Delivery of the Message

Introduction: The Delivery of the Message

0:02 The theme to which I have been addressing myself is this, the essential ingredients of effective popular preaching. And I have defined those terms so that I trust they do not have the wrong connotation, but that we attach to those words the sacred meanings which I have intended they should convey to each of us. I have suggested that all that we consider in this very limited field should be couched in the context of those three basic presuppositions

0:37 of the certainty of our call to a preaching ministry, the certainty of a conviction as to the primacy of preaching among the public duties of the ministry, and also the certainty of conviction as to the necessity of a holy life. As the only backdrop for a powerful preaching ministry. And then with those presuppositions beneath us and surrounding us, we have addressed ourselves to the ingredients of effective preaching as they relate, first of all, to the man who preaches,

1:16 last night to the content and to the form of the message, and now tonight to the actual delivery of that message. Assuming that in context, the content, the message, is eminently biblical and evangelical, and by that I did not mean just 90% biblical, but I meant it is not only taking a text and using it as an excuse to spin out our own ideas, but the content is eminently biblical in that its whole flavor is biblical. And even when we are not actually quoting the words of the Bible, we are speaking in the thought patterns,

1:58 of the Bible, and so I am assuming, as we come to the subject of the delivery, that that which is being delivered is as to its substance, eminently biblical and evangelical, that it has been painstakingly exegetical work that has led to this substance of the sermon, and that there is doctrinal symmetry, that it is doctrinally symmetrical, and that we have labored at a clear, uncluttered structure, that we have aimed at using necessary illustration, and analogy, and metaphor, and simile, that we have worked at the matter of application,

2:41 and that we are determined to speak in a simple and an earthy style to our people. Well, now the truth has been hammered out, out of the stuff of divine revelation, coupled with the sweat of the preacher, in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, we have that which we call the sermon. And now comes the hour when we must stand before people to deliver that which the Lord has given unto us. And so we address ourselves tonight to this matter of the delivery of the sermon itself.

Three Marks of Effective Delivery

3:14 Now, we could follow out many lines of thought relative to the ingredients of effective preaching as they relate to this matter of the delivery. And so perhaps rather arbitrarily, but I trust not merely arbitrarily, somewhat selectively, we will follow out these three lines of thought. Effective preaching, as to its delivery, will be marked by three things. An unaffected naturalness, a penetrating directness, and a sanctified flexibility.

3:49 An unaffected naturalness, a penetrating directness, and a sanctified flexibility. Now, perhaps about two-thirds of the time will be spent under this first head, because under it we include matters to which I feel a particular burden in addressing myself this evening. Under this head of unaffected naturalness, we will first of all consider what I mean by the term unaffected naturalness. Secondly, we will consider three specific areas in which the presence or absence of this naturalness will be most manifest,

4:31 and then thirdly, some suggestions as how to attain this naturalness, which almost sounds like a contradiction of terms, but I hope to demonstrate that it isn't. What do I mean by the words unaffected naturalness?

Unaffected Naturalness Defined

4:48 Some of the principles that undergird my remarks in this area reflect back upon what was said the first evening on the necessity of a preacher's acceptance of his own identity as a man and as a preacher. Suffice it to say that since the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth, he is most likely to work by a presentation of truth given in a truthful manner. And what is that truthful manner but unaffected naturalness? Unaffected naturalness in the vessel whose speech...

5:31 And I think it's this thought that at least in part is in the mind of the apostle when he says, in a text we looked at in another connection, 2 Corinthians 2 and verse 17, For we are not as many which corrupt the word of God, the substance, you see, was sixteen ounces to the pound, divine truth, but as of sincerity, transparency, genuineness, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ. To change the approach of it, whatever forces may be operative, if we preach because we are twice-born men,

6:12 those forces do not negate the full employment of all the faculties we have because we are once-born men.

6:24 For the man who preaches is a twice-born man, yes, but he's twice because he's once. He was once born after the flesh.

6:34 He was once born a man. And now by grace he is born of the Spirit. But there is no negation. There is no negation of what he is as a man first-born because he preaches as a man twice-born.

6:49 What then is unaffected naturalness in preaching? I've worked out a rather lengthy sentence. Remember, this is not to be a model of what I've been telling you to do. This is a lecture, not a sermon.

7:02 But I don't know how to reduce this. If you can reduce it, help me later. But I try to define this or describe it in the following way. Unaffected naturalness in preaching, is a man of God standing before the people of God with heart and mind impregnated with the truth of God, seeking to convey that truth to others without attempting to change the fingerprints of his own redeemed humanity, which of necessity must be found on the truth presented.

7:41 It's the man of God's existence of divine truth, but not concerned that the fingerprints of his own individual identity and humanity will be found upon that truth, thus conveyed.

8:05 And again I revert to the whole climate of the inscripturation of the mind and words of God in this book.

8:15 For again there was no level of communication higher than that which the Holy Spirit exercised when he superintended the very words which be the words of God. Peter and Paul and John wrote and which have become a part of the sacred writings.

8:32 And yet Paul's fingerprints are on every page of his writings.

8:38 Your fingerprint is that which sets you apart from all other human beings. Paul's fingerprint is found on his writings. Peter's is found. They are the words of God, but the words of God with the fingerprints of the individual writers.

8:55 And if it is true at that highest level, of the Spirit's work in communicating the very words of God to men,

9:04 I do not think it is out of place to expect that it shall be manifested at the lower level of the Spirit's grace and assistance in the opening up and applying of those words which God the Holy Spirit has given to us. As I indicated this afternoon, one has said that all of us are in one sense, or have been three men. There is the old man. That which according to Colossians chapter 3 has been crucified, has been put off, Romans 6, Colossians 3.

9:39 There is the new man in Christ Jesus, and then there is that which is characteristic of the human. Now all that is characteristic of the old man who was put to death when we were brought into vital union with Christ, should be put off when we preach. Insensitivity, coarseness, dogmatism, an unloving bombast, and all of these things that are characteristic of the old man should be put off when we preach. And we should seek to preach in the fragrance of those graces which are characteristic of the new man in Christ Jesus.

