Application in Preaching, Part 2

Guidelines for Cultivating Aptitude in Application

0:03 Well, having set before you, brethren, a description of what application is in preaching, having sought to demonstrate the biblical basis for insisting upon application in preaching, now, thirdly, I want to give you some guidelines for cultivating aptitude in application. Guidelines for cultivating aptitude in application.

0:31 And I have four guidelines. If you would cultivate real aptitude in this area, there must be in your life a continual engagement in the disciplines of personal piety. Continual engagement in the disciplines of personal piety. If the word of God is to be applied to your people with the kind of application which brings it home to their bosoms with such authority and searching closeness, to make them feel that they are having dealings with God, it must begin with the word of God coming to you that way.

1:16 Don't expect the word of God to come to your people in a qualitatively different way than it is continually coming to your own heart.

1:27 If the scriptures are given to make the man of God complete by teaching him, reproving him, correcting him, then don't expect that you will preach that word with reproving, correction, instruction, with any authority and power and bite if the word is not continually functioning in your own heart in that way. Jesus said, Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. So as the heart of the preacher is being plowed, being comforted, rebuked, instructed in specific areas in his own dealings with the word of God, he is now creating, or God is creating, in this context, the fabric out of which a searching, applicatory ministry will be exercised. You see, Dabney says again and again in his lectures on preaching that there is a necessity of eminent Christian character as the foundation of a preacher's power. And it's true at this point as in so many other points. We come back to the axiom that bridges, mentions early in his work, that the life of the preacher is indeed the life of his ministry.

2:48 And when you begin to decline in warm, consistent, heart-searching dealings with God in his word and in prayer, it is here that the declension will first show itself publicly, namely, in the edge going off your applicatory preaching. The cutting, healing, searching element of application will be absent, or, and this is frightening, you have put yourself on the high road to apostasy. A man who can cease to have the word of God cutting and wounding and searching his own heart, but continue to cut and wound and search with that word publicly is on the high road to apostasy. He's developing a hardness that is frightening. Far better that there be a decline in the cutting edge of his public ministry as witness to his own years and the years of others that there's a decline in the closet than to go on preaching publicly as though all was well secretly.

4:00 And that's one of the most frightening aspects of the ministry. That many a man has been an apostate and sunk into hell from a very searching, applicatory preaching ministry. So if you want to have, a spirit-owned ministry in the word of God, of application, and one that is not the fruit of hardness of heart and hypocrisy, then there must be, as the first requisite, continual engagement in the disciplines of personal piety. I urge you, put in your notes, Bridges, page 260,

4:42 at the bottom of the page, to 261 at the top of the page, and you can read that at your leisure. But since you don't have Murphy, I want to quote Murphy, Pastoral Theology, page 79.

4:57 It is well for the minister to study his own particular needs in every sermon that he preaches to others. He should question himself. What are my most grievous shortcomings? What are my besetting sins?

5:11 What are my deficiencies of Christian character? What hindrances do I find in my progress in grace? To what higher degrees of spirituality am I desiring? To what higher degrees of attaining?

5:23 What more good might I do in the kingdom? These and similar questions to himself would give far more directness of aim to his discourses. He may depend on it that his own needs and those of his people are very similar. Then if his discourses arise out of his own experience and are shaped to meet his own needs, they will assuredly also be applicable to the great body of his Christian people.

5:52 The soul of the minister will almost necessarily grow in grace under such a process. Its own great interest will not be neglected through exclusive care for others. Its prevailing maladies will be detected, it will be kept alive, and the proper spiritual nourishment will be given it. When every sermon is faithfully brought home to the preacher's own heart, he must advance in purity, in vigor, in knowledge, and in every other grace.

6:24 Perhaps not perceptibly, but very surely, he will make progress from year to year. Nothing could have a better effect in preserving from a perfunctory mode of preaching than this self-application of the sermon. And then he goes on to amplify that whole principle. This is where you must wage a relentless battle and refuse to give up.

6:52 This is where you must wage a relentless battle and refuse to give in, and when you've given in and failed, go to the cross for cleansing, re-establish your priorities, but determine that your first dealings with the word of God are going to be in terms of your own heart and your own walk with God. Or you will never have, unless you're on the road to hypocrisy and apostasy, a ministry of effective application. So, guideline number one for cultivating aptitude and application, continual engagement in the disciplines of personal piety. But then secondly, there must be continual engagement in the disciplines of pastoral intimacy.

