"Timely Quotes About the Church"

“Surely we need a baptism of clear seeing if we are to escape the fate of Israel (and of every other religious body in history that forsook God). If not the greatest need, then surely one of the greatest is for the appearance of Christian leaders with prophetic vision. We desperately need seers who can see through the mist. Unless they come soon, it will be too late for this generation. And if they do come, we will no doubt crucify a few of them in the name of our worldly orthodoxy. But the cross is always the harbinger of the resurrection. Mere evangelism is not our present need. Evangelism does no more than extend religion, of whatever kind it may be. It gains acceptance for religion among larger numbers of people without giving much thought to the quality of that religion. The tragedy is that present‑day evangelism accepts the degenerate form of Christianity now current as the very religion of the apostles and busies itself with making converts to it with no questions asked. And all the time we are moving farther and farther from the New Testament pattern. We must have a new reformation. There must come a violent break with that irresponsible, amusement‑mad, paganized pseudo‑religion which passes today for the faith of Christ and which is being spread all over the world by unspiritual men employing unscriptural methods to achieve their ends. When the Roman church apostatized, God brought about the Reformation. When the Reformation declined, God raised up the Moravians and the Wesley's. When these movements began to die, God raised up fundamentalism and the 'deeper life' groups. Now that these have almost without exception sold out to the world‑what next? - A.W. Tozer "Whatever means you use to get people into the church is precisely what you must use to keep them. If you get them with a 'religious circus', then you must keep the circus going – keep up the entertainment. If you get them with biblical preaching and teaching, then that will keep them and you will not need the entertainment." ‑Ernest Reisinger “They who degrade or compromise the truth in order to reach larger numbers dishonor God and deeply injure the souls of men.” - A.W. Tozer “A church fed on excitement is no New Testament church at all. The desire for surface stimulation is a sure mark of the fallen nature - the very thing that Christ died to deliver us from.” - A.W. Tozer “A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.” – C.H. Spurgeon

"There is a common worldly kind of Christianity in this day which many have ‑ a cheap Christianity which offends nobody and requires no sacrifice which costs nothing and is worth nothing." ‑ J.C. Ryle “A whole new generation of Christians have come up believing that it is possible to ‘accept’ Christ without forsaking the world.” - AW Tozer "The true man of God is heartsick, grieved at the worldliness of the Church, grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church, grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church. He is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil. If Jesus preached the same message minister's preach today, He would have never been crucified. A popular evangelist reaches your emotions. A true prophet reaches your conscience." "The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray‑ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.” - Leonard Ravinhill "The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it." ‑A.W. Tozer" "We need a baptism of clear seeing. We desperately need seers who can see through the mist – Christian leaders with prophetic vision. Unless they come soon it will be too late for this generation. And if they do come we will no doubt crucify a few of them in the name of our worldly orthodoxy." ‑A.W. Tozer "If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the early New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference." ‑A.W. Tozer" “Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.” - A.W. Tozer "I believe that the one reason why the church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church." ‑ Charles Spurgeon

'Christ calls men to carry a cross; we call them to have fun in His name.... He calls them to holiness; we call them to a cheap and tawdry happiness that would have been rejected with scorn by the least of the Stoic philosophers... The contemporary moral climate does not favor a faith as tough and fibrous as that taught by our Lord and His apostles. The delicate, brittle saints being produced in our religious hothouses today are hardly to be compared with the committed, expendable believers who once gave their witness among men. And the fault lies with our leaders. They are too timid to tell the people all the truth. They are now asking men to give to God that which costs them nothing.

Our churches are filled (or one‑quarter filled) with a soft breed of Christian that must be fed on a diet of harmless fun to keep them interested. About theology they know little¼No wonder their moral and spiritual constitution is so frail. Such can only be called weak adherents of a faith they never really understood.' - A. W. Tozer

“The early church was married to poverty, prisons and persecutions. Today, the church is married to prosperity, personality, and popularity.” - Leonard Ravenhill