Illuminating Devices

Introduction to Axiom 5: Legitimate and Judicious Illuminating Devices

0:03 We come this morning to the fifth axiom concerning all of our preaching, found on page number 2.8, a third of the way down from the page, axiom number 5, which reads as follows, The proclamation, explanation, and application of scriptural truths, aided by legitimate and, the word judicious you'll find written in, legitimate and judicious illuminating devices, must be our constant labor. Now, as it has been my usual pattern, I will first of all take just a few minutes to exegete the key words and phrases. In the axiom, the axiom is concerned, obviously, with what I have designated as illuminating devices. Now, to illumine means simply to give light to, to make clear, to explain, or to elucidate. Therefore, this axiom is concerned with those elements in the composition of our sermons calculated to illuminate,

1:24 the solid substance of the sermon, whether in the exposition or in the application of the truths proclaimed. Into this category fall such linguistic devices as similes, metaphors, analogies, parables, illustrations, anecdotes, and imaginative description. And if the sermon has as its raw materials the thick, reinforced concrete of biblical truth, then these devices are the windows in the structure which let in light and make the construction pleasant. A structure made only of reinforced concrete is solid and safe, but rather drab and dull. A structure made only of windows may be bright and cheerful, but certainly not strong, and certainly not a saviour. Thus a softer, and more extremely robust a Dies ClESE is thus in view be made as a treatment and a relief. And this replenish even the form with which services and programs are 메이크업 d smarter還是

2:54 and therefore our goal should be to have sermons that have as there fundamental structure and substance the reinforced concrete of solid biblical materials responsible exegesis but also hole to have the windows of similarly metaphor analogy parable illustration anecdote and imaginative description in order for to make aourslides that continue the demonstration and the near future testimony account so in that way evocative scenes are not unique. make them bright and cheerful, and to illuminate the very truths of which they, that house, that shelter, that stronghold, is made. Now, the qualifying words are legitimate and judicious. Not everything which would clarify and illuminate would necessarily be legitimate, that is, conformed to established rules and standards.

3:27 For example, an illustration or an anecdote might simply consume too much time in the sermon. It might be too personal. It might be too coarse for a mixed congregation. Furthermore, it might be too sensitive in the light of certain pastoral situations in the present.

3:51 Furthermore, a series of similes might increase clarity, but to pile one upon another could give the impression that you're trying to show off either your mental alertness and fertile mind, or the breadth of your reading, or some other element that would make the use of those devices illegitimate. And then not everything, that is legitimate, may be judicious. Judicious means having a show of sound judgment, wise and careful. For example, some things may be so clear in themselves that to illustrate them is to insult the intelligence of your listeners and to lose their goodwill. And when you lose the goodwill of those to whom you are speaking, it's very difficult to help them, to persuade them, to encourage them. Yet other times there may be a steady attack upon the conscience, and just as the victory is almost won, an illustration is used which breaks the sobriety. It may have been legitimate in the abstract, but it was injudicious in the concrete and specific circumstances of that particular sermon.

5:15 So we are concerned then that in our proclamation, explanation, and application, of scriptural truths, that such exercises be aided by legitimate and judicious illuminating devices, and this endeavor must have the marks of constant labor. There are few men for whom this is not a laborious element of preaching, if there is to be freshness, and a breadth, of spectrum, in the devices of this nature. Now then, following the outline ABC on page 2.8, and D and E on page 2.9, I want to trace out in a very cursory manner these five lines of concern relative to these devices. First of all, I want to give a demonstration of the desirability of these devices.

The Desirability of Illuminating Devices: A God-Given Law of Learning

6:23 Are they necessary? Should such an axiom be included among the seven indispensable elements of effective biblical preaching? Well, we begin first of all with a demonstration of the desirability of these devices, and I set out that demonstration along three lines. First of all, a God-given law of learning.

6:51 One of the most fundamental principles in all of learning is that we proceed from the known to the unknown. And while it is true that spiritual truth can only be known by spiritual illumination, it is also true that the spirit most often works by and with the natural laws of learning, and not against them, and rarely without them. 1 Corinthians 14.9 is a clear example of this principle.

7:26 Here the Apostle Paul says, 1 Corinthians 14.9, So also ye, unless ye utter by the tongue speech easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking into the air. Now, one does not need any dictum of special revelation to know this truth.

