Quotes from Jerry Bridges

W. S. Plumer said, "We never see sin aright until we see it as against God.... All sin is against God in this sense: that it is His law that is broken, His authority that is despised, His government that is set at naught.... Pharaoh and Balaam, Saul and Judas each said, `I have sinned'; but the returning prodigal said, `I have sinned against heaven and before thee'; and David said, `Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned.

The consequences of Adam and Eve's sin went far beyond their own banishment from the garden and the presence of God. God had appointed Adam as the federal head or legal representative of the entire human race. Consequently his fall brought guilt and depravity on all his descendants.

Introspection can easily become the tool of Satan, who is called the "accuser" (Revelation 12:10).

We do know God has instructed us to pray for leaders. Our duty, then, is to pray for wise decisions, but to trust when foolish and harmful decisions are made.

The problem with self-righteousness is that it seems almost impossible to recognize in ourselves. We will own up to almost any other sin, but not the sin of self-righteousness. When we have this attitude, though, we deprive ourselves of the joy of living in the grace of God. Because, you see, grace is only for sinners.

To say a person is morally bankrupt is to say he or she is completely devoid of any decent moral qualities.

stated in Proverbs 21:31, "The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory rests with the LORD," is one of the most frequently stated truths about the sovereignty of God in all of the Old Testament.

We have somehow gotten the idea that the abundant life Jesus promised in John 10:10 means an abundance of health, wealth, and happiness. The idea of suffering for the sake of Christ is foreign to us. We have substituted the pursuit of happiness for the pursuit of holiness. We hesitate to sacrifice even our material possessions for His cause, let alone sacrificing our lives or the lives of our children upon the altar of His service.

God wants us to walk in obedience - not victory. Obedience is oriented toward God; victory is oriented toward self. This may seem to be merely splitting hairs over semantics, but there's a subtle, self-centered attitude at the root of many of our difficulties with sin. Until we deal with this attitude, we won't consistently walk in holiness.

Ever since his fall in the Garden of Eden, man has listened to his desires more than his reason.

Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace.

But note also the twofold objective of God's providence: His own glory and the good of His people. These two objectives are never antithetical; they are always in harmony with each other. God never pursues His glory at the expense of the good of His people, nor does He ever seek our good at the expense of His glory. He has designed His eternal purpose so that His glory and our good are inextricably bound together.

If we desire to experience the totality of fellowship with Christ, we must expect to experience the fellowship of His sufferings.

Even more so, the wisdom of God is displayed when He brings good to us and glory to Himself out of confusion and calamity rather than out of pleasant times.

Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.

Our good works are not truly good unless they're motivated by a love for God and a desire to glorify Him. But we cannot have such a Godward motivation if we think we must earn God's favor by our obedience or if we fear we may forfeit His favor by disobedience. Such a works-oriented motivation is essentially self-serving, prompted more by what we think we gain or lose than by a grateful response to the grace He has already given us through Jesus Christ.

The atonement was God's extending favor to people who deserved not favor but wrath. The atonement was God's bridging the awful "Grand Canyon" of sin to reach people who were in rebellion against Him. And He did this at infinite cost to Himself by sending Jesus to die in our place.

The universal testimony of those who have suffered for the sake of Christ and His church is that they have experienced a deep fellowship, an intimate communion with Him in the midst of their sufferings.

But we must be transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ. That is the purpose of discipline.

To memorize Scripture effectively, you must have a plan. The plan should include a selection of well-chosen verses, a practical system for learning those verses, a systematic means of reviewing them to keep them fresh in your memory, and simple rules for continuing Scripture memory on your own.

If you stop and think about it, you will realize that most godly character traits can only be developed through adversity.

We need to call sin what the Bible calls it and not soften it with modern expressions borrowed from our culture.

One of the "talents" God has given to every Christian is the possibility of walking in holiness, being free from the dominion of sin

But God never explains to us what He is doing, or why. There is no indication that God ever explained to Job the reasons for all of his terrible sufferings.