"No Little People, No Little Places" - Francis A. Schaeffer

“As a Christian considers the possibility of being the Christian glorified (a topic I discuss in True Spirituality), often his reaction is, “I am so limited. Surely it does not matter much whether I am walking as a creature glorified or not.” Or, to put it in another way, “It is wonderful to be a Christian, but I am such a small person, so limited in talents—or energy or psychological strength or knowledge— that what I do is not really important.” The Bible, however, has quite a different emphasis: with God there are no little people.

One thing that has encouraged me, as I have wrestled with such questions in my own life, is the way God used Moses’ rod, a stick of wood… Just a stick of wood—but when Moses obeyed God’s command to toss it to the ground, it became a serpent, and Moses himself fled from it. God next ordered him to take it by the tail and when he did so, it became a rod again. Then God told him to go and confront the power of Egypt and meet Pharaoh face to face with this rod in his hand. Exodus 4:20 tells us the secret of all that followed: the rod of Moses had become the rod of God…

Watch the destruction of judgment which came from a dead stick of wood that had become the rod of God. Pharaoh’s grip on the Hebrews was shaken loose, and he let the people go. But then he changed his mind and ordered his armies to pursue them. When the armies came upon them, the Hebrews were caught in a narrow place with mountains on one side of them and the sea on the other. And God said to Moses, “Lift thou up thy rod” (Ex. 14:16). What good is it to lift up a rod when one is caught in a cul-de-sac between mountains and a great body of water with the mightiest army in the world at his heels? Much good, if the rod is the rod of God. The waters divided, and the people passed through. Up to this point, the rod had been used for judgment and destruction, but now it was as much a rod of healing for the Jews as it had been a rod of judgment for the Egyptians. That which is in the hand of God can be used in either way. Later, the rod of judgment also became a rod of supply…
There was nothing in the rod itself. The rod of Moses had simply become the rod of God… The rod also brought military victory as it was held up. It was more powerful than the swords of either the Jews or their enemy (Ex. 17:9)…

Consider the mighty ways in which God used a dead stick of wood. “God so used a stick of wood” can be a banner cry for each of us. Though we are limited and weak in talent, physical energy, and psychological strength, we are not less than a stick of wood. But as the rod of Moses had to become the rod of God, so that which is me must become the me of God. Then I can become useful in God’s hands. The Scripture emphasizes that much can come from little if the little is truly consecrated to God. There are no little people and no big people in the true spiritual sense, but only consecrated and unconsecrated people. The problem for each of us is applying this truth to ourselves: is Francis Schaeffer the Francis Schaeffer of God?...

The people who receive praise from the Lord Jesus will not in every case be the people who hold leadership in this life. There will be many persons who were sticks of wood that stayed close to God and were quiet before Him, and were used in power by Him in a place which looks small to men.

Each Christian is to be a rod of God in the place of God for him. We must remember throughout our lives that in God’s sight there are no little people and no little places. Only one thing is important: to be consecrated persons in God’s place for us, at each moment. Those who think of themselves as little people in little places, if committed to Christ and living under His Lordship in the whole of life, may, by God’s grace, change the flow of our generation. And as we get on a bit in our lives, knowing how weak we are, if we look back and see we have been somewhat used of God, then we should be the rod “surprised by joy.”

Francis A. Schaeffer, No Little People, No Little Places

http://static.crossway.org/excerpts/1581345186.1.pdf

http://books.google.com/books?id=f-uy7hbFCh8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=No+Little+People&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

What are the true motives for holiness? - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” Romans 6:12-14