7:57 Common observation of general revelation tells us that God is not placed within the human ear some complex computer that can take the words of man and make them clear to the mind of the listener. God is not given some complex exotic instrument that can take what I said was the mumbled words of indistinct speech and somehow sort them all out in the inner ear. Furthermore, God has not supplied people's ears with a 10,000 word computer that stores exotic words and breaks them down into the thought patterns of the average listener. A God-given law of learning is that unless we speak that which is easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? And that applies not only to the sounds that we make, that is, distinct enunciation, accurate pronunciation, sufficient volume to be heard, but also in terms of the thought patterns, and the manner in which we express them. The bridge from ignorance to understanding is that of explanation.

9:25 The bridge from ignorance to understanding is that of explanation. And many of the materials that build that bridge are these illuminating devices. And God has simply made us this way. It is a fact of the way we learn, a God-given law of learning, and the preacher who ignores it ignores it not only to his own peril as a preacher, but he robs his hearers of the benefit of what otherwise might be effective proclamation of the Word of God.

10:06 Blakey, in his excellent work on preaching, writes as follows, The capacity of the human mind to appreciate resemblances and contrasts is one of its most invariable characteristics, and it may readily be turned by the preacher to valuable account. It enables him to lay stepping stones along paths where otherwise he could not hope to conduct the larger portion of his hearers. It lends bright hues to subjects which would otherwise be too somber, and catches the attention that in cases innumerable would sure to be lost. It is in this light that we speak of it now. When ordained to the charge of his first congregation, the late Dr. Guthrie determined that whatever he might fail in, he would compel his hearers to attend. Watching in the course of his first efforts to discover what part of his discourses seemed to be most attended to, he saw that it was the illustrations.

11:15 He accordingly resolved to cultivate that department with peculiar care. Cultivate with peculiar care. Constant labor. And cultivate it he did, and with great purpose, for a greater master of illustration has never appeared in the pulpit, nor one who by means of it could more closely rivet the attention of his audience.

11:43 And in our case, you see, it is not that we are desirous simply to have their attention. It is that we might convey the substance of scriptural truth. But unless we speak words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? By way of application, let me say briefly, as I have sought to emphasize repeatedly, we must always seek to honor the God of general revelation when handling the sacred realities of special revelation.

12:21 God is never contradicting himself in general revelation with respect to what he has revealed in special revelation and vice versa. Now granted, any observation we think we have accurately made in general revelation must be brought to the touchstone of special revelation. But there are many things such as principles of effective communication that are not explicitly set forth in the word of God, but they are assumed. And here in this passage we see the Apostle Paul assuming it and using illustrations from general revelation.

13:03 Later on he speaks, or earlier even, with respect to the sound of a trumpet and to the sound of music. The sound of musical instruments. And therefore, brethren, I say, if God has established this law of learning that these devices are great elements in the bridge from ignorance to understanding, any commitment that our people understand the truth of God will find us laboring to use legitimate and judicious illuminating devices. But then I rest the case more fully upon what I have described as the scriptural mode of preaching.

The Desirability of Illuminating Devices: The Scriptural Mode of Preaching

13:46 If we are to proceed on the premise that the Bible is an adequate guide for a theology of preaching as we mentioned yesterday, then turning to the scriptures we cannot escape the mass of evidence which supports this axiom. For example, what would Jeremiah's prophecy be if stripped of its object lessons of the basket of figs, the marred girdle, and the broken potter's vessel? What would Hosea's prophecy be if stripped of the extended analogy between his unfaithful wife and Israel's infidelity to Jehovah? What would Isaiah's prophecy be if denuded of its vivid poetic imagery, its graphic imagery, the nations as grasshoppers before God, like the drop on the side of a bucket and God Himself coming in the gospel like a street hawker? Oh, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. What would the prophecy be if stripped of these legitimate and judicious illuminating devices? Can we even begin to imagine the flatness, the saltlessness of the recorded messages of our Lord Himself

15:13 if we took out lost sheep and lost coins and wayward sons and importunate widows and carefree birds and moats and beams and houses built on sand and rock, gnats and camels, seed and sower, bride and bridegroom, mothers in the throes of birth pangs, and a host of parables, and metaphors and verbal imagery? How insipid would be the recorded ministry of our Lord if stripped of these devices? And surely, if we are not prepared to make the Lord Jesus the model preacher, pray tell who will be our model. And therefore I say the very mode of preaching recorded in Scripture, in the prophets, in our Lord, and even in the apostles and in the apostolic letters, underscore the axiom that we must by legitimate and judicious illuminating devices to proclaim the word of God to our people. And then, of course, the book of the Revelation. And I think it's a tragedy that the devil has clouded it with so much speculation and confusion because under the vivid figures of horses and dragons and strange beasts, God sets forth the age-long conflict

The Desirability of Illuminating Devices: The History of Preaching

16:39 between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent and the ultimate triumph of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. But then, thirdly, I rest my case upon the history of preaching itself. A third powerful argument for the use of these devices is to be found in the history of preaching itself. The men who preached effectively in past generations were, for the most part, men whose preaching puzzled with the use of these illuminating devices.

