Oh, Brethren, it is sickening work to think of your cushioned seats, your chants, your anthems, your choirs, your organs, your gowns, and your bands, and I know not what besides, all made to be instruments of religious luxury, if not of pious dissipation, while ye need far more to be stirred up and incited to holy ardor for the propagation of the truth as it is in Jesus.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes superficial displays of worship that distract from genuine spiritual zeal and commitment to spreading truth.
Charles Spurgeon expresses his disdain for the ornate and comfortable aspects of religious worship that have become more about luxury and spectacle than about true devotion and fervor for spreading the teachings of Jesus. He suggests that instead of being comfortable and passive in their worship, believers should be stirred to action and passionately promote the truth of their faith.
In practice
During a sermon, a pastor might use this quote to challenge the congregation to reflect on the sincerity of their worship practices.
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.
Every Mass is a memorial of that one sacrifice and that passover which restored life to the world. Every Mass puts us into intimate communion with her, the mother, whose sacrifice 'becomes present' just as the sacrifice of her Son 'becomes present' at the words of consecration..... At the root of the Eucharist is the virginal and maternal life of Mary
Until we take seriously God's definition of the church and stop just 'having church,' we will not see transformation in our society.
The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance.
I am a Christian, not because someone explained the nuts and bolts of Christianity, but because there were people willing to be nuts and bolts.
The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life
Faith, and hope, and patience and all the strong, beautiful, vital forces of piety are withered and dead in a prayerless life. The life of the individual believer, his personal salvation, and personal Christian graces have their being, bloom, and fruitage in prayer.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.