James Ebenezer Boon

“ Sin was the only one fact that concerned Christ. Nothing else mattered with Christ so long as sinful men and sinful women were put right with God. Christ met sin, battled with it, and destroyed it. This was His mission, and He fulfilled it. At the world's price He could have, ruled the world and been crowned King. But this Man who was called Jesus—God Himself, manifest in the flesh—chose rather to sit with a woman by the well who was hungering and thirsting for better things; chose rather to meet men like Nicodemus by night, that He might explain the mysteries of His Kingdom ”

“ But Christ, a mere fact in history, is not enough. It is true that Christ lived: it is no less true that Christ died; and it is just as true that Christ rose from the dead. If Christ did not rise from the dead, then my text is useless and worthless; and well might the great Apostle write: "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain." Christ is more than a fact in history; Christ is a fact of eternity. ”

“ He is "a" leper, and the cry should go up "Unclean, unclean," and nobler men should shun that man as they shun the plague itself. We do not live to-day in the poisonous atmosphere of a cold and naked atheism; we live in an age when all right-minded men and women are open to conviction and reason. People are seeking the truth to-day as they never sought it before. ”

“ It is quite true that we are all sinners, but the great truth about sin tends to be lost in this vague generality. It is not, enough to tell men that they are sinners; men need to be taught that, and taught what sin is. Sin is not confined to wrong actions sin lies much deeper than that. Sin is bad thoughts, wrong desires, and evil inclinations. This was the high plane of Christ's teaching all through, not only that lusting was sin, but that the look was sin none the less. ”

“ An old man was one day asked if he knew So-and-so. "Knew him?" he queried in his reply, "why, I slept in the same church with him for 20 years." Let the story be taken for what it is worth. We can, with all truth, say this, that men to-day do not go to church to sleep. If they go at all, they go desiring something, and expecting something. Dull platitudes from the pulpit will neither draw men nor keep men in. The modern mind craves for great things, not petty piffles. In a word, men want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. ”

“ There is a right way and a wrong way to read the Bible; and the whole volume is a closed book to the man who has not got the key.
It matters little to me whether God made the world in six days or six thousand years: all the lesson that I get from the creation story is this: that God made the world. That God made the world is more likely to be true than untrue. In any case, the world never made itself; and until someone can prove to me that this is not so, I hold to what the Bible says, that in the beginning God made the world and all the world contains. ”

“ First of all, the fact of God. Note this, the Bible never seeks to prove the existence of God. Written for man, it takes it for granted that man believes that already. It does not follow that just because our churches are to a large extent more than half empty that men deny God's existence. I have neither the time nor the patience to discuss this subject with the man who bluntly and baldly tells me that there is no God. The man who denies God's existence is an absolute outsider, and should be treated as such. A man like that is not only a danger to himself ”

“ And if these things be so, it all amounts to this, that men could commit murder before they rise from their beds in the morning, or cut the throat of a neighbour when they are lacing their own boots. Christ went to the root of the matter—it was the heart; and He ever sought to get the heart of man right. ”

“ Christ as a fact in history no one outside an asylum for the insane will deny. Men have denied God's existence who have accepted the fact of the historical Christ. They may have accepted the fact because they had to ”

“ As far as the flood is concerned, I do not trouble about the rain. If a man is drowned, it is of little moment to the man whether he is drowned in fresh water, salt water, buttermilk, or in a vat of beer. ”

“ And the lesson that I get from Jonah simply lies along this line, that Jonah brought a punishment upon himself for his own disobedience and very wilful wrongdoing.
I sometimes think that Old Testament reading is too strong for some people—that it hits too hard; and these deluded people think they can get rid of the whole thing by simply saying "Go!" ”