It's The Message, Not The Messenger by J. Stephen Lang, The Christian History Devotional

The kingdom of God is
not the realm of
grandiose talk; it is a
realm of power. — 1
Corinthians 4:20 (The
Voice)
1877: William Booth of
the Salvation Army
commissioned a young
man with a colorful
heritage to preach on this
date: he was a gypsy,
born in a tent a few miles
north of London in 1860.
Given the gypsies’
reputation, it is no
surprise that this man,
Rodney Smith, had been
in jail more than once,
but at age seventeen he
was converted at a gospel
meeting, turning his life
around completely.
Rodney, who had no
formal education, taught
himself to read the Bible,
and he felt the call to
preach. William Booth
believed Smith was ready,
and Smith began
preaching on street
corners and in mission
halls. He made hundreds
of converts and married
one of them.
Soon “Gypsy” Smith, as he
was called, became an
independent evangelist
and drew crowds all over
Britain, America, South
Africa, and Australia, and
during World War I he
preached on the front
lines to Allied troops in
France. He was a superb
preacher and, true to the
gypsy tradition, musically
talented as well, and he
would sometimes break
into song at an
appropriate point in his
sermon. (Thanks to the
Internet, recordings of his
songs are readily
available.) Time magazine
ran a story on Smith in
1927, titled “Heart in
Mouth,” reporting that
Smith had made many
converts in Chicago’s red-
light district.
Few men ever entered the
ministry with less
education, yet no one
could deny Smith’s power
in the pulpit.
As he pointed out often,
the way to Jesus was not
through Oxford or
Cambridge or Harvard but
through Calvary. Also,
“It’s the message that’s
important, not the
messenger.”
In 1917 King George V
bestowed on him the
Order of the British
Empire — a remarkable
honor for an unschooled
gypsy boy who had done
time in jail. Smith died in
1947 at the age of eighty-
seven, having crossed the
Atlantic forty-five times, a
true “gypsy” for the
gospel.

Prayer: Father, raise up
voices of power to preach
your truth to the nations.
Amen.