. Some are old-fashioned, grim, severe,
unpopular; let us drop them out. Use the old phrases so as to please the passionately
orthodox, but give them new meanings so as to win philosophical infidels, who are
prowling around. Pare off the edges of unpleasant truths, and moderate the dogmatic
tone of infallible revelation: say that Abraham and Moses made mistakes, and that
the books which have been so long had in reverence are full of errors. Undermine the
old faith, and bring in the new doubt; for the times are altered, and the spirit of the
age suggests the abandonment of everything that is too severely righteous, and too
surely of God. 2047.559 |