The Necessity of Pastoral Intimacy

7:36 Continual engagement in the disciplines of pastoral intimacy.

7:42 It is obvious that much of what is found in the epistles of specific or applied doctrine, reproof, correction, and encouragement grew out of the knowledge of God. The knowledge of the writer with the spiritual struggles and condition of the recipients.

8:00 Corinth is the classic example. Paul's letters to Timothy are classic examples. It was his real awareness of Timothy's temperament, his age, his gastrointestinal problems, his circumstances that tailor make his words of encouragement, reproof, rebuke, admonition, warning. And this was Paul's pattern constantly.

8:24 1 Thessalonians 2, 8 and 9, where he speaks of his pastoral role like that of a father with his children. So, brethren, it's only as you are intimate with your people, with a listening ear. See, not always Lord, Sir, Oracle,

8:42 among them to give them the great benefits of your motor mouth, but among them to listen, to observe, to know who your people are, to learn where they're at in their thinking, among them with an open ear, a discerning eye, a sensitive spirit, you'll begin to detect the areas where they are confused, discouraged, where there may be presumption, indifference. To use the language of Ezekiel 18, I sat where they sat. When he went down by the river Kibar, he sat where they sat, put himself in the midst of the people of God in their oppression and in their dejection and in their shame for their being, exiled because of their sin. And this is why it's essential, if you're to have a close applicatory ministry that really addresses the issues that need to be addressed in your peculiar situation, that there must be continual engagement in the disciplines of pastoral intimacy.

9:46 You see, if you have this kind of pastoral intimacy, then you'll carry your people with you into the study. And when you're pouring over the text and saying to yourself, so what? You'll think of the answer to that question in terms of real living intercourse with your people and the framework for applications that really fit for tailor-made clothing for your people. That's where the discipline of pastoral intimacy will stand you in good stead.

10:22 Now, in our reacting against the shallow pulpit ministries of men who spend all their time in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the church, in the homes of their people, all of their time with people in their studies, counseling with them, we must not retreat into our books and our studies in such a way as to cut ourselves off from the people of God. And again, our Lord is the great and perfect example. He was never, never too busy for a needy heart. And yet, He never allowed people so to dictate that He could not a great while before day be found in the secret place praying.

11:00 Or say to the disciples, let's go over into the, over the brook Kidron, into the garden. John 18 says, He oft times resorted thither with His disciples. Our Lord is a beautiful example of retirement and activity of public-hearted, public-spirited self-giving to men and their needs, and yet retirement for the nurture of the inner life. And we must continually pray, that God will give us wisdom to know how to walk that razor's edge.

11:32 Again, listen to Murphy. He says, Getting into the feelings of the people and sympathizing with them and so addressing them is one of the secrets of successful preaching. It is certain to captivate men. It must be earnest, for how can we feel deeply for our hearers and not be fervent in our appeals to them?

11:55 But we have to get at this, and our preaching must tell. And then he goes on to say, How in the world are you going to do this unless you are among your people and interacting with them so that you can bring home the word of God to their specific concerns? For example, this series that I recently did in the Sunday school class grew out of listening to what the parents were saying as their youngsters were coming under spiritual awakening and expressing concerns. It became evident to me that there's a need, and if three or four have expressed it, maybe there's a lot more who haven't.

12:33 And so I threw out some feelers here, and two or three of you came, and then I threw out some more feelers. I was throwing out feelers. People didn't know it. They thought all I was doing was informing them that I might be doing something, but I had other reasons too.

12:47 I was throwing out feelers until I became convinced there was a much greater need than surfaced in the beginning. So this is what I mean about pastoral intimacy with your people. And that's it. That in turn will contribute to a richness, a variety, and a precision in your applicatory elements of preaching that otherwise will not be there.

Intellectual Industry and Homiletical Sedulity

13:10 But then thirdly, if you would cultivate aptitude in application, there must not only be a continual engagement in the disciplines of personal piety, engagement in the disciplines of pastoral intimacy, but continual engagement in the disciplines of intellectual industry. Continual engagement in the disciplines of intellectual industry.

