06.08. Chapter 8: Other Forms Of Sermons

Chapter 8 OTHER FORMS OF SERMONS IN OUR last lecture, I sought to show the difference between the theme sermon, the text sermon and the expository sermon. These three constitute, of course, the major part of a pulpit ministry; and yet, they are by no means its “all in all.”

SPECIAL SERMONS to meet special occasions will be common enough, and their proportion to the more regular pulpit work will be the exact measure of one’s popularity. If the general public clamor for your appearance here, there, and elsewhere, special sermons will occupy an ever-increasing demand on your ministry; and if their name is not “legion,” it is at least large. The order of their importance may be one thing and the calls for such deliverances may be quite another. There are some, however, that are sure to be demanded of every successful minister:

1.The Anniversary Sermon 2.The Baccalaureate Sermon 3.The Dedicatory Sermon 4.The Patriotic Sermon 5.The Ordination Sermon 6.The Funeral Sermon

These are practically certain. In addition, you will have the sermon to children and youth; the sermon suited to special days like Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.; sermons suited to the missionary minded; the sermon adapted to one sex only, men or women, meeting apart, etc. Accept this brief discussion of these as we have mentioned them. THE ANNIVERSARY SERMON

There will be calls for this. The anniversary of one’s own pastorate as it comes around from year to year calls for a special sermon. For the forty-five years of my pastorate in Minneapolis I gave to the occasion ever-increasing thought and study. It came on the first Sunday of March of each year. I tried to make the sermon of that day a clarion call for ever-increasing endeavor on the part of my church people. I gave to it more study than the ordinary sermon and employed it as the exploitation of the yearly program and a consequent appeal for more aggressive undertakings. In order to give you a sample of such an address, I refer to the twenty-third anniversary sermon in “The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist,” Old Testament, Volume IV, page 159 and following:

Text: “Forasmuch as the Lord hath blessed me hitherto” (Joshua 17:14).

Subject: PROGRESS BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE!

Outline:

I. Review the Lord’s Plans. a.We must realize that leadership is with the Lord. b.We must recognize the appointments of His plans. c.It is ours to rehearse the special events of God’s intervention.

II. Reason to the Lord’s Purposes. a.His past gives pledge of His purpose. b.His continuance is the ground of our confidence. c.His resources are the assurance of our successes.

III. Respond to the Lord’s Appeals. a.The past is but a suggestion of God’s further plans. b.In enlarged enterprises He privileges us a part. c.His projects can only be discovered by prayer.

I hope you will secure this volume and read this entire sermon.

BACCALAUREATE SERMON This sermon commonly attends or immediately precedes the graduation of a class. The name comes from the circumstance that “Bachelor degrees are about to be conferred.” There is with the average preacher a tendency to make this sermon learned and scientific in a high degree. We are quite convinced of the wisdom of Dr. John A. Broadus when he argues that, “it does not necessarily require that one should be highly erudite or metaphysical. It is really desirable on such occasions to preach upon eminently evangelical topics.” In confirmation of this opinion, we illustrate by the impressions made in our college days from the visits of Dr. A. T. Pierson, who was then pastor in Indianapolis, and who upon one or more occasions was our baccalaureate preacher. He followed literally Broadus’s suggestion and expressed himself with such “force and freshness” as to interest every student and stir righteous ambition.

However, we propose on this subject to cite to you two sermons in illustration of baccalaureate ideals. The first deals with the subject which is in its very nature somewhat academic and which gives to the student a real chance to think along lines harmonious with his class work and yet adapted to soul-stirring emotion. We cite Volume IX, Old Testament, in the forty-volume series of “The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist,” page 141 and following, “God’s Work, Words and Ways” (Psalms 19:1-14). However, if your sermon relates itself to the graduation class of a theological seminary, we call to your attention the chapters found in this series of lectures, “The Standardized Ministry,” “Some Secrets of Success in the Ministry,” etc. THE DEDICATORY SERMON This sermon would relate itself more often perhaps to the dedication of a new church building, or an important enlargement of the church building. Here, there comes a rare opportunity to discourse on the model church, and it would be a bit difficult to improve upon the divinely appointed and effected plan. Here, Acts 2:44-47 would constitute certainly an appropriate text. If you would be interested in sermonizing upon the subject, study “The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist,” New Testament, Volume VI, page 45 and following:

Subject: By-Products of Pentecost Main divisions of outline:

I. Regularity in Church Going II. Regularity in Church Giving III. Regularity in Gospelizing THE PATRIOTIC SERMON This deliverance is commonly looked for by the average audience around July Fourth, but it may be demanded at almost any time by local, state, or national conditions. When a community or city becomes morally rotten, or a state falls into the hands of some political clique or party which proposes to employ it for personal profit, or a nation becomes brutalized by its legalization of liquor or propagandized by some alien element that would overthrow its more just and proven practices, then the pulpit should not be silent.

