Martin Luther Quotes

"What Luther Says"
- Anthology of Martin Luther's works by Ewald Plass

This set consists of 3 volumes of about 500 pages each. It is very well organized into 5100 excerpts of what Martin Luther says on various different subjects, taken from all his different writings. Although the book was published in 1959, and today is hard to come by, I highly recommend it if you can find it. Included here the best short studies, excerpts and quotes (organized by subject), that I've found while reading through the anthology.

Subject:
Antichrist
Bible
Books
Chasteness
Christ
Contentment
Death
Devil
Doctrine
Glory
God
Humility
Human Life
Ministers
Praise
Preachers
Sin
Temptation
Works
World, Material
World of Men
Worship
Zeal

(Subject: Antichrist)
85 Again the Best Degenerated into the Worst
From the beginning of all creatures the worst evil has always come from those who were best. For in the most exalted choir of angels, where God worked most signally, Lucifer fell and wrought great harm. In Paradise the greatest sin and injury came to the first and best human being. Thereafter the giants and tyrants developed from none but the holy children of God. God's Son was crucified in no other place than Jerusalem, where He had been most highly honored and had done many miracles. Nor was He crucified by anyone but the princes, the leading priests, the most learned, and the most holy. And Judas, too, was destined to occupy no mean rank, but that of an apostle. Just so God has blessed no city on earth with so many gifts (Gnaden) and saints as Rome. He has done more for Rome than for any other city. Therefore it, too, must work the greatest harm, as did Jerusalem, and must give the world the truth and most harmful Antichrist... And all this must go on under the name and guise of Christ and God, so that no one believes it until Christ Himself comes and illumines this darkness with the light of His advent.

(Subject: Bible)
184 The Individual Word is of the Holy Spirit's Choosing
The Holy Spirit has a way of His own to say much in few words.

186 All Thoughts, Phrases, Words of the Holy Spirit
Not only the words (vocabula) which the Holy Spirit and Scripture use are divine, but also the phrasing.

(Subject: Books)
341 Especially for Christians the Bible Is "the" Book
If wishing could help, nothing better could be wished than that all books would be put aside and nothing else stay in all the world, especially among Christians, but simply the pure Scripture or Bible. Within it are more than enough learning and teaching of all sorts that are useful and necessary for a person to know. But wishing is in vain now. However, I would to God that there were only a few books besides the Scripture.

343 Many Theological Books Preach Self, Not Christ
Not all who are writing nowadays are pure; yet everybody desires to sell himself in the bookshop. Not that he wants to reveal Christ and His mystery; but he does not want to let his own mystery and the beautiful thoughts he has had about the mystery of Christ go to waste. With them he hopes to convert even the devils, while he has never yet converted a gnat. Nor can he do so. The worst of it is that his book perverts rather than converts the reader.

344 Concentrate on a Few Good Books
A student who does not want his labor wasted must so read and reread some good writer that the author is changed, as it were, into his flesh and blood. For a great variety of reading confuses and does not teach. It makes the student like a man who dwells everywhere and, therefore, nowhere in particular. Just as we do not daily enjoy the society of every one of our friends but only that of a chosen few, so it should also be in our studying.

(Subject: Chasteness)
396 Pray for Purity
The strongest defense (against unchasteness) is prayer and the Word of God, so that when evil lust stirs, a man flees to prayer, calls upon God's grace and help, reads and meditates on the Gospel, and in it considers Christs suffering. Thus says Ps. 137:9: "Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth the little ones of Babylon against the rock." This means that the heart is happy which runs to the Lord Christ with its evil thoughts while they are yet young and just beginning. Christ is a Rock on which they are ground to powder and crumble to nothing.

399 To Fight Impurity Turn to the Word of God
Adolescents should avoid satisfying their evil desires in irregular ways. In order to maintain their chastity they should strengthen their hearts against the fury of the flesh by reading and meditating on the psalms and the Word of God. When you feel the flame, take a psalm or a chapter or two from the Bible and read. When the flame has been quieted, pray. But if it is not promptly checked, bear it patiently and courageously for a year or two or more, and continue with your prayer. But if you can no longer bear and overcome the ardent desires of the flesh, then pray to God to give you a wife, with whom you may live in delight and true love. I have observed many who have given free rein to their evil lusts and have fallen into shameful acts of wantonness. But finally miserable penalties cling to them. Or if they rushed into marriage in blind haste, they found unfit and contrary wives; and it served them right.

