Christian Leaders

"The Bible declares blasphemy to be a very serious offense, because any society which begins by profaning God and His authority will soon profane all things. Nothing will be sacred. No authority will stand. The alternative to authority is total terror by the power of State. This is why, as I’ve pointed out more than once, when the authority of God is destroyed, and when the doctrine of Creation was replaced with the doctrine of Evolution, Marx and Engels congratulated one another in that now their position was established. The foundations of all godly authority were shattered when God was no longer viewed as the creator. His Law, His Word, His person became thereby irrelevant to creation. If the Lord God of scripture did not make the Heavens and the earth and all things therein to the last atom, His Word does not govern creation. If Creation is a product of Evolution, then no law outside of itself can govern it. So the alternative to the authority of God is total terror by the power of State. Where there is no authority, there is soon no justice, because men then no longer speak the same moral languages of law and authority. The respect for God’s authority establishes communication and healthy dissent, the kind of dissent which thrives in an anarchist situation is the dissent of increasing evil, violence and destruction. Godly dissent is constructive, not destructive, and its goal is justice and holiness."

"We are moving towards a situation in which Statism wants to suppress in one area after another, the freedom of Christians to be charitable. In my lifetime, many, many of the things, institutions and agencies that once marked the Christian scene are now gone. They have been ruled out as unfit. Meanwhile the attitude of the state is an interesting one. It is less and less concerned with morality, with anything that deals directly and without restrictions with problems. I think we can see what is happening in one sphere after another, but perhaps best of all in the courts."

"If men are not regenerated by Christ, and if they will not submit to His calling, to the cultural mandate, they will be crushed by His power."

"... homosexual culture is bitterly hostile to the family and to small town culture, the stability. Today it controls very largely, this is recognized by many writers, the world of fashions and the world of publishing. And it uses these two media, communications and styles, to war against the family and small town culture against the law and against standards. The canons of homosexual culture today are the standards of the Jet-set, very emphatically, and more and more of all society. The homosexual culture today is infecting the world at large."

"When we believe that to any degree, when you have any element of that influence upon you, your whole perspective of both your child and yourself is going to be different. And this is why our parents, the parents of our generation were more mature, very often and capable of receiving responsibilities at an earlier age, because they were not as extensively influenced by evolutionary psychology. And this is why children who are now growing up in a christian school environment, come to maturity more readily than some of us did. An evolutionary psychology does leave you a warped view on man. An evolutionary psychology looks backward to primitive man and his primitive past... Biblical psychology looks to a mature creation, Adam, and to a God given declared purpose ahead for mankind."

"Well, we have a major crisis because Welfarism is failing. The Christian community must begin to reestablish Christian charity. I think every church could begin as a number of black churches have done, with the people in their area or their own members relatives, friends, who are in desperate need. If every church in this country, it has been said by a statistician, could take care of three families the problem would disappear. Well, there are big churches that could take care of more than three families. And those that can take care of only one or half a family, those churches could come together and accomplish a great deal."

"Very clearly according to scripture, man’s nature is not an open question but a given fact from God. Then next and of central importance in all that you’re going to be saying in the next few months is this: Man was created in Genesis not as a child, Adam was not born a baby, but a mature man. This is a fact of central importance. Man was created into maturity. As a result, the key command is not child psychology, or animal psychology. Evolution cites that man must be understood in terms of the child, the child in terms of an animal ancestry, and the animal ancestry as an emergent out of chaos!"

"Saint Paul says, with regard to charity, “He that will not work, let him not eat.” And it says that a man and his faith are to be judged by his responsibility towards them of his own household, his family in particular and the Christian community and he that is not charitable here is worse than an infidel and has denied the faith. Well, the biblical perspective stresses that we are to love our neighbor as ourself. We are to be mindful of his needs. And it puts it on a personal and a moral level. When you put welfare in the place of charity and it becomes a function of a vast bureaucracy to administer it is depersonalized. It no longer considers the individual. It is interested in dehumanizing it, because the statist perspective is not moral nor personal. Its goal is statist power, statist authority, the predominance of the state in every and any sphere where it has controls."

"What tiny push is needed for you to advance someone near you? Remember, by doing so, you make personal progress yourself."

"Let us be courageous in the face of life's disappointments - all the while knowing we are a step closer toward our goal as we grow in determination."

"Our world is saturated with religious systems and philosophical teachings. It is comparable to a "food court" which is now popular among shopping malls throughout the world. We can choose a favorite dish which suits our appetite. It is popular to think that we can do the same with religion."

"Focus not only on identifying problems. Others will do that for you. Develop the skill of finding solutions to those problems. Do this and your stock will go up!"

"When you're all out, you're all in."

"Financial hardship has a way of keeping people sober. The challenge I see at such times is simple: Will we face reality or deny it? In the past I have done both. But when it comes down to really doing something about a problem, I'm learning that it's prudent to address it head on with those who are closest to you and work at it together."

"Yes, the moment of conversion is absolutely critical, but the process of evangelism cannot be isolated to one event."

"Understand and accept that you will have to make sacrifices to achieve your goal. If you are willing to pay the price, however high, you may be surprised what you get in exchange. Pay the price."

"One can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving"

"He who thinks he hath no need of Christ, hath too high thoughts of himself. He who thinks Christ cannot help him, hath too low thoughts of Christ."