10:22 But we must not seek to preach as men divorced from the human, which is just a part of us as men. Alexander and his thoughts on preaching has some very perceptive words which I'll read in conclusion of trying to define what I mean by unaffected naturalness. From our own poor pedestrian level, let us look up at the mighty preachers of the past, the Whitfields and Wesleys and Chalmerses and Masons, and own that God accomplishes his gracious ends not only by a variety of instruments, but in a variety of ways. If there is any maxim which you might inscribe on your seal, ring, or cross, which you might inscribe on your seal, ring, or cross, which you might inscribe on your seal, ring, or cross,

11:07 which you might inscribe on your seal, ring, or cross, which you might inscribe on your seal, ring, or cross, which you might inscribe on your seal, ring, or cross, which you might inscribe on your seal, ring, or cross, be yourself. As Kant says, every man has his own way of preserving health. And so, we may assert that every true servant of the gospel has his own way of being a preacher. And I pray that you may never fall among a people so untutored or so straitened as to be willing to receive the truth only by one sort of conduit.

11:34 Every genuine preacher becomes such, under God, in a way of his own and by a secret discipline. Now notice the next sentence. But after having reached a certain measure of success, it will require much humility, much knowledge of the world, and much liberality of judgment to preserve him from erecting his own methods into a standard for even all the world. And brethren, I've been so painfully conscious of this principle that I've bent over backwards not to overlay these essential ingredients with those things which may be my own peculiar cast of mind and temperament, or the cast and temperament of someone else.

12:18 And I would plead that we avoid at all costs any thought that there is some kind of a wooden model of what effective preaching is. And so in the very matter of the delivery of the sermon, we should aim at this unaffected, naturalness. Now having sought to define what I mean, and I hope I've succeeded in some measure, let me touch on three areas in which this unaffected naturalness will either display itself, or the absence of the same will be very manifest. First of all, it will display itself in the free, but controlled flow of the emotions as we preach.

Unaffected Naturalness in Emotional Flow

13:00 The basic principle that governs this whole aspect of our preaching is stated very succinctly in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, where the apostle says, the spirit of the prophets to the prophets. When anyone claims such flights of divine assistance as to say that the mind becomes neutral and they simply become a passive instrument upon which the Holy Spirit plays something that they call the tune of truth, you know they've moved out of the orbit of the thinking of the apostle. At this very point, he says, let no one rise up in the assembly and say, the Holy Spirit has come upon me

13:43 with such a powerful sense of his presence, I cannot but speak, and then break the rules that the apostle has laid down, let them speak by one, by two, etc. He says, no, no, the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets. So let me say by way of introducing this area of thought that I fully share the disgust which I hope all of you men share for any affected emotion, emotional overtures in preaching, or in any department of life. I detest with you the emotional rape committed by professional manipulators upon simple people.

14:22 And also I recognize with you, I trust, that the manner in which the emotions of the preacher will flow, the degree to which they will be visible to the hearers, will be different in every single case. Now I've laid out the cautions, but having said that, and having laid out the cautions, and having laid out the cautions, and having laid those boundaries, let me assert that effective preaching is marked by that unaffected but controlled flow of the emotions in the act of preaching.

14:55 Now to think this thing through, consider with me in the first place something of the relationship of the emotions to the mind and to the heart. And I do not make those distinctions technically. I simply make them for practical concerns in our study tonight. I believe it's accurate to say that what is right and what is wrong is received into the mind as a fact and believed in the heart as true will of necessity affect the emotions and it should affect them in direct proportion to the weightiness of the facts received and the truths believed.

15:34 If I'm taking a walk and I see a bird that's become the object of the cunning ability of a cat and its stealth, the moment there registers in my mind the fact that that bird has died and I think that there may be a little papa bird somewhere who goes into his nest alone tonight or little baby birds who chirp and chirp and there's no mother, understanding the fact and contemplating some of the situations involved and knowing there's one less bird to chirp to the glory of God, there's a measure of sadness. I always feel sad when I see a dead bird that's been mauled by a cat.

16:14 Should I come upon a form lying dead, upon turning it over, I see that it's one of my own children.

16:30 It'll be an altogether different of emotion.

16:36 And the degree of the emotion, you see, will be in direct proportion to the weightiness of the issues that I confront.

16:46 I believe we see this illustrated so clearly in the life of our Lord and I shall only take this one portion to buttress the principle. In the 19th chapter of the Gospel, according to Luke,

16:59 that very touching account of his approach to Jerusalem, and I commence reading at verse 41. Luke 19 and verse 41. And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace, that now they are hid from thine eye, for the day shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, encompass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground,

17:39 and thy children within thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. As our Lord comes near the city, the facts of Jerusalem's great privileges are in his mind. The facts of the great opportunities that have been hers in the overtures of the message of the kingdom of grace as he has come and he has preached, the facts of her hardness of heart, the facts of her rejection of himself and the truth, the fact of divine judgment coming, those facts resident in our Lord's mind, believed

18:21 in his heart, so affected him that he allowed the free flow of his emotions to be expressed before those who were not his. Those who were with him, and he wept in the face of those awful facts. This principle is found throughout the entire spectrum of God's working in the hearts of his people. When the Holy Spirit regenerates a man, there is produced in him that ninefold fruit of the Spirit. Notice how much of

18:57 the Spirit's work overlays, or to change the figure, lies at the springs of and is expressed through the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. This is true because God's grace lays hold of the whole man. And what is a man without his emotions, his affections, his ability to feel

19:35 and hence to rejoice, to grieve, to weep? Now, my question would be this, brethren. Are all of these general principles of the relationship between what is received as fact and believed in the heart and the emotions, this whole principle of how grace lays hold of the whole man, are all those principles negated simply because a man ascends some stairs and enters what is called a pulpit? Is he emotionally neutered since he is treating the most weighty thing?

20:18 The most intense forms of human emotion. And he should not be fearful of the free, controlled flow of that emotion in his preaching. The Apostle Paul wasn't fearful of it. In fact, he almost makes it a mark of the genuineness of his preaching.

20:50 You remember his words as recorded in Acts chapter 20? Twice he tells us, and I read now from that discourse to the Ephesian elders, Acts 20, verses 19 and 31, serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and that's the only service God accepts. May God have mercy upon you tonight, my dear brethren.

