Content and Form of the Message

Recap of Presuppositions and Preacher's Heart/Mind

0:02 The subject before us in these sessions, which I have been privileged to share with you, is what I have entitled the essential ingredients of effective popular preaching. And last evening, I set before you three presuppositions which undergird all that I'm presenting to you, and I trust all that we consider on this very weighty theme. And those presuppositions were, first of all, a conviction in the heart of the minister, of the preacher, of his own call to the preaching ministry. Secondly, a settled conviction as to the primacy of preaching among the public duties of the ministry. And thirdly, a settled conviction as to the necessity of a life of unfeigned and balanced godliness which is the only thing that is possible in the world. As the constant prerequisite of pulpit power. Then I indicated that we would seek to divide this subject into three main areas.

1:09 The essential ingredients of effective preaching, first of all, as those ingredients relate to the heart and mind of the preacher himself. We could have extended it even into his body and brought in the subject of exercise and good physical habits. And it's amazing how often these suggestions occur. In the old books on homiletics.

1:30 And I think they were wiser than we may admit they were in seeing the relationship between a flat stomach and a clear head. And there may be some distinct relationship between a bulging tummy and a foggy mind. But we limited it to those prerequisites in the heart and in the mind of the preacher himself. And then under that I suggested five lines of thought.

1:56 If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching. If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching. If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching. If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching.

2:00 If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching. If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching. If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching. If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching.

2:04 If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching. If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching. If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching. If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching.

2:09 If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching. If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching. If we would be effective in preaching, we would be effective in teaching. that, there must be an increasing measure of genuine love to our people. There must be the hearty acceptance of our own identity as men and as preachers. And last of all, there must be the cultivation of a conscious dependence upon the Holy Spirit. And now tonight we address ourselves to the second main division of our subject. Having considered the essential ingredients of effective preaching in the heart and mind of the preacher, we now move to the area of the essential ingredients of effective preaching as they relate to the

Underlying Assumptions for Sermon Content and Form

2:54 content and the form of the sermon. The content and the form of the sermon. And we will think our way through the subject by following out two lines of thought. First of all, I will consider with you briefly some underlying assumptions.

3:12 And then the main substance of our study tonight will be in the area of some specific directives. When I address myself tonight to the subject of the essential ingredients of effective preaching as those ingredients relate to form and content, I have at least three assumptions, areas upon which I trust we are clear and to which we give ourselves in our pulpit ministries. First of all, I am assuming that our preaching as to content will be eminently biblical and evangelical. Since the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth who works by and with the truth, both in the regeneration of the sinner and in the sanctification of the believer, then it is truth as resident in the pages of Scripture that must form the main substance of our preaching. And so it is an underlying assumption when we come to discuss the matter of form and content that that content will be eminently biblical and evangelical. For the mandate under which we labor is that of the apostle given to Timothy

4:35 in 2 Timothy chapter 4, preach the word, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching. We are called upon in the words of the apostle to declare the whole counsel of God. And as long as our preaching is eminently biblical, it will be decidedly evangelical. That is, it will have as the sweet fragrance of its overall mood, if I may mix my metaphors there, that which centers around Christ and the saving truth concerning him.

5:16 So please put your mind at ease and focus on what it is that I am teaching. And while I am no longer talking about the subject I have just described, I am translating into the real context of the verse this excellent chapter on the matter, manner, and spirit of preaching, and in introducing this subject, he zeroes in upon this very principle and says, and I quote now from Shedd, in respect to the matter of our preaching, the ideas and truths which the preacher shall bring before the popular mind during ten, twenty, or forty years in which he may address it, we affirm that he ought to confine himself to evangelical doctrine.

5:46 If he is to err in regard to the range of subjects, let him err upon the safe side. It is undesirable and unwise for the pulpit to comprehend anything more in its instructions than the range of inspired truth which has for its object the salvation of the human soul. It is true that Christianity has a connection with all truth, but so has astronomy. But it no more follows that the Christian minister should go beyond the fundamental principles of the gospel and discuss all of their relations to science, art, and government in his Sabbath discourses, than that the astronomer should leave his appropriate field of observation and attempt to be equally perfect in all that can be logically connected with astronomy. Life is short and art is long. In the secular sphere, it is conceded that the powerful minds are those who rigorously confine themselves to one department of thought.

