# “Grief itself is not necessarily sin” by Charles H. Spurgeon

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2009/01/08/grief-itself-is-not-necessarily-sin-by-charles-h-spurgeon/
- Published: 2009-01-08T14:03:44-06:00
- Author: tollelege

“This valley, dark and gloomy as it is, is not an unhallowed pathway. No sin is 
necessarily connected with sorrow of heart, for Jesus Christ our Lord once said,‘
My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death.’ There was no sin in Him, and
consequently none in His deep depression.

We have never known a joy or a sorrow altogether untainted with evil; but grief 
itself is not necessarily sin. A man may be as happy as all the birds in the air,
and there may be no sin in his happiness; and a man may be exceeding heavy, and 
yet there may be no sin in the heaviness. I do not say that there is not sin in 
all our feelings, but still the feelings in themselves need not be sinful.

I would, therefore, try to cheer any brother who is sad, for his sadness is not 
necessarily blameworthy. If his downcast spirit arises from unbelief, let him cry
to God to be delivered from it; but if the soul is sighing, ‘Though he slay me, 
yet will I trust in him,’ it is not a fault.

If the man cries, ‘My God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember
thee,’ his soul’s being cast down within him is no sin. Heaviness of spirit is not,
therefore, on every occasion a matter for which we need condemn ourselves.

The way of sorrow is not the way of sin, but a hallowed road sanctified by the prayers
of myriads of pilgrims now with God—pilgrims who, passing through the valley of 
Baca, made it a well.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Valley of the Shadow of Death,” _The Journal of Biblical
Counseling_, Vol. 18, No. 3, 2000, p. 33.

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