Clarity of Form & Structure in Preaching, Part 2

Review of Axiom and Introduction to Today's Questions

0:03 Brethren, you are aware that we are presently engaged in a discussion of the vital subject of the form and structure essential to effective preaching. And when we speak of form and structure, we are in the realm of those matters of arrangement, division, and the relationship of the various raw materials within a sermon. I have set the subject before you in the form of an axiom, the third axiom relating to all kinds of sermons. By way of review, let me remind you of the axiom and where we have gone in the development of it, and then I will tell you where I propose to take you this morning.

0:47 The axiom is this, that the proclamation, explanation, and application of biblical truth in a perspicuous form and structure must be a reality. It must constitute our continuous endeavor. And as we took up this axiom last week, I traced out three lines of thought with you. I sought to give definition to the key words and concepts of the axiom, then to demonstrate the importance of perspicuity of form and structure, both with respect to the preacher and to the listener, and then we concluded by a consideration of the price of perspicuity of form and structure.

1:28 That price being, of course, toil, intense toil, and more toil. Now, what I propose to accomplish in our lectures today is to take up these two questions. Number one, what constitutes perspicuity or clarity of form and structure? And then secondly, and briefly, how may we attain increasing skills in this area of sermonizing?

Two Fundamental Principles for Understanding Perspicuity

1:58 What constitutes perspicuity of form and structure? And how may we attain increasing skills in this area of sermonizing? Now as we stand on the threshold of addressing ourselves to these two questions, let me first of all give you two fundamental principles which must condition all of our thinking on the subject as we try to open it up in terms of those two questions. In other words, we cannot come directly at question one, what constitutes perspicuity of form and structure, or question two, how may we attain skills in this area without laying out this framework of two fundamental principles which must impinge upon all of our thinking with respect to the two questions that form the heart of our study today. Principle number one is this. There exists in preachers a legitimate diversity of organizational inclination. There exists in preachers a legitimate diversity of organizational inclination.

3:21 Now perhaps I can best convey the meaning of my words by the use of a simple analogy or an extended illustration. Imagine if you will, please, that you have been ushered in by the teaching of the Holy Spirit into a house in which there are two rooms exactly the same size, they are twelve by twenty, they have been painted the same color, and as you look into these two rooms separated by a wall with no window or opening so that you can see from one into the other, you notice that stacked in the middle of each room is a sofa, two large chairs, three tables, two pillow pillows, two planters, and five pictures. You get the picture now. Two twelve by twenty rooms, same shape, same color, and stacked in the middle are the same, the identical furnishings. Now we ask two women within a space of two hours to go into each of the rooms, one into

4:32 the room on the left, one into the room on the right, and to arrange the items that are stacked in the center of the room in such a manner as to leave the room neat, symmetrical, and aesthetically pleasing. Now at the end of the two hours we come back, and we look into the rooms, and we notice that both of the rooms are indeed neat, symmetrical, and aesthetically pleasing with respect to the arrangement of the furniture, the pictures, the planters, and the throw pillows. You feel comfortable. You go in and sit down in the room on the right, and there's a sense in which you're not distracted.

5:14 You can enter into conversation with people. You feel at home. You feel relaxed. There's nothing in the way things are arranged that make you nervous or tense.

5:23 You get up out of that room and go into the room on the left, and the same thing is true. However, you notice that the sofa is not in the same place in both rooms. The pictures are not at precisely the same spots on the wall. The chairs are in different places.

5:39 There is great diversity in the specifics of the way the two rooms are arranged. But both of them make you feel comfortable. Both of them are aesthetically pleasing, and to a person of normal aesthetic sensitivity, there is about those rooms those characteristics of neatness, symmetry, and aesthetic order. Now why should there be?

6:09 Or why could there be? Two different arrangements, and yet both have those qualities which we've described under neatness and symmetry, etc. Well I would suggest that it goes right back to the whole principle woven into the fabric of man at creation. When God gave Adam the task to dress the garden and to keep it, there's no indication that he gave him a blueprint in which he was told to place this shrub here and to cultivate this flower here and this plant over here.

6:43 Adam was given the liberty of expressing his own individual aesthetic inclinations. And if we may use our imaginations, I'm quite certain that if, as he should have done, he consulted Eve with respect to certain aspects of his task, for God had given an help answering to his needs, a helper who had also aesthetic sensitivities, and if he loved Eve as himself, he could not find delight in any aesthetic arrangement that pleased him but displeased her. So he would have consulted his wife. I hope you're getting a little lesson of what biblical headship is.

7:19 It ain't making the decisions, pulling rank, and then informing your wife about what you've done. Yeah? Right? That's not biblical headship.

7:29 That's a form of tyranny. Now Adam would have exerted a biblical headship and would have consulted with his wife. And it's perfectly within the realm of possibility, in terms of the difference of temperament, and the way he was treated. That Eve would have found certain things more pleasing to her sense of aesthetics than Adam would.

7:49 But both would have been within the realm of that which was orderly, symmetrical, neat, and aesthetically pleasing. Well, in the light of that great principle, any absolutizing with respect to the subject of form and structure, which does not recognize this principle, is doomed to fail. And I trust you will give no attention to it wherever you find it. There exists in preachers a legitimate diversity of organizational inclination.

8:23 So when we come to the moot questions, and the word moot means often debated or discussed questions, such as the number of divisions, shall we or shall we not use alliteration? Shall we announce our divisions before we give our sermons? Or shall we recapitulate only as we move through? All of these questions that are debated, discussed, and on which various writers on homiletics and sermon preparation have very distinct, very decided, and often contradictory opinions, let me say at the outset, I want to be dogmatic about the fact that no one ought to be dogmatic on that particular point.

9:07 As you develop as a man. O POINT. you develop as a preacher, you will learn by trial and error those principles of organization which most suit your own God-given temperament. So recognize at the outset that we can have no wooden rules and regulations in the specifics of how to have perspicuity of form and structure in our sermonic materials. Very early in his classic work on the preparation and delivery of sermons, Broadus articulates this principle by saying, quoting from page 15, as regards all that pertains to preaching, and especially delivery, our efforts at rhetorical improvement must be mainly, we endeavor to gain correct general principles and some idea of the errors and faults to which speakers are generally concerned. When we speak, aiming to be guided by these principles and to correct our faults as they may

10:16 arise, it is unwise to set up at the outset some standard of excellence and to aim to conform to that. If one should take a fancy that cedar trees are more beautiful than oaks, and attempt to trim his oaks into the shape and color them into the hue of cedars, the result could only be ridiculous. Let the young cedar grow as a cedar, and the young oak as an oak, but straighten, prune, and improve each of them into the best possible tree of its kind. And so as to speaking, be always yourself, your actual natural self, but yourself, developed, corrected, and improved into the very best you are by nature, and I added, and grace, capable of becoming. Now you see, if he had training preachers, and of whom it is said, if he had not given himself to the classroom, he probably would have risen to the highest heights of eminence as a preacher in his own generation. Broadus was recognized as a man of tremendous

11:37 power as a preacher, but because he chose to be a preacher, he was not a preacher. He was a preacher chose to teach others how to do it, he never attained the degree of notoriety that some preachers of lesser stature did in his own generation. So that's principle number one, brethren. There does exist in preachers a legitimate diversity of organizational inclination, and you must be true to that which makes you you in this area. But then the second principle is this. There exists in preachers various degrees of native organizational ability. There exists in preachers various degrees of native organizational ability. Now you see the difference? One has to do with inclination, the aesthetics of organization. The other has to do

12:34 with raw ability within. In the framework of that diversity of inclination, to carry on our illustration, let's add a third room to the house. And in that third room, place a third person with the same amount of furniture, same colored walls. And we come back at the end of two hours, and you know what we find?