6:49 And then he illustrates that from secular life, and then goes on to say that the minister is not obligated to be proficient in the implications of the Christian truth in every realm. He suggests that there ought to be Christians who work out the...

7:04 He suggests that there ought to be Christians who work out the implications of biblical principles in every department, and I would heartily concur. But we're talking now about the pastor-teacher-preacher, and that which should dominate the theme and the motif of his ministry. And then he closes with a statement that is hard to refute historically. The unearthly sermonizing of Baxter and Howe, so abstracted from all the temporal and secular interest of man, so rigorously...

7:34 So rigorously confined to human guilt and human redemption, that preaching, which upon the face of it, does not seem even to recognize that man has any relations to this little ball of earth, that preaching which takes him off the planet entirely and contemplates him simply as a sinner in the presence of God, that preaching so destitute of all literary, scientific, economical, and political elements and illusions was nevertheless, by indirection, one of the most fertile causes of the progress of England and America. Subtracted as one of the forces of English history and the career of the Anglo-Saxon race, would be like that of Italy and Spain. Brethren, don't be bullied into the idea that you must make authoritative pronouncements upon every department of science and philosophy from the pulpit. I'm assuming that you are. I'm assuming that you are.

Painstakingly Exegetical and Theologically Symmetrical Content

8:35 I'm assuming that you are. I'm assuming that we are convinced that our preaching as to substance must be eminently biblical and evangelical. Secondly, I'm assuming that it will be painstakingly exegetical. God has spoken to man in words, words to which he has attached his own meanings, words which come to us in grammatical relationships, hence the stuff of which our sermonic materialism, the material is made, must have its roots in the careful study of the meaning of words and the relationship of those words one to another.

9:19 It's relatively easy to make very loud and dogmatic statements about our conviction as to plenary verbal inspiration. 1 Corinthians 2.13. Which things we speak in words which the Holy Ghost teaches.

9:36 But once you take it in your mouth, you will not be able to understand it. But once you take it in your mouth, you will not be able to understand it. But once you take it in your mouth, you will not be able to understand it. Only if you take that position, brethren, the onus is upon you and upon me to treat the Scriptures consistent with that confession.

9:48 The man who holds to the inconsistent position of mere thought inspiration, or to the nebulous Neo-Earth Orthodox view of the inscripturated revelation, they can afford to be careless with the meanings of words. They can afford to just draw near enough, They can afford to just draw near enough, up to the text of scripture to feel an impress of a general idea. You and I can't afford that luxury when we have confessed that God has spoken in words which the Holy Ghost teaches. And so I'm assuming that we are convinced of and committed to the principle that the content of our message will be painstakingly exegetical. And then thirdly, I'm assuming that our preaching as to content will be theologically symmetrical. There is an inherent order and beauty in the truth of God. Like the universe, with all of its various galaxies, and within each galaxy, each solar system, there is individual beauty of each part, of each system. But it's in that harmonious relationship of one to the other that there

11:10 is even a greater display of beauty. And so with God's truth. And I am assuming in what follows in our study tonight that effective preaching has this element of theological symmetry so that when we are expounding a passage which deals with free grace, we are able to do so in such a way that gives us the ability to express the truth of God's truth. And so I'm assuming that we are able to do so in such a way that gives us the ability to express the truth of God's truth. And so I'm assuming that we are able to do so in such a way that gives us the ability to express the truth of God's truth. And so gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience and in holiness, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

12:04 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience and in holiness, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience and in holiness, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

13:06 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience and in holiness, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

14:11 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

15:12 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

16:14 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

17:22 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

18:29 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

19:37 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

20:41 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

21:47 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

22:49 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

23:50 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

24:54 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

25:58 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

27:01 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

28:04 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

29:07 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

30:16 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

31:22 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence.

