Jacob Moore > Recent Status Updates

Faith fosters every virtue; unbelief murders every one. Thousands of prayers have been strangled in their infancy by unbelief. Unbelief has been guilty of infanticide: it has murdered many an infant petition; many a song of praise that would have swelled the chorus of the skies, has been stifled by an unbelieving murmur.

55: The ungratefulness of men is disclosed. They have within themselves a workshop graced with God's unnumbered works ... a storehouse flowing with inestimable riches... They feel in many wonderful ways that God works in them; they are... taught by the very use of these things what a great variety of gifts they possess... They are compelled to know... that these are signs of divinity; yet they conceal them within.

That treasure was a quiet conscience & the love of God--- "the peace that passes all understanding." I slept because I slept in the house of content, satisfied with what I had. Go ye, overreaching misers! Go ye, grasping, ambitious men! I envy not your life of inquietude. The sleep of statesmen is often broken; the dream of the miser is always evil... but God "giveth," by contentment, "his beloved sleep."

Thy pains for sins are God's work in thy soul. He woundeth thee that thou mayest seek him. He would not have showed thee thy sin if he did not intend to pardon. Thou art now a sinner, and Jesus came to save sinners, therefore he came to save thee; yea, he is saving thee now.

6: A person who has not much practice in Scripture has good reason for some guidance & direction. Perhaps the duty of those who have received from God fuller light than others is to help simple folk at this point and help them to find the sum of what God meant to teach us in his Word.

God has never seen fit to bestow such favour on his servants that each individually should be endowed with full and perfect knowledge on every point. No doubt, his design was to keep is both humble and eager for brotherly communication.

35: Calvin was influenced by and interacted with events & people outside Geneva, but there is a very real sense in which one should never cease to view Calvin, his work, his writing, & his beliefs as the product of a good minister living in Geneva.

33: When Odysseus sees for himself what it means to be dead, he loses any illusions he may have had that death is better than a life of unbroken tension and hardship.

Recently a friend told me a church in which many people would not take Communion.. Their apprehension was not based on sin or refusal to repent - it just seems most people could not find enough worthiness in themselves to take the Supper.. The problem with introspection is that it only leads us back to ourselves.. What we all need to hear is "You are not worthy. But Christ is and his body and blood make you worthy."

A man who has not faith proves he cannot stoop; for he has not faith because he is too proud to believe. He declares he will not yield his intellect, he will not become a child, & believe meekly what God tells him to believe. He is too proud, & he cannot enter heaven, because the door of heaven is so low that no one can enter unless they will bow their heads. There never was a man who could walk into salvation erect.

Calvin: "The flesh of Christ is like a rich & inexhaustible fountain that pours into us the life springing forth from the Godhead into itself. Now who does not see that communion of Christ's flesh & blood is necessary for all who aspire to heavenly life?"

342: Did you ever think of the tremendous value of a single soul? My hearers, if there were but one man in Siberia unsaved, and all the world were saved besides ... it would be worthwhile for all the people of England to go after that one soul. Did you ever think of the value of a soul?

Bromley on Zwingli (241): "Zwingli had no intention of denying a spiritual presence of Christ in the sacrament [of the Lord's Supper] . . . This presence certainly means that the communion is more than a "bare" sign, at any rate to the believing recipient."

I have heard of a lady who was visited by a minister on her deathbed. She said, "I want to know if there are two places in heaven, because I could not bear that Betsy in the kitchen should be in heaven along with me, she is so unrefined?" The minister turned & said, "O don't trouble yourself about that, madam. There is no fear of that; for until you get rid of your accursed pride you will never enter heaven at all."

Luther: The words are the first thing, for without the words the cup & the bread would be nothing. Further, without bread & cup, the body & blood of Christ would not be there. Without the body & blood of Christ, the New Testament would not be there. Without the new testsment, forgiveness of sins would not be there. Without forgiveness, life & salvation would not be there... All this the words of the Supper offer.

291: And now, what saith the Christian after this? ... He approaches God's heaven, he comes against the gates, and Faith still triumphantly shouts, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" And a voice from within: "Not Christ, for he hath died; not God for he hath justified."

