Because You Asked Quotes

“Tolkien captures the mood we will have when we at last awaken to that day, when Sam wakes up after completing his quest, exclaiming: “At last he gasped: ‘Gandalf? I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”3 I can quite imagine a lot of crying going on, on the part of all of us, as we realize that all we were able to dream of was but just a shadow of the reality of heaven.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“It was the advent, or more specifically, the empty tomb which is the next great event. Even though prophesied thousands of years in advance, the idea of a suffering Messiah was more than the world was ready for, and it confounded the leaders of that time, both Jewish and Roman, that the “bruising of the heel” was the death of the Messiah. A resurrected Christ, defying death, changed the world forever.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“Why does God not heal when we pray?   My wife and I discussed this question for quite a bit before I attempted to answer it. I consider it one of the more difficult questions, but before I describe the difficulty, I would like to set the record straight. God does answer prayer! He answers many times, and in many ways. He leads me, guides my path, and opens and closes doors in life’s pathways all the time. Just the other day, I got mixed up with my daughters and my wife texting me at the same time, and entirely due to my error, I ended up on a strange street accidentally finding my daughter and her baby with car trouble. It is one of those strange coincidences that have happened to me so repeatedly in the past forty years! It is what my family has come to call “a God-thing”.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“Can sin unsave the Christian?   One item that I feel I must make clear before answering this question is to make plain that neither I, nor anyone else can tell a man’s heart relationship with God. There is an intrinsic problem in answering this question, as the only basis the Bible gives us for judging one another is the fruit which we do or do not bear. The New Testament writers do assume, for the most part, that the life of faith does bear fruit, but the writers also seem to give much encouragement for saints to stay holy in their calling, and there are not a few instances where saints are scolded for allowing themselves to be pulled back into their former lives. Only God, who sees the hearts and motives of man can judge man; and that is as it should be. ”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“There is nothing more tragic in my mind than to see the Christian with arrested development. He knows Christ, he knows the power of God, and he has the power of the Spirit living within him, yet he remains an infant. He is like the seed that Jesus talked about, that fell into the ground, sprouted, but is choked out by the cares of this world.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“The Bible insists that man started at the heights, at the zenith point with creation, a companion of God himself, and has fallen so far down that he is utterly unable to even glimpse the heights to which he once attained. The Fall was complete, and as the face of God became a fading memory in the lives of men, their lifespan quickly became shorter, their tempers larger, their hands ever more bloody, and they were forever doomed to become mere empty shells of what God had made them.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“There are only three important events to history; by important I mean that these three events eclipse all others. These three events, I believe, will be remembered by men long after we forget everything else in the face of the beauty which is to come. If I liken all of history to an accordion expanded to its fullest extent, then when the master closes that accordion, we would still be able to hear the notes of these three main events playing. They are that important.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“If you want to understand why the church is so enthralled with Israel, you need to understand that the church is waiting, with bated breath, for these things the prophets have declared to at last come to pass. Many in the church understand that God has tied himself to Israel, and will renew that tie in the days to come.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“If I had to pick one earthly evidence to show that times are ripe for the second coming, it would be in the nation of Israel. Israel, fighting for its existence, when even the United States seems to be ready to desert her. Israel, the disobedient child of God, regathered to confound the world at the power of God. Israel, the tiny waif, pressed on every side by threats of destruction. Israel, conquering the nations around her to the amazement of all, and taking back her glorious capital of Jerusalem. Who would have thought that God really meant what he said? And yet, we see the end times coming together just as he ordained, and Israel is the center of it all.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“The Bible is very clear. One day, we will see the Lord reigning as king over the whole earth.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“The road of righteousness starts with faith.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“My father’s generation, who for the most part did not know Christ, knew at least there was a right and a wrong. They may not have been able to point to the reason for right and wrong—most did not know the Source of morality—but they passionately embraced their notions of right and wrong. Most of the time their notions were fairly close. But the modern generation has lost any notion of morality—and that is bound to lead to deep disaster. Tolerance and inclusiveness are the deceivers of the day; it takes a rare person to build a foundation of morality other than that which the state routinely sets out.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“Paul gives us a Biblical picture (remember I said I would try to stick to the Biblical picture). What meaning does baptism have? Romans 6 tells us that, ”Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Baptism thus is a symbol of the death of Christ, a picture of him being down under the earth, and when we are lifted up, we also become a symbol of Christ being raised from the dead, and walking in new life.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“In our city, there is a growing homeless problem, and a number of city churches work to alleviate the problems. One of the exciting events that they have from time to time is a public baptism. Men off of the streets who want to profess Christ are immediately invited into the river to be baptized. It is quite a moving experience, and may I notice that it is quite close to the original Bible times experience. Men and women found out about the love of God given to them through Jesus dying on the cross, and they believed God, repenting of their sin, and being baptized in the nearest river at hand. It was a demonstrable change of life to their community, and naturally elicited great interest. I am told the same thing happens in our city; the testimony of people being baptized generates much interest from the homeless people themselves and leads to decisions.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“Who wins when the saint stops growing? Who wins when the saint stops his fellowship? Who wins by keeping up to 40% of the church out of being active? Paul tells us that we are not ignorant of Satan’s devices, but I think the evidence is clear, that sometimes we are ignorant. We think the battle is all about church, and it is not, it is all about you, and leading a victorious life in Christ. There is no other way given, except to be in regular community with believing brothers and sisters.