12:56 We find a poor soul running around the room, tearing her hair out, everything in total disarray. She has moved the sofa 13 times. She's moved the chairs 24 times. The walls are falling apart. She's moved the chairs 24 times. The walls are falling apart. She's moved the chairs 24 times. The walls are falling apart. She's moved the chairs 24 times. The walls are full of holes where she's banged in the picture hangers and shaking them out. And the poor soul is just in a frazzle. After two hours, she's not been able to do anything to organize that room. Now then, going back to all three, what is the responsibility of number one if upon inquirer we find out that she had the whole job completed in 45 minutes? And for the next hour and 15 minutes, she sat on the sofa in her well-arranged room and read her Woman's Day magazine.

13:39 Well, what is her responsibility? Particularly when she finds out that it took the person in room two the full two hours to get her room arranged. And then she finds out that the poor soul in room three couldn't do anything. What's her responsibility? Well, obviously, her responsibility is to excel all of the others in this discipline because she has more native gift. Secondly, she is to be humble about the presence of that gift. What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Why dost thou glory as though thou didst not receive it? 1 Corinthians 4, 7.

14:16 Thirdly, she's not to be lazy and get by on sheer raw native ability, but she has an obligation to cultivate that native ability to its highest reaches so that she can become an expert on interior decoration. And then having become that, she ought to give herself to help others of lesser ability. And then furthermore, she ought never to be hypercritical of those who have not been educated. She ought to have less native ability than she has. Now, if she's a Christian woman, that's what she ought to do when she gets the room all neat in 45 minutes. What about sister number two? Took her all two hours, but she got a neat room. What should she do? Well,

15:02 she ought to recognize that she has just a minimal ability in this area, and she ought to go to the local library and take out books on interior decorating. Whenever she can, she ought to pick the brain of her sister in room two. She ought to recognize that she has just a minimal ability in room number one and find out all she can. And she ought to work at speeding up the time in which she can accomplish that task. And that's what Paul told Timothy, stir up the gift of God that is in thee. Give thyself wholly to these things that thy progress may be manifest unto all. And what about sister number three, who at the end of two hours is just pulling her hair out and got nothing but nail holes and a mess to show? Well, after seeing...

15:52 Whether or not she can, by verbal encouragement from sisters one and two, by reading of some books, seeing if she can pick up some skills and some principles and learn how to arrange a room, that's what she ought to do. But if it becomes evident that though she may be gifted in many other areas, she has no skill to arrange rooms, then she ought to realize whenever it comes to arranging a room, she either ought to pay sisters one and two to come in and do it for her, or she ought to have them come in and give of their time if they're able and willing to do it with her. Now, the scripture says that one of the requirements for an elder is that he must be apt to teach, didactikos, an able teacher, a competent instructor. So if there is no ability to organize after basic work has been done, after real honest attempts have been made through reading, listening to instruction, if a man cannot cultivate a modicum of ability to organize, he cannot be an apt teacher,

17:04 he therefore has no business in the work of the ministry. And it may have nothing to do with grace whatsoever. Our sister in room number three may be the most prayerful, godly woman of all three of them. She simply was shortchanged when it comes to the ability to sort out a room full of furniture and put things in the right place. And I have heard some of the women who have done that, some men preach who were godly, as best I could discern, earnest, Christ-loving men who loved his people and loved the souls of men. But God shortchanged them when he put them in the room in that whole area of being able to organize their thoughts. They just meandered all over the place and upon talking with them in one or two instances that I can recall, it was not that they were lazy, it was not that they didn't try, and when I would sit down and go over their materials with them, they really thought, as they saw the materials on paper, that the stuff had form and structure that was perspicuous. But only an angel could find the perspicuity in the thing.

18:12 Certainly no mortal could. I couldn't. And obviously the people sitting there could not as well. Now I hope, I hope, you see, in the screening process through which you men passed before you ever came to the academy, it has been established that you at least can be like sister, our sister in the middle room.

18:30 It's shown sufficient ability to get the furniture sorted out to make the average person feel comfortable in the room after two hours. So probably most of us fit that description and it means then that we must labor at developing our skills in this area and labor at seeking to be able to accomplish given tasks of organization with respect to form and structure in a shorter period of time. So there is then, in preachers, there does exist a certain type of organization that is able to do that. And that is the type of organization that exists. Not only this diversity of organizational inclination. So you can't make hard and fast rules that sermons must always have this form and this structure or they're not legitimate sermons. And on the other hand, we must recognize that there is this variety. There are degrees of native organizational ability. And just as some men have more of the imaginative element by nature, when they think in terms of teaching their mind immediately, they have more food , all kinds of likes, similes. Whereas others have the more cold and logical

19:43 approach and they are seeing the whys and the wherefores. And others, they have the more practical bent-of-mind. They are always thinking of the how and the implications. Well, just as that diversity exists with regard to the imaginative element in preaching, with regard to the practical elements in preaching, with regard to the logical elements in itself, this diversity does exist. And so ecologically, although this is the concept in a mooiauthe careful ditopon , it is itself an important part of manifestation in configuring understanding of tools. It is an intellectual model, but this definition here discusses the unedcie the galate Wesley a, this modern anthroposensitive is. If the sublimation's states remain undetermined with somebody to believe this. with regard to the logical elements in preaching, so it exists with respect to organizational ability.

20:08 And part of your responsibility in terms of the principles of Romans 12 is to make a sober assessment of where you're at with respect to this matter of native organizational ability and to work accordingly. All right, so much then for these two introductory principles. Now let's come to question number one. What constitutes perspicuity of form and structure?

Element 1: Order in Form and Structure

20:37 Having underscored the importance of this element of sermonizing last week, having mentioned briefly the price to be paid to attain it, now in what does the thing actually consist? What constitutes perspicuity of form and of structure? In answer to that question, I want to suggest there are at least five principles that are essential to perspicuity, to clarity of form and of structure. And the first one is couched in the word order.

21:16 And by that I mean there must be some form of independent identity and sequential progression of thought in the form and structure of your sermons. Some form of independent identity, and sequential progression of thought.

21:41 We go back to the analogy used by many of the writers on homiletics. That of an army. The army that has its foot soldiers, its infantry. It has its tanks and its bazooka operators and those who fire the howitzers and those who fire the larger guns.