(Subject: Christ)
458 The Angles Marvel at the Incarnation
It is not for the angels to be proud of Christ's incarnation, for Christ did not assume an angelic but a human nature. Therefore it would not be a surprise if the angels looked at us with envy in their eyes because we human beings, creatures far inferior to them and sinners besides, are placed above them into an honor so high and great. They worship Christ, who has become our Brother, our flesh and blood; and yet they are not envious but gladly grant us the honor and are sincerely pleased by the fact that Christ is our Brother. They marvel at the human nature in Christ; and yet the honor and glory are not theirs but ours. And we human beings are unable to rejoice and be proud of it... Is this not a great pity? Accursed of God be this wretched unbelief!

(Subject: Contentment)
Martin Luther believed that though a Christian should never be satisfied with what he is, he should always be content with what he has, with whatever blessings God sees fit to give him in answer to his prayers and efforts. Such a person gets the maximum pleasure out of life, Luther remarks in his interpretation of Eccl. 2:1 (1532).
1007 Be Satisfied with whatever God gives you
Nothing is better than to walk in the Word and the work of God and so to fashion one's heart that it is quiet and satisfied with the present state of affairs... The true despisers of the world are the people who accept what God sends them, gratefully use all things when they have them, and gladly do without them if God takes them away.

1008 Luthers Motto
"For what God gives I thank indeed;
What He withholds I do not need."

(Subject: Death)
1068 Death Cannot Be Laughed Off
The heathen have wisely said : Qui mortem metuit quod vivit perdit id ipsum, that is, he is a fool who is afraid of death, for through such fear he loses his own life. This would be true if only a man could act on the advice. For I suppose everyone feels that he achieves nothing more by such fear than to spoil this life, so that it is worthless to him and he will never again be happy... Therefore they give the advice that nothing is better than simply to cast all such fear aside, to rid the mind of it perforce and to think: Why worry about it? When we are dead, we are dead. Their motto is: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (1 Cor. 15:32). - That is certainly disposing of the matter in short order and completely extinguishing God's wrath, hell, and damnation!

1074 Prepare to Meet Thy God
We go along to the grave. We see that this person passes away today, that one tomorrow - persons with whom we have daily associated. Indeed, we know that death never skips or spares anybody and that no one ever returns. And yet we go on like the blind, who see as little at midday as in the pitch-dark night. We do not take these examples to heart; we do not realize that today or tomorrow our turn will come. So we keep our old habits, trot along at the same old pace, like old nags which refuse to have their gait changed by the whip.

1090 For the Unbeliever Death Always Comes Too Soon
To vanquish death by human powers is impossible; where faith is wanting, the conscience must tremble and despair. Where faith is strong, death comes too slowly; again, to the unbelieving it always comes too soon, for the love and lust of living are unending.

1097 Confidence in Works Is Suicidal
When the godless come to be judged after dying with confidence because they are conscious of having lived a good life (in which confidence they hope to stand before God, that is, by which they ruin the true hope), they will fare like the man who places his foot upon a log floating in the water and then suddenly plunges into the depth.

1100 In Death Rely on Grace Alone
There is no better dying than that of St. Stephen, who said: "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit" (Acts 7:58). All the records of our sins and our merits are to be put away, and we should die relying on grace alone.

1123 Death Ends the Worst of Evils, Sinning
The other blessing of death is that it ends not only the evils and sufferings of this life but also, the best of all, the vices and sins. To believing souls this makes death far more desirable than the blessing already mentioned, since the evils of the soul, its sins, are incomparably worse than the ills of the body. If only we knew it, this alone should make death most desirable. But if it does not, it is a sign that we neither feel nor hate our sins as we should.

(Subject: Devil)
1155 The Devil Has Made This World the "House of Murder"
Christ says that the devil is the prince of this world (John 14:30; 16:11); and John 8:44 He says that he is a murderer from the beginning and a liar. If, then, we would and must live upon earth, we must realize that we are guests and lodge in an inn with a knave as a host and with an inscription or a sign over the door which reads The House of Murderer or The House of Lies. For such a sign or coat of arms Christ Himself has hung over his door and on his house by saying (John 8:44) that he is a murderer and a liar: a murderer for killing the body, a liar for misleading the soul. That is the devil's trade and his work; that is the way he keeps house; and that is how business is carried on in this inn. Nor can anything be done about it. And whoever belongs to his followers must lend him a helping hand. But whoever is his guest must expect and risk experiencing rough treatment.

