Quotes from Jerry Bridges

God can and does work in the hearts and minds of rulers and officials of government to accomplish His sovereign purpose.

It is more than just knowing facts about God. It is coming into a deeper personal relationship with Him as a result of seeking Him in the midst of our personal pain and discovering Him to be trustworthy.

A lot of Christians are doing that for God today. Often unwilling to accept the fact that God is working because they don't understand how He is working, they have chosen to substitute the doctrine of chance for the doctrine of divine providence.

For us that is not a particularly striking event, but for a Muslim country to allow a Christian school to remain open when others were closed was indeed unusual.

This Iranian brother had a correct perception of the sovereignty of God in the decrees and decisions of governments.

Just as we saw in chapter 4 that God is sovereign in the hearts of individuals, whose decisions and actions affect us, so God is also sovereign in the decisions and actions of government as they affect

we are to establish our beliefs by the Bible, not by our experiences.

A disposition to trust in ourselves is part of our sinful nature. It sometimes takes a major crisis, or at least a moderate one, to turn us toward the Lord. A mark of Christian maturity is to continually trust the Lord in the minutiae of daily life. If we learn to trust God in the minor adversities, we will be better prepared to trust Him in the major ones.

We cannot separate the history of a nation from the people of that nation.

Just as the airplane must have both wings to fly, so we must exercise both discipline and dependence in the pursuit of holiness. Just as it is impossible for an airplane to fly with only one wing, so it is impossible for us to successfully pursue holiness with only dependence or discipline. We absolutely must have both.

God sometimes causes government leaders or officials to make foolish decisions in order to bring judgment upon a nation.

our suffering has meaning and purpose in God's eternal plan, and He brings or allows to come into our lives only that which is for His glory and our good.