Quotable

The state of the world today is nothing but an appalling monument to human failure. We have come to realize that a man can be educated and cultured and still be a beast! The whole case of the Bible is that the trouble with man is not intellectual (in the mind) but moral (in the heart). If the “grace” you have received does not help you to keep the law, you have not received grace. The Christian way is a difficult way of life. It is too glorious to be easy. The New Testament way of handling sanctification is never an appeal, it is a command.

The man whose doctrine is shaky will be shaky in his whole life. There is nothing so fatuous as the view that Christian doctrine is removed from life. There is nothing which is more practical. I always find that those who are driven with every wind of doctrine are those who are too lazy to study doctrine. I spend half my time telling Christians to study doctrine and the other half telling them that doctrine is not enough. My observation over the years is that it is the people who have not been taught the truth negatively as well as positively who always get carried away by the heresies and cults, because they have not been forewarned and forearmed against them.

—D. Martyn Lloyd Jones, “The Wisdom of Martyn Lloyd-Jones,” selected by Dick Alderson, Banner of Truth, August/September 1986.