The Preacher's Emotional Condition, #2

Introduction: The Preacher's Emotional Duty

0:03 Well, as we come today to our fifth consideration of this important subject of the essential elements of effective pastoral preaching, in terms of the act of preaching itself, I've already indicated prior to our praying together that we are taking up for the second time this subject of the act of preaching in relationship to ourselves, particularly our emotional constitution and activity. Now, since our understanding of the proper place of the emotions in preaching must rest upon a proper view of the emotions in general, it was necessary in our lecture last week to cover some broad categories of biblical and general revelation that we can use in our preaching. Regarding the emotions, and so I attempted to set before you three, not four as I announced, three categories of thought. We worked with a definition and description of what we meant by the emotions, namely the conscious sensibilities of the soul, and then we considered for a time the origin and the moral quality of the emotions, and then finally the strategic place and function of the emotions, in oral communication.

1:27 Now, today our task is to wrestle with the outworking and application of these perspectives as they impinge upon our efforts to preach the word of God. And again today we have three units of thought or categories of thought in the unfolding of the lecture. First of all, I want to establish the fact of our obligations with respect to, this whole matter of our emotions, and then I'll give you these other headings as we proceed. We'll look at some practical guidelines for the fulfillment of our biblical duty, and then we'll conclude with some miscellaneous observations and cautions.

2:10 First of all then, I want to establish that it is our duty to labor for the cultivation, control, and appropriate expression, of our emotions. It is our duty to labor for the cultivation, control, and appropriate expression of our emotions. Now, I'm very much aware that this language may sound strange in our feeling-oriented age, the age in which we have been sold a bill of goods with respect to our emotions. And that bill of goods is, that our emotions are a commodity, a faculty, over which we have no control. There's a sense in which it is proper to ride the crest of them in terms of whatever direction they may take us, and to hear that it is our duty to cultivate, control them, and to give them an appropriate expression may indeed sound strange. But as in all other matters of faith, the Scriptures are the only and the sufficient rule for our judgment, for our actions, and we will turn to the Scriptures for a demonstration of this duty.

Biblical Demonstration of Emotional Duty

3:37 As surely as the Scriptures present us with the fact that our emotions are part of the creation, fall, redemptive, or redemption complex, or they come within that complex, the Scriptures also lay the groundwork for our actions. They lay before us our duty with respect to this matter of the cultivating, controlling, and finding appropriate expression of our emotions. Now this position could be demonstrated, first of all logically, by the use of a syllogism. Self-control, major premise, is a biblical duty.

4:13 Proverbs 16.22, Proverbs 14.29, Galatians 5.23.

4:22 Self-control is a biblical duty. Minor premise, our emotions are part of our God-given self. Conclusion, the control of our emotions is our duty. Self-control is a biblical duty.

4:40 Our emotions are part of our God-given self. Therefore, the control of our emotions is a biblical duty. But we don't want to be dealing with syllogisms, but we can turn directly to the Word of God and look at some specifics. There are some passages in which God, explicitly addressing Himself to individuals or to His people in general, demands of them the control and appropriate expression of their emotions.

5:12 For instance, when we turn to the prophet Joel, we find him calling the people of God to spiritual exercises that impinge upon their emotional, emotional life. In the book of Joel, and in the light of the impending judgment of God that is to come in the form of an army of locusts, the prophet cries out in chapter 2 and in verse 12, Yet even now saith the Lord, Turn unto me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your heart, and knot your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God. Excuse me. Verse 17, Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O God, and give not thy heritage to reproach. Now this is obviously a call to a state and condition of heart which will find expression in emotional realities appropriate to that state of heart.

6:41 The people of God are called upon to turn unto the Lord with all the heart. That's an inward spiritual exercise. And with fasting, that's an external, physical-spiritual exercise. Spiritual discipline.

