Scriptural Truth

Introduction to the Conference and Preaching Axioms

0:03 The following message was delivered at the 1991 Trinity Pastors Conference, held on October 20th through 24th at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:16 Several of the brethren, as I've indicated, will be passing out to you this stapled collection of notes, and I would ask you to resist the temptation to be looking ahead while we're in our sessions. You're free, of course, to do that in between the sessions or when you take them home with you. I have no objection whatsoever with you familiarizing yourself with the outline. It may even help to enable you to give yourself more to the delivery of these things if you are familiar with them, but during the sessions, if you would, please keep your attention at the spot that we are presently engaged in.

0:59 Now, as you know, from the material that was included in the brochure sent to every one of you who is presently here at the conference or was in your packet when you arrived, the subject matter for these morning sessions this year is a condensed version of the lectures given presently in the second term of the pastoral theology course up till now entitled Effective Pastoral Preaching. And the reason for doing this is very simple. As a result of what happened at last year's conference, there seemed to be a consensus coming back from you men that you would appreciate being given, at least in broad strokes, the material that is given to the men in the academy in the pastoral theology course. And last year, as we took up the subject of ministerial backsliding and ministerial burnout, the fundamental materials dealing with the man of God himself as a man before God, before his people, before his wife, those great issues were touched upon in those messages. And therefore, as we contemplated this year's conference and consulted as elders as to what subject ought to be taken up,

2:25 there was also a consensus among our elders that I ought to attempt, that I ought to attempt to do what obviously only fools would attempt to do, and that is to reduce to eight 50 or 45 minute sessions the substance of about 18 hours of lectures on the subject of effective pastoral preaching. Now, the fundamental difference in the class lectures will be seen in two areas. If some of you have listened to the tapes of the class lectures, there will be a difference, first of all, with respect to content. As I have sought to go over the material of my class lectures with the question, how can I reduce them to workable size for this conference, it was evident to me that the first thing that would have to go is the collaborating quotes from the old masters. And I tell you it's with great pain that I forego those quotes, because God is perfect. God has been pleased to bless me with several brethren who have felt a burden to be my eyes and my hands and even my purse in keeping a constant eye out for good old works on pastoral theology and homiletics and preaching.

3:47 And the richest part of my library next to the section that holds the reprints of the Puritans and some of the old Puritan works that have not been reprinted is the section on preaching in pastoral theology and about three-quarters of those books have come to my shelf because of these brethren who have been constrained in Christian grace to keep their eyes open for such books. And it's wonderful to have that collaborating voice of the past, but brethren, I'm simply going to have to forego using much of that material, occasionally injecting one of those quotes. That's the difference as to content. And then as to the manner, hopefully more of the elements of preaching will enter into these sessions than the didactic and the straight teaching. And I do that, again, conscious that my experience over the years has confirmed me in the judgment that when preachers gather in a conference, what they need more than anything else next to heart dealings with God in prayer, such as I believe God gave us in the previous hour, they need to be preached to. And when I go to pastor's conference and some egghead stands up and says, well, you're all preachers and I know you don't need preaching,

5:13 I feel like standing on my feet and saying, who in the world told you that? I need more than anything else to have the word of God preached to me as a preacher. And that's why my car is always reverberating, because somebody preaching to me, rarely do I go anywhere without a preacher in my car with me preaching. Now, sometimes it gets dangerous.

Distinction Between Sermon Preparation and Delivery

5:38 I get so blessed and get to shouting and praising God that I may be a dangerous driver, but at least I'm blessed in my inner being. And so I do not want this to be top-heavy in the didactic flavor and mode of presentation, but rather, I hope, top-heavy in the preaching dimensions. Now, as we take up our first lecture this morning, I want you to notice with me in the outline that's been put in your hands, that in this particular unit, we deal with the message of the man of God, the sermon, its content and its form. And then I've said that in the introduction, I would underscore the distinction between preparation and delivery. Now, many books on homiletics, current books, don't do this. All of the old masters make a distinction between the preparation of the sermon and the act of preaching. And I believe they are right in making that distinction.

6:47 And I want to spend just a moment in justifying that distinction. Any serious and accurate reflection on these matters will force us to recognize that there is a fundamental difference between the disciplines of exegesis, organization and perception of the thrust of a given sermon, and the dynamics of actually declaring the Word of God in the context of the special presence of God in the midst of the gathered people of God. On the one hand, there is primarily the mental, the spiritual, and the mechanical activities of the closet and of the desk. But on the other hand, there is the mental, spiritual, vocal and physical activity of the sanctuary and of the pulpit. And the man that doesn't know the difference between what he ought to be doing at his desk and at his study, between what he should be doing in the sanctuary and in the pulpit, is not fit to occupy a pulpit. To change the imagery, one is that which constitutes the conception and the gestation of the sermon.

8:10 That's the study in the closet. The other can be likened to the birthing room where a real-life baby comes to birth, or alas, that which was conceived and gestated, is stillborn. To use a biblical analogy, it is said in Luke 3, verses 2 and 3, that the Word of God came to John the Baptist. Then we read that John came preaching.

8:43 And I see in that distinction an analogy. It is one thing for the Word of God to come to us in the disciplines of the study. It is another thing for us to come with the Word in the glorious context of the pulpit and of the sanctuary. So then, as we begin to consider this matter of effective preaching, effective pastoral preaching, the preaching ministry of the servant of God, we must begin with the matter of the content and the form of the sermon.

Axiom 1: Scriptural Truth as the Heart of Preaching

9:23 And what I hope to do in our time together is to give at least a distillation of the things that I convey in much greater detail with the corroborating evidence of the past and the collaborating voice of those proven guides, these seven axioms, these great principles which must be true of any sermon of any kind that can in any sense be called the sermon of God. And that is to be called a proclamation of the Word of God. Whether it is a topical sermon, or as the old writers would say, a subject sermon, whether it is the opening up of an individual text of Scripture, whether it is part of a consecutive exposition of a whole chapter or a larger portion of the Word of God, whatever species of sermon we may be preaching at any given time, these seven axioms ought to be consciously present in our minds and hearts in our preparation if we are to have any hope that what we deliver will be owned of God as a valid preachment of His Word. And axiom number one, found there in your notes in italics,

10:48 is that the proclamation, explanation and application of scriptural truths must constitute the heart and soul of all preaching. Now few issues relative to preaching need more clear and emphatic articulation than does this axiom. Now in opening up the axiom, I want to demonstrate little letter A, its basis, and then little letter B, its corollary truths. First of all, then, the basis of this axiom.