Cultivating Clear, Uncluttered Structure

32:23 gives no legitimate ground for the antinomian to find fuel from our preaching. I'm assuming that when we are expounding a passage which deals with the necessity of perseverance in obedience, that we will be able to expound the truth of that passage in such a way that we shall not give unnecessarily the impression that this matter of our persevering is rooted in anything other than in God's presence. load in our people's laps, hoping that somehow they'll go home and learn how to build a house out of it. It is our task, taking the bricks of truth to construct the house of that which the Spirit of God would say to us and through us, to our people. Let us not comfortably rest in the assumption that all the lack of reception of our sermonic material is due exclusively to hardness of heart or the profundity of our pronouncements. It may be in great measure due to the lack of structure or order. Listen to Spurgeon with his blunt clarity on this point. Quote,

Suffusing the Sermon with Pointed, Specific, and Discriminating Application

33:36 an average hearer who is unable to follow the course of thought of the preacher ought not to worry himself, but to blame the preacher whose business it is to make the matter plain. It shouldn't trouble him at all. He should blame the preacher. Well, the second exhortation, under this matter of the essential ingredients of effective preaching as to form and content, not only would I exhort you to aim at cultivating clear, uncluttered structure to the sermon, but labor to suffuse the sermon with pointed, specific, and discriminating application.

34:23 And I've chosen my words carefully. I'm not just piling up words for the speaker. I'm not just piling up words for the speaker. I'm not just piling up words for the speaker. I'm not just piling up words for the speaker. I'm not just piling up words for the of speech effect. I've got some of these that I've crossed out and written words over them. Labor, labor to suffuse in every part. Not having application where people know it's going to be every week, they'll tune you out, surprise them, suffuse the sermon with pointed, not generalities, specific and discriminating application.

34:56 Application is, as one man has said, the highway from the head to the heart in our preaching. It is the bridge between notion and affection. Now, preaching must first of all come to the notions. There is the noetic effect of preaching, the opening up of the mind, but then there must be the seizing of the affections. Application is that aspect of our preaching in which people are made to feel that we are not merely saying good things in their presence, but vital things to their hearts. One of the most relevant passages in scripture on the subject of application, 2 Timothy 3.16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness. Preach the word, reproof, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and doctrine. It does not say all scripture

36:02 is given by inspiration of God and is doctrine reproof. Some say all one need do is just give the meaning of the words of scripture and the Holy Spirit will make the application. That isn't what the text says. It says that God breathed in scripturated revelation is profitable for reproof, for rebuke, for instruction in the realm of righteousness. And the apostle, the apostle indicates that when he deals with specifics, he hasn't completed the list. Galatians chapter 5, verses 19 to 21. The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these. And so he gets specific. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, strife, wrath, heresies, drunkenness, etc. And then he says, and such like. He says, I by no means have completed the list. And there's a sense in which the task of completing that list is your responsibility in the context of your own situation with careful reference to the needs of your own hearers. Discriminating,

37:09 pointed, specific application. It is said of Philip Henry, he did not shoot the arrow of the word over the heads of his audience in flourishes of affected rhetoric. Nor did he shoot the word under their feet by homely expressions. But he aimed the word into their hearts by close and lively application.

37:38 May I say it in the bluntest kind of way I know how? Application is what nails the hearer to the, we call it the bench, we call it the pew. You see, the truth is the nail. Application is the hammer.

37:52 The Holy Spirit is the arm. And if he is present to take the hammer of application with reference to the truth, it is that which nails men to the pew and says, God says something to me. This passage is not just good information about God and about man. This is vital truth about him and from him to me.

38:16 To me. This kind of preaching is the distinguishing mark of the prophets of our Lord and of the apostles. Their treatment of sin took on concrete realities of the specific sins of their day. Their treatment of the struggles of the soul takes on concrete realities.

38:36 The exposure of sham in a passage like Matthew 23 is so specific, so pointed. Their declaration of God's glorious being and ways was enfleshed in the present situation. It says in Matthew 21, 45 when our Lord was done speaking, they perceived that he spoke of them.

39:02 He wasn't talking about some people somewhere in some place about some things. They perceived that he spoke of them. I often think of John the Baptist. What would have happened if he went up to Herod and said, now Herod, has anyone ever informed you that somewhere within the pages of the Old Testament Revelation, Jehovah God had something to say with relationship to proper conjugal relationships. At your leisure, I would ask you to examine what some of those directives might be. Herod would have looked at him and said, huh?

39:37 Scripture says he came to him and said, it is not lawful for thee to have no question about what he was saying.

39:51 No question. As Eilean says in his masterful work in his Alarm to the Unconverted, when he's been what I would think searchingly specific, he says, now we must move from generalities.

40:06 And then he uses Nathan as an example. He says, as long as Nathan is dealing in parabolic insinuations, David doesn't see his sin. But it's when he comes to hand to hand combat and says, power to man, that he's pierced with conviction. That's the principle.