13:38 Now preaching is in great measure an imitative spiritual art. Contrary to what some may tell you, that's the truth. Not because I said it is sororical, but because men wiser, more knowledgeable than I have understood this and stated it very clearly and eloquently. Preaching is in great measure an imitative spiritual art.

14:02 And the sources, to be imitated, ought to be many and cumulative.

14:10 And so you must continually expose yourself to the kinds of ministries which reflect both facility and diversity in the art of application.

14:22 That's what I mean by intellectual industry. Your mind must be actively interacting with diverse and varied models of facility in applicatory preaching.

14:38 Now thank God most of you come from churches where under living ministries you've had a variety of models.

14:46 But in the years to come, the opportunity to sit under living models may be greatly limited. So do the next best thing, and that is bury yourself in your books and obtain tapes with a view to having your own mind, your own intellectual faculties honed by clothes, and intimate contact with those who are good models in this area. Now of course it is here that the Puritans stood on a level all their own. They were masters of close, searching, applicatory preaching.

15:29 And the article I've given you as a handout today reflects the estimation of one man who was doing some intensive study on this dimension of Puritan preaching. But then, fourthly, if you are to cultivate some aptitude in application, you must, you must be prepared for the continual engagement in the disciplines of homiletical, and then I tried to come up with a word that would match piety, intimacy, industry, so I came up with sedulity. See, I get away with things here I'd never do in the pulpit. You've got to give me the liberty of using words occasionally with you guys, that I'd love to use many times publicly, but I know it would be like I was talking in tongues. Sedulity means working hard and steadily, diligently. And if you would have a growing facility in applicatory preaching, then be prepared for continual engagement in the disciplines of homiletical hard work. Sedulity.

16:39 But hard work that is steady, consistent. This aspect of your sermon preparation, requires pains, continual and unrelenting pains.

16:52 There are many times when the avenue out of proper exposition and even the artistry of homiletical construction into the realm of close application, the avenue out of those two into the third is not very clear. And it means that there will have to be much labor on your part. But if you're determined that the word will be used, that the word will be used, that the word will be used, that the word will be used, that the word will be used, that the word will come home under your ministry to the lives, the affections, the consciences and wills of your people, you will spare no pain to make sure that your preaching is marked by close, searching, compassionate application. Where you do it, how you do it, requires much arduous labor in the area of your homiletical disciplines. But you're going to be prepared to do it for the sake of your people. Now, we come in the fourth place to some concluding observations and counsels regarding application in preaching. Some concluding observations and counsels.

Concluding Observations: Earnest Prayer for Application

17:56 And when you number A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, what do you come up with? A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. Eight. Odd number, but that's what I have.

18:06 All right? Number one. Make this aspect of your sermon preparation a matter of earnest prayer.

18:15 Make this aspect of your sermon preparation a matter of earnest prayer. Make this aspect of your sermon preparation a matter of earnest prayer. Make this aspect of your sermon preparation a matter of earnest prayer.

18:22 The law of Christ's kingdom is ask and it shall be given you. You have not because you ask not. Matthew 7, 7, James 4, 4. And we need to cultivate the habit of pleading with God that we may be able to perceive what is in the text of applicatory material and to guide us in framing those applications to the law.

18:52 To the lives, to the consciences, to the thought patterns of our own people. Plead with God that He would help us to know what arrows should be constructed out of the raw materials of our exegesis and exposition. And I'm convinced that one of the reasons many ministries are marked by a lack of close, consistent application is preachers simply don't cry to God for help in this area and God leaves them at the mercy of their own people. Their own indifference to His appeal that they seek Him for wisdom and for grace.

Considering Diverse Categories of People

19:30 All right? Second counsel. In working out your applications remember and consider the real and diverse categories of people who will be attending upon your ministry. In working out your application remember and consider the real and diverse categories of people who are attending upon your ministry.

19:59 And Bridges, summarizing some excellent stuff out of Perkins in The Art of Prophesying says under that main heading, first of all, remember the three main divisions of mankind. To some degree, these three main divisions are present every time you preach in an ordinary church situation.

20:18 There is the division between the church and the world. That is, the visible people of God and those who make no profession of the Christian faith. What the scripture calls them that are without who sometimes become them that is within. You remember what Paul says?

20:33 If the unbeliever come among you assuming that there are times when the world is found in the midst of the gathered church in the person of the unconverted. Remember that distinction. But then, Perkins, summarized and simplified by Bridges says remember the distinction between true and false members of the church. As you've learned in your ecclesiology course hypocrites in the church are an anomaly.

