PREACHING-EFFECTIVENESS
That is what
preaching (the Bible) is meant to do. It addresses us in such a manner as to
bring us under judgment; and it deals with us in such a way that we feel our
whole life is involved, and we go out saying, “I can never go back and live
just as I did before. This has done something to me; it has made a difference
to me. I am a different person as the result of listening to this.”
Preachers and Preaching, Zondervan,
1971, p. 56.
Unless the
pulpit is the place where you are the humblest in giving God’s message, it is
certain to be the place where you are vainest in giving your own.
John Wood Oman
Concerning the Ministry, Harper, 1937, p. 44.
If you want
to be used mightily by God, get yourself out of it. Learn to see yourself (in
the words of Paul) as a garbage pail, or, in the words of Peter, clothe
yourself with humility. It’s not you; it’s not your personality; it’s the Word
of God. He doesn’t need the intellectuals. He doesn’t need great people, fancy
people, or famous people. Because the people aren’t the
power. The power is the message! “That the surpassing greatness of the
power may be of God and not from ourselves” (2 Corinthians 4:7).
John MacArthur
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 283.
The only
person who can truly speak and minister for God is one who has been in God's
presence; and the only person who can come into God's presence is one who is
inwardly as well as outwardly righteous.
John MacArthur
Titus, Moody, 1996, p. 27.
In our own
day, there is no shortage of preachers who are willing to oblige such
self-centered hearers. By and large, the most popular preaching is
broad-minded, anecdotal, entertaining, ego-building, and, above-all, never confrontational
or dogmatic. It offends no pride, disturbs no conscious, and is a clear
reflection of the humanistic spirit of the age, in which tolerance and unity at
any cost are the supreme virtues.
John MacArthur
Titus, 1996, Moody, p. 130.
No one who
saw Paul’s ministry and looked at a preacher like Paul could dream that the
explanation lay in him. Not in an ugly little Jew without presence, without eloquence,
without the means to bribe or to compel could the source of such courage, the
cause of such transformation, be found. It must be sought not in him, but in
God.
James Denney
I have never
known anyone whose speech communicated such a sense of the reality of God as
did the Doctor (Martin Lloyd-Jones) in those occasional moments of emphasis and
doxology. Most of the time, however, it was clear, steady analysis, refection,
correction and instruction, based on simple thoughts culled from the text, set
out in good order with the minimum of extraneous illustration or decoration. He
knew that God’s way to the heart is through the mind (he often insisted that
the first thing the gospel does to a man is to make him think), and he preached
in a way designed to help people think and thereby grasp truth – and in the
process be grasped by it, and so be grasped by the God whose truth it is.
J.I. Packer
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones in Honouring the People of God, v. 4 of Collected Shorter
Writings of J. I. Packer, Paternoster, 1999, p. 85.
I
believe the problem you are having is this: You are attempting to remove ideas
cogently out of your own head, where you should be attempting to screw them
into mine.
If you would
make others feel, you must feel yourself… The heavenly flame must be kindled
first in your own bosom, that by this law of sympathy it may radiate thence
into the souls of your hearers.
Robert Dabney
Quoted by Curtis C. Thomas, Practical
Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 241.
One proud,
surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action may cut the
throat of many a sermon, and blast the fruit of all that you have been doing.
Richard Baxter
The Reformed Pastor.
Take heed to
yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine...lest you unsay with
your lives what you say with your tongues, and be the greatest hinderers of the
success of your own labors.
Richard Baxter
The Reformed Pastor, Chapter 1, Section 1.
Content not yourselves with being in a state of grace,
but be also careful that your graces are kept in vigorous and lively exercise,
and that you preach to yourselves the sermons which you study, before you
preach them to others.
Richard Baxter
The Reformed Pastor, Chapter 1, Section 1.
When your minds are in a holy, heavenly frame, your
people are likely to partake of the fruits of it. Your prayers, and praises,
and doctrine will be sweet and heavenly to them. They will likely feel when you
have been much with God: that which is most on your hearts, is like to be most
in their ears.
Richard Baxter
The Reformed Pastor, Chapter 1, Section 1.
