292 Sermon Illustrations on Preaching

“How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!”” (Ro 10:14-15 NKJV)

Believing, Hearing, And Preaching

• call…believed? — Heb 11:4, Mark 16:15-16, Luke 24:46-47, Acts 26:17-18 — acceptable prayer involves faith

• hear…preacher? — Rom 1:5, 16:25-26 — more especially in times when there were so few Christian writings. Preaching, the chief means of instruction.

• preach…sent? — Matt 9:38, 2 Cor 5:18 — by the Head of the Church, and by the Church acting under His directions

• written — Isa 52:7 — the sent preacher, a fulfilment of the promise

• beautiful — Lam 2:14, Eph 2:17, Acts 13:26 — because associated with good news and glad tidings — “Sophocles represents the hands and feet of them who come on some kind errand as beautiful in the eyes of those who are profited thereby.” — Macknight

• feet — the dirt and dust of the road being overlooked in the thought of the message they carry

The institution of preaching — J. Foster

I. The advantages of preaching.

1. Economy of exertion- how much is done with comparatively little speaking;

2. Many receive religious instruction who would otherwise have none;

3. Religion is kept a conspicuous thing;

4. All are made witnesses to all they have heard;

5. There is something in it for the popular opinion to lean upon;

6. It tends to secure for religion deep study, at least in some part of the community.

II. How are properly qualified preachers to be obtained? In preachers are requisite –

1. The power of thought;

2. A facility for expressing that thought in words;

3. A knowledge of the Scriptures.

Thoughts about preaching — What is preaching? is a question to which there would probably be as many replies as to what is truth? Almost every minister, and almost every man, has his own taste, and his own standard, and his own weight, and his own measure on this subject. One man thinks that to preach means accurately to divide a given topic, logically to illustrate it, and to observe a perfect but cold propriety through the various steps and stages of the discourse. This is the mechanical plan of preaching. Another imagines preaching to be the exposition of a particular passage of Scripture, bringing out from it all that is in it, and nothing more. This is the textual idea of preaching. Another cares not a straw for a sermon, if it do not contain a train of rigid argumentation, diversified by occasional bursts of party rage and strong squirts of the odium theologicum. This is the polemical idea of preaching. Another likes no preaching but what contains a string of appeals, and queries, and adjurations, unconnected with principles, unsupported by reasonings, and loose as a rope of sand. This is called, though falsely, practical preaching. Another wants a sermon to be a series of electrical shocks — one burst from beginning to end; the clouds returning after the rain, and no cotton so thick and no conscience so hard as to exclude or resist the perpetual tumult. This is the clap-trap idea of preaching. Another wants flowers; whether natural and fresh from the soil, or artificial and faded, it does not matter; if he do but get flowers, and hear them rustling above his ears, in the breeze of brilliant declamation, he is quite satisfied, whether they keep him languishly awake, or lull him into dreamy repose. This is the florid and Corinthian idea of preaching. Another is content with exclamations; he is not pleased unless every other sentence begins with Oh! The interjection Ah! has to him a peculiarly pathetic sound; it seems to melt into his midriff like snow; and that preacher would be his Magnus Apollo, who would say, “Oh! we remark in the next place.” This is the interjectional idea of preaching. Another desiderates chiefly delivery. No minister is a favourite unless his voice be musical, and his attitude smack of the boards; unless he indulge in a profusion of studied declamation, pointing to the four winds when he names them, and laying his hand gently on the heart, when he wishes to indicate that interesting organ. This is the material or Anthropomorphic idea of preaching. Another judges of a sermon by its length, and likes it, either because it is an hour or because it is only the half of the time. This is the arithmetical idea of preaching. — Gilfillan

“Some lawyers at the bar may be as skilful as the judge upon the bench, but without a commission they dare not sit there.” — Flavel

“It is a great mercy to enjoy the ‘Gospel of Peace,’ but a still greater to enjoy the peace of the Gospel.” — Dyer

“I have passed through many places of honour and trust, both in Church and State, more than any of my order in England these seventy years before. But were I but assured that by my preaching I had converted but one soul unto God, I should take therein more spiritual joy and comfort than in all the honours and offices which have been bestowed on me.” — Abp. Williarns

“But it must be remembered that we ‘glorify the word,’ not the preacher.” — Trapp

A former conservative president of the Southern Baptist Convention ridiculed the denomination's mandate that wives should submit to their husbands and doesn't support the denomination's ban on female pastors, according to a Texas newspaper.

Charles Stanley's comments were reported in an Oct. 18 Fort Worth Star-Telegram article. The story, written by veteran religion writer Jim Jones, was based on an interview given during Stanley's visit to Texas to promote his latest book, “Finding Peace: God's Promise of a Life Free from Regret, Anxiety and Fear.”

Stanley, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, was elected SBC president at the peak of the battle between moderates and conservatives. His re-election victory in Dallas in June 1985, when more than 45,000 messengers registered, is considered a pivotal moment in the denomination's so-called “conservative resurgence.”

Both edicts Stanley criticized were additions to the SBC's Baptist Faith and Message doctrinal statement -- the first approved by convention messengers in 1998, and the second in 2000. Those controversial additions were penned and promoted by some of Stanley's allies in the fight to change the direction of the SBC beginning in 1979.

The section on women being submissive to their husbands is based on a misreading of Scripture, and the topic should not have been dealt with in a general statement of doctrine, Stanley told the Star-Telegram.

“If a woman is going to be submissive, she's not going to be submissive because of the Southern Baptist Convention,” he told the paper. “It's just ridiculous.”

Even though SBC leaders have said the statement is not intended to make women “doormats,” that is the impression it gives, Stanley said. “They should never have discussed the issue.”

