The wounds of calumny, the reproaches of the proud, the venom of the bigoted, the treachery of the false, and the weakness of the true, we have known in our measure; and therein have had communion with our Lord Jesus.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the deep struggles and injustices faced by individuals and how these experiences can lead to a closer spiritual communion with Jesus.
Charles Spurgeon's quote speaks to the various adversities and injustices one might encounter in life, including slander, pride, bigotry, betrayal, and the shortcomings of others. Despite these weaknesses and challenges, he emphasizes that through such suffering, believers can find a sense of connection and communion with Jesus, suggesting that enduring hardships can deepen one's faith and understanding of divine love.
In practice
In a sermon about overcoming life’s challenges, one might reference this quote to illustrate finding strength through faith.
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.
On the spiritual theory, man consists essentially of a spiritual nature or mind intimately associated with a spiritual body or soul, both of which are developed in and by means of a material organism
Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.
The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.
Paris. Toulouse. Malmo. Copenhagen. Brussels. Berlin. For most people, they are lovely cities where you might happily take a holiday. But for the world's Jews, they are something else, too. They are place names of hate.
It is in vain to hope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or precaution, and it would be idle to object to a government because it could not perform impossibilities.
I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright.
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