Preacher, Are You a People-Pleaser?

The Man, His Son, and the Ass
(A fable by Aesop)

A man and his son were driving an ass to market, where it was to be sold. “Have you no more sense,” said a passer-by, “than to trudge along, letting your ass go without a load?” So the man put his son on the ass, and they went on. “You lazy young rascal,” said the next person they met; “aren’t you ashamed to ride, and let your poor old father go on foot?” The man lifted off his son, and got on himself. Two women passed, one saying to the other, “Look at that selfish old fellow, riding while his little son follows on foot!” The man then took the boy up behind him. The next traveller they met asked the man whether the ass was his, and on being told that it was, he said, “No one would think so, from the way you use it. Why, you are better able to carry the ass than he is to carry both of you.” So the man tied that ass’s legs to a pole and, staggering under the weight, they carried it into the town. There they were greeted with so much laughter that the man, infuriated, threw the ass into the river and, seizing his son by the arm, set off home.

Moral: He who tries to please everybody pleases nobody.

J. Harold Smith said it this way: “Every preacher who trims himself to suit everybody will soon whittle himself away.”