17:19 While some were stronger and more at home with illustration and anecdote, and others were more inclined to simile and metaphor, and others to vivid imaginative description, nonetheless, leading those who held congregations to the spiritual profit of those congregations over the long haul, whatever has come down to us and there's much that has not, but whatever has come down to us almost without exception indicates that men who were popular preachers and I use that term in its right sense, the sense in which it is said of our Lord, the common people heard Him gladly. Those who were popular preachers were men whose preaching, I say, bristled with these devices. When we pick up Watson's Body of Divinity, the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer, Sibbes, Manton, Goodwin, Flavel, Gurnall, Matthew Henry, and old John Bunyan, what shall we say of these men but that they used these devices profusely and its Bunyan spirit as this great mark of genius that He took one of these devices and turned it into two masterful treatises, indeed more than two, but the two that have come down to us and been such a legacy

18:47 to the Church of Christ for several hundreds of years. In a masterful little book that emphasizes the characteristics of the preaching of those men greatly used of God in the eighteenth century, the book by Ryle called Eighteenth-Century Leaders, he says of Whitefield these very perceptive things. Another striking feature in Whitefield's preaching was his singular power of description. The Arabians have a proverb which says he is the best speaker who can turn men's ears into eyes.

19:27 Whitefield seems to have had a peculiar faculty of doing this. He dramatized his subject so thoroughly that it seemed to move and walk before your eyes. He used to draw such vivid pictures of things he was handling that his hearers could believe they actually heard and saw them. On one occasion, says one of his biographers, Lord Chesterfield was among his hearers.

19:53 The great preacher in describing the miserable condition of an unconverted sinner illustrated the subject by describing a blind beggar. The night was dark and the road dangerous. The poor mendicant was deserted by his dog near the edge of a precipice and had nothing to aid him in groping his way but his staff. Whitefield so warmed with his subject and enforced it with such graphic power that the whole audience was kept in breathless silence as if it saw the movements of the poor old man.

20:29 And at length, when the beggar was about to take the last fatal step which would have hurled him down the precipice to certain destruction, Lord Chesterfield actually made a rush forward to save him, exclaiming aloud, He is gone! He is gone! The noble Lord had been so entirely carried away by the preacher that he forgot the whole was a picture. I was reading yesterday, and again I had for the sake of time to pass over it, an incident of one of the old Puritan preachers, and they described him in a situation where he was having a dialogue between the people of God and God himself and how God in judgment will take away privileges despised. And the biographer was describing this interaction, and here the preacher was impersonating God and the nation that had despised his word. And they said, alternately, he would stand and speak as God. You have despised my word.

21:29 You have spurned your privilege. I will take away my word. And then they said, actually kneeling, he took the posture of the brokenhearted nation that said, oh God, take away anything, but do not take away your word. And then he stood again, and God spoke to this apostate nation, and the nation pleaded, brethren, what happened to these men?

21:54 They were so taken up with spiritual realities and so concerned that they impinge upon men in such stark nakedness, dark naked reality, that they didn't care about elegance. They didn't care about the critic who might sit there with a jaundiced eye and say it's all a bunch of histrionics. They were so possessed by the truth and so convinced that the man in the pew is not so much impressed by accurate philosophical statement as he is by vivid imagery, by these legitimate and judicious illuminating devices that they threw themselves into preaching in such a way that these devices were scattered throughout their ministries to the profit of their hearers. Well, I hope if that case doesn't carry it, or say if that doesn't carry the case, then I don't know whether or not it would be wise to try to add anything else. So we move very quickly now to an explanation of the manifold functions of these devices.

The Manifold Functions of Illuminating Devices: Primary and Secondary

23:05 What are the functions of these devices? Well, number one, they are often an excellent means of gaining or regaining attention. I'm sorry, the primary function. I'm trying to use the terminology that is in your notes and then moving to the substance in my notes.

