PREACHING-CHRIST
For Paul,
preaching “Christ crucified” has a much broader meaning than focusing every
sermon on Jesus' suffering on the cross. The cross of Christ is indeed the
focal point for Paul's preaching, but, as Paul's sermons and letters
demonstrate, the cross of Christ reveals much more than the suffering of Jesus.
It also provides a viewpoint on the perfect justice of God and the dreadful
catastrophe of human sin.
Sindey
Greidanus
Preaching
Christ from the Old Testament, Eerdmans, www.eerdmans.com,
1999, p. 5.
The
conviction that Jesus inaugurated the messianic age enables the New Testament
writers to preach Christ from the Old Testament, for this presupposition means
that God's redemptive history reaches its climax in Jesus. In Him all the Old Testament promises come to
fulfillment.
Sindey
Greidanus
Preaching Christ from the Old Testament,
Eerdmans, www.eerdmans.com, 1999, p.
196.
I never got
away from Jesus, and Him crucified, and I found that
when my people were gripped by this great evangelical doctrine of Christ and
Him crucified, I had no need to give them instructions about morality. I found that one followed as the sure and inevitable
fruit of the other… I find my Indians
begin to put on the garments of holiness and their common life begins to be
sanctified even in small matters when they are possessed by the doctrine of
Christ and Him crucified.
David Brainerd
When Paul
preached “the cross” he preached a message which explained that this instrument
of rejection had been used by God as His instrument of reconciliation. Man’s means of bringing death to Jesus was
God’s means to bring life to the world.
Man’s symbol of rejecting Christ was God’s symbol of forgiveness for
man. This is why Paul boasted about the
cross!
Sinclair B. Ferguson
Grow in Grace, by permission of Banner of
Truth, Carlisle, PA. 1989, p. 55.
There is a
center to the Bible and its message of grace.
It is found in Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected. Grace must therefore be preached in a way
that is centered and focused on Jesus Christ Himself, never offering the
benefits of the gospel without the Benefactor Himself.
Sinclair B. Ferguson
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 214.
The evidence
that I preach Jesus Christ as Lord is found not so much in my declarations as
it is in the manifestation of that Lordship in my life and preaching - when I,
who am His bondslave, am willing to be and actually
become in my preaching, the bondslave of others for
Jesus’ sake (2 Corinthians 4:5).
Sinclair B. Ferguson
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 216-217.
We are called
to be cruciformed (shaped by the cross), Christophers (bearing the Christ of the cross), and Christplacarders (setting Christ and Him crucified on
display, cf. Galatians 3:1) in our preaching of Christ.
Sinclair B. Ferguson
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 217.
[The heart of
all preaching is] to preach one Christ, by Christ, to the praise of Christ.
William Perkins
Works of William Perkins, John Legatt, 1613, 2:762.
If Jesus
Christ is the head of the church and hence the source and goal of its entire
life, true growth is only possible in obedience to Him. Conversely, if the church becomes detached
from Jesus Christ and His Word, it cannot grow however active and successful it
may seem to be.
Os Guinness
Dining with the Devil, Baker, 1993, p.
39.
Whenever the
true message of the cross is abolished, the anger of hypocrites and heretics
eases…and all things are in peace. This is a sure token that the devil is
guarding the entry of that house, and that the pure doctrine of God's Word has
been taken away. The church, then, is in the BEST state when Satan assaileth it on every side…both with subtle sleights, and
outright violence. And (likewise) it is in the WORST state, when it is most at
peace!
Martin Luther
Today, one of
the greatest threats to evangelical preaching comes from the invasion of the
church by Adler-Maslow, etc., self-image, self-worth dogmas. Passage after passage in the Bible has been distorted
in order to conform to these teachings, with the result that you end up
preaching man and his supposed worth rather than Christ. Sometimes that "worth" has been
seen as intrinsic, sometimes it has been considered to be the result of
salvation.
Jay E. Adams
Preaching With Purpose, Zondervan,
1982, p. 188.
The best
sermons are the sermons which are most full of Christ. A sermon without Christ
it is an awful, a horrible thing; it is an empty well; it is a cloud without
rain; it is a tree twice dead, plucked by the roots. It is an abominable thing to give men stones
for bread, and scorpions for eggs, and yet they do so who preach not Jesus. A
sermon without Christ! As well talk of a loaf of bread without any flour in it.
How can it feed the soul? Men die and perish because Christ is not there, and
yet His glorious gospel is the easiest thing to preach, and the sweetest thing
to preach; there is most variety in it, there is more attractiveness in it than
in all the world besides!