“Do you long to be holy? Do you long to have victory over sin in your mortal body? How can you do so? First, understand the doctrine. You cannot work out ‘therefore’ unless you are clear about the doctrine…Understanding the doctrine – that is the place to start. You must not say ‘I am not interested in doctrine; all I do is to look to Christ & allow Him to live His life in me’. The ‘therefore’ insists that you must understand the doctrine. Then, having understood it, you must remind yourself of it constantly. ‘Reckon’ – go on reckoning, keep on reckoning, realize it, apply it to yourself, & then draw the inevitable deductions from it…
What are the true motives for holiness? They are not just a reaction against the evil nature of sin, they are not just the desire to be happy. These are a part of it, but not the chief motive. Still less should we seek to be holy in order to make ourselves Christians; & still less merely because we are afraid of hell & the punishment of hell. Our motives must be entirely positive. Why must I not allow sin to reign in my mortal body? Because I am a man who claims to know what God’s purpose is for me. And what is God’s purpose for me? It is that all the works of the devil shall be undone in me. God made me in His own image, He made me perfect; & His whole purpose in salvation is to bring me back to that state. I believe that, I know that, I realize that; therefore I cannot allow sin to reign in my mortal body. That is my motive. I know what God’s purpose for me is, & all He has planned, & all He has brought to pass. That is my grand motive, but there are others.
I know what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for me. Knowing this doctrine, I believe that the second Person in the blessed holy Trinity left the courts of heaven & came into this world, & not only lived as a man but humbled Himself so as to come in the likeness of sinful flesh. I believe that He went to Calvary & bore my sins in His own body on the tree, & suffered the agony & the indignity of it all for me. Why did He do all that? That we might continue in sin? No! but ‘that He might redeem us from all iniquity & purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works’ (Titus 2:14). So how can we go on with sin?
These are the motives, this is the way in which I become sanctified. It is because I know these things that I will not allow sin to reign in my mortal body. I therefore go on to draw this deduction, that the very honour of God, & of the Lord Jesus Christ, is involved in this matter of my behavior…
It is the truth that sanctifies: ‘You shall know the truth & the truth shall make you free’, said our Lord to the people (John 8:32). The truth that makes us free is that which tells us who we are, what we are, what has been done for us, & how the whole honour of the family is, as it were, in our hands.”

- Martyn Llloyd-Jones, Exposition of Romans Chapter 6: The New Man

God's forgiveness - a strength against sin by Horatius Bonar

"Under law and its curse, a man works for self and Satan; under grace he works for God. It is forgiveness that sets a man working for God. He does not work in order to be forgiven, but because he has been forgiven, and the consciousness of his sin being pardoned makes him long more for its entire removal than ever he did before.
An unforgiven man cannot work. He has not the will, nor the power, nor the liberty. He is in chains. Israel in Egypt could not serve Jehovah. "Let My people go, that they may serve Me," was God's message to Pharaoh (Exodus 8:1): first liberty, then service. A forgiven man is the true worker, the true lawkeeper. He can, he will, he must work for God. He has come into contact with that part of God's character which warms his cold heart. Forgiving love constrains him. He cannot but work for Him who has removed his sins from him as far as the east is from the west. Forgiveness has made him a free man, and given him a new and most loving Master. Forgiveness, received freely from the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, acts as a spring, an impulse, a stimulus of divine potency."

~ Horatius Bonar, God's Way of Holiness

http://www.dustandashes.com/230.htm

Horatius Bonar about John Bunyan’s Calvinism

"Pliable: The hearing of this is enough to ravish one's heart. But are these things to be enjoyed? How shall we get to be sharers thereof?
"Christian: "The Lord, the Governor of the country, hath recorded that in this book; the substance of which is, If we be truly willing to have it, He will bestow it upon us freely.”
~ John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress

Thus very simply and beautifully does Bunyan put the manner of our obtaining the glory. Some would call this too free. Some would say, Here is the way made far too easy, without any preparatory alarms and repentance. But there stands John Bunyan's idea of the way of a sinner's entrance into the kingdom; and let him who can improve or correct it do so. "The Lord, the Governor of the country, hath recorded that in this book; the substance of which is, If we be truly willing to have it, He will bestow it upon us freely."
John Bunyan's soundness of doctrine is well known. His Calvinism was of a very decided kind. His views of Christ's redemption-work were very precise. His belief as to the necessity of the Holy Spirit's work was undoubted; yet he delighted to set forth the gospel in all its scriptural simplicity, unencumbered with preparatory exercises and processes intended to make the sinner "fit for receiving Christ," and fit for having the peace of the gospel dispensed to him; and never did he state that free gospel more freely, that simple gospel more simply, than when, in the manifest fulness of his heart, he wrote the above sentence, and put it into the lips of his pilgrim:-- "IF WE BE TRULY WILLING TO HAVE IT. HE WILL BESTOW IT UPON US FREELY."

