Quotes #6…Reverand Paul Ford (Karl Malden) Early 1900s’

September 22, 2025

“Death comes unexpectedly.  And the God Jehovah will execute his vengeance on ye who despise his dying love and trample his benefits underfoot.  The unconverted soul, the foolish children of man do miserably delude themselves in the false confidence of their own strength and wisdom.
Now the great King of heaven and earth will abolish and annihilate this pride, will crush the hardened wretch of the polluted infinite abomination and rain on him a deluge of fire and brimstone…”

This is the first half of the second worse sermon ever preached.

Here is the full two minute sixteen second video of the second worse sermon ever preached.

This is the sermon that Reverand Paul Ford (Played by Karl Malden) “preached” in the fictional town of Beldingsville, Vermont where the movie Pollyanna (1960) was set. When I first saw it, I called it “the second worst sermon ever preached.” What is the law without the gospel after all?

Preacher Ford is a legalist who thinks that he can bully his congregation into good behavior (and maybe salvation) by preaching sermons that are all law and no gospel. Any sermon like this one, devoid of the greatest message given to the world through Jesus Christ our Lord, is an abomination to the purposes of God. There, I have given the legalist his own medicine.

One of the central themes of the movie, Pollyanna, is the power of optimism. Would I rather Preacher Ford give a sermon containing only optimism, completely ignoring the law? Absolutely not! I would consider a sermon like that possibly “The third worse sermon of all time.” A sermon like that would sound like something done by Joel Osteen, Robert Schuller, or Norman Vincent Peale. Most of those sermons weaken the gospel message by understating the seriousness of the law. This creates a misunderstanding of the power of the gospel. If a person doesn’t understand the importance of the law, a person doesn’t understand why we need the gospel. Sermons that don’t attempt to balance the truths of the law and gospel distort the truth found in the Bible.

CR

Note: I have highlighted the movie Pollyanna on this blog before. I enjoy the movie because the acting is great and it captures some truths found in a small town, both good and bad. They have done a good job of capturing the time period as well. It is a secular movie because it does not include the gospel message even though there are Christian themes within.

Here is my previous post about this movie from 12 years ago.

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Posted by Chris