40:26 It's this kind of preaching that God has owned with power in the post-apostolic period as well. Let me commend to you a careful reading of those sermons of men like Whitefield. And we know that these were probably poorly reported, and yet this element of searching, pointed, discriminating application is fused throughout his preaching. Let me give just one example in his sermon, The Method of Grace.

40:56 And now, my dear friends, examine your hearts, for I hope you came hither with a design to have your souls made better. Give me leave to ask you in the presence of God whether you know the time. And if you do not know exactly, the time, do you know there was a time when God wrote bitter things against you? When the arrows of the Almighty were within you?

41:22 Was ever the remembrance of your sins grievous to you? Was the burden of your sins intolerable to your thoughts? Did you ever see that God's wrath might justly fall upon you on account of your sins? Were you ever in all your life sorry for your sins?

41:42 Could you ever say, My sins are gone over my head as a burden too heavy for me? Did you ever experience such a thing as this? Unless you were sound asleep, brethren, how could you help but be nailed to the pew by preaching like that from a man with a broken heart and a spirit inflamed? Do you notice how many times he said, You, you, you, you!

42:10 I remember a dear friend of mine who has in past years developed into a woman so powerful preacher. I'd walk 25 miles to hear him preach now. Three years ago, I'd be glad if he showed up in the meeting, but I wouldn't have walked a mile to hear him. He had this great amorphous clob of truth. He dumped a load of bricks, and every brick was pure gold of divine truth, but it was still a load of bricks. But he's worked at this thing. He's worked at it. He's labored at it, and others have worked with him. And in this very area, a friend, a mutual friend of ours, one day came to him and said, I want to have a word with you. He said, What's happened to you in the past week? He said, What do you mean? He said, You stood up in the church yesterday and denied everything I know about you.

42:55 He said, What do you mean? He said, Well, you stood up in the pulpit yesterday and you said, We do not pray. We do not read the Bible. We do not obey God's law.

43:07 We commit adultery. We profane the Sabbath. And he came to him and said, What's happened? He said, The last time I knew you and prayed with you, you were a godly man. You were true to your wife.

43:19 And he went right down the line with him. You see what he had? He had inculcated this abominable we. Ryle deals with it very pointedly in that article that Mr. Murray mentioned this morning on simplicity and preaching. If you are not praying, and you are not reading your Bible, if you are not keeping the Sabbath, and if you are not true to your wife, you've got no business being in the ministry. And if you are praying, and if you are reading, and if you are true to your wife, then say you! You think that kind of talk in any other realm would be absolute foolishness. Whatever gave sanction to it in the pulpit, I do not know. It must be pointed application. It must be specific and discriminating. One preacher said to another preacher, You've been half an hour preaching without one word directly aimed at the conscience.

Practical Suggestions for Application

44:17 And he indicted him for that sin. May I close this second section with a few practical suggestions that I hope will be helpful? Suggestion one. Read and re-read the section on applicatory preaching and discriminating preaching in Bridge's Christian ministry.

44:38 Those two chapters, though brief, are a gold mine of giving the principles relative to this necessary and essential element to the effective preaching. Secondly, in the standard Puritan works, Owen, Flavel, Baxter, Goodwin, Sibbes, marked with a specially colored pencil. Get a green one or a chartreuse or orange or something. All the times they applied throughout the sermon. Notice how their sermons are suffused with application. Just when you've been taken up to some lofty doctrinal concept, all of a sudden there you are, nailed to the pew with the implications of it. Note how they took doctrine and applied it to life. How they took duties and applied them to specific situations.

45:26 Third suggestion. Seek to cultivate that ability to suffuse the sermon with application rather than tacking it on or putting it in at the same place every time. You remember Pavlov's dogs. Pavlov who discovered the principle of conditioned response and every time he rang the bell and gave them a piece of food, after a while he rang the bell and they salivated even though there was no food. You see, our people can be conditioned if they sit under our ministries and there's no variation as to the place of application. And so they'll know, alright, he's gonna, alright for the first 25 minutes, but from 25 to 27 minutes into the sermon he's gonna pick up the hammer and he's gonna try to nail me. So I'll just conveniently shut my mind. The human mind works that way.

