Joy, Heavenly and Earthly—Contrasted – Charles Spurgeon

WEIGH for one moment your so-called joy with ours, and put your peace as you conceive of peace into the scale against ours. Judge you now. Is your joy as pure? Has it no alloy? Are your cups without dregs, and your delights without bitterness? Is it as lasting as ours? Will it never be cut off? Does your sun never go down? Do your riches never take to themselves wings and fly away? Does no moth corrupt, no thief break through and steal? Is it as powerful to fill the heart at all times? Does it never pall? Are you never weary of your delights? Can you live upon them forever, and wish no higher good than to have them continued through eternity? Do your pleasures ennoble and exalt? Are you led by them ever higher and higher? Do they elevate you as a man, and develop every higher power and faculty of your being? Do they give you a power and a strength in the path of duty, and never lead astray to folly? Or are they prone to spread snares for your feet, and to beguile you into evil ways? Ponder these questions, and, if I mistake not, you will learn to despise your present state, and seek that joy and peace which come through believing in Jesus.