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THE KING’S BUSINESS
notoriety, we have admitted a microbe that is hard to expel—a preacher hunting for notoriety ! God’s prophet hunting for notoriety! God forbid! He is to do better than that. He is to be bigger than that, and he is to stay by the great things that shake civilization, and transform to the very deepest depths of human thought and life and character. And the great preachers have stayed by the great things. You could not imagine Spur geon preaching on some subjects ; you could not imagine Paul speaking on some subjects, i The great preachers stayed in the mighty current by the great themes. We can do better than to be ranters ; we can do better than to be lambasters; we can do better than to get off a series of gasoline explosions. We are prophets of God and we must worthily represent our cause. My soul stops aghast when I see God’s prophets nibbling at some little inconsequential thing. THE POSITIVE NOTE. In our preaching, there must run through it all forever the positive note. Now if a man cannot be posi tive with his message, let him ïtay in his closet with God until he can be. I tell you when this weary world looks up into our faces with its under tone of heartbreak and asks for bread, we don’t want to be giving them stones. Negatives don’t get any where ; the affirmative, -the positive preacher gets somewhere. God’smes sage for His messenger is, “Preach the preaching that I bid thee.” It is all made out for us, and he who comes to this great treasure-house of information and inspiration shall get his message and the message - that sinful men and women need. A great Frenchman said, “Man is incurably religious.” You must sat isfy that religious longing. I am not saying Christian longing; there is' a difference between religion and Chris-
THE MESSAGE. ■ I should say; something about the preacher’s message. I have said some thing about the man! I should say something about his message. You agree with me, I am sure, my brothers, (and my fathers many of you) that it is a matter of infinite importance that the preacher’s message should riot'be all his lifetime a misplacing of the emphasis. Misplaced emphasis explains many a tragic failure of preachers. We are specialists, my brothers, and we are to come with the right emphasis. Who is the false prophet? He is the man with the misplaced emphasis, that is, the false prophet. Oftentimes, and full many a tirrie, we shall be tempted to give the chief place in the synagogue to 'some secondary and subsidiary mat ter and the great things must be given second place in our ministry, if we are not careful. Away down South they have an institution that has start ed more wheels than they can stop in a generation. I spent two days there. One man talked’ about resolving everything in the Bible into 3’s and 5’s and 7’s. They asked me, “What do you think of that ?” I said, “Why not make it 13 and 15 and 27?” O, my , soul, this misplacing of emphasis, and the chief things must take back seats in the synagogues sometimes be cause the preacher misplaces the em phasis. “What about Melchisedec ?” Now think of a preacher wasting his life on that. “Where did Cain get his wife?” With a weary, hungry, needy world crying out for bread. We are to watch that we do not get a misplaced emphasis. It behooves us as preachers to stay by - the great themes. God’s Book and the mes sage appointed for the preacher. Stay by the great themes. NOTORIETY ITCH. Now if there should come into our little heads and hearts an itch for
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