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Why, look at that swine yonder!
Spurgeon, "Plain Words with the Careless"
There is a joy to be found in knowing Christ
which cannot be found in all this round world,
though you search it through and through.
Jesus Christ is so precious, that if men did
but know him, they must love him.
Unbeliever, you can no more judge of spiritual
delights, than a horse in a field can judge of
the thoughts of the mathematician or the
astronomer.
Worldly man, those joys of yours which
you are so afraid of losing, they are but
bubbles, and they will burst sooner or later.
They are mere child's toys, and you break
them and are done with them.
You yourself will soon be where no more
bubbles are blown, and no more toys made
to play with. Do not, therefore, make so
much noise about your present joys- there
is nothing in them.
Sirs, you might throw your joys to the dogs,
and they would refuse them! For the joys
that a man can know apart from Christ, are
unworthy of an immortal being- they are
unsatisfactory, delusive, and destructive.
Why, look at that swine yonder, wallowing in
the mire: a miracle transforms it into an angel.
Has not that angel liberty to go and wallow in
the same filth as before? Certainly he has, but
does he ever use it? No, it is contrary to his
seraphic nature to be found reveling in mire!
So will it be with you, if you become converted.
You will not care for those things which are now
your delight, but, being made free from sin, you
will count it foul scorn to serve it any longer.
You who want to have true happiness, a
happiness to rise up and to sleep with, a
happiness to live with and to die with-
not the happiness of those silly butterflies
that fly from flower to flower, and are never
content except they are in the theater or the
ball-room, but the happiness of a man that
is worth calling a man- I tell you such solid
happiness is to be found only in vital godliness.
If you come to the cross, you shall find it true
that Christianity never was designed to make
our pleasures less. It multiplies our truest and
purest pleasures a thousand-fold.
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