By Jerry Bridges
Early in my Christian life I heard someone say, "The Bible was not given to increase your knowledge but to guide your conduct." Later I came to realize that this statement was simplistic at best and erroneous at worst. The Bible is far more than a rulebook to follow. It is primarily the message of God's saving grace through Jesus Christ, with everything in Scripture before the cross pointing to God's redemptive work and everything after the cross--including our sanctification--flowing from that work.

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Holy Thoughts Against the Love of the World
Some time ago I was watching a video by Ja Rule where he was partying hard with fine women, expensive drinks, driving expensive cars and having a “good time”. I must confess that I was tempted to miss the pleasures of the world and the old life in which I once indulged.  If one were to live his life by sight, it would be easy for him to be deceived by “deceitfulness of riches” and by the beauty of adulterous and immoral women.  There were indeed very beautiful women in the video which made my heart beat fast as a young teenager newly acquainted with the pleasure of stimulus seeing his most dreamt of supermodel skin-clad.  But while watching, I remembered that the arch-enemy Satan, is “an angel of light” who deceives with not the hideous, but with the most stunningly attractive.  I was then reminded of his crafty deceptive ways to lead my mind astray “from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3b) and to deceive me into living “according to the flesh” and living for the “love of the world”.   I was further reminded that “friendship with the world is enmity toward God” (James 4:10) and the tragic fate that awaits the enemies of God.  I then contemplated that those who are hostile toward God, who find no pleasure or joy in Him and obeying His commands, willingly have “given themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with a continual lust for more. (Eph 4:19)  I was further mused of the reality that “the wages of sin is death” and that “the wrath of God is being revealed against all the ungodliness and wickedness of men” through His turning them over to their depravity. (Romans 1:18-32)

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Calvin on smiling at our sin – Gen. 3
And they sewed fig-leaves together." What I lately said, that they had not been brought either by true shame or by serious fear to repentance, is now more manifest. They sew together for themselves girdles of leaves.  For what end?  That they may keep God at a distance, as by an invincible barrier!

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by A.W. Pink
We do not ask, Is Christ your "Saviour," but is He, really and truly, your Lord? If He be not your Lord, then most certainly He is not your "Saviour." Those who have not received Christ Jesus as their "Lord," and yet suppose Him to be their "Saviour," are deluded, and their hope rests on a foundation of sand. Multitudes are deceived on this vital point, and therefore, if the reader values his or her soul, we implore you to give a most careful reading to this little tract.

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by Martin Luther
Out of love and concern for the truth, and with the object of eliciting it, the following heads will be the subject of a public discussion at Wittenberg under the presidency of the reverend father, Martin Luther, Augustinian, Master of Arts and Sacred Theology, and duly appointed Lecturer on these subjects in that place.  He requests that whoever cannot be present personally to debate the matter orally will do so in absence in writing.

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