22:00 And if the army is to go forth to battle, there must not only be the independent identity, of the cavalry, and of the tank corps, and of the howitzer corps, but there must be an orderly arrangement in which all of these constituent elements of the army contribute to one great end. Winning a position on the battlefield, conquering the enemy at a given point. And so there must be then, if there is to be perspicuity of form and structure, order that contributes to the victory of the army. And so there must be then, if there is to be perspicuity of form and structure, order that contributes to the victory of the army.

22:39 Now, the order may be in any given sermon order that contributes to the victory of the army. logical We may be answering the questions what are we attempting to prove, Why is it very important and so what, having established it. It may be the logical order, or it may be chronological You may be doing historical preaching in which chronology will be organizing principle of order. It may be doctrinal or doctrinal. I slipped into the English way of pronunciation. Definition, exclamation, enforcement. It may be natural. In other words, the text itself will dictate the order. It may be functional. There may be many things that actually dictate the order, but order

23:25 there must be. And anyone who doesn't know the difference between order and chaos has no business being in the ministry. Now, it's one thing to assert, as I have done, that we cannot absolutize with respect to what constitutes order that makes preaching clear. But certainly each of us knows there is a difference between order and chaos. And we know the difference, when we hear it, between an orderly and a jumbled up sermon. So there must then, in our preaching and at the level of our preparation, if there is to be, perspicuity of form and structure, there must be order. And here I see the analogy of creation, at least I have found it helpful. We read in Genesis chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was waste and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved or brooded upon the face of the waters,

24:29 and God said, And then we see this organization and separation. Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. And God said, Let there be a firmament, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And that whole subsequent chapter, as we see the orderliness of God's work of creation. Well, in a real sense, brethren, the production of a sermon is an act of creation. And out of the formless materials, the raw materials of exegesis, there must come forth a cosmos of thought, in which you don't have the moon banging into the rivers, and in which you don't have the firmament burying itself with the coal. I mean, you've got to have things separated

25:23 from one another that need to be separated, if there is to be clarity of expression. Speaking to this matter says, and I quote from page 131, In speaking you address to your hearers a series of thoughts which he is to remember. Now, do you not see that every trait of natural order in the ranking of these thoughts diminishes his labor? The memory takes them up with ease, because their connection with each other presents them to her ready grasp. The more exact, the more exact, the more exact, the more exactly they are arranged under their several proper heads, and the more correctly their sequence is conformed to the logical order of nature, which proceeds from premise to proof, and from conviction to action, the easier it is for your hearer to regain them. Then he has a footnote. See Cecil's homely but expressive instance in his works called His Remains. He says, Send your maid into the streets to make a dozen separate purchases, and she'll forget a third of them. But give her a clue of arrangement, and she'll easily remember all. Thus you say to her,

26:40 Betty, remember that tomorrow is washing day, and that this evening your mistress will entertain a few friends at tea. So we wish you to buy, for the first, soap, indigo, and starch, and for the latter, tea, sugar, coffee, crackers, bread, cakes. This, and other fruits, and butter. This principle of natural classification so relieves the difficulty of recollection that she easily performs all the commissions exactly.

27:11 So you see the point that Cecil makes. She goes to market, not with a list that has no organizing principle, but one that is ordered, how? In terms of chronology. There is an event tomorrow morning called washing, and in conjunction with that event you will need, boom, boom, boom, tomorrow evening.

27:28 There is an event called entertaining, and for that certain things are needed. So the principle is that though the organizing principle in that instance may be chronology, or tasks, or social events, or it's not a social event doing the wash, you see what the principle is, and the materials organized accordingly, and there is order. Well, that's the great point of perspicuity, clarity of form and structure. There must be order.

Element 2: Unity in Form and Structure

27:57 Then the second key word is unity. Unity. Now, this has already been anticipated in the idea of sequential progression, but it demands a separate word to bring it into focus. A sermon is not generally two, or three, or six mini-sermons brought together by the necessity of filling up the time. Now, by way of qualification, let me say, there may be situations where pastoral emergencies may dictate a sermon that will look something like Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, in which you just take up one issue after another, and there is no necessary and organic relationship between them. But generally speaking, any pastoral situation that demands that can be better handled in a specifically called congregational meeting, at which you do that. And I hope some of you have learned from example how we do that occasionally. We have a congregation, and rather than artificially try to tie them together in a sermon, or just dump them on the people, we call a congregational meeting and say, we've got six unrelated items, here they are, boom, boom, now concerning, now concerning. Very much first Corinthian in its structure.

29:17 Well, there may be times when that's proper, but those times will be rare. For the most part, a sermon must have this element of unity. There must be an umbilical cord of living, vital blood relations. There must be a relationship between the various parts of the sermon. Now, the mother is the mother, the baby is the baby, but the life shared between them is bound together by the umbilical cord, and that's why I use that analogy. So, point one is point one. It is a unit of thought that demands an independent existence as heading number one. And heading number two is heading number two, because it demands an independent existence as heading number two.

30:04 But, brethren, if there's no umbilical cord tying them together in a common life, you don't have a sermon. You've got two sermons. Or, if there is no real distinction between point one and point two, you don't have a mother and a baby in the womb. You've got a mother with two names. You've got one thought with two heads. So, there must be, you see, this unity of discourse.

30:32 Our sermons and lessons should, in a sense, be reflective, of the greatest mystery of being, and that is, of course, the triune God. There is unity in diversity, and there is diversity in unity. There is oneness in plurality, and there is plurality in oneness. And as we are not Unitarians in our theology, but neither are we polytheists, we do not want to be Unitarians or polytheists in our preaching. There must be unity of difference. Discourse, so that the various parts of the sermon are indeed parts of one whole. Now, Dr. Lloyd-Jones, who now sees face to face the things he so powerfully preached when he was amongst us, has what I think is one of the funniest anecdotes, indicating how sometimes men forget that there must be unity in discourse. Let me tell you a story, page 208 of

31:39 Preaching the Bible, and I'm going to read it to you. In order to ridicule this notion that you must have three heads, and at the same time to warn against false additions, there was a quaint old preacher, whom I just remember, I cannot remember hearing him, but I certainly remember seeing him, and remember stories concerning him. He was a true eccentric. In other words, he was a little nutty. There have been such men in the ministry at various times in the past. There may still be an occasional one. This man was preaching on one occasion on the text, and he was preaching on one occasion on the text, and he was preaching on one occasion on the text, and Balaam arose early and saddled his ass. After introducing the subject and reminding his hearers of the story, he came to the headings, the divisions. First, he said, we find a good trait in a bad character. Balaam arose early. Early rising is a good thing, so that's the first head. Secondly, the antiquity of saddlery. He saddled his ass. Saddlery is not something modern

