Best 20 quotes of John Fox on MyQuotes

Chips on shoulder, all that, everybody plays the game for different reasons. You've got to prove yourself every time you go out there. That's the reality.

When someone deeply listens to you, your barefeet are on the earth, and a beloved land that seemed distant, is now at home within you.

A work of infinite moment depends on a moment of time.

Awake, awake, you that sleep. Open your eyes, stand on your feet, and behold and see what a sea of blood and wrath is here!" See and believe; believe and consider; consider and fear; fear and fly; and make haste in your work. Your work is great and mighty; diversions are many; adversaries are strong; your strength is small; your time is short; your account is great. Death and judgment are at the door. Therefore, up and be doing, now or never.

But now (if you are believers), lift up your eyes to the everlasting hills and put the eagle's eye of faith within the veil. There is the Ancient of Days. God your Father is the chiefest good and highest happiness. There is Christ your dear Redeemer, the Prince of glory, and a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; and on the favour of God, the love and righteousness of Christ, you may see eternity. Again, turn your eyes inward to the hidden man of the heart. Is there the seed of God or impress[ion] of His image and the divine nature (1 John 3:9; 2 Peter 1:4)? Is there any active, living, springing principle of grace (John 4:14)? On this you may read eternity. Grace is the heir of glory, every drop of which runs to the ocean. And nothing else can befriend you, "for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." (2 Cor. 4:18).

Cloth will keep color best that is dyed in the wool, and the vessel will scent longest of that liquor with which it is first seasoned. Oh, then, remember your Creator in the days of your youth.

Delays and laziness are the two great gulfs in which multitudes of souls are drowned and perish.

...follow and improve the light before the darkness overtakes you.

God has made you honorable (Isa. 43:4), being kings and priests, and enrolled you among the firstborn that are written in heaven. You have a place in His heart and will be honored that we might be to "the glory of his grace" [Eph. 1:6]. Your everlasting Father has marked you and set His stamp and seal on you and put a principle of life within you that you might love Him and live to Him.

Gospel time is our spiritual harvest, and it is notorious folly to sleep or loiter in harvest. The time of the gospel is a time indeed--namely, a time of light, a time of love, a time of life, a time of liberty (Matt. 4:16; 2 Tim. 1:10; Ezek. 16:8; Rom. 5:8; Isa. 61:6; John 8:36). Now, the trumpet of jubilee sounds, and all debts and mortgages may be taken up and released. Here is liberty for the poor captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. 'Tis now an "accepted time," a "day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2), a time to accept or a time to be accepted, a golden and glorious time indeed. Behold, now there is a broad and clear way to His mercy seat. The flaming sword is gone; the partition wall is down; all bars and gates are removed; an act of indemnity is proclaimed; and there is a free admission for all to come and be saved. Pardons are ready (Isa. 55:6-7).

How sad and astonishing a spectacle it is to see a man near the coast of eternity--namely, to behold a wretched sinner in his cold sweats and dying groans with his precious and immortal soul standing on his pale, cold, quivering lips; and death, the great conqueror and king of terrors, marching furiously with his writ of removal in one hand, not to be reversed, and his deadly dart and sting in the other hand; conscience on the rack, barking, biting, and tearing him like a lion; the devil, God's executioner, looking on and standing by; the heart under dejecting and sinking despair; the eyes dim and fixed; his heart strings ready to break with anguish; his wife, children, and friends at the bedside, weeping, sighing, crying, wring their hands, beating their breasts; the wife crying out, "Alas, my husband!"; the child crying out, "Alas, my father!"; the poor perishing soul all this while looking backward on his misspent time and bypast sins, inward on his own heart--a dreadful sight! Where he sees no Christ, no grace, no purity, nothing but sin, guilt, death, darkness. Then, looking upward to that God who has been provoked, to that Christ who has been rejected, to that heaven and eternity that he has lost. And looking downward to that dark and dreadful pit that must be his place and portion (with a fearful looking for judgment), seeing the devils come and ready to seize on him. Oh what a dreadful outcry and shriek will the soul make when it departs! Perceiving itself sinking down, down to the burning lake and bottomless pit, where he must take up his lodging with devouring fire to all eternity.

