I must
keep my popularity up
When a consecrated man begins to change his
purpose in life and live for himself — that razor shaves
clean indeed.
There is a minister; when he first began his ministry he could
say, “God is my witness I have but one object, that I may free
my skirts from the blood of every one of my hearers, that I may
preach the gospel faithfully and honor my Master.” In a little
time, tempted by Satan, he changes his tone and talks like this,
“I must keep my congregation up. If I
preach such hard doctrine, they won’t come. Did not one
of the newspapers criticize me, and did not some of my people go
away from me because of it? I must mind what I am at. I must
keep this thing going. I must look out a little sharper, and
prune my speech down. I must adopt a
little gentler style, or preach a new-fashioned doctrine; for
I must keep my popularity up.
What is to become of me if I go down? People will say, ‘Up like
a rocket, down like the stick,’ and then shall all my enemies
laugh.” Ah, when once a man begins to care so much as a snap of
the finger about the world, it is all over with him. If he can
go to his pulpit, and say, “I have got a message to deliver, and
whether they will hear or whether they will not hear, I will
deliver it as God puts it into my mouth; I will not change the
dot of an i, or the cross of a t for the biggest man that lives,
or to bring in the mightiest congregation that ever sat at
minister’s feet” — that man is mighty. He does not let human
judgments move him, and he will move the world. But let him turn
aside and think about his congregation, and how that shall be
kept up; ah Samson! how are thy locks shorn? What canst thou do
now? That false Delilah has destroyed thee — thine eyes are put
out, thy comfort is taken away and thy future ministry shall be
like the grinding of an ass around the continually revolving
mill; thou shalt have no rest or peace ever afterwards.
- Charles Haddon
Spurgeon, Samson Conquered