32:39 and new. It was an ancient craft. Then the inspiration seems to have vanished, and he could not think of another heading. Yet he felt he must have three heads to the sermon, otherwise he would not be a great preacher. So the divisions of the sermon were eventually announced as, number one, a good trait in a bad character. Number two, the antiquity of saddlery. Thirdly and lastly, a few remarks concerning the woman of Samaria. Now that literally happened. From that, let us learn not to force the text and not to add to it. Do not

33:25 become a slave to these mechanical notions. Thirdly and lastly, a few thoughts concerning the woman of Samaria. Now, the kindest thing we can say about that poor character is that he had no sense of the unity of discourse essential to preaching. What relationship the woman of Samaria had to the art of saddlery or to this virtue in a bad man eludes me, and I'm sure it eluded the preacher and everyone who heard him. And on this point, and I'm going to give more quotes on this point than any of the other, all of the writers who themselves were preachers and were known to be able preachers speak with tremendous unanimity of conviction. Broadus, on page 290, speaking of this matter of unity, says, It is not uncommon for, I'm sorry, it is little to say that these divisions must not be incongruous, though preachers of some ability do at times throw together matters which have as little congruity, that is, relationship to one another, as the human head, a horse's neck, a body composed of parts

34:40 brought from all directions and covered with many kinds of things. Now, do you see the caricature? He's picturing someone, this person brought together with a human head, a horse's neck, a body composed of parts brought from all directions. In other words, a knee sticking out at the chest and an ankle out the ear, then covered with many kinds of feathers, and then the whole thing ending with a fish's tail. There's no unity, you see. What you have is not a fish, it's not a horse, it's not a human being. Well, likewise in a sermon, if there is no unity of discourse so that the various divisions of thought have a relationship to each other that is organic, that is vital, then we do not, indeed, have a sermon. Dabney, speaking to the issue on page 223 of his lectures on sacred rhetoric, says, and I quote him, The heads must each one present a branch of the discussion, distinct from the others, and coordinate with them in relation to the main subject. Never make a division without a difference. In other words, the mother and the baby in her womb

35:55 must be two entities. The inevitable result is confusion and error. For the lines of thought in the two divisions being virtually the same, the preacher will be guilty of anticipation and repetition. It is not enough that the heads be truly distinct, they must also be coordinate.

36:13 If the real relation of a thought is subordinate to that which you propose to make your second head, it is a vicious arrangement to exalt it into a first or a third head and to give it a separate treatment. It should be reduced to a subdivision of the head under which it belongs that it may be promptly and correctly treated under its own class. So you see he's dealing again with that tension. There must be separateness in the units of thought in a sermon. You simply cannot dump one great mass of truth on God's people. It will not find easy access to their understanding unless it comes in distinct, separate units of thought. But they must all in their distinctiveness be bound together by this unifying pressure. Taylor, speaking to the same issue, says, and I quote from page 121, but I pass on to another quality of effectiveness in a sermon, which is of not letting the truth be the same.

37:13 Less importance than those already mentioned. I mean clearness in arrangement. In every discourse there must be method in order to movement, and one portion should succeed another in such a way as to carry forward the hearer gently yet inexorably to the conclusion. Arguments are like soldiers. They must be massed and marshaled in such a way as to overcome all opposition.

37:43 Resting on a broad base, they must be made to bring all their force to bear upon the main purpose which the preacher has in view. Like as in a pyramid, the figure rises, narrowing as it ascends until it terminates in the apex. So a discourse should become step by step more elevated, increasing in intensity as it rises, until it kindles into one burning point, and that point should be made to carry forward the hearer gently yet inexorably to the conclusion. Touch the soul of every hearer. And then he goes on to develop that in a very eloquent and moving manner. Stuart speaks to the same issue on page 106 and 107. I won't give the entire quote, but pressing this matter, make sure that every sermon you preach has a definite aim. And then he goes on to say that every point in the sermon must have an organic relationship to that particular end and end. And then he goes on to say that every point in the sermon must have an organic

38:43 What is the truth this sermon is to convey? Can I concentrate that into a single sentence? It is true, no doubt, that when Dickens first invented Pickwick, there were only the haziest outlines of an idea in the author's mind what to do with the character he had created. True, that the early installments of the story were launched upon the world in serial numbers before any course had been charted or any plot conceived. But for the preacher, it is true that the author's mind is not the author's mind. It is true that the author's mind is not the author's mind. It is true that the author's mind is not the author's mind. It is true that the author's mind is not the author's mind. It is true that the author's mind is not the author's mind.

39:14 It is imperative to see the end from the beginning. In every sermon, he must know exactly what truth it is that he is proposing to drive home to the hearer's minds. He must see clearly the objective to which he hopes to lead them. He ought to be able to define it to himself in a dozen words. Without such definiteness of aim, preaching remains self-stultified and ineffectual and may never touch a single life. With it, the author's mind is not the author's. The Englaterra lecture, in its most recent publication of table. It any that he shall have time to bear might be, of course, found in a справed text but in their unspoken paper in the at tract to say that this a not-for-givencito in ex sub siagate of any piece of speech of the church, or ran incomes periquada, or forai Vegeta forti, or superimposed, or periquade theolas of the church of man.

40:14 The entire thing together must be aiming at a specific point. That and that alone constitutes unity in discourse. But then there is a third word which expresses one of the constituent elements of clarity of form and structure, and it's the word proportion.

Element 3: Proportion in Form and Structure

40:39 Carrying on the illustration, in this matter of clarity of form and structure, we must seek to avoid, wherever possible, radically disproportionate elements in our sermons.

40:59 Now, there are times when it may be necessary to preach a sermon in which the first head has this much time and amplification, the second only this much, about one-tenth of that, and the third this much, which is about one-quarter of that. And textual fidelity may demand at times what may be called, from a classic rhetorical standpoint, a disproportionate treatment of the divisions of discourse. And at that point, we thumb our nose at classic rhetoric in the name of Christ and in the interest of truth. And we do it with a good conscience.

41:35 Now, that's the qualifying statement. There may be times when textual fidelity will demand this. For instance, if you are preaching on Romans 12, verse 1, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. You might have as your outline, number one, the manner of Paul's plea.

42:00 I beseech you, therefore. It is a beseeching. It is a divine entreaty. The basis of Paul's plea, by the mercies of God, and then the substance of Paul's plea, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.

42:17 Now, it would not be textual fidelity to preach that sermon in such a way that the manner, the basis, and the substance appeared this way in your three points. It would be wrong. To give as much emphasis to the manner as to the substance would be to be untrue to what the Holy Ghost has deposited in that text. But at the same time, you can have proportionality.

42:49 You can have proportion, and it would look something like this. And that would be textual fidelity as well. We don't need to make a big deal out of the first point. We simply open up.

43:00 I beseech you, therefore. Paul, who could command as an apostle, entreats and pleads. And the basis of his plea is the mercies of God. And you give a brief summary of what those mercies are, but the thrust of the text is to be found in point three, the substance of his plea, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.