21:02 The church is not described in terms of them. The parable of the wheat and the tares is not a parable about what the church should be. And it is certainly not the basis for a non-doctrine of church discipline. The church is described in the New Testament in terms of what it ought to be and what it is.

21:22 The community of those who are in Christ, indwelt by the Spirit, called, justified, sanctified. But we recognize this anomaly of the presence of false members. Though charity may call them what they profess, it's perfectly proper to say to such as Paul does in his epistles, be not deceived.

21:45 No unrighteous man will inherit the kingdom of God. John writes in his epistles, there are New Testament epistles that assume that hypocrites may be among the church.

21:57 So keep that in mind. True and false members of the church and then third division is the various stages of growth in the true church. You have babes, young men, and old men, according to the language of John in his epistle. You have the well-instructed and the ignorant.

22:18 And as Owen says, there are many dangers to be avoided in our preaching that none who consider these things, speaking of what he is writing, be troubled without a cause or comforted without a just foundation. I like that. None be troubled without a cause, but none be comforted without a just foundation. Well, remember those three main divisions of mankind.

22:42 When you're sitting at your desk, how shall I apply this? Well, before me this Lord's Day, there will be some raw worldings in the midst of the gathered church. Within the gathered church, there will no doubt be some hypocrites. We don't know them to be that.

22:56 If we did, they'd be under discipline and on their way out or they'd be out. But God alone knows the hearts. But because he alone knows the hearts, we do not preach as though we assume that hypocrisy is totally impossible and then the various stages of growth in the true church. Then, under this heading, remember the distinct chronological divisions in the congregation.

23:21 Not only the three main divisions of mankind to some extent present, but under this second main council, remembering, considering the diverse categories, you have the three main divisions, subheading one, subheading two. Remember the distinct, distinct chronological divisions of the congregation. You have children, teenagers, young men, young married couples, older couples, grandparents.

23:46 Follow Paul's example. He spoke to all the believers in general, then he spoke to wives, then to husbands, then to parents, then to children. He knew they'd all be gathered there when the epistle was read in the church at Ephesus. You find the same thing in Titus 2.

24:02 He says, now, Titus, you've got to tell the old men this, you've got to tell the old women this, you've got to tell the young men this, you've got to tell the young women this. What is he doing? He's giving us a pattern of applicatory preaching.

24:15 He's tailor-making the truth according to godliness with respect to the distinct chronological divisions in the congregation. And thirdly, under this second main heading, remember the distinct occupational or vocational differences. Now again, Paul is our pattern. He spoke to masters, he spoke to slaves, spoke to widows, spoke to mothers, spoke to the elders, spoke to the...

24:39 I just wonder what Bible some preachers read.

24:45 They obviously don't take the theology of preaching from the Bible.

24:49 They would never think of addressing parts of the application to specific segments of the congregation in terms of occupational differences. But the scriptures themselves do this. The young housewives and homemakers with all their routine frustrations, the single women with the pain and loneliness of their singleness and barrenness and sometimes wallowing in self-pity. The shop worker who's got to stand there at his bench all day and just ten feet away are centerfolds out of penthouse and playboy and he's got to struggle with the filth that swirls around him.

25:26 What does the word of God say to him? Well, it's in your applications that you ought to cause him to know what the word of God says to him.

Consulting Proven Masters and Avoiding Uniform Density

25:36 All right? Now then, third, general counsel, when applications are hard, when applications are hard in coming, consult the proven masters in their handling of the passage or subject. When applications are hard in coming, your own mind, after prayer and thinking through the categories, it seems the applications are coming very slowly and painfully, if at all, consult the proven masters in their handling of this passage or subject.

26:07 And don't cheat with that bogus Matthew Henry one volume thing. You get the real thing, the six volumes down off your shelf. You find old Matthew Henry getting legitimate applications out of the chronologies. And they're not artificial.

26:21 They're real, valid applications. He had the most fertile mind for application. Go run to old Matthew Henry. Run to John Calvin.

26:31 John Calvin preached those expositions in the midst of all of the swirl of pastoral pressures, his applications, especially when it gets going on the papists. But beyond that, he has, he has excellent applicatory material. He was obviously a man who lived among men. He knew great personal suffering.

