R. C. Sproul People Quotations

Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once and He volunteered.

Change marriage and you change the world. Convince people that government, not God, lays down the rules for marriage, and they will believe more strongly that they determine right and wrong, that not even the world's rulers are subject to a higher authority.

One does not structure the church to meet the felt needs and desires of the tares. The purpose of corporate assembly, which has its roots in the Old Testament, is for the people of God to come together corporately to offer their sacrifices of praise and worship to God. So the first rule of worship is that it be designed for believers to worship God in a way that pleases God.

Perhaps the most difficult task for us to perform is to rely on God’s grace and God’s grace alone for our celebration. It is difficult for our pride to rest on grace. Grace is for other people—for beggars. We don’t want to live by a heavenly welfare system. We want to earn our own way and atone for our own sins. We like to think that we will go to heaven because we deserve to be there.

The complaint that church is boring is never made by people in awe.

People need a consistent explanation of the cross of Christ and what it accomplished. Christ's atoning work is the centerpiece of the gospel and the only solution for humanity's estrangement from our Creator.

The more faithful preachers are to the Word of God in their preaching, the more liable they are to the charge of hypocrisy. Why? Because the more faithful people are to the Word of God the higher the message is that they will preach. The higher the message, the further they will be from obeying themselves.

There are times when we suffer innocently at other people’s hands. When that occurs, we are victims of injustice. But that injustice happens on a horizontal plane. No one ever suffers injustice on the vertical plane. That is, no one ever suffers unjustly in terms of his or her relationship with God. As long as we bear the guilt of sin, we cannot protest that God is unjust in allowing us to suffer.

Scratching people where they itch and addressing their 'felt needs' is a stratagem of the poor steward of the oracles of God. This was the recipe for success for the false prophets of the Old Testament.

The real crisis of worship today is not that the preaching is paltry or that it's too drafty in church. It is that people have no sense of the presence of God, and if they have no sense of His presence, how can they be moved to express the deepest feelings of their souls to honor, revere, worship, and glorify God?

It's a sin to bore people.

We have a generation of people who think they can stand before the judgment seat of God despite their sins.

When people ask me to name the Ligonier teaching material they should use to help them grow; I tell them, 'You should start with The Holiness of God.'

The holiness of God is traumatic to unholy people.

Without the gospel, a gathering of people, though they claim otherwise, cannot be an authentic church.

It has been said by church historians that in those periods of Christian history where renewal, revival, and awakening took place and the church was at its strongest, that coincidental with those periods in church history, there was a strong focus on the psalms in the life of God's people-particularly in the worship of God's people.

When people ask me how old the Earth is, I tell them I don't know because I don't.

People only have true understanding when they look at everything from God's perspective. Authentic wisdom begins when we understand that God is to be the object of our devotion, our adoration, and our reverence.

If you are of the truth, if you have learned the truth, if you see the sanctity of the truth, then speak truth. We are not called to be deceivers or liars. God is a God of truth, and His people are called to have an enormously high standard of truth.

Doctrine divides, but doctrine also unites. It binds together the hearts of God's people who celebrate the truth of God together.