That very church which the world likes best is sure to be that which God abhors.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that the churches or ideologies that are most popular or appealing to people are often at odds with true spiritual values.
Charles Spurgeon's quote implies that the institutions or belief systems that gain widespread popularity may not align with divine principles. It reflects a critique of superficiality and the tendency for people to gravitate towards what is comfortable or socially accepted, rather than what is morally or spiritually sound. This suggests a caution against conforming to societal norms that may conflict with genuine faith.
In practice
In a sermon about authenticity in faith, this quote could serve as a reminder for congregants to seek genuine spiritual experiences.
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.
For the Deist ... prayer is calling across a void to a distant deity. This lofty figure may or may not be listening. He, or it, may or may not be inclined, or even able, to do very much about us and our world, even if he (or it) wanted to ... all you can do is send off a message, like a marooned sailor scribbling a note and putting it in a bottle, on the off-chance that someone out there might pick it up. That kind of prayer takes a good deal of faith and hope. But it isn't Christian prayer.
Public opinion is always more tyrannical towards those who obviously fear it than towards those who feel indifferent to it.
On the mountains there is freedom!_x000D_ The world is perfect everywhere,_x000D_ Save where man comes with his torment.
Food, one assumes, provides nourishment; but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction.
There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.
Above all, the state of grace is absolutely necessary at the moment of death; without it, salvation and supernatural happiness the beatific vision of God - are impossible.
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