What's Wrong with Preaching Today?

The point: Ministers should seek to improve their preaching rather than just critique it.

Martin contrasts his own limited observation with the extensive experience of Dr. Lloyd-Jones, who could make pronouncements based on 40 years of ministry.

I could have wished that the title had been something a little bit more positive, perhaps hints to improve our preaching, but this is the topic that has been assigned to me, and so I shall seek to move within that framework. By way of introduction, let me say something about the sources of my observation. One would have to be omniscient to be able to make final and absolute pronouncements as to what is right and wrong. What's wrong with preaching today? It would demand, of course, that he be exposed to all preaching, and on that basis, collecting his data, make some official and very pompous p...

0:23 - 1:23 Read in full sermon

The point: A minister's life should attract from their ministry; a disconnect is a problem.

Compares a preacher to an actor, noting that while an actor's performance is separate from his life, a preacher's life and ministry are intrinsically linked; a disconnect leads to ineffectiveness.

I forget that it's powerful preaching from all the other arts of communication. They take a well-known live like a common harlot. They take a man equally propagate in his own life.

5:04 - 5:50 Read in full sermon

The point: A minister's life should attract from their ministry; a disconnect is a problem.

Quotes 1 Thessalonians 2:13 ('ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God') to illustrate how the Thessalonians received the gospel with power and the Holy Ghost, linking it to the apostles' conduct.

Their power was not in these. realm, but in that life that was so powerful, and lived in vitality with God, that truth became a living principle through that Thessalonians, and it was that understanding, the less way this principle illustrated, and let me suggest the impact of these passages. The Apostle Paul declared in front of the Thessalonians, which he was privileged to find ministry among them, knowing, brethren, beloved of the Christian, for our gospel came not unto you in word only.

8:09 - 9:26 Read in full sermon

The point: Ministers should be honest and break the curse of professionalism in their fellowship.

Recounts a shocking observation from his itinerant ministry: evangelical ministers meeting together to share needs and concerns, yet often failing to be honest and break the curse of professionalism.

Observation, I've been to church for a number of years, and one of the most shocking things that came to me, a very young man engaged in this itinerant ministry, in evangelical churches might meet together to begin to share each other's needs and concerns, and try to take down that curse of professionalism, be honest.

14:39 - 15:23 Read in full sermon

The point: Ministers should be honest and break the curse of professionalism in their fellowship.

Quotes 2 Timothy 3:15 ('from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus') to emphasize the foundational role of Scripture.

In 2 Timothy chapter 3, the passage that we love to quote when we are, demonstrating the truth of the, what the apostle Paul said, from a child, he's addressing Timothy, from a child, you own the whole, this is their first, to make thee wise, they have led you, Timothy, that is the only function of, for reproach, for instruction, in righteous,

16:17 - 17:29 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The first area of weakness in preaching is identified as the personal devotional life, emphasizing the need for ministers to be saturated with God's Word and Spirit, and to engage…

Alludes to the message to the church at Ephesus in Revelation, where they are rebuked for leaving their first love, serving as a warning against spiritual decline.

book, and the prophecy of the mind, is warm, stigas, Ephesus, he gives the word of commendation, I, and their administration, put them out of your midst, and then they say, against thee, because thou hast therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works, or else I will come, and remove thy candlestick, see the head was,

20:06 - 21:29 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The first area of weakness in preaching is identified as the personal devotional life, emphasizing the need for ministers to be saturated with God's Word and Spirit, and to engage…

Quotes John Brown on the importance of private prayer and its connection to heavenly influences that make a minister honored of God.

it's a book that I try to read periodically, in it he says, private prayer, yet I cannot for better than the better, shall your heavenly influences, which go, make up a man, honored of God in the ministry, I know of none, of all, influential, if refinement, by communion

22:56 - 24:12 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The first area of weakness in preaching is identified as the personal devotional life, emphasizing the need for ministers to be saturated with God's Word and Spirit, and to engage…

Uses the metaphor of a potter molding clay to describe the minister's growth and preparation through communion with God, being shaped by His Spirit.

with God, the unformed minister, upon the wheel of preparation, potter by which he molds the vessel, paired with our cloth, we grow, we wax, we melted them, so that they are dissolved, and mollified, and sometimes

24:12 - 25:16 Read in full sermon

The point: Ministers must choose between being a 'clown' and a 'prophet,' prioritizing the latter.

Quotes a servant of God who said, 'You cannot be a clown and a prophet. Both, you've got to make your choice,' highlighting the seriousness required in ministry.

The servant of God once said to me, and I shall never forget it, he said, you cannot be a clown and a prophet. Both, you've got to make your choice. I hope I've made the right choice. That does not mean we'll not be truly human, and that we shall feel that we are.

32:55 - 33:23 Read in full sermon

The point: The purity of motivation in preaching is essential, primarily driven by the fear of God.

