Home > Author > Zack Eswine
61 " After all, for some of us, we’ve been unable to live in any other scene but the one that crushed us. We were brought so low that we never held up our heads again. It’s like we will go from that time forth mourning to our graves.9 Circumstance haunted us and went on. Depression came but never left. It haunts us still. "
― Zack Eswine , Spurgeon's Sorrows: Realistic Hope for those who Suffer from Depression
62 " Hope on the basis of promise swings open the curtains and lets the sunshine in again. "
63 " would not blame all those who are much given to fear, for in some it is rather their disease than their sin, and more their misfortune than their fault.1 "
64 " But the presence of things we cannot control or immediately fix reminds us that though the Bible is God’s revelation, it in itself is not his magic remedy. It lights our path by his Spirit, but it cannot always shield us from what he shows us there. Only the Christ that the Bible verses reveal can do this. "
― Zack Eswine , The Imperfect Pastor: Discovering Joy in Our Limitations through a Daily Apprenticeship with Jesus
65 " The Wisdom Literature needs Ecclesiastes then, in order to keep us from entrusting ourselves to trite formulas under the sun. It is not that Proverbs ignores exceptions. It too makes plain that rules aren’t enough and that context matters for how we apply wisdom. "
― Zack Eswine , Recovering Eden: The Gospel According to Ecclesiastes
66 " we are tempted to say, ‘I will take the larger place because it will give me more influence for Jesus Christ.’” But Jesus teaches us that we should determine to take the lower place unless the Lord himself “extrudes us” into the larger one. "
67 " Perhaps, nothing in life reminds us that we are not God, and that this earth is not heaven, like an indescribable distress that sometimes defies cause and has no immediate cure, or no cure at all. "
68 " Perhaps you are not well, or you have had an illness that has tolled much upon your nervous system, and you are depressed; and therefore it is that you think that grace is leaving you, but it will not. Your spiritual life does not depend upon nature, else it might expire; it depends upon grace, and grace will never cease to shine till it lights you into glory.25 "
69 " Ecclesiastes offers an exceptional voice to remind us who are like Job’s friends or Jesus’ disciples that we cannot walk out into our neighborhoods under the sun and hand out a “one size fits all” shirt. "
70 " How is it that Jesus followers often have little stamina for working through with others what unsettles them? We can often take Bible classes and quote from the Bible, but we still know very little about patience. "
― Zack Eswine , Sensing Jesus: Life and Ministry as a Human Being
71 " It is hardly necessary to say that Christianity undistorted, and preached in its just proportions, is calculated to prevent, not cause, insanity. The exciting cause of religious melancholia is sometimes to be traced to fiery denunciations of a well-meaning but injudicious preacher. "
72 " It is difficult to imagine, for example, how one can say that the preaching of the prophets and apostles was successful. Many of them were persecuted or killed because of their sermons. "
― Zack Eswine , Preaching to a Post-Everything World: Crafting Biblical Sermons That Connect with Our Culture
73 " Francis Schaeffer called this redemptive movement “substantial healing.” Substantial healing “conveys the idea of a healing that is not perfect, but nevertheless is real and evident. "
74 " Identify those areas of reality that a preacher does not talk about and you will discover those spheres of reality that people are daily trying to navigate without the light of God’s Word. "
75 " You were never meant to repent because you can’t fix everything. You are meant to repent because you’ve tried. Even if we could be god for people and fix it all, the fact remains that Jesus often does not have the kind of fixing in mind that you and I want. "
76 " Only God is worthy of fame, and that same God humbled himself and became flesh and walked among us. "
77 " The Fallen Condition Focus (FCF) is the mutual human condition that contemporary believers or nonbelievers share with those to or about whom the text was written that requires the grace of the passage for God’s people to glorify and enjoy him or for those who resist God to properly regard him and to be reconciled to him. "
78 " We are selective with data. We like to reduce complexity, to simplify it. Some of us like to reduce disquiets, because we want everything to be happy. Others of us reduce delights because we are more familiar with sadness and hardship. The Preacher embodies a way of hearing that allows both to remain. We are created to enter mystery and contradiction with the fear of God and let it sit. "
79 " But the Preacher isn’t God. In fact, the Preacher, or his namesake, Solomon, did not live up to the wisdom he had learned and taught. “Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and did not wholly follow the LORD, as David his father had done” (1 Kings 11:6). With this, we are invited to consider one last truth in this vain life under the sun. Every human wise man has fallen short of his own true wisdom. The Preacher cannot save the oppressed and the oppressor whose plight he has so deftly and humanly entered. The Preacher cannot save himself. "
80 " some might say to the preacher. “Do you really believe that a few words from an outdated book can change anything? What are words when weapons, money, and power are mounted against you?” But the preacher doesn’t stop, and neither do we. Like those who have gone before us, our voices are ordinary, our intellects are limited, and our personal capacities to stop the madness are minimal. But the physician has come! Preachers of future generations will need to learn this from us too. We will say to them, “The tomb is empty!” This is historical fact. Christ is risen! And the gospel we speak for our generation is nothing less than the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16). "