C.H. Spurgeon
Adapted from Spurgeon's sermon, Christ
the Glory of His People #826.
The sermon
which does not lead to Christ, or of which Jesus Christ is not the top and the
bottom, is a sort of sermon that will make the devils in hell laugh, but make
the angels of God weep.
C.H. Spurgeon
Whatever subject I preach, I do not stop until I reach
the Savior, the Lord Jesus, for in Him are all things.
The preaching
of Christ is the whip that flogs the devil. The preaching of Christ is the
thunderbolt, the sound of which makes all hell shake.
C.H. Spurgeon
Christian History, n. 29.
I do believe
that we slander Christ when we think that we are to draw the people by
something else but the preaching of Christ crucified. We know that the greatest
crowd in London has been held together these thirty years by nothing but the
preaching of Christ crucified. Where is our music? Where is our oratory? Where
is anything of attractive architecture, or beauty of ritual? “A bare service,”
they call it. Yes, but Christ makes up for all the deficiencies
C.H. Spurgeon
I believe
that those sermons which are fullest of Christ are the most likely to be
blessed to the conversion of the hearers. Let your sermons be full of Christ,
from beginning to end crammed full of the Gospel. As for myself, brethren, I
cannot preach anything else but Christ and His Cross, for I know nothing else,
and long ago, like the Apostle Paul, I determined not to know anything else
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. People have often
asked me, "What is the secret of your success?" I always answer that
I have no other secret but this, that I have preached the Gospel - not about
the Gospel, but the Gospel - the full, free glorious Gospel of the living
Christ is the incarnation of the Good News. Preach Jesus Christ, brethren,
always and everywhere; and every time you preach be sure to have much of Jesus
Christ in the sermon. Whenever I get hold of a text, I say to myself,
"There is a road from here to Jesus Christ, and I mean to keep on His
track till I get to Him." "Well," said the young man, "but
suppose you are preaching from a text that says nothing about Christ?"
"Then I will go over hedge and ditch but what I will get at Him." So
must we do, brethren; we must have Christ in all our discourses, whatever else
is in or not in them. Those who do not like Jesus Christ must have Him preached
to them till they do like Him; for they are the ones who need Him most.
C.H. Spurgeon
If I only had
one more sermon to preach before I died, it would be about my Lord Jesus
Christ. And I think that when we get to the end of our ministry, one of our
regrets will be that we did not preach more of Him. I am sure no minister will
ever repent of having preached Him too much.
C.H. Spurgeon
54.149.
The preaching of Christ is the whip that flogs the devil. The
preaching of Christ is the thunderbolt, the sound of which makes all hell
shake.
C.H. Spurgeon
No man who is
full of himself can ever truly preach the Christ who emptied Himself.
J. Sidlow Baxter
Quoted in: Curtis Thomas, Practical
Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 121.
Jesus Christ
can only be preached as the crucified one, and no one can preach Christ
crucified to win personal renown.
David Garland
1 Corinthians, Baker, 2003, p. 84.
Some
Christians misunderstand God's plan for His kingdom. They want to establish it
their own way rather than waiting for God to do it His way. God's way of
establishing the kingdom is primarily through the preaching of the cross. But
that does not seem very effective to most people. They would prefer to use
force, which is the kind of thinking that leads to bloody crusades. Or they
would rather entertain people into the kingdom, which is the kind of thinking
that leads to man-centered worship.
Philip Graham Ryken
When You
Pray, Crossway Books, 2000, p. 82.
The best
exhortation I know concerning (preaching Christ) comes from the great Baptist
preacher, Charles Spurgeon, who, in speaking to his students about expository
preaching, told them to preach the text as the text and, as soon as possible,
you make a beeline to the cross and show its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 24.
If I allow my work to get between my heart and the Master, it will be of
little worth. We can only
effectually serve Christ as we are enjoying Him. It is while
the heart dwells upon His powerful attractions that the hands perform the most
acceptable service to His name; nor is there anyone who can minister Christ
with unction, freshness, and power to others, if he is not feeding upon Christ
in the secret of his own soul. True, he may preach a sermon, deliver a lecture,
utter prayers, write a book, and go through the entire routine of outward
service, and yet not minister Christ. The
man who will present Christ to others must be occupied with Christ for himself.
C.H.
Mackintosh
Genesis to Deuteronomy: Notes on the
Pentateuch, 1862.