43:19 Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Just in terms of the structure of the text, in terms of the amount of words given to the various elements of the text, this would be the proportionate treatment of that particular text. But you see, there is symmetry, there is order, and there is a proportion that is easily and readily seen. Now, not all texts are that easy to deal with, not all subjects.

43:49 But this matter of proportion. Now, some men seem to have, again, an innate inability to sense this. And so I've tried again to use grotesque illustrations that may help make the thing stand out in your mind. Suppose we were to ask a man, please describe the major components of the human body.

44:10 What would you think of him if he said, Well, a human body has a head, a torso, arms, and legs. Oh, Antones. Well, you're laughing. Doesn't a human body have a head, torso, arms, legs, and toenails?

44:30 Well, you're laughing at me. Is my anatomy off? Now, what have I done wrong? Tell me what's wrong with me.

44:38 What were you asked to give? What was this gentleman asked to give? The nature. And anyone who puts toenails into a list of the major components of the body, there's something wrong either with his estimation of the importance of his toenails or with what he sees when he looks at it.

44:54 He's a human body. He's got a strange, perverted fixation upon people's feet or something. I don't know. I think he's got an ingrown toenail.

45:01 Maybe he has an ingrown toenail. I'm just reminding him. But you see, you sense immediately that a minor part of an appendage has been elevated into a major category. And you sense immediately that's not kosher.

45:15 That's not right. Well, it's that kind of thing that we must seek to avoid in our preaching. And that's what I'm driving at when I talk about proportion. Because when you do that in preaching, it will distract people just as what I did distracted you and appeared grotesque and humorous.

45:34 So if there is to be clarity of form and structure, there must not only be order, not only must there be unity, but there must be proportion. Now, this concept should make plain the necessity of skeletonizing early in your preparation. Otherwise, as your mind becomes fertile, you're going to get carried away with toenails. When you ought to be dealing with legs and arms and torsos and heads.

46:04 And because you've got no skeleton, you see, no basic outline with this sense of proportion to hold you in check in your advanced stages of preparation, you'll get amplifying way out of proportion. So you'll end up with a sermon like this that spends the first 20 minutes dealing with the manner of Paul's plea. And you're shortchanged on the substance of that plea or on the basis. Now, that still gives us plenty of latitude in terms of our sensitivity at a pastoral level to what our people need.

46:40 If, for instance, we sensed a climate in the congregation in which by overreaction from the non-authoritarian structure of our day, our people were beginning to develop a concept of authority. Of authority. In which everyone who has authority in any relationship ought to pull rank up front in every situation, we might sense that there was greater need to sort of pump more out of the manner of Paul's plea. You follow me?

47:12 So that in that given situation, you would give what in other situations would be a disproportionate emphasis upon that particular part of the sermon. But it's not disproportionate in terms of your overall goal, which on this occasion is that you might confront the conscience of the congregation with the proper manner of exercising God-given authority. That may be your primary goal in that particular sermon. And you see in the apostolic model how it's done.

47:47 And in the course of consecutive expository preaching, no man who's sensitive to his people would ever preach through the Bible the same book the same way if he did it even three years apart. Because the needs that he's aware of which dictate the areas of amplification and the areas of application would vary. All right? So much then for the matter of proportion.

Element 4: Simplicity in Form and Structure

48:14 Let me hurry on now and try to touch on the matter of simplicity, which is the fourth element essential to perspicuity of form and structure. Simplicity. Now, I'm using the word in terms of its classic meaning, which is freedom from intricacy and complexity.

48:36 Intricacy, definition from the Latin to entangle or perplex, hard to follow or understand because full of puzzling parts, details, or relationships, full of elaborate detail. That's intricacy. Complexity, marked by so many elaborately interrelated or interconnected parts that might be a little bit more complicated. So, let's start with the first element.

48:58 Let's start with the first element. Let's start with the first element. Much study is needed to understand it. Now, I'm suggesting that clarity of form and structure will be marked by simplicity, the opposite of intricacy and complexity.

49:12 The order and the structure must not only be latent, that is, there in reality and substance, it ought also to be patent, that is, evident for all to see and to feel its weight. Now, you'll rarely find me criticizing the Puritans, but at this point, some of the Puritan writers, some are not a good model with their sub, sub, sub, sub, sub, sub, sub, sub, sub, sub, sub, sub, sub, sub divisions. But others are excellent models. And you will find Flabel, the American Puritan, Edwards, Watson at points, men of that stripe, you will find them good models of simplicity of structure. And certainly, when you turn to Spurgeon, you turn to McShane, some of these popular preachers in the right sense that we are aware of, you will find in them models of simplicity with respect to form and to structure. Let me quote Dabney, speaking to this point, page 124, you would have read this in your assignment, Prolixity, therefore, is a sin against movement. Every epithet should be retrenched which adds nothing to the true rendering of the thought.

50:39 This virtue is violated, of course, by all needless repetitions, by all digressions and episodes which lead away from the true path of the discussion by tedious or superfluous explanation and definition. It is also marred by useless subdivisions. It is also marred by useless subdivisions. It is also marred by useless subdivisions.

50:59 It is also marred by every formal appendage to the method of the discourse which is not necessary to make its order clear. This remark will explain to you the excessive dryness which you have doubtless felt in reading the multiplied subdivisions of some of the Puritan divines. It is as though the progress of the mind towards its goal were arrested at every third step for some useless formality. What can be more wearisome to the eager mind than to the mind of the Puritan?

51:29 than to the mind of the Puritan? than to the mind of the Puritan? than such a journey. Now as a great admirer of the Puritans and one who again and again speaks of his high esteem of the Puritans in general and Owen in particular, Dabney does make that very legitimate criticism.

51:43 Likewise, Shedd on page 164 says the following with respect to this matter of simplicity. Some ministers, says an old homiletist, do with their text as the Levite did with his concubine. Some ministers, as the Levite did with his concubine, cut and carve it in so many pieces. Some sermons exhibit a body of proof which, owing to the multitude of the divisions and subdivisions, is wholly unsuited to the purposes of persuasive discourse.

52:14 They are good illustrations of the infinite divisibility of matter, but they produce no conviction in the popular mind because they employ the philosophical instead of the rhetorical mode of demonstration. You know what he means by the infinite divisibility of matter, don't you?

52:35 I have a line.

52:38 I divide it in half. I divide this in half. Divide this in half. Divide this in half.

52:43 This in half. Theoretically, the division never stops.

52:48 It goes on into infinity. Now, he says certain sermons are good illustrations of the infinity or the infinite divisibility of matter, but they produce no conviction. This fault will be avoided if the sermonizer asks in the book of the Bible in respect to each and every head or division, does this proposed head really tend to prove the proposition? Does it afford a positively new item of proof that is not contained in any other head?

53:20 These two questions, rigorously applied, will exclude from the sermon all second-rate arguments, and the pulpit will bring to bear upon the popular audience only the strongest, plainest, and most cogent proofs. There we're talking, you see, about simplicity, the absence of intricacy with respect to our sermonizing. Now again, let me quote from Dabney later on, on page 221, because some of this you may not get to for a time, and I hope to whet your appetites. Division should not be numerous.

