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Crimson hieroglyphics?
The following is from Spurgeon’s sermon,
"A WARNING AGAINST HARDNESS OF HEART"
It is a grievous token of hardness of heart
when we can live contentedly without the
present enjoyment of the Savior’s face.
There is no doubt whatever that living among
sinners has a hardening tendency even upon
Christian men. You cannot walk about in this
great lazar-house, without receiving some contagion.
Though you were pure in heart, the prince of this
world would make you his prey. It were hard to
dwell in so foul a world as this without contracting
some impurity. Those black coals which fill this
earthly cellar, if they will not burn us, will at least
blacken us. When so many fires of sin are pouring
forth their smoke, the whitest of linen cannot
escape the falling black soot.
If “the thought of foolishness is sin,” then even
to think of sin exercises a polluting influence.
Can I read a description of another man’s sin
without getting my heart hardened? I question
if reading the daily reports of crime in the police
news is not a very fertile cause of sin. Great
crimes usually produce their like in congenial
winds, and even in the purest hearts their
recital cannot but have an injurious effect.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil bears
dangerous fruit; it were well if we restrained
our curiosity, and left foul deeds alone, unknown,
unread by us. What good can come from turning
over the foul dunghill of crime? Let those traverse
our sewers whose business it is to do so; were it
not better for the most of us to keep out of them.
Those who are called in providence to deal daily
with the coarser sins had need to set a special
watch over themselves lest they fall by little and little.
He who handles sharp-edged tools, is apt to cut his
fingers, and none the less so because the knife is
made of the best steel. Let us walk warily among
men, like a man with naked feet when going over
thorny ground, lest our hurt be grievous.
I daily feel that the atmosphere of earth has as
much a tendency to harden my heart, as to harden
plaster which is newly spread upon the wall; and
unless I am baptized anew with the Spirit of God,
and constantly stand at the foot of the cross,
reading the curse of sin in the crimson hieroglyphics
of my Savior’s dying agonies, I shall become as
steeled and insensible as the mass of professors
already are.
Shame on us, that any of us should be guilty
of such tampering with that accursed thing
which slew the Lord of glory.
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