A proper reading of the New Testament book of Ephesians -- the main text SBC leaders used to justify their statement -- leans more toward mutual submission, said Stanley, who is divorced. “Jesus said we are to honor one another. Submission means you should submit yourself one to another.”

Stanley disputed the prohibition on women serving as pastors based on his own experience. He told the paper: “Let me put it this way: I was saved by a woman preaching. I was saved at 12 years of age, and I'm still saved.”

The 2000 Baptist Faith and Message ignores the fact that in some places around the world, men are not taking responsibility for leading churches while women are, Stanley said. “You can go to India, Japan and other countries and find women are preaching the gospel. People are being saved. Lives are being changed. Big churches are growing up. Are we going to tell these women, 'You can't do that'?”

The fact that Stanley was converted under the preaching of a female Pentecostal preacher in Danville, Virginia, has been previously reported.

This isn't the first time Stanley has made comments on the issue of women that were viewed as departing from the denomination's conservative party line. In the summer of 2000, soon after the revised Baptist Faith and Message was adopted, Stanley told a group of pastors in North Carolina: “There are some godly women out there. I would never say that a woman could not preach.... You just can't put God in a box.”

Stanley quickly backed away from that report, however, saying his words had been “twisted and distorted” by the Charlotte Observer. At the time, he drew a distinction between a woman being a preacher and being a pastor.

*

I’ve heard countless little funnies and criticisms of the dull sermons some preachers deliver on a regular basis … it’s more than just a cliché to say that some of them really will put you to sleep! As one person described it, “Preaching is the art of talking in someone else’s sleep,” or “We start at eleven o’clock sharp and end at twelve o’clock dull.”

One pastor said, “When my deacons fall asleep while I’m preaching, I just see it as a vote of confidence that I won’t say anything heretical.” That’s a positive way of looking at it! And think about this: the one sleeping might be creating something good.

In 1974 at the North Presbyterian Church in North St. Paul, Minnesota, Art Fry was having trouble focusing on the sermon so he started to daydream. This 3M scientist was frustrated because he could not mark the hymn books without making a big mess. He devoted considerable thought to that and used the sermon time to figure out a solution. That’s the day he invented Post-it-Notes. [This disagrees with the more common story that it occurred as a serendipitous accident – RGH]

Art may not have told the preacher what he was doing during the sermon, but I know that his company and millions of people are glad he was putting the time to practical use. So the next time you see somebody dozing during a sermon, just remember that he might be coming up with the next Post-it-Notes.

Personally …. I have attended dull church services and heard dull sermons, but I have never attended a dull worship service. How can you make Jesus Christ, the Creator of the universe, dull?

In my senior year of ministerial studies, I preached part-time in

a small local church. Six months passed and none of my

professors had come to hear me. Finally, my faculty advisor

agreed to attend one Sunday.

After the service, he shook my hand and said, "That was a very

warm sermon."

My delight was short-lived as he continued. "You know what the

definition of warm is, don't you?" he asked.

Before I could respond, he answered, "Not so hot."

Has preaching fallen on hard times? An open debate is now being waged over the character and centrality of preaching in the church. At stake is nothing less than the integrity of Christian worship and proclamation.

How did this happen? Given the central place of preaching in the New Testament church, it would seem that the priority of biblical preaching should be uncontested. After all, as John A. Broadus — one of the great preachers of Christian history –-famously remarked, “Preaching is characteristic of Christianity. No other religion has made the regular and frequent assembling of groups of people, to hear religious instruction and exhortation, an integral part of Christian worship.”

Yet, numerous influential voices within evangelicalism suggest that the age of the expository sermon is now past. In its place, some contemporary preachers now substitute messages intentionally designed to reach secular or superficial congregations — messages that avoid preaching a biblical text, and thus avoid a potentially embarrassing confrontation with biblical truth.

A subtle shift visible at the onset of the twentieth century has become a great divide as the century ends. The shift from expository preaching to more topical and human-centered approaches has grown into a debate over the place of Scripture in preaching, and the nature of preaching itself.

FAMOUS STATEMENTS

Two famous statements about preaching illustrate this growing divide. Reflecting poetically on the urgency and centrality of preaching, the Puritan pastor Richard Baxter once remarked, “I preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” With vivid expression and a sense of gospel gravity, Baxter understood that preaching is literally a life or death affair. Eternity hangs in the balance as the preacher proclaims the Word.

Contrast that statement to the words of Harry Emerson Fosdick, perhaps the most famous (or infamous) preacher of this century’s early decades. Fosdick, pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City, provides an instructive contrast to the venerable Baxter. “Preaching,” he explained, “is personal counseling on a group basis.”

These two statements about preaching reveal the contours of the contemporary debate. For Baxter, the promise of heaven and the horrors of hell frame the preacher’s consuming burden. For Fosdick, the preacher is a kindly counselor offering helpful advice and encouragement.

The current debate over preaching is most commonly explained as an argument about the focus and shape of the sermon. Should the preacher seek to preach a biblical text through an expository sermon? Or, should the preacher direct the sermon to the “felt needs” and perceived concerns of the hearers?

Clearly, many evangelicals now favor the second approach. Urged on by devotees of “needs-based preaching,” many evangelicals have abandoned the text without recognizing that they have done so. These preachers may eventually get to the text in the course of the sermon, but the text does not set the agenda or establish the shape of the message.

NEEDS-BASED PREACHING

Focusing on so-called “perceived needs” and allowing these needs to set the preaching agenda inevitably leads to a loss of biblical authority and biblical content in the sermon. Yet, this pattern is increasingly the norm in many evangelical pulpits. Fosdick must be smiling from the grave.

