Erwin Lutzer Quotes

Satan exploits pain by making it the central focus of the man’s (or woman’s) thoughts and attitudes.

The work that God does in us when we wait is usually more important than the thing for which we wait!

There’s no such thing as a bitter person who keeps the bitterness to himself.

Thanksgiving for God’s faithfulness in our pain is the indisputable proof that we believe God is a part of our pain.

Better to love God and die unknown than to love the world and bea hero; better to be content with poverty than to die a slave towealth; better to have taken some risks and lost than to havedone nothing and succeeded at it.

If there is one single reason why good people turn evil, it is because they fail to recognize God’s ownership over their kingdom, their vocation, their resources, their abilities, and above all their lives.

Prayer, desperate prayer, seems so simple, but it’s a step rarely taken by those in family conflict.

Keep in mind that when sin is viewed superficially, it is dealt with superficially.

God in His sovereign goodness often uses the painful and at times debilitating injury of a spear thrower to make us readier for His service. ... One thing you discover about spear throwers is that though it’s not necessary for them to be good, it’s essential for them to appear good.

Every time we love, we increase our capacity to be hurt.

History has to repeat itself,” said Woody Allen, “because nobody was listening the first time around.

to speak of unity and to minimize doctrinal differences is to sacrifice truth on the altar of wishful thinking.

Salvation is free, but as the seven churches in Revelation discovered, there is a cost to living authentic lives of holiness in a godless culture.

Satan’s most successful weapon is fear.

Each temptation leaves us better or worse; neutrality is impossible.

Unity, unless it is based on agreement regarding the content of the gospel, would not be worth the price.

Why does God command sinners to do what they cannot? "But God commands something which we cannot do, in order that we may know what we ought to ask of him." 4

Someone has said that people live their lives “crucified between two thieves—the regrets of yesterday and the anxieties of tomorrow.

Sinful habits are usually indicative of unresolved conflicts.

James wrote, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone

Our sin is never a private matter. We cannot say, “It only hurts me.

The mind is a target for satanic attack.

Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

In a sense, to speak of heaven as our home is not a figure of speech; heaven is our home.

The unbelief and failure of man can never thwart the intended plan of God.

As children bring their broken toys, With tears for us to mend, I brought my broken dreams to God Because He was my friend. But then instead of leaving Him In peace to work alone, I hung around and tried to help With ways that were my own. At last I snatched them back and cried, “How can you be so slow?” “My child,” He said, “What could I do? You never did let go.

If we think we can fight against this deceived culture by winning the war of ideas, we are mistaken. The best ideas do not win very often in a culture obsessed with empty utopian promises.

We have to emphasize to the gay community that opposition to same-sex marriages is not about hate, but about debate. Opposition to what some of us see as a devastating move that will further weaken the family and harm children--such opposition is not hateful. Morality is not bigotry. In their book The Homosexual Agenda, authors Alan Sears and Craig Osten give this illustration, which I've summarized: Imagine that you are standing at the bottom of a cliff and you are watching as someone on the ledge above you is walking backwards, and in a few steps he will surely fall over the precipice. You shout, warning him to stop, and before you know it, a crowd gathers around you, snapping your picture and accusing you of "hate speech." You are being warned to keep your prejudices to yourself. After all, who are you to tell someone where they can and can't walk? Who are you to say that someone can't walk backwards? You are dumbfounded, but there you are, the object of everyone's wrath.

God created us with emotions so that we might be able to enjoy Him and His creation. Often we have been tempted to consider our feelings as a bother, a hindrance to living a life of faith. Although it is true that as fallen creatures our emotions often lead us astray, we must remember that God gave us emotions so that we might live a well-balanced and wholesome life. After all, God Himself is an emotional Being who expresses, anger, pleasure, and compassion.

For black Americans…the more the federal government provides so-called “free” services and hand-outs paid for by taxpayers, the more blacks are incentivized to be dependent on the government. With this system, fewer blacks are likely to get an education, work hard for their families, and become entrepreneurs, professionals, and business leaders. With this system, fewer blacks will stand with pride and dignity. Again, look at our inner cities. Do you like what you see?26

In salvation, God both declares us guilty and pays our debt. Only he can satisfy his own requirements. A savior less than God would be disqualified; God must do it himself.