7:00 But now notice, These are to be joined with appropriate emotional expressions and with weeping and with mourning. This turning to God with all the heart in a context of self-denial with respect to normal physical appetites is to be attended with weeping and with mourning. There's to be a rending of the heart. There's to be no mere external tearing of the garments and taking an external posture of contrition.

7:34 There's to be nothing short of an inward experience of a broken heart with its appropriate expression of weeping and of mourning. And God calls the people of God to this. It is their duty by virtue of the prophetic utterance. And then in Ezekiel chapter 24, we have a very interesting revelation of the will of God to one of his prophets.

8:03 Ezekiel chapter 24 beginning with verse 15. Ezekiel, unlike Jeremiah, was a married man. But a very severe stroke comes upon him in terms of the loss of his wife. And we read in Ezekiel 24 in verse 15 these words, Also the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, behold, I take away from you the desire of your eyes with a stroke.

8:34 Yet you shall neither mourn nor weep, neither shall your tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud. Make no mourning for the dead. Bind thy head-tire upon thee, and put thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men.

8:57 So I spoke unto the people in the morning, and that even my wife died, and I did in the morning, as I was commanded. Now the command of God touched the man of God at the point of the control of his emotions in the face of the most grievous stroke of God upon him, and the expression of those emotions. I will take away, and let me say by an aside, may your wife always be the desire of your eyes. What a lovely description of a wholesome marriage relationship. He still looked at her and ogled. She was the desire of his eyes. And the best way to keep yourself from looking at the things you shouldn't is always to make sure your wife is the delightful desire of your eyes.

9:54 And so God describes his wife, euphemistically in that way, she's the desire of your eyes. And he said, I'm going to take her away. What would be natural and normal for the man of God to be utterly broken in heart, to be emotionally shattered, and to express that emotional state in the most appropriate, normal, expected way, profuse mourning and weeping. And God says, you shall not do it.

10:21 You shall not do it. He said, now I'm going to let you have a little vent for your emotions. You may sigh, but not out loud. God says you're going to have to put a cap on the normal emotional expression and lest it would utterly shatter him.

10:38 God leaves a little safety valve. Sigh, but not aloud. Make no mourning for the dead. And he says, I did as I was commanded.

10:50 And if you had come and found Ezekiel sobbing and weeping and said, why are you doing that? And if he had said, well, I can't help it. You want me to be inhuman? It would have been sinning against the word of God for him not to have controlled his emotional response according to the word of God.

11:10 It's a strange passage. We won't go into why God commanded this. I think there are some indications as to the reason for this. But we're simply trying to see the great principle that it is our duty to labor for the cultivation, control, and appropriate expression of our emotions.

Further Biblical Examples of Commanded Emotions

11:29 Now then, turn over to the book of Nehemiah. We're reading Nehemiah in our own family worship, and I have been absolutely fascinated with the tremendous principles of godly leadership seen in Nehemiah. He was a man of prayer, a man of great sensitivity, and yet a man who could get angry and show his anger. I was just sharing with Mr. Waldron when these characters started gathering around the gate on the Sabbath, he warned them. He said, the next time you do this, I'll come and lay hands on you. He said, I'll run you guys off physically if you don't behave yourself. Well, this man, Nehemiah, chapter 8, verses 9 through 12, we find the following.

12:10 Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest, the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto the people, this is after the reading of the law and the re-institution of the feast, This is a day holy unto the Lord your God, mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. Perhaps it was a mingled weeping, some of joy that at last the law of God was being read again, the other the grief of penitence and remorse when they saw or heard afresh the measure of their declension from the norms of God's holy law. But now he says, you must not mourn nor weep, for all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. Then he said unto them, go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions unto him for whom nothing is prepared. For this day is holy unto our Lord, neither be ye grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, hold your peace, for the day is holy, neither be ye grieved.