Basis 1: Function of Scriptural Truth in God's Saving Purpose

11:28 And I suggest that the basis is to be found in three very clear categories of biblical revelation. First of all, the function of scriptural truth or special inscripturated revelation in the saving purpose of God. According to the scriptures, in the saving purpose of God, scriptural truth has a unique function both in the begetting of divine life and in the nurturing of divine life. In the begetting of divine life, the presence and the activity of the Word of God in scripturated revelation upon the understanding and consciences of men is a central fundamental instrument in the hands of the Holy Spirit, in the bringing forth of that life. The texts that make this abundantly clear are there listed in your notes. James 1.18.

12:35 Of His own will, He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures. And in that text, there is a clear underscoring of the element of divine sovereignty in the matter of begetting spiritual life. Of His own will, He brought us forth. But He brings us forth by the instrumentality of the word of truth, just as certainly as He brings us forth that we should be sanctified and set apart unto Him and to His service, even as the first fruits were brought in, from the fields, and offered unto God as an indication of the dedication of all that belonged unto Him. Likewise, in 1 Peter 1.23, having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and abides forever. And as many of you know the word seed there in Jeremiah, we have been begotten, not of human sperm.

13:56 We have been begotten by divine sperm, that is, the Word of God is the instrument for the begetting of that life. And Paul is bold enough to say in 1 Corinthians 4.15, I begot you through the gospel. Though you have ten thousand instructors, yet have ye not many fathers, for I begot you through the gospel.

14:26 And Paul's tight chain of logic in Romans 10.14 and following, in which he demonstrates that men will not be brought to call upon the Lord of whom they have not heard, they will not hear unless someone comes and the Word of God is preached. And he gives a distillation of that argumentation in verse 17, Faith cometh of hearing, and hearing, by the word of truth. And therefore we have no scriptural grounds to expect that the sovereign act of begetting divine life will take place in any other context than one in which the Word of God is being proclaimed. If John said that the person who is begotten of God is the one who believes that Jesus is the Christ, and none believes that Jesus is the Christ, but he who is begotten of God, it is clear that the divine begetting will always take place in a context where the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is being proclaimed. And so the function of scriptural truth in the saving purposes of God is clearly seen in the begetting of divine life. And if we are in earnest concerning our desire to be used,

15:51 and if we are in earnest concerning our desire to be used, and if we are in earnest concerning our desire to be used, and if we are in earnest concerning our desire to be used, as instruments of saving grace in the lives of others, then surely we will be committed to this first axiom. The proclamation, explanation, and application of scriptural truths must constitute the heart and soul of all of our preaching. But what is true in the begetting of divine life is equally true in the nurturing of divine life. We do not see men begotten unto life by the word of truth and then nurtured by a different instrument.

16:31 Our Lord Jesus in his high priestly prayer prays, sanctify them in the truth, thy word is truth. Ephesians 4.15, speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things who is the head, speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things who is the head, That which is sufficient to make the man of God with his additional responsibilities competent for every good work is by implication sufficient for every child of God. For all scripture is God breathed and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, for training in righteousness in order that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly furnished unto every good work. I say if scripture is competent to make the man of God thoroughly furnished to every good work, then by inference it is adequate to make every child of God competent for every good work demanded of him. And furthermore, after giving to Timothy many specific directions with respect to the life, the doctrine, the practice of the people of God at Ephesus,

17:49 Paul says to him in 1 Timothy 4 and verse 6, If thou put the brethren in mind of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in of the faith and of the good doctrine which thou hast followed until now. And so we can say in the light of these and many other texts could be marshaled to underscore the point that with respect to the life of Jesus Christ, with respect to the function of scriptural truth in the saving purposes of God, that truth is central both in the begetting of divine life and in the nurturing of divine life. Now in one of the works of Gardner Spring that I hope will be reprinted along with his power of the pulpit and his attraction of the cross is a marvelous treatise entitled, The Glory of the Lord. And in a chapter entitled, The Glory of Christ as a Preacher, he wonderfully distills what I've been attempting to say under this first heading. I quote him, The knowledge of God's truth is the germ and principle of all holiness.

19:13 Spiritual life can neither germinate nor be developed in the dark and cold bosom of ignorance. To overlook this great law of man's intellectual and moral nature is to overlook what is primary and essential to the great end at which the gospel aims. There is no appeal to the conscience or heart, no obligation urged, no right emotions excited, and no practical conformity to God cultivated except by presenting and believing the gospel. The great doctrines of the gospel.

19:56 Jesus Christ would have the roots of Christianity strike deep in the barren soil of this ungodly world and therefore he taught that the sower soweth the word. The great object of his ministry was to disabuse the minds of men of error, to unteach them where they had been taught erroneously, to enlighten them where they were ignorant, to set the great realities of a supernatural revelation before them, place them within their reach, and make them possessors of this rich inheritance. He knew of no other means of disarming the powers of death and hell, delivering men from the empire of Satan and the bondage of sin, introducing them into the liberty of the children of God, and rendering them partakers of the life eternal. His spirit operates only through the instrumentality of truth. It is one of the laws of his kingdom that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Now, we not only have as the basis of this axiom that the proclamation, explanation, and application of scriptural truth must constitute,

Basis 2: Nature of the Ministerial and Preaching Office

21:24 the heart and soul of all preaching, the function of scriptural truth in the saving purpose of God, but secondly, the nature of the ministerial and preaching office. The nature of the ministerial and preaching office. When we stand to minister the word of God, what is our precise identity? Are we to think of ourselves as philosophers, motivators, promoters, entertainers, educators, orators, psychologists, or the new intern, the cutting-edge term, facilitators?

22:04 That's the new one. The preacher's a facilitator.

22:10 I'd better resist the temptation to go after that.

22:15 What is your identity? When you stand on any given Lord's Day and open your Bible, what is your own deepest consciousness of your identity? Well, I say if you have a biblically framed consciousness of your identity, you will be committed with all of your being to this first axiom. For according to the word of God, and this could be amplified, this is only a sampling, you stand as a herald, an ambassador, a steward, and a ruler or governor in God's house.

