“If you see a movie with a desolate Western town around midday, with shopkeepers peering out their windows, and tumbleweed blowing down the street, you know there is going to be a gunfight. If you see a man in an office with a ceiling fan, smoking, and a translucent pane of glass in the door, and he has his feet on the desk you know instantly that he is a private detective, and that some blonde trouble is going to come through the door. Given the motif, you know the setting. You are oriented.”
The Scarlet Cord
“The scarlet cord of election was transferred—from Zarah’s wrist to a prostitute’s window. This is so that we might never forget that everything God gives us is always all of grace, nothing but grace, grace to the uttermost.”
A Riot of Joy
A Riot of Joy
“But when they arrived at the grave, they found they had stumbled into a glorious pandemonium—angels, an earthquake, and a risen Jesus gone missing.”
Dabbing Won’t Do
“More than one person has gone off to Hell dabbing at their sins, and sometimes picking at them. Repentance, real repentance, goes right to the heart of everything.”
Emotions in Conflict
Emotions in Conflict
“After all, who does not know of someone who considers himself to be a total waste of skin, and yet is angry with others for not dropping everything on his behalf.”
Unjust and Just
“You look at the cross and you see an unjust condemnation. But when you step into the cross by faith, what happens? Now it is a just condemnation. I have been crucified with Christ, Paul says (Gal. 2:20). The cross was unjust because Jesus was on it, but it is entirely just because I am there too. Oh, the wisdom of God!”
A Package Deal
“The whole world runs on accusation, so friendship with the world is friendship with that system of accusation.”
Bedeviling the Devil
“The only liberation from accusation is to accuse the spirit of accusation. This is the only thing that can bedevil the devil.”
Watch You Twitch
“Consider the wonderful promise of v. 7. Submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. But if we have superficial views of the nature of our relationships, and the nature of our conflicts, and the nature of our desires, then we can apply this verse until we turn blue, and the devil will not flee at all. He will just sit there leering at you. And he will make comments and suggestions to you from time to time, because he likes to watch you twitch.”
Almost Gone Already
“Come now, ye big movers and shakers—you don’t know that your entire life is a little wisp of fog by the side of the road at seven a.m. that will be gone in forty-five minutes, as soon as the sun gets over the trees.”