If there be the truth of grace, there will be an endeavor after the strength of grace.

Live continually in an expectation of your great charge. Buy, sell, converse, read, pray, hear, and do all as dying men and passing to receive the recompense of endless joy or woe. Christians, if you would work while it is day; if you would glorify God on earth; if you would not be prey to the prince of darkness; if you would stand with comfort before the Lord Jesus at His dreadful bar; if you would not spend your days without hope--arise, therefore, and be doing, and the Lord be with you.

Religion requires action, labour, diligence; for it does not consist in airy, empty notions and speculations of the head but in the exercise of the mind and heart. Habits must be exerted; grace, improved. Heaven (that is, all uphill) must be strived for and gotten, as it were, by force and victory.

Sinners, your dear Lord Jesus, the great peacemaker, is now an important suitor to your perishing souls--namely, an inviting, knocking, waiting, promising Christ (Prov. 1:22; 9:4; Isa. 65:2; Matt. 11:28; Rev. 3:20; Song 5:2; John 6:37). The treasures of grace are opened and offered for sale on easy terms without money and without price (Isa. 55:1; Rev. 3:18). Oh make speed and come. Make the purchase. Buy the pearl of price that is better than rubies, and you will have treasure in heaven. The favor of God, precious blood, white raiment, tried gold, and the eternal life of your never-dying souls are worth the having. Consider also that now the Holy Spirit calls and offers His assistance to close the bargain, to tie the marriage knot between Christ and your souls (Hebrews 3). If you lose this opportunity, you may never have the like. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come" (Rev. 22:17).

The great God stands much on priority to have the first and the best: the first ripe fruits, the first that opens the womb. Oh then offer the Isaac of your youth, the spring and flower of your age to God, and stay not until the evil day. Begin first with Him from whom you had your beginning. Go about the grand affair and work of your dear and never-dying soul before you do engulf yourself in the cares of this world. Resolve to present the first ripe fruits to that good and gracious God, who desires the first ripe fruits. In the bright morning of your life, match yourself to the King of Glory and become His bride before you are deflowered and defiled by sin and the world. If the celestial seeds of grace are sown in the morning, the pleasant and sweet flowers springing out of those seeds will invite the Lord Jesus to come and walk in His garden (Song 5:1). If you would be the temple of the Holy Spirit, let Him that made the house be the first and chief inhabitant. And suffer not your heart to be a habitation for dragons and devils, which will be your undoing to all eternity.

The increase of your grace and holiness depends on your acquaintance and communion with the God of grace.

Time is compared to golden sands running between two eternities, and 'tis an infinite mercy they are still running, that you have a day to work out your salvation, to agree with your adversary while he is in the way [Matt. 5:25; Phil. 2:12]--namely, to make up the breach between God and your soul (Rev. 2:21).

...you must be constant in the use of means and lay hold on every opportunity of enjoying the gospel. This our Lord commends in Mary, calling her attendance on the word preached a choosing the "good part" (Luke 10:42). There, you will taste the crystal streams and view the golden minds of sound doctrine and wells of salvation. This is the place of spiritual wonders where the dead are raised, the lepers cleansed, the eyes of the blind opened, and the devils ejected. Gospel ordinances are the golden galleries where the King of Glory walks, the bed where immortal souls are begotten unto God, and in which the broken hearts do travail till Christ is formed in them [Gal. 4:19]. Through these golden pipes, the water of life is poured out on thirsty, panting souls for the cheering of their spirits. Here is the doctrine preached and words where by you must be saved (Acts 10). Here, Christ's mother found Him, it being the place where the Bridegroom and the bride meet and solace themselves together.

You sadly besotted souls, know and remember while you have a day before the golden thread of life is cut that, if you are found without Christ, faith, repentance, holiness but a moment after death, you are undone to eternity. After death, all means and hopes fail. There is no work nor device in the grace (Eccl. 9:10). God will then be irreconcilable; sin, unpardonable; heaven, not attainable; and your souls, lost irrevocably.