22:51 Just a moment on each of these. You stand as a herald. The Apostle said in 2 Timothy 1 and verse 11 concerning himself where unto I was appointed a preacher, herald, and an apostle, a teacher. What was the priory task of the terut, the herald?

23:16 It was nothing more or less than to deliver the message of his sovereign within the precincts of the town or village where he was appointed to herald that message. And therefore, one of the dominant words for preaching in the New Testament is kairouso. When the kairoux was doing what he was supposed to do, what he did was kairouso. He was heralding the message of his sovereign.

23:48 And it says in Matthew 3, 1 that John the Baptist came preaching kairouso. Matthew 4, 17, Jesus came preaching. Kairouso. In 2 Corinthians 4, 5, the passage read in our hearing earlier, we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord.

24:08 And when Timothy is charged to preach the words, 2 Timothy 4, 2, it is this verb that is used. I am a herald sent by the sovereign not to concoct my own message, not to alter the message of my king, but accurately, both in content and in the message of my king. I am a herald sent for prayer. And I am a herald for the message of the Prophets, of the Prophets and the Prophets, and for the sovereign and to herald the message of my sovereign.

24:35 And then secondly, we are ambassadors. The word presbuo and presbia, not presbuteros, the word for elder, it's found in its verbal form in 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 20 where the Apostle, speaking of his apostolic ministry, says these familiar words. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 20. We are ambassadors, therefore, on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us.

25:13 Ambassadors, its noun form is found in Luke 14, 32. You remember the familiar parable? Jesus said, which king of you does not, in first going out to war, count the cost, or else he sends an ambassador to seek conditions of peace. Now, what is the function of the ambassador?

25:36 Well, again, it is very much like that of the herald. His function was to represent the mind and the will of the sovereign. And it seems to me that whereas the emphasis falls in the concept of a herald upon the proclamation in the name of the king, the emphasis in...

25:57 When an ambassador falls upon the proper representation of the mind and the will of the king, we are ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God himself were entreating by us. In God, who is in the days of his flesh, now entreats by his ambassadors, who represent his mind and his heart to fellow sinners. And then there...

26:32 There is the concept of a steward. Oikonomos. We had occasion to touch on that yesterday morning. Titus 1, 7 clearly identifies elders as stewards.

26:45 And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4 and verse 1, that the great requirement of a steward is that he be found faithful. The steward is basically a house manager. The very etymology of the word. He is to care for that which is another's.

27:06 And we are stewards, Paul says, of the mysteries of God. And though those mysteries, truths long hidden but now revealed, were unfolded in a unique way to the apostles, they are now ours in the apostolic tradition embodied in the scriptures. And so they have come down to us as those wholesome words, of apostolic doctrine. And what is the responsibility of a steward?

27:38 He is to administer his truth faithfully. I have a body of truth committed to me. And it is that body which is to be passed on to others. The things that you have heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit to faithful men who shall be able, adding their own insights, and their own perceptions.

28:05 No. The things you heard of me among many witnesses, they went from Paul to Timothy, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall in turn be able to teach others also. And the assumption is, there is no attrition in the content of the things that are passed on. They were the deposit of the apostle.

28:32 They became, the deposit committed to Timothy, a deposit to be committed to faithful men, and then proclaimed to the people of God. And the great requirement of stewards is not that they be clever, not that they be successful, but that they be faithful. That they rightly handle their stewardship. And then the other concept of our own identity is set forth so clearly in Hebrews 13, 7 where Paul admonishes the Hebrew Christians to remember their former leaders.

29:11 Remember them that had the rule over you and he identifies them especially in this way. Men that spake unto you the word of God. So that in the exercise of their rule, their fundamental identity was that of men who spoke, not their own notions, not necessarily, what men desired to hear, but who spoke the word of God. Standard by which we are to exercise rule in our public and private ministries is the word of God, all of that word, but the word of God alone.

29:53 Now when we bring these four descriptions together, what is their common denominator? I think you can see it. They all function as they ought to, when their task is administered in terms of a fixed body of authoritatively revealed, is to proclaim the message of his sovereign. The ambassador is to represent the mind of his sovereign.

30:26 The steward is to be the faithful guardian of what is entrusted to him by his master. And those set to rule in God's house are given a fixed cabin by which they are to rule, even the word of the living God. And it is both a liberating and a blessedly binding thing to have a consciousness of our identity in this way. But then I hasten and say that thirdly, the explicit command of scripture binds us to this first axiom, the explicit commands of scripture.

Basis 3: Explicit Commands of Scripture

31:08 And I wish we had time to go through all of those references, references in Numbers. But you remember that even this strange character, Balaam, who doesn't come out very clean in the New Testament assessment of him, but in one area he is a marvelous model of what every preacher ought to be. And I will only quote one of the texts from the book of Numbers, Numbers 22 and verse 12. Numbers 22 and verse 12.

31:44 And God said unto Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them, thou shalt not curse the people, for they are blessed. He is forbidden to curse them, though it is greatly desired by the other parties that he would. Verse 38. And Balaam said unto Balak, Lo, I am come to thee, have I now any power to speak anything?

32:10 The word that God puts in my mouth, that shall I speak. And God wonderfully restrained me so that when God pronounced blessing. But what a text for us as servants of God to memorize and to pray in the words in my mouth. That shall I speak.

32:37 And God will never put a word in your mouth that is contrary to the word that he embodied in Holy Scripture. And then Jeremiah, you remember the constant conflict, conflict he had with the false prophets. And then Jeremiah, you remember the constant conflict, conflict he had with the false prophets. And in that situation, those wonderful words of Jeremiah in chapter 23.

33:01 Along came the false prophets dressed like prophets, carrying themselves like prophets, saying they had had God's word revealed to them in dreams. And Jeremiah says in chapter 23 and verse 28, The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream. And he that hath my word, let him speak my word. And he that hath my word, let him speak my word.