Earlier evangelicals recognized Fosdick’s approach as a rejection of biblical preaching. An out-of-the-closet theological liberal, Fosdick paraded his rejection of biblical inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility-and rejected other doctrines central to the Christian faith. Enamored with trends in psychological theory, Fosdick became liberal Protestantism’s happy pulpit therapist. The goal of his preaching was well captured by the title of one of his many books, On Being a Real Person.

Shockingly, this is now the approach evident in many evangelical pulpits. The sacred desk has become an advice center and the pew has become the therapist’s couch. Psychological and practical concerns have displaced theological exegesis and the preacher directs his sermon to the congregation’s perceived needs.

The problem is, of course, that the sinner does not know what his most urgent need is. She is blind to her need for redemption and reconciliation with God, and focuses on potentially real but temporal needs such as personal fulfillment, financial security, family peace, and career advancement. Too many sermons settle for answering these expressed needs and concerns, and fail to proclaim the Word of Truth.

Without doubt, few preachers following this popular trend intend to depart from the Bible. But under the guise of an intention to reach modern secular men and women “where they are,” the sermon has been transformed into a success seminar. Some verses of Scripture may be added to the mix, but for a sermon to be genuinely biblical, the text must set the agenda as the foundation of the message-not as an authority cited for spiritual footnoting.

WHAT DID SPURGEON DO?

Charles Spurgeon confronted the very same pattern of wavering pulpits in his own day. Some of the most fashionable and well-attended London churches featured pulpiteers who were the precursors to modern needs-based preachers. Spurgeon — who managed to draw a few thousand hearers each service despite his insistence on biblical preaching — confessed, “The true ambassador for Christ feels that he himself stands before God and has to deal with souls in God’s stead as God’s servant, and stands in a solemn place-a place in which unfaithfulness is inhumanity to man as well as treason to God.”

Spurgeon and Baxter understood the dangerous mandate of the preacher, and were therefore driven to the Bible as their only authority and message. They left their pulpits trembling with urgent concern for the souls of their hearers and fully aware of their accountability to God for preaching His Word, and His Word alone. Their sermons were measured by power; Fosdick’s by popularity.

Authentic expository preaching takes the presentation of the Word of God as its central aim. The purpose of the preacher is to read the text, interpret the text, explain the text, and apply the text. Thus, the text drives the sermon from beginning to end. In fact, in too many of today’s sermons, the text plays a subordinate role to other concerns.

Real exposition takes time, preparation, dedication, and discipline. The foundation of expository preaching is the confidence that the Holy Spirit will apply the Word to the hearts of the hearers — explained by the Reformers as the ministry of Word and Spirit. That ministry-so vital to the people of God — is missing or minimized in many evangelical congregations.

The current debate over preaching may well shake congregations, denominations, and the evangelical movement. But know this: The recovery and renewal of the church in this generation will come only when from pulpit to pulpit the herald preaches as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.

======================

Version from 10/12/07:

Is preaching still central to Christian worship? This question is asked again and again as contemporary evangelicalism is observed. How can this be up for question?

In some circles, preaching has fallen on hard times. An open debate is now being waged over the character and centrality of preaching in the church. At stake is nothing less than the integrity of Christian worship and proclamation.

How did this happen? Given the central place of preaching in the New Testament church, it would seem that the priority of biblical preaching should be uncontested. After all, as John A. Broadus -- one of Southern Seminary’s founding faculty -- famously remarked, “Preaching is characteristic of Christianity. No other religion has made the regular and frequent assembling of groups of people, to hear religious instruction and exhortation, an integral part of Christian worship.”

Yet, numerous influential voices within evangelicalism suggest that the age of the expository sermon is now past. In its place, some contemporary preachers now substitute messages intentionally designed to reach secular or superficial congregations -- messages which avoid preaching a biblical text, and thus avoid a potentially embarrassing confrontation with biblical truth.

A subtle shift visible at the onset of the twentieth century has become a great divide as the century ends. The shift from expository preaching to more topical and human-centered approaches has grown into a debate over the place of Scripture in preaching, and the nature of preaching itself.

Two famous statements about preaching illustrate this growing divide. Reflecting poetically on the urgency and centrality of preaching, the Puritan pastor Richard Baxter once remarked, “I preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” With vivid expression and a sense of gospel gravity, Baxter understood that preaching is literally a life or death affair. Eternity hangs in the balance as the preacher proclaims the Word.

Contrast that statement to the words of Harry Emerson Fosdick, perhaps the most famous (or infamous) preacher of this century’s early decades. Fosdick, pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City, provides an instructive contrast to the venerable Baxter. “Preaching,” he explained, “is personal counseling on a group basis.”

These two statements about preaching reveal the contours of the contemporary debate. For Baxter, the promise of heaven and the horrors of hell frame the preacher’s consuming burden. For Fosdick, the preacher is a kindly counselor offering helpful advice and encouragement.

The current debate over preaching is most commonly explained as an argument about the focus and shape of the sermon. Should the preacher seek to preach a biblical text through an expository sermon? Or, should the preacher direct the sermon to the “felt needs” and perceived concerns of the hearers?

Clearly, many evangelicals now favor the second approach. Urged on by devotees of “needs-based preaching,” many evangelicals have abandoned the text without recognizing that they have done so. These preachers may eventually get to the text in the course of the sermon, but the text does not set the agenda or establish the shape of the message.

Focusing on so-called “perceived needs” and allowing these needs to set the preaching agenda inevitably leads to a loss of biblical authority and biblical content in the sermon. Yet, this pattern is increasingly the norm in many evangelical pulpits. Fosdick must be smiling from the grave.

Earlier evangelicals recognized Fosdick’s approach as a rejection of biblical preaching. An out-of-the-closet theological liberal, Fosdick paraded his rejection of biblical inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility -- and rejected other doctrines central to the Christian faith. Enamored with trends in psychological theory, Fosdick became liberal Protestantism’s happy pulpit therapist. The goal of his preaching was well captured by the title of one of his many books, ON BEING A REAL PERSON.