There will be pious old ladies and super-pious church members who will tearfully counsel their “beloved pastor” in the familiar tongue, “Brother; remember that it is your business to preach the gospel and leave the running of the nation alone.” But any intelligent study of the Old Testament will demonstrate that the statesmen of the day were the prophets of God, and apart from their deliverances, society would have produced even more Sodoms and Gomorrahs than history records, and Satan would have governed more nations than mentioned in the denunciations of the sixteen prophets whose books are contained in the Holy Bible. In the New Testament were it not for the deliverances of the apostles—Christ included—the Dark Ages of the last two thousand years would have been far darker still.

Salt is a preservative against corruption, and light is an effective enemy of darkness, and while each and every believer should make a contribution to social salvation and to national enlightenment, it is quite evident that special obligation rests upon the preacher. Here again, in order to save you from ransacking through many libraries, and yet at the same time to point out to you an illustration, I dare to call attention to “The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist,” Volume IX, New Testament, page 163 and following. The sermon is “The Passion of a Christian Patriot;” the text is Romans 9:1-5; Romans 9:30-31; the occasion—Thanksgiving Day. That fact leads to the further statement that oftentimes we can make one occasion serve a dual purpose—the purpose of patriotism and of gratitude. THE ORDINATION SERMON

This, for the popular preacher, will be a repeated appeal. Fortunately, there are still many men entering the ministry and the ordination of young men to this office is not to be lightly regarded. It matters not how often repeated, there will never be anything commonplace about a divine appointment to preach. God’s decisions and God’s commissions are not to be esteemed lightly, or treated with any but the highest and most holy consideration. Paul’s epistles to the two young men upon whom he bestowed so much of his time and teaching, Timothy and Titus, abound in texts suitable for such occasions, and we would refer you to careful study, yea, almost to committal to memory of these epistles. Be assured as you reflect upon them that they are sane and sacred, and you will find in them fit texts for all ordination occasions. THE FUNERAL SERMON

Here you will pardon me a personal reference again, for while it would be easily possible for me to rummage through, or even recall from the writings of great men, samples such as I would gladly select and recommend and thereby give you greater variety of style perhaps, I could not bring so easily within your ready reach the illustration and outline of samples; and so I suggest this one as an outline that attracted more attention and brought more commendatory expression from the great congregation listening to it than almost any other funeral service of a lifetime. It involved the use of the Scripture, John’s Gospel, the 11th chapter, and the following outline:

I. Jesus Could Have Come to His Sick Friend on Call, But He Didn’t!

II. Jesus Could Have Kept Lazarus From Death, But He Didn’t!

III. Jesus Could Have Left Lazarus in the Grave, But He Didn’t!

It will not be difficult to see how an outline of this sort gives you a chance to explain, under the first, for instance, “Why God is not always subject to the call of men;” under the second head, “Why even death itself may become a desirable event;” and under the third head, “Why Christians can be profoundly comforted in the deepest bereavement.” The resurrection is sure! On this subject read the full chapter on funerals in the author’s Pastoral Problems.

SERMONS TO CHILDREN

Here we tread on important ground. The injunction of Scripture is “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.” The observation of men, and of ministers in particular, force the conclusion that we win children and youth to Christ, or we fail Christ Himself and further the defeat of the Church of God.

Paul, writing to the Corinthians, said, “. . . not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called” (1 Corinthians 1:26). If he were writing his epistle now, he might very appropriately add, “not many of the aged; not often even the more mature adults.” It is little wonder that child and youth evangelism has become the watchword of the age, and it is still less amazing that the wisest evangelist always wants an early decision day for children and youth in Sunday schools and young people’s organizations. He knows what ground produces the fruit of the Spirit; that in the springtime of life, as well as of seasons, you sow the word sanely.

I cannot tell you, and if I did you would doubt my veracity, of the scores and hundreds of boys and girls that I have seen capitulate, come out for Christ, openly confess Him and unite themselves to the church of their choice by the use of Ecclesiastes 12:1.

Time forbids, however, that I push this subject of other forms of sermons much further. The missionary appeal should have its special occasion, but it should also saturate the entire pulpit ministry.

Sermons to the separate sexes have naturally declined in number in recent years. That is due to the fact that the modesty which characterized and, in the judgment of this writer, also encircled with great moral safety our mothers and sisters of yesterday, has been cast to the winds. The college and university of the present day, by its sinister introduction of psychoanalysis into schools, both separate and mixed, by its applause and patronage of the whole Freudist philosophy, has practically obliterated the reasons that once existed for a man’s plain talk to his brothers, or a woman’s deliverance to her sisters on questions that involved sexual subjects. That this modernistic procedure of unrestrained speech accounts in part for the moral degeneracy of the day, thoughtful men can hardly question. But there is at least one fact in its favor, namely, it ends the opportunity that formerly existed for extremists who dared for popularity to preach the prurient, and call crowds that came more out of curiosity than in the interest of soul-profit. So much on the consideration of other forms of sermons. We reserve for another lecture “The Sermon Series.” In connection with this I am asking you to read and study carefully Broadus’s Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, pages 303 to 314, inclusive.