33:24 Faithfully, what is the straw to the wheat, saith the Lord, is not my word like fire, saith Jehovah, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? Take your silly dreams you false prophets, God has spoken and that word is like a fire and that word is like a hammer. God said through the prophet, Jeremiah, that under the new covenant God would give shepherds after his own heart, who should feed his new covenant people with what? Not with the froth of their own notions, not with the spun candy of lovely anecdotes and pious platitudes, but he would feed them with knowledge and with understanding. And when we turn to the New Testament, our Lord's commission is that having made disciples and gathered them into visible communities of the baptized, we are to teach them all things whatsoever he has commanded, both in his own word as recorded in the Gospels, and that subsequent word that would come through the apostles. And again, the familiar text in the pastoral epistles, Do thine utmost, that vigorous verb spoudazo,

34:47 bend all faculties and powers to show yourself a workman approved, unto God, no just cause of being ashamed now or in the day of judgment, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. And what is it that will give us such a blessed experience? Handling aright, cutting a straight course in the word of truth. And though Paul has said to Timothy, there will be declension on every hand, people will be masters, literally pies around them, whose one great art is that of ear-tickling.

35:27 People will come not with hard heart to be fed upon the substance of truth, but just a little bit of religious itch in the vestibule of the ear. And they will heap to themselves teachers who are all adept in the unholy art of going no further than the vestibule of the ear to tickle it, to relieve the itch. No arrows to the heart, no proclamation to humble the spirit, just ease the religious. Tickle in the vestibule of the ear.

36:04 What's Timothy to do? Preaching's passe. We can no longer stand as a herald, an ambassador, a steward, and a ruler in with his word. We must find some new way out of season.

36:33 Reprove with all suffering and teaching. Your commission does not change because the religious climate declines and becomes indifferent, as I have said on many occasions in this very place. If the time ever comes, if the time ever comes, when the people who sit in these pews want something other than services of worship in which authoritative, anointed proclamation is central to that worship, and they want their ears tickled, and they want to sit around and share their notions by the grace of God to the first two rows, if that's all, until God holds enough sinners who will come and long again to have the word of God preached to them by those whom the Lord has set aside for them. To part to that holy task. And then when you turn to Nehemiah 8.8, you have that wonderful prototype of the new covenant's minister.

37:33 The text is familiar. They read in the scriptures and they gave the sense that men might understand the word of God. Brethren, what are we? What are we called to do?

37:48 I say we are called to proclaim, to explain, and to apply, the scriptural truth. And this must not be something oblique and ancillary to our preaching. It must constitute the heart and the soul of all of our preaching. Let us pray.

38:11 Our Father, we marvel that you would entrust to the likes of us the high and the holy privilege of preaching your word. And we pray that you would, that you would fill us with a renewed sense of our identity as defined by the scriptures. That all carnal timidity and all carnal diffidence would be blown away by the knowledge that we have been sent by the sovereign to proclaim his message to our fellow men. O Lord, we plead with you that you will take the truth of your word, consider it in this hour, and write it upon our hearts with power. We plead in Jesus' name. Amen.

Corollary 1: Sermons are Thoroughly Exegetical

39:12 Amen. Brethren, since we are a relatively captive audience, any who were not here in the previous hour who don't have the outlines, if you will raise your hand, Pastor Barker will make sure you get a set of the outlines. All right, we are dealing with the first axiom pertaining to our sermons as to their content, and form that axiom being that our sermons must be, by the grace of God, the proclamation, explanation, and application of scriptural truths, and such things must constitute the very heart and soul of all of our preaching. And having sought to give you three lines of biblical evidence that form the basis of that axiom, we come on, and note 2.2, small letter b, its corollary truths. If that axiom indeed stands on solid biblical footing, then there are some inevitable corollary truths, truths that grow out of it, truths that necessarily attach themselves to it, and if time permits, I want to address five of them, albeit each one, in a relatively surface manner. If we are indeed convinced

40:39 that the heart and soul of all of our preaching must indeed be proclamation, explanation, and application of the truths of inscripturated revelation, then corollary number one, our sermons will be thoroughly exegetical in their raw materials. Since we believe that, you know, that God has spoken in words, words which the Holy Spirit himself has chosen, and that is the apostles' teaching in 1 Corinthians 2.13, then the burden is upon us to make sure that we are handling aright those words indicted by the Spirit. The parallel text, 2 Timothy 3.16, all Scripture, is literally God-breathed, and what has come out of the mouth of God are words, words connected in grammatical structures, words set before us with subordinate clauses, words set before us in parallel statements, in contrasting statements, words bringing thoughts together, hung together by connectives,

42:04 such as gar and kai, adversatives, such as alah, clauses of purpose, our hina clauses, and the Holy Spirit is as much the author of the logical connectives as he is of the words, the words in grammatical construction forming thoughts, and therefore, if we really believe that our task is to set forth the word of God's scriptural truth as the heart and soul of our preaching, then this first corollary should be evident to all of us. Our sermons will be thoroughly exegetical in their raw materials. One has written, exegesis is predicated on two fundamentals. First, it assumes that thought can be accurately conveyed in words, each of which, each of which, each of which, at least originally, had its own shade of meaning. Second, it assumes that the content of Scripture is of such superlative importance for man to warrant the most painstaking effort to discover exactly what God seeks to impart through His Word.

43:26 Albert Barnes has stated something that has been a great help to me over the years. The Bible says, the Bible should be explained not under the influence of a vivid imagination, but under the influence of a heart and a mind imbued with a love of truth and by an understanding discipline to investigate the meaning of words and phrases and capable of rendering a reason for the interpretation which is proposed. And this is why we must be committed, if not to a working knowledge of the original languages, if that has been denied us in the providence of God, there is no excuse for anyone who has access to books written in English to be a sloppy exegete. The helps that God has made available for responsible exegesis are such that there is no excuse for sermons that are not thoroughly and accurately exegetical in their raw materials. Now if that is indeed a vital and an inescapable corollary, then such sermons will be in marked contrast to treatments of texts or passages

44:52 that I have listed in five ways that will sometimes be a death knell to the initial impression of a text or a passage. Many a sermon, many a sermon outline has been scrapped when the powerful first impression was subjected to the scrutiny of careful exegesis. How many times have we had the experience in our own devotions, a truth gripped us and we said surely God would have me preach on that sometime until you took out your Greek text or you took out your exegetical aid, and you saw that all that you got blessed with was not pure gold. Now you don't deny that God blessed you and it was with truth that he blessed you but truth taught clearly elsewhere and not as you thought in that particular text. And we must be prepared to give up what was very precious to us when it does not stand the scrutiny of careful exegesis. Sometimes it means abandoning, secondly, the traditional use of a text or a passage.

