My friends, we have too many orators in the pulpit, I am tired and
sick of your "silver-tongued orators." I used to mourn because I
couldn't be an orator. I thought, Oh, if I could only have the gift of
speech like some men! I have heard men with a smooth flow of language
take the audience captive; but they came and they went. Their voice
was like the air--there wasn't any _power_ back of it; they trusted in
their eloquence and their fine speeches. That is what Paul was
thinking of when he wrote to the Corinthians: "My speech and my
preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not
stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."
Take a witness in court and let him try his oratorical powers in the
witness-box, and see how quickly the judge will rule him out. It is
the man who tells the plain, simple truth that has the most influence
with the jury.
Suppose that Moses had prepared a speech for Pharaoh, and had got his
hair all smoothly brushed, and had stood before the looking-glass, or
had gone to an elocutionist to be taught how to make an oratorical
speech and how to make gestures. Suppose that he had buttoned his
coat, put one hand in his chest, had struck an attitude, and begun:
"The God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has
commanded me to come into the presence of the noble King of Egypt."
I think they would have taken his head right off! They had Egyptians
who could be as eloquent as Moses. It was not eloquence they wanted.
To Which Class Do You Belong?
Some one has said that there are three classes of people: the "wills,"
the "won'ts," and the "can'ts"; the first accomplish everything, the
second oppose everything, and the third fail in everything.