Such a sentence shines like a star; yes, like a star to a tempest-tossed sinner in his night of darkness. He asks, How may I be saved? how may I be made a worshipper? how may I become a temple? how may I be taken into the royal priesthood? God's answer is not, works, and pray, and wait, and get convictions, and bring yourself under the stroke of the law; but believe and live; believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Likest in its naked simplicity to these divine utterances is that star- like sentence of the Puritan dreamer. It is but another form, in language all his own, of the concluding message of gladness dropped from heaven, as the great book of truth was about to be closed and sealed:-- "WHOSOEVER WILL, LET HIM TAKE THE WATER OF LIFE FREELY."

Too free! Too easy! Too simple! It will only make skin-deep professors! Another gospel! So say some whose idea of the gospel seems to be that of a work to be done by the sinner, not of a work which Christ has already done; whose exhortations to the inquirer are, Wait, pray, seek, wrestle, labour on, and possibly God may drop salvation into our lap; whose theory of a sinner's approach to a Saviour turns all upon the necessity of some long, laborious preliminary seekings, repentances, convictions, terrors, by which he is so humbled and broken, as to be at length in a right frame for Christ to bless him, in a right condition to be trusted with rest of soul;--whose largest grasp of the glorious gospel extends only to this, that it is good news for the qualified, for those who have been ploughed deep enough and long enough by the law.
Well: go to; go to, we say to such. Away and dispute the matter not with us, but with the Master. Ask Him why He "received sinners" at once, without preliminary work, or qualification, or preparation, or delay; why He said to the hardened profligate of Sychar, "Thou wouldst have asked, and He would have given"; to Zaccheus, "Make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house"; to the adulteress, "Neither do I condemn thee"; to the thief upon the cross, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." Upbraid Him with allowing three thousand of Jerusalem sinners, at one bound, and under one single message, to pass into the kingdom, instead of keeping them "waiting at the pool," or tortured by the law into gloomy fitness for the glad tidings: express your astonishment that He should have set such an example of rearing churches out of heathen idolaters in a single day,--Corinth, Ephesus, Colosse, Thessalonica, Philippi, without waiting for years before calling their members "saints," or permitting them to sit down at the table of the Lord; set up your foolishness against His wisdom, your presumption against His lowliness, your traditions against His commandments, your love of darkness against His joy in light; proclaim your amended gospel, the gospel of Galatia, "Except ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing"; but what will be the result of those amendments and restrictions on Christ's free gospel?”

- Horatius Bonar, The Rent Veil
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bonar/rentveil.xiv.html

“The gospel is NOT, “Give your hearts to Christ, or love Jesus, & you shall be saved.” The gospel is… - Charles H. Spurgeon

“The gospel is not, “Give your hearts to Christ, and you shall be saved.” The gospel is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,”- that is, trust him, “and thou shalt be saved.” When you do that, you will be sure to give him your heart by-and-by, if not at once. Salvation is not by your giving anything to Christ, but by Christ giving something to you. I am glad that you have given your heart to Christ; but have you learnt first this lesson, that he gave his heart for you? We do not find salvation by giving Christ anything. That is the fruit of it; but salvation comes by Christ giving us something - something, did I say? - by Christ giving us everything, by his giving us himself. I used to notice that a good deal of Sunday-school teaching to the children was, “Dear child, love Jesus.” That is not the way of salvation. The way of salvation is to trust Jesus. The fruit of salvation is that the dear child does love Jesus; but that is not the way of salvation. The way of salvation is to take Christ, to trust Christ. When you are saved, the proof of it will be that you will give your heart to Christ; but do not let us turn things upside down lest, beginning with a little blunder, we should go on to some great error, and set up again the ruinous doctrine which once sank the world in darkness, the doctrine of an imaginary salvation by our own works.”

