To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
R. C. SproulRead
The sin of fallen man is this: Man seeks the benefits of God while at the same time fleeing from God Himself.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on humanity's tendency to desire God's blessings while avoiding a relationship with Him.
R. C. Sproul's quote highlights a profound moral conflict inherent in human nature: the desire to receive goodness and benefits from God without a genuine commitment to God Himself. It critiques the self-serving attitude that prioritizes personal gain over spiritual integrity, suggesting that true fulfillment can only be found in an authentic relationship with the divine.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion on the importance of faith and integrity in spiritual life.
To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
Iβve 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.
If you followed the media you'd think that everybody in Africa was starving to death, and that's not the case; so it's important to engage with the other Africa.
These are the things which might conceivably and truly make men forgive their enemies. We can only turn hate to love by understanding what are the things that men have loved; nor is it necessary to ask men to hate their loves in order to love one another. Just as two grocers are most likely to be reconciled when they remember for a moment that they are two fathers, so two nationals are most likely to be reconciled when they remember (if only for a moment) that they are two patriots.
The forms are evanescent; but the spirit, being in the Lord and of the Lord, is immortal and omnipresent.
It is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness, to think that a thousand square miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one square mile, and that a million square miles are almost the same as heaven.
The most agonising thing is to drop doubt into a man about his being a reality, three-dimensional - and not some other kind of reality.
Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed. Kings must be managed, for men want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good deal.
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