21:22 If any of you are staggering with the whine of your own sense of importance because you have reformed not been in your head, serving the Lord with all until that's the climate in which you serve. Many did. When the truths that he believed and understood in the head and were gripped by the

22:03 heart and did grip his heart, when those truths carried him to people, they carried that part of him which opened up his tear ducts. And he did not cut off the free flow of his emotions in his preaching. Listen to him again in verse 31. And remember that by the space of three years I cease not to warn everyone night and day with tears.

22:42 The great issues involved, the necessity of their perseverance in the face of the possibility of the emergence of error from without and from within. And Paul believed that error damned, and that when people believed lies, it made a difference. And so because he believed lies, he made a difference. And so because he believed those facts and believed them so earnestly that he looked upon Ephesians, those to whom he ministers as potential recipients of error, and he sees all of the baneful effects that can come, it moves him to tears. And when he saw them, he doesn't choke them off as unspiritual.

23:20 He's not embarrassed to say, every one of you, day and night, with tears. Now you turn to Philippians 3, where I believe we see the most powerful, polemic, for the free but uncontrolled flow of the emotions in preaching. And this passage spells a death knell to the thinking that if one allows the free flow of his emotions, it will neutralize the clear functions of the mind. For again, we have a situation in which Paul's mind is being the instrument of the Holy Spirit for the conveyance of the words of God.

24:03 Philippians 3 and verse 18. For many of whom I have told you often and now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. May I say it reverently? The Holy Ghost was inscripturating these words of Paul on a page.

24:30 Any objection that the mind will not clearly convey truth if it's clouded by emotions. Finds no basis in scripture, and it's not sound psychology either. For you let the emotions of the young suitor, whose mind is convinced that that woman is for him, and whose heart loves her. Let him get in the context of seeking to woo and to win her, and the very fire of his emotions will inflame the mind and stretch it until there will flow out of him words that will amaze him.

25:12 After she says, I will. ... a real sense in which one of the elements of God, the Holy Spirit, is the one who is in control of the world.

25:22 One of the elements of true preaching eloquence. I'm not talking about artificial eloquence, but that Holy Spirit eloquence that causes God's truth to come through with power and clarity. Is in great measure related to this matter of the free flow of the emotions following the track. I read something recently in a periodical that has literally haunted me in the past weeks as this whole series of lectures has been guest-stating, and boiling, and stewing.

26:01 On the back burner of my mind, a certain preacher, when reporting on the ministry of another man, used these words, and I quote now. When the speaker allowed himself to become somewhat emotional, and then a criticism followed. Now, if the writer meant the preacher affected emotional elements in his preaching such and such, I'd say, good. Give it to him good and proper.

26:32 Now, he may have meant that. That isn't what he said. But if he said, if he, that's what he had said and meant, I'd have no controversy. If he had said, when the speaker forced emotions, or when he substituted emotions for substance, I would have agreed.

26:50 But listen to his words. The speaker allowed himself to be emotional. What he's saying is, when the preacher was to be looked upon at the height of pulpit-depraved degeneration. Now, that may not have been the intent of that writer.

27:13 That would be cruel to put that all in little words. But I use that as an illustration of an attitude that I have not only observed, but have been exposed to in your country and in mine. And I wish I could say, it was only in those circles that hate the truths we love. But it hasn't been.

27:35 You see, if you and I, in the closet and in the study, have received the truth into the whole man, beginning with prayerfulness. Prayerful dependence upon the Holy Spirit. Painstaking exegesis. The study of words.

27:55 The meaning of words. The relationship of words. Until the truth conveyed in those words has gripped the heart. And we've seen the form and structure of the sermon.

28:05 And we know, in part, what it's going to say to our people. If you've received that truth into the whole man. The mind understanding. The heart believing.

28:16 The affections yearning to experience. That truth and to convey it. Then, dear brethren in the ministry. Just as we've received that truth into the whole man.

28:28 It must be conveyed to others. Or else, in the very conveyance of truth, we're telling a lie. Or else, in the very conveyance of truth, we're telling a lie. For you see, if we stop the unaffected natural free flow of the emotional element.

28:55 Involved in that truth. Passing up. And stand very deliberately. Now, I'm not talking about the person to whom it is natural to be very quiet.

29:03 I'm not speaking now about how this works out. But I'm saying if we deliberately, as it were, batten down the hatches on any emotional expression. What we're saying to the people is you can understand what I understand. And believe what I believe.

29:18 And not feel it. That's a lie. Did not our hearts, what? Burn within us.

29:25 While he walked with us. Talked with us. Talked with us. And opened unto us the scriptures.

29:35 You see, not only did light come to the mind. Fire and warmth came. So when we preach. I love that statement of John the Baptist.

29:54 He was burning. The best exposition I ever got of that text was when Dr. Merrill Tenney. Again, a man whose theology would be indistinct in many areas.

30:09 Though he's more sympathetic to us than many would be. I was preaching at Wheaton Graduate School on one occasion. And he came up to me afterwards. And at those times I was most grateful for any time.

30:22 Any time I met someone who was down the road a little bit. I'd go around with my bucket for any little tidbits they could give me to help me. I was in my early or mid-twenties at the time. And I should never forget.

30:33 He put his hand on my shoulder. And he said, thank you, young man. I'm reminded of a text of scripture. He was a burning and a shining light.

30:41 There was heat. And there was light. Thank you. And he turned on his heel and laughed.

30:48 That was the best exposition I ever got of that text. And I began to reflect upon it. Isn't that what should characterize our preaching? All heat without light.

30:58 Because it's the truth by which men are regenerated. It is the truth by which the church is to be sanctified and washed. Built up into the nurture. In the nurture of Christ.

31:10 Until we come to the fullness of the statue. But there must be heat. He was a burning as well as a shining. Now then, in the light of these thoughts.

31:23 On the free yet controlled flow of the emotions. May I be so bold as to offer a few maxims? Maxim one. Never attempt to put emotion into a sermon.

31:39 That is to prostitute the pulpit and turn preaching into play acting. I remember someone telling me about an old southern preacher. They'd heard him preach a so-called famous sermon many places. And they could tell the exact point at which the tears would come in every second.

31:55 He had learned to so condition his own emotions. That he could control his tears. That's the work of the actor. Never, never attempt to put emotion into a sermon.

32:07 But may I follow it hard with the second maxim? Don't attempt to rule emotion out of the sermon. When you say, how in the world do you bring those two things together? Well, I think this is the answer.

