R.C. Sproul > Quotes

“It has been said that nothing dispels a lie faster than the truth; nothing exposes the counterfeit faster than the genuine.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“When God issues a call to us, it is always a holy call. The vocation of dying is a sacred vocation. To understand that is one of the most important lessons a Christian can ever learn. When the summons comes, we can respond in many ways. We can become angry, bitter or terrified. But if we see it as a call from God and not a threat from Satan, we are far more prepared to cope with its difficulties.”
― R.C. Sproul, Surprised by Suffering

“I’ve often wondered where Jesus would apply His hastily made whip if He were to visit our culture. My guess is that it would not be money-changing tables in the temple that would feel His wrath, but the display racks in Christian bookstores.”
― R.C. Sproul, Lifeviews: Make a Christian Impact on Culture and Society

“I'm afraid that in the United States of America today the prevailing doctrine of justification is not justification by faith alone. It is not even justification by good works or by a combination of faith and works. The prevailing notion of justification in our culture today is justification by death. All one has to do to be received into the everlasting arms of God is to die.”
― R. C. Sproul, Saved from What?

“Romans 8:28 is one of the most comforting texts in all of Scripture. It assures the believer that all "tragedies" are ultimately blessings. It does not declare that all things that happen are good in themselves but that in all the thing that happen to us God is working in and through them for our good. This is also fimrly grounded in His eternal purpose for His people.”
― R.C. Sproul, Loved by God

“Holiness provokes hatred. The greater the holiness, the greater the human hostility toward it. It seems insane. No man was ever more loving than Jesus Christ. Yet even His love made people angry. His love was a perfect love, a transcendent and holy love, but HIs very love brought trauma to people. This kind of love is so majestic we can't stand it.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“We tend to have mixed feelings about the holy. There is a sense in which we are at the same time attracted to it and repulsed by it. Something draws us toward it, while at the same time we want to run away from it. We can’t seem to decide which way we want it. Part of us yearns for the holy, while part of us despises it. We can’t live with it, and we can’t live without it.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“The most brazen lie of all is the lie people tell themselves: "I have nothing to worry about from the wrath of God. My God is a God of love." If that is your thought, your god is an idol.”
― RC Sproul

“The cliche is that misery loves company. Another is that there is fellowship among thieves. But thieves do not seek the consoling presence of the fellowship of police officers. Sinful misery does not love the company of purity.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“The closer we are to God, the more the slightest sin will cause us deep sorrow.”
― R.C. Sproul

“The Word of God can be in the mind without being in the heart; but it cannot be in the heart without first being in the mind.”
― R.C. Sproul

“The worship to which we are called in our renewed state is far too important to be left to personal preferences, to whims, or to marketing strategies. It is the pleasing of God that is at the heart of worship. Therefore, our worship must be informed at every point by the Word of God as we seek God’s own instructions for worship that is pleasing to Him.”
― R.C. Sproul, A Taste of Heaven: Worship in the Light of Eternity

“True faith always produces real conformity to Christ.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“It's a sin to bore people.”
― R.C. Sproul

“The most obscene symbol in human history is the Cross; yet in its ugliness it remains the most eloquent testimony to human dignity.”
― R.C. Sproul

“God’s sovereign will is not at the whim and mercy of our person and individual responses to it.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Truth of the Cross

“God is never pleased with ignorant worship, with worship that is not grounded in the knowledge of God.”
― R.C. Sproul

“Our lives say much more about how we think than our books do. The theories we preach are not always the ones we actually believe. The theories we live are the ones we really believe.”
― R.C. Sproul, Lifeviews: Make a Christian Impact on Culture and Society

“The real crisis of worship today is not that the preaching is paltry or that it’s too drafty in church. It is that people have no sense of the presence of God, and if they have no sense of His presence, how can they be moved to express the deepest feelings of their souls to honor, revere, worship, and glorify God?”
― R.C. Sproul, A Taste of Heaven: Worship in the Light of Eternity

“Repentance is not just a turning to something, it's a turning from something.”
― R.C. Sproul

“Why would the disciples invent a God whose holiness was more terrifying than the forces of nature that provoked them to invent a god in the first place?”
― R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“You can grieve for me the week before I die, if I’m scared and hurting, but when I gasp that last fleeting breath and my immortal soul flees to heaven, I’m going to be jumping over fire hydrants down the golden streets, and my biggest concern, if I have any, will be my wife back here grieving. When I die, I will be identified with Christ’s exaltation. But right now, I’m identified with His affliction.”
― R.C. Sproul, A Taste of Heaven: Worship in the Light of Eternity

“The concept of divine revelation was central to Augustine's epistemology, or theory of knowledge.

The metaphor of light is instructive. In our present earthly state we are equipped with the faculty of sight. We have eyes, optic nerves, and so forth- all the equipment needed for sight. But a man with the keenest eyesight can see nothing if he is locked in a totally dark room. So just as an external source of light is needed for seeing, so an external revelation from God is needed for knowing.

When Augustine speaks of revelation, he is not speaking of Biblical revelation alone. He is also concerned with "general" or "natural" revelation. Not only are the truths in Scripture dependent on God's revelation, but all truth, including scientific truth, is dependent on divine revelation. This is why Augustine encouraged students to learn as much as possible about as many things as possible. For him, all truth is God's truth, and when one encounters truth, one encounters the God whose truth it is.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“We take comfort, however, that mystery is not a synonym for contradiction.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“It is one thing to fall victim to the flood or to fall prey to cancer; it is another thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“The day of one's birth is a good day for the believer, but the day of death is the greatest day that a Christian can ever experience in this world because that is the day he goes home, the day he walks across the threshold, the day he enters the Father's house.”
― R.C. Sproul, Surprised by Suffering: The Role of Pain and Death in The Christian Life

“Those who understand God's sovereignty have joy even in the midst of suffering, a joy reflected on their very faces, for they see that their suffering is not without purpose.”
― R.C. Sproul, Surprised by Suffering: The Role of Pain and Death in The Christian Life

“Luther examined the Great Commandment, "'Live the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all yor strength and with all your mind.'; and, 'Love yor neighbor as yourself'" (Luke 10:27) Then he asked himself, What is the Great Trangression?" Some answer this question by saying that great sin is murder, adultery, blasphemy, or unbelief. Luther disagreed. He concluded that if the Great Commandment was to live Gid with all the heart, than the Great Transgression was to fail to love God with all the heart. He saw a balance between great obligations and great sins.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“Ultimately the only answer God gave to job was a revelation of Himself. It was as if God said to him, "Job, I am your answer." Job was not asked to trust a plan but a person, a personal God who is sovereign, wise, and good. It was as if God said to Job: "Learn who I am. When you know me, you know enough to handle anything.”
― R.C. Sproul, Surprised by Suffering: The Role of Pain and Death in The Christian Life

“It’s dangerous to assume that because a person is drawn to holiness in his study that he is thereby a holy man. There is irony here. I am sure that the reason I have a deep hunger to learn of the holiness of God is precisely because I am not holy. I am a profane man—a man who spends more time out of the temple than in it. But I have had just enough of a taste of the majesty of God to want more. I know what it means to be a forgiven man and what it means to be sent on a mission. My soul cries for more. My soul needs more.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God