Phil Ryken Demonstrates How to Improve a Quote

This past Sunday Phil Ryken preached a fabulous sermon on 1 Kings 14:1-20–the account of the death of Jeroboam’s son. One of Dr. Ryken’s points was that we can, even as Jeroboam, try to deceive God. Jeroboam used religion to try to pacify God so that He would spare his son. Jeroboam sent his wife in disguise to see the prophet Ahijah. But God had already revealed to Ahijah that Jeroboam’s wife was on the way. How foolish it is to try to deceive the living God. To emphasize this point, Dr. Ryken used the quote by Abraham Lincoln (I actually thought Bob Marley had come up with it. This shows how superficial my generation is!) “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.” In a brilliant theological fashion Phil added his contribution to this quote: “You can never fool God, and if you think you can you are only fooling yourself.” Generally it is better to leave quotes alone, but in this case Phil’s addition was truly a helpful contribution. Perhaps we should consider how we use quotes in a theologically acurate way more often. You can find this sermon here.

P.S. This happens to be one of the finest sermons I have heard Dr. Ryken preach. As far as interweaving exposition and application, together with Gospel focus, this is an exemplary model of preaching.