If you meet with a system of theology which magnifies man, flee from it as far as you can.
Interpretation
Beware of ideologies that elevate human beings above their rightful place.
This quote by Charles Spurgeon warns against theological systems that inflate human importance, implying that such beliefs can lead individuals away from a true understanding of their relationship with the divine. It suggests that elevating man above God distorts spiritual truths and can ultimately be detrimental to one's faith and understanding of purpose.
In practice
During a sermon on the importance of divine humility, you might quote this to emphasize reliance on God.
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.
One should see the world, and see himself as a scale with an equal balance of good and evil. When he does one good deed the scale is tipped to the good - he and the world is saved. When he does one evil deed the scale is tipped to the bad - he and the world is destroyed.
The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.
Soul of all souls, life of all life - you are That. _x000D_ Seen and unseen, moving and unmoving - you are That. _x000D_ The road that leads to the City is endless; _x000D_ Go without head and feet _x000D_ and you'll already be there. _x000D_ What else could you be? - you are That.
We have been telling and hearing and reading war stories for millennia. Their endurance may lie in their impossibility; they can never be complete, for the tensions and the contradictions within them will never be eliminated or resolved. That challenge is essential to their power and their attraction. War stories matter.
Freedom exists only with power.
Mistrust those in whom the urge to punish is strong.
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