Restoration of Biblical Preaching

The point: Pray for and labor for the restoration of biblical preaching, recognizing its characteristics and measuring progress.

Martin quotes Broadus's 'The great appointed means of spreading the good tidings of salvation through Christ, is preaching,' to establish the foundational importance of preaching over other means like printing.

in this fourth dimension of our vision for these days, we address this vast and weighty subject of our vision for a restoration of biblical preaching. Now all that I have to say tonight from the Word of God is based upon a wholehearted agreement with the sentiments expressed by John A. Broadus in the opening chapter of his classic work on the preparation and delivery of sermons, in which he writes as follows,

2:43 - 3:26 Read in full sermon

The point: Pray for and labor for the restoration of biblical preaching, recognizing its characteristics and measuring progress.

Broadus's analogy of a passionate preacher and responsive hearers lifting each other 'higher and higher into the intensest thought and the most impassioned emotion, higher and yet higher till they are born as on chariots of fire above the world' illustrates the unique, powerful, and transformative impact of live, Spirit-anointed preaching.

When a man who is apt in teaching, whose soul is on fire with the truth, which he knows has saved him and hopes will save others, when such a man speaks to his fellow men face to face, eye to eye, and electric sympathies flash to and fro between him and his hearers till they lift each other up higher and higher into the intensest thought and the most impassioned emotion, higher and yet higher till they are born as on chariots of fire above the world,

4:09 - 4:52 Read in full sermon

The point: Have 1 Corinthians 14:9 displayed over your desk and ask if your sermon meets the standard of being 'easy to be understood' before preaching.

Martin highlights Jesus's use of common imagery like 'travailing mothers,' 'chirping birds,' 'opening flowers,' and 'crooked stewards' to root lofty eternal truths, demonstrating deliberate simplicity in preaching.

It's the loftiest of the high eternal truths. And roots them into travailing mothers and into chirping birds. And into opening flowers. And into crooked stewards.

38:14 - 38:29 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The sermon then addresses the form of God-owned preaching, asserting it must be deliberately simple (not simplistic), unmistakably intelligible (so none can miss the meaning), and…

Martin retells Jesus's grotesque illustration of straining gnats from wine while a camel gets into the cup, to show how Jesus used vivid, memorable, and even shocking imagery to make His message unmistakably intelligible and expose hypocrisy.

He used the grotesque. He didn't care if it got the message across. He said you're like silly people. That when you open up the leg of the fresh skin of the goat into which your new wine has been poured.

38:40 - 38:54 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The sermon then addresses the form of God-owned preaching, asserting it must be deliberately simple (not simplistic), unmistakably intelligible (so none can miss the meaning), and…

Jesus's metaphor of scrubbing and buffing the outside of a cup while the inside remains filthy is used to illustrate hypocrisy and the need for internal purity, reinforcing the call for intelligible and impactful preaching.

He said you're like people scrubbing and buffing the outside of the cup and the platter. And there it sits. Glistening in its nose up over the rim. And look in.

39:40 - 39:53 Read in full sermon

The point: Know and take seriously what God ordinarily does in the ways revealed in scripture regarding the manner of speaking in preaching.

Martin uses the biblical account of God opening a donkey's mouth to stay the madness of a prophet to argue that while God can use any means, even abominable rhetoric, to save sinners, this is not His ordinary method and does not negate the importance of effective delivery.

And though God to show us all that he's God. Will sometimes take a man's preaching. That is the very quintessence. Of abominable rhetorical production and save sinners to show that he's God and he uses his word.

50:42 - 51:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Be willing to pay the price for the Holy Ghost to make your humanity a conduit for bringing the Word of God with unashamed boldness, intense earnestness, and entreaty.

Martin quotes James's book on earnestness, including the anecdote of a lawyer who only believed his client's story when she expressed strong emotion, to illustrate that 'all men are in earnest when they feel' and that sympathy is a powerful auxiliary in preaching.

in an intense feeling of the subject of discourse. In a mind deeply impressed and a heart warmed with the theme discussed. All men are in earnest. When they feel, all men are in earnest when they feel.

68:03 - 68:29 Read in full sermon

The point: Get loosed from carnal self-consciousness and allow the truth and genuine compassion to grip you in preaching, leading to natural animation.

Martin shares a personal anecdote about a shy, timid young man, one of his first converts, who became 'a lion in the pulpit' when preaching on the street corner, demonstrating that natural animation is a spiritual liberation, not a personality trait.

You see, some of the things God did for me, and I give very few anecdotes, some of you have listened to me for years on tapes, and you know that I rarely give a personal anecdote, but I want to give this one. Because like so many other things, my spiritual birthright has been such a blessing in many areas. And one of the areas was this. Shortly after I was converted, one of the first fruits of my ministry was a young man that to this day is in the ministry out in Western Canada.

72:35 - 73:04 Read in full sermon

The point: Ask the Holy Ghost to liberate you in the area you need to get liberated to become naturally animated in preaching, not cutting yourself short when animation is natural in other areas.

Martin uses the example of a football fan's passionate, uninhibited animation during a tense game to illustrate that people can be naturally animated when deeply preoccupied with something, challenging preachers to seek similar liberation in the pulpit.

I said, I don't buy it. Because I cannot deny what I've seen and heard. The problem with some of you men is you can get plenty animated when it's your favorite football team playing. And it's the last two minutes.

75:05 - 75:27 Read in full sermon