13:24 And all the people went their way to eat and to drink and to send portions and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them. Here now was in a sense a corporate act of obedience in the same category as we find with Ezekiel. With Ezekiel he was commanded not to mourn. Here they are commanded not only not to mourn, but to express, to experience and express the opposite emotion of joy and its appropriate manifestations in their national life.

14:03 And the word of God says that they were obedient to that direction. Then we turn over into the New Testament. We find our Lord in that section, commonly called the Beatitudes, describing the sons of the kingdom as a people who will be persecuted for righteousness sake, and yet what are they to do? Matthew 5.11 Blessed are you when men shall reproach you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Now what is the natural, the normal reaction when somebody's bad-mouthing you under any circumstances? What's the natural reaction? All right, either anger of retaliation or a deep sense of hurt and wound.

14:58 Now when you're being bad-mouthed, for doing good, then the sense of hurt in the face of that injustice can cripple and wound the spirit. But what does the Lord say? He calls us to do something that is entirely contrary to our natural response. He says rejoice and be exceeding glad.

15:22 Now having commanded us to do that, He says there is a consideration which if it fills your mind more than the indignity done to you by this unjust persecution, if this truth fills your mind, namely that you're in the company of the great prophets, you are in the association and fellowship of the righteous, and with them you have a great reward coming. As that truth fills your mind, then your emotions will find an appropriate expression, rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you. The great principle again being that God has a right to command us with respect to the cultivation, control, and appropriate expression of our emotions. We find our Lord doing this on His way to the cross in Luke chapter 23 and verse 28. Luke 23 and verse, perhaps we pick up the reading at verse 27. And there followed Him a great multitude of the people and of women who bewailed and lamented Him.

16:38 But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me. Now here you see it was not the emotion itself, but it was the occasion that was precipitating it. He says, You are weeping because you see the treatment I am receiving. Don't let the reality of the treatment I am receiving precipitate your tears.

17:03 But weep for yourselves and for your children. Let your minds be directed to the coming days in which such judgments will come upon you that they will pronounce as blessed those who are now regarded as under a curse, namely, barren women, wombs that never bore, and breasts that never gave suck. So our Lord in this instance commands, you see, that their weeping not be changed into laughter or into rejoicing, but that the whole occasion precipitating the weeping, the whole focus of the mind and of the spirit be diverted from one category of reality to another. And then, of course, those mandates such as we find in Romans 12.11 and 12.15, we are told that we are not to be slothful in sin, slothful, I want to say business, I think that's the old authorized, in diligence, not slothful, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. God commands me to be boiling in my spirit in the midst of doing the service of God, whatever that may be.

18:20 There is a command with respect to the state of my spirit, a lethargic, dull, lifeless spirit, is something that God says must not mark me. I am to be boiling in spirit. That is my duty. Or in a sense, it is that boiling spirit that will enable me to work with diligence instead of with slothfulness.

18:45 And then verse 15 of that same chapter, rejoice with them that rejoice. You say, how can I do that? I'm at a low point. I'm crushed with things that make me sad.

18:56 Now my brother, he's having a glory fit. And God says, I've got to enter in to his present state of spiritual emotion? He said, yes. You're to rejoice with those who rejoice.

19:11 Now you're having a glory fit and you come to your brother and he's weeping. What are you to do? He says, you're to weep with them that weep. Now does the Lord mean that we somehow turn on some kind of an artificial expression of emotion?

19:25 Of course not. What he is saying is that we must bring our emotions into empathetic and sympathetic contact with the emotional state of our brethren and then allow an appropriate expression of that emotion. So he's calling to an inward identity of emotional sympathy with an appropriate and similar external expression. And then in 1 Corinthians 7 and verse 30, another text, in which we find a similar emphasis.

19:59 And those that weep as though they wept not, in the light of whatever this shortened time is, this crisis to which the apostle refers, which conditions his whole perspective on the desirability of marriage, he says in that context, and those that weep as though they wept not. In other words, they must not give vent to the full and natural expression of the weeping state. They are to have their weeping state under control. And those that rejoice as though they rejoiced not.