32:21 Stay before that truth in the study until it's perceived by the mind. And then you can trust it to grip your heart. You get that? Stay before that truth until you're convinced you understand the mind of God.

32:36 Then you can afford the luxury of all the heart enjoyment of that truth. And then as you preach that truth and the spirit enables you to feel the glow and the warmth of it. Let that truth carry you to the people. And when it carries you, your emotions go with it.

32:56 So you've been kept from the two errors. You haven't stood alongside. So here's some truth. I'll put some emotion into it.

33:03 Nor have you said, here's some truth. And however it comes, it must come denuded of emotional overtones. No, no. The answer is the study as you think clearly and seek to feel the weight of that truth.

33:19 And then as God is gracious in the act of preaching to assist you by the spirit. Something bigger than you has gotten hold of you and is carrying you to them. And when it carries you, let it carry all of you. Mind in all the full employment.

33:36 The full employment of its faculties. The affections and the emotions in all of their intensity. Third maxim. To mend the broken circuits between your head, your heart and the faculties by which emotion is expressed.

33:56 Some of you have got some short circuits between the head, the heart and the faculties by which your emotions are expressed. It would go out from the truth understood and believed and expressed. Itself in the realm of the emotions. Either your background, the cultural orientation you've had or poor training or poor example or something else.

34:24 Has conditioned your conscience that every time the signal goes out. To let the free but controlled flow of the emotions become a part of your preaching. You've learned to say no to that signal. And you've thought the short circuit.

34:38 And I know whereof I speak and some brethren who've broken their hearts to me on this matter. Who've opened their hearts to me. And shared their thinking in this area. And if that's true then dear brother you must work at mending those short circuits.

Unaffected Naturalness in Varied Use of Voice

34:54 And ask God to help you. So that once again there may be a completed circuit in the totality of your redeemed manhood. Vehicle through which the truth of God is conveyed to men in the power of the Holy Spirit. Now secondly this unaffected naturalness should not only be reflected.

35:20 In the free but controlled flow of the emotions. But in the varied use of the voice. Time will not permit any comprehensive treatment of this aspect of our concern. But I would recommend a periodic reading of Spurgeon's chapter.

35:40 On the use of the voice in his lectures to his students. But I would want to like to underscore something of what I mean by unaffected naturalness. In the varied use of the voice. I sometimes wondered what strange and magical powers.

35:58 What exotic gases must surround the pulpits. As to have such strange effects upon the larynx of some preachers. You stand here. Sit here before a meeting and talk with them.

36:12 And the voice had a very natural flow. And up and down in intensity. But the moment they got into the region of the pulpit. Some strange gases or something must surround the pulpit.

36:24 Suddenly the larynx turned. Suddenly the larynx just operates in a totally different way. May God help us with all of our might. To avoid the great evils of affectation in the use of the voice.

36:41 That neutralize the effectiveness of our preaching. May I again suggest several little rules. Avoid affectation of all kind. Never plan the modulation of your sermon.

36:59 Never think at this point I shall raise my voice. At this point I will lower it. And I speak from bitter experience. Of what this will do in grieving the spirit.

37:07 And I trust personal testimony is not out of place here. I had only been preaching for a matter of about two to three years. I was in college at the time. And I had been affected with the leaven of a speech class.

37:18 And I remember I was going to preach a sermon. At Easter time. And I was tracing out a brief history of the life of our Lord. And I planned before I preached.

37:30 That in describing Him from the cradle to the cross. I would deliberately bring my voice down to Him. To a whisper. When He hung His head and died.

37:40 And I deliberately planned that when I spoke of Him coming out of the tomb. I would thunder out the words. And do you know when I did it. I felt as dirty and unclean.

37:48 As if I had just spent a night in a house of ill faith. Polluted. I wanted to run from the poop. And somehow I staggered through the sermon.

38:00 And I said oh God. Never again. Never again. Never again.

38:13 To dare to think that I should speak of such sacred themes. With anything other than my mind occupied with the glory of my resurrected Lord. I enjoyed the affectation of planned modulation. The incongruities of misplaced emphases.

38:37 As one master has said. The instant you abandon the natural and the true. You forgo the right to be believed. As well as the right to be listened to.

38:51 Now may I give a word of caution. A word of balancing caution. When I say avoid affectation in the poop. That I am not saying you should not work on your voice out of the poop.

39:02 There is a proper place for taking a book. And reading it out loud. To someone who may be very insensitive to torture. And say now.

39:14 You help me with the use of my voice. And so you take Spurgeon's all around ministry. You pick up the newspaper. Something else.

39:21 And you work on seeking to cultivate a proper voice. To create a proper relationship between what your ear hears. And what your mouth and lips and lungs are actually doing. I believe God expects us to seek to perfect the gift that is in us.

39:38 To work on the use of the voice. Yes. But what I am saying is. In the context of preaching.

39:44 Never be conscious of anything other than the glory of the God in whose presence. The wonder of that truth. That you seek to convey in his name. Another word of caution.

39:56 Be careful of accusing other brethren of deliberate affectation. For if you really give yourself to a preacher when he preaches. There is an unconscious imitative process going on. And I find if I sit under an effective preacher for two or three times.

40:14 Which I rarely have the privilege of doing. But when I do for the next week or two. I will find myself in the pulpit. A gesture that I see my hand there.

40:22 And I say where did that come from? And what has happened is subconsciously. Almost invariably after a Lester conference. On a midweek service.

40:32 You know what I find myself doing? Brethren lest any of you men think that in any way I was being disrespectful. I distinctly got Professor Murray's permission before the service. So when we hear a brother preaching.

41:13 And we notice a use of the voice. Or something in the gesture. Oh that. So be reluctant.

41:19 Love hopeeth all things. Love thinketh no evil. So I put in the little cautions. But I do not negate the maxim.

41:29 Avoid affectation. Secondly. Avoid monotone. Avoid monotone.

41:36 And I believe we have exegetical basis. Grounds for this. Two examples from the book of John. In the seventh chapter of John.

41:44 We read that majestic passage. And there are times when I feel. Lord if I could just read that. The way you said it.

41:55 I think the power of it would never leave me. And I've actually sat in my room. In my study. I did it again this afternoon.