46:09 Not a few texts have been pressed into the service of a fundamental biblical doctrine. They are not used to teach heresy but they simply do not teach what they are used to teach. For example, in the old writers based upon the rather poor translation of Galatians 3.24, how many times has that text been found by us in treatises that have ministered to our souls?

46:37 The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ. Now the truth that the law is intended by God to make sin exceeding sinful and that by the law comes the knowledge of sin is a truth taught in Scripture but that is not the truth that is taught in that particular text. And so if we are going to be thoroughly exegetical in our preaching, we must not preach on the basis of the initial impression of a text or passage or on the traditional use of a text or passage if it doesn't stand up under the scrutiny of careful exegesis. Thirdly, it means sometimes we must give up the dogmatic use or the dogmatic flavor of a text. Some texts seem to ring loud and clear with affirmations of a central doctrine. However, they must not be carelessly used. A text such as Isaiah 33 .

47:44 314, I found it used in appealing with sinners, what will you do? When the day of judgment comes in you're cast into hell and the question is asked who among us can dwell with their obrigado ? On the text has nothing to do with dwelling in hell, in that text, and we must not allow the dogmatic use or flavor of a text to be the trigger for us to use it. We must bring it through the sieve of careful exegetical disciplines. And certainly in the fourth place, the fanciful allegorizing or spiritualizing of a text or passage is inconsistent with thorough exegetical treatment. For example, there's a text which if I could use it fancifully or spiritualize it, I believe I could preach a rather decent sermon. I've wanted to preach on it for years. It's the text in which old Isaac says, thy voice is the voice of Jacob, but thy hands are the hands of Esau. What a wonderful text on which to read.

49:00 It's to preach the subject discrepancy between a man's theology and his methodology. That's right. You have the voice of the heir of the covenant. Your voice is the voice of Jacob. You speak like Jacob, whom Jehovah loved. But your hand, the instrument of action, is that of wild, hairy man Esau. And if I were to allegorize, I believe I could preach a rather decent sermon on that text. But I've not done it, even though I tried to sneak it in this way. And for you men who have dabbed me on preaching, I commend you one of the choice quotes that I simply don't have time to read on page 96 to the top of page 98. A tremendous quote from Dabney on this very point in which he says, and I'll only give you the key sentence, I would impress you with a solemn awe of taking any liberties in expounding the word. I would have you feel that every meaning of the text, other than that which God expressly intended it to bear, is forbidden to you, however plausible and attractive, fruit

50:21 which you dare not touch on peril of a fearful sin. It is a fearful sin to be guilty of that concerning which Paul said he was not guilty. He said, not handling the word of God deceitfully. And fanciful allegorizing and spiritualizing is a deceitful handling of the word of God. And surely then, brethren, we will put distance between ourselves and this fifth thing I've listed, the clever and forced accommodation of a text or a passage. A forced accommodation of a text. No text should be a forced accommodation of a text. It should ever be accommodated simply to give a biblical flavor to what we desire to say. Far better

Corollary 2: Sermons are Predominantly Biblical in Substance

51:12 to say, I have a pastoral burden. I have no legitimate text for that burden. Here is my burden. Open your heart and buttress the various strands of it with clear statements of the word of God. But do not accommodate and force a text simply to legitimize what you are desiring to say. But then secondly, the second corollary, if indeed we are committed to having the word of God as the basis of our preaching, our sermons will be predominantly biblical in their overall substance. Now, what do I mean by saying predominantly biblical in their overall substance? Well, I'll tell you what I mean. Some men,

52:05 particularly if they've come out of a background where they've treated the word of God in a shallow and cavalier manner, are so determined that their people be convinced that they have responsibly exegeted the word, that they do not really preach the word and enforce and illustrate the word with the word, but they bring all of the tools of the exegetical process into the pulpit. and they as it were work out in the sanctuary all of the steps that they worked through in the study the only difference being they are now verbalizing that process in the presence of God's people and so they give detailed word studies they track down the roots of words and the etymology of words and what I call tunnel digging into the roots and meanings of words and there is precious little time to declare what the scriptures say convince the judgment in as straight a line as possible and then to begin to apply that word to the conscience now since the Bible is its own infallible interpreter and brethren that is our Protestant heritage that the Bible is its own infallible interpreter and contains the best confrontations

53:34 and the greatest proof for the truth that the Bible is its own veracity and that it is the most powerful and most powerful and well known dictionary we should seek to have our sermons heavily interlaced with biblical texts phrases and allusions illustrations and enforcements since second Timothy 316 is true all scripture is God breathed and scripture has a unique power inherent in it then we should seek to preach sermons that are written in the Bible so we should seek to have them written in the Bible and the Scriptures and the seals of the Bible and the Scriptures and the Scriptures as well not in the Bible but that in turn we must explore the Bible are not simply begun with a text and occasionally enforced with another supportive text, but sermons that are predominantly biblical in their overall substance. In Murphy's Pastoral Theology, Murphy was a Presbyterian minister in Philadelphia, I found one of the most helpful statements, and this I will quote not in full but in part, The matter of all true preaching is to be found in the Bible, and out of its sacred pages the mind of the Spirit is to be searched and then delivered from the pulpit. Every sermon should be carefully wrought out from the text, every point advanced should be proved by, Thus saith the Lord.

54:57 Passages bearing on the subject in hand should be quoted, or at least their substance presented, the whole discourse should be saturated with the word of God. This adherence to the scriptures should not be merely incidental, but it should be studiously aimed at. The Bible should be made the substance of all preaching. Not only the matter of preaching, but the manner of presenting the truth also should be guided by the inspired pages.

55:33 And then he goes on to, To buttress this from the word of God as illustrated in the lives of the prophets and of the apostles. And so when I say, brethren, that as a second corollary of this first axiom, that our sermons will be predominantly biblical in their overall substance, that is what I mean, that we will explain the Bible with the Bible. We'll enforce its precepts from the Bible. We will seek to illustrate.

56:05 And to adorn the sermon with biblical language. Now I am not saying that our sermons should simply be a rearranged concordance, hung together with a few of our own words. I remember years ago preaching at a conference with a man that I believe gloried in his reputation as having committed, I forgot how many thousand verses to memory, and his preaching was really just a marvelous display of his memory. And he never paused long enough to open up any text.

