God’s temple does not build itself, neither does man build it, but it is the sole work of God. The Spirit of God quarries out of the pit of nature the stones which are as yet dead, separating them from the mass to which they adhered; he gives them life, amid then he fashions, squares, polishes them, and they, without sound of axe or hammer, are brought each one to its appointed place, amid built up into Christ Jesus. The old heathen fabled of the music of Orpheus that it was so sweet that as he poured forth the mellifluous sounds the rocks began to dance around him, and as he continued still to play they piled themselves up into a temple at his bidding. This is true of our Lord Jesus, the music of whose divine word by the Spirit brings us stones from different parts of the fields in which we lay, and fits us together, stone to his stone, till a holy temple in the Lord arises to his praise. May the Holy Ghost work among us in this manner, and may we all become indwelt by the ever-blessed Spirit.
As you and I, who have long been brought into the church, think of how we became built upon the foundation, let us praise the hand which laid us in our place; and as we cling closer and closer to the great corner stone to whom we are always coming, let us bless him that the same love which in the beginning cemented us to the corner stone still holds us in our place so firmly that none shall separate us.
From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The True Priesthood, Temple And Sacrifice," delivered September 30, 1877. Image by Jeff Pang on Flickr under Creative Commons License.
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