Those who believe the doctrines of sovereign grace often act inconsistently with their own principles–when they are angry at the defects of others.

A company of travelers fall into a pit; one of them gets a passerby to draw him out. Now he should not be angry with the rest for falling in; nor because they are not yet out, as he is. He did not pull himself out. Instead, therefore, of reproaching them–he should show them pity.

In the same way, a truly saved man will no more despise others–than blind Bartimaeus, after his own eyes were opened, would take a stick and beat every blind man he met!

“For who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it” (I Corinthians 4:7)?

“By the grace of God I am what I am” (I Corinthians 15:10).

-John Newton

Men talk bravely of believing, while whole and sound; but few know it. Christ is the mystery of the Scripture; grace the mystery of Christ. Believing is the most wonderful thing in the world. Put any thing of your own to it, and you spoil it. Christ will not so much as look at it for believing. When you believe and come to Christ, you must leave behind you your own righteousness, and bring nothing but your sin: (Oh, that is hard!) leave behind all your holiness, sanctification, duties, humblings, and so on; and bring nothing but your needs and miseries, or else Christ is not fit for you, nor you for Christ. Christ will be a pure Redeemer and Mediator, and you must be an undone sinner, or Christ and you will never agree. It is the hardest thing in the world to take Christ alone for righteousness: that is to acknowledge Him Christ. Join any thing to Him of your own, and [Christ shall profit you nothing (Galatians 5:2-4)] .

Thomas Wilcox (1621-1687)

Remember, sinner, it is not YOUR HOLD of Christ that saves you; it is Christ! It is not YOUR JOY that saves you; it is Christ!

It is not your profession of faith nor YOUR FAITH in Christ that saves; it is Christ’s blood and merit!

Therefore, look not to your hope, but to Christ, the source of your hope. Look not to your faith, but to Christ, the author and finisher of your faith. And if you can do that, no power can throw you down.

-Charles Spurgeon

Those who declare that God loves all people alike, the saved as well as the damned, greatly tarnish the love of God, reducing it to a fickle, helpless, frustrated passion. But that cannot be. The love of God is like himself, from everlasting to everlasting, immutable and sure. Nothing is more absurd than to imagine that anyone beloved of God can eternally perish.

-A. W. Pink

Have I then no work to work in this great matter of my pardon? None! What work can you work? What work of yours can buy Divine forgiveness—or make you fit for the Divine favor? What work has God bidden you work in order to obtain salvation? None. His Word is very plain and easy to be understood, “To him who works not—but believes in Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5). There is but one work by which a man can be saved. That work is not yours—but the work of the Son of God. That work is finished.

-Horatius Bonar

“Lord, You will ordain peace for us: for You also have wrought all our works in us.” Isaiah 26:12

How humbling is this to the pride of man! It makes everything of God—and nothing of the creature! The tendency of human nature the world over, is to be self-sufficient and self-satisfied; to say with the Laodiceans, “I am rich, and increased with goods—and have need of nothing” (Rev 3:17). But here is something to humble us—and empty us of pride. Since God has wrought all our works in us, then we have no ground for boasting. “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Cor 4:7).And who are the ones in whom God thus works? From the divine side—His favored, chosen, redeemed people. From the human side—those who, in themselves have no claim whatever on His notice; who are destitute of any merit; who have everything in them to provoke His holy wrath; those who are miserable failures in their lives, and utterly depraved and corrupt in their persons. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound—and did for them and in them what they would not and could not do for themselves!

– A.W Pink

Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. (John 15:16)

If ever a sinner has any desire, longing or love for God, it does not originate in the sinner but comes from the power and love of God to the sinner.  The believer’s desire for God comes only as a result of God the Father’s electing love, Christ’s redemption for us upon the cross, and the Holy Spirit’s quickening power to shed abroad the love of God in our hearts.

Therefore, believer, let us long, desire and love the Lord our God. Let us ever live by looking only to Christ and setting all our affection on him as all our salvation.

And though we love our God and trust in Christ our Savior with all our hearts, yet we freely confess: We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:10;19)!

-Fred Evans

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (1 Timothy 1:15)

As a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I will declare the gospel to all who will listen.

I preach the truth of God’s sovereign election (Eph. 1:1-6; Rom. 9:11-16).

I declare the truth of Jesus perfect and accomplished redemption of all the Father gave to him (John 17:2, 6,8-9,11,24).

I publish the exceeding great power of the Holy Spirit to give life and faith to all that the Father chose and all the Son redeemed (John 3:5-8; Eph. 1:18-19).

I know the call of the Spirit is effectual (it gets the job done), and all He calls will come to Jesus (John 6:37-40).

I testify that all these objects of God’s free grace who believe on Christ shall be kept by the power of God through faith looking and living by faith in Christ and free from the law until they die (John 10:26-30; 1 Peter 1:5; Rom.10:4).

This is THE gospel. There is no other gospel but salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone (Eph. 2:8; Gal.1:6-9). I will preach it to all who will listen, and I will declare it even when they won’t (2 Tim. 4:1-5). Yet there is only one type of person that God intends to save by the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are sinners. These elect, redeemed, and called people are sinners. They are without merit, without righteousness, and without hope. They are dead, blind, and leprous sinners. And these alone will hear the gospel, believe the gospel, love the gospel, and support the gospel. For Jesus only came to save sinners. Therefore I long to preach to sinners.

-Fred Evans

“Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” 1 John 5:5 

A man must either overcome the world—or be overcome by it. To overcome the world is to be saved—to be overcome by it is to be lost. He, then, who does not believe that Jesus is the Son of God does not and cannot overcome the world—for he has not the faith of God’s elect—he is not born of God—there is no divine life in his soul—and he has therefore no power to resist the allurements, endure the scorn, or rise superior to the frowns and smiles of the world—but is entangled, carried captive, and destroyed by it!

Where the world is loved, the heart is necessarily overcome by it—for in the love of the world, as in the love of sin, is all the strength of the world. Now unless the love of Christ in the soul be stronger than the love of the world, the weaker must give way to the stronger. Those who do not love Christ cannot overcome the world, for such are utter strangers to the faith which purifies the heart from the lust of it, to the hope which rises above it, and to the love which lifts up the soul beyond it.

-J.C Philpot

Will any, or will I, pretend to teach the Most High knowledge, seeing he is excellent in all his working, and perfect in all his ways? Then, since I cannot direct him, why am not I submissive to his disposal?

So, Lord, as from present appearances, future contingencies cannot be discerned—it is my duty, and shall be my study, to be WHOLLY, FULLY, and FOREVER, at your disposal, to whom all your works, all my purposes, and all my wanderings, are known from the beginning!

O! how the Christian should glory in God’s choosing for him the lot of his inheritance, and be content with that condition which Heaven accounts best for him, though not the grandest or greatest; nor the richest or happiest; nor that state he most desires. I am not my own—for I am bought with a price, and dearly paid for, too! Would it not be too daring for me to instruct God how to decorate the heavens, how to set the sun, station the moon, place the poles, plant the stars, and guide the wandering planets? Now, I am as much his by right, (yes, in the ties of love, more) and as much at his disposal, as any of these his other creatures; and if I cannot complain of his conduct with these, why quarrel at his providences toward me?

Another thing which ought to encourage to submission, is, that God’s way is not only [just] in itself, but profitable for his people, for the latter end of the righteous is peace; and the end of the Lord is always gracious to his afflicted ones—who chooses them in the furnace of affliction, brings light out of darkness, order out of confusion, real good out of seeming evil; and, finally, brings through fire and water to a place of eternal glory!

-James Meikle