To me the Bible is not God, but it is God's voice, and I do not hear it without awe
Interpretation
The Bible is a profound expression of God's thoughts, evoking respect and reverence.
In this quote, Charles Spurgeon emphasizes the distinction between the Bible as a text and God as an entity. He expresses that while the Bible is ultimately a representation of God's voice, it is not to be equated with God Himself. The awe he feels when engaging with the scripture reflects the deep respect afforded to divine teachings, highlighting the transformative power of words in connecting humanity to the divine.
In practice
In a sermon, one might say, 'As Spurgeon said, to engage with the Bible is to hear God's voice with reverence.'
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.
I cannot agree with those who think of the Bill of Rights as an 18th century straitjacket, unsuited for this age...The evils it guards against are not only old, they are with us now, they exist today.
God! how is it that we fail to recognize that the mask of pleasure, stripped of all hypocrisy, is that of anguish?
The Contessa was surely way ahead of her time, too, in believing that men were not only usless and idiotic, but downright dangerous. That idea wouldn't catch on big in her native country until the last three years of the Vietnam War.
If we should ever get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being black, or for being slaves.
What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
An individual, in promoting his own interest, may injure the public interest; a nation, in promoting the general welfare, may check the interest of a part of its members.
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