42:01 And wondered. Just how did the Lord say this. John 7.37 and 38.

42:04 In that last day. That great day of the feast. Jesus stood and cried. And how did he say it.

42:09 I don't know. But I know one way he didn't say it. And a man thirsts. Let him come unto me and drink.

42:14 Whatever is there. It comes. Flavored by the word. He cried.

42:22 Even. And drank. And yet in the fourth chapter of John. John 7.37 and 38.

42:27 Jesus stood and cried. And how did he say it. I don't know. But I know one way he didn't say it.

42:32 And a man thirsts. Let him come unto me and drink. Whatever is there.

42:47 Where there is similarity of thought. The likening of the work of the spirit. In grace as water that satisfies. It says in John chapter 4.

43:03 And in verses 13 and 14. Jesus answered and said unto her. Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never.

43:23 Now you see. If he had cried in John 4, he'd have scared the poor woman out of her wits.

43:30 And if he had merely said in John 7, none would have heard.

43:36 Now, did our Lord calculate? I must be...

43:39 No, no. He was so absorbed with this woman and with the truth to convey to her that reflexively the intensity and tone of his voice was determined by his involvement in that situation of communication. And when he stands in the temple with the multitudes milling about and he knows that he's the water of life and that he offers himself to them, he does not calculate and say, I must raise my...

44:06 No, no. He's carried out by the reality of these truths.

44:18 And so a man who's involved with people where they are and with the truth as it is, he will avoid the monotone by the very demands of those circumstances. Now, under this second maxim, avoid the monotone. And I...

44:33 I remind you again, brethren, I haven't allowed elements of humor that I would not bring into the act of preaching. This is a lecture, and I believe there's a difference in what is warranted humor in this and would not be in the other. But if we can perhaps see ourselves in some of these things, under that maxim, avoid monotone, the first subdivision. Avoid at all costs the mesmerizing effect of all neutral tone and volume because it's like the drone of the airplane.

45:04 The plane which puts one to sleep after he's been in it for two hours.

45:15 Avoid at all costs the frustrating effect of subdued tone.

45:25 Any grace conveyed to me by a preacher who constantly runs off at the end of his sentences is lost by the irritation of not being able to hear him.

45:36 I've actually had to pray sometimes, Lord, help me to deal with that irritable spirit, but I feel that you've given him something to say. Give him the grace to say it so I can hear. The motivation of that terrible habit of thinking there's something that gives sanctity to dropping off at the end. Avoid at all costs the dulling effect of all raised tone and volume.

46:09 The man who gets up here and the only place he can go from there is into a false center. I worked one time with a young preacher. He would get going in his introduction. You'd think that he'd been carried out in wings of unusual enlargement and unction, and he was just giving the review from the last sermon.

46:27 And so when something really demanded, the only place he could go really was into a false center. And I had to work with him on this thing to try to get him out of that terrible habit. I do not know that any of you have it, but I would be very much surprised if in a congregation of this size there would not be some who at least have a tendency in that direction. Spurgeon, in his own style, said, It is an infliction not to be endured twice.

46:54 Finished yet. It is an infliction not to be endured twice to hear a brother who mistakes perspiration for inspiration, who tears along like a wild horse with a hornet in his ear, till he has no more wind.

47:22 Can't you just see that preacher? Just like that wild horse. I can just see that. Can't you see that horse tearing along his eyes wild and mouth foaming?

47:31 Brethren, let's avoid that. We're dealing with God's precious and eternal truth, and it deserves to be communicated in a better way than in that dulling effect of the raised tone that is sustained throughout the sermon. And then the third maxim, Seek to cultivate a use of the voice which resembles in quality that which is found in an engrossing parlor conversation. I touched on this the other night, so I will not enlarge upon it, simply to underscore it again.

48:03 Seek to cultivate a use of the voice in the pulpit, that resembles in quality that which is found in an engrossing parlor conversation.

48:15 There should be no qualitative difference between that which you do with your voice. Quantitative, yes. Qualitative, no. I don't talk this loud in parlor conversation.

48:26 There is a quantitative difference, but not qualitative. One is naturally animated. There's natural inflections. There are pauses.

Unaffected Naturalness in Physical Actions

48:35 It should all be present when a man is communicating the truth of God. Oh, brethren, may God help us in our delivery of our sermons to aim at this grace of unaffected naturalness, both in the free but controlled flow of the emotions, secondly, the varied use of the voice, and thirdly, in the physical actions of the whole body. One of the amazing things about the human being is how much can be communicated without the use of the tongue. What words are more eloquent?

49:13 Conveyers of thought and attitude and a raised eyebrow, a finger to the lips,

49:20 a shrugging of the shoulders.

49:23 And do you remember this afternoon when the question was addressed to Professor Murray concerning the subject of his view of whether or not the magistrate was subject to the word of God? Were you all looking? I had his answer before he ever opened his mouth. Remember what he did?

49:37 That was the answer. That was the answer, brethren.

49:43 That was the answer, and that conveyed. And I don't mean to be liable. I don't mean to be right on these things. But I believe there's an element of the whole, I say it reverently, divine genius of preachers, that when the truth is true to the man, it has the fingerprint of his tongue.

50:02 And part of that humanity, as we heard this morning, is his body. So in the conveyance of truth, not only is the mind and the affections, not only are the mind and the affections brought into play, but the physical actions of the whole body. Now, since there are natural aspects of communication, guiding ideas among men,

50:28 these factors are not bypassed and should not be ruled out in the conveying of divine truth. And in this area, the maxim follows again. Forget yourself. Be yourself.

50:42 Now, apart from recognizing the grotesque or distracting or uncouth actions, don't make a conscious effort to cultivate a proper use of the body, gestures. Seek to rid yourself of any grotesque, task and improper use of the body and gestures. I think that's the best way I know to come at it.

51:08 I remember the experience I had a couple of years ago. I was preaching in the church. We had some young fellows from Westminster Seminary in the congregation.

51:17 And there was a young lad from your country who was present in the morning. We had him to our home for dinner and in the afternoon. And then in the evening, I noticed all the while I was preaching, he had his head right on the floor. Head right down.

51:31 And I didn't know if he was sick or if he was... I didn't know if he was sick or if he was...

51:34 I didn't know if he was sick or if he was... under conviction or if he was upset.

