To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
R. C. SproulRead
The more I learn about God, the more aware I become of what I don’t know about him.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that deepening one's understanding of God reveals the vastness of the unknown.
R. C. Sproul's quote highlights the paradox of knowledge in relation to spirituality; as one learns more about God, the complexities and mysteries of His nature become more apparent, showing that true understanding leads to greater humility. It emphasizes the idea that seeking knowledge of the divine is an endless journey, and with each new insight, we uncover just how much we still have to learn.
In practice
In a sermon discussing the nature of faith, one might quote this to emphasize ongoing spiritual growth.
To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
I’ve often wondered where Jesus would apply His hastily made whip if He were to visit our culture. My guess is that it would not be money-changing tables in the temple that would feel His wrath, but the display racks in Christian bookstores.
The real crisis of worship today is not that the preaching is paltry or that it's too drafty in church. It is that people have no sense of the presence of God, and if they have no sense of His presence, how can they be moved to express the deepest feelings of their souls to honor, revere, worship, and glorify God?
We talk about predestination because the Bible talks about predestination. If we desire to build our theology on the Bible, we run head on into this concept. We soon discover that John Calvin did not invent it.
Without God man has no reference point to define himself.
I do not want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who believed the numbers in structural stress models are relative truths.
I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.
What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future, and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything, there is never anything to be gained - though the zest of the game is to pretend that there is.
For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by His fatherly care, that He is the Author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond Him - they will never yield Him willing service. Nay, unless they establish their complete happiness in Him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to Him.
Oh, without prayer what are the church's agencies, but the stretching out of a dead man's arm, or the lifting up of the lid of a blind man's eye? Only when the Holy Spirit comes is there any life and force and power.
The truth is, our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions.
There seems to be something in the human soul that causes us to think less of ourselves every time we do something wrong... And maybe it is good for us to feel that way. It may make us more sensitive to what we do wrong and move us to repent and grow.
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