“We are great fools when we think that we can find pleasure in sin, or profit in rebellion. We are great fools when we displease our God,—when our best Friend, on whom our eternal future depends, is despised, neglected, and even rejected and hated by us. It is the extreme of folly when a man loses the good will of one who can help him,—when he rejects the love of a tender mother, and the counsel of a wise father. Some men seem resolved to make their enemies their friends, and their friends their enemies. They put darkness for light, and light for darkness. They go to find the living among the dead, and true helpers among those who pander to their sin. Such fools have you and I been. Peradventure, some here are such fools now.

I call that man a fool who throws away jewels that he may gather pebbles, who casts away gold and silver that he may gather up mire and dirt. And what do they do who fling away heaven and eternal life for the sake of a transient joy, a momentary gain? Are there not some men living in this world only to get what will one day turn into smoke? They know that this great world, and all the works of men that are therein, must be dissolved with fervent heat; and yet they labor to build a mansion for their immortal souls in this place, which is to be utterly burned up. And, meanwhile, thou, O Son of God, Immortal Love, art treated as though thou wert a mere fiction! And thou, great Father, fullness of eternal grace, their backs are turned on thee! And O, holiness, and virtue, and immortal blessedness all of you are suffered to go by while men are hunting for gewgaws and gathering trinkets that shall so soon be taken from them. If haply as you sit here you confess, “I have been a fool; I know I have,” then you may gather comfort from the fact that fools were saved. He that has gone to the utmost excess of unwisdom may yet hear the invitation of wisdom, and come and learn at Christ’s feet all that is needful for eternal life.”

(excerpt from a sermon on Psalm 107 by CH Spurgeon, preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on July 17th, 1884)