Quotes from Jerry Bridges

We were not drowning people needing a life ring—we were dead people in need of life. Further, we were slaves to the world, to the devil, and to our own sinful natures. And as we've already seen, we were by nature objects of God's holy wrath. Dead, slaves, objects of wrath—what a desperate condition!

If Christ grieved over unrepentant Jerusalem, does He not grieve over unrepentant America as well?

If we are going to learn to trust God in adversity, we must believe that just as certainly as God will allow nothing to subvert His glory, so He will allow nothing to spoil the good He is working out in us and for us.

It means we believe that God causes all events in our lives, whether good or bad as we judge them, to work together to conform us more and more into the likeness of Christ. It means we give thanks in all circumstances - not for the circumstance considered in itself, but for God's promise to use these circumstances to conform us more to Christ.

The perfect righteousness that we pursue is unattainable in this life. But if we hunger and thirst for it and diligently pursue it, over time we will grow more and more into the person God wants us to be.

The reason we in the West do not suffer more persecution is because we have accommodated ourselves too much to the world around us.

Did He create you with an incurable speech impediment?

He did so because that particular infirmity uniquely fits you for the life He has planned for you.

John Owen again expressed this attitude of total reliance on Christ when he paraphrased Galatians 2:20: "The spiritual life which I have is not my own. I did not induce it, and I cannot maintain it. It is only and solely the work of Christ. It is not I who live, but Christ lives in me. My whole life is His alone.

For us to trust God in times of adversity, we must believe in God's sovereignty, His love, and His wisdom. Of these three truths, the sovereignty of God seems to be questioned the most frequently and most stridently. It seems we will allow God to be anywhere except upon His throne ruling His universe according to His good pleasure and His sovereign will.

It seems we will allow God to be anywhere except upon His throne ruling His universe according to His good pleasure and His sovereign will.

John Owen said, "When [indwelling sin] is least felt, it is in fact most powerful."[2]