"When I go to the house of God I do not want amusement; I want the doctrine which is according to godliness. I want to hear the remedy against the harassing of my guilt and the disorder of my affections. I want to be led from weariness and disappointment to that goodness which filleth the hungry soul. I want to have light upon the mystery of Providence; to be taught how the judgments of the Lord are right; how I shall be prepared for duty and for trial; how I may fear God all the days of my life, and close them in peace."

"They that deny themselves for Christ shall enjoy themselves in Christ."

"Judge thyself with the judgment of sincerity, and thou wilt judge others with the judgment of charity."

"Give me the love that leads the way, The faith that nothing can dismay, The hope no disappointments tire, The passion that will burn like fire; Let me not sink to be a clod: Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God"

"A zealous soul without meekness is like a ship in a storm, in danger of wrecks. A meek soul without zeal, is like a ship in a calm, that moves not so fast as it ought."

"114. Do not by any means strive to fashion some image or visualize some form at the time of prayer."

"117. Let me repeat this saying of mine that I once expressed on some other occasions: Happy is the spirit that attains to the perfect formlessness at the time of prayer."

"118. Happy is the spirit which, praying with distraction, goes on increasing its desire for God."

"The main contemplations are five, under which all contemplation is comprised. And they say that the first is the contemplation of the adorable and holy Trinity, and that the second and the third are the contemplation of the incorporeal and the corporeal realities, and that the fourth and the fifth are the contemplation of the Judgment and of Providence."

"There was a time when evilness did not exist, and there will be a time when it will no more exist, whereas there was no time when virtue did not exist, and there will be no time when it will not exist. For the germs of virtue are impossible to destroy."

"27. Prayer is a state of the mind that arises under the influence of the unique light of the Holy Trinity."

"Blessed is the one who has reached the knowledge that cannot be abolished (beyond what cannot be, it cannot be gone)."

"23. The mind cannot see the place of God within itself, unless it has transcended all the mental representations associated with objects. Nor will it transcend them, if it has not put off the passions that bind it to sensible objects through mental representations. And it will lay aside the passions through the virtues, and simple thoughts through spiritual contemplation; and this in turn it will lay aside when there appears to it the light."

"26. Prayer is a state of the mind destructive of every earthly mental representation."

"70. You will not be able to pray purely if you are all involved with material affairs and agitated with unremitting concerns. For prayer is the rejection of concepts."

"37. First of all pray to be purified from your passions. Secondly, pray to be delivered from ignorance. Thirdly, pray to be freed from all temptation and abandonment."

"52. The state of prayer can be aptly described as a habitual state of imperturbable calm. It snatches to the heights of intelligible reality the spirit which loves wisdom and which is truly spiritualized by the most intense love."

"60. If you are a theologian, you truly pray. If you truly pray, you are a theologian."

"36. Do you long to pray? Renounce all things. You then will become heir to all."

"34. The mind is the temple of the Holy Trinity."

"65. If you long to pray, then avoid all that is opposed to prayer. Then when God draws near, he has only to go along with you."

"83. The singing of Psalms quiets the passions and calms the intemperance of the body. Prayer, on the other hand, prepares the spirit to put its own powers into operation."

"Once there was a meeting at The Cells about some matter and Abba Evagrius spoke. The priest said to him: “Abba Evagrius, we know that if you were in your homeland you would probably have been a bishop and the head of many [clergy]; but now you are living here as an alien.” He was pricked in his conscience but not disturbed. Nodding his head, he said to him: “It is true, father; nevertheless, ‘I have spoken once; I will add nothing the second time’” (Job 40:5)."

"97. One of the brethren owned only a book of the Gospels. He sold this and gave the money for the support of the poor. He made a statement that deserves remembrance: "I have sold the very word that speaks to me saying: 'Sell your possessions and give to the poor.'""

"3. Prayer is a continual intercourse of the spirit with God. What state of soul then is required that the spirit might thus strain after its Master without wavering, living constantly with him without intermediary?"

"5. Pray first for the gift of tears so that by means of sorrow you may soften your native rudeness. Then having confessed your sins to the Lord you will obtain pardon for them."

"81. Agape is the progeny of apatheia. Apatheia is the very flower of ascesis. Ascesis consists in keeping the commandments. The custodian of those commandments is the fear of God which is in turn the offspring of true faith. Now faith is an interior an interior good, one which is to be found even in those who do not yet believe in God."

"The demon of avarice, it seems to me, is extraordinarily complex and is baffling in his deceits. Often, when frustrated by the strictness of our renunciation, he immediately pretends to be a steward and a lover of the poor; he urges us to prepare a welcome for strangers who have not yet arrived or to send provisions for absent brethren. He makes us mentally visit prisons in the city and ransom those on sale as slaves. He suggests that we should attach ourselves to wealthy women, and advises us to be obsequious to others who have a full purse. And so, after deceiving the soul, little by little he engulfs it in avaricious thoughts and then hands it over to the demon of self-esteem."

"In the whole range of evil thoughts, none is richer in resources than self-esteem."

"52. To separate the body from the soul is the privilege of only of the One who has joined them together. But to separate the soul from the body lies as well in the power of the man who pursues virtue. For our Fathers gave to the meditation of death and to the flight from the body a spiritual name: anachoresis [withdrawal]."

"64. The proof of apatheia is had when the spirit begins to see its own light, when it remains in a state of tranquility in the presence of the images it has during sleep and when it maintains its calm as it beholds the affairs of life."

"6. Pray with tears and your request will find a hearing. Nothing so gratifies the Lord as supplication offered in the midst of tears."