Satan never fears your good intentions. Only your obedience drives him to distraction.

There is no such thing as a harmless addition to the gospel.

Temptation is His X-ray machine, revealing the hidden conflicts that need attention.

Temptation is not a sin; it is a call to battle.

And whatever God asks of you, He will give you the strength to do.

Finally, realize that your ultimate goal is not victory, but relationship with God Himself.

When you doubt God’s goodness, you hug sins tightly to your bosom, afraid that God will rob you of your crutch, your pastime, your pleasure.

Whatever circumstances our pasts may hold, we can rise above them into a future shaped by God’s grace.

First Peter 4:1 says, “So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had, and be ready to suffer, too.

Clearly God does not shield us from circumstances where we are vulnerable to sin.

He allows us the luxury of difficult choices so that we can prove our love for Him. These are our opportunities to choose God rather than the world.

Temptation is God’s magnifying glass; it shows us how much work He has left to do in our lives.

You simply cannot give in to all the desires of your body. You would be dead in less than a week if you did!

you need to realize that Satan has no rights,

Guilt is not God pushing us away from Him; it is God trying to put His arms around us.

La verdad se hace dura si no es suavizada por el amor y el amor se ablanda si no es fortalecido por la verdad

Someone has said that “a Christianity without courage is cultural atheism.

podemos contar con esto: sea lo que sea aquello por lo cual luchamos en esta tierra, es algo necesariamente temporal. Sin duda, este mundo y todo lo que hemos acumulado en él será eventualmente consumido.

If God is able to forget your past, why can’t you? When you confess your sins and ask forgiveness of them, God throws your sins into the depths of the sea, and then puts up a sign on the shore that reads, “No swimming.

Given the popular widespread misconceptions of Christianity, it is time we returned to the basics. If we don't, thousands of people who believe they are Christians will discover in the day of judgment that they were misled.

Don’t lose sight of the radicals’ goal: to delegitimize the Founding Fathers and America’s Judeo-Christian heritage. And, for that matter, delegitimize all of Western history and condemn those who brought us the civilization we enjoy today.

What this stranger—Jesus—did for them, He will do for us. He takes no dreams from us He does not return; He raises no hopes He does not fulfill; He gives us no longings that shall not be satisfied. The answer He gave these discouraged disciples becomes our answer too.

because the Muslim Arbitration Tribunals operate as tribunals under the United Kingdom’s Arbitration Act of 1996, their rulings are binding under UK law—even when their rulings are contrary to UK law.12 What’s more, these tribunals do not provide the legal safeguards many Western court systems have.

When her grandfather died, a seven-year-old girl at the Moody Church asked her father, “Can we ask Jesus to get a message to Grampa?” He was caught somewhat by surprise but realized that there was nothing in his theology that would cause him to say no. So he responded, “Yes, that might be possible; let’s tell Jesus what we want Grampa to know.

Here is a lesson for us. No decision can be considered good if eternity proves it to be bad. To put it another way, no decision in this life can ever be good unless it is good for eternity. Only a being who knows the future and the past can prescribe what is best for us. We make judgments in time; only God can reveal the judgments of eternity.

Someday there may be a cataclysmic reckoning, but we are paying for our sins right now. When God told Israel that disobedience would have severe consequences, He ended by saying, “Your sons and your daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand” (Deuteronomy 28:32).

Contrary to popular culture, love can say no. What we cannot do is let the world tell us [followers of Christ] where we should draw the line; the world should not tell us what we can do and can’t. Our cultural elites tell us that if we were ‘loving’ we would do what they think we should. But we derive our definition of love from God’s Word, not from the vicissitudes of the cultural currents.

Saul Alinsky, the Marxist radical, told his followers how to mask their real agenda. Speaking of the current political structure, he said, “They have the guns and therefore we are for peace and for reformation through the ballot. When we have the guns then it will be through the bullet.”5 Note the deception: For now, let us be in favor of peace and reformation until we are in power. Then we’ll abandon the ballot box in favor of the bullet.