Shockingly, this is now the approach evident in many evangelical pulpits. The sacred desk has become an advice center and the pew has become the therapist’s couch. Psychological and practical concerns have displaced theological exegesis and the preacher directs his sermon to the congregation’s perceived needs.

The problem is, of course, that the sinner does not know what his most urgent need is. She is blind to her need for redemption and reconciliation with God, and focuses on potentially real but temporal needs such as personal fulfillment, financial security, family peace, and career advancement. Too many sermons settle for answering these expressed needs and concerns, and fail to proclaim the Word of Truth.

Without doubt, few preachers following this popular trend intend to depart from the Bible. But under the guise of an intention to reach modern secular men and women “where they are,” the sermon has been transformed into a success seminar. Some verses of Scripture may be added to the mix, but for a sermon to be genuinely biblical, the text must set the agenda as the foundation of the message -- not as an authority cited for spiritual footnoting.

Charles Spurgeon confronted the very same pattern of wavering pulpits in his own day. Some of the most fashionable and well-attended London churches featured pulpiteers who were the precursors to modern needs-based preachers. Spurgeon -- who managed to draw a few hearers despite his insistence on biblical preaching -- confessed that “The true ambassador for Christ feels that he himself stands before God and has to deal with souls in God’s stead as God’s servant, and stands in a solemn place -- a place in which unfaithfulness is inhumanity to man as well as treason to God.”

Spurgeon and Baxter understood the dangerous mandate of the preacher, and were therefore driven to the Bible as their only authority and message. They left their pulpits trembling with urgent concern for the souls of their hearers and fully aware of their accountability to God for preaching His Word, and His Word alone. Their sermons were measured by power; Fosdick’s by popularity.

The current debate over preaching may well shake congregations, denominations, and the evangelical movement. But know this: The recovery and renewal of the church in this generation will come only when from pulpit to pulpit the herald preaches as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.

Preach the Word! That simple imperative frames the act of preaching as an act of obedience. That is where any theology of preaching must begin.

Preaching did not emerge from the church's experimentation with communication techniques. The church does not preach because preaching is thought to be a good idea or an effective technique. The sermon has not earned its place in Christian worship by proving its utility in comparison with other means of communication or aspects of worship. Rather, we preach because we have been commanded to preach.

Preaching is a commission -- a charge. As Paul stated boldly, it is the task of the minister of the gospel to “preach the Word,...in season and out of season” [2 Tim. 4:2]. A theology of preaching begins with the humble acknowledgement that preaching is not a human invention but a gracious creation of God and a central part of His revealed will for the church. Furthermore, preaching is distinctively Christian in its origin and practice. Other religions may include teaching, or even public speech and calls to prayer. However, the preaching act is SUI GENERIS, a function of the church established by Jesus Christ.

As John A. Broadus stated: “Preaching is characteristic of Christianity. No other religion has made the regular and frequent assembling of groups of people, to hear religious instruction and exhortation, and integral part of divine worship.” The importance of preaching is rooted in Scripture and revealed in the unfolding story of the church. The church has never been faithful when it has lacked fidelity in the pulpit. In the words of P. T. Forsyth: “With preaching Christianity stands or falls, because it is the declaration of the gospel.”

The church cannot BUT preach lest it deny its own identity and abdicate its ordained purpose. Preaching is communication, but not MERE communication. It is human speech, but much more than speech. As Ian Pitt-Watson noted, preaching is not even “a kind of speech communication that happens to be about God.” Its ground, its goal, and its glory are all located in the sovereign will of God.

The act of preaching brings forth a combination of exposition, testimony, exhortation, and teaching. Still, preaching cannot be reduced to any of these, or even to the sum total of its individual parts combined.

The primary Greek form of the word “preach” (KERUSSO) reveals its intrinsic rootage in the KERYGMA -- the gospel itself. Preaching is an inescapably theological act, for the preacher dares to speak of God and, in a very real sense, FOR God. A theology of preaching should take Trinitarian form, reflecting the very nature of the self-revealing God. In so doing, it bears witness to the God who speaks, the Son who saves, and the Spirit who illuminates.

THE GOD WHO SPEAKS

True preaching begins with this confession: we preach because God has spoken. That fundamental conviction is the fulcrum of the Christian faith and of Christian preaching. The Creator God of the universe, the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Lord, chose of his own sovereign will to reveal Himself to us. Supreme and complete in his holiness, needing nothing and hidden from our view, God condescended to speak to us -- even to reveal Himself to us.

As Carl F. H. Henry suggests, revelation is “a divinely initiated activity, God's free communication by which he alone turns His personal privacy into a deliberate disclosure of his reality.” In an act of holy graciousness, God gave up His comprehensive privacy that we might know Him. God's revelation is the radical claim upon which we dare to speak of God -- HE HAS SPOKEN!

Our God-talk must therefore begin and end with what God has spoken concerning Himself. Preaching is not the business of speculating about God's nature, will, or ways, but is bearing witness to what God has spoken concerning Himself. Preaching does not consist of speculation but of exposition.

The preacher dares to speak the Word of truth to a generation which rejects the very notion of objective, public truth. This is not rooted in the preacher's arrogant claim to have discovered worldly wisdom or to have penetrated the secrets of the universe. To the contrary, the preacher dares to proclaim truth on the basis of God's sovereign self-disclosure. God has spoken, and He has commanded us to speak of Him.

