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[wisdomfish]

Knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and will present us [along] with you in His presence. For all [these] things are for your sake, so that as [God’s remarkable, undeserved] grace reaches to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of [our great] God.

Therefore we do not become discouraged [spiritless, disappointed, or afraid]. Though our outer self is [progressively] wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day by day.

2 Corinthians 4:14-16

[wisdomfish]

[wisdomfish]

I believed [and clung to my God] when I said, “I am greatly afflicted.”

Psalm 116:10

[wisdomfish]

Nothing is wrong with the message. Nothing can be. It is God’s Word! How could we be so brash as to change it? If they don’t hear the truth, cool music won’t help. If they don’t see the light, Power-Point won’t help. If they don’t like the message, drama and video won’t help. They’re blind and dead.

John MacArthur, Hard to Believe, p. 49

[wisdomfish]

The invitation to salvation makes people literally kill off all their dreams, ambitions, felt needs, and selfish desires. And then we call them to a repentance and faith that is absolutely against the grain of every normal human impulse.

John MacArthur, Hard to Believe, p. 47

[wisdomfish]

Don’t make anything out of me. Don’t name cathedrals or cities in Minnesota in my honor. I’m just a servant of Christ, a steward of the mysteries of God. I’m an under-rower, a third-level galley slave; I pull my oar, and that’s what I’m supposed to do, nothing worthy of special attention. ~ John MacArthur, Hard to Believe, p. 46

[wisdomfish]

What was the Lord doing? He picked people with absolutely no influence.

None of the great intellects from Egypt, Greece, Rome, or Israel was among the apostles. During the New Testament time, the greatest scholars were very likely in Egypt. The most distinguished philosophers were in Athens. The powerful were in Rome. The biblical scholars were in Jerusalem.

Think of it like this: He passed by Herodotus, the historian; He passed by Socrates, the great thinker. He passed by the father of medicine, Hippocrates. He passed by Plato the philosopher, Aristotle the wise, Hipparchus the astronomer, Cicero the orator, and Virgil the poet. He didn’t pay attention to any of those people when selecting the preachers of the difficult-to-believe message of salvation.

He’s still doing it. He is still in the business of passing up the gold and silver bowls and picking up clay pots.

~ John MacArthur, Hard to Believe, p. 45

[wisdomfish]

For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves [merely] as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give us the Light of the knowledge of the glory and majesty of God [clearly revealed] in the face of Christ.

But we have this precious treasure [the good news about salvation] in [unworthy] earthen vessels [of human frailty], so that the grandeur and surpassing greatness of the power will be [shown to be] from God [His sufficiency] and not from ourselves.

~ 2 Corinthians 4:5-7

[wisdomfish]

The gospel has never moved through history, filling the redemptive plan, by relying on the prestige of influential personalities. It moves, for the most part, with us—the unimpressive, impotent, nothing, nobodies.

John MacArthur, Hard to Believe, p. 42

[wisdomfish]

Other religions are not truth and lead only to eternal damnation. Islam is a damning system. Buddhism is a damning system. Hinduism is a damning system. Simply not believing the gospel is itself enough to damn a person.

John MacArthur, Hard to Believe, p. 37, 38

[wisdomfish]

If a gospel messenger got it wrong and thus led people astray about the most important news in human history, the Apostle Paul thought that preacher should suffer the same consequences that their error wrought on others. Since getting the gospel of Jesus right is ultimately a matter of heaven or hell for those who hear it, preaching the gospel with truth and accuracy ought to be a matter of heaven or hell for those who preach it.

Scott Lothery

[wisdomfish]

People who preach a different gospel aren’t Christians because their gospel has no means by which to remove the curse caused by sin. Jesus is the only Savior of sinners. Salvation from curse unto blessing is found in no one else. There’s no other name under heaven by which people can be saved. Thus, people who change the gospel to something contrary to it, remain cursed.

Scott Lothery

[wisdomfish]

Paul thought people who preach a false gospel should be considered as still under the curse of sin. In other words, by preaching a different good news they proved that they were not Christians. True Christians preach the gospel delivered once for all from Jesus to the church through the Apostles.

Scott Lothery

[wisdomfish]

The Bible’s weird, but maybe not as weird as it seems at first. When we take the time to investigate the text and look to interpret it carefully, we can bring clarity to difficult passages.

[wisdomfish]

The gospel confronts man and exposes him for what he really is. It ignores the disappointment that he feels. It offers him no relief from the struggles of being human. Rather it goes to the profound and eternal issue of the fact that he is damned and desperately needs to be rescued.

John MacArthur, Hard to Believe, p. 33

[wisdomfish]

The message of the cross is not about felt needs. It is not about Jesus loving you so much He wants to make you happy. It is about rescuing you from damnation, because that is the sentence that rests upon the head of every human being.

John MacArthur, Hard to Believe, p. 33

[wisdomfish]

The cross says that God requires death for sin, while it proclaims to us the glory of substitution. It rescues the perishing.

John MacArthur, Hard to Believe, p. 33