What skill doth every part of our work require! – and of how much moment is every part! To preach a sermon, I
think, is not the hardest part; and yet what skill is necessary to make the
truth plain; to convince the hearers, to let irresistible light in to their
consciences, and to keep it there, and drive all home; to screw the truth into
their minds, and work Christ into their affections; to meet every objection,
and clearly to resolve it; to drive sinners to a stand, and make them see that
there is no hope, but that they must unavoidably either be converted or
condemned – and to do all this, as regards language and manner, as beseems our
work, and yet as is most suitable to the capacities of our hearers. This, and a
great deal more that should be done in every sermon, must surely require a
great deal of holy skill.
Richard Baxter
The Reformed Pastor, Chapter 1, Section 1.
So great a God, whose message we deliver, should be
honored by our delivery of it. It is a lamentable case, that in a message from
the God of heaven, of everlasting moment to the souls of men, we should behave
ourselves so weakly, so unhandsomely, so imprudently, or so slightly, that the
whole business should miscarry in our hands, and God should be dishonored, and
His work disgraced, and sinners rather hardened than converted; and all this
through our weakness or neglect!
Richard Baxter
The Reformed Pastor, Chapter 1, Section 1.
And thus doth pride make many a man’s sermons; and what
pride makes, the devil makes; and what sermons the devil will make and to what
end, we may easily conjecture. Though the matter be of
God, yet if the dress, and manner, and end be from Satan, we have no great
reason to expect success.
Richard Baxter
The Reformed Pastor, Chapter 3, Section 1.
What! speak coldly for God, and
for men’s salvation Can we believe that our people must be converted or
condemned, and yet speak in a drowsy tone? In the name of God, brethren, labor
to awaken your own hearts, before you go to the pulpit, that you may be fit to
awaken the hearts of sinners. Remember they must be awakened or damned, and
that a sleepy preacher will hardly awaken drowsy sinners. Though you give the
holy things of God the highest praises in words, yet, if you do it coldly, you
will seem by your manner to unsay what you said in the matter... It is only
here and there, even among good ministers, that we find one who has an earnest,
persuasive, powerful way of speaking, that the people can feel him preach when
they hear him.
Richard Baxter
The Reformed Pastor, Chapter 3, Section 1.
You cannot break men’s hearts by jesting with them, or
telling them a smooth tale, or pronouncing a gaudy oration. Men will not cast
away their dearest pleasures at the drowsy request of one that seems not to mean
as he speaks, or to care much whether his request be granted or not. If you say
that the work is God’s, and He may do it by the weakest means, I answer, It is
true, He may do so; but yet His ordinary way is to work by means, and to make
not only the matter that is preached, but also the manner of preaching
instrumental to the work.
Richard Baxter
The Reformed Pastor, Chapter 3, Section 1.
A sermon full of mere words, how neatly so ever it is
composed, while it wants the light of evidence, and the life of zeal, is but an
image or a well-dressed carcass.
Richard Baxter
The Reformed Pastor, Chapter 3, Section 1.
Experience has fully proved that works of charity do most
powerfully remove prejudice, and open the heart to words of piety. If men see
that you are addicted to do good, they will the more easily believe that you
are good, and that it is good which you persuade them to. When they see that
you love them, and seek their good, they will the more easily trust you. And
when they see that you seek not the things of the world, they will the less
suspect your intentions, and the more easily be drawn by you to seek that which
you seek.
Richard Baxter
The Reformed Pastor, Chapter 3, Section 1.
How can you speak of life and death with such a heart?
How can you preach of heaven and hell in such a careless, sleepy manner? Do you
believe what you say? Are you in earnest or in jest? How can you tell people
that sin is such a thing, and that so much misery is upon them and before them,
and be no more affected with it? Should you not weep over such a people, and
should not your tears interrupt your words? Should not you cry aloud, and show
them their transgressions, and entreat and beseech them as for life and death?
Richard Baxter
The Reformed Pastor, Chapter 3, Section 2.
A crucified
Savior can be preached in divine power only by crucified preachers.
Raymond
C. Ortlund Jr.
Pastoral Pensées: Power in Preaching: Decide (1
Corinthians 2:1-5), Themelios, April 2009. Used by
Permission of Gospel Coalition.
A sermon is
not made with an eye upon the sermon, but with both eyes upon the people and
all the heart upon God.
John Owen
Quoted by Curtis C. Thomas, Practical
Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 47.
When love is
felt, the message is heard.
Jim Vaus
Quoted by Curtis C. Thomas, Practical
Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 65.
Some
preachers ought to put more fire into their sermons or more sermons into the
fire.