51:37 I had no idea. But it was one of those nights when, no matter what the distractions may be of someone like that, and that can be distracting. If you're preaching to people and you're aware of what they're doing, having somebody there with his head on the floor. So the Lord enabled me to rise above it and people seemed to be helped.

51:52 And I had some measure of enlargement. So afterward, I asked one of our own young men, who was a fellow student. I said, will you find out what was troubling you? And he came back next weekend with his problem.

52:01 He came from a section of these islands where he had only been exposed to a kind of preaching where the preacher stood perfectly erect with his hands behind his back. If he had some little measure of enlargement, the hands might go in the pockets. If he was beginning to be really carried out of himself, he might hold the lapels and come back. And if he was utterly carried out of himself, one hand might be released from the lapel and a finger pointed this way.

52:30 And he conveyed to this young man in our church that he was so utterly distracted by someone preaching, preaching with his whole body, that he couldn't get hold of the truth. Now you see, in that situation, it would be unnatural, or it would be generally unnatural to think that someone would come out of a situation where that was the cast of temperament and that's where a man would minister, that the Lord would put, as it were, the round peg in the square hole. So I'm not pleading for a sameness. Again, I'm not pleading for some ideal model.

53:04 What I am pleading for is unaffected naturalness as it relates to this whole area of the measure to which and the form in which the truth will come through the gestures of the hands, the activities of the body. Don't make artificial rules. Some say never lean on a pulpit. One of the most powerful teachers, preachers, I know is most powerful when he's leaning on the pulpit and just looking at his congregation and talking to them.

53:34 But his power doesn't lie in his leaning on the pulpit. Now, young men think that, and so they imitate his leaning on the pulpit, you see. No, no. Part of his power lies in his unaffected naturalness.

53:48 And suited to the fatherly disposition will be the leaning on the pulpit. And I think it's wrong to make any artificial rules. A man must never lean on the pulpit.

53:59 I think it's wrong to do this.

54:02 And I'm only pleading them for that naturalness. I would encourage you to read Spurgeon's two chapters on the subject and then expose yourself to the honest criticism of some of your brethren. You may have a grotesque habit that is distracting from the truth. I had one that got, probably had many others that hadn't been brought to light.

54:22 But one got brought to light very forcibly. It was one of buttoning and unbuttoning my jacket. Until one day, in the middle of something, I buttoned. And my dear wife was sitting on the front row and all of a sudden, from a serious look, she began.

54:41 I just moved behind the pulpit and wondered if my shirt, had begun to come out. Well, this, you see, would be distracting. And we need to work at excluding these things. Well, so much for that.

Penetrating Directness

54:56 Now may I come very quickly, very quickly, and I trust succinctly to the two other facets. I indicated that this first head would take up the main bulk of our study. The second facet of unaffected naturalness should be reflected in what I'm calling a penetrating, I'm sorry, the second facet of the effective preaching in the delivery. Should be a penetrating directness.

55:20 Unaffected naturalness, free flow of the emotions under that head, the use of the voice varied, and the expressions of the whole body and preaching. Now the second main head, a penetrating directness. One of the pure mysteries of the spirit when he enables men to preach is that element of the interplay between the preacher and his congregation. That sense of fusion between his mind, his mind and heart, their minds and hearts in the context of truth.

55:55 And there's that sense that both of them are caught up in something that is bigger than either of them.

56:01 Now generally this aspect of preaching is unknown unless the preacher cultivates the art of penetrating directness in his preaching. The preacher must dare expose himself to the eyes, the mood, the reactions or absence of them of the congregation as he preaches. What detailed discriminating application is to the content of a sermon, penetrating directness is to the delivery of a sermon. Let me illustrate.

56:36 You may have in the outworking of your exposition, say you're in Ephesians 4 and you've expounded what it means. This I say and testify in the Lord that you walk no more henceforth as the other Gentiles walk in the vanity of the mind. And that's the thought, the vanity of the mind. And you think, you think of those college-age young people that you have there who are being bombarded by humanistic thinking.

56:58 You realize here's a place to give pointed, specific, discriminating application and you've worked it into the content of the sermon. Now when you come to preach Sunday morning, if your church is like ours, many times the college students with their sense of camaraderie sit together. What good will it do if you know the college students are over there to start making this application to the side windows over here?

57:24 Say, there are some of you who are exposed to these things. Look at the college students. And there are some of you exposed constantly. You see, what discriminating application is then in the content, penetrating directness becomes in the context.

57:43 May I give several suggestions? And again, these are not rules. But I would suggest that you seek to work them into your preaching. And if you feel at home with them, fine.

57:51 If you don't, discard them. I can't give chapter and verse for them. But I hope they will be helpful. Preach to people's eyeballs, not their chins or their foreheads.

58:02 You read men in their eyes. And when you're preaching along and you see that dull, hazy, London foggy look in the eyes, then you know you're not coming across. It would do no good to stumble through the rest of the sermon. Cry out, Lord, give me some little illustration.

58:20 Give me something. Give me some little son of truth that will burn away the fog of the dimness that I see in their eyes. Spurgeon said, If I see even the eyes of a blind man anywhere but fixed upon me, I'm restless till I have his eyes back upon me. Now, was he doing that for speech effect?

58:41 No. He knew that the eye was the register generally of the attention of the mind and of the heart. Generally, not always. Generally.

58:50 And knowing that, and knowing that he had truth that men needed, and knowing that they wouldn't get it unless they attended to it, the eye became the barometer of how much they were received. So, when he didn't have an eye. Brethren, this is another area I would exhort you. If you're going to preach to people's eyes and you've got galleries, don't preach a whole sermon and never turn to them.

59:14 You, brethren, would have a right to be insulted if I didn't turn to you at all during the sermon. And I've seen men with whole galleries preach right down here the whole time. And I've said, well, am I here?

59:27 Does he know I'm here? I know there have been some men, powerful preachers, who've looked to the ceiling. Others who've looked to the floor. Granted.

59:40 But I'm saying, by and large, when one reads the biographies of men who are effective preachers, often comments are made about the searching eye, the penetrating eye. Preach to people's eyes. Secondly, don't be afraid to say you and consult Bishop Ryle for an exposition of what that maxim means. Be done with the vague we.

