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I know a number of Christian people who have a universal answer to all questions. It does not matter what the question is, they always say, 'Pray about it.' . . . What a glib, superficial and false bit of advice that can often be, and I am saying that from a Christian pulpit. You may ask, 'Is it ever wrong to tell men to make their problems a matter of prayer?' It is never wrong, but it is sometimes quite futile.... The whole trouble with this poor man [Psalm 73] ... was that he was so muddled in his thinking about God that he could not pray to Him. If we have muddled thoughts in our mind and heart concerning God's way with respect to us, how can we pray? We cannot. Before we can pray truly we must think spiritually. There is nothing more fatuous than glib talk about prayer, as if prayer were something which you can always immediately rush into.
... Let me quote one of the greatest men of prayer the world has ever known ... George Muller, in lecturing to ministers ... told them this. He said that for many years the first thing he did every morning of his life was to pray. He had now long since discovered that this was not the best way. He had found that in order to pray truly and spiritually, he had to be in the Spirit himself, and that he must prepare himself first. He had discovered that it was good and most helpful, and he now strongly recommended it to them, always to read a portion of Scripture and perhaps some devotional book before they began to pray. In other words, he found it was necessary to put himself and his spirit right, before he could truly pray to God.... We must take time with prayer. We do not begin to pray to God until we realize His presence.... So the steps are perfectly right—the house of God, the Word of God, prayer to God and communion with God.

Faith on Trial, pp. 41-2

We should all have a consuming passion that the whole world might come to know God [as the ever-present One who will never leave us nor forsake us].... The Psalmist in Psalm 34 invites everybody to join him in 'magnifying' the Lord. What a strange idea! ... At first sight that appears to be quite ridiculous. God is the Eternal, the self-existent One, absolute and perfect in all His qualities. How can feeble man ever magnify such a Being? How can we ever make God great or greater (which is what we mean by magnify)? ... And yet, of course, if we but realize the way in which the Psalmist uses it, we shall see exactly what he means. He does not mean that we can actually add to the greatness of God, for that is impossible; but he does mean that he is concerned that this greatness of God may appear to be greater amongst men. Thus it comes to pass that amongst ourselves in this world we can magnify the name of God. We can do so by words, and by our lives, by being reflectors of the greatness and the glory of God and of His glorious attributes.
That is the meaning of this petition [of the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9)]. It means a burning desire that the whole world may bow before God in adoration, in reverence, in praise, in worship, in honour and in thanksgiving. Is that our supreme desire? Is that the thing that is always uppermost in our minds whenever we pray to God? ... When you come to God, says our Lord, in effect, even though you may be in desperate conditions and circumstances, it may be with some great concern on your mind and in your heart; even then, He says, stop for a moment and just recollect and realize this, that your greatest desire of all should be that this wonderful God ... should be honoured, should be worshipped, should be magnified amongst the people. 'Hallowed be thy Name.'

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, ii, p. 61

The true Christian realizes . . . God's way of salvation in Christ. This is the great good news. 'This is the thing I am preaching,' says Paul, in effect, to the Romans, 'this righteousness that is of God, that is in Jesus Christ, His righteousness.' What is he talking about? It can be put in the form of a question if you like. What is your view of Christ? Why did He come into the world? What has God done in Christ? Is He merely a teacher, an example, and so on? . . . No, this is something positive, this righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. Salvation is all in Christ, and unless you feel yourself shut up to Christ with everything else having failed, you are not a Christian, and it is not surprising that you are not happy. 'The righteousness of God in Jesus Christ' means that God sent Him into the world in order that He might honour the Law and so men might be forgiven. Here is One who gave perfect obedience to God. Here is One, God in the flesh, who has taken human nature unto Himself, and, as man, has rendered perfect homage to God, perfect allegiance, perfect obedience. God's law He kept fully and absolutely without a failure. But not only that.... Before man can be reconciled to God ... this sin of his must be removed. God has said that He will punish sin, and that the punishment of sin is death and banishment from the face of God . . . God has set Him forth as a propitiation . . . [this] means that God has made Him responsible for our sins. They have been placed upon Him and God has dealt with them and punished them there, and therefore . . . He can justly forgive us.... It is a daring thing for the Apostle to say, but it has to be said.... God, because He is righteous and holy and eternal, could not forgive the sin of man without punishing it. He said He would punish it, so He must punish it, and, blessed be His Name, He has punished it. He is just, therefore, and the justifier of them that believe in Jesus.