The Bible bears witness to itself as the written Word of God. This springs from the fact that God has spoken. In the Old Testament alone, the phrases “the Lord said,” “the Lord spoke,” and “the word of the Lord came” appear at least 3,808 times. This confession brings the preacher face to face with Scripture as divine revelation. The authority of Scripture is none other than the authority of God Himself. As the Reformation formula testifies, “where Scripture speaks, God speaks.” The authority of the preacher is intrinsically rooted in the authority of the Bible as the church's Book and the unblemished Word of God. Its total truthfulness is a witness to God's own holiness. We speak because God has spoken, and because he has given us His Word.

As Scripture itself records, God has called the church to speak of Him on the basis of his Word and deeds. All Christian preaching is biblical preaching. That formula is axiomatic. Those who preach from some other authority or text may speak with great effect and attractiveness, but they are preaching “another gospel,” and their words will betray them. Christian preaching is not an easy task. Those who are called to preach bear a heavy duty. As Martin Luther confessed “If I could come down with a good conscience, I would rather be stretched out on a wheel and carry stones than preach one sermon.” Speaking on the basis of what God has spoken is both arduous and glorious.

A theology of preaching begins with the confession that the God who speaks has ultimate claim upon us. He who spoke a word and brought a world into being created us from the dust. God has chosen enlivened dust -- and all creation -- to bear testimony to his glory.

In preaching, finite, frail, and fault-ridden human beings bear bold witness to the infinite, all-powerful, and perfect Lord. Such an endeavor would smack of unmitigated arrogance and over-reaching were it not for the fact that God Himself has set us to the task. In this light, preaching is not an act of arrogance, but of humility. True preaching is not an exhibition of the brilliance or intellect of the preacher, but an exposition of the wisdom and power of God.

This is possible only when the preacher stands in submission to the text of Scripture. The issue of authority is inescapable. Either the preacher OR the text will be the operant authority. A theology of preaching serves to remind those who preach of the danger of confusing our own authority with that of the biblical text. We are called, not only to PREACH, but to preach THE WORD.

Acknowledging the God who speaks as Lord is to surrender the preaching event in an act of glad submission. Preaching thus becomes the occasion for the Word of the Lord to break forth anew. This occasion itself represents the divine initiative, for it is God Himself, and not the preacher, who controls His Word.

John Calvin understood this truth when he affirmed that “The Word goeth out of the mouth of God in such a manner that it likewise goeth out of the mouth of men; for God does not speak openly from heaven, but employs men as His instruments.” Calvin understood preaching to be the process by which God uses human instruments to speak what He Himself has spoken. This He accomplishes through the preaching of Scripture under the illumination and TESTIMONIUM of the Holy Spirit. God uses preachers, Calvin offered, “rather than to thunder at us and drive us away.” Further, “it is singular privilege that he deigns to consecrate to Himself the mouths and toungues (sic) of men in order that His voice may resound in them.”

Thus, preaching springs from the truth that God has spoken in word and deed and that He has chosen human vessels to bear witness to Himself and his gospel. We speak because we cannot be silent. We speak because God has spoken.

*

The preacher stands before the congregation as the external minister of the Word, but the Holy Spirit works as the internal minister of that same Word. A theology of preaching must take the role of the Spirit into full view, for without an understanding of the work of the Spirit, the task of preaching is robbed of its balance and power.

The neglect of the work of the Spirit is a symptom of the decline of biblical Trinitarianism in our midst. Charles H. Spurgeon warned, “You might as well expect to raise the dead by whispering in their ears, as hope to save souls by preaching to them, if it were not for the agency of the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit performs His work of inspiration, indwelling, regeneration, and sanctification as the inner minister of the Word; it is the Spirit's ministry of illumination that allows the Word of the Lord to break forth.

Both the preacher and the hearers are dependent upon the work of the Holy Spirit for any adequate understanding of the text. As Calvin warned, “No one should hesitate to confess that he is able to understand God's mysteries only in so far as he is illumined by God's grace. He who attributes any more understanding to himself is all the more blind because he does not recognize his own blindness.” This has been the confession of great preachers from the first century to the present, and the absence of a conscious dependence upon the Holy Spirit is a sign that the preacher does not understand his task and calling. Tertullian, for example, called the Spirit his “Vicar” who ministered the Word to himself and to his congregation.

The Reformation saw a new acknowledgement of the union of Word and Spirit. This TESTIMONIUM was understood to be the crucial means by which the Spirit imparts understanding. This Trinitarian doctrine produced preaching that was both bold and humble; bold in its content, but uttered forth by humble humans who knew their utter dependence upon God.

John Calvin described the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit as absolutely necessary in order for the individual to receive the Word: “For as God alone is a fit witness of himself in His Word, so also the Word will not find acceptance in men's hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who has spoken through the mouths of the prophets must penetrate into our hearts to persuade us that they faithfully proclaimed what had been divinely commanded.”

Martin Luther had affirmed this same truth in various ways, most famously in his exhortation to his young students that they must preach the Word faithfully in order to get the Word to the ears of the congregation. Nevertheless, Luther also insisted that only the Holy Spirit could take the Word from the ear into the human heart.

Luther had another important point to make as well. Even as the preacher is dependent upon the work of the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the Word, Luther insisted that the Father had willed that the Spirit should work uniquely through the Word, and not independent of it. He rejected the notion that the Holy Spirit would impart spiritual life through sacraments or other actions apart from the Word.

In Luther's own words: “Therefore no one desiring comfort should wait until the Holy Spirit presents Christ to him personally or speaks to him directly from heaven. He gives His testimony publicly, in the sermon. There you must seek Him and wait for Him until He touches your heart through the Word that you hear with your ears, and thus He also testifies of Christ inwardly through His working.” This quality of confidence in the Holy Spirit's work through the Word, and only through the Word, would be a much-needed corrective in today's confused church.

