C.H. Spurgeon Quotes

We feel these bodies to be real when we have pain in them, and this world to be real when we are weighted with its crosses: yet the body is a poor tent, and the world a mere bubble. AP54 Children are said to be guilty of trifling! Are not ye also triflers? If it comes to an examination upon the matter of trifling, who are the greatest triflers, children or full-grown men and women? What is greater trifling than for a man to live for the enjoyment of sensual pleasures, or for a woman to live to dress herself and waste her time in company? Nay, more, what is the accumulation of wealth for the sake of it but miserable trifling? Child’s play without the amusement! Most men are triflers on a larger scale than children, and that is the main difference. CC46 All that Nature spins time will unravel, to the eternal confusion of all who are clothed therein. ME288 Set not your affections upon things of earth; set your whole heart upon things above, for here the rust corrupteth, and the moth devoureth, and the thief breaketh through, but there all joys are perpetual and eternal. What is there here after all but cloud-land? Why seek we to be lords of acres of mere mist? What are earth’s treasures but vapour; will you heap up for yourself haze and fog? Cloud and mist will pass away, and if these be your riches, how poverty-stricken will you be when you can carry none of these airy riches into the land of solid wealth. 647.484 As the pendulum of yonder clock continues unceasingly to beat like the heart of time, as morning dawn gives place to evening shade, and the seasons follow in constant cycle, we are drifted along the river of time nearer to the ocean of eternity. 896.581 O blind world, if thou wert wise, thou wouldst amend thy line of action, and begin to think of the hereafter too; for, brethren, the hereafter will soon be here. 1364.402 To be prepared to die is to be prepared to live; to be ready for eternity is in the best sense to be ready for time. Who is so fit to live on earth as the man who is fit to live in heaven? 1373.512 That only is worth my having which I can have for ever. That only is worth my grasping which death cannot tear out of my hand. 1740.509 Earthworms as they are, the earth contents them. If any man becomes unworldly, and makes spiritual things his one object, they despise him as a dreamy enthusiast. Many men think that the things of religion are merely meant to be read of, and to be preached about; but that to live for them would be to spend a dreamy, unpractical existence. Yet the spiritual, is after all, the only real: the material is in deepest truth the visionary and unsubstantial. Unless the Lord renews the heart, men will always prefer the bird-in-the-hand of this life to the bird-in-the-bush of the life to come. 2047.558 Are we not to leave the future as we leave the present, in the hand of God? And will not all be well? The Lord did very well without us before we were born, and he will do very well without us after we are dead. I will not say that he will not notice our departure, for he notices everything; but it will be an almost inconsiderable item in the innumerable details of his universal government. 2462.201 I have come to reckon that nothing is worth seeking after but that which will survive the tomb. 2917.16 We cling with dreadful tenacity to this poor life, and the little which we foolishly call our all. It were well if we could cling with such fast hold to the life that is to come, for that alone is worth clinging to, since it is for ever, whereas this is to be but for a little time even at the longest. 3021.16 Brethren and sisters, let us hold very loosely everything here, but let us get a very firm grip of everything that is to be hereafter. 3032.153 This life is made up of shadows: substance lies elsewhere. 3321.466 Have you never heard the story of Archæus, the Grecian despot, who was going to a feast, and on the way a messenger brought him a letter, and seriously importuned him to read it? It contained tidings of a conspiracy that had been formed against him, that he should be killed at the feast. He took the letter, and put it into his pocket. In vain the messenger urged that it was concerning serious matters. “Serious matters to-morrow,” said Archæus, “feasting to-night.” That night the dagger reached his heart while he had about him the warning which, had he heeded it, would have averted the peril. Alas! too many men say, “Serious things to-morrow!” 3538.547