Oh, Brethren, it is sickening work to think of your cushioned seats, your chants, your anthems, your choirs, your organs, your gowns, and your bands, and I know not what besides, all made to be instruments of religious luxury, if not of pious dissipation, while ye need far more to be stirred up and incited to holy ardor for the propagation of the truth as it is in Jesus.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes superficial displays of worship that distract from genuine spiritual zeal and commitment to spreading truth.
Charles Spurgeon expresses his disdain for the ornate and comfortable aspects of religious worship that have become more about luxury and spectacle than about true devotion and fervor for spreading the teachings of Jesus. He suggests that instead of being comfortable and passive in their worship, believers should be stirred to action and passionately promote the truth of their faith.
In practice
During a sermon, a pastor might use this quote to challenge the congregation to reflect on the sincerity of their worship practices.
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 fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian makes me a different kind of woman.
When man is with God in awe and love, then he is praying.
Our God listens to us. Our God is a living God. He's not a block of wood you made up that's not going to answer you. My God listens to me. He answers me.
For every Christian, the proclamation and witnessing of the Gospel are never an isolated act. This is important. For every Christian the proclamation and witnessing of the Gospel are never an isolated or group act, and no evangelizers acts, as Paul VI reminded very well, "on the strength of a personal inspiration, but in union with the mission of the Church and in her name"
Meditating on the nature and dignity of prayer can cause saying at least one thing to God: Lord, teach us to pray!
You could remove the powerful preaching from our church and it would still continue. You could remove the administration of pastoral care through the cell group system and the church would still continue. But if you remove the prayer life of our church it would collapse.
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