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.
Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives not by truth but by make-believe.
Beauty, like ice, our footing does betray; Who can tread sure on the smooth, slippery way: Pleased with the surface, we glide swiftly on, And see the dangers that we cannot shun.
I decided, if I'm going to be poor and black and all, the least thing I'm going to do is to try and find out who I am. I created everything about me.
It's all real in Outside, everything there is, because I saw an airplane in the blue between the clouds. Ma and me can't go there because we don't know the secret code, but it's real all the same. Before I didn't know to be mad that we can't open Door, my head was too small to have Outside in it.
The human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. What's left of kisses? Wounds, however, leave scars.
The older I get, the more I believe in what I can't explain or understand, even more than the things that are explainable and understandable.
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