10 QUOTES TO ROCK YOUR WORLD Dr. Michael Brown Over the years, I have committed to memory numerous quotes that have stirred my heart and impacted my life, and in the days of the Brownsville Revival, we used to post some of the best, most succinct quotes on the large marquees in front our ministry school. Today, with the explosion of social media, we can post and tweet these quotes day and night, to the edification and even transformation of many. Here are 10 of my all-time favorites: 1. “For the sake of a dying, suffering world count the cost, pay the price and set the captives free” (John G. Lake). It is true that God freely shares His gifts with His children. It is also true that many times, there are obstacles to overcome and prices to pay before we attain the goal of our faith. How badly do we want to see Jesus touch this dying world by His Spirit through us? 2. “How shall I feel at the judgment, if multitudes of missed opportunities pass before me in full review, and all my excuses prove to be disguises of my cowardice and pride” (W.E. Sangster). I read this quote more than 30 years ago in Leonard Ravenhill’s classic book Why Revival Tarries, and I have reflected on it as much as I have quoted it. It still pierces the heart. 3. “The man whose little sermon is ‘repent’ sets himself against his age, and will for the time being be battered mercilessly by the age whose moral tone he challenges. There is but one end for such a man—‘off with his head!’ You had better not try to preach repentance until you have pledged your head to heaven” (Joseph Parker). This quote was another of the jewels found in Why Revival Tarries, and it ultimately inspired Keith Green to write the song “I Pledge My Head to Heaven.” Are you really ready to preach repentance? 4. “When I really enjoy God I feel my desires of Him the more insatiable and my thirstings after holiness the more unquenchable. O this pleasing pain. It makes my soul press after God” (David Brainerd). People who are sick sometimes lose their appetite, and when the appetite returns, it is often a sign of health. The same applies spiritually. How hungry are you? That says a lot about your spiritual health. 5. “Satan is so much more in earnest than we are—he buys up the opportunity while we are wondering how much it will cost” (Amy Carmichael). This lifelong missionary challenges us afresh today. Why are Satan’s people often so much more devoted to their cause than we are to ours? And why were some of us more zealous for sin before we were saved than we are zealous for the Lord now that we are saved? (While I’m at it, here’s a bonus quote from Amy: “I don’t wonder apostolic miracles have died. Apostolic living certainly has.”) 6. “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried” (G.K. Chesterton). This brilliant thinker had a way of getting straight to the point, and he nailed it here. What is stopping you (or me) from taking God at His word and going for it? That question leads right into this next quote. 7. “One of these days some simple soul will pick up the Book of God, read it and believe it. Then the rest of us will be embarrassed” (Leonard Ravenhill). Enough said. 8. “The world may frown—Satan may rage—but go on! Live for God. May I die in the field of battle” (James B. Taylor). I have said for many years that what the world calls fanaticism and much of the church calls extremism, God calls normal. So it is with this quote. 9. “If God were not my friend, Satan would not be so much my enemy” (Thomas Brooks). The Puritans had a way with words and specialized in short, pithy sayings ideal for tweeting. Let the 17th century meet the 21st century, and let’s be sure that God is our friend and we are His. 10. “The greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender” (William Booth). Here’s another one that’s easier to tweet than it is to live out, but God is not impressed with our great abilities and frenzied activities. He is looking for a surrendered life. How powerful in God are you, really? 10 MORE QUOTES TO ROCK YOUR WORLD 1. “Would that God would make hell so real to us that we cannot rest; heaven so real to us that we must have men there; Christ so real to us that our supreme motive and aim shall be to make the Man of Sorrows the Man of Joy by the conversion to Him of many” (J. Hudson Taylor). How this cuts to the heart of our self-centered, earthly minded lives, reminding us that eternity is real and that the greatest joy we can have in this world, other than knowing the Lord ourselves, is making Him known to others. 2. “People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget they too are expending their lives and when the bubble has burst they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted” (Nate Saint). These words become all the more powerful when we realize that the man who wrote them was martyred for his faith, dying along with Jim Elliot and three other courageous young missionaries when they risked their lives bringing the gospel to the Auca Indians in the 1950s. Read it again—and again. Then ask yourself if your life makes sense in the light of eternity. 3. “God, I pray, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn up for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life but a full one like Yours, Lord Jesus” (Jim Elliot). What else can be said? Long life is a gift, but you can live a long, empty, nonproductive life or you can burn bright for 28 years like Jim Elliot and reap the rewards forever. 4. “Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?” (Leonard Ravenhill). This was the question confronting me on the first letter I received from Bro. Len in 1989, and if you visit his gravesite today, it will confront you again. So, what are you living for? 5. “With Thee, O my God, is no disappointment. I shall never have to regret that I have loved Thee too well” (Henry Martyn). Lord, I just want to pour out my love for You until my heart is ready to burst! How can I love You too much? Martyn, who died on the mission field before he reached 30 years of age, never regretted giving his life for the lost and for the Savior he loved so much. 6. “Let us go to win for the Lamb the reward of His sacrifice” (Nicholas von Zinzendorf). This is what it’s all about! All for Jesus! All for the Lamb! Jesus paid it all; now we must let the whole world know. Let’s bring great joy to the one who gave His all for us. 7. “The love of Christ constrains us. There is no other motivation for missionary service that is going to survive the blows of even the first year. You do it for Him” (Elisabeth Elliot). She is living proof. After her husband, Jim Elliot, was martyred, she returned to reach the people that killed him. That’s how far love for Jesus will carry you. 8. “I can tell you that, when you are just outside of heaven, all that matters is that you loved and served Jesus” (Bob Pierce). If the glory of the world to come can become real to us, then our lives in this world will become all the more effective. 9. “The Spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, and the nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we must become” (Henry Martyn). This, in a nutshell, sums it up. It’s not about laying guilt trips on people to become more evangelistic; it’s about getting closer and closer to the Lord. As we do, our hearts will burn with love for God and love for the lost—and if He’s not calling you to be a missionary to a foreign country, then He’s calling you to be a missionary in your own backyard. The lost are everywhere to be found. 10. “There are no closed doors to the gospel, provided that, once you go through the door, you don’t care whether or not you come back out” (Brother Andrew). So, then, what’s our excuse? To quote Brother Andrew again, “Our Lord said go! He said nothing about coming back.” Now that I have shared these, I’m thinking of scores of others that have rocked my world in the past, but chewing on these 10 and seeking to live them out will keep us busy for some time. You can start by .
Posted on: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 00:13:46 +0000
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