The Nature of Commanded Emotions: Not Feigned, But Real

20:39 In other words, their emotional high is to be one that is under self-conscious control. And then you have such passages as James 4 and verse 9 and others could be brought to bear, but I hope these are enough, brethren, to convince you that when I make the assertion that it is our duty to labor for the cultivation, control, and appropriate expression of our emotions, I am not jumping outside the lids of the Bible, but that I am speaking within the perspectives found within the lids of the Bible. Now in all of these passages, is God calling to a kind of ham acting in which men play a game of laughter or tears? Well, you know the answer to that, for everywhere the Bible abominates this, and most men even reject it as a sham, something that elicits disgust. But the crux of the issue is this. God calls men to come to grips with those realities which, if consciously and powerfully present in the soul, cannot but produce the commanded emotional state and its appropriate expression.

21:56 When he says, turn to me with weeping, he is saying, turn to me with a broken heart that will find a natural outlet in the tears of penitence. Furthermore, these passages indicate that higher considerations may dictate the restraint of any given emotional state. The emotional state in itself may be legitimate, but its appropriate expression at that time may not be legitimate. Nehemiah and Ezekiel.

22:29 So the whole idea that if I am self-consciously reigning in emotion, or self-consciously seeking even to change from one emotional state to another, the idea that that is somehow unspiritual will not stand the test of these passages. When those people were weeping after the hearing of the reading of the law and the word of God came to them from Nehemiah saying, don't weep, the joy of the Lord is your strength, your to think, not in terms of the tragedy of what you were, but the blessedness of what God has now done, they were responsible to go through that whole mental, intellectual, spiritual, emotional interaction that would bring them out of a state of mourning into a state of genuine rejoicing. And further yet, in all of these passages, it is assumed that the emotion and its appropriate expression are normally concurrent. It's assumed that the emotion and its appropriate expression are normally concurrent. It's like the sign and the thing signified in the Bible.

23:42 Sometimes the thing signified is mentioned, sometimes the sign only assuming the thing signified. So a call to repentance can be couched in terms of the external manifestations of repentance. For instance, James says, let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Well what's he calling for?

24:04 He's calling for an experience of inward repentance. But he does so in terms of the external manifestations of that inward repentance. Well I trust Brethren that this establishes in your own mind the biblical basis for this assertion with which we began the lecture this morning. It is our duty to labor for the cultivation cultivation, control, and appropriate expression of our emotions. Now if this is a general duty for all of the people of God in varying circumstances, how much more when all our faculties are concentrated on the great and weighty issues of time and eternity in the act of preaching. When the mind and heart are taken up with clear views of reality, the lines to the emotions should all be plugged in, and there ought to be no short circuits. All right? Now the second division of our lecture this morning, some guidelines for the cultivation and control of the emotions in preaching. Some guidelines for the cultivation and control of the emotions in

Guidelines for General Emotional Cultivation

25:21 preaching. Now as we come to this subject, brethren, please remember, I think I alluded to this last week, that being a Christian is not a physical condition. It is a state of атrociousness. It of remaining sin, there are kinks in the entirety of our redeemed humanity. Also, constitutional, environmental, and attitudinal pressures have exerted an influence upon all of us, molding and shaping this whole matter of our emotional climate. Some of those influences have been virtuous, some have been vicious or sinful, some have been neutral. And so in working out these things, we'll have to come to grips with some of those realities. Well, as I try to break down the guidelines, let me break them down into two categories, all right?

26:12 The first will be the general cultivation and control of our emotions, and then the second area will be specific emotional cultivation and control in the act of preaching. And I'm making that distinction that is present in athletics. And brethren, don't ever let me hear you say athletics. If you want to add two more gray hairs to my temples, say athletics. No, there is no A in there. It's athletics. Three syllables. Don't put a fourth in, all right?

