What They Said

“How do your amusements influence your spiritual life? They may be very pleasing to you.  They may afford great gratification. But what is their effect on you, as a Christian? Are they hindering your love for Christ, and your growth in grace? We ought to be honest enough with ourselves, to answer these questions truthfully, and then act accordingly.”

J.R. Miller

"I think the man who above all others should be pitied is the man who has never learned how to amuse himself without mechanical assistance when he is alone."

J. Gresham Machen

"Luke tells us of another kind of weed, namely, "the pleasures of this life."I am sure that these thorns play a dreadful part nowadays. I have nothing to say against recreation in its proper place. Certain forms of recreation are needful and useful; but it is a wretched thing when amusement becomes a vocation. Amusement should be used to do us good "like a medicine"; it must never be used as the food of the individual. From early morning until late at night some spend their time in a round of frivolities, or else their very work is simply carried on to furnish them funds for their pleasures. This is vicious. Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure, so called, is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement. Everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle. In the more sober years of our fathers, men and women had something better to live for than silly sports. The thorns are choking the age."

Chalres Spurgeon

(Sermon #2040 - Sown Among Thorns)