60:06 Don't be afraid to say you. Thirdly, don't be afraid to pause after searching questions. If a question is aimed at forcing the mind to reflect, then give it time to do its work.

60:23 Here you've prepared in your application a list of searching questions, such as I read from Whitfield last night. When, where, and by what means did the Holy Spirit bring you to a sense of your original corruption?

60:37 Well, let the question sink in. Let people reflect. Let that thing called the human mind that acts like a computer scan all the trays of information. And you ask the person, does the computer up there draw a blank?

60:50 When, where, by what means? Pause. This brings a directness into the preaching.

61:01 I think the best illustration I know of that climate is the lawyer before the juror's box.

61:09 He's conscious of whether his arguments seem to be convincing.

61:14 He hurls his questions. He gives his defense, spreads out his case, pleads his cause, very much sensitive of that little box of people into whose hands the whole issue has been committed. May I throw in my little suggestions or contributions with regard to the whole debate introduced by Mr. Ian Murray yesterday about to write and read the sermons or not to write and read the sermons.

61:44 Alexander, Presbyterian Minister of New York, who's written these thoughts on preaching, is almost, almost inflexible in his position on the necessity in effective preaching, of a popular style, not giving lectures like we're giving here, not even having a note. I can't, I can't go along with him all the way, nor can I, again, make rules. And I think the very principle that we read earlier, when a man has some success, then it takes a great deal of grace to keep him from making what's effective for him a rule for everyone. But I would say this, brethren, it is difficult to cultivate this element of penetrating directness if one is tied to his manuscript or to his notes

62:28 to the extent that he cannot enter into the evidence, the flow of the interaction of his own mind and heart and the mind and heart of the people.

62:40 If his mind is so exercised with wondering where's the next bend in the path and the next dip in the path that he can't, as it were, retain it in his mind for the next few steps, then it's going to be difficult for him to cultivate this element of penetrating directness.

63:01 I was so glad the issue of Jonathan Edwards came up this morning. And as the gentleman said, having looked at some of the original, manuscripts of Edwards, he said it would be impossible for them to be read as such because they just were not that full. I rather think that Edwards, if he had his notes, may have forgotten one of his next heads. And so because there were no electric lights illuminating the page at which he could look almost imperceptibly, as far as the congregation is concerned, may have taken his candle, gotten his next head, set the candle back in the socket, set his notes down and preached away.

63:38 But whether or not he had forgotten one of his next heads, whether or not he did, there is an element here that does not warrant us hiding behind Edwards' candle and manuscript.

63:47 When sinners start clinging to pillars in the church where you preach under deep conviction of sin,

63:58 then you hide behind Edwards' example.

64:04 But don't, don't hide behind Edwards' example when this element of penetrating directness is absent from your ministry because you are bound to your manuscript. Secondly, I think if Edwards, if he had ever known how much poor indirect preaching would be hidden behind his candle and his manuscript, he would have thrown the candle out the window and buried the manuscript in the churchyard in the back of the church. Now brethren, let's be honest at this. There's a sense in which this is one of the most dangerous elements in our preaching where we really expose our hearts to our people.

Sanctified Flexibility

64:45 It's the most blessed place when we sense that God is communicating something of his own light, and truth to them, and his son is being seen in some facet of his glory. What a joy to enter into it with them in the climate of directness. I'm willing to run the risk of trembling at times when there's the absence. Now I close with this third facet and we'll only touch upon it briefly.

65:21 Effective preaching is not only marked in the delivery by unaffected naturalness, penetrating directness, but by what I'm calling, sanctified flexibility. This principle brings us into a concept which I find it difficult to talk about, and yet I read something a few months ago that crystallized a growing conviction that I've had. This particular author said that sermons are not born in the study. They are conceived and they gestate in the study, but they are either born or stillborn in the pulpit.

66:02 Now, the element, the point of truth in that is this. That there are those aspects that can't be put in the categories that we can put an essay and other forms of communication, that peculiar something that happens and sometimes doesn't happen in the very context of preaching. Now we must not, as I believe I touched on last night and we heard from the illustration from Mr. Ian Murray this morning, we must not make the measure of our confidence, as to the blessing of God depend upon our sense of the Lord's help.

66:42 I believe we often expose ourselves to undue disturbance of conscience in this area. And we're walking by sight instead of by faith.

66:51 And I want to rule out that slavish bondage to how I feel about the sermon and think that its blessing will be in proportion to how good I felt about it. However, balancing that caution with this other concept, and we cannot rule it out, that element that comes into our preaching that we can't predict, we don't know if it's going to be there, demands what I'm calling sanctified flexibility. Listen as Spurgeon tried to describe this thing that I'm very poorly setting before you. There's a medium in all things.

67:32 I should not pray God to take care of me and then leave my front door unfastened and my window open. So I should not pray for the Holy Spirit and then go into the pulpit without having carefully thought out my text. Still, if I prepared thoughts and expressions so minutely that I never varied from my set form, I should think that my faith was, to say the least, encumbered with more works than would allow her much liberty of action. I do not see where the opportunity is given to the Spirit of God to help us in preaching if every jot and tittle is settled beforehand.

68:07 And remember, brethren, I'm talking about preaching. This is not a reflection on what is done in lectures. In this type of a situation. While you are preaching, believe that God the Holy Spirit can give you in the selfsame hour what you shall speak and can make you see what you had not previously thought of, yes?

68:25 And make this newly given utterance to be the very arrowhead of the discourse which shall strike deeper into the heart than anything you had prepared. I shall never forget the advice of a sagacious old preacher who had a group of us younger preachers together at a prayer meeting. A preacher's conference similar to this. And he was one of these men who broke all the rules, but in breaking them he kept the cardinal rule, be yourself.

68:53 And he had some of the most grotesque ways about him. He was tall, angular, gangly, shock of black wavy hair. And he'd been in an accident that had caused a serious drooping in one of the eyelids. And the other eye just burned as he listened, as he preached.

69:08 And he poured out his heart in practical matters to us as young preachers. And I shall never forget these words. Touching on this element of preaching, he said, young men, young men, if God the Holy Ghost gives you light on your feet, follow the light. Your notes will be there next week.

69:31 And I've never forgotten that. Now that came out of the context of serious exhortation to careful preparation, studious application to sermonic content. None of this fanatical, God-dishonoring claiming of the text. Don't think what you'll speak it'll be given you.

