John Chrysostom was thought to be one of the greatest preachers of the first Christian millennium. His name, Chrysostom, is a title of praise, because it means literally "Golden Mouth." To gain such a reputation in the world's most difficult art is quite a feat. Preachers are assailed by a thousand temptations that arise from their own wickedly vainglorious heart, the demonic attacks of Satan, their enemy, and either the flattery or the ridicule of their hearers.

Every preacher imagines that he is, like the children of Lake Wobegon, an above average preacher, perhaps even better than most. I become puffed up when my parishioners praise my latest homiletic effort. The Lord often deflates me when I hear accolades for the sermon that I didn't think was my best homily. They love the "dogs" and are quite indifferent to my "eloquent sermons." The preacher is buttressed in his vain opinion because his wife and children invariably compare others' sermons to his own in an unflattering way. "Nobody can preach like daddy." While a preacher should appreciate such love and support, he shouldn't get carried away by family flattery. His family loves him for himself, not because he is good. That is as it should be.

Sometimes his vainglory leads him to scratch the itching ears by preaching what titillates rather than what edifies. Sometimes he will pull his punches to avoid the scorn of the worldly-minded. Sometimes he will avoid a sore topic in the congregation because he does not want to be attacked. But he can also flatter himself by thinking that if he has angered his congregation he has preached to them the unvarnished truth, when, in fact, he has merely been impolite or unnecessarily vicious. The preacher skates the razor's edge. And one slip could silence him, or so he thinks. No one is above replacement. Death stalks even the preacher, for another voice can be raised up from among the stones.

Satan seeks to silence the preacher with the poisoned darts of flame that a faithful preacher should expect on every hand. No preacher is worthy of his office. But he doesn't have his office on the basis of his own worthiness. He holds the office of preaching because the One who calls him is worthy and accounts him worthy. But Satan loves to point out to him his unworthiness. He worms his way into the preacher's heart and causes him to quail in the face of his duty to proclaim the gospel: "Who are you, as a stinking sinner, to preach the divine word of mercy? What right do you have?" How the preacher struggles to speak for God in the midst of such onslaughts with its niggling hint of truth.