(Subject: Doctrine)
UNFORTUNATELY, human nature is restless and unstable. It is curious, and it likes novelties. It is soon sated and surfeited. A change is welcomed and, therefore, easily confused with improvement and with progress. And so the soil is ready to receive the seed of the tares of heresy. Such is the tale history tells Luther says in his On the Councils and the Churches (1539).
1213 Men Have Always Itched for Change
The world wants to be deceived. If you want to catch many robins and other birds, place an owl on the trap or lime rod, and you will meet with success. So when the devil wants to catch Christians, he must set up a monk's cowl or, as Christ calls it in Matt 6:16, a sour, hypocritical face. Then we marvel far more at these owls than at the true suffering, blood, wounds, death, and resurrection that we see and hear in Christ, our Lord, who suffered for our sin.... For we must always have something new. Christ's death and resurrection, faith and love, are now old and common, wherefore they mean nothing any more; but we must have new things to tickle our ears, as St. Paul says 2 Tim 4:3. And since our ears itch so much that we can no longer endure the ancient, real truth, it serves us right ut acervemus (2 Tim 4:3), that we load upon ourselves, great heaps of new doctrines.

(Subject: Glory)
1623 The Lust for Glory Is Deeply Rooted in Man
No one is so firm in repelling the most deadly vice of vainglory that he does not need constant prayer in order to be able to do so. For who, even when he is pious, does not delight in the praise people accord him? The Holy Spirit alone is able to keep us from being infected with this pest.

1626 A Common Denominator of Natural Man
Vainglory has ever been the most widely spread disease (pestis) in the world. Even pagan poets and historians have vehemently inveighed against it. The village does not exist in which this or that person does not want to be considered wise and great before all the others. But particularly gifted people who are engaged in controversy because of their learning and knowledge labor under this vice. Here no one wants to yield to the other, according to the saying: Qui volet ingenio cedere nullus erit (He who yields to a gifted fellow will be a nobody). For it is delightful to be pointed at with the finger and to have people say : He is the man for you.

(Subject: God)
1630 Don't Bother with an Atheist
Now if someone wants to say that God is not God, just let him go. For we have nothing to do with the man who believes nothing at all and denies everything one says of God and God's Word. So they also teach in the schools: Contra negantem prima non est disputandum, that is, he who dares deny what nature teaches everyone and what is granted by the reason and intellect of all men should not be disputed with but should be referred to a physician who should clean out his brain for him. For such a position is equal to saying white is not white but black, and two are not two but one.

(Subject: Humility)
2083 True humility an almost subconscious attitude
But the truly humble look not to the result of humility but with a simple heart regard things of low degree and gladly associate with them. It never enters their minds that they are humble. Here the water flows from the well; here it follows naturally and as a matter of course that they will cultivate humble conduct, humble words, places, faces, and clothing, and so far as possible, will shun great and lofty things. Thus David says in Ps. 131:1: "O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high." And Job 22:29 says: "He who has been humbled shall be in glory; and he who bows down his eyes shall be saved." Hence honors always come unexpectedly to them, and their exaltation in a surprise; for they have been content with their lowly station and have never aspired to the heights. But the falsely humble wonder why their glory and honor are so long in coming; for their secret false pride is not content with their low estate but aspires in secret ever higher and higher. True humility, therefore, never knows that it is humble, as I have said; for if it knew, it would turn proud from contemplation of so fine a virtue.

(Subject: Human Life)
2240 The Feverish Race for the Things of Temporal Life
When we consider the world in its doings, how greed controls all business, we would not only find enough to do if we make an honorable living before God; but we would also be overcome with dread and fear of this dangerous, miserable life, which is so exceedingly overburdened, entangled, and taken captive by cares about temporal sustenance and a dishonest search for gain.

2447 The sacred duty of preserving health
A man's life and the health of his organs and the proper condition of his body are gifts of God, the Creator. Therefore care is to be taken particularly of one's health. In Col. 2:23 Paul disputes with the hypocrites, who did not give the body its due, and with the Epicureans who killed it by luxurious living.

2451 Beware of Overindulgence
It is true, excessive eating and drinking very greatly hinder and disturb the effort to lead an honorable life. Moderation, on the other hand, greatly helps to accomplish it. For as soon as a person indulges his appetite to excess, he can no longer control himself. His five senses become wild and intractable. Experience teaches that when the stomach is full of meat and drink the mouth is full of words, the ears are full of lust to hear, and the eyes are full of lust to see. The entire body becomes indolent, drowsy, and dull or unbearably wild and dissolute. Forthwith all the members of the body overleap the bounds of reason and decency, and neither discipline nor moderation remain.

