The Best Sermon
Mr. Spurgeon related a story that I believe would be excellent for every preacher to read at least once a week. It is a story of a young English preacher delivering a message before a renounced pastor of many years. Upon finishing his sermon, the young man went to the old pastor to ask how he had done: “What do you think of my sermon, sir?” he asked. “A very poor sermon indeed,” he said. “A poor sermon!” said the young man, “it took me a long time to study it.” “Ay, no doubt of it.” Why, then, do you say it was poor; did you not think my explanation of the text to be accurate?” “Oh yes,” said the old preacher, “very correct indeed.” “Well, then, why do you say it is a poor sermon? Didn’t you think the metaphors were appropriate, and the arguments conclusive?” “Yes, they were very good, as far as that goes, but still it was a very poor sermon.” “Will you tell me why you think it a poor sermon?” “Because,” he said, “THERE WAS NO CHRIST IN IT.” “Well,” said the young man, “Christ was not in the text; we are not to be preaching Christ always, we must preach what is in the text.” So the old man said, “Don’t you know, young man, that from every town, and every village, and every little hamlet in England, wherever it may be, there is a road to London?” “Yes,” said the young man. “Ah!” said the old preacher, “and so from EVERY TEXT in Scripture there is a road to the metropolis of the Scriptures, that is CHRIST. And, my dear brother, your business is, when you get to a text, to say, ‘Now, what is the road to Christ?’ and then preach a sermon, running along the road towards the great metropolis – Christ. And,” he said, “I have never yet found a text that had no such road, I will make a road, I would go over hedge and ditch but I would get at my master, for a sermon is niether fit for the land nor yet for the dunghill, unless there is a savour of Christ in it.”