46:17 Fourth suggestion. I don't know how else to say it but this. Pray for grace to carry your congregation into the study and never let them leave you while you're preparing. With all due respects to the walking concept, laid before us this morning, I dare not do it in my area. I'd be mugged and robbed if I tried. I would suggest that the proper posture and elements of essential preaching as to preparation when working on form and content are these. Your Bible in front of you. Your tools about you. Tools of painstaking

47:03 exegesis. The living God above you. And your congregation within you. Paul says in Philippians 1, because I have you in mine. Now doesn't that bring all the elements together? Conscious dependence upon the Spirit. He must open the text. He must get wisdom in the outworking of the truth. I must labor at exegesis. Grammar. Relationship. The theological implications.

47:42 I must work at form and structure. My Bible central. My tools about me. God over all. And my people within my heart. If they're there in your heart in your preparation, they will know that they were there in your act. I move on now with some reluctance because I would just love to linger a while on that subject but in the interest of balance and comprehensiveness this is the third line of exhortation I would give with reference to the essential ingredients of effective preaching as to form and content. Seek to grace the sermon with the

Gracing the Sermon with Illustration, Parable, Analogy, Metaphor, and Simile

48:34 helpful presence of illustration, parable, analogy, metaphor, and simile. Seek to grace the sermon. Now you see if the sermon is solid, substantial, well-ordered, it's got all the ingredients, it needs something to grease it. To make it lovely. It may be substantial like a good solid meal of meat, potatoes, and vegetables but a little parsley sprinkled on the potatoes and a little bit of another condiment, it makes it more desirable. So seek to grace the sermon with the helpful presence of illustration, of parable, of analogy, of metaphor, and of simile. One of the most basic principles of learning is that learning proceeds, the learning process involves moving from the known to the unknown. And certainly we agree that spiritual truths can only be received and understood by the illuminating work of the spirit. But

49:43 that same spirit has conveyed truth to us in a volume of writings which fairly bristles with illustration, parable, metaphor, simile, and analogy. It has been said that he is the most powerful speaker who can turn men's eyes, turn men's ears into eyes, turn men's ears into eyes, who can convert words into pictures, who can take verbs and nouns and make of them paint and paintbrushers and paint before people until they see. Granted, seeing with these eyes is not enough. The Holy Spirit must open the eyes of the soul. Granted, but is it not strange that there is such a close interplay between the end and the means that those through whom the most truth has come to men's hearts have been those most proficient in being able to turn ears into eyes by the helpful presence of illustration, analogy, parable, metaphor, and simile. What would Jeremiah's prophecy be without the marred girdle, the basket of figs, and the potter's vessel? What would Hosea's message be if divorced from the theology of the unfaithful wife?

51:08 And what would Isaiah's utterances be if denuded of their vivid poetic imagery? Can you imagine our Lord's sermons and teaching without lost sheep, wayward sons, importunate widows, carefree birds, motes and beams in the eyes, millstones around the neck, vine and branches, bride and bridegroom, wine and wineskins, seed and sower? Can you imagine what his preaching would be like if stripped of that? Thomas Fuller said, Reasons are the pillars of the fabric of a sermon, but similitudes are the windows which give the best light.

51:51 Now a man be a fool to make a house out of windows. I'm not advocating anecdotal preaching. A man's an equal fool who makes a house without windows if he has no electricity. What do we want the main structure of the sermon to be? Well, I'm glad and I've been looking at it because I did construction work summers going through college. His reinforced concrete, underneath all those concrete structures are steel beams, poured concrete. I'm so glad that the main structure is made of that substantial stuff, but I'm also glad there's some windows. Now that is our sermon.

52:37 Made of the steel beams and concrete stuff of solid truth, we've punched in some windows to let the light in to that which we would give to men in God's name. Stuart again speaks very perceptively to this point and says, We may not possess one-tenth of George Whitfield's dramatic imagination. Nevertheless, the art of illustration is a thing no preacher can afford to neglect. Abstract truth has to be translated into concrete terms if it is to impinge upon the average mind.

53:16 The preacher who will not condescend thus to translate his meaning, who disdains the use of illustration considering it undignified and puerile, is being very foolish. Surely our Lord's example is decisive here. He didn't speak of the efficacy of importunate prayer. He showed us a man shamelessly hammering on his neighbor's door at midnight.