Spiritual Depression, pp. 32-3

We say [that the only hope for men is to believe the gospel of Christ] knowing full well all the talk about science and learning and culture. We say so knowing that, at the end of this war* the world, in exactly the same way as at the end of the last war, will announce with confidence its plans and schemes for a new world, without taking any account of what the gospel has to say. Why do we say so? For precisely the same reasons adduced by St Paul [Romans 1:16] ... he is proud of the gospel because it is God's way of salvation.... At once we see that it possesses an authority which is quite unique. For all other ideas with respect to life and its problems are man-made. At their best and highest, they never get beyond the realm of speculation and supposition.... The great minds and the profoundest thinkers ... end by admitting that the ultimate problems of life are shrouded in mystery.... The very fact that there are so many different and differing schools of thought bears eloquent testimony to this uncertainty and inability. . . . But there was another fact ... which proved how inadequate all the schools were finally. And that was the endless number of religions that were to be found.... We see a perfect picture of this in Acts 17 as regards Athens. The same was true of Rome and all other great cities. . . . Paul had something essentially different to offer and to preach. He knew of the other systems. But he also knew their limits and their inability to solve the problems. He could not make his boast in men and their systems. Before he could boast of a system it must have authority; it must have certainty. The gospel Paul preached was not speculation; it was a revelation from God Himself [Gal. 1: 11, 12]. There was no need to be ashamed of such a message. And it is precisely the same today.

*Written in 1942.

The Plight of Man and the Power of God, pp. 79-81

[People who do not believe the Scriptures] do not seem to realize fully what our Lord did on the Cross on Calvary's Hill. They do believe in His sacrificial, atoning death, but they do not work out its implications. . . . They know enough to be saved ... but they are in a state of depression because they do not realize fully what this means. They forget that the angel announced to Joseph at the very beginning that He should 'save His people from their sins' (Matthew 1:21). The angel did not say that He shall save from all sins except this one sin that you have committed. No! 'He shall save His people from their sins.' . . . There is no qualification there, no limit. Or listen to the words of the Apostle Paul when he says, 'He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin' (2 Corinthians 5:21), They were all put there, every one, there is no limit, there is nothing left. All the sins of His people are there, every one of them. Indeed, He said it Himself, did He not, on the Cross? He said, 'It is finished', absolutely finished. . . . It is finished in the sense that not only all the sins committed in the past were dealt with there, but all the sins that could ever be committed were also dealt with there. It is one sacrifice, once and forever. He would never come back to the Cross again. All the sins were dealt with there finally and completely, everything. Nothing was left undone—'It is finished'. What we remind one another of as we take the bread and the wine, and what we proclaim, is that completed finished work. There is nothing left undone, there is no qualification concerning particular sins. All the sins of those who believe on Him, every one, have been dealt with and God has blotted them out as a thick cloud. All the sins you may ever commit have been dealt with there, so that when you go to Him it is 'the Blood of Jesus Christ' His Son, that is going to cleanse you.

Spiritual Depression, pp. 73-4

There was a time when the designation applied to the Christian was that he was a 'God-fearing' man. I do not think you can ever improve on that.... It does not mean craven fear, it does not mean 'the fear that hath torment', but it is a wonderful description of the true Christian. He is of necessity, as we are reminded very forcibly in the seventh chapter of this* Gospel, a man who lives in the fear of God. We can say of our blessed Lord Himself that His Life was a God-fearing life.... So often modern Christians, who may be able to give very bright and apparently thrilling testimonies of some experience they have had, do not suggest that they are God-fearing people, but give the impression of being men of the world, both in dress and appearance, and in a kind of boisterousness and easy confidence....
Here is the life to which we are called, and I maintain again that if only every Christian in the Church today were living the Sermon on the Mount, the great revival for which we are praying and longing would already have started. Amazing and astounding things would happen; the world would be shocked, and men and women would be drawn and attracted to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
May God give us grace to consider this Sermon on the Mount and to remember ... that we ourselves are under judgement, and that the building we are erecting in this world and in this life will have to face His final test and the ultimate scrutiny of the eye of the Lamb of God that once was slain.

*Matthew.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, i, pp. 30-1