The same God who called forth human vessels and set them to preach also promised the power of the Spirit. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was aware that preachers often forget this promise: “Seek Him always. But go beyond seeking Him; expect Him. Do you expect anything to happen when you get up to preach in a pulpit? Or do you just say to yourself, 'Well, I have prepared my address, I am going to give them this address; some of them will appreciate it and some will not'? Are you expecting it to be the turning point in someone's life? That is what preaching is meant to do.... Seek this power, expect this power, yearn for this power; and when the power comes, yield to Him.”

To preach “in the Spirit” is to preach with the acknowledgement that the human instrument has no control over the message -- and no control over the Word as it is set loose within the congregation. The Spirit, as John declared, testifies, “because the Spirit is the truth” [1 John 5:6].

J. I. Packer defined preaching as “the event of God bringing to an audience a Bible-based, Christ-related, life-impacting message of instruction and direction from Himself through the words of a spokesperson.” That rather comprehensive definition depicts the process of God speaking forth His Word, using human instruments to proclaim His message, and then calling men and women unto Himself. A theological analysis reveals that preaching is deadly business. As Spurgeon confirmed, “Life, death, hell, and worlds unknown may hang on the preaching and hearing of a sermon.”

The apostle Paul revealed the logic of preaching when he asked, “How then, can they call upon the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” [Rom. 10:14]

The preacher is a commissioned agent whose task is to speak because God has spoken, because the preacher has been entrusted with the telling of the gospel of the Son who saves, and because God has promised the power of the Spirit as the seal and efficacy of the preacher's calling.

The ground of the preaching is none other than the revelation which God has addressed to us in Scripture. The goal of preaching is no more and no less than faithfulness to this calling. The glory of preaching is that God has promised to use preachers and preaching to accomplish His purpose and bring glory unto Himself.

Therefore, a theology of preaching is essentially doxology. The ultimate purpose of the sermon is to glorify God and to reveal a glimpse of His glory to his creation. This is the sum and substance of the preaching task. That God would choose such a means to express His own glory is beyond our understanding; it is rooted in the mystery of the will and wisdom of God.

Yet our God has called out preachers and commanded them to preach. Preaching is not an act the church is called to defend, but a ministry preachers are called to perform. And as we are well reminded, we are not called to accomplish this task alone. The Holy Spirit is the seal and promise of our preaching. Thus, whatever the season, the imperative stands: Preach the Word!

*

Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom,

let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man

boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that

he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices

steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in

these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

(Jeremiah 9:23-24)

The life of the preacher is a life of study, and it has been so from the very beginning. The Apostle Paul instructed Timothy to study so that he could present himself to God as an approved worker, “a worker who has no need to be ashamed” [2 Timothy 2:15]. This instruction came within the context of Timothy's call as a preacher and teacher of God's Word, and Paul's instruction to Timothy is our Lord's instruction to all who would preach and teach the Word of God.

A word of honesty is necessary at this point. Any honest assessment of the contemporary church would indicate that vast numbers of ministers serving Christ's church are derelict in this duty. They are intellectually lazy, biblically illiterate, slothful in their study habits, and they often steal the learning of others in order to hide their own disobedience. This is a scandal that robs the congregation of the learned and faithful ministry the people of God so desperately need and deserve.

The preacher's lifetime of study begins with the moment of his call and properly ends only when the preacher breathes his last breath. Between the call and the grave lies a long and rewarding journey of learning – learning that will be put at the disposal of the congregation until we see our Lord face to face. On that day, we dare not be ashamed of our lack of study.

Thomas Murphy, once of the great faithful pastors of the nineteenth century, described the minister's calling of study with these words: “The pastor must study, study, study, or he will not grow, or even live, as a true workman for Christ.” The minister's life is “one of incessant study,” Murphy explained, and “mere genius” will not suffice – this is a life of constant and rewarding study.

KNOWING GOD

The preacher's first task is to know God – personally. The Bible has no conception of an unconverted ministry. The preacher is first of all a man who has come to know God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and who find his greatest fulfillment in knowing God personally and redemptively.

God told the prophet Jeremiah, “let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me” [Jeremiah 9:24]. Our fundamental knowledge is a knowledge of God, and this is the central goal of all true theological education and ministry preparation. The preacher must be one who sets his sight on a vibrant personal knowledge of God. Otherwise, theological knowledge becomes a ground for personal pride and intellectual pretentiousness.

As J. I. Packer reminds us, “To be preoccupied with getting theological knowledge as an end in itself, to approach Bible study with no higher a motive than a desire to know all the answers, is the direct route to a state of self-satisfied self-deception. We need to guard our hearts against such an attitude, and pray to be kept from it.”

Furthermore, Packer correctly reminds us that we are indeed to be urgently concerned for theological orthodoxy and biblical truth, but “not as ends in themselves, but as a means to the further ends of life and godliness.” In other words: “Our aim in studying the Godhead must be to know God himself better. Our concern must be to enlarge our acquaintance, not simply with the doctrine of God's attributes, but with the living God whose attributes they are.”

This approach to the minister's life of study brings a godly sense of balance. Our central aim is to know God, and the aim of our ministry is to lead our people to know God also. The other aspects of knowledge are useful only in so far as they lead us into a deeper knowledge of God. A healthy theological education inculcates a deeper love for God, even as the minister grows in the knowledge of God's Word and the comprehensiveness of God's truth.

STUDYING GOD'S WORD

Paul's instruction to Timothy was very clear. The young minister was to study in order that he would be found “rightly handling the word of truth” [2 Timothy 2:15]. A deep and growing knowledge of God's Word is the indispensable ground of all other true knowledge.

Put simply, the preacher is to be a devoted and skillful student of the Scriptures. This is the most important field of knowledge for the preacher, for his primary task is to preach the Word “in season and out of season,” [2 Timothy 4:2] and to teach God's people from God's Word.