26:53 He knew domestic trials. And Calvin had a large pastoral heart in the applications. As I've been preaching through Mark, I constantly consult his harmony in the Torrance edition of the New Testament, his harmony of the Gospels. And I've found some choice seed thoughts for application from Calvin.

27:11 Consult the standard Puritans who've stood the test of time and gone through several reprints. Boston, Clavel, Owen, Brooks, Manton, Sins, Goodwin, et cetera. And then consult Spurgeon. He's especially helpful in the consolatory and evangelistic applications.

27:33 He could find consolations for distressed souls and appeals to sinners in the strangest ways out of a text. But when you read them, you say, you dummy, they're there. How come you didn't see it? But he had a peculiar gift from God in that area.

27:48 I'm not embarrassed at all to say after I've prepared, I checked the textual index to see if Spurgeon has preached on the passage I'm going to preach and see what use he made of it, particularly in the area of his applications.

28:05 So, don't be at all embarrassed to look elsewhere for help. And often, a seed thought will be dropped that will then become fertile in your own mind. All right, fourth counsel, or D. Don't expect, and here's something you need to listen to me, brethren.

28:22 Don't expect a uniform density of application in every sermon. Don't expect a uniform density of application in every sermon. And what do I mean by that? Simply this.

28:36 As you engage in expository preaching, whether it's consecutive expository preaching, which I trust you will do in some parts of your ministry, or exposition by the organizing principle, of subjects, there are certain times when the bulk of your time will be taken up with exposition and explanation.

28:59 And the sheer weight of having to do that responsibly will leave little time for close application, or it may be that the subject itself does not warrant great intensity of application. So, if you've strapped your conscience with the thought, if I don't have at least ten minutes of pointed, fervent, varied, specific, pointed application in every sermon, I'm failing, you're putting a monkey of guilt on your back you ought not to put there. But over the long haul, it'll balance itself out. Whereas one week, there may be just three or four minutes of close-pointed application, the next week, why, the exposition takes only a matter of ten to fifteen minutes, and you may go to exhorting and applying for the next thirty-five minutes. And you must not lock yourself in to some kind of an artificial mold that does not allow for that freedom, which also keeps your ministry fresh and unpredictable in the right sense. All right? E.

Avoiding Stereotyped Applications and Using Searching Questions

30:06 Avoid a stereotyped and predictable structuring of your applications. Avoid a stereotyped and predictable structure of your applications.

30:20 If your applications always come at the end of thirty minutes exposition or forty minutes, people will conveniently pull down the shade right at the point where you say a now-to application. So when they're sitting there nice and relaxed thinking they're just going to get some nice, juicy, cerebral exposition, you zap them good and proper. Their guard is down, their hands are relaxed, and you catch them right between the eyes before they have a chance to pull the shade up and...

30:48 You see? So though you may find yourself as you get comfortable with your own gifts and your own style and way of preaching with a general framework, avoid being stereotyped and consistently predictable in structuring your applications. Sometimes you want to make your applications after your headings as you work your way through. Sometimes you may want to do an exposition and tell the people this is all I've done today.

31:16 It's the first half of the sermon. Next week we get the application and then preach the whole sermon on the application of it. And there's wonderful liberty here. And this is where, again, I have no use for the experts who try to tell us who don't feel the pressure that we feel.

31:31 We've only got so much time and we can only do so much within that time on any one given Lord's Day. But that's the beauty of thinking in terms of a long-range ministry. You say, well, bless God, all things being equal, I'll be back next week and can finish the sermon. All right?

31:46 Then F.

31:49 Make judicious use of searching questions in your applications. Make judicious use of searching questions in your applications. And here again, the Puritans are masters. And I'll never forget when about 20 years ago I asked myself, what in the world is it that causes me to pick up these old writers when they first began to be reprinted?

32:14 And with all of the encumbrances of the complex sentences and the old Elizabethan English, what makes them able to dive into my heart and go around with a searchlight? I was told trouble with that question. And I said, well, one thing is clear. Follow the Bible.

32:32 The Word of God itself has a searching power. And the sermons were full of the Bible. But then I noticed something. Baxter, Alleyan, Boston were some of the first Puritans I encountered and read.