53:43 That's what he did. He didn't just say you ought to be unimportant. He said a certain man came to him at midnight, pounded on his door, received a rebuff, pounded and pounded with shameless insistence is the force of the original. He did not say that wrong personal relationships were inimical to religious reality.

54:05 What did he say? If you come to worship, there's a hang-up between you and your brother. Forget your worship. Leave your gift before the altar.

54:13 Go get things straightened out. He put it into the concrete. I'm convinced and was convinced of this in expounding the Sermon on the Mount and all of those passages in the latter part of chapter five. Ye have heard that it was said, but I say unto you our Lord is taking the general principle of one facet of the law and enfleshing it in a concrete illustration of the application of that principle so that it had teeth in it.

54:40 So that it spoke with relevance to the hearers. May I say by way of aside illustration and parable will not only illuminate but they will also serve to relax the mind for the next segment of hard thought which the sermon will and should demand. If you're sensitive to people and you feel that as you've been getting this concept across closely reasoned argument and you sense the beginning to get heavy with it, alright, relax the mind with an illustration. Can you imagine a dignified bishop of Liverpool saying, and he says in that article on simplicity of preaching, that when he's in certain places and wants to teach the doctrine of depravity, he pulls his keys out of his pocket and he rattles them in the pulpit. And he says what do I need all these for? Because man's a sinner and he's got a heart given to fear and to taking and that's a pretty good living proof of the doctrine, isn't it? Instead of pulling out some of the two statements from volume six of somebody's theological writings and weighing the people down with it shake your keys!

Practical Suggestions for Illustration

55:56 And I close this section with some practical suggestions as well. As ministers, we should read and re-read Spurgeon's chapter in his lectures to his students on the use of illustration. Secondly, go back over those same standard Puritan works with a different colored pencil and mark every time these men use the device of analogy, of metaphor, of simile, of parable, of labels of master, and also of the term phrase which is another technique that is most helpful in fixing the truth in the mind. When I get to heaven and I trust I'm not being irreverent one of the things I want to ask Label is whether that came to him naturally which I doubt. If he has to work one half as hard at it as I do some of those paragraphs in which he'll hang together three or four turn phrases that just bring the truth into such sharp focus probably cost him two or three hours of labor. But it was worth it to him to get the truth of God to the minds of men. And so I suggest read Spurgeon's chapter on this. Secondly,

57:13 mark these things in your book because it's more caught than taught. Thirdly, after the basic structure of your sermon is planned, you've worked on form and order, growing out of painstaking exegesis, then go back over the sermon and see the places where an illustration will be most helpful either to illuminate the truth or if you think it's going to be clear enough by mere propositional statements it's been kind of heavy and at the end of it before you move into the next block of truth put the illustration. Now that sound carnal to go back over and actually work at the places you put it? No.

57:54 Because the energy of the spirit and the sweat of the preacher are concurrent realities and the same. And then a fourth suggestion seek to cultivate a trained eye to seek illustrations. And we can work at this brethren if we're convinced this is our life's work. And if we don't excel in anything else we want to excel in this.

58:19 We want to leave behind us a people who have truth riveted to the mind and by God's grace burnt into the heart. So we want to labor at cultivating a trained eye to see illustrations. Work at making up parables. Check them out first before you use them if you're green at this. And then fifthly don't give up your general reading in theology, history and Christian biography. At all costs continue your general reading. Have at least a couple of mornings a week when you're working through systematically an hour a morning in some volume of Owen or Goodwin. Something heavy.

59:03 Working through an hour of something from church history Christian biography so that you're constantly getting a backlog of information that in the actual context of sermon preparation can come to light and above all don't let any dust collect on Bunyan's pilgrim. There is a gold mine of illustration and I find the more I study Bunyan the more I find him just coming out in sermon after sermon. Because even the children when you say as we see in pilgrim's progress and boom their eyes are open and they're all ears because they can see him. They can see him in doubting tasks. They can see him in his wrestlings with a pug. They can see him weeping as he goes back to seek his woes.

