Robert Castillo > Robert's Quotes

“Books don't change people; paragraphs do, Sometimes even sentences.”
― John Piper, A Godward Life: Savoring the Supremacy of God in All of Life

“When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.”
― Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus

“The pastor ought to have two voices: one, for gathering the sheep; and another, for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves. The Scripture supplies him with the means of doing both.”
― John Calvin

“Man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.”
― John Calvin

“However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts.”
― John Calvin

“A perfect faith is nowhere to be found, so it follows that all of us are partly unbelievers.”
― John Calvin

“God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.”
― John Calvin

“Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness. ”
― John Calvin

“For there is no one so great or mighty that he can avoid the misery that will rise up against him when he resists and strives against God”
― John Calvin

“Our prayer must not be self-centered. It must arise not only because we feel our own need as a burden we must lay upon God, but also because we are so bound up in love for our fellow men that we feel their need as acutely as our own. To make intercession for men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them. ”
― John Calvin

“If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house, then in a field,...it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.”
― John Calvin

“Every good thing in the Christian life grows in the soil of humility. Without humility, every virtue and every grace withers. That’s why Calvin said humility is first, second, and third in the Christian faith. ”
― John Piper

“True wisdom consists in two things: Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self.”
― John Calvin

“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”
― John Calvin

“There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.”
― John Calvin

“We should ask God to increase our hope when it is small, awaken it when it is dormant, confirm it when it is wavering, strengthen it when it is weak, and raise it up when it is overthrown.”
― John Calvin

“The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only, but it is fully understood when it possesses the whole soul and penetrates to the inner recesses of the heart.”
― John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life

“Those who set up a fictitious worship, merely worship and adore their own delirious fancies; indeed, they would never dare so to trifle with God, had they not previously fashioned him after their own childish conceits.”
― John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion

“In forming an estimate of sins, we are often imposed upon by imagining that the more hidden the less heinous they are.”
― John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion

“The Lord commands us to do good unto all men without exception, though the majority are very undeserving when judged according to their own merits... [The Scripture] teaches us that we must not think of man's real value, but only of his creation in the image of God to which we owe all possible honor and love.”
― John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life

“All the arts come from God and are to be respected as divine inventions”
― John Calvin

“men are undoubtedly more in danger from prosperity than from adversity. for when matters go smoothly, they flatter themselves, and are intoxicated by their success”
― John Calvin

“Yet consider now, whether women are not quite past sense and reason, when they want to rule over men.”
― John Calvin

“He only who is reduced to nothing in himself, and relies on the mercy of God is poor in spirit”
― John Calvin

“The whole world is a theatre for the display of the divine goodness, wisdom, justice, and power, but the Church is the orchestra, as it were—the most conspicuous part of it; and the nearer the approaches are that God makes to us, the more intimate and condescending the communication of his benefits, the more attentively are we called to consider them.”
― John Calvin, Commentary on Psalms - Volume 5

“All whom the Lord has chosen and received into the society of his saints ought to prepare themselves for a life that is hard, difficult, laborious and full of countless griefs.”
― John Calvin

“For it is better, with closed eyes, to follow God as our guide, than, by relying on our own prudence, to wander through those circuitous paths which it devises for us.”
― John Calvin

“For the Word of God is not received by faith if it flits about in the top of the brain, but when it takes root in the depth of the heart . . . the heart's distrust is greater than the mind's blindness. It is harder for the heart to be furnished with assurance [of God's love] than for the mind to be endowed with thought.”
― John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 Vols

“You can’t confuse childlike faith with childish thinking.”
― John MacArthur

“The true gospel is a call to self-denial. It is not a call to self-fulfillment.”
― John MacArthur