We have lived long enough to experience the hollowness of earth and the rottenness of all carnal promises.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the emptiness of earthly desires and the futility of worldly promises.
Charles Spurgeon's quote highlights a profound realization often encountered in life: the transient nature of material pursuits and promises tied to the physical world. Through experience, one comes to understand that these earthly ambitions often lead to a sense of hollowness, urging a reassessment of what truly holds value in life beyond the superficial allure of carnal desires.
In practice
In a discussion about the materialism of modern society, you might share this quote to emphasize a deeper perspective.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
Everything that everyone is afraid of has already happened: The fragility of capitalism, which we don't want to admit; the loss of the empire of the United States; and American exceptionalism. In fact, American exceptionalism is that we are exceptionally backward in about fifteen different categories, from education to infrastructure.
Nothing can be sadder or more profound than to see a thousand things for the first and last time.
Those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy - the most sublime and benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man - endeavored to crush your well-earned & well-deserved fame.
Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is with-held, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.
There is the mind itself. It is like a smooth lake which when struck, say by a stone, vibrates. The vibrations gather together and react on the stone, and all through the lake they will spread and be felt. The mind is like the lake; it is constantly being set in vibrations, which leave an impression on the mind; and the idea of the Ego, or personal self, the "I", is the result of these impressions. This "I" therefore is only the very rapid transmission of force and is in itself no reality.
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