So, will we emulate Joseph today? Will we seek God's glory and thus fulfill his highest dreams for our lives? Ask this simple question, all day long: how will this glorify God? This thought, word, action, decision; this television show, movie, Internet site; this message and day and ministry. J. I. Packer was right: it is impossible at one and the same time to convince you that I am a great preacher and that Jesus is a great Savior. I must choose. And so must you.

When did you last glorify God? When will you next? Could it be that the only person standing between you and God's dream for your life, is the god in your mirror?

I agree with historians who consider Charles Spurgeon the greatest Baptist preacher and pastor in our history. He began writing a magazine at age 12, and published his first book, 295 pages in length, at the age of 15. He began his pastoral career at age 17, and soon was preaching to crowds of 10,000 (in the days before amplification).

His London church grew to be the largest Baptist congregation in the world. He began a college for preachers, an orphanage, a home for aged women, and 63 other institutions and ministries. He began 40 missions in various parts of London. He wrote a monthly magazine, a seven-volume commentary on the Psalms, and 140 other books. He wrote 500 letters a week.

His books are in such wide publication that they have made him the most published author in human history.

What is the secret to such a man as this? I am convinced it is found in this anecdote, a story I share often at ordination services. In Spurgeon's time London's streetlights burned gas but still had to be lit individually. It is to this practice that Spurgeon refers in the following note:

Coming one Thursday in the late autumn from an engagement beyond Dulwich, my way led up to the top of the Herne Hill ridge. I came along the level out of which rises the steep hill I had to ascend.

While I was on the lower ground, riding in a hansom cab, I saw a light before me, and when I came near the hill, I marked that light gradually go up the hill, leaving a train of stars behind it. This line of new-born stars remained in the form of one lamp, and then another and another. It reached from the foot of the hill to its summit.

I did not see the lamplighter. I do not know his name, nor his age, nor his residence; but I saw the lights which he had kindled, and these remained when he himself had gone his way.

As I rode I thought to myself, "How earnestly do I wish that my life may be spent in lighting one soul after another with the sacred flame of eternal life! I would myself be as much as possible unseen while at my work, and would vanish into eternal brilliance above when my work is done"

(Arnold Dallimore, Spurgeon: A New Biography [Carlyle, Pennsylvania: Banner of Truth Trust, 1984] 162.

Amen?

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