Have you ever thought about how a sports team, when they win the game, people will literally

bow down and adore them, but when they lose the game, they want to stone them with tomatoes

and rotten eggs. Have you ever thought about how amazing it is that some people can get lifted up

by the crowd on a pedestal one day and then they get dropped faster than a supersonic speed the next day. Have you ever thought about this? I even heard about a

popular congressman who became so unpopular that one year he ran unopposed and he lost. Now I'm going to give you an answer to this question that I'm raising in your minds, because

I thought about this a great deal, and I want you to listen to what I'm going to tell you.

Men, women, young, old, one of the most dangerous things in life is to seek after popularity. Boys and girls in school who want to be popular

and being popular becomes the most important thing in this school, often bring pain upon

themselves and be disappointed and discouraged many times. Parents who uphold popularity,

they hold it up for their children as a goal in life. They will be disappointed and will pay a very heavy price.

Pastors and ministers and Bible teachers and leaders of all stripes, I can tell you without a shadow of doubt

that if popularity is the goal of your life, you will end up compromising and becoming ineffective in serving God.

Why is seeking after popularity can be so demoralizing? Why can it be so dangerous and devastating?

Because the crowd by nature is fickle. Because the crowd by nature is forgetful.

Because the crowd by nature is mercurial, because the crowd by nature is

changeable just like the wind, because the crowd by nature is unstable. And therefore,

you cannot build your life goals on popularity.

The famed journalist of yesteryear, Horace Greeley, of the New York Tribune said years ago,

and I quote, he said, fame is a vapor, popularity is an accident.

Riches takes wings, and those who cheer you today will curse you tomorrow. Only one

thing endures. Character. End of court. My beloved friends, I want to tell you, the longer

I live, the more I realize that integrity is a precious commodity. It is very fragile, but it's a precious commodity.

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