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“For if God sent his Son, and poured out his wrath upon his Son for the sins of the world, then God has taken responsibility for his sovereignty. No one, who will recognize and believe what God has done, needs to suffer eternal judgment. Everyone has a way to escape. In a sense, as Sartre suggests, the doors of hell are locked from the inside; the horror of a soul hating the loving salvation of God deserves exactly what he gets—eternal punishment.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“What if mankind has become so neurotic in their loss of fellowship to God that they have become “walking dead people”? What if we have so lost our remembrances of fellowship with God that we are nothing but walking zombies? Indeed Scripture seems to indicate that very fact, declaring over and over that we are dead in our trespasses and sins. As I look over Genesis, early man had long life, beyond anything we conceive of today. I do wonder if that was the reflection of their relationship with the Lord, strong as they remember his glory and what it was like to walk with him, but fading into a pattern of short lives and disease and death. I am convinced that we do not even realize our zombie-like condition. If the Bible is to be believed, as I always choose to do, then man is dead, corpses walking and breathing, but without any conception of what life is truly like. One day, perhaps right after we are allowed to drink from His spring of living water, then and only then, will we realize just how dead we really were.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“In Luther’s words, “Good works are not the cause, but the fruit of righteousness.”3 It is a very common mistake when one is a new believer, that if you just try a little harder, then just maybe this time, you can get it right. Actually, that is not at all Biblical, and we only need Paul’s reminder that that which he would do, he cannot, and that which he would not do, he does. We are in a terrible dilemma when we depend on our own flesh to try to get things right, and it is usually something a new Christian learns quickly.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“Jesus, the son of God, Christians believe. Or, if you believe as most of the world does, merely a good teacher. But, I must point out, if he is but a good teacher, in what sense is he good? He claimed to be God come in the flesh, and said he would save people from their sins, and claimed he would return to rule a kingdom on earth. If he is but a teacher, surely you cannot claim false teaching is good? If, as some suggest, he is a mad man, then surely the greatest deception ever was poured out on mankind. But the Bible record presents a Jesus free of madness, and that leaves but one choice. Jesus, the son of God. Hadn’t you better consider his claims? It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God, and foolish, especially when he makes a way of escape.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“Sincerity is often mistaken for a truth, when it fact it may have no resemblance to truth whatsoever. Sometimes we do make the mistake, when we apprehend the sincerity of a person, that sincerity somehow validates the belief. To put it simply, a sincere person may be sincerely wrong. Truth has nothing to do with sincerity, and when you mix in our current definition of tolerance, the room for error multiplies grievously. The faulty measure of an idea’s validity is correlated to how sincere the presenter might be. It is hard to see how our society could get any further away from a simple definition of right and wrong, of good and evil.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“The Bible is clear in its invitation to all people. Grace can be extended to all, and has nothing to do with our deserved fates. Chafer says it so eloquently: "Grace is neither treating a person as he deserves, nor treating a person better than he deserves. It is treating a person graciously without the slightest reference to his deserts." Thus, when we say we are “under grace” we are referring to being totally free. Jesus said, I am come that you might be free indeed.  Christians are free from the penalty of sin, and that is under grace.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“After we become Christians, we have let him, so to speak, into our house. But there are all sorts of messes in our house, and while we might maintain the front room for “company”, the problem with our Lord is that he is never content just to stay in the front room. He wants nothing less than all of us, every closet, every messy room, and even our cluttered junk drawers. He is always poking around, letting us know that we are not right yet, and that there is yet another mess for us to begin cleaning up.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“What gentle, loving, and patient creatures we ought to be, when we fully realize what grace does for us.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“Remember Samson’s parents when they saw what they thought was God, exclaimed, “we shall surely die, for we have seen God”. Hebrews reminds us that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. The God of all of creation, in his shining glory, too bright for us to behold—that God loves us. Yes, God came down and assumed fleshly form, and Tozer, I think rightly casts this, “The awful majesty of the Godhead was mercifully sheathed in the soft envelope of Human nature to protect mankind.”3”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“Doctrine should come from the Bible and it should never be that we prove our doctrine from the Bible, but rather that the Bible compels us to adopt our beliefs. Our measure of whether we are doing this or not? Probably, as teachers of the saints, you might check to see where you are doing most of your reading. Is it in the latest book of the favorite creed? Or are you doing enough Bible reading to show it is the center of all your doctrine?”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“I was leaving God out in my reckoning. Oh, you say, no you weren’t, for all of the views have men of God in them. But logically, that is an irrational statement. Do you not see it, as soon as you say it? If the Bible says anything at all (and I think it says quite a lot), then it must say only one thing. There is not room for two opposing, or even divergent viewpoints. If there is truth, as I think myself confident in supposing Christians to maintain, then there is no more room for two truths than there are twenty truths. Unescapably, we must be driven to one.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“I have long observed that a Bible which is falling apart usually belongs to a man who isn’t.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“We believers have a main job: to preach the gospel to every person with the full expectation that many will hear the Word, believe, and begin to discover the deep love of God for themselves; it ought to be more than enough to keep us busy. “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“I have long pointed out to my friends in theological discussions, that it matters not at all what we believe. It matters only what God is saying. If I develop a creed that says angels are the stars in heaven, I may believe my creed very sincerely, but that, of course, does not make it true. The measure of any doctrine or theology must be against the ruler of the Bible. Not even our historical fathers can measure doctrine or theology for us; it is through the lens of scripture that doctrine must rise or fall.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked

“The idea of God opening up my life, and seeing all the secrets of my heart, the heart that I know all too well, that idea is frightening to me. I use that fear to drive me to live this day, the only day that I have control of to live for God. I cannot change my sins of yesteryear, nor even of yesterday, and I do not know what the uncertain tides of the future may bring, but I can take the now, this present day, and turn it towards worshipping and loving my God.”
― Patrick Davis, Because You Asked