A church is a soul-saving company or it is nothing.
Interpretation
A church should primarily focus on its spiritual mission to save souls; otherwise, it serves no purpose.
In this quote, Charles Spurgeon emphasizes that the core mission of a church is to provide a space for spiritual growth and salvation. If a church fails to fulfill this fundamental role, it becomes irrelevant, highlighting the importance of purpose and service in religious institutions.
In practice
During a sermon, a pastor might refer to this quote to remind the congregation about their spiritual mission.
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.
Alone of all the races on earth, they seem to be free from the 'Grass is Greener on the other side of the fence' syndrome, and roundly proclaim that Australia is, in fact, the other side of that fence.
I suppose that every one of us hopes secretly for immortality; to leave, I mean, a name behind him which will live forever in this world, whatever he may be doing, himself, in the next.
Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.
Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.
One life is worth no more or less than any other
Wicked sons do not have the Holy Ghost in the same way as do beloved sons, and yet they do have Baptism. So, too, heretics do not have the Church as Catholics have, even though they have Baptism.
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