54:02 Although the sermon is a composition very different, from the drama, the limit affixed to the number of acts in a drama by Horace is a safe one, at least on the major side. He prohibits more than five. Multiplied divisions are every way objectionable. They overburden the memory, whereas the real object of method is to aid memory.

54:24 While they may wear an appearance of great exactness, they are really inaccurate, because the necessities of an artificial symmetry often constrain those who impose them. To make a distinction which is not according to a real difference. They confuse and embarrass the hearer's mind. They destroy movement.

54:46 They cast an air of insufferable dryness over a discourse. It is as though the tree, beautiful in the proportions of its stem, its branches, its twigs, and its foliage, the natural constituent parts, were reduced to an unsightly heap of chips. You see what he's saying now? A discourse that is not what it would have.

55:06 Its simple heads, when it's divided and subdivided, becomes nothing but a pile of wood chips. Broadest speaks in the same vein on page 285 to 287. Time is getting away from me, so I'll not give you that lengthy quote, but it is excellent. Let me just give you a choice sentence or two with respect to the matter of simplicity.

55:29 As to the number of divisions, we must consult simplicity, and at the same time, vividness, and variety. And then he goes on to show how different ones have treated the particular subject, but emphasizes again, cut down to the minimum. Far better to have two telling points which will give to your people some hooks on which to hang the exposition and application than four or five more subtly divided points in the sermon. Remember, you've been living with the thing, I hope, for hours.

56:05 When you've been living with it, you come into the pulpit. And if you cannot, without a note in front of you, hold the whole basic heart of the argument together in an offhanded discourse with your wife, what hope is there that the people coming cold to that subject after 35 or 40 minutes are going to get a grasp upon it and go away with anything? Very little hope, unless you've got some unusually brilliant people in your congregation. So you must constantly try to put yourself in their skin and in their minds and not assume that you're going to be because you've lived with it and you've seen it in its interrelatedness that they will automatically be able to catch up with you.

56:44 So labor at this matter of simplicity, of form and structure. And then, fifthly, and finally,

Element 5: Completeness in Form and Structure

56:51 there must be completeness.

56:55 If there is to be perspicuity, clarity of form and structure, there must not only be these other four ingredients, order, unity, proportion, simplicity, but there must be completeness. The sermon must have a beginning, it must go somewhere, get there and stop. And you ought to know where you've been and where you're at when the preacher comes to that stopping point.

57:20 It must not take you midstream and leave you there.

57:25 I don't like to pick on engineers, but for some reason they come to my mind in my illustrations. There may be an engineer who designs a bridge and it has order, unity, proportion, simplicity. Only one thing wrong with it. He stopped it six feet short of the other side of the river.

57:48 And they actually have a bridge in Lancaster County that they call the Bridge to Nowhere. In constructing one of the highways there, they built a bridge and it literally ends up in a farmer's field. It goes nowhere. It connects nothing to nothing.

58:03 It's just a nice bridge. It's an overpass. You drive under it. And they never apparently completed the turnoff in the road that it was to connect with.

58:11 So they literally call it if you're talking about you go down so-and-so, go to the bridge to nowhere. That's what it's been nicknamed. Well, I'm afraid we could nickname many a sermon a bridge to nowhere because it lacked the element of completeness. A doctrine must be established.

58:28 A specific duty must be inculcated. A body of information must be conveyed. And brethren, I want to emphasize this particularly with regard to any consecutive series of exposition through a given portion of the Word of God. It must be complete in itself.

58:51 Now, that's where the labor of preaching comes. The argument of the passage may not be complete in terms of the part that you're able to handle in a 35 or 40 or 50 minute sermon on any given Lord's Day. And that's where the labor of your homiletical disciplines comes to play. You can't tell the people, now I'm just giving you this dangled thought that hopefully we'll complete next week when we get to how Paul completed it.

59:17 No, you may have to anticipate and give the broad overview. But say our concentration this morning is upon this and then what you construct, what you create under God must have this perspicuity of form and structure and be a complete sermon in and of itself.

59:41 Now this again is no easy thing. It's not a discipline that can be cultivated quickly. It's one of the reasons why as we'll touch on later on in this unit the various species of sermons and the kind of sermons you ought to try to preach early in your ministry, the kind you can attempt later on in your ministry. Don't start right in with a lengthy book of scripture or even necessarily a book of scripture in terms of consecutive expository preaching because one of the greatest weaknesses at this point, is the element of seeking to create completeness in those sermons.

60:22 A running commentary on the text is not preaching. There must be that unity of discourse that has as one of its essential elements completeness so that the sermon goes somewhere and actually arrives at that point. Well, I suggest, brethren, that these are the elements which constitute perspicuity or are present where there is perspicuity or clarity of form and structure and they must be present in your sermonic exercises if your preaching is to be clear to your people. Now, we'll take a break and then we'll pick up in the next hour what I hope to cover in about 15 minutes some practical suggestions on cultivating this art of perspicuity of form and structure.

Guideline 1: Maintain Conviction for Hearers' Edification and Salvation

61:18 Well, as I intimated at the close of the last hour, brethren, having addressed ourselves to the question what cultivates constitutes clarity of form and structure. Now, this second question and I hope to dispense with it in about 15 minutes. How may we cultivate perspicuity of form and structure?

61:39 Well, the most fundamental guideline without which all of the others are useless is so here's number one and picture this as sort of a canopy under which all the others are ranged. Maintain the conviction that the edification and salvation of your hearers demands it.

62:00 Maintain the conviction that the edification and salvation of your hearers demands it. The it referring to clarity, perspicuity of form and structure. In other words, this is not a matter of simply having sermons that are a little more pleasing to men or will promote or not promote our reputation as, quote, good preachers. This is a matter of the accomplishment of the end for which we preach the salvation, the edification of our people.

62:35 In the language of 1 Corinthians 14, 8 and 9, if the trumpets sound an uncertain note, how shall they prepare themselves?

62:47 Who shall prepare himself for war? So also you, unless you utter by the tongue speech easy to be understood, how shall it, be known what is spoken? You will be speaking into the air. Now, speech easy to be understood has to do not only with speaking in a known tongue, but speaking with an arrangement of thought that makes thought perspicuous.

63:18 I'm going to use a silly illustration.

63:22 Here's a sentence. We must speak with simple words in the proper order.

63:27 Ten words. Now I'm going to rearrange them. We words order in a speech We must speak with must simple proper. Speak with must simple proper.

63:48 Now those are all the words that were in the sentence easy to be understood. We must speak with simple words in a proper order. One sentence makes sense, the other is nonsense, and it's all a matter of order and arrangement of words. Now what is true with the order and arrangements of words in a sentence is true with the order and arrangements of thought in a discourse.

