HERALDS OF GOD
economic conditions which mould the lives of men? You will find that here. Are you anxious to show what faith can say about the mysteries of Providence, and what God means by allowing life sometimes to be so terribly difficult for those who take His way? You will find that here. Moreover, the man himself is such a fascinating study. Jeremiah has laid bare to us, not only the outward events of his life, but also the inner struggles of his spirit. And finally, here is a book which inevitably leads the preacher straight to the burning heart of personal religion. Thus the strength of such a course of sermons is that history and biography become alive, contemporary, challenging; and exposition merges in evangelism.
By way of variety, a series on the message of a book of Scripture might well be followed by a set of character studies. Some preachers are inclined to disdain this type of sermon and to minimize its usefulness. They regard it as merely an easy and not particularly commendable expedient involving a minimum of thought and positive teaching. This is really very foolish and unimaginative. In point of fact, few sermons can be so spiritually searching and incisive as those in which the preacher, singling out some character from the vast portrait-gallery of Scripture, shows us the actual man, striving, struggling, sinning, repenting, with the living God intersecting his experience and invading his soul. John Galsworthy, in Flowering Wilderness, makes one of his characters, Adrian Cherwell, exclaim: "It's the sudden personal emergency
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