Church growth experts tell us that most people seeking a new church care little about its doctrines. They're mostly interested in the facilities of the church, its nursery, and opportunities for friendship. . . .The experts tell us that today's church members will switch churches at a moment's notice if they think that their personal and relational needs will be better met elsewhere--even if the doctrine taught is at best, suspect. Thus some will opt for better facilities and architecture even at the expense of jeopardizing their own soul.

From the seventh to the tenth centuries, Muslims conquered “fully two-thirds of the Christian world.”8 Not until the eleventh century did Europe finally respond. So it was hundreds of years of unrelenting violence and persecution by Islamic armies that sparked the Crusades. Thomas F. Madden, among the world’s foremost authorities on the Crusades, explains, “The crusades were in every way a defensive war.”9 Today, there are many—even in the Western media—who perpetrate the notion that the Crusades were an unprovoked, imperialistic attack upon peaceful Muslims.

When abandoned babies were left out on the streets and back alleys, the Christians in North Africa organized baby runs and brought these babies to nursing mothers. The pagans were overwhelmed with the caring attitude of the Christians. Just as Peter predicted, unbelievers were led to faith in Christ and “glorified God” in the day of visitation. The excellencies of Christ are best revealed through the lives of those who are compassionate because they themselves are profoundly aware of their own shortcomings. The world can out entertain us; outnumber us; out finance us, but let it never be said that they can out-love us, for “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:5).

..two forces kill old trees: the rot within that is caused by many diseases; and then of course, there are the storms and forest fires. There are plenty of diseases that create rot [in the church]: the hollowing out of Bible doctrine, the strife between members, and the lack of urgency. And failure to feel the weight of the momentous task we have been given. All of this is evidenced by the casualness of many Christians; their stinginess in giving; and their lack of vision beyond themselves. Add to that our self-righteousness and lack of transparency, and no wonder we are not having the impact we should. Then there is the unwillingness of churches to discipline members who have drifted from the faith and live in open rebellion.

CRT teaches that a person’s identity cannot be separated from the group to which they belong. If you are born white, you are labeled an oppressor regardless of your character or personal attitude; individuality is lost within the group you belong to. And if you are born white and you choose to defend yourself against the charge of racism, this only proves that indeed you are racist! Wealthy black Americans are not considered persons of privilege, but a white person born into abject poverty is considered a person of privilege. There is no room for individuality, kindness, forgiveness, or meaningful reconciliation. Even more importantly, in the purely secular application of CRT, redemption is viewed as separating a group from oppressors, not as the need to be freed from sin by the gospel of God’s saving grace. Salvation, in the radical view of CRT, is to gain power over your oppressors. Until the oppressed triumph over their oppressors, the conflict must continue. Pure Marx.

Although the US State Department has not officially designated the MB [Muslin Brotherhood] as a terrorist organization, Egypt did so in 2013; and in 2015, a British government review “concluded that membership of or links to it should be considered a possible indicator of extremism.” However, in 2003 the FBI uncovered the MB’s multifaceted plan to dominate America through immigration, intimidation, education, community centers, mosques, political legitimacy, and establishing ‘interfaith dialogue’ centers in our universities and colleges. A document confiscated by the FBI outlines a twelve-point strategy to establish an Islamic government on earth that is brought about by a flexible, long-term ‘cultural invasion’ of the West. Their own plans teach us that ‘the intrusion of Islam will erupt in multiple locations using mulciple means’. But near the top of this strategy is immigration. To be more specific, the first major point in their strategy states; ‘To expand the Muslin presence by birth rate, immigration and refusal to assimilate.’ This strategy transformed Indonesia from a Buddhist and Hindu country to the largest Muslin-dominated country in the world. As Europe has discovered, open borders for refugees may be viewed as a compassionate response to a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, but it has long-term risks and consequences.

No nation has turned away from so much light in order to choose darkness. No nation has squandered as many opportunities as we have. We can only call on God for mercy, and if it pleases Him He will come to our aid. We certainly cannot expect a revival simply because we do not want to face the harassment that well might come to us all. But if we humble ourselves, weeping for this nation, God may yet intervene and restore decency to this crazed world. Most of all, we should pray that millions would be converted and belong to God forever. People change their minds only when God changes their hearts.

