Arthur W. Pink: Various Quotes

Some of you dear readers know that I am reading Arthur Pink's biography written by Iain H. Murray. I am on page 247 but wanted to share some of what I've read. This book is taking me longer to read because it is so good I find myself re-reading chapters! :) In addition to this, much of what Murray relates about Pink just makes me pause to meditate on the Word...yes, it's that good!

Anyhow, here are just a few quotes from yesterday's and today's readings:

"In preaching to the unsaved I never did anything more than I do in my articles: presented the truth of God so far as I knew it, and left the Holy Spirit to applyh and bless it as he saw well." - from page 174

This quote struck me powerfully because when I was teaching Sunday school at a SBC church a couple of years ago, the Sunday school director told me I needed to start my studies out with a joke in order to get people's attention. That I was just jumping into review from the previous week and right into the passage for the current week and this was not a good way of teaching. He also said it was MY job to provide application...NOT the Holy Spirit!! I wish I could go back to that time and been more forceful in my reply to him.

"...Christendom is reaping today the evil sowings of the last two or three generations, particularly the unscriptural 'evangelistic' methods that have been employed- the demand for visible 'results', the lusting after numbers. Thousands have been pressed into 'making a profession' and rushed into 'joining the church'." - from page 175

"We have no sympathy whatever", he writes, "with the bald and unqualified declaration, 'Once saved always saved.'" To illustrate the reason for his disagreement he quotes " a publication by a widely-known Bible institute" in which the writer speaks of his visit to a murderer in prison awaiting execution, in the following words: "I had no right to offer him a pardon from the State...but I could tell him of the One who took his place on Calvary's cross. Thank God! I found that man clear on the plan of salvation, for years ago under the ministry of ...he had accepted Jesus as his personal Saviuor. But through the years he had grown cold and indifferent: he had lost his fellowship with his Lord, not his salvation. And the result was a life of sin." Such a statement, Pink argued, was a flat contradiction in terms. "The Saviour is the Holy One of God who saves His people "from their sins" (Matt 1:21) and not in their sins: who saves them from the love and dominion of their sin...Divine salvation is a supernatural work which produces supernatural effects. It is a miracle of grace that causes wilderness to blossom as the rose. It is known by its fruits. It is a lie to call a tree good if it bears evil fruit. Justification is evidenced by sanctification. The new birth is made manifest by a new life." - pg. 178

Following this, Murray quotes A.W. Tozer, who was a contemporary of Pink.

"The doctrine of justification by faith - a biblical truth,and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort- has in our time fallen into evil company and been interpreted by many in such a manner as actually to bar men and women from the knowledge of God. The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may now be "received" without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is "saved" but he is not hungry and thirsty after God."

Imagine the anguish Tozer and Pink would be in were they to see the church of OUR age!!!

One final quote, this one on God's sovereignty. This was written to a man who accused him of spending too much focus on the issue:

"Probably 95% of the religious literature of the day is devoted to a setting forth of the duties and obligations of men. The fact is that those who undertake to expound the responsibility of men are the very ones who have lost the "balance of truth" by ignoring very largely the Sovereignty of God. It is perfectly right to insist on the responsibility of man, but what of God? - has He no claims, no rights? A hundred such works as this are needed, and ten thousand sermons would have to be preached throughout the land on this subject, if the "balance of truth" is to be regained...Surely there is far more danger of making too much of man and too little of God, than there is of making too much of God and too little of man."

I hope these quotes convict and exhort us to greater study and reverence of God.

God bless!