On-line Sermons

There are many on-line services that give today's minister an easy out when it comes to sermon preparation. For a price, they will give you a sermon to preach. Those of us who labor week in and week out on a text to deliver to our people, we stand aghast and in despair when we consider such end runs by our ministerial colleagues. But, as the Preacher says in Ecclesiastes, "there is nothing new under the sun."

In 1762, Augustus Toplady (author of Rock of Ages) was soon to be ordained. One day he was browsing in a bookstore in London, and the propriator approached him and said he would like to speak with Toplady in private. The salesman said to him, "Sir, you will soon be ordained. I suppose you have not laid in a very great stock of sermons. I can supply you with as many sets as you please. All originals: very excellent ones, and they will come for a trifle."

Toplady was amazed by such a suggestion. He answered, "I shall certainly never be a customer to you in that way . . . How could you think of me buying ready-made sermons? A man who cannot or will not make his own sermons is quite unfit to wear the gown!" The other retorted, "Nay, young gentleman, do not be surprised, I assure you I have sold ready-made sermons to many a bishop in my time."