Quotes

This page contains the resources that I have found useful in my personal and professional life. Admittedly, it is an eclectic list. It contains everything from quotes and books that I like to podcasts, videos, and slideshows.

If you don’t want to scroll through the entire list, you can click on one of the links below and filter the resources by specific category.

I will update this list as I discover new resources. If you have a resource you think I should add, please email me.

It is rare for me to finish a sermon without feeling somewhere between slightly discouraged and moderately depressed that I have not preached with more unction, that I have not articulated these glorious truths more powerfully and with greater insight, and so forth. But I cannot allow that to drive me to despair; rather, it must drive me to a greater grasp of the simple and profound truth that we preach and visit and serve under the gospel of grace, and God accepts us because of his Son. I must learn to accept myself not because of my putative successes but because of the merits of God’s Son.

– D. A. Carson. Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson

But carry to the pulpit . . . well-digested thoughts, with suitable words to express them – written in your inmost soul, and if needful also in your manuscript – thoughts and words wherewith to stir the souls of your hearers to their inmost depths, – wherewith to hold living conversation with them, and tell them what God has been telling you; and both you and they shall find that the Pulpit still wields a power all together its own.

The Ministry by Charles Brown (Banner of Truth), 61

The Gospel is preached in the ears of all—it only comes with power to some. The power that is in the Gospel does not lie in the eloquence of the preacher, otherwise men would be the converters of souls. Nor does it lie in the preacher’s learning, otherwise it would consist in the wisdom of man. . . .

We might preach till our tongues rotted, till we should exhaust our lungs and die, but never a soul would be converted unless there were the mysterious power of the Holy Spirit going with it, changing the will of man! O Sirs! We might as well preach to stone walls as preach to humanity unless the Holy Spirit is with the Word to give it power to convert the soul! – Spurgeon

I see a man cannot be a faithful minister, until he preaches Christ for Christ’s sake – until he gives up striving to attract people to himself, and seeks only to attract them to Christ. Lord, give me this! – M’Cheyne

Prayer is the principal work of a minister and it is by this he must carry on the rest. – Thomas Hooker

I hope I may own in sincerity that my heart’s desire unto God, and the chief design of my life . . . are, that mortification and universal holiness may be promoted in my own and in the hearts and ways of others, to the glory of God, that so the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be adorned in all things. – John Owen

Prayerlessness is the most subtle disclosure of our independence from God and is our depraved heart’s declaration of sovereignty. – Paul Tautges

Teach them to Pray , 33.

In order that you may impress the Word upon those to whom you preach, remember that it must be impressed upon yourself first. You must feel it yourself, and speak as a man who feels it; not as if you feel it, but because you feel it, otherwise you will not make it felt by others. – Spurgeon

I see now that preaching once on a Sabbath may work God’s purpose as well as if I preached from morning to night. For, if God speaks from heaven once, and for only a minute, yet that voice should be felt in the parish all the week, yea, for months after. – Andrew Bonar