56:39 He just quoted one text after another, and people sat there, oohed and awed. But at the end of the time, if you were to say, what text do I understand more clearly? What text do I feel has come home into the theater of my conscience with power? I'm afraid most of the people would say, not a one.

56:58 So I am not talking of that kind of nonsense, but I am saying that our sermons should be full of Bible language. And even when we are not specifically quoting, even when we are not causing people to turn to a passage, there is that biblical flavor to our sermons. Now this, if true, will be in marked contrast with preaching that is, and I have four things listed and I want to add a fifth, it will be in marked contrast with preaching that is predominantly anecdotal. This is preaching in which stories, true or contrived, are the major vehicle of explaining, illustrating or enforcing biblical truth. I heard such a sermon just the other day. A friend of mine sent me a sermon that apparently he thought was something quite effective and quite impressive. But I was greatly disturbed.

58:02 Because while it was supposed to be an exposition. Of Colossians 3, 1 to 5, there was an occasional reference to a phrase in the text and then three to four minutes of a story or an anecdote illustrating that phrase. Then another phrase and another story. But the bulk of the sermon was not the opening up of the words and the thoughts as they come in the grammar of the text, but it was taking the English text and simply using anecdotes as the very substance of the sermon.

58:37 No, the Bible should be explained by the Bible. And as we'll come in one of our axioms to the legitimate use of illustrative devices, figures of speech, yes, but to take five to seven minutes for a story, two or three minutes for explication, and then another four or five minutes for illustration. This is not preaching. This is not preaching the Word.

59:06 I first encountered this matter when I was in an itinerant ministry. And people called me when I would come an evangelist. I was coming to preach evangelistically. And I remember time after time after being in a place for two or three days, often a pastor or people would come to me and say, you're not an evangelist, you're a Bible teacher.

59:29 And I'd say, well, what do you mean I'm not an evangelist? Well. You. I said.

59:36 Am I opening up the great issues of man's sin and ruin by the fall, God's provision of a redeemer in the Lord Jesus, the necessity and nature of the new birth, the necessity and fruits of repentance and faith? Oh, yes, you're doing all of that. Am I appealing to the consciences of men? Am I pleading with sinners to, oh, you're doing all of that.

59:59 Well, why am I not an evangelist? They said, well, because you're. And then I'd get that. I'd get that.

60:05 And they'd say, why is that? them to say it, because they said, you're always opening up text of Scripture instead of telling stories. And in their minds, the evangelist was the man with the high-powered personality who'd quote his text and then carry you off with his stories that fascinated and titillated and caused laughter and terror and fear and occasionally interspersed the text. But they would say, you're not an evangelist, you're a Bible teacher. Well, what a privilege it was to open up the Word of God and say, well, would you agree that Peter and Paul were evangelists? Oh, yes. I said, let's look at their sermons. And then I would seek to demonstrate that there is no true evangelism that is not a proclamation of the evangel as it is given to us in the Word of God. And some of you who are good storytellers, beware

60:59 lest that which under the discipline of the Holy Spirit could greatly enhance your ministry be. does not become a tool to dilute it of its solid biblical substance. Furthermore, sermons that are predominantly biblical will be in marked contrast not only with predominantly anecdotal preaching, but with predominantly biographical preaching. And what do I mean by biographical preaching? Well, I mean preaching in which the personal experiences of the preacher predominate. Now, if there's any text which stands against that, it's the text read in the previous hour where Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, 5, we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. Is it wrong occasionally to illustrate a truth from the crucible of our own experience? I would be hard pressed to prove from the Bible that this is wrong. But if our own experience

62:13 becomes a dominant element in our preaching, we have ceased to have sermons that are predominantly biblical and they have become predominantly biographical. Thirdly, it will be in direct contrast to preaching that is predominantly imaginative. Now, the imagination is a marvelous faculty. And if there's one thing I would long to see in the preaching in our circles, is more sanctified use of the imagination among preachers. You cannot preach the historical portions of Scripture, whether in the Old or the New Testament, in a gripping way if the faculty of imagination is not highly cultivated. Now, I didn't say you couldn't preach them in an accurate way. I said in an effective way. And so I am not denigrating this unusual and precious faculty of imagination. But what

63:14 I'm saying is this, that a fertile and active imagination that embellishes and adds to the statements of Scripture can lead people away from the naked testimony of the Word of God. And we who have a more naturally fertile and active imagination must place a tremendous tight rein upon it, lest that very noble faculty undermine preaching that is predominantly biblical in its overall substance. When people describe the scene there in 2 Samuel 12, and they speak of Nathan sticking his bony finger under David's nose and thundering in a way that would have given the man a heart attack. The man, I ask, where do you find that in the text? He might have been pudgy and had pudgy fingers. And he might have been across the room when he said very softly, thou art the man.

64:25 So you see, we must be sure that in opening up the Scriptures we make a differentiation between what is clearly revealed. If we want to say it could have been that or it may have been, that's one thing. But to mingle an accurate exposition of the text with our own imagination in such a way that our people make no distinction is to dilute the integrity of the Word of God. And then it will be in contrast to what I call literary preaching. And by that I mean preaching which is either the unwise and injudicious activity of a mind well furnished with broad reading, or a small mind seeking to give the impression of being well read. Now literary preaching is usually one or the other. There are men who have well furnished minds and who without any effort can think of things they have read that have been a great blessing to them. And they can be injected into the sermons.

65:36 Others have a small, poorly furnished mind, but they seek to give an impression of being well-read, and the way they're going to do it is to fill their sermons with quotes. Now, this is an abuse of human helps, and excessive quoting will erode the authority of your preaching. It will leave the impression in the minds of our hearers that human authors have more weight in our interpretation of the Bible than the Bible itself has in interpreting itself. And we do not want over the long haul to have a people who have any other perspective than this, that this blessed book is its own infallible interpreter, and if I will pray over it and search it enough, it will yield its meaning to me, and that I do not need to have a library furnished with 3,000 volumes. And then I would add a fifth. Sermons predominantly biblical in their substance will also be in contrast to what I call philosophical preaching, and by this I mean preaching that expresses biblical realities and biblical truths, but does not demonstrate the specific data from the Bible on which the statements rest and from which they are drawn.

67:03 In other words, some may say, are so steeped in the scriptures that when they speak, they speak in their own thought patterns in a way that is biblically sound. But if they speak in that way and don't lay bare the tap roots that have given birth to the thoughts that are clothed in those words, they are really speaking as Christian philosophers and not as a herald and as an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ.

