Spurgeon quote for the day! 8-14-10

“And He said, That which comes out of the man, that defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within and defile the man.” Mark 7:20-23.'

First, this morning, think, dear Brothers and Sisters, with deep self-abasement, of THE SWARM OF SINS. I seem to have broken open a wasp’s nest and the stinging creatures fly out in number, numberless! Here are 13 words, each one of them teeming with all manner of evils. Matthew, when he condenses the Savior’s utterances, mentions seven of these horrible things, one of which is omitted here, but Mark is more full in this instance and mentions 13 items of abomina- tion. I am struck with the legion of foul spirits which are here set free, as if the door of the Bottomless Pit had been opened! As armies of locusts, or as swarms of the flies of Egypt, so are sins! As the wilderness was full of fiery serpents and scorpions, so is this world full of iniquities. The very names of them are a pain to the ears! Let us bow our heads in sor- row as we read the muster-roll of this legion of terror—“Evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covet- ousness, wickednesses, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.” Now, notice first, that this awful catalog, this horrible list of the unclean birds that find a cage within the human heart, begins with things that are lightly regarded among men—“evil thoughts.” “We shall not be hanged for our thoughts,” cries one! I wish that such idle talkers would remember that they will be damned for their thoughts and that instead of evil thoughts being less sinful than evil acts, it may sometimes happen that in the thought, the man may be worse than in the deed! He may not be able to carry out all the mischief that lurks within his designs and yet, in forming the design, he may incur all the guilt! Thoughts are the eggs of words and actions—and within the thoughts lie com- pacted and condensed all the villainy of actual transgressions. If men did but more carefully watch their thoughts, they would not so readily fall into evil habits! Men first indulge the thought of evil and then the imagination of evil—but the process does not stop there. Picturing it before their mind’s eye, they excite their own desires after it—these grow into a thirst and kindle into a passion. Then the deed is speedily forthcoming—it was long in the hatching, but in a moment it comes forth to curse a whole lifetime!"

C.H. Spurgeon - "Hideous Discovery"