In proportion as a church is holy, in that proportion will its testimony for Christ be powerful.
Interpretation
A church's holiness directly influences its ability to testify for Christ effectively.
This quote by Charles Spurgeon emphasizes the relationship between the holiness of a church and its effectiveness in spreading the message of Christ. It suggests that the more spiritually pure and committed a congregation is to its values and teachings, the more impactful its witness will be to others, highlighting the importance of integrity and faithfulness in religious testimony.
In practice
In a sermon discussing the role of churches in the community.
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.
It takes time to live. Like any work of art, life needs to be thought about.
For the butterfly, mating and propagation involve the sacrifice of life, for the human being, the sacrifice of beauty.
Americans have always been able to handle austerity and even adversity. Prosperity is what is doing us in.
Each one of us, as long as life stirs is us, may play a part in extricating ourselves from the power system by asserting our primacy as people in quiet acts of mental or physical withdrawal-in gestures of non-conformity, in abstentions, restrictions, inhibitions, which will liberate us from the domination of the pentagon of power.
In the world today, we humans have become more self-absorbed, more tribal and tenacious in holding on to our narrow agendas; we have become consumed by the barrage of information inundating us; we are even more fickle when it comes to leaders.
Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.
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