A man who fears not God, will break all his laws with an easy conscience, but one who is the favorite of heaven, who has been indulged to sit at royal banquets, who knows the eternal love of God to him, cannot bear that there should be any evil way in him that might grieve the Spirit and bring dishonor to the name of Christ. A very little sin, as the world calls it, is a very great sin to a truly awakened Christian.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of a moral compass guided by faith, suggesting that true believers are deeply aware of their actions and their impact on their relationship with God.
In this quote, Charles Spurgeon contrasts the behavior of those who do not fear God with that of true Christians who understand and cherish their relationship with the divine. He asserts that while those without reverence may easily disregard laws and moral standards, those who recognize God's love and their standing with Him are acutely sensitive to even minor transgressions. For these individuals, any action that could potentially offend God or damage their spiritual integrity is deeply concerning, highlighting the profound impact of faith on moral behavior.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a sermon to emphasize the importance of living a morally aware life.
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.
If we seek the Buddha outside the mind, the Buddha changes into a devil.
But her's was the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair moon, for a while hides, but cannot tarnish its brightness.
The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.
Cure yourself of the inclination to bother about how you look to other people. Be concerned only . . . with the idea God has of you.
It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.
All along we find that social life - religion, politics, art - reflects the stages reached in the development of the knowledge of self; it shows the social uses made of this knowledge.
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