Extol is my favorite metal band. This song is their newest release, an extra track from the Extol Deluxe Edition available now on iTunes. Enjoy!

“Note that we began, not with moral problems and ethical dilemmas; we began with prayer. . . . We are a people whose moral lives are shaped liturgically. Our ethics is a by-product of our worship” (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord’s Prayer and the Christian Life, 47).

“Read [the Bible] with the prayer that the Holy Spirit’s grace will help you understand it” (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 57).

“The Bible is God’s merciful provision for sinful man’s soul, the map by which he must steer his course if he would attain eternal life. . . . Young men, I charge you to make a habit of reading the Bible, and not to let the habit be broken” (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 56).

“We have no idea of how to live until we first know who God is. So when we say that God’s name is holy, that tells us how we ought to live. Knowing the Creator tells us where the creation is meant to move” (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord’s Prayer and the Christian Life, 46).

“Difficulties which seem like mountains shall melt away like snow in spring. Obstacles which seemed like giants in the distance, will dwindle into nothing when you actually face them. The lion that blocks the way that you are traveling and causes you great fear, will prove to be chained and unable to harm you. If men believed the promises more, they would never be afraid of their assigned duties [underline added, CCS]” (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 55).

Ahab has just gone postal on his quadrant and declared a “curse” against “Science.” The following is Starbuck’s musing, addressed to Stubb, regarding Ahab’s tumultuous way: “I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life of thine, what will at length remain but one little heap of ashes!” (Herman Melville, Moby Dick, 493)

“Jesus’ famous statement in John 4:23 that the Father seeks worshippers is unparalleled, for nowhere in the entire corpus of Holy Scripture do we read of God’s seeking anything else from a child of God. God desires worship above all else. . . . A look at the massive emphasis in the Old Testament reveals God’s mind on worship’s priority. Exodus devotes twenty-five chapters to the construction of the Tabernacle, the locus of divine worship. Leviticus amounts to a twenty-seven chapter liturgical manual. And the Psalms are a spectacular 150-chapter worship hymnal. Divine worship has always been the occupation and sustenance, the priority, of the believing soul” (R. Kent Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man, 111).

“God is no hard master. He will not, like Pharaoh, require you to make bricks without straw. He will make sure that the path He requires us to walk is never an impossible road. He never gave commands to man which He would not give man the power to perform” (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 54).

“The world is only too ready to wink at youthful sins. The world appears to think it is a matter of course that young men must “sow their wild oats.” The world seems to take it for granted that young people must be irreligious, and that it is not possible for them to follow Christ. Young men, I ask you this simple question–Where will you find anything of this in the Word of God? Where is the chapter or verse in the Bible which will support this talking and reasoning of the world? (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 52-53).