The greatest enemy to human souls is the self-righteous spirit which makes men look to themselves for salvation.
Interpretation
The quote warns against the danger of self-righteousness, suggesting that relying on one's own virtue can hinder true salvation.
In this quote, Charles Spurgeon emphasizes that the greatest barrier to spiritual well-being and salvation is the belief that one can achieve righteousness through their own efforts and moral superiority. This self-righteous attitude can blind individuals to their need for grace and prevent them from seeking true redemption outside of themselves.
In practice
This quote could be used in a sermon about humility in the face of one's own shortcomings.
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'm like a book you have to read. A book can't read itself to you. It doesn't even know what it's about. I don't know what I'm about.
Let each one of us say, 'I am an American. I intend to stay an American. I will do my best to wipe from my heart hate, rancor and political prejudice. I will sustain my government. And, through good days or bad, I will try to serve my country.'
We live now in an era where normal values have been displaced. The good is called bad, the bad - good.
People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they don't want it.
A man asked Muhammad what was the mark whereby he might know the reality of his faith. Muhammad said, 'If thou derive pleasure from the good which thou hast performed and thou be grieved for the evil which thou hast committed, thou art a true believer.' The man said. 'In what doth a fault really consist' Muhammad said, 'when action pricketh thy conscience, forsake it.'
Hypocrisy is wretched because the hypocrite says with his tongue what is not in his heart. He wrongs his tongue and oppresses his heart. But if the heart is sound, the condition of the tongue follows suit. We are commanded to be upright in speech, which is a gauge of the heart's state.
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