Vance Havner
Quoted by Curtis C. Thomas, Practical
Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 79.
We preachers
cannot expect to communicate verbally from the pulpit if we visually out of it
contradict ourselves.
John Stott
Between Two Worlds, Eerdmans, 1882, p.
78.
We are told
men ought not to preach without preparation. Granted.
But, we add, men ought not to hear without preparation. Which, do you think,
needs the most preparation, the sower or the ground? I would have the sower
come with clean hands, but I would have the ground well- plowed and harrowed,
well-turned over, and the clods broken before the seed comes in. It seems to me
that there is more preparation needed by the ground than by the sower, more by
the hearer than by the preacher.
C.H. Spurgeon
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 Spirit.
C.H. Spurgeon
A sermon
often does a man most good when it makes him most angry. Those people who walk
down the aisles and say, “I will never hear that man again,” very often have an
arrow rankling in their breast.
C.H. Spurgeon
The
preaching that kills may be, and often is, orthodox- dogmatically, inviolably
orthodox. In the
Christian system, unction is the anointing of the Holy Ghost, separating a
person unto God’s work and preparing him for it. This unction
is the one divine enablement by which the preacher accomplishes the peculiar
and saving ends of preaching. Without this unction there are no true spiritual
results accomplished. The results and forces in preaching do not rise above the
results of unsanctified speech. Without unction the former is as potent as the
pulpit…without the gospel has no more power to propagate itself than any other
system of truth. This is the seal of its divinity. Unction in the preacher puts
God in the gospel.
C.H. Spurgeon
Unless the
Holy Ghost blesses the Word, we who preach the gospel are of all men most
miserable, for we have attempted a task that is impossible. We have entered on
a sphere where nothing but the supernatural will ever avail. If the Holy Spirit
does not renew the hearts of our hearers, we cannot do it. If the Holy Ghost
does not regenerate them, we cannot. If He does not send the truth home into
their souls, we might as well speak into the ear of a corpse.
C.H. Spurgeon
I shall not
attempt to teach a tiger the virtues of vegetarianism; but I shall as hopefully
attempt that task as I would try to convince an unregenerate man of the truths
revealed by God concerning sin, and righteousness and judgment to come. These
spiritual truths are repugnant to carnal men, and the carnal mind cannot
receive the things of God. Gospel truth is diametrically opposed to fallen
nature; and if I have not a power much stronger than that which lies in moral
suasion (persuasion), or in my own explanations and arguments, I have
undertaken a task in which I am sure of defeat… Except the Lord endow us with
power from on high, our labour must be in vain, and
our hopes must end in disappointment.
C.H. Spurgeon
Oh, what
would the damned in hell give for a sermon, could they but listen once more!
They would consent, if it were possible, to bear ten thousand years of hell's
torments, if they might but once more have the Word presented to them! If I had
a congregation such as that would be, of men who have tasted the wrath of God,
of men who know what an awful thing it is to fall into the hands of an angry
God, how would they lean forward to catch every
word.
C.H. Spurgeon
A man’s life
is always more forcible than his speech. When men take stock of him they reckon
his deeds as dollars and his words as pennies. If his life and doctrine
disagree the mass of onlookers accept his practice and reject his preaching.
C.H. Spurgeon
You cannot
preach conviction of sin unless you have suffered it. You cannot preach repentance
unless you have practiced it. You cannot preach faith unless you have exercised
it. True preaching is artesian; it wells up from the great depths of the soul.
If Christ has not made a well within us, there will be no outflow from us.
C.H. Spurgeon
A man must
have a stout digestion to feed upon some men’s theology; no sap, no sweetness,
no life, but all stern accuracy, and fleshless definition. Proclaimed without
tenderness, and argued without affection, the gospel from such men rather
resembles a missile from a catapult than bread from a Father’s hand.
C.H. Spurgeon
Study
universal holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, for your
sermons last but an hour or two: your life preaches all week. If Satan can only
make a covetous minister a lover of praise, of pleasure, of good eating, he has
ruined your ministry. Give yourself to prayer, and get your texts, your
thoughts, your words, from God.