69:48 No, no, none of that. What he said was couched in the context of what I have sought to deliver to you in the previous lecture. But having said all of that, he said, brethren, when God the Holy Ghost gives you light on your feet, follow that light. Your notes will be there next week.

70:07 But the light won't. Now that's no direct revelation. No, I'm not talking about that. But as the Spirit is upon you as the Spirit of utterance, there are times when His ministry as the Spirit of illumination is active.

70:21 And it's as though something pops in that moment. In that little pea brain of ours. And it stretches. And the veil is pulled back.

70:28 And we catch sight of something we've never seen before. Yes, rooted in the truth of Scripture. Flowing out of exegesis. But we're given an eye that penetrates deeper into that mystery.

70:42 And our heart expands and feels the glow and the glory of that mystery.

70:50 Follow it. You may have thought that God's most essential word to your congregation was the clinching application of point three.

71:02 All the while, God had a hidden word for His people. And He's giving you the delight.

71:10 And we must then have this sanctified flexibility that will follow the light when it comes and be obedient to the Holy Spirit. Alexander says, be on the watch for moments when the thought unexpectedly thaws out and flows and gives the current free course. Isn't that beautiful? Be on the watch for those moments when the thought unexpectedly thaws out and flows and gives the current free course.

71:42 I've been laboring at trying to come up with an analogy. And this is the closest I've come up with. I would appreciate some of your reaction to it later. You're sitting on a cold winter evening before a fireplace in the living room.

71:54 The fire's been going for a couple of hours now and all the logs have turned to a deep, dull red glow.

72:03 There's intense heat coming from those logs. All through the living room you can feel that heat. There is a constant light coming from that fire. There it is in that cold winter night diffusing light and heat.

72:17 Suddenly there's an unusual dust of wind.

72:22 And as that dust of wind passes over the chimney it creates a stronger draft and all of a sudden those logs that were a deep, dull red glow begin to crackle and spark and tons of fire leap. And when the wind dies down it comes back to that dull glow radiating a steady and a constant heat. Instant and substantial heat and light. That's the best thing I've come up with.

72:45 As you've waited before God in the closet and in the study and you've exegeted his word and it has form and content. The entire sermon has elements of the warm glow and the light.

73:00 But then there are those times when the breath of God blows and out of that same substance of truth, as we call it. But I think it's something like that. Oh, brethren, do you know what that is experimentally?

73:24 Once you've known it you're spoiled for life. Could it be that the very command of Scripture quench not the spirit the verb of which has that connotation that don't put out the fire of the spirit couched in the context of three or four commands at the end of 1 Thessalonians which relate to the life of the church. Could it be that it's touching on something like this?

73:51 Quench not. I close this facet of our consideration with a poem found in Bridges Christian Ministries. I'm not much of a poem reader but this one has gripped me and I find great delight in reading it and I hope it will clinch this third point tonight in our preaching. Let us aim at cultivating sanctified flexibility.

Conclusion: Gibbons' Poem and Rabbi Duncan's Example

74:20 This is from Gibbons, the Christian minister. Should you, my friend, the important question ask, with or without my papers shall I preach? My answer, hear and weigh. Yours truly, your sermons write from end to end and every thought invest with full expression such as best may suit its nature and its use and then pronounce as much as your remembrance can retain.

74:49 Rather read every sentence word for word than wander in a desultory strain of chaos, dark, irregular and wild where the same thought and language oft revolves and re-revolves to tire sagacious minds however loud the momentary praise of ignorance and empty fervors charmed but never to your notes be so enslaved as to repress some instantaneous thought that may like lightning dart upon the soul and blaze in strength and majesty divine. Think out the sermon,

75:34 work it out in its detail but never to your notes be so enslaved as to repress some instantaneous thought that may like lightning dart upon the soul and blaze in strength and majesty sanctified flexible. I said that would be the last thing. May I share that one-hand filter about Rabbi Duncan? It's a beautiful illustration of all these things put together.

76:06 Take two more minutes for the... Rabbi Duncan, the teacher at the Free College in Edinburgh who had such a profound influence upon the lives of young ministers after he went to glory and different appreciations were written concerning him by former students.

76:29 This one in a book called Recollections by Dr. Moody Stewart is given for us in a former edition or in one of the old editions of the Banner of Truth magazine. And this is the eyewitness account of Duncan's students and their tribute to him as a man who, a man who reflected these very principles. The professor was reading a part of Isaiah which dealt with the sufferings of the Messiah with his senior class when his mind became engrossed with the subject and, and now this is quoting from an eyewitness, bent nearly double, he was pacing up and down in front of the students' benches, his snuff box and pocket handkerchief in one hand

77:14 and a huge pinch of snuff occupying the fingers of the other. But utterly forgotten in the absorbing interest of his subject our Lord's suffering for sinners. Which concept he was turning over and looking at, now on this side, now on that, but all with a loving reverence as one who spoke in a half sleeping vision when suddenly a flash went through him as if heaven had opened. He straightened himself up, his face kindled into a rapture, his hand went up and the snuff scattered itself from the unconscious fingers as he turned to the class, more as it seemed for sympathy than to teach.

77:54 Ay, ay, do you know what it was? Dying on the cross, forsaken by his father, do you know what it was? What? As if someone had given him half answer which stimulated him but which he had hoped to clear out of his way.

78:11 What? What? It was damnation and damnation taken. He subsided into his chair, leaning a little to one side, his head very straight and stiff, his arms hanging down on either side beyond the arms of his chair with the light beaming from his face and tears trickling down his cheeks.

78:37 He repeated in a low intense voice that broke into a half sob, a half laugh in the middle. It was damnation and he took it. Then Mr. Moody Stewart went on to say, No saying of the many I have heard from him, nothing in all his manner and expression ever struck me.

79:00 Careful intense thought upon the Hebrew text as Isaiah 53. The light came to the mind. The truth was embraced by the heart. The Holy Spirit enabled a man to see and the truth he saw possessed him and when it possessed him there was that unaffected natural.

79:27 Variation of the voice, commensurate with the theme at hand, that sanctified flexibility that left the snuff bowl and the snuff box and the handkerchief and the dare to weep in a theology class. God give us and God give us preachers who reflect their steps.