(Subject: Ministers)
2926 Neither Too Familiar nor Too Formal
It behooves a prudent minister of God to preserve honor and reverence for his ministry among those who are under him.
It behooves a faithful minister not to go to extremes and not arrogantly to misuse his office but to administer it only for the benefit of those who are under him.
A minister must be prudent and faithful. If he disregards the first requirement, he turns into a puppet, ineffective and unworthy of this distinction. Ministers who by a stupid condescension are indiscriminately familiar and “chummy” with those who are under them necessarily ruin their authoritative influence and create contempt by their familiarity. But how grievously they sin! They permit men to step on that which belongs to God and has been entrusted to them; they should have brought it to honor. But he who disregards the second requirement turns into a tyrant, always terrifying with his power and desiring to be terrible. He does not try to determine how his office may be beneficial to others but how it may be formidable to them, although, according to the apostle, this power has been given not to destruction but to edification (2 Cor. 13:10). Let us, then, call these two failings by name: “easygoingness” and sternness.

2927 Be Serious
Nothing is more unbecoming to a teacher of the Word than flippancy. He must be serious and should not act like a clown.

2929 Luther Meant to Be Faithful
We must observe the Word of God with greater care than we observe the ideas of all men and angels. Therefore I shall perform the duties of my office and shall bring the real state of affairs to light; and I shall give the truth as I have received it, freely and without malice. As for the rest, let every man look to his own salvation; I shall go on working faithfully, so that before the judgment seat of Christ no one may cast on me the blame for his lack of faith and knowledge of the truth.

(Subject: Praise)
3427 To Receive Praise, Decline All Praise
"Not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth" (2 Cor. 10:18). But God praises and commends only those who turn all praise away from themselves and direct it to Him and do not want their works seen unless their Father in heaven, whose name they love, is glorified thereby. Therefore God praises and glorifies them in turn, as He says in 1 Sam 2:30 : "Them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed."

(Subject: Preachers)
3544 What to Look For in a Preacher
It is commonly said that these are the three qualifications which mark a good preacher: First, that he step up; secondly, that he speak up and say something (worthwhile); thirdly, that he know when to stop.

3547 Some Depend Too Much on Others
Some pastors and preachers are lazy and no good. They rely on these and other good books to get a sermon out of them. They do not pray; they do not study; they do not read; they do not search the Scripture. It is just as if there were no need to read the Bible for this purpose. They use such books as offer them homiletical helps in order to earn their yearly living; they are nothing but parrots and jackdaws, which learn to repeat without understanding, though our purpose and the purpose of these theologians is to direct preachers to Scripture with such books and exhort them to plan to defend our Christian faith after our death, against the devil, the world, and the flesh...
Therefore the call is: Watch, study, attende lectioni (attend to reading). In truth, you cannot read too much in Scripture; and what you read carefully you cannot understand too well, and what you understand well you cannot teach too well, and what you teach well you cannot live too well. Experto crede Ruperto (Believe a man who has found this out). It is the devil, it is the world, it is our flesh that are raging and ravaging against us. Therefore, dear sirs and brethren, pastors and preachers, pray, read, study, be diligent. Truly, this evil, shameful time is not the season for being lazy, for sleeping and snoring. Use the gift that has been entrusted to you, and reveal the mystery of Christ.

THEREFORE preachers should not only stay with Scripture doctrine but should emphasize the teachings that are of primary importance, despite the craving of people for the curious and the unusual, Luther urges in the sermon of 1524 – see No. 3553 – on the proper use of the Law, with 1 Tim. 1:3 – 11 as his text.
3565 Preach Fundamentals
There are two hindrances to the Gospel. The first is the teaching of false doctrine, driving the consciences into the Law and works. And the second is this trick of the devil. When he finds that he cannot subvert the faith by directly denying the Gospel, he sneaks in from the rear, raises useless questions, and gets men to contend about them and meanwhile to forget the chief thing. He gets them to contend about dead saints and departed souls: where they abide, whether they sleep, and the like. One question follows the other in endless succession... People gape with open mouths at these things and lose the chief things. A man does not need much wit to gain popular applause; let him but preach new and strange things, and people will say that he is more learned than others. They come in droves, with eyes and ears and mouth wide open. So nothing is said about faith and love, for people consider this as commonplace as daily bread. All have heard and know enough about this, and it is irksome to hear the same thing forever.