Quotes John Brown's definition of the fear of God as an attitude where God's smile is the greatest delight and His frown is the greatest thing to be dreaded.

Then let me mention a third area briefly. In the realm of the man, not only should we be concerned about our personal devotional lives if we would see our preaching power augmented, the realm of practical piety, but in the area of the purity of our motivation. How often when I've gone to a church, I've seen a man say, I'm going to pray for my into churches had pastors come very apologetically because I think they realized their slip was showing when they said it and they would come to meet together to pray and they would say now brother I'm so glad you're here this weekend there are a couple o...

34:53 - 36:21 Read in full sermon

The point: The purity of motivation in preaching is essential, primarily driven by the fear of God.

Alludes to God's commissioning of Jeremiah, telling him not to say 'I am a child' but to go where sent and speak what commanded, emphasizing obedience over personal inadequacy.

and he summarizes it in this way the fear of God is that attitude walking in that attitude and disposition in which we regard the smile of God as our greatest delight our primary aim and we regard the frown of God as the greatest thing to be granted you see a man who walks in the fear of God but with an eye single to the comfort one that I be not afraid of their faces lest I found thee before they shall fight against thee they shall not prevail against thee for I am with thee saith the Lord to deliver thee ah but I am a child who in God's name am I to stand before many of my fathers in the fai...

36:21 - 37:38 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin transitions to the message itself, using the analogy of Mickey Mantle with a lead pencil to illustrate how a flawed delivery tool can hinder effectiveness. He critiques the…

Uses the analogy of Mickey Mantle trying to hit a home run with a lead pencil instead of a bat to illustrate how a flawed message or delivery tool can render even a gifted person ineffective.

is a direct relationship between the man and the message will you try to picture with me a rather grotesque situation here's Mickey Mantle with all his aches and pains but still his tremendous ability the answer behind reruns last of the ninth base is loaded and up comes Mickey Mantle moves up to the plate and he's got a lead pencil in his hands for a bat you see how in the world is he ever going to knock it out of the ballpark with a lead pencil in his hand you see the problems not with the man but the problems with the thing with which he's trying to deliver it just doesn't happen and it's p...

42:45 - 44:04 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The problem of preaching today is it lacks Biblical content because men are defective in their own devotional life.

Describes listening to Dr. Lloyd-Jones's sermons, noting their power derived from the sheer weight of divine truth, often without elaborate rhetorical devices or clear outlines.

Now, in the area of the matter of our preaching, what's wrong with preaching today? Well, much of it, of course, I trust this doesn't apply to us as much as it does to men who would be found concentrated, perhaps, other than at a reformed minister's fellowship. But what I'm trying to say to you is that much of the preaching of our day lacks real Biblical content. One of the unique things about the ministry of Dr. Lloyd-Jones, regardless of what you may feel about it, is this. You are gripped by the sheer weight. I have a number of his sermons on tape, and some of them I've listened to over and...

44:50 - 45:39 Read in full sermon

The point: Believers need to understand the necessity, nature, and fruits of evangelical repentance.

Shares an embarrassing experience of preaching a series on repentance and finding that people, though hearing the word, were not convinced of its necessity and nature because it wasn't spelled out sufficiently.

Now, I make this conclusion because I've had the unhappy experience and very embarrassing experience to be in churches that have repentance on the creed and in the confession and in the catechisms. But when I would preach a three or four message series on the subject and simply doing what a Bible school student could do, taking the concordance, finding all the references, trying to organize them under some system, and preach on the soil of repentance, the grace of God, the roots of repentance, conviction of sin and the revelation of the cross of Christ, the substance of repentance, a change of...

49:16 - 50:02 Read in full sermon

The point: Preaching should wound and stab the conscience, prompting hearers to ask if they are truly in the faith.

Uses the analogy of two $20 bills being examined by a bank teller to illustrate that genuine faith, when scrutinized, is strengthened, while counterfeit faith is exposed and loses nothing by examination.

If I had two $20 bills, I don't, but if I did, and I went to my bank and I said, now I want to deposit these in my checking account and the teller takes them and he says, hey, wait a minute, Mr. Martin, I think there might be a counterfeit here. Now, if those bills are genuine, they stand to lose nothing by close scrutiny. In fact, they gain something.

55:01 - 55:22 Read in full sermon

The point: Preaching must have a sense of urgency, driving audience contact and communication.

Illustrates urgency by describing a person discovering a fire in a dormitory and urgently warning others, contrasting it with someone sleepwalking and mumbling.

Men might ask the question am I truly in the faith? And now in the five minutes that remain I want to touch briefly on the matter of the manner of the faithful. a message, and I'll give you the three things I had hoped to expand, but time will not permit. Urgency, orderliness, and directness. Genuine urgency is the mother of true elegance. You're over there in the dormitory, and some fellow at two o'clock in the morning starts walking down the hall saying, hey, fellas, I think maybe this place might be on fire, and we ought to do something about it. You kind of wake up, and you say, what did t...

