It is a very solemn delusion when ministers think they are prospering, and yet do not hear of conversions.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of genuine spiritual growth over superficial success.
Charles Spurgeon highlights a critical perspective on ministry and spiritual leadership, suggesting that true progress is measured not by outward appearances or worldly achievements, but by the real transformations in people's lives. It serves as a caution against complacency and the false sense of success that can arise when the fruits of one’s labor—namely, conversions or real changes in faith—are absent.
In practice
This quote can be used in a sermon to remind ministers of the importance of focusing on true spiritual outcomes.
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 worldwide financial and economic crisis seems to highlight their distortions and above all the gravely deficient human perspective, which reduces man to one of his needs alone, namely, consumption. Worse yet, human beings themselves are nowadays considered as consumer goods which can be used and thrown away.
We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.
There is a foundation for our lives, a place in which our life rests. That place is nothing but the present moment, as we see, hear, experience what is. If we do not return to that place, we live our lives out of our heads. We blame others; we complain; we feel sorry for ourselves. All of these symptoms show that we're stuck in our thoughts. We're out of touch with the open space that is always right here.
Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It's the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me.
We stand on the threshold of a twilight-whether morning or evening we do not know. One is followed by the night, the other heralds the dawn.
I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents.
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