26:48 So if you want to have mercy on my ear, please, at least not in my presence, what you say behind my back is all right. But don't say athletics. It's athletics. Now, in athletics, everyone who's ever engaged in any athletic activities is aware that there is both general conditioning and specific conditioning.

27:13 General conditioning is what the athlete undergoes continually so that he may keep himself in overall physical conditioning, in good physical condition. But then he does what is called specific conditioning. That is, the conditioning found in conjunction with his own particular field of specialty. You will find that all track and field men, for the most part, perhaps maybe not shot putters, but they may be the one exception, but almost all track and field men do a modicum of general running for general conditioning. But now when you watch the 220 men and the 440 men and the 3,000 meter men, they all do the same. They do the opposite. They do the inner push, they do the inner push, they do the inner push, they do the inner push, they do the inner push, they do the out, you will notice that in the specific conditioning for their event, there is tremendous diversity. Well, what we want to deal with this morning in giving these guidelines is to take this general emotional cultivation and its appropriate expression, and then come down more specifically to the act of preaching itself. Now, everything that I said under the heading of

28:22 the man in the opening units of our course of systematic, I'm sorry, of pastoral theology, with respect to keeping up good emotional health in general, is assumed at this point. Such things as wholesome diversion, the place of music, laughter, a healthy emotional relationship with your wife, etc. All of this is part of the general emotional cultivation and its appropriate expression that ought to be part and parcel of your own life. You've got to learn what it is to be a real, ordinary human being in the totality of life if you're going to be able to have a proper control upon your emotions in preaching. If you have some perverted view of the place of the emotions in general, or if you have some major hang-ups in the expression of your emotions in general, it will no doubt show up somewhere in your preaching. For instance, turn that off for a minute, all right? Yeah. But now, brethren, assuming that, let me give some

Specific Practices for General Emotional Health

29:33 specific directions for general emotional cultivation and its appropriate expression that will materially influence your preaching. Number one, engage in regular biblical meditation. Engage in regular biblical meditation. In Psalm 13, 39, 3, the psalmist said, While I was musing, the fire burned. Then spake I. Psalm 39, and verse 3. While I was musing, the fire burned.

30:15 You see, a man does not feel deeply who does not think deeply. Now, there's a peculiar danger in your days of preparation here at the academy. There is so much material that must be mastered, another great mass of material that if not mastered, you must at least become acquainted with it, and all that in a short time. And the frustration you feel is that you have so many undigested ideas floating by, and you're told that they're important enough to form part of the course, and they are. And yet you just wish you could go off for a day or two, and you just wish you could go off for a day or two, and you just wish you could go off for a day or two, to think through that particular perspective in your biblical theology course, your systematics, or in your church history course. You just wish you had the time to do more chewing, and masticating, and thorough absorption. But that's unrealistic. And one of the great benefits of a concentrated period of theological education is that you do get that collage, that general exposure that makes you aware of what the issues are, even though you don't know them.

31:26 Or you've not yet been able to sort them all out. And you must not put yourself on a guilt trip, feeling that you're somehow sinning because you can't give the time necessary to all of that fine-tuning and that in-depth sorting out. But now that can create a bad mental habit. And that bad mental habit is that we do not give ourselves to some regular, serious, unhurried biblical meditation. And this is one reason why, brethren, you, above all, are not able to do that. And that's why I'm telling you, brethren, that you should not indebtedly avoid this thought. All of us, above all others, should welcome the return of each Lord's Day, so that on that day, out from under the normal pressures of your studies, which are intense, you can take a specific aspect of truth and bring your mind and spirit into its presence and remain there long enough to feel its warmth, its weight, its pressure upon your whole redeemed humanity. Now let me get concrete.

