Make a road to Christ in preaching

A friend sent me the follwoing story by way of encouragement and challenge yesterday:

'The best sermon is that which is most full of Christ. A Welsh minister, when preaching at the chapel of my dear brother Jonathan George, was saying that Christ was the sum and substance of the gospel, and he broke out into the following story.

A young man had been preaching in the presence of a venerable divine, and after he had finished, he foolishly went to the old minister and inquired, “What do you think of my sermon, sir?” “A very poor sermon indeed,” said the older man, “because there was no Christ in it. Don’t you know, young man, that from every town, and every village, and every little hamlet in England, wherever it may be, there is a road to London?”

“Yes,” said the young man.

“Ah!” said the old divine. “And so from every text in Scripture there is a road to the metropolis of the Scriptures, that is Christ. And, my dear brother, your business is, when you get to a text, to say, ‘Now, what is the road to Christ?’ and then preach a sermon, running along the road toward the great metropolis – Christ. I have never yet found a text that had not a plain and direct road to Christ in it. And if ever I should find one that has no such road, I will make a road; I would go over hedge and ditch but I would get at my Master. For a sermon is neither fit for land nor yet for the garbage heap unless there is a savor of Christ in it.”