67:41 I've recently been blessed because one of the men in this conference knew of my great esteem and love for the late Dr. A.W. Tozer and sent me some 30 tapes of Tozer's and I've listened through all of them, some of them two and three times.

67:56 I put them on when I'm working out down in my basement and I said, if someone were to come to the window some days when I have the little casement windows open to get some fresh air and see me, they'd think I were a madman. There I am huffing and puffing, working out, listening to a preacher and sometimes getting so blessed I raise my hands in praise to God the tears stream down my cheeks. But after listening to those sermons and asking why, why was the influence and ministry of that dear saint of God so little perpetrated within his own denomination and perpetuated in the congregations where he ministered, I believe, the answer lies in this. Often Tozer spoke as a perceptive biblical philosopher and not as a careful Bible expositor. So that though he was speaking biblical truth to his people, he was not showing them the roots of what he was saying with their own eyeballs fixed upon their own Bibles.

Corollary 3: Sermons are Theologically Harmonious

69:02 And if we are to have a people well grounded in the truth, then our service, our sermons must indeed be sermons that reflect a sensitivity to the second corollary truth that they will be predominantly biblical in their over all substance. May God grant that none of you men will ever fall into the snare of preaching that is predominantly anecdotal, biographical, imaginative, literary, or philosophical. Rather, whatever legitimacy, whatever legitimacy, whatever legitimacy, whatever ultimate elements of these things may be present in varying degrees. May you be Bible preachers, preachers serving up solid chunks of the Word of God. Sermons which by all fair judges would be described as predominantly biblical sermons in their overall substance. But then third corollary, and I must hasten if I'm going to cover all five, are sermons must be theologically harmonious in their statements of truth. Our sermons must be theologically harmonious in their statements of truth.

70:22 God's truth comes to us in what Paul describes, and that should be 2 Timothy 1.13, I believe, not 1 Timothy 1.13, in the form of sound words. Hold fast, the pattern of sound words which thou hast heard from me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

70:51 And within God's Word there is a beautiful, delicate and vital relationship between all the facets of His truth. Each revealed truth sustains an organic relationship to other truths. There's mutual support, balance and harmony. So if our preaching is truly biblical preaching and not a shallow biblicism, we will seek to preach in such a way that are systematically is vigorously present, exerting its influence upon all of our exposition of the Word of God.

71:32 For the sum total of the witness of the Word of God on any given facet of its truth, is never to be sacrificed upon the altar of an individual text that at first look may seem to contradict the total witness of Scripture. Now, if our preaching is theologically vigorous and harmonious, it will not be self-destructive. That is, we will not destroy next week what we sought to build up this week. Some men so preach the sovereignty of God when they preach it as to give the impression that earnestly to plead with sinners, to reason with sinners, to use every legitimate God-given tool to persuade men to close with the offers of the gospel, is selfless. Somehow to cast a shadow upon our previously preached conviction that salvation is all of grace. And they do this because their preaching is not harmonious in its theological balance.

72:55 And that brings us to that second thing that will be in contrast. It will be contrasted to imbalanced preaching. A tyranny. Out of balance while stationary is no problem.

73:10 If you're just rolling down the driveway, it's no problem. But you get driving at 35, 45, 55 miles an hour, and a tire out of balance can shake the whole front end and cause you to drop a tie rod.

73:23 And so certain truths held in imbalance in the privacy of the garage of your own heart, given your own constant contact with Scripture, may do little harm to you. But when you preach it and the people of God, you begin to work it out, and the wheel of that imbalanced perspective begins to spin. Then you begin to find the implications of that in defective religious practice and experience. And then it will keep us from half-truth preaching.

73:56 J.I. Packer says in his classic little work, Evangelism in the Sovereignty of God, a half-truth paraded as a whole truth is a whole untruth. For example, if I ask someone, is Jesus truly man?

74:12 I hope he answers yes. There is one God, one mediator between God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus. But if I preach that truth as though it were all the truth regarding the person of Christ, I'm a heretic. Equally, is Jesus truly God? Yes.

Corollary 4: Sermons are Intensely Practical

74:32 But if I preach that as though that were the whole truth, I am a heretic. And so it is the function of systematic theology to be the quality control upon all of my exegesis. And it is the bringing of the total witness of Scripture to bear in my thinking when dealing with any one of the parts that under God will keep us from these various errors. But then fourthly, the fourth corollary is, if we are committed to preaching that at its heart and soul is preaching of the Bible, our sermons will be intensely practical in their overall thrust. And why do I say that? Because Scripture says of itself that it is intended to be intensely practical. That's why.

75:29 It is not something invented by the Puritans to think of use one. Use two. Use three. Use four.

75:37 Because Scripture says of itself, 2 Corinthians, 2 Timothy 3.16, All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for teaching. That is, the objective stating of propositional truth. But that's not all.

75:55 For reproof. For correction. For training in righteousness. Scripture in and of itself.

76:03 Scripture in and of itself. It is practical. So if I'm preaching the Bible biblically, my sermons will be pervasively, intensely practical in their overall thrust. Concerning whole segments of Old Testament history, the Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10.11, another text listed in your notes, Now these things, the things concerning the wilderness, This generation happened unto them by way of a figure or example. And they were written for our right of their Christological focus. That's why I abominate as inimicable to true preaching the notion that unless we focus every passage explicitly upon Christ, we've not handled the Scriptures aright. That doesn't happen.

77:11 The concept is utterly undercut Scripture itself. Or nutheteo, whether the verb or the noun is used. Our act of the word of God upon conscience with regard to conduct. Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.

77:42 Yes, we admonish as Christian ministers telling people that to fall is to bring disgrace to Christ. Is to denigrate the power of Christ. That if they are to be upheld, it will be in the strength of Christ. Yes, we point men to Christ as the answer, but to go through Old Testament history saying its explicit focus must be something Christological is to violate what this passage says.

78:11 They are written for our admonition.

78:15 They are written for our warning. Sermons then that are truly biblical will be intensely practical in their overall thrust. For the truth according to Titus 1.1 is according to, it leads to, and is consistent with godliness.

78:37 And such preaching will be in marked contrast with merely informational preaching. Preaching in which we are parading information before the mental eyes of God's people. And they sit there asking week by week, so what? And they never get an answer.