3584 An Unbelieving World Keeps Preachers Humble
The godless world does not believe. Therefore it despises the Word and the Gospel and spurns the apostles and preachers. This does the world no good. But it does us good. It keeps us from arrogating power to ourselves and becoming proud. For the fact that the godless world not only does not believe the Gospel but even persecutes it keeps us preachers humble. If the world were to believe the Word and bestow great honor on us (as it then would), we would probably turn proud and be damned.

3588 A Mutual Flattery That Leads to Ruin
There is no greater evil or poison than vainglory, as indeed St. Augustine says: Ambitio mater est omnium vitiorum (Vainglory is the mother of all vices); she is the bride of the devil.
This vice of proud ambition works great harm in a preacher. It moves him to say: Indeed, one must preach something different that the people may say: This preacher will turn out to be a fine man. He cannot preach the Word as others do but produces something different and new. Then people gape and say: He is certainly a fine preacher; he knows how to hit the nail on the head; I have never heard anyone put it this way. And so the man is puffed up with pride, tickled with praise, and imagines that he is an ox when really he is scarcely a toad. Then he must be very careful not to spoil things with the people. Because they praise him, he must, in turn, praise them. So they praise one another until one goes to the devil with the other. A fine job of praising they did!
These preachers are filli kenodoxia (sons of vainglory); they have been born of the pretty Miss Vainglory.

3589 Talented Preachers Peculiarly Subject to Pride
He who boasts of his gifts as if they were part of him and he had not received them makes an idol of them, seeks solely his own advantage, how he may by his talents gain great honors and a high position that men may carry him on their hands and adore him because of his great intellect and ability. He is not at all concerned about what becomes of God's honor and the benefit and welfare of his neighbor.
These are disgusting people; yet they are very common in the world, especially among preachers. As soon as one feels that one can do something better than another, has the ability to teach, possesses a fine voice, and is a fluent speaker, one presumes upon his gifts, becomes proud, and despises others who cannot do so well. Yes he thinks he knows things better than those who have taught him, and from a pupil he soon turns into a master who is ambitious to outshine all the world by far. If, then, the common people also side with him, applaud and praise his ability (and such spirits strive for this with all diligence), it really pleases and tickles him. Then he does not know whether he is walking on earth or on the clouds. Such persons, then, do the greatest harm to Christendom. What the good, pious, and faithful teachers have done and have planted and built during a long period of time with great effort and labor they break down and lay waste in a short while.

(Subject: Sin)
HOW FAR removed Luther was from encouraging morally lax views appears from the introduction to his exposition of Psalm 7 (1519).
4208 Have Even Exaggerated Fear of Sinning
We should actually fear that we have sinned where we have not sinned, and we should be perfected by a hatred of sin and a love of God so great that we fear the sins which we commit unconsciously, nay, that we fear as sin what is no sin.

4240 The Divine Paradox: Sin Brought Death; Death Ends Sin
Such is the grace and power of God that sin, which has brought death, is driven out by its own work, that is, by death.

(Subject: Temptation)
4346 An Anguish Worse than the Agony of Dying
The temptations great saints like Paul suffer in this life greatly exceed the agony felt by those who are dying.

4348 The Training School of Temptation
The temptations of the pious accomplish very much and are a most godly training school for flesh and blood. He who has not been tempted knows nothing. For this reason the Psalter in all its words treats of practically nothing but temptation, tribulation, and affliction and is a book full of concern about them.

(Subject: Works)
IN LATER YEARS Luther increasingly emphasized the necessity of an evangelical motivation if a work was to be truly good in the eyes of God. He did so in a sermon on Rom 12:1-6
4893 A Truly Good Work Is Rooted in Grateful Love
"I beseech you, therefore, brethren." - He does not say: I command you; for he is preaching to those who are already Christians and are pious through the faith of the new man within them, who are not to be forced by commandments but are to be urged by exhortation voluntarily to give their old, sinful nature the treatment it requires. Whoever does not do this voluntarily, merely through the influence of friendly exhortation, is no Christian; and whoever forces the unwilling by the restraints of the Law is simply no Christian preacher or ruler but a wordly jailer.

(Subject: World, Material)
4950 Think Little of This World
Since you possess the kingdom of heaven, you should let them have the kingdom of this world who take it from you.

(Subject: World of Men)
4973 The Difficulty of Helping the World
The world resembles a drunken peasant; when you lift him up into the saddle on one side, he tumbles off on the other. There is no helping the world. No matter what attitude you take, it wants to belong to the devil.

