The revealed Word awakened me, but it was the preached Word that saved me, and I must ever attach peculiar value to the hearing of the truth, for by it I received the joy and peace in which my soul delights.
Interpretation
The preached Word brings salvation and provides deep joy and peace to the soul.
In this quote, Charles Spurgeon emphasizes the transformative power of religious teachings. He suggests that while personal revelation is important for awakening one's spirit, it is the hearing of preached truth that truly brings salvation and profound inner happiness. For Spurgeon, valuing the preached Word is essential as it connects individuals to the joy and peace that enrich their lives.
In practice
In a sermon about the importance of scripture, one might use this quote to illustrate the significance of listening to God's Word.
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.
We can learn much from wise words, little from wisecracks, and less from wise guys.
We should cultivate the optimistic temperament, and endeavour to see the good that dwells in everything. If we sit down and lament over the imperfection of our bodies and our minds, we profit nothing; it is the heroic endeavour to subdue adverse circumstances that carries our spirit upward.
If I had lost a leg, I would tell them, instead of a boy, no one would ever ask me if I was 'over it'. They would ask me how I was doing learning to walk without my leg. I was learning to walk and to breathe and to live without Wade. And what I was learning is that it was never going to be the life I had before.
When we're awake in our bodies and sense, the world comes alive. Wisdom, creativity, and love are discovered as we relax and awaken through our bodies.
You can stay angry at someone who hurt you. Or you can get busy doing your visions and changing our world. But you don't get to do both.
As a reader and a writer, I'm happiest when apparently mutually exclusive states can somehow coexist.
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