Cultivating Earthiness, Simplicity, and Plainness of Speech

59:56 They can see him and Bunyan is a great gift to the church in terms of illustrative material of analogy and these other things. And then my last exhortation is this. Not only labor at clear structure, pointed application, vivid illustration but work at cultivating earthiness simplicity and plainness of speech. Work at cultivating earthiness simplicity and plainness of speech. Brethren the people to whom you and I minister live in the very real world of London fog, of dishes of nappies, of nail strikes, mob clothing, football boxing matches, rock muses, music, element, Irish shenanigans, city streets, dingy alleys, religious and moral anarchy. That's the world where they live. Day after day after day. And out of that world they come to hear you preach and they come to me here preach, hear me preach. Hence

61:13 it is into that situation that our message must come relating itself to that world and all the people who watch it. I'm convinced there's no mere accident of necessity that our Lord as it were had to be born somewhere so Nazareth was as good as anywhere. It was the Father's plan that he should come out of Nazareth because it was in that town raised of peasant parentage. That town notorious for its production of no goods that our Lord was disciplined in this matter of earthiness and simplicity.

61:57 Remember what he was as a man as a preacher. He became as a man and by the special equipment of the enduement of the Holy Spirit. It is there interacting with peasants and common people that he learned how to capture the ears of the common people so that when he was launched upon his ministry the common people heard him gladly. In our Lord the most profound truths are set before us in the homely garb of the mundane and the earthy.

62:33 He spoke to a world in which mothers knew what it was like to travail in pain and so he uses that and he doesn't think it indelicate. Talk about a woman in travail hats when the child is born she is. It didn't bother him to talk about the natural processes of the body when illustrating truth. As you eat your meat goes into the tummy and goes out by the process of elimination.

63:01 And he used it to illustrate the fact that what you touched wasn't the bile. It merely comes in and goes out. But it's what comes out of the heart. Will you accuse our Lord of being indelicate? It was that element of earthy. He spoke about whitewashed sepulchres. Dirty dishes. To illustrate something by saying it's like a dish upon which food is collected and becomes smelly and rotten.

63:32 He says you're like people who polish the outside of the cup but inside. This wasn't beneath our Lord. Because that's where women live. In the realm of dirty dishes.

63:43 In the realm of being exposed to the realities of childbirth and the rearing of children. That's why he could speak of field flowers and catching men as fish. What is this quality but earthiness and simplicity? I want to read a quote from a man again whose theology I don't embrace but whose perception of Spurgeon as a man and a preacher is most most incisive.

64:13 Helmut Tillich, the great German preacher, has written an introduction to an edited selection of Spurgeon called Encounter with Spurgeon. In that fifty page introduction he has an analysis of what it was, humanly speaking, that caused Spurgeon to be able to hold the congregations he did for so long a time. He mentions this principle of earthiness. That's where I got the word from his analysis. He makes this statement.

64:39 The clerical mind which is sworn only to the traditional and speaks only in the cold language of tradition is mortally sick. It is a pleasure to break down the lath and plaster of old externals and formalities to make room for the granite walls of reality. Now let me qualify that by saying I do not believe, mean by that that we jettison the great biblical terms justification, regeneration, propitiation, sanctification. I don't mean that for a moment. That's a betrayal not only of the words of scripture but the great gift of God to his church through her history in the teachers he has given to open up to explain and amplify and defend and then give as a gift to us these concepts chiseled out and hammered out upon the anvil of careful thought and in the crucible of much suffering and controversy. But what I am saying is when you teach what justification means and when you teach what sanctification means, there is no sacred imprimatur upon traditional language. And Mr. Teelicky says that whoever is bound only

The Cost of Earthiness and Simplicity

66:04 to parrot the traditional language by which these concepts are preached is mortally sick. Oh it is indeed a pleasure to tear down the lath and plaster of old externals that have been crusted around these things and lay bare the granite the granite of the walls of reality. Now this will be a costly thing and I would close by suggesting what it will cost you to cultivate earthiness and simplicity and plainness of speech. First of all it will cost you your pride and elegance.

66:40 One author has said vanity will make a man speak and write learnedly but piety alone can prevail upon a good scholar to simplify his speech for the sake of the vulgar. Such a preacher though his worth may be overlooked by the undiscerning now will one day have a name above every name whether it be philosopher, poet, orator or whatever else is most revered among mankind. Brethren some of you have a pride in your pretended elegance that will have to go to a place called Calvary and be nailed to the cross. Secondly it will cost much mental labor and discipline to cultivate an earthiness that does not profane holy things. A simplicity that does not become simplistic. A plainness that is not unnecessarily offensive to the culture. That will cost much mental labor and discipline.

