An ideal preacher.
"And I saw another angel," etc. It is legitimate, and it may be useful, to look at these words as symbolizing the ideal preacher. Looking at them in this light, we observe concerning the ideal preacher—
I. HIS THESE IS GLORIOUS. "The everlasting gospel." Observe:
1. It is a gospel. That is "good news," or "glad tidings." It is a message, not of Divine partiality or Divine wrath to the world, but of Divine love—the love of the great Father for his fallen children.
2. It is an ever enduring gospel. Everlasting:
3. It is a world wide gospel. "To preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." This means that it is not for a sect or a class, but for humanity. It is for man as man, irrespective of his colour, his country, his character.
II. THAT HIS MOVEMENTS ARE EXPEDITIOUS. "Fly in the midst of heaven." He is to move, not like the ordinary terrestrial beings on the earth, but rather like the swift fowls of the air—impulses excited, eyes dilated, pinions expanded, darting on their ethereal way. It is characteristic of an ideal preacher that he is expeditious. He is not a drone; he is on fire. lie is "instant in season and out of season," like his great Original; he worketh while it is "called today," knowing "the night cometh when no man can work." Why thus expeditious?
1. The message is urgent. The world is guilty; it bears pardon. The world is diseased, about dying; it bears elements of life. The world is enthralled a captive of the arch enemy of the universe; it bears liberty.
2. The time is short. Short, when compared not merely with a future life, but with the work necessary to be done. There is not a moment to spare. "Today, saith the Spirit." The Spirit knows the urgency of the work, and the time necessary for its fulfilment.
3. Life is uncertain. Uncertain both for the preacher and for his hearers. "Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." Hence the necessity of this expeditious movement.
III. THAT HIS SPHERE IS ELEVATED. "Fly in the midst of heaven," or "in mid heaven." It is the characteristic of all truly regenerated men that they are not of the flesh, but of the Spirit; that they set their "affections on things above;" that though "in the world," they are "not of the world;" that they live in heavenly places. All these representations mean that they live and move on a level high up and distinct from the level on which worldly men live and work. Like Christ, they have "meat to eat" that the world knows nothing of. They are "separate from sinners." This is preeminently the case with the ideal preacher, he moves above the highest; he does not mind earthly things; uninfluenced by worldly motives, despising worldly aims and fashions, towering like an angel above them all. Ah me! how different this ideal to the actual conventional preachers! Do they mow through mid heaven? Do they not rather crawl on the earth, trade even in the gospel, and make gain of godliness"? The great reason why preaching is so ineffective now is because we preachers move not in this elevated sphere, but are down with the common herd in spirit.
CONCLUSION. Such, then, is the ideal preacher, and all Church history shows that the men who have approached nearest to this ideal have achieved the greatest victories for souls—Paul, Augustine, Savonarola, Tanner, Whitefield, Wesley, etc.—D.T.