Works? Works? A man get to heaven by works? I would as soon think of climbing to the moon on a rope of sand!
Interpretation
This quote challenges the notion that good deeds alone can earn salvation.
In this quote, George Whitefield argues against the belief that one can attain heaven solely through their good works, likening it to the absurdity of trying to climb to the moon with an inadequate rope. It emphasizes the futility of relying on human efforts for spiritual salvation, suggesting that grace and faith are far more important than mere actions.
In practice
During a sermon discussing the importance of faith, this quote can illustrate the futility of relying solely on actions.
And now let me address all of you, high and low, rich and poor, one with another, to accept of mercy and grace while it is offered to you; Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation; and will you not accept it, now it is offered unto you?
God is well pleased when all our actions proceed from love, love to Himself, and love to immortal souls.
If your souls were not immortal, and you in danger of losing them, I would not thus speak unto you; but the love of your souls constrains me to speak: methinks this would constrain me to speak unto you forever.
Whoever reads the gospel with a single eye, and sincere intentions, will find, that our blessed Lord took all opportunities of reminding his disciples that His Kingdom was not of this world; that His doctrine was a doctrine of the Cross; and that their professing themselves to be His followers, would call them to a constant state of voluntary suffering and self-denial.
The Christian world is in a deep sleep; nothing but a loud shout can awaken them out of it!
What could the Lord Jesus Christ have done for you more than he has? Then do not abuse his mercy, but let your time be spent in thinking and talking of the love of Jesus, who was incarnate for us, who was born of a woman, and made under the law, to redeem us from the wrath to come.
What if consciousness is the ground of being? What if the possibilities discovered by quantum physics are the possibilities of consciousness itself? Remember there is already a class of people who think in this way. They are called mystics, and they say it is all God. Finally, a few scientists dared to say that some of the characteristics attributed to God are similar to what we describe as consciousness.
Human history begins with man's act of disobedience which is at the same time the beginning of his freedom and the development of his reason.
It was the combination of many factors... With most people, suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. With the Lisbon girls, the gun was loaded. A bullet for family abuse. A bullet for genetic predisposition. A bullet for historical malaise. A bullet for inevitable momentum. The other two bullets are impossible to name, but that doesn't mean the chambers were empty.
Remember tonight... for it is the beginning of always.
Realism is not a matter of any fidelity to an empirical reality, but of the discursive conventions by which and for which a sense of reality is constructed.
It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty.
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