The revealed Word awakened me, but it was the preached Word that saved me, and I must ever attach peculiar value to the hearing of the truth, for by it I received the joy and peace in which my soul delights.
Interpretation
The preached Word brings salvation and provides deep joy and peace to the soul.
In this quote, Charles Spurgeon emphasizes the transformative power of religious teachings. He suggests that while personal revelation is important for awakening one's spirit, it is the hearing of preached truth that truly brings salvation and profound inner happiness. For Spurgeon, valuing the preached Word is essential as it connects individuals to the joy and peace that enrich their lives.
In practice
In a sermon about the importance of scripture, one might use this quote to illustrate the significance of listening to God's Word.
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.
The intellect of two thousand asses cannot bring forth a single man's thought.
Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.
For a stalk to grow or a flower to open there must be time that cannot be forced; nine months must go by for the birth of a human child; to write a book or compose music often years must be dedicated to patient research ...To find the mystery there must be patience, interior purification, silence, waiting.
We all carry it within us: supreme strength, the fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted, and cannot be destroyed.
Given a thimbleful of [dramatic] facts we rush to make generalizations as large as a tub.
I often think I can see it in myself and in other young writers, this desperate desire to please coupled with a kind of hostility to the reader.
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