Charles H. Spurgeon, Sychar’s Sinner Saved

http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_in_frame.php?link=22500

grounds of assurance - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” Romans 5:8-10

“Apostle Paul wants these people to rejoice in their salvation and ‘the hope of the glory of God’, and He show that they will only rejoice in it as they understand and grasp God’s great love to them. That is why I say that this demonstration, this proof of the love of God, is one of the profoundest sources of assurance that one can ever have.
How does this gratuitous element in our salvation provide me with grounds of assurance? Let me put it like this. Imagine what the position would be if our salvation were not entirely of grace. If, for instance, I believed that Christ had died for me because I loved God, and because I was trying to please God, and because I was a good man who was striving to keep the Law, and who had succeeded up to a point, if I believed that my salvation was the result of the fact that I was such a good man, then the inevitable corollary would be, that I would say to myself, “What if in the future, sometime or another, I should love God less, what if I failed to keep His Commandments, what if I failed to seek God and to please Him and to live for Him as I have been doing in the past? If my salvation depends upon what I am, and what I have done, and what I desire, if it in any sense depends upon me, what security have I got? I may change, I may falter, I may fail.’
If our salvation depended in any sense, or to any extent at all, upon ourselves, our position would always be precarious. We might fail at any moment and would then lose all. But, thank God, says the Apostle, that is not the position. Our salvation in no respect at all depends upon ourselves, it is entirely dependent upon the love of God. And because my salvation depends upon the love of God and on that alone, and on nothing in me, I am sure of it, I am certain of it. Why? Because God does not change, and cannot change, and if I am within the ambit and the scope of the love of God now, I always shall be. The love of God, the gratuitous character of my salvation, my realization that I was without strength, that I was ungodly, a sinner, and that it is entirely in spite of me that Christ died for me, these are the ultimate ground of my assurance. And on this ground I am assured, not only that I am saved now, but that I shall remain saved, that because I am justified I am also glorified, and therefore I rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Assurance, Exposition of Chapter 5

“Bombard God. Bombard heaven until the answers come." - Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Bombard God. Bombard heaven until the answers come.
We have the authority of our Lord for this, have we not? In Genesis 32 we read that Jacob did something like that: ‘I will not let Thee go,’ he said.
The man wrestled with him & said, ‘It is the dawn, it is the breaking of day, let me go.’
‘But I will not let Thee go, said Jacob. ‘I’m not letting go until you give me my request’ – wrestling Jacob…
And our Lord has taught us to pray like this. It is one of the most glorious, & wonderful statements even he ever made about God & God’s relationship with us. He said, ‘you know, you must not just pray fitfully, you must become importunate. You must be like that man who suddenly is visited by a friend late at night. He has no food to give him, so he says, ‘oh, my friend up the street will have some loaves.’ So he goes and hammers at the door.
But the friend shouts and says, ‘I cannot come down, I am in bed and my children are with me.’
‘No,’ says the man, ‘you must give me something, I know you have got bread & I’ve got a stranger here, I can’t let him go without a meal.’ He goes on hammering.
‘I can’t,’ says the man, ‘I’m in bed.’
But the suppliant goes on and on, until at last the man gets up and gives him the bread.
The man in the bed, in our Lord’s illustration, is none other than God Himself. Because of his neighbor’s importunity he arose and gave him the bread. And if we, who are earthly, sinful, evil fathers, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more shall our Father which is in heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? (Luke 11:5-13). He will not mock us.
But, like a father, He seems to keep us waiting. He seems to say ‘no’ at first, that we may go on asking, and we must become importunate.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival