If you will not have death unto sin, you shall have sin unto death. There is no alternative. If you do not die to sin, you shall die for sin. If you do not slay sin, sin will slay you.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the necessity of overcoming sin to avoid spiritual death.
Charles Spurgeon's quote presents a stark dichotomy between life and death in relation to sin. It suggests that one must actively confront and overcome sin in their life; failing to do so will lead not only to spiritual decay but ultimately to despair and destruction. The imagery of dying to sin represents a transformative process where one chooses to renounce wrongdoing, while the assertion that sin will slay you highlights the perils of allowing sin to dominate one's life. Thus, the quote serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of moral vigilance and self-discipline in the pursuit of a virtuous life.
In practice
In a sermon about personal growth, one might use this quote to illustrate the necessity of overcoming sinful habits.
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 Hindu religions gave me the impression of a vast well into which one plunges in order to grasp the reflection of the sun.
Does that not sound odd to you? When God decides who should live or die, he is immoral, When you decide who should live or die, it's your moral right. There was a pin-drop silence.
Pay no heed to those who tell you that they have relinquished place and power of their own accord, and from their love of quiet. For almost always they have been brought to this retirement by their insufficiency and against their will.
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
I was just a screw or cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else.
What is that which can never die It is that faithful force that is born into us that one that is greater than us that calls new seed to the open and battered and barren places so that we can be resown. It is this force in its insistence in its loyalty to us in its love of us in its most often mysterious ways that is far greater far more majestic and far more ancient than any heretofore ever known.
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