Grace, freely given, does not provide us license to sin. Rather, it should motivate us to give ourselves without reservation to the One who loves us so freely, so deeply. Whenever you sin, God wants you to come back into fellowship immediately. Learn your lessons, but within His forgiveness, not outside of it.

The surviving church is one that has a holistic view of the scriptures and doesn’t simply cherry-pick themes and teachings that are more to individual likings and aptitude’s. It is a church that preaches to felt needs, to be sure, but emphasizes that when we stand in the presence of a holy God, our greatest felt need will be for the righteousness of Christ. It is a church that teaches us how to live on earth but with the greater purpose of preparing for the life to come. It is a church that is not afraid of talking about hell.

Let those of us in our churches not sit in judgment of the world, however, for all too often, we are the world, sharing in our culture’s since and failures. Remember, it was because of Jonah and not the pagan sailors that the storm blew on the sea! Too often we are blind to our own darkness. We criticize the world for calling darkness, but perhaps we do the same.

I see a church that desperately needs to learn the lessons that the people of God have to RELEARN in each generation: We have to be a church that is, in some ways, repulsive to the world because of our authentic holiness and yet very attractive to the world because of our love & care. We need to be a courageous church at the time of weak knees and carnal living. In short, we have to live lives that are a credit to the gospel we preach and the Savior we worship. God has humbled us, and we must enter into our cultural decline not with a swagger but with humility and brokenness. And transparency

But by no means should we think that terroism is radical Islam’s most useful weapon. Indeed, many of these Islamic leaders decry terrorism in an effort to take the focus off of a more effective and insidious strategy, namely to subdue the West by civilizational jihad.

We are pilgrims out of step with the ever-changing culture - yet we are sent by Christ, the Head of the church. The church is the last barrier between the present moral breakdown and total chaos.

Yes, we might have ‘righteous anger’ as we see our culture destroyed, but if our anger spills over into our Christian witness, it only fuels the stereotype that the world already has of us. Yes, we are called to expose the sins of the world, but to do so with redemption, in humility and compassion. And, yes, with courage. And tears. Anger and rebuke change nothing. In fact, they cause our leftist friends to entrench themselves every deeper into their hatred of Christians. Moreover, these actions don’t represent our Master who ‘when he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly’ (1 peter 2:23). Anger, vengeance and a spirit of retaliation are not the ways of the Master. But as we shall see later in this book, neither is silence nor cowardice.

We will not impact the cities and towns of our world unless we live among those who need to hear the gospel through an authentic witness. It is not only church gathered that will win the world, but the church scattered that will show the beauty of Jesus to a world that is short on hope. Our impact will be marginal as long as we play safe; Jesus didn’t and neither can we.

It is not possible to have a heart for God without having a heart for people and their deep abiding needs.

Students in many schools have had to endure similar indoctrination attempts. In 2015, students at Spring Hill Middle School in Tennessee were required to write, “There is no god but Allah; and Muhammed is his prophet,” which is a statement used by those who convert into Islam.15 Students in some schools have been told to memorize parts of the Qur’an, shout, “Allahu Akbar!,” and to fast over lunch in honor of Ramadan.

Muslim students to pray during school hours.

What a special privilege it is to be called to represent Christ at this pivotal moment of history! We are called for such a time as this. And we must pray that our light might shine more brightly than ever in our darkening world.

a call to prayer accompanied by deep repentance. This is a Daniel moment when we call on God, confessing our sins and the sins of our churches and nation. We cannot move forward with words alone but with our deeds, our resolve, and a renewed dependence on God.

Yes, what begins as information turns out to become the law of the land, and woe to those who dare to oppose the law! “Hate,” he said, was “more lasting than dislike.” If he portrayed the Germans as victims and the Jews as the victimizers, hatred would fuel his agenda.

How do we both love the people of the world and yet oppose the agenda of those who would crush the gospel?

National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable

Better to fail while serving God than to win while serving oneself. Better to die sharing the gospel than to live denying the Christ who purchased us.

Grace means that we deserve nothing and can do nothing. God comes along and does what we cannot do.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:13-15).

God has many children, but no grandchildren.

