TWO SERMONS by Louis Albert Banks

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Dec 13, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 50.

TWO SERMONS.

By Louis Albert Banks

[By Louis Albert Banks, D.D., in S. S. Times.]

“Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Jehovah of hosts.”

SPURGEON tells us how he once preached what in his judgment was one of his poorest sermons. He stammered and floundered, and when he got through felt that he had made a complete failure. He was greatly humiliated, and when he got home he fell on his knees, and said: “Lord God, thou canst do something with nothing. Bless that poor sermon.” And all through the week he kept uttering that prayer. He would wake up in the night and pray about it. He determined that the next Sunday he would redeem himself by preaching a great sermon. Sure enough, the next Sunday the sermon went off beautifully. At the close the people crowded about him and covered him with praise. Spurgeon went home pleased with himself, and that night he slept like a baby. But he said to himself, “I will watch the results of those two sermons.” What were they? From the one that had seemed a failure he was able to trace forty-one conversions, and from that magnificent sermon he was unable to discover that a single soul was saved. Spurgeon’s explanation was that the Spirit of God used the one, and did not use the other. We can do nothing without the Spirit, who “helpeth our infirmities.”

There is an old Romish story that a certain famous preacher was to preach on a certain occasion, but he missed his way, and was too late; and the devil, knowing of it, put on the appearance of the minister, took his place, and preached a sermon to the people, who supposed they were listening to the famous divine whom they had expected. The devil preached upon hell, and was very much at home, so that he delivered a marvelous sermon in which he exhorted persons to escape from the wrath to come. As he was finishing his sermon, in came the preacher himself, and the devil was obliged to resume his own form. The holy man then questioned him, “How dare you preach as you have done, warning men to escape from hell?” “O,” said the devil, “it will do no hurt to my kingdom, for I have no unction.” The story is grotesque, but there is truth in it. Only the presence of the Spirit of God in the Christian’s message will give it the desired effect.