A. C. Dixon Quotes on the Cross, Prayer, Money and the Bible
A. C. Dixon (1854–1925) preached in Baltimore, Brooklyn, Boston, the Moody Church in Chicago and Spurgeon's Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. He had a gift for the short, sharp sentence that sticks: a line on the cross, on money, on prayer, that a hearer could carry home. Many of his sermons turn on a single phrase like that.
Every quotation below is copied exactly from his books in TheWay Library, with the book and sermon it comes from, so you can read each line in its setting. We've left out the many lines he quotes from other people; these are his own words. For his life, see who was A. C. Dixon, and for a guide to the books, see A. C. Dixon books.
On the new birth
Dixon's first sermon in Milk and Meat is on Jesus' words to Nicodemus, "Ye must be born again." He came back to the subject all his life.
A man may be all right with his fellows, and all wrong with God.
Milk and Meat, The New Birth
There is no possibility of salvation without our first getting right with God.
Milk and Meat, The New Birth
The new birth is the imparting of the Christly nature to the human soul, and is brought about by the Holy Spirit.
Milk and Meat, The New Birth
Every member of the church ought to be like a pole uplifting Christ, and asking men to look and live.
Milk and Meat, The New Birth
On the cross
He had no patience with a Christianity that honored Jesus' life and ignored His death.
Calvary is the alphabet of Christianity. We must start at the cross, if we would reach the crown.
Milk and Meat, The Way and Work of Life
Grasping for the crown, while we ignore the cross, is a sort of pious theft.
Milk and Meat, The Way and Work of Life
God does not love us because Christ died; Christ died because God loved.
Present Day Life and Religion, Ethics of the Atonement
The death of Jesus is truly the death of death.
Milk and Meat, Voices from Calvary
On Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ is God brought down to our level — God made thinkable, put within the compass of our highest thought.
Milk and Meat, God's Ideal of Character
Jesus was not Jew enough for the Jew, nor Roman enough for the Roman, nor Grecian enough for the Greek.
The True and the False, Jesus as a Witness
No testimony can be stronger than the favorable testimony of an enemy.
The True and the False, The Enemy as a Witness
On the Holy Spirit
Dixon lived when cities were being wired for electricity, and he liked to borrow its pictures for the Spirit's power.
The Holy Spirit is the dynamo which furnishes all the power we need through the wires of faith and consecration.
The Young Convert's Problems and Their Solution, The Holy Spirit
The Spirit-filled man, however, is a fountain of blessing to others.
The Young Convert's Problems and Their Solution, The Holy Spirit
We are saved by faith in Christ; we are made powerful by faith in the Spirit.
Milk and Meat, Chariots and Mantles
On prayer
Character reaches out and touches those near us; prayer reaches out and touches all the world in the sweep of its power.
Milk and Meat, Dew and Lion
Pray for yourself until the new life is infused; and when that new life comes, it will lead you to pray for others.
Milk and Meat, The Revival We Need
God would have us to be definite in our praying, but definiteness does not demand length.
The Young Convert's Problems and Their Solution, Prayer
Many prayers are powerless, because they do not praise God for what He has already done.
The Young Convert's Problems and Their Solution, Prayer
On faith and the Bible
Dixon once found his assurance shaken by his feelings. He learned to rest it on what God had said.
I think I have eternal life, not because I feel so and so, but because God says so.
The Young Convert's Problems and Their Solution, The Bible
Other books give training in music, rhetoric, oratory, but the specialty of the Bible is training in righteousness.
The Young Convert's Problems and Their Solution, The Bible
The Bible discovers the black and makes it white.
The Young Convert's Problems and Their Solution, The Bible
The Bible is the sun in the heavens, around which all other good books are but planets.
Present Day Life and Religion, Ethics of Novel Reading
Yet much of our time is spent in trying to hitch our little strength to the omnipotence of God.
Milk and Meat, Comfort for the Weak
Great faith prizes spiritual above temporal blessings, and has the secret by which the temporal is transmuted into the eternal.
Milk and Meat, A Growing Faith
When all things seem to be against us, remember that God is for us, and He never ceases to be master of the situation.
Milk and Meat, The Unfailing Barrel and Cruse
On money and work
A city pastor, Dixon preached often about money: how to earn it, how to keep it from ruling you, and how to give it.
Money is one of our best friends and worst enemies. The love of it is the root of all evil; the use of it the root of all good.
The Young Convert's Problems and Their Solution, Money
When the rule of gold displaces the Golden Rule there is always loss.
Present Day Life and Religion, Ethics of Business
In supporting your family you may be serving God as truly as if you were preaching in a pulpit.
Milk and Meat, Treasures in Heaven
If we give expecting nothing in return, God will make an abundant return.
Milk and Meat, The Blessedness of Giving
On pleasure and joy
Amusement is the dash of the spray, the sparkle on the surface; joy is the flow of the deep current in the soul.
The Young Convert's Problems and Their Solution, Amusements
It is better to have one hour of the pure joy Christ gives than years of the pleasures of sin.
Milk and Meat, Shadow and Substance
You will then learn that even self-denial with His approval gives more pleasure than any sort of indulgence without His approval.
Present Day Life and Religion, Ethics of Amusements
On the church and the city
Last, a few lines from his sermons on the church and the American city.
While we hate sin we should love sinners, and nothing in the church of Christ can take the place of love.
Lights and Shadows of American Life, Our Churches
Every city is a great heart, throbbing with life and sending out good blood or bad through its thousand arteries of activity.
Lights and Shadows of American Life, Our Cities
We need a revival of seven days' religion, not less of Sunday worship, but more of week-day work for Christ.
Lights and Shadows of American Life, Our Cities
To-morrow is Satan's time. Now is God's time.
The True and the False, What Shall I Do with Jesus?
Where to read more Dixon
These lines come from all five of his books in TheWay Library. For one book to start with, try The Young Convert's Problems and Their Solution, his short handbook for new believers. To hear him preach, read Milk and Meat. All his books are on the A. C. Dixon author page.