4983 Humans Worse than Animals in This Respect
Many people daily use all divine blessings and see and feel well enough that they have great gifts and all good things. But not once do they think from whom they have these blessings, or that it is God who gives them to them; they accept them as if they came to them by chance or as if they had acquired them by their work, industry, and wisdom; or they actually suppose God must give them these things and that they owe Him no gratitude for them.
No animal, not even a pig, lives so shamefully as the world does. For a pig at least recognizes the woman or maid who gives it husks, bran, and slop to eat. It runs after her and calls to her. The world, however, does not know God at all and pays no attention whatever to Him who so richly and superabundantly does good to it, to say nothing of its failure to thank and praise Him.

4991 Christ Has Overcome the World
Christ Himself says: "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). I surely know that it cannot be untrue that Christ, the Son of God, has overcome the world. Why, then, do we fear the world as if it were triumphing over us? Indeed, we should be glad to bring a passage like this on our knees from Rome and Jerusalem. But because we have so many of them, we ignore them. This, however, is not good.

4994 The Wickedness of the World Pains the Pious
Those who are holy cannot see the wickedness of the world without being intensely pained in their souls.

4996 Returning to the Age of Noah
The world is putting forth a great effort to reach a period similar to the age of Noah, in which, after the light of the Word has been put out, all men may wander about in the darkness of wickedness.

4997 Rebuke the World Sharply, Regardless of Consequences
But if we want to seize it [the world] and salt it by showing that its wisdom and sanctity are worthless, indeed blind and damned, this it cannot and will not tolerate. It accuses the preachers of doing nothing but criticizing and biting, of causing revolutions and discord, and of maligning the clergy and good works. But what can we do? Salting has to bite. Although they criticize us as biters, we know that this is how it has to be and that Christ has commanded the salt to be sharp and continually caustic, as we shall hear. St. Paul is always rebuking the whole world and criticizing everything it praises and does without faith in Christ. And Christ says (John 16:8): “When the Holy Ghost is come, He will reprove the world of sin.” That is to say: He will attack everything He finds in the world, without exception or discrimination. He will not rebuke some and praise others, or punish only the thieves and criminals. He will throw everything on one pile, one with another – great, small, pious, wise, holy, or whatever – in short, everything that is not Christ. There is need for the Holy Spirit to come and to send preachers into the world, to uncover and to punish, not the outwardly gross sins, like adultery and murder, which the world can know and punish by itself, but the things it regards as the most precious and its highest asset, the claim to piety, holiness, and the service of God.

4998 Unbelief the World's Worst Sin
Is this not a painful pity? The world would not be condemned because of its sin, and Moses would actually have to let it rest in peace; but what does damn the world is that it does not want to let itself be loved by God. Indeed, you wretched harlot, you confounded world! Then let the devil love you... Shame on the world!

5000 How the End Will Come
The punishment of the present world will be different, as the coloring of the rainbow indicates. The lowest color, the extent of which is limited, is that of water. For so great was the fury of the water in the Deluge that a limit had to be set to the punishment it meted out, and after the destruction of the sinners the earth was restored as a habitation to the remnant of the godly. But the other, the outer, arch of the rainbow, which has no clearly defined bounds, has the color of fire, of that element which will burn up the entire world. After this destruction a better world will come; it will endure forever and will serve the godly. God seems to have written these truths into the coloring of the rainbow.

(Subject: Worship)
5020 Relying on God Is Worshiping Him
The worship supreme and the one supremely necessary is to cling to the promise and the providence of God, who has pledged Himself to be our Father, and to look for and expect help from Him.

(Subject: Zeal)
5100 Ah, for the wasted zeal of the wicked
Christ makes a terrible statement when He says: "The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light" (Luke 16:8). The world is giving an obvious illustration by the way in which it carefully considers a matter in which it sees its advantage and begrudges no difficulty, no labor. How much difficulty, care, risk, and danger does a prowling thief experience? Neither by day nor by night does he have rest, and yet he loves that sort of life and does not tire of it. Thus a thief, a lover, an adulterer, one and all, lead a laborious life, use all sorts of tricks and schemes, and have an immeasurable amount of trouble before they have discharged their service to the devil. On the other hand, one sees that even the true Christians are idle, disgusted, careless, and lazy in the affairs of God. They do not want to suffer for His sake. Whereas the world goes to such painful expense to go to hell and suffers everything for the sake of the devil, our Lord God must drag and pull Christians by the hair, as it were, before they do what they ought to do.