23:27 As it was already suggested in the first heading, under the desirability of these devices, their primary function is that of clarifying the truth, either in its explication, opening up of the truth, or in its application. Since we are commanded to let all things be done unto edification, and since only what is clearly understood can edify, that's the whole argument of 1 Corinthians 14, untranslated tongues cannot edify. Prophets all speaking at once cannot edify. Why?

24:05 Because the common denominator is the words cannot be understood. That's the baseline of Paul's concern in 1 Corinthians 14. And therefore, since all things must be done unto edification, and only what is clearly understood can edify, then these devices must be regarded as subservient to that great end of edification by means of clearly perceived, as one author has said, reasons are the pillars of the fabric of a sermon, but similitudes are the windows which give the best lights. Now, if we always keep this fact before us, that is, that the primary function is the clarification of truth, either in its explication or application, we will have a built-in monitor to help us with such vexing questions as, how much shall I illustrate in any given sermon? What kind of imagery would be most appropriate at one point or another in the sermon? Should I or should I not use an anecdote? What anecdote?

25:26 Is it appropriate? Is it judicious? The answer lies in putting all of these questions to the test of this more fundamental question, what decision will best serve the interest of truth? What decision will best serve the interest of truth?

25:50 Furthermore, this fundamental question, constantly considered, will keep us from many of the abuses to which these devices are liable. Anecdotes which distract the mind from the truth being explained or enforced will be excluded, will never tell a story for the sake of telling a story. Flights of imagery which would attract attention to our own imaginative faculties or our facility with words will be studiously avoided and deliberately mortified. Similes and analogies so coarse and crude as to disgust and turn our hearers against us will be avoided. This, then, is the fundamental, the primary function of these literary devices of anecdote, simile, metaphor, parable, analogy to clarify and to enforce the truth. Let your soul burn, brethren, with what the old writers called disinterested love, that is, selfless love for your people, and let your mind and spirit be permeated with the truth. And then you will have an excellent monitor to keep you in line with respect to the judicious and legitimate use

27:17 of these devices. The truth has gripped you. It's warming you as it enters into friction with your own mind and spirit in the act of preaching. But there's that long-ago and far-away look on the eyes of your people.

27:31 You don't see that look of delight. What is delighting you has not yet been comprehended by them. Well, you'll fish on your feet for a simile, an analogy, an illustration that you had not realized might be needed at that point. And it's amazing how many things the Spirit of God enables you to do in the act of preaching.

27:52 Your mind is filled with the truth. You know where you are in the track of your argument or your application. And yet when you get that glassy stare, you're praying, Lord, give me an imagery, give me an analogy, give me an illustration. And your mind then, at an unusual rate of speed, will flash by all the possible ways and you'll fish for an imagery, you'll fish for an illustration, you'll make one up on your feet that may be crude in terms of literary polish, but if it turns that glassy stare into sin, then it's worth it.

28:28 Who cares about elegance? It's truth that we want our people to grasp. It's truth that we want our people to feel. And so it's in that obsession with the primary function of these devices that we will have the best monitor of personal casuistry in preaching with reference to their usage.

Secondary Functions of Illuminating Devices

28:51 However, there are some secondary functions of these devices. Secondary functions. And I've listed four of them. First, they are often an excellent means of gaining or regaining attention.

29:06 Spurgeon in his chapter on illustrations in preaching and Broadus in his chapter on illustrations have some excellent material on the secondary functions of these literary devices. And while they both emphasize that the main function is indeed that of clarifying the truth, they do not ignore nor despise the secondary functions. And what are some of them? We've already indicated.

29:37 They are an excellent means of gaining or regaining attention. Often, an analogy, a parable, an anecdote used in the introduction will immediately gain the attention of your hearers. Or when the minds of your people are weary with following the track of a closely reasoned line of argument in the opening up of a text. And many times you will have to do that because the Holy Ghost has spoken many places in closely tight-knit lines of rational argumentation.

30:15 And you cannot present that passage accurately and break it up into unconnected thoughts. You're not being true to the mind of the Spirit. But when your people who are not trained and accustomed to think for hours in these areas of closely reasoned argumentation and they followed you very diligently and very faithfully for 15, 20 minutes, then you need to give the mind an ability to relax without in any way injecting the ludicrous, that which would grieve or quench the Spirit. And often, a judicious illustration, a well-chosen anecdote that buttresses and supports that which you have been opening up can be used to gain or to regain waning attention. But then, another secondary use, they can be made a powerful means of making a surprise attack upon the consciences of men. People who are often calloused in their consciences toward God are still vulnerable to feelings at the level of human relationships. And you can make a surprise attack upon the conscience at that point of vulnerability.