57:41 - 58:42 Read in full sermon

The point: Preaching must have a sense of urgency, driving audience contact and communication.

Mentions Spurgeon's practice of dropping special remarks for inattentive boys in the front row until he regained their attention, demonstrating his urgency to communicate the life-and-death message.

discovery, you don't say, you know, I found a nice thing today. Sometime it's your convenience. Maybe life comes to you. No, let me tell you what I saw. I saw something beautiful. That's where it's going. Now, this is what I'm talking about. Urgency. What'll make us work at this matter of audience contact? We haven't come just to deliver our oration. We've come to communicate truth with people. And if we see we don't have somebody, somebody's looking around. Spurgeon said this, when he'd see a little fellow on the front row who wasn't listening, it bothered him. So he'd drop out a little somet...

59:29 - 60:22 Read in full sermon

The point: Preaching must have a sense of urgency, driving audience contact and communication.

Alludes to Peter's sermon in Acts 2, where the people were 'pricked in their heart' after they 'harkened' to his words, highlighting the need for the message to enter ears before the Spirit can reach the heart.

he would do anything legitimate to make sure he had their ears. He couldn't make the truth go to the heart. Only the Holy Ghost could do that. But his job was to get it into their ears. And if he didn't have their ears, he did everything to get their ears. That's my job. Get their ears. God alone can get it into the heart. Peter did that. Harken! Then it says, the Holy Ghost. If they hadn't harkened, they wouldn't have been stabbed. And so that sense of urgency will make us work on audience contact. It will make us work in the area of communication. We use a word and people give us that long a...

60:22 - 61:08 Read in full sermon

The point: Preaching must have a sense of urgency, driving audience contact and communication.

Recounts a personal experience in England where a Mickey Mantle analogy failed to connect with the audience due to cultural differences (cricket vs. baseball), illustrating the need for sensitive communication.

I remember my experience in England a few months ago. It was traumatic. I'd use a, I didn't realize how much I used, well, like just this matter of Mickey Mantle and the bat. That would mean nothing to an Englishman. You don't even have strikes or outs in cricket. And I said something about a situation where you got two strikes against you. And I got this blank stare. Well, you see, recognizing that, I had to change my figure, my metaphor, my analogy. But you see, if there's the sense of urgency, you're sensitive to whether or not you're communicating in the area of contact.

61:08 - 61:44 Read in full sermon

The point: Preaching must have a sense of urgency, driving audience contact and communication.

Uses the analogy of a doctor convinced a community has a deadly disease, explaining that the doctor would not just make a general pronouncement but would meticulously explain symptoms and convince them, illustrating the need for applicatory preaching.

In the area of understanding. And in the area of specific application. I'm convinced, brethren, this is what will drive us to work in applicatory preaching. If you were a doctor, you went into a community, and because of what you knew as a doctor, you were convinced that that whole community was suffering from a certain disease that six months from now would kill them all, but the symptoms were not such that they knew it, you wouldn't just go in and make a general pronouncement, you're all going to die in six months, you've got a bad disease. They'd look at you and say, this poor guy's nuts.

61:44 - 62:12 Read in full sermon

The point: Preaching needs reasonable orderliness so that truth can be embraced and retained by the mind.

Uses the metaphor of the mind as a sponge that needs truth driven in with stakes, implying the need for orderliness in presenting truth so it can be retained.

You'll work at this matter until they are convinced and know what you know and what you're convinced of. This is what will make us work at application. Then, this matter of reasonable orderliness. The mind I like to look at as the figure of a sponge.

62:30 - 62:45 Read in full sermon

The point: Preaching must be direct, personally concerning the hearers beyond expression.

Quotes Charles Bridges on the necessity of showing hearers that the message concerns them personally and directly, not just good things said in their presence.

In Bridges' book, which by the way is being reprinted again by the Banner of Truth, and if you don't have it, I commend it for your reading. Charles Bridges, the Christian ministry, the section on preaching the gospel is excellent. He says this in the area of directness. For this end, we must show them from first to last that we are not merely saying good things in their presence, directing what we say to them personally as a matter which concerns them beyond expression.

63:35 - 64:11 Read in full sermon

The point: Preaching must be direct, personally concerning the hearers beyond expression.

Cites Joseph Alleine's 'Alarm to the Unconverted' as a classic illustration of directness, where the preacher uses questions to back the sinner against the wall and force self-reflection.

It's boxing you up in the corner to where you've got to do something with the truth that you're confronting. Dr. Lloyd-Jones mentioned the use of questions. Joseph Aileans, Alarmed to the Unconverted, is a classic illustration of this, where he backs the sinner against the wall, as it were, with questions, causing him to reflect upon his own way, upon his own state before God.

64:25 - 64:47 Read in full sermon