Robert Murray M’Cheyne
Ultimately,
of course, the effectiveness of preaching is the work of the Spirit. The most
expertly crafted and powerfully delivered sermon imaginable will accomplish
nothing if He does not act to persuade and enable the hearer to respond to the
truth. But at the same time, we must also remember that the Spirit does not act
in a vacuum. Ordinarily, He uses means, and preaching which employs all the
rhetorical devices within the preacher’s ability is
one of those means.
Curtis C. Thomas
Practical Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books,
2001, p. 244. Used by Permission.
One of the
reasons for the disinterest in expository preaching is surely that so many
attempts at it prove lifeless, dull, and even thoroughly boring. I never cease
to be amazed by the ingenuity of those who are capable of taking the powerful,
life-changing text of Scripture and communicating it with all the passion of
someone reading aloud from the Yellow Pages!
Alistair Begg
Preaching for God’s Glory, Crossway,
1999, p. 22.
The first
heart God’s Word needs to reach is that of the preacher. There will be no
benefit to our people from expository preaching unless we ourselves are being
impacted by the Scripture we are preparing to preach. It is imperative, when we
are dealing with the biblical text, that we are personally changed by it.
Alistair Begg
Preaching for God’s Glory, Crossway,
1999, p. 34.
James Stewart
used to say, “Be yourself, but also, forget yourself!” Self-forgetfulness is of
vital importance. We cannot make much of ourselves and much of the Lord Jesus
Christ simultaneously. If people leave worship saying, “What an amazing
preacher!” we have failed Instead we
must long for them to say, “What a great God, and what a privilege it is to
meet Him in His Word, as we have just done.”
Alistair Begg
Preaching for God’s Glory, Crossway,
1999, p. 44-45.
Preachers
must preach for conviction and change. No one ought ever to leave a sermon
without having a very real sense that there is something in their lives they
need to do something about.
Don Kistler
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 225.
Our forebears
back in the camp meeting days used to say that if people left a meeting talking
about what a wonderful sermon the preacher gave or how beautifully the singers
sang, the meeting had failed. But if people went home saying
thing like "Isn't God good? He met me tonight in such a wonderful
way," it was a good meeting. There was to be no sharing the stage with the
Lord.
Jim Cymbala
Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, Zondervan Publishing
House, p. 70.
It is not
necessary for a preacher to express all his thoughts in one sermon. A preacher
should have three principles: first, to make a good beginning, and not spend
time with many words before coming to the point; secondly, to say that which
belongs to the subject in chief, and avoid strange and foreign thoughts;
thirdly, to stop at the proper time.
Martin Luther
The Early Years, Christian History, n.
34.
Give
me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God,
and I care not whether they be clergymen or laymen,
they alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven upon
earth.
John Wesley
There is a
tale told of that great English actor Macready. An eminent preacher once said
to him: “I wish you would explain to me something.” “Well, what is it? I don’t
know that I can explain anything to a preacher.” “What is the reason for the
difference between you and me? You are appearing before crowds night after
night with fiction, and the crowds come wherever you go. I am preaching the
essential and unchangeable truth, and I am not getting any crowd at all.”
Macready’s answer was this: “This is quite simple. I can tell you the
difference between us. I present my fiction as though it were truth; you
present your truth as though it were fiction.”
G. Campbell Morgan
The three
essentials for great preaching are: truth, clarity, and passion.
G. Campbell Morgan
Every sermon
must have a solid rest in Scripture, and the pointedness
which comes of a clear subject, and the conviction which belongs to
well-thought argument, and the warmth that proceeds from earnest appeal.
Phillips Brooks
A man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul… If the word
do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.
John Owen
The True Nature of a Gospel Church, in
The Works of John Owen, ed. W. H. Goold, by
permission Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA.
Our desire
is that the Holy Spirit, who is the Divine Revealer and Interpreter of Christ
and His truth, may impart to your hearts a sober, spiritual and sanctifying
receptivity of His Word – abasing self, and exalting Christ! Our intention
is to unfold and illustrate the Lord Jesus Christ in the relation in which He
stands to His people – to unveil His glory, beauty, and fullness – to define
the close bond of union that unites to Him all His people – and to bring you
into a more personal realization of what Christ is to you, and of what you are
to Christ.
Octavius Winslow
While
exegesis risks becoming a discipline removed from the demands of the pulpit, so
homiletics cannot separate itself from hermeneutics. That would power the
pulpit by personal inspiration instead of by historical, critical study of the
Bible. Hermeneutics and homiletics must remain wed.
