“The Psalms have a unique place in the Bible because while most of the Scripture speaks to us, the Psalms speak for us.” – Athanasius of Alexandria (296-373)
“[The] Psalms have always proved to be a great source of solace and encouragement to God’s people throughout the centuries—both the children of Israel and the members of the Christian Church... Here we are able to watch noble souls struggling with their problems and with themselves. They talk of themselves and to their souls, baring their hearts, analyzing their problems, chiding and encouraging themselves. Sometimes they are elated, at other times depressed, but they are always honest with themselves. That is why they are of such real value to us if we also are honest with ourselves.”
- D. Martyn Lloyd Jones (1899-1981), Spiritual Depression, 9
“The emperor Marcus Antoninus being in Germany with his army, was enclosed in a dry country by his enemies, who so stopped all the passages that he and his army were likely to perish for lack of water. The emperor's lieutenant seeing him so distressed, told him that he had heard that the Christians could obtain anything of their God by their prayers, whereupon the emperor, having a legion of Christians in his army, desired them to pray to their God for his and the army's delivery out of that danger, which they presently did, and presently a great thunder fell among the enemies, and abundance of water upon the Romans, whereby their thirst was quenched, and the enemies overthrown without any fight... Mary, Queen of Scots, was accustomed to say, ‘That she feared Knox's prayers more than an army of ten thousand men.’”
- Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, 194
“As Jesus, in whom God himself dwells, longed for fellowship which God because he had become a man as we (Luke 2:49), so he prays with us for the total nearness and presence of God with those who are his [John 17].”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Psalms: The Prayerbook of the Bible, 41-42
“A sleepy soul is already an ensnared soul. That soul that will not watch against temptations, will certainly fall before the power of temptations. Satan works most strongly on the imagination, when the soul is drowsy. The soul's slothfulness is Satan's opportunity to fall upon the soul and to destroy the soul, as Joshua did the men of Ai. The best way to be safe and secure from all Satan's assaults is, with Nehemiah and the Jews, to watch and pray, and pray and watch. By this means they became too hard for their enemies, and the work of the Lord did prosper sweetly in their hands.”
- Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, 246-247
“Shall Satan keep a crafty watch, and shall not Christians keep a holy spiritual watch? Our whole life is beset with temptations. Satan watches all opportunities to break our peace, to wound our consciences, to lessen our comforts, to impair our graces, to slur our evidences, and to dampen our assurances. Oh! what need then have we to be always upon our watch-tower, lest we be surprised by this subtle serpent. Watchfulness includes a waking, a rousing up of the soul. It is a continual, careful observing of our hearts and ways, in all the turnings of our lives—that we still keep close to God and his Word…. Remember the dragon is subtle, and bites the elephant's ear, and then sucks his blood, because he knows that to be the only place which the elephant cannot reach with his trunk to defend; so our enemies are so subtle, that they will bite us, and strike us where they may most mischief us, and therefore it does very much concern us, to stand always upon our guard.”
- Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, 247-248