The Lord's Supper is here likened to the joyous experience of being kissed by one's beloved. This loving communion that Christ has with His people through the Eucharist, Ambrose further likens to the beloved coming into his garden & drinking his wine with milk (Song 5:11). This is nothing less than Christ giving his people forgiveness of sins & their subsequent inebriation in Spirit... A glorious inebriation.

Sinner! Why art thou at enmity with God? God is the God of love; he is kind to his creatures; he regards you with his love of benevolence; for this very day his sun hath shone upon you... Do you hate God because he loves you? Dost thou not know that God sent his Son ... hung him on a tree, & there suffered him to die for sinners... & dost thou hate God for that? Art thou so estranged that thou givest enmity for love?

Self-examination should be prompted by our understanding of Christ's love, and it should then be swallowed up in our awareness of God's mercy to those of us who believe -- for the things about ourselves of which we become aware in our examination are all nailed to the cross of Christ. Let us proclaim His death until he comes!

I am sick of this tiring & trying life; my frame is weary, my soul is mad to repose herself awhile. I would I could lay myself down a little by the edge of some pebbly brook... Oh! Wouldst thou be quiet, Christian? "Come, see the spot where the Lord lay." It is a sweet resting spot, a withdrawing room for thy soul, where thou mayest brush from thy garments the dust of earth & muse awhile in peace.

We may ask then, "Why the Passover?" There are many significant holy days Jesus could have chosen to associate with his death ... Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, etc... Each of these would have been appropriate and Christ-connections can be made for each of them... Jesus clearly chose when to enter Jerusalem... All of this intentionally aligned His last week with the celebration of Passover. Why?

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts & diagrams, to add, divide, & measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unnacountable I became tired & sick,
Till rising & gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air,
Look'd up at the stars

Baptists need to establish ... observance so it is no longer a ... hurried appendage to a lengthy sermon... We must seek balance & discover the missing jewel of worship. In doing so, we must place the Lord's Supper in the center of our understanding of worship, for nothing is able to help us celebrate the work of Christ ... or enable us to experience His presence ... as does the regular observance of the Supper.

205: O ye foes of God, ye think God's people are despicable & powerless; but know that they have true strength from the omnipotence of the Father, a might substantial & divine. Your own shall melt away, and droop & die, like the snow upon the low mountain top, when the sun shines upon it, it melts into water; but our vigor shall abide like snow on the summit of the Alps, undiminished for ages. It is real strength.

Dunbar:

So I sang a lay for a brother's ear
In a strain to soothe his bleeding heart,
And he smiled at the sound of my voice and lyre,
Tho' mine was a feeble art.

But at his smile, I smiled in turn
And into my soul there came a ray;
In trying to sooth another's woes
Mine own had passed away.

532: When all is done, the hell of hells, the torment of torments, is the everlasting absence of God, and the everlasting impossibility of returning to his presence... What torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation, to be secluded eternally, eternally, eternally from the sight of God?

492: Reacting against the triumphalism of much past Christian approach to men of other faiths, it is too easy to talk happily of different roads to the summit... This is forcefully propounded by some Christians... Are they right? ... Is the Cross of Calvary no more than a confusing roundabout sign pointing in every direction, or is it still the place where all men are meant to kneel?

169: I, for one, say, let all other names perish, and let Christ's name last forever. Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! "Crown him Lord of all!" You will not hear me say anything else. These are my last words in Exeter Hall for this time. Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Crown him Lord of all.

383: If the evaluation is to be beyond question, then the evaluator and its evaluative process must be insulated. If it is to fulfil its role, the evaluator must be the unjudged judge, the unruled legislator, the premise majer who rests on no premises, the uncreated creator of values. We are never going to get anywhere in ethical or legal theory unless we fsce the fact that ... there is no one like unto the Lord.

343: Never before in the history of humankind have so many scholars focused so much... on the "metaquestions" thrown up by their disciplines... With objective truth disappearing... the drift toward introspective "navel gazing" should scarcely be remarkable... In response, Christian thinkers must be informed and participate in such debates, but they must not be entirely given over to them, or they become the problem.