Triumphant Living

It is a presumptuous enterprise to thrust a book of sermons upon the reading public, and I do so with some misgivings, I confess. I have a haunting fear that nobody much will read what I have written. Sermons in any form have gained for themselves a reputation for being dusty dry. That’s too bad, and I suppose the preachers themselves are to blame, because religion, the subject matter of sermons, is one of the world’s most interesting and thrilling topics.

Furthermore, printed sermons can scarcely claim to be sermons at all. I seem to recall having read somewhere a statement of Martin Luther’s to the effect that the devil has a mortal dread of the spoken Word, but he is not disturbed much by the written Word. This bears out a contention I have held for many a long year that in its truest, best, and most effective sense a sermon does not exist in the absence of the preacher. That was my contention before the advent of the radio and television. And those gadgets have not changed the situation basically any more than did the invention of printer’s type. The sermon in its noblest form is still an oral address from a preacher to an audience with both parties present. Courtship by mail, by telephone, or by television or radio will do in a pinch, but such courtship is much less effective than courtship with both parties present.

Some of these sermons have been delivered one or more times at various places; others have been written for this book. This is my first effort at this kind of book. If it clicks, I shall hope to try again.

John A. Morrison

Anderson, Indiana [From the Preface]