32:44 And I noticed something. I said, every one of them knew how to take questions and to force me to self-reflection by the use of questions. For example, in trying to tone my mind and heart in preparation for the forthcoming ministry in Leicester, I've got to bring three messages on justification by faith in its relationship to the health and life of the Church. I heard in Donald MacLeod's sermon he spoke very highly of Traill's stuff on justification.

33:16 And in Volume 1 he has a good section on the vindication of the Protestant doctrine of justification from the unjust charge of antinomianism. But then in Volume 4 he has six sermons on righteousness in Christ. And I didn't know which that Donald MacLeod was referring to whether the ones in Volume 1 or this. So I said, I'll read them both.

33:36 So I was reading the six sermons yesterday afternoon and later last night. And I found a wonderful example of this very thing that we're talking about. And as I was working through, listen to what this does. Now, of course, you haven't felt the cumulative weight of his exposition, but he's opening up the truth that if we have a right view of the law of God, of the righteousness of Christ, and of the grace of God, only in that context will we have an appreciation of the doctrine of justification.

34:05 So as he's opened that up, he concludes with this. And your eternal state is determined by these things. What are your heart thoughts of the law of God? And I stopped and I said, what are Albert N. Martin's heart thoughts about God's law? And I began to dialogue with the Lord about that question. Second question. What are your heart thoughts of the righteousness of Christ?

34:37 It forced me. What are my heart thoughts? And I began to vocalize them before the Lord. And what are your heart thoughts of the grace of God?

34:47 And everyone that knows truly what his inward sense of these things is, may soon come to some conclusion concerning his spiritual state. Three simple questions. But I tell you, they force you to a tremendous tremendous exercise of self-reflection. You see, he didn't say, what are you prepared to state?

35:08 His very word, your heart thoughts of the law of God. Your heart thoughts of the righteousness of Christ. Your heart thoughts of the grace of God. And you find this all the way through the Puritans.

35:20 The judicious use of pointed questions, both to convict, to comfort, to console, to impel to action the full spectrum of what's involved in applicatory preaching. And you and I must cultivate this holy art of the use of searching questions.

Expecting the Spirit's Aid and Paying the Price

35:42 All right? Next counsel.

35:46 G. Pray for and expect the aid of the Spirit in suggesting additional applications in the act of preaching. Pray for and expect the aid of the Spirit in suggesting additional applications in the act of preaching. I want to explain my terminology.

36:11 I'm not saying that in the act of preaching you expect direct revelation when I say suggesting. I mean in the ordinary workings of the human mind which works by law of association. If I say blackboard, law of association, you think chalk. At least I hope you do.

36:22 Well, in the act of preaching, often, in the peculiar dynamics of the Spirit's peculiar dynamics of the Spirit's peculiar dynamics of the Spirit's peculiar dynamics of the Spirit's peculiar dynamics, I think that the mind that has been exercised in a given direction of application will find suggested to it other avenues of application that never occurred in the study. And brethren, I believe we ought to pray for and expect the aid of the Spirit in suggesting those additional applications as they come in the act of preaching. In the act of preaching, we come closest to what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 14. The unbeliever comes upon you, comes among you, and if all prophesy, the thoughts of his heart are laid bare, and he falling down will cry out, God is of the truth among you. I believe that's the closest thing to prophesying with a small p, that when in the act of preaching, the word of God that we've expounded in the ordinary processes of our mind, we're not talking about hearing voices or direct revelation, but the Spirit of God enables us to make additional applications which at times are so tailor-made that people will think

37:50 for sure that somebody squealed on them. And they sense God has come and found me out. He's found me out. Pray for and expect the aid of the Spirit in suggesting those additional applications as they come in the act of preaching.

38:08 And then I wish I didn't have to give you this final counsel, but I have to. If you're going to do applicatory preaching, be prepared, be prepared to pay the price of consistent, close, applicatory preaching. Be prepared to pay the price. And what is that price?

38:33 I'm not talking now about the price in terms of maintaining the disciplines that we dealt with under the previous heading. But with respect to other men, you'll be accused of arrogance in attempting to play God. Isn't the word of God sufficient? Just preach the word.

38:50 You're going from exposition to pointed, specific, detailed application. Who in the world do you think you are? You'll be accused of being arrogant in playing God and delving into people's lives where you've got no business delving. Be prepared to pay the price.

