TIME TESTED QUOTES:
Ø John Wycliffe, the Bible translator "The highest service to which a man may obtain on earth is to preach the law of God."
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Ø Martin Luther "Satan, the god of all dissension stirs up daily new sects. And last of all which of all others I should never have foreseen or once suspected, he has raised up a sect such as teach that men should not be terrified by the law, but gently exhorted by the preaching of the grace of Christ."
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"The first duty of the Gospel preacher is to declare God's Law and show the nature of sin."
"...we would not see nor realize it (what a distressing and horrible fall in which we lie), if it were not for the Law, and we would have to remain forever lost, if we were not again helped out of it through Christ. Therefore the Law and the Gospel are given to the end that we may learn to know both how guilty we are and to what we should again return."
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In a sermon published way back in 1537, Martin Luther spoke of the Law being used as a schoolmaster the bring sinners to Christ. Listen to his words of warning: "This now is the Christian teaching and preaching, which God be praised, we know and possess, and it is not necessary at present to develop it further, but only to offer the admonition that it be maintained in Christendom with all diligence. For Satan has attacked it hard and strong from the beginning until the present, and gladly would he completely extinguish it and tread it underfoot."
Ø John Wesley In writing to a young evangelist instructed, "Preach 90 percent law and 10 percent grace."
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"While he cries out, O what love have I to thy Law! all the day long is my study in it. He sees daily, in that divine mirror, more and more of his own sinfulness. He sees more and more clearly, that he is fullness a sinner in all things -- that neither his heart nor his ways are right before God, and that every moment sends him to Christ. Therefore I cannot spare the Law one moment, no more than I can spare Christ, seeing I now want it as much to keep me to Christ, as I ever wanted it to bring me to Him. Otherwise this 'evil heart of unbelief' would immediately 'depart from the living God.' Indeed each is continually sending me to the other--the Law to Christ, and Christ to the Law."
Ø John Newton, who wrote "Amazing Grace" "Ignorance of the nature and design of the Law is at the bottom of most religious mistakes."
Ø Charles Spurgeon "I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel who does not preach the Law." Then he warns, "Lower the Law and you dim the light by which man perceives his guilt; this is a very serious loss to the sinner rather than a gain; for it lessens the likelihood of his conviction and conversion. I say you have deprived the gospel of its ablest auxiliary [its most powerful weapon] when you have set aside the Law. You have taken away from it the schoolmaster that is to bring men to Christ . . . They will never accept grace till they tremble before a just and holy Law. Therefore the Law serves a most necessary purpose, and it must not be removed from its place."
"The Law cuts into the core of the evil, it reveals the seat of the malady, and informs us that the leprosy lies deep within."
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"They must be slain by the law before they can be made alive by the gospel."
Ø Jonathan Edwards "The only way we can know whether we are sinning is by knowing His Moral Law."
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"They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They do not only justly deserve to be cast down thither, but the sentence of the law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, is gone out against them, and stands against them; so that they are bound over already to hell. John iii. 18. 'He that believeth not is condemned already.' So that every unconverted man properly belongs to hell; that is his place; from thence he is, John viii. 23. 'Ye are from beneath.' And thither be is bound; it is the place that justice, and God's word, and the sentence of his unchangeable law assign to him."
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Ø George Whitefield "First, then, before you can speak peace to your hearts, you must be made to see, made to feel, made to weep over, made to bewail, your actual transgressions against the Law of God."
Ø John Wesley "...it is the ordinary method of the Spirit of God to convict sinners by the Law. It is this which, being set home on the conscience, generally breaketh the rocks in pieces. It is more especially this part of the Word of God which is quick and powerful, full of life and energy and sharper than any two-edged sword."
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"It remains only to show...the uses of the Law. And the first use of it, without question, is to convince the world of sin. By this is the sinner discovered to himself. All his fig-leaves are torn away, and he sees that he is 'wretched and poor and miserable, blind and naked.' The Law flashes conviction on every side. He feels himself a mere sinner. He has nothing to pay. His 'mouth is stopped' and he stands 'guilty before God.' To slay the sinner is then the first use of the Law, to destroy the life and strength wherein he trusts and convince him that he is dead while he lives; not only under the sentence of death, but actually dead to God, void of all spiritual life, dead in trespasses and sins."
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"Before I can preach love, mercy and grace I must preach sin, law and judgment."
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"The second use {of the Law} is to bring him unto Life, unto Christ that he may live. It is true, in performing both these offices, it acts the part of a severe school master. It drives us by force, rather than draws us by love. And yet love is the spring of all. It is the spirit of love which, by this painful means, tears away our confidence in the flesh, which leaves us no broken reed whereon to trust, and so constrains the sinner, stripped of all to cry out in the bitterness of his soul or groan in the depth of his heart, 'I give up every plea beside, Lord I am damned but thou hast died.'"