Clearly, this strategic call represents a stewardship of truth, of souls, and of calling. Failure in this task is beyond tragedy, and the consequences are eternal. God has given us his Word and has commanded that we preach the Bible with skill, even as Ezra was “a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses” [Ezra 7:6].

This requires skill in the tasks of biblical interpretation, hermeneutics, exegesis, biblical languages, and the history of interpretation. This is a demanding calling, but nothing less than the most serious life of study will do. Those who can gain access to Bible colleges and theological seminaries that are biblically and theologically orthodox and faithful should take full advantage of these opportunities -- knowing that this is a matter of faithfulness to our calling. At the same time, we must remember that many faithful preachers never had access to formal theological education. Yet, if they were faithful, they were no less studious or committed to a life of godly learning.

The centrality of the Bible is essential. As Charles Spurgeon encouraged his students: “Study the Bible, dear brethren, through and through, with all the helps that you can possibly obtain: remember that the appliances now within the reach of ordinary Christians are much more extensive than they were in our fathers' days, and therefore you must be greater biblical scholars if you would keep in front of your hearers. Intermeddle with all knowledge, but above all things meditate day and night in the law of the Lord.”

If this was true in Spurgeon's time, it is even more so in ours. The preacher must be more knowledgeable and more skilled than his congregation. Spurgeon's other emphasis -- that the knowledge of the Bible exceeds all other forms of knowledge in importance -- also takes on a new urgency in our times. While there are many fields of knowledge and intellectual stimulation to which we could give our attention, we must keep ourselves first and foremost students of the Bible.

LEARNING GOD'S TRUTH

A true theological education stands on the unquestioned authority and truthfulness of the Bible and then moves to display that truth in all its comprehensiveness and to apply that truth to every dimension of life. Thus, the fields of systematic theology, historical theology, ethics, church history, and other theological disciplines all play their part in the preparation of the preacher.

A resistance to systematic theology reflects a lack of discipline or a lack of confidence in the consistency of God's Word. We are to set out the great doctrines of the faith as revealed in the Bible -- and do so in a way that helps to bring all of God's truth into a comprehensive focus. The preacher must be ready to answer the great questions of his age from the authoritative treasury of God's truth, and to teach, defend, and proclaim the faith “once for all delivered to the saints” [Jude 3].

SERVING GOD'S PEOPLE

Ultimately, the preacher's calling is a call to serve the people of God. That's why a consideration of the call should include a careful analysis of the man's ability to preach, to teach, and to love the church for whom Christ died.

Once that is established, the preacher is set on a lifetime of studying in order to improve his preaching, to teach with even greater effectiveness, and to serve with even greater faithfulness.

This is no easy task. That's surely why Paul used the metaphors of the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer as he described this calling to Timothy [2 Timothy 2:3-7]. We are called to the obedience of the soldier, the discipline of the athlete, and the patient endurance of the farmer.

We should note carefully that Paul describes the ministry this way just before commanding Timothy to study in order to show himself faithful. May we, like Timothy, do our best to present ourselves to God as workers who have no need to be ashamed.

*

It was Sunday evening and Harry Ironside had preached five times that day. He was weary, and on the way home his wife asked a question to which he responded with irritation. Immediately he felt conviction, and apologized to his wife, saying, "Forgive me, I am quite tired. Remember, I have preached five times today."

To which his wife responded, "Yes, dear, I know. But remember, I have had to listen to you five times today!"

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Moody Monthly; Source: Preaching Now

The greatest preacher the world has ever known was remarkable for his use of illustrations. Our Master never preached a sermon when He did not liken His truth to some everyday, ordinary object so that the little children in His company could take in the power and sweetness of the truth He taught. There is a great difference between the illustrations of Jesus and Paul. Paul lived in the city, and his truth was colored because of his contact with the people in the great centers of population; but Jesus lived in the country, and the sparrows flying through the air, the grass growing beneath His feet, and the lilies blooming on every side furnished His illustrations. We are following in right footsteps when we pattern our ministries after Jesus and Paul in illustrating truth.

-J. Wilbur Chapman

Longfellow I had learned to love from my youth up; Sherlock Holmes ever since the mystery of the three Johns and the three Toms caught my schoolboy fancy, years ago, has been to me a monolith of wisdom. And naturally the attraction of these names was a powerful inducement to me to spend my last days (of the first visit to America) in quiet worship at shrines so revered and beloved. But some eight hundred miles off, away by Lake Erie, were two men who were more to me than philosopher or poet, and it only required a moment's thought to convince me that for me at least a visit to America would be much more than incomplete without a visit to Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey. It was hard, I must say, to give up Longfellow, but I am one of those who thinks that the world is not dying for poets so much as for preachers.

-Henry Drummond

When Dr. Chalmers was converted, the change in his ministry was quickly apparent to all. The rationalists, to whose class he had belonged, commonly said: "Tom Chalmers is made." Some years after, when he was settled in Glasgow, a lady and gentleman on their way to hear him met a friend, who asked where they were going. On being told, he said: "What! To hear that madman?" They persuaded him to go for once and do the same, promising never to dispute with him about that title again, if he were inclined to apply it to the preacher after his sermon. To the surprise of all three, when Dr. Chalmers gave out his text, it was: "I am not mad, most noble Felix, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness" (Acts 26:25). The skeptical hearer was not only convinced of the preacher's sanity, but was likewise converted to faith in evangelical truth.

"And when he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside ... but other fell on good ground" (Matthew 13:4, Matthew 13:8).

One Sunday morning the great Dr. Henry Ward Beecher was preaching. After the service a stranger who had come to hear him got him in a corner and said, "I counted your mistakes in English today, Doctor, and you made exactly twenty." To this Dr. Beecher responded, "I'm afraid you are mistaken; I think I must have made at least a hundred."