64:12 Now brethren, you've got to maintain not just come to the conviction in a passing way here in this course, but you must maintain through the years of your ministry the conviction that the edification and salvation of your hearers demands this perspicuity of form and structure. And without that conviction constantly burning in your heart, you will simply give up and quit because it's just too difficult to produce on a regular basis sermons that are clear. In form and structure. Alright, second guideline as to how to cultivate this perspicuity.

Guideline 2: Continually Read Proven Guides

64:57 Continually read the proven guides on this subject. Continually read the proven guides on this subject. Broadus in his introduction, page 12, it's in Roman numerals, says those who have had much experience in preaching often find it interesting, and useful to examine a treatise on the preparation and delivery of sermons. New topics and new methods may be suggested.

65:33 Things forgotten and hitherto neglected are recalled. Ideas gradually formed in the course of experience are made clearer and more definite, and where the views advanced are not deemed just, renewed reflection on some questions need not be unprofitable. More often, the desire for high excellence in preaching may receive a fresh stimulus. Such readers will remember that many practical matters which to them have now become obvious and commonplace are precisely the points upon which a beginner most needs counsel.

66:13 See what he's saying? A man who has mastered his discipline need not self-consciously think of the processes which he undergoes in order to express that mastery in his discipline. But the beginner needs to have those things before him self-consciously until they're worked into and programmed into his self-conscious thought processes and the other processes involved in sermonizing. So from this standpoint, there should be a continuous exposure to the proven guides on this subject.

66:49 And now, one who himself was considered a master says, the author's chief indebtedness for help has been to Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and to Wakely and Vinay. The last two, together with Ripley, have been his textbooks, and copious extracts are made from them on certain subjects. A good deal has been derived from Alexander, thoughts on preaching, Shedd, Day, and Hoppin from Coquerel and Palmer, and a great variety of other writers. And then he says this, two important and valuable works, McElvain on elocution, which I was able to borrow from the Westminster Library, and is a tremendous work, and Dabney's sacred rhetoric were received after the introduction was sent to print, but are noticed in part four, chapter two, and were made useful in that and the following chapters. So here was a man considered a master continually looking for new insights. See? And he's a good example of the very principle that he's seeking to incorporate in others.

67:53 Dabney, in the same way. Here's a man who's taught sacred rhetoric for twenty years. And how does he begin his preface? This little book is the fruit of study, reflection and teaching continued through twenty years.

68:08 If my readers are familiar with these treatises, they'll probably find in them either the germs or the full forms of nearly all the ideas which I advance. The following treatises I have found exceedingly instructive. Aristotle's Rhetorical Cicero and then he gives the Latin title Horace Campbell Quakely Vinay the very ones you see that were mentioned. My studies have also included he mentions Phenelon Dr. G. Campbell Morgan and by the way I've got two tapes of Campbell Morgan and I want to play them for you. I just listened to them briefly. I never heard his voice and a man out in California told me he had some tapes of his. And I've seen pictures of him and a very grave distinguished look looking man.

68:54 When you hear his voice you realize why he held people captive. Beautiful speaking voice. Spoke very ploddingly and deliberately the perfect now that's Scottish with a perfect English accent and I hope we can listen through these things after somewhere along the line. But then he mentions about six or seven others among them Alexander's thoughts on preaching sheds homiletics and Dr. Samuel Miller's work on public prayer. So here's Daphne you see who was himself continually exposing himself to the masters. So brethren if we are to cultivate perspicuity of form and structure we must not only maintain that conviction that the edification and salvation of our people demands it we must continually read the proven guides who address themselves to the subject. Thirdly expose yourself to good models of perspicuity of form and structure.

Guideline 3: Expose Yourself to Good Models

69:51 Expose yourself to good models in the memoirs of McShane it is said concerning his preaching on this very point after announcing the subject of his discourse page 64 of the memoir and remains of McShane by Bonar he used generally to show the position it occupied in the context and then proceed to bring out the doctrines of the text in the manner of our old divines. This done he divided his subject and herein he was eminently skillful. The heads of his sermons said a friend were not the milestones that tell you how near you are to your journey's end but they were nails which fixed and fastened all he said. Divisions are often dry but not so his divisions they were so textual and so feeling and they brought out the spirit of a passage so surprisingly. And then when you turn to the back and see his sermons what we would call notes of his sermons you realize that that assessment is not the excess of love. Read Spurgeon in this light he is a good model of perspicuity of form and structure now I know it's fashionable to knock Spurgeon as an exegete but you better be careful he was a much better exegete than some people give him credit

71:19 and he certainly is a much better model of perspicuity of form and structure than most of the people who are knocking him they couldn't hold together fifty people for five years let alone five thousand for thirty years and no little part of that power to hold the common mind was this clarity of form and structure read John Brown for a good model of clarity of form and structure for consecutive expository lectures or preaching they called them in Scotland lectures but John Brown and his discourses and sayings of our Lord his commentary on first Peter John Brown is a good example of how the fruits of Hebrews the most careful exegetical method are joined to homiletics and you see the form and structure of sermons and John Brown I say would be a great help to you Ryle is a good example of perspicuity of form and structure you know where he's going how he's getting there when he's done he's taking you there with him now for radically different style but where there is still clarity of form and structure read Lloyd Jones sermons read some of the sermons of Shed his sermons to the natural man are powerful treatises I've been working through those for a rather lengthy period

Guideline 4: Secure Input of Competent Critics

72:48 of time and as I say Dr. Lloyd Jones whose method he obviously was reacting to some degree against the many of his Welsh countrymen and English preachers in which the heads were alliterated and right out there on the surface of things and often his form and structure is not as patent but he still carries you by the weight of a form and structure that is orderly and logical and convincing so expose yourself to good models in terms of written sermons to good models in terms of living preachers whose voices are captured on tape and where they're coming from and most importantly secure the input of competent critics secure the input of competent critics you may have a totally distorted view of how clear and how perspicuous your sermon was seek to cultivate in your wife that ability to be a good critic eventually in your fellow elders listen to the feedback of children dare to ask them about this morning? Well, he talked about God. Good. What did he say about God? I mean,

74:10 often I found the kids would say, they know they're safe if they say that. Well, you talked about God. And what did we say about God this morning? See? What did we say about God? And he talked about the Bible. Well, what did we say about the Bible? What part of the Bible was Pastor preaching about? Dare to ask them. Dare to get their feedback. It may be very humbling at times. And then when the ones take notes, there's a good test. Look at their notes. See if they've been able to catch the overall thrust of the development of your text or of your theme. I find it most humbling and sometimes very, very encouraging to read at the door the notes the little ones take. And they come and they see them in their notebook and I say, oh, did you take notes this morning? And they show me and go back through the sermon. Well, this is what I mean by securing the competent critics. Because if there is perspicuity

75:00 of form and structure, somebody ought to be able to indicate that there has been. Other than yourself. My tongue was in my cheek all the way. Now, Broadus, speaking to this point, says on page 291, one may learn much as to the practical management of division from the careful analysis of published sermons. The inexperienced preacher will find great advantage in having his plans critically examined by an instructor or some judicious friend. Now, please. Don't go to the people in the church that you know are out for your neck. Don't be foolish enough to expose yourself to them. They'll just look at your bare chest and cut you to

75:50 pieces. In this matter, a man will soon learn more from having pointed out to him the faults which he himself has committed than it is possible to teach in general terms. See what he's saying? You can generalize, give the principles, but if someone tells you what you're doing wrong and criticizes and says, look, you were skewed.

