[b]More CHALLENGING QUOTES:[/b]
If missions languish, it is because the whole life of godliness is feeble. The command to go everywhere and preach to everybody is un-obeyed, until the will is lost by self-surrender in the will of God. There is little right giving because there is little right living... - Arthur T. Pierson.
A mighty spiritual revival in the Church is the fundamental need of the hour; it is the only thing that will avail
- Robert Hall Glover.
Whenever, in any century, whether in a single heart or in a company of believers, there has been a fresh effusion of the Spirit, there has followed inevitably a fresh endeavor in the work of evangelizing the world. -- A. J.Gordon.
There is need of a great revival of spiritual life, of truly fervent devotion to our Lord Jesus, of entire consecration to His service. It is only in a church in which this spirit of revival has at least begun, that there is any hope of radical change in the relation of the majority of our Christian people to mission work. -- Andrew Murray (1900).
Awakenings resulted from revivals as the Church moved powerfully into the world in evangelism, social transformation, and mission
The two cannot be separated. -- Paul E. Pierson.
The first work of the Spirit of God was to convince men anew of sin and of righteousness and of judgment to come
- J. P. Lilley.
The Church today needs a revival
There is plenty of missionary sentiment; but little of that practical self-denial and burning zeal which impelled the Moravians to go forth without script or purse, to carry the banner of the Cross to the dark places of the earth. - Edwin Hodder.
Gene Edwards- "...It is my studied judgement that some future generation will deem this to be the darkest century, in spiritual depth and spiritual experience, in church history - that is, unless something very radical happens along...soon."
"More corrupt than the dark days before Luther; more impotently intellectual than during the heyday of Calvinism; more financially perverted than the days that caused John the Baptist to explode; more intoxicated with the drive for spiritual power than any age, yet exercising that outward power with less internal transformation than anyone since King Saul; enamored with the gifts, yet hardly knowing the Giver, our age has produced the most commercial, materialistic, fad-oriented people ever to claim His name.
"Is this assessment a little too harsh? I would respond to you by pointing to one last trophy this age may win: We seem to be more totally blind to the deprivation of our spiritual depth than all other centuries lumped together.
"It is true we have built more buildings and founded more religious organizations than all the past eras combined. It is true that today's Christianity has won more men to Christ than all other ages combined, but it is also just as true that those converts have set new records for the short length of time they have followed the Lord with abandoned devotion.
"If past church history is any guide, we can optimistically look for some sort of a turnaround. Spiritual depth is due for a return!... May God see fit to so bless us in an age of such spiritual shallowness." -- Gene Edwards.
_________________ SI Moderator - Greg Gordon
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