78:56 Never get an answer. It will be in contrast. It will be in contrast to exclusively emotional preaching. That is preaching that is content to have the religious emotions of the people of God stirred by truth.

79:09 And elevated, but not directed into channels of holy endeavor and action. Is it right that men's emotions be stirred by biblical preaching? Yes. God have mercy on the preacher whose preaching does not stir the emotions.

79:26 Of any hearer who comes. Of the teachable and with a willing spirit to hear the voice of God.

79:35 But those emotions, unless they give birth to holy actions, are just a passing shadow. And then it will be in contrast to merely rhetorical preaching. That is preaching in which there is, according to the rules of rhetoric, a very apt and able preachment of some facet of God's truth. But again.

80:01 The people sitting in the pew, though entertained and informed, and stirred, and even brought to admiration of the preacher, do not feel the impingement of the word of God upon thought and upon practice. But then, fifthly, and I want to close on this note, sparing.

Corollary 5: Sermons are Pervasively Evangelical

80:23 I'm supposed to quit in three minutes. I'm going to snitch an extra few minutes. Our sermons will be pervasively evangelical. In their overall climate and faith and flavor.

80:34 And what do I mean by pervasively evangelical? What I mean by that is that they will savor much of the Lord Jesus Christ and God's mercy to sinners in him. We read in Luke 24, 25 and following that the Lord Jesus with the two on the road to Emmaus opened up the scriptures. And from every major section.

81:02 He showed those two the things concerning himself. And the apostle could say with reference to his evangelistic endeavor at Corinth. I determine not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him as crucified. Some people have used this text in a wrong way to say that Christ crucified must be the explicit focus of every single sermon.

81:29 And they've used this to prove it. If that's so, Paul contradicted himself in the rest of the epistles. That very epistle because he said, now concerning, now concerning, now concerning, now concerning, now concerning, now concerning. And he took up a whole range of subjects.

81:44 He was talking about the focus of his evangelistic endeavor. He's speaking of what was past. I came to you determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him as crucified. And I was with you in weakness and fear.

82:01 And in trembling. And my speech and preaching were not with enticing words of men's wisdom. But in demonstration of the spirit and of power. That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men.

82:11 But in the power of God. Then he goes on to open up a whole range of practical pastoral concerns. But this is the element of truth. There is none of those concerns which he does not ultimately relate to Christ.

82:27 When he's walking through the muck of the problem of immorality. There at Corinth in chapter 6. He gives many motives to the Christians not to indulge in fornication. But the crowning motive he gives is at the end of the chapter when he says, What know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which you have of God?

82:49 And ye are not your own. You were bought with a price. Now that's the crowning motivation but not the sole motivation. He says in the whole matter.

83:01 The body was not made for fornication. But it was made for the service of God. And yet he brings in the cross of Christ in the midst of the doctrine of Christian liberty. Shall I, he said, grieve and cause to stumble the brother for whom Christ died.

83:22 He says with reference to the maturation of the Colossians. In Colossians 2 as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord so walk in him. Routed and grounded and built up in him. He says whom we preach warning every man teaching every man that we may present every man perfect in Christ.

83:43 And in Ephesians 3.8 he speaks of proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ. So when I say that if our sermons are biblical. They will be pervasively evangelical in their overall climate and flavor.

83:58 I am not saying. That some aspect of the person and work of Christ must be the explicit focal point of every sermon. No one can prove that from the Bible. And furthermore it flies into the history of the preaching most powerfully owned of the Holy Spirit.

84:21 Who's come to testify of Christ as we trace the history of preaching throughout the Christian church. However. If we're sticking close to our Bibles. There is no truth, no doctrine, no practice, no duty into which we delve based upon the scripture that will not sooner or later lead us back to the central issues of the evangel.

84:50 That will not lead us back to Christ and to his work and to his provisions for his people and the motivations which grow out of the work of Christ. And to his work and to his provisions for his people and the motivations which grow out of the work of Christ. And to his work and to his provisions for his people and the motivations which grow out of the work of Christ. Of our Lord Jesus Christ.

85:07 One author has stated it this way. Whatever savors not of the cross of Christ has no place in a Christian pulpit. Whatever savors not of the cross of Christ has no place in a Christian pulpit. And if indeed our sermons are pervasively evangelical.

85:30 In their overall climate and flavor. They will be in marked contrast. With legalistic or moralistic preaching. What is legalistic or moralistic preaching?

85:41 It's preaching in which duty is divorced from distinctive Christian doctrine. That's legalistic or moralistic preaching. It is preaching in which biblical duties are taught with no reference to the person and work of Christ. Paul cannot lay on husbands.

86:05 Their duty to their wives. Without putting Christ crucified central. He cannot lay upon wives. Their duty to their husbands.

86:15 Without putting the nature of the church's relationship to Christ central. And we must not in our concern. Legitimate concern. To give distinctive explicit biblical moral conditioning to the consciences of our people.

86:34 We must not. leave it hang out there as empty, vacuous, moralistic preaching, but have it suffused with the peculiar dynamics of Christ and Him crucified. It will be in contrast to bland didactic preaching, that is, preaching in which the great truths about the whole spectrum of revealed reality are taught with no reference to Christ. God is revealed to us in this age preeminently in His Son, and we are to seek to teach the great truths of the Word of God in the light of the great statement of Hebrews 1, 1 and following, and then surely it will be in contrast to mere sentimental preaching, touching men's heartstrings by stories of mother and babies and little children, but little or no reference to His cradle, His cross, and His open tomb, moving men by statistics and stories of human need without having them look upon Him who, when He saw the multitudes, was moved with compassion. And at the end of the day, brethren, the real answer to this, to have sermons pervasively

87:57 evangelical in their overall climate and flavor, is to have your own religious experience be one with God. If you are really living in close communion with Christ, your pulpit ministry will savor of the fragments of Christ. If you are going daily to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness, how can you indulge in legalistic or moralistic preaching? If you are motivated, constrained by the love of Christ, how can you indulge in legalistic or moralistic preaching? If you are going daily to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness, how can you indulge in legalistic preaching? If you are going daily to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness, how can you seek to motivate your fellow believers without bringing them near the realities which, under the blessing of the Spirit, will cause them as well to be constrained by the love of Christ?