39:07 On the other hand, you'll be accused of unbelief. You don't have confidence that the naked truth can make its own application. You have a low view of Scripture. You see, those who just simply expound and say, I leave the applications to God, although they have great confidence in the word of God, when as we've seen, their very view of preaching is defective and stands under the judgment of the very word in which they say they have confidence.

39:35 So you'll be accused on the one hand of being arrogant in attempting to play God. You'll be accused of unbelief in not having confidence in the naked truth of God. Then you'll be accused of fanaticism in demanding felt spiritual reality of your hearers. You'll be accused of fanaticism in demanding felt spiritual reality.

39:57 You're not going to be content to parade the truth before their mental eyes and have them blink at it in a sense and say, that's nice. You want what you've expounded to come home to their thinking, to their lifestyle, to the patterns of behavior, to the conscience, to the will, to the affections, and you're going to make it evident that your job is not done until the word of God has touched them there. Then you'll get accused of fanaticism. Then you'll be accused of, quote, browbeating your people.

40:28 That's the latest in terminology. Browbeating your people. Thumping on your people. Oppressing your people.

40:33 But isn't it interesting that the people who are walking with God and have a warm love to Christ, they're the ones that'll love you the most for, quote, browbeating them because they don't regard your close applicatory preaching as browbeating. They regard it as your loving pastoral concern for your pastoral concern that's determined to get them to heaven and won't let them slide into hell easily. That's what McShane meant when he said, never forget, my dear people, the man who loves you the most is the man who tells you the most truth about yourself. And frankly, I can never understand people that resent close applicatory preaching. I pity a man who in the name of applicatory preaching is just haranguing compassion. I pity such a person.

41:40 But when someone loves me enough to dive into my conscience and force me to be honest with God in my soul and whether I'm thinking as I ought about God and his world and his son and his cross and the life of discipleship and heaven and hell, anybody that can get me nearer that world where all my affections have been embedded by grace, he's my friend. He's my friend. I don't care if he roughs me up a little bit in the process. As long as I know he loves me, he can rough me up all he wants.

42:15 He can beat up on me good because I know he's beaten up on me for my good, that he might help me to heaven, help me to be more like Christ, help me to be more useful. And frankly, when people are overly fastidious, I'm always suspicious they've got an ethical controversy with God. But you'll be accused of that. And the times when you point your finger at your friends when you've been choked up and your tears have coursed down you, they'll conveniently forget all of that.

42:46 They'll conveniently forget when you've come in as it were and stroked the weary backs of fellow pilgrims and when you've succored the people of God with pointed consolatory application but because they've got pockets of ethical controversy with God, when you start pinching their raw nerves, then you'll get the answer. I don't know of one man that I know personally whose ministry is marked by close searching application who is not accused of being a browbeater. And I could name the men. There aren't that many, but I could name them.

43:25 But I know those men and they are gracious men. They are loving men. They are men who live and labor and weep and pray and pour as deep as they can. And there's no way you can do that without applicatory preaching.

43:48 So, you're going to have to pay the price. Humanly speaking, I know why I'll never be the darling of the conference circuit. There's one fundamental reason. They can't predict what I'm going to do.

44:11 They can't predict the salvation of half the people who are there. You can't predict his applications. You can't predict him. One seminary, I was persona non grata for seven years, six years, because of that very thing.

44:35 And then they wanted me to consent in writing that if I came in my dealing I have said I would not expose anything that came under the searchlight of the word of God. I said, you want me on those terms? You don't want me bad enough and I don't want you. My life was complete before I ever spoke on your campus.

45:08 It would be complete if I had the ability to do that. I am not a fool. That's not my prevailing character. And I know people could hack homiletics, people could hack the overall preaching gifts and all the rest.

45:32 But that's the part they're just a bit skittish about. I mean, we could just give him preach to us on the ground. I don't say that because my nose is bent. As I've told you men, if I had my choice, I'd do nothing but expend all of my labors within the precincts of this assembly and the ministries connected with it.

46:08 So I don't say that because I've got no cap in which to put feathers with regard to being prestigious speaker at prestigious conference, etc. No, sir. You be Christ's free man at any point, in any situation, to take his word in any direction, its legitimate application needs to be taken. He's a beautiful example at the precise points when Christian needed someone to bring the word of God to bear upon him.

46:52 He gave him counsels that helped him on his way to heaven. And I trust God will help us to do the same. Well, that's what I wanted to say to you