"He who has an ear, let him hear...."

"He who has an ear, let him hear....."

Sunday morning in teaching Revelation 2 and 3 containing Jesus' words to the seven churches of Asia minor, I came across this quote by H.W. Beecher that thoroughly explained what is it for someone to NOT have an ear to hear what Christ is saying to him.

"The churches of the land are sprinkled all over with bald-headed old sinners whose hair has been worn off by the constant friction of countless sermons that have been aimed at them and glanced off and hit the man in the pew behind." (H.W. Beecher)

Ouch! That one stung a little. LOL!!

I also used two from Spurgeon (David Guzik throws out a lot of quotes in his commentaries and that's where I usually find them).

I thought these were good:

In reference to Jesus praising the "labor" of the church at Ephesus, Spurgeon had this to say. "There are also working Christians who do not [come close] to laboring; yet a lifetime of such work as theirs would not exhaust a butterfly. Now when a man works for Christ he should work with all his might."

And this one, if reference to Jesus' praising their ability to discern false teachers, Spurgeon says this. "This was grand of them: it showed a backbone of truth. I wish some of the churches of this age had a little of this holy decision about them; for nowadays, if a man be clever; he may preach the vilest lie that was every vomited from the mouth of hell and some will and some will [accept it as truth]."

Do any of you all use quotes when teaching or preaching?