Now it happened that at that same service a young immigrant boy was sitting in the rear pew of the church. He was a lad just growing up into manhood. He was alone in the great city, having come here from Serbia. His testimony given later when he became known as the world-renowned scientist, Michael Pupin, was this, "Nothing so inspired me and stimulated me as those sermons of Dr. Beecher." A faultfinder found twenty mistakes in English, but a lonesome immigrant boy found help, hope and inspiration. The one who really wants to find Christ will find Him in the preaching of the Gospel. We usually find the very thing for which we are seeking.

"But I will come shortly, if the Lord will, and will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power" (1 Corinthians 4:19, 1 Corinthians 4:20).

Some preaching reminds one of the soldiers firing blank cartridges. Their guns are good, they take aim, you see the fire and hear the noise, but it is only a harmless cartridge.

Just so, it is possible for preachers to use a powerless cartridge. They may have a good sermon, mean well, and have a grand delivery-both loud and fiery-yet entirely without power to slay the enmity of the human heart against God. Without the power of the Holy Spirit the sermon will always be like the blank cartridge.

There are perhaps these two reasons for such powerlessness on the part of preachers. Their sermons are like well-blended tea. The great object is to make it palatable to all. The flavor is the chief thing. And it has become quite an art in some quarters to mix up the thoughts of men with the Word of God, and so blend (corrupt) them that itching ears are highly pleased with the sermon. Law and Gospel, works and faith, are so artfully blended that unrenewed hearts receive it gladly. But we are not told to blend, but to rightly divide the Word of Truth.

And the second reason for powerless sermons is that some preachers are too like the amphibious animal-they live a double life. The amphibious religious professor, who feels equally at home in the world or in the Church, who finds pleasure in sin and sermons, is useless to God. "I would thou were cold or hot" (Revelation 3:15).

The preacher may say, as Kepler did of his astronomical researches and discoveries: "O, Almighty God, I think Thy thoughts after Thee!" So is it a divine art; as Paul Veronese said of painting: "It is a gift from God." The preacher, like Michaelangelo, sees the angel imprisoned in the dingy, yellow block, and by God's help sets the angel free. A sermon is the Word of God as found in the Bible, used to save and sanctify souls, through the utterance of an anointed tongue. It implies the Bible with a man behind it, to enforce and emphasize it by personal experience. Hence converted men are chosen, rather than angels, to preach; for

Never did angels taste above

Redeeming grace and dying Love.

And so the humblest believer can preach better than Gabriel, for he can say, "I am a sinner saved by grace."

A farmer once went to hear John Wesley preach. The preacher said he would take up three topics of thought; he was talking chiefly about money. His first heading was, "Get all you can." The farmer nudged his neighbor and said: "That man has got something in him; it is admirable preaching." Wesley reached his second division, "Save all you can." The farmer became quite excited. "Was there ever anything like this?" he said. The preacher denounced thriftlessness and waste, and the farmer rubbed his hands as he thought, "And all this have I been taught from my youth up." What with getting and with hoarding, it seemed to him that "salvation" had come to his house. But Wesley went on to his third heading, which was, "Give all you can." "Oh, dear! he has gone and spoiled it all," exclaimed the listener. But getting, without giving, makes only stagnant pools of us.

For the mass of the people it is well that there should be a goodly number of illustrations in our discourses. We have the example of our Lord for that, and most of the great preachers have abounded in similes, metaphors, allegories and anecdotes. But beware of overdoing this business. Illustrate richly and aptly, but not so much with parables imported from foreign sources as with apt similes growing out of the subject itself. Do not, however, think the illustration everything; it is the window, but of what use is the light which it admits, if you have nothing for the light to reveal? Garnish your dishes, but remember that the joint is the main point to consider.

-C. H. Spurgeon

John Nelson preaching about the influence of John Wesley's preaching and its effects upon him, said: "This man can tell the secrets of my heart, but he hath not left me there, he hath showed me the remedy, even the blood of Christ. Then was my soul filled with consolation, through hope that God for Christ's sake would save me." That is the experience wherever Christ and Him crucified is proclaimed. We must tell of sin, but also of the sacrifice that atones for it; of guilt, but also of grace that pardons; show man's depravity but God's redeeming mercy. Not half a gospel, but a whole one.

A layman visited a great city church during a business trip. After the service he congratulated the minister on his service and sermon. "But," said the manufacturer, "if you were my salesman, I'd discharge you. You got my attention by your appearance, voice, and manner; your prayer, reading, and logical discourse aroused my interest; you warmed my heart with a desire for what you preached; and then-and then you stopped without asking me to do something about it. In business the important thing is to get them to sign on the dotted line." Ah, preachers too often fail just here. They must press for decisions for Christ. In the words of Joshua they must say to their hearts, "Choose you this day whom ye will serve" (Joshua 24:15).

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season. — 2 Timothy 4:2.

A homely sermon, preached in an Irish barn by an illiterate evangelist, was instrumental in leading a youth, A. M. Toplady to decision for Christ. He afterwards became an able minister of Christ, and wrote the hymn:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee;

Let the water and the blood

From Thy riven side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure,

Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

In STREAMS OF LIVING WATER, Richard Foster told of Billy Graham preaching at Cambridge in 1955. For three nights he tried to make his preaching academic and enlightened, but with no effect.

Graham finally realized that presenting the intellectual side of faith was not his gift and began preaching the simple message of Jesus rescuing us from our problem with sin. Foster wrote, “The results were astonishing: hundreds of sophisticated students responded to this clear presentation of the Gospel. It was a lesson in clarity and simplicity that he never forgot.”

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STREAMS OF LIVING WATER: CELEBRATING THE GREAT TRADITIONS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH by Richard J. Foster; secondary source: SermonCentral Weekly Newsletter