There are vanities and there are verities. There are fancies and there are facts. There are passing things and there are enduring things. There are bursting bubbles and there are lasting beauties. Giving full rein to the force of the apostle’s language, Spurgeon assesses what it means not to look at, to mark, to heed, to consider, the things which can only be seen, which are passing away, whether present joys or sorrows. His language digs in quite fiercely, pressing us to ask how much significance we attach to that which is passing away. Then he turns to the things which cannot now be seen, but which are spiritually substantial, the eternal glories which “gleam afar to nerve our faint endeavour.” Spurgeon says these need to be grasped by faith as we meditate upon them. They must be considered with delight by God’s people, to stir our affections and appetites (though considered with horror by the unconverted, so that they might be turned to Christ before all their delights are ruined forever). They must be dwelt upon with hope, so that we live truly as heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ, inheritors together with the saints in light. The striking contrast of the text comes out in the emphatic way in which Spurgeon holds before us the emptiness of a passing world, and the fulness of joy in the world which is to come.

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