Preaching and Preachers

Preaching and Preachersthe pulpit to preach his sermon and gave out his text, my wife nudgedme because that was actually the first text on which 1 had everpreached in Westminster Chapel on the occasionof my first visit thereon the last Sunday in 1935. Because of that, 1 suppose, and because 1was a stranger to London pulpits, that sermon of mine had beenprinted in two or three religious journals and papers; and my wifehaving read these knew this sermon fairly well. The vicar gave outthat text and then began to preach. I regret to say that he attemptedto preach my sermon; and there was 1 listening to him. He did notknow me, and had never seen me before. I did my best to avoid meetinghim during the following week but our farmer host brought himinto our room one day and introduced us. Though I was not impressedby the way in which he handled my sermon I had to awardhim full marks for the way in which he handled the situation I Withoutany apparent embarrassment he lookedme straight in the eye and said,'I am glad to meet you, as I have often heard of you. If I had onlyknown that you were here I would have asked you to read the lessonsin the service.' 'Verily they have their reward'; and I did not betrayhim. But that is what may happen to you if you preach another man'ssermon.My wife has a story which illustrates another possible danger. Twopreachers came on two successive Sundays to preach in the chapel ofwhich she was a member, and preached the identical sermon. Thequestion was, which of them was the author? The probable answerwas-neither. The probability is that they had both borrowed it orrather, stolen it. But that is how you are caught out. A furthercomment-changing the text is not enough! Any discriminatinglistener will always be able to detect what you are doing.To add a few of your own illustrations or stories does not cover iteither. I knew a man who said that his method was to read a Spurgeonsermon three or four times a few days before the Sunday and thenpreach it. 'You see,' he said, 'I am not really preaching Spurgeon'ssermon; it has just passed through my mind!' So we try to rationaliseour sins, hut succeed only in showing the kind of mind we have.296