Guideline 5: Give Yourself to Constant Labor

76:11 Everything was a fog at this point. I didn't know where you were going. If you'd been there and back, I couldn't make head nor tails out of what you were saying. Then go back and analyze why it was that there was not that perspicuity. And then, finally, you've heard this note before. Give yourself to constant labor in this area. Give yourself to constant labor in this area. Now, Blakey, in his book, The Work of the Ministry, also in the Yale series, says on page 54, speaking now to this very subject, these very perceptive words. There is a snare in an actual fluency, the

76:58 fluent man being often tempted to neglect clearness and directness of statement and simplicity of method. And by method, they mean organization. He is tempted to dispense with that most useful, though often intense, and most important, and most important, and most important, and most important, and most important, and most important, and most important, and most important, and most important, and most important, and most important, and most important. Perhaps he thinks it enough in his preparation to get hold vaguely of a thought and trust to its clearing itself, as it were, and coming out with sufficient plainness under the excitement of delivery.

77:42 See what he's doing? He's going into the pulpit. Half full. informed ideas, hoping that the Holy Ghost will somehow come on him in such power that all the mist will be lifted and all the fogginess removed. He knew the human heart, didn't he? Especially preachers' hearts. Far more may be expected ultimately of the man who, though at first he sees his subject enveloped in mist, sees a fragment of an idea here and the shadow of one there, and knows that there must be a connection between them, but is baffled, bewildered, and almost maddened as he attempts to define and express them. But he perseveres with the persistency of a martyr, jots down with his pencil everything as it occurs to him, concentrates his attention more earnestly, keeps his temper, walks about his room, is frequently on his knees or with his hand over his eyes, possibly finds it necessary to take a quiet walk or

78:38 a three-mile jog in a retired place or to wait till a night's sleep shall have refreshed his brain. Or given him a better point of view, but at last, when his work is finished, finds an abundant recompense for these pangs of parturition in the clear, consecutive form in which his thoughts come out. You see, there's more hope for that man who seems to have little native ability to see the connection of things, who wrestles, who agonizes far better than, he said, the man who can cover up, at least to an unthinking auditory, the obscurity of thoughts, by the force of his pretty words. The more fluent, you see, person. If we admire the marvelous precision, clearness, and force of the thinking of John Foster, it will be well for us to remember what labor composition cost him, and how very far the pen which he wielded was from that of the ready writer. Nothing can be more valuable than the mental discipline of clearing the obscure and marshalling the tangled in our own mind. Nor does it follow that the same toil and trouble will always be required. A habit of

79:52 clearness will be attained, which will by and by supersede the necessity of the efforts through which it was acquired. It's one of the finest statements I've found on this subject, indicating that it's going to be pain and labor all the way through. Again, Shedd says, a powerful, page 50, methodizing ability. It implies severe tasking of the intellect, a severe exercise of its faculties, whereby it acquires the power of seizing the main points of the subject with the certainty of an instinct, and then of holding them with the strength of a vice. And all this, too, while the feelings and the imagination, the rhetorical powers of the soul, are filling out and clothing the structure with the vitality and warmth and beauty of the mind. Of a living thing, the power of quickly and densely methodizing form and structure can be attained only by diligent and persevering discipline, and hence it should be kept constantly before the eyes of the preacher as an aim from the beginning to the end of his educational and professional career. He's simply saying, what I'm trying to enforce, you must give yourself to constant labor.

81:16 In this area. And frankly, brethren, there are times when I find it difficult not to get a bit irritated. Because God has been pleased in some measure to help me to cultivate some gift in this matter of clarity of form and structure, there are people who think that I simply have some kind of a special, magical something or other that takes masses of material and reduces it and lays it out simply, when in reality, if it's five percent gift, it's ninety-five percent pain and labor. And when he said, keeping your temper, that's the first man I ever read that admitted there are times you lose your temper. You have that thing laid out before you and you can't see how you can structure it so as to be clear, and you want to bang your fist on your notes. And you bang your head and say, what's wrong with this stupid head of mine? First time I ever read another preacher admitted that he had to keep his temper. And he pictured going to the knees, and how often that's happened, or taking the walk.

82:17 And with me, so often, the breakthrough will come when I'm out jogging. There's something about getting away from the desk and having the oxygen pumped into those far reaches of the brain when the cardiovascular system is working. I don't understand it, but then it is. It must feel something like what a woman feels when going through her labor pains.

82:36 She holds her baby in her arms. There's an exhilaration, mentally, spiritually, psychologically, that then makes all the pain worthwhile. And then, when under God's blessing, you can see the people of God with that look of enlightenment in their eyes and you say, now do you see the point of the passage? And you hear their hmm, or their shhh, or their amens, or whatever else you're hearing. It makes all the pain worthwhile. It makes all the pain worthwhile.

83:05 That's right. But you've got to work at it, brethren. And work at it all your days. Now if that's so, now you know you can't be out at the racquetball club three nights a week.

83:16 And you can't be watching the basketball playoff. or baseball or football and all the other things that may be your particular area of weakness, it means that you're going to have to learn to say no to yourself, no to yourself, no to yourself, no to yourself, no, no, no, no, no. And the bottom line will be self-denial. That whole gray area where no one could fault you if you walked out of your study and quit your work at a certain time, but it will be the difference between a sermon that comes with perspicuity of form and structure and one that is simply tolerably clear and it will be how much you've been willing to say no to yourself and labor in this area.

84:00 Well, that's all I plan to say this morning. That's probably enough.

84:06 Now I have to subject myself to the pain of you men scrutinizing me in this area on Sunday, see? Questions? Oh, I was supposed to give you a quote from the Eclectic Society, yes. I've got to keep my promise.

84:23 Under the whole matter of of of , simplicity.

84:33 The thing they discussed on this given day was rules for sermons. Choice of a subject, point one, point two, manner of handling a subject. And this is what is said under that heading, one part of it. Having ascertained the primary meaning and application of the text and settled the manner in which it must be made to bear on your congregation, then consider in what way it may best be treated.

84:56 Whether or not it falls into just and natural divisions, which should rarely exceed three, whether the whole may not be best gathered into propositions on which you would discourse, or whether observations on the passage would not best bring out its pith and marrow. These may sometimes be extended with advantage to four or five. But this, though a pleasant and profitable way of treating subjects, is apt to lead the mind from that oneness of object which the preacher should have in view. That is, he must labor to impress his hearers with one subject.

85:31 However, he may handle his text, he should make all his divisions, propositions, and observations bear upon the great leading topic and send his hearers away with the impression of that one topic on their minds. So that was probably under unity that I had that quote.