2:30 PM GMT
The Best Sermon
A young Englishman preached 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.”
“Ah, no doubt of it.” the old pastor replied.
“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 added, “I have never yet found a text that had no such road.
A sermon is not fit for anything unless Christ in it.”
- Charles Spurgeon