We should never give thanks to God for sin, or, for that matter, we should never give thanks to God for Satan. But we can give thanks for the way God uses evil to accomplish His purposes. We can give thanks for our own struggles and temptations and say, “Even in this, God is good and His will is being done.

Is it true, as some have suggested, that the Germans of Hitler’s era were somehow half-man and half-demon, the likes of which will never appear on the earth again?

He is as much with us as He was with Mary. We, like her, have to understand that Christ’s presence is not dependent on the location of His physical body. She had to be weaned from the notion that physical contact superseded the spiritual connection.

He is among us even when we cannot see Him and when our grief distorts reality. There are many tears in our hearts that never reach our eyes. There are times of darkness and betrayal that make us wonder how we can live another day. As for God, He seems far away, uninterested, and absent.

Suffering does not reflect unfavorably on the promises of Scripture. We take heart that there is another world coming, in which all of the promised blessings will be realized. Just as God does not create a single fish without creating water in which it can swim, so God does not create longings for eternity without creating an eternity in which those longings will be fulfilled.

Every shattered dream we give to Jesus is integrated into a higher and even more blessed purpose. In short, if we have faith to believe it, there are no wasted sorrows, no wasted aspirations or dreams. Even in this life, we see that God is continually reshaping whatever we give Him. Indeed, the Christian life is a series of new beginnings. God Himself rushes in to fill the vacuum left in the wake of our own disappointments. Dreams left unfulfilled in this life will most assuredly be fulfilled in the life to come. Jesus brought our dream of healthy bodies back with Him when He was raised from the dead. Take a long look at the person sitting next to you in church. Someday he or she will be like Jesus! “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19). To those who are brokenhearted, Jesus assures us that fulfilling family relationships will be ours.

Our first word to the homosexual community is that we ourselves need to repent.

First, there is no place that we must go that He has not been; He has gone before us, in death and resurrection. He does not expect us to enter a dark room that He Himself has not first entered. Our Lord goes ahead of us and promises us that we shall “see him as he is.

Even in America this is a problem. In the summer of 2011, Middle East Quarterly published the results of an intensive four-year study on “sharia-adherence and the promotion of violent, jihadist literature in U.S. mosques.”14 The results? A stunning 81 percent carried jihad hate literature—with 51 percent carrying texts “rated as severely advocating violence,” and 30 percent carrying texts “rated as moderately advocating violence.”15 Especially disturbing was the discovery that “mosques with this literature were not merely repositories but incubators for the messaging of this material.”16 And fully 58 percent of the mosques “invited guest imams known to promote violent jihad.”17

Muslims cannot know the assurance of salvation, for in the end, Allah does with each person as he desires. According to the Hadith, Muhammad himself said he was unsure of his eternal salvation. He wrote, “Though I am an Apostle of Allah, yet I do not know what Allah will do to me!” (Bukhari 5.58.266). And the Quran states that only death by jihad assures a person of instant access into paradise. Christians, however, can know the assurance of their salvation. That’s because salvation is a free gift made available through the sacrifice and triumph of Jesus. No matter how great our sin, Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf was greater. Because it is Christ who obtained our salvation and gives it to us, we cannot and will not lose it. As the apostle John said, “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:12-13). This free gift is available to anyone who receives Christ as Savior: “To all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote for candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that democracy always collapses over bad fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. We can be glad when the government helps the truly needy. But when elections are won or lost depending on which candidate promises the greatest “largesse,” then we know that democracy is failing us.

Only eternal values can give meaning to temporal ones. Time must be the servant of eternity.

Me han contado que en el estado de Indiana hay un cementerio, en el cual existe una antigua tumba con el siguiente epitafio: Detente un momento, extraño que pasas por aquí. Tal como tú estás ahora, así también yo estuve. Tal como yo estoy ahora, así también estarás. Prepárate entonces para la muerte y sígueme. Un desconocido que pasaba por allí, leyó aquellas palabras y escribió debajo esta respuesta: Con

Even as I write these words, our ticking national debt clock tells us that we are increasing our debt by 3 billion dollars a day. We hear repeatedly that the 16 trillion dollars we owe nationally is “unsustainable”; that is to say, we cannot continue along this path of spending without drastic and long-term consequences. Our politicians have not yet learned that we cannot borrow our way into prosperity and survive.