31:37 And there are examples of this in the Scriptures. You see the prophet speaking to a people who've become indifferent and hardened. And what does the prophet do? Under the guidance of the Spirit, he takes images that would touch the heartstrings of every mother.

31:55 Can a mother forget her suckling child? Can a bride forget her ornaments or her bridal gown? What did Nathan do to get to the seared, or at least if not seared, to the dulled conscience of David? He told a parable that found a chink in his emotional and ethical armor.

32:23 He still had the ability to be stirred to anger in the area of social injustice. And he told a parable which stirred him up. And having done so, he then turned and said, Thou art the man. Likewise, our Lord Jesus, in the midst of Pharisees ready to catch Him in His words, He drew out of them self-condemnation without them knowing it.

32:53 He told the parable of the householder and the vineyard and all of the terrible things they did. And He said, What then shall the Lord of the vineyard do? And they shouted out, Why, He'll come and miserably destroy those people. The Lord said, I'll take your own words now to condemn you.

33:09 God is going to take away the kingdom from you and give it to another nation. This is what I mean by a sneak attack, a surprise attack upon the consciences of men. Oh, that God would make us wise in that holy art of seeking to know how to make such surprise attacks upon the consciences of men by the judicious use of these devices. But then another secondary use is they tend to make our sermons more interesting, pleasurable, and attractive.

33:46 Now, does that sound strange and carnal? Well, it's very interesting. I don't have time to read it to you, but I commend what Spurgeon says in his lectures to his students on this point, that our sermons, our preaching, should, above all other things in the world, be that which is pleasing and attractive and pleasurable, even though in its substance it may wither carnal desires and perspectives. God Himself is the sum of all that is pleasant and proportionate and beautiful.

34:27 I love those words of that hymn we sing, how wonderful, how beautiful the sight of thee must be, thine endless wisdom, boundless power, and awesome purity. Well, in that sense, should not our sermons reflect something of the image of God? Never must they be interesting, pleasurable, and attractive at the expense of truth, but in the service of truth. Truth has enough of its own inherent offensiveness.

34:59 Let's not make it doubly offensive by dull, lifeless, unilluminated sermonic exercises that are like elephants plodding through the jungle, knocking down trees that are in their paths. We may stand in awe of the great beast, but no one will ever write poetry about its beauty. And brethren, our sermons ought to be in so much as they can be without sacrificing truth or our fidelity to the souls of men, interesting, pleasurable, and attractive. And then these devices, in the fourth place, tend to aid the memory. The Baptist says a most interesting thing that time won't let me quote him, but you know as well as I do, long after people have forgotten your outline, they have forgotten what you thought were some of those finely tuned, precise statements of truth, that you think could be printed alongside Professor Murray's works. They'll say, you know, Pastor, I never will forget that illustration you used three months ago when you were preaching on such and such, right? Who made us that way, God or the devil?

36:21 God did. And one of the great ends in seeking to work these into our preaching is that they tend to aid the memory. And when people remember the illustration, if we've properly used it, it will carry in its train the truth which it was intended to illustrate and enforce. And therefore we bring this natural tendency of the human psyche into the service of truth and the salvation and the edification of our people.

36:59 And there's another use that I didn't list that I ought to list. It's just come to my mind, so I'm going to practice what I preach. An illustration would be, it will often convince where logic does not. I remember when teaching the series on pre-adult membership, laying out all the exegetical materials, and I could still sense that some people in their sentiments felt, well, if my darling is saved, why can't they be baptized and be made a church member even though they're only 11 years old?

37:31 So I ended up with two simple illustrations. One of them was about the young man who has really shown marks of being a converted young man, from the age 12, and he's now 14 or 15 years of age. He's come into puberty. He's feeling all the 300 horsepower pressure of his emerging sexuality.

37:51 He's struggling with purity of mind. He's struggling with masturbation. He's seeking to keep himself pure in body and mind, and he's praying and crying to God. And in his devotions that morning, he comes to 1 Corinthians 7.

38:07 And he reads that, and he understands it, and he comes running out of his room and says, Dad! Dad! Look what I discovered this morning! I'm not passionate anymore!

38:20 God says, let every man I can take a wife! And then he begins to talk to his dad and mom about marrying Susie, who's been his little sort of crush and sweetheart since age 11. And mom and dad say, Whoa, son, wait a minute. Wait one minute.