67:45 Again I quote, it is not difficult to make easy things appear hard but to render hard things easy is the hardest part of a good orator and preacher. Someone so dignified a theologian is shed said concerning this very thing, the preacher who would be affected must employ rhetoric which resembles jail's treatment of Cicero. That is put the nail of truth to the head of the hearer and drive it clear through to his brain. Well it sticks in more than one way.

68:26 Are we prepared for that mental labor and discipline? Thirdly, and this perhaps is one of the most sensitive areas. It may cost us the frown of organized orthodox religion even reformed religion. If I read rightly the biographies and something of the history surrounding Bunyan, Whitfield and Spurgeon whose heirs we claim to be then I have discovered that one of the things that brought down the wrath of organized religion was that they captured the minds of the popular classes of masses of people.

69:06 In a style that so radically cut across the religious tradition that they were offended on the one hand at the apparent prostitution of holy things and by downright clerical jealousy on the other. Here were people who didn't care about so-called elegant pulpit style whose hearts beat with love to men, burned with understanding of and love to truth and the God of truth and who were determined to bring that truth upon the tracks of earthiness, simplicity and plainness instead of sending it into some soaring orbit with an elegant pulpit style. Brethren, we must be prepared for that and I think I know a little bit whereof I speak of the price that you may have to pay if you're determined to cultivate an earthiness and simplicity and plainness of speech. The fact that Spurgeon preached this way was not something that just came naturally. It was his aim and he deliberately cultivated it. Let me give you this quote from his all-round ministry.

70:15 Love for souls will operate in many ways upon our ministries among other things it will make us very plain in our speech. We shall say to ourselves, no I must not use that hard word for that poor woman in the aisle will not understand me. See what he's saying? He saw that woman what he had she needed and as a word came to his mind in the context of preaching he said, no I reject that word. She won't get it.

70:42 I must not point out that recondite difficulty for yonder trembling soul may be staggered by it and might not be relieved by my explanation. I heard a sentence the other day which struck to me because of its finery rather than its weight of meaning. An admirable divine remarked, quote, when duty is embodied in a concrete personality it is eminently simplified. You all understand the expression but I do not think that congregation to which it was addressed had more than a hazy idea of what it meant. It's our old friend.

71:14 Example is better than precept. That's all the man was saying. It's a fine thing. It's a fine thing to construct sounding sentences but it's only an amusement.

71:26 It ministers nothing to our great end. Some would impress us by their big words and their depth of thought when it's merely a love of big words. To hide plain things in dark sentences is for it rather than service for God. If you love men better you will love phrases less. How used your mother to talk to you when you were a child there? Don't tell me. Don't even print it. It would never do for the public ear. The things she used to say to you were childish and earlier still babyish. Why did she speak thus? For she was a very sensible woman because she loved you. There is a sort of tutelage as the French call it in which love delights. Love's manner

72:16 of addressing men disregards all dignities and fineries of language and only cares to impart its meaning and to infuse the blessing to spread our heart right over another heart is better than adorning it with a paint and varnish of brilliant speech. Then he goes on to enlarge upon the principle. Now granted if God gives you opportunities to address a group of college professors you'll speak to them commensurate with their vocabulary and their intellectual level. I'm fully aware of that. Don't you hide behind this by looking at all the exceptions, brethren. I'm talking about the essential ingredients of popular preaching. And don't find refuge in this or that. And if you're trying to now it's because you're nailed on this principle and you're trying to evade it.

73:07 If you're thinking of all the exceptions if we would minister to the populace we must do so in the context of an earth in its simplicity and plainness. Study Ryle's essay on the subject. Study Bridges' chapter on the subject. Seek to absorb the mood of scripture.

73:30 Read the sermons of the men who held the masses. Read Shedd's chapter in his book on homiletics. I'm surprised he's not had a wider acceptance. He's got some excellent thoughts. Even on this very subject, the popular style of preaching, some very helpful material. But then having read, we must labor at cultivating this earthiness, simplicity and plainness of speech. These I suggest to you, my brethren, are the essential ingredients of effective preaching as to the form and content of the message. It must be eminently biblical and evangelical.

74:12 Painstakingly exegetical. Theologically symmetrical. It must come with clarity of order. Penetrating application.

74:25 Graced with illustration. And in the language that is earthy and simple and plain. May God help us to labor to be preachers whose sermons are marked by these essential ingredients of effective preaching.