Ø John Wycliffe, the Bible translator "The highest service to which a man may obtain on earth is to preach the law of God."
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Ø Martin Luther "Satan, the god of all dissension stirs up daily new sects. And last of all which of all others I should never have foreseen or once suspected, he has raised up a sect such as teach that men should not be terrified by the law, but gently exhorted by the preaching of the grace of Christ."
<o
"The first duty of the Gospel preacher is to declare God's Law and show the nature of sin."
"...we would not see nor realize it (what a distressing and horrible fall in which we lie), if it were not for the Law, and we would have to remain forever lost, if we were not again helped out of it through Christ. Therefore the Law and the Gospel are given to the end that we may learn to know both how guilty we are and to what we should again return."
<o
In a sermon published way back in 1537, Martin Luther spoke of the Law being used as a schoolmaster the bring sinners to Christ. Listen to his words of warning: "This now is the Christian teaching and preaching, which God be praised, we know and possess, and it is not necessary at present to develop it further, but only to offer the admonition that it be maintained in Christendom with all diligence. For Satan has attacked it hard and strong from the beginning until the present, and gladly would he completely extinguish it and tread it underfoot."
Ø John Wesley In writing to a young evangelist instructed, "Preach 90 percent law and 10 percent grace."
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"While he cries out, O what love have I to thy Law! all the day long is my study in it. He sees daily, in that divine mirror, more and more of his own sinfulness. He sees more and more clearly, that he is fullness a sinner in all things -- that neither his heart nor his ways are right before God, and that every moment sends him to Christ. Therefore I cannot spare the Law one moment, no more than I can spare Christ, seeing I now want it as much to keep me to Christ, as I ever wanted it to bring me to Him. Otherwise this 'evil heart of unbelief' would immediately 'depart from the living God.' Indeed each is continually sending me to the other--the Law to Christ, and Christ to the Law."
Ø John Newton, who wrote "Amazing Grace" "Ignorance of the nature and design of the Law is at the bottom of most religious mistakes."
Ø Charles Spurgeon "I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel who does not preach the Law." Then he warns, "Lower the Law and you dim the light by which man perceives his guilt; this is a very serious loss to the sinner rather than a gain; for it lessens the likelihood of his conviction and conversion. I say you have deprived the gospel of its ablest auxiliary [its most powerful weapon] when you have set aside the Law. You have taken away from it the schoolmaster that is to bring men to Christ . . . They will never accept grace till they tremble before a just and holy Law. Therefore the Law serves a most necessary purpose, and it must not be removed from its place."
"The Law cuts into the core of the evil, it reveals the seat of the malady, and informs us that the leprosy lies deep within."
<o
"They must be slain by the law before they can be made alive by the gospel."
Ø Jonathan Edwards "The only way we can know whether we are sinning is by knowing His Moral Law."
<o
"They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They do not only justly deserve to be cast down thither, but the sentence of the law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, is gone out against them, and stands against them; so that they are bound over already to hell. John iii. 18. 'He that believeth not is condemned already.' So that every unconverted man properly belongs to hell; that is his place; from thence he is, John viii. 23. 'Ye are from beneath.' And thither be is bound; it is the place that justice, and God's word, and the sentence of his unchangeable law assign to him."
<o
Ø George Whitefield "First, then, before you can speak peace to your hearts, you must be made to see, made to feel, made to weep over, made to bewail, your actual transgressions against the Law of God."
Ø John Wesley "...it is the ordinary method of the Spirit of God to convict sinners by the Law. It is this which, being set home on the conscience, generally breaketh the rocks in pieces. It is more especially this part of the Word of God which is quick and powerful, full of life and energy and sharper than any two-edged sword."
<o
"It remains only to show...the uses of the Law. And the first use of it, without question, is to convince the world of sin. By this is the sinner discovered to himself. All his fig-leaves are torn away, and he sees that he is 'wretched and poor and miserable, blind and naked.' The Law flashes conviction on every side. He feels himself a mere sinner. He has nothing to pay. His 'mouth is stopped' and he stands 'guilty before God.' To slay the sinner is then the first use of the Law, to destroy the life and strength wherein he trusts and convince him that he is dead while he lives; not only under the sentence of death, but actually dead to God, void of all spiritual life, dead in trespasses and sins."
<o
"Before I can preach love, mercy and grace I must preach sin, law and judgment."
<o
"The second use {of the Law} is to bring him unto Life, unto Christ that he may live. It is true, in performing both these offices, it acts the part of a severe school master. It drives us by force, rather than draws us by love. And yet love is the spring of all. It is the spirit of love which, by this painful means, tears away our confidence in the flesh, which leaves us no broken reed whereon to trust, and so constrains the sinner, stripped of all to cry out in the bitterness of his soul or groan in the depth of his heart, 'I give up every plea beside, Lord I am damned but thou hast died.'"