38:39 You're only 14 and a half years. But the Word of God! Well, what do you tell him? Everything in its time.

38:47 Everything in its time. 1 Corinthians 7 must be brought against the backdrop of other considerations of a man's fitness to take on the responsibilities of a wife. And so you do not discourage his zeal to do what the Scripture says, but you say, everything in its right time. And then I used a similar illustration of a country at war and a 12-year-old young patriot going down to sign up with the Marines and how he would be treated by the recruiting sergeant, encouraging his disposition of patriotism, but discouraging him from going into the trenches where there's real bullets and real blood and mud and gore and the horrors of war.

39:30 Well, I could see people who weren't at all convinced by the biblical arguments. Those illustrations got them, and it locked them in. Well, you say, shame on them. Well, maybe shame on them, but live in the real world, brethren.

Warnings and Cultivation of Illuminating Devices

39:42 And in the real world, some people are simply not persuaded by argumentation, but illustration that has valid feet to it will under God be used to enforce the truth. Now, very, very quickly, having tried to set out the primary function, the secondary function, I want to give a word of warning and caution concerning these devices. I'll just read the heads because my time is gone. Do not overload the sermon with any of these devices.

40:11 If a man spends in a 45, 55-minute sermon 30 minutes of stories, 20 minutes of storytelling, and 20 minutes of opening up a text, he's profaning his sacred office. He's profaning it. Don't overload the sermon with these devices. Secondly, don't ever use them for their own sake.

40:32 I abominate this notion that the only way you can prove to kids if you speak in a school chapel that you're a nice guy is to stand up and tell a joke. It's an insult to their intelligence as well as a denigration of the sanctity and sacredness of your office. Don't ever use these things for their own sake. Thirdly, do not use them unless they clarify truth to the average hearer.

40:57 Don't make analogies and references out of Greek mythology. Most of you people ain't read no Greek mythology. And if you used them, you probably borrowed them from someone who did, and you never read it yourself. And then, fourthly, don't ever use them for mere filler.

41:15 Don't ever use them just to fill up the time. Some suggestions as to the means of cultivating facility in the use of these devices, you can read the outline as well as I. Indirect means, seek to employ them in ordinary conversation. Brethren, I found this a great help.

41:33 You see, the patterns of speech we develop in ordinary conversation, if preaching is to be truly incarnational, as we'll see in the next lecture, God helping us, the more I can adapt in my ordinary conversation, the patterns of speech I will use in the pulpit, the more my preaching will be natural. It will be speaking to the people of God. So try in your ordinary conversation to use imagery, to use analogy, to bring in metaphor. And the more you cultivate this in ordinary conversation, the more likely it is to come out naturally in your preaching.

42:13 Then labor it using these devices in the instruction of your children. Family worship is a marvelous place to cultivate the use of these devices. Thirdly, sustain much general reading as a means of impression and acquisition. Someone wrote a question for the question time.

42:34 How can I glean illustrative material? To me, the best way is our general reading, rather than picking up a book of illustrations that is indexed. As you read biographies, as you read theology, as you read church history, you will see things illustrated. Images, specific incidents will strike you as illustrative of truth.

42:59 And even if you do not formally file them away, they are filed away in the mind and will come to your remembrance in your preparation. And then fourthly, expose yourself to and analyze living models. Someone asked the question, what can we learn from men like John MacArthur and Swindoll and others who are holding the ears of a lot of people? And while we may not embrace all of their theology, or in some cases very little of it, we can still learn from them.

43:29 And we ought to learn what is it and what are they doing in this area that we can emulate and bring to the service of what we know to be the truth. Why should our preaching not be more captivating and interesting than the part and partial truth that other men are preaching? And then the direct means, read these things on your own. Consider them when the sermon is fairly well formed.

43:58 Go over it and note the places where these devices are most needed. Think through the sermon as one who is listening to it and say at what point would I feel need to have relief from the pressure of closely reasoned thought. There I must seek to bring into it some one of these devices that will relax the mind of the people without distracting it from the truth that I am seeking to convey and then seek to analyze statements which could be made more interesting, clear, or forceful with the use of these devices. And brethren, it's something we must labor at and continue to labor at.

44:38 And by the grace of God, in the language of Paul to Timothy, give thyself wholly to these things, that thy progress may be manifested unto all. Thus ends the gallop through axiom number five.