Preaching and Preachers

What to Avoidproud of it and give a display of it. The preacher in many and variedways is always fighting the devil. He is there with you and always outto trip you, he cares not how.Let me try to sum it all up by answering the question, 'What advicewould you give at this point?' Well, confessing that my only title togive such advice is that I am a great sinner who has fought this battlefor so many years, I would put it like this. Watch your natural giftsand tendencies and idiosyncrasies. Watch them. What I mean is thatthey will tend to run away with you. It can all be summed up in aphrase-watch your strength. Not so much your weaknesses: it isyour strength you have to watch, the things at which you excel, yournatural gifts and aptitudes. They are the ones that are most likely totrip you because they are the ones that will tempt you to make a displayand to pander to self. So watch these; and also your idiosyncrasies.We all have these, and we must watch them.The preacher always has to guard himself against the terribletemptation to be a 'character'. People like a 'character', and if a manhas certain elements in him that tend to make him a character-somethingout of the ordinary, something which people regard as attractive-hehas to be careful. His danger is to pander to this and to playup to it; and in the end he is just calling attention to himself. Somemen like to be quaint or odd or different, and to get people to talkabout them. This is the danger, so beware of this; and, again, especiallywatch your strong points.Let me put this in the form of a picture. I remember once hearinga man preach a sermon on Absalom, the point of which was that weshould always keep a watchful eye on our strong points. I do not knowthat exegetically it was a sound point but it certainly impressed itselfon me. You remember that Absalom was very proud of his hair. Heused to pay great attention to it and to make his boast of it. But youremember that finally it was his undoing. He got caught up by hishair in some trees as he was going through a wood and so gave theopportunity to Joab to thrust a spear into him and kill him. Thepreacher's point was that thisgreat strength of his-his hair-was his255