Gary M. Burge
Interpreting the Gospel of John,
Baker, 1992, p. 170.
Don’t miss
this point! The success of the messenger, the herald, is that after the message
is delivered, the audience remembers it, not merely as the sound of the
messenger, but as the message of the Lord.
David Hegg
Appointed to Preach, Christian Focus
Publications, 1999, p. 29.
Truth renews
the mind. Indeed, the truth which would
affect the heart, which moves the heart, which changes the heart, must first
enter through the vestibule of the mind if it would enter the sanctuary of the
heart. The intention of truth preached is to affect the emotions and the will
and the heart and the whole of our humanity…and thus preaching must come first
through the mind. It makes its appeal through the mind; it enters through the
mind - but it doesn’t simply stop with the mind.
John Armstrong
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 168-169.
Preaching to
the heart addresses the understanding first, in order to instruct it; but in
doing so it also reaches through the mind to inform, rebuke, and cleanse the
conscience. It then touches the will in order to reform and transform life and
equip the saints for the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:12).
Sinclair B. Ferguson
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 201.
In the last
analysis, this is what preaching to the heart is intended to produce: inner
prostration of the hearts of our listeners through a consciousness of the
presence and the glory of God. This distinguishes authentic biblical,
expository preaching from any cheap substitute for it; it marks the difference
between preaching about the Word of God and preaching the Word of God.
Sinclair B. Ferguson
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 196.
Avoid
cleverness and smartness. The people will detect this, and they will get the
impression that you are more interested in yourself and your cleverness than in
the truth of God and their souls.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Preaching and Preachers, Zondervan, 1972, p.
209.
Doctrinal preaching certainly bores the hypocrites; but it is only
doctrinal preaching that will save Christ's sheep.
J.I. Packer
The lives of
ministers oftentimes convince more strongly than their words; their tongues may
persuade, but their lives command.
Thomas Brooks
It must be
obvious that the most important ingredient of the minister’s sermon is his
character.
S.E. McNair
Quoted by Curtis C. Thomas, Practical
Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 193.
Think
yourself empty, read yourself full, write yourself clear, pray yourself keen.
W.H. Griffith Thomas
Simplicity in
expression is of utmost importance. The teacher should speak so that even
children and people who cannot read may be able to understand him, as far as
the natural mind can comprehend the things of God. Every congregation has
people of various educational and social backgrounds. The expounder of the
truth of God speaks for God and for eternity. It is unlikely that he will
benefit the hearers unless he uses plain speech.
George
Muller
The Autobiography of George Muller, 1984, p.
34. All quotations taken from books published by Whitaker House are used with
permission of the publisher. Whitaker House books are available at Christian
bookstores everywhere.
If the preacher
strives to speak according to the rules of this world, he may please many,
particularly those who have a literary taste. But he is less likely to become
an instrument in the hands of God for the conversion of sinners or for the
building up of the saints. Neither eloquence nor depth of
thought makes a truly great preacher. Only a life of prayer and meditation will
render him a vessel ready for the Master’s use and fit to be employed in the
conversion of sinners and in the edification of the saints.
George
Muller
The Autobiography of George Muller, 1984, p.
35. All quotations taken from books published by Whitaker House are used with
permission of the publisher. Whitaker House books are available at Christian
bookstores everywhere.
Fear of offending
those who pay his salary has kept many ministers from preaching the
uncompromising Word of God.
George
Muller
The Autobiography of George Muller, 1984, p.
36. All quotations taken from books published by Whitaker House are used with
permission of the publisher. Whitaker House books are available at Christian bookstores
everywhere.
A good
preacher should have these qualities and virtues:
1.
He
should teach systematically.
2.
He
should have a ready wit.
3.
He
should be eloquent.
4.
He
should have a good voice.
5.
He
should have a good memory.
6.
He
should know when to stop.
7.
He
should be sure of his doctrine.
8.
He
should go out and grapple with body and blood, wealth and honor, in the world.
9.
He
should let himself be mocked and jeered at by everybody
Martin Luther
If you don’t
spend time thinking about God, you
won’t have much to say about
God.
John A. Younts
Everyday Talk, Talking Freely and Naturally about God
with Your Children, Shepherd Press, 2004, p. 19, Used by Permission.
I fear
preaching in such a way that when people hear about God, they'll want only to
yawn.
Haddon Robinson
Leadership, v. 11, n. 2.