32:27 let me suggest if you've not done anything like this that you actually put into your calendar something like this that this Lord's Day I will try to take a half an hour in the afternoon to just read over and reflect upon some of the most vivid passages in the Old and New Testaments on the doctrine of the final judgment and you're just going to let your mind and spirit as it were come into close proximity to that one truth the final judgment you may want to take just one great passage such as Revelation 20 verses 11 through 15 or Matthew chapter 25 31 to 46 and read it over and over again and reflect and meditate upon that passage until something of the great truth of judgment begins to reverberate in the depths of your inner being and you have a great truth of judgment and you have a great truth of judgment a felt reaction to the doctrine of the final judgment now your main purpose in that meditation is not to sharpen your understanding of any of the revealed details of the final judgment but to feel upon your spirit the weight of the reality of the final judgment take some of the passages on hell some of the passages on heaven the great truth of adoption

33:54 some of these great theological foundational pivots of the Christian faith take one of them and engage in some form of regular biblical meditation upon that truth man's state in sin under condemnation his spiritual inability those truths that you know intellectually and you believe as a Christian but under the sheer pressure of having to absorb so many other truths you've simply not had time to bring your spirit into the presence of that truth until you feel its pressure upon your whole inner man engage in regular biblical meditation secondly exercise the imagination and empathetic faculties exercise the imagination and empathetic faculties our imaginations are that faculty by which we can reproduce in our minds images that if we were there we would be able to see with our eyes and imagination is the ability to see with the eyes of the mind and to see as vividly as though we were actually looking with the eyes the physical eyes upon physical objects and when you read the scriptures attempt to exercise

35:23 not only the imagination but the empathetic faculties particularly when reading the gospel and also reading the epistles reading anywhere but you'll find it more so perhaps in the gospels there was a dealing with real people in the real life of our Lord with real needs real unbelief real faith real desire real indifference all of these things and what we need to do in reading the passage is seek to empathize with the emotional current that runs through that passage put out as it were our own inner sensors until we begin to feel what is throbbing through that passage for instance how can someone read Luke 15 and strip that passage of emotion it can't be done the lost sheep the lost coin the lost son the entire passage throbs with this emotion of holy joy upon finding the lost object in each case now you can't read that passage and realize that it's not really understand what our Lord is saying until you can see as it were the light and the countenance of that woman who finds that coin and she's so thrilled with it she runs around like a crazy woman to all of her neighbors come rejoice with me I found my coin and likewise with the shepherd who comes back

36:50 with that lost sheep upon his shoulder and when we read that the father ran to that returning prodigal and threw his arms around him brethren open his arms as it were your inner being use your imagination and empathetic faculties to feel the pressure of that passage upon your spirit this came on to me again so forcefully yesterday in my own devotional reading I'm reading through the gospel of Mark at present as part of my devotional reading and I was seeking to do this not thinking so much of the lecture but it's something I try to do continually but in that whole incident of the death of Jesus John the Baptist a tremendously moving thing and my mind was trying to relive by imagination not the details of the dance of the daughter of Herodias that could lead to lust to think what there was that would cause a grown man to promise her half of his kingdom she must have had it really all put together in the right places and really showed it off well to so displace a man's judgment his sense of values and his sense of value but what it must have been like when John the Baptist heard the trump of the boot of the soldiers coming to the place where he was imprisoned and tried to relive it says they beheaded him just a few words but how do you get your head chopped off well first of all someone has to put

38:20 your head on a block what must have gone through John's mind what would go through my mind if the day should come when I must lay my head on the block for Christ's sake and just let me let your spirit your mind your imagination your empathetic faculties try to enter in and relive something of what is recorded in the word of God this will do much for your general emotional cultivation and finding appropriate expressions and you'll find yourself as I was yesterday horrified at the kind of spiritual and moral madness of a man whose eyes so wide and whose eyes so burned with lust that he will barter away a man of God what a tragedy and if you don't actually weep you ought to be as grown in your spirit at the ugly sight of the human heart left to itself then when you think of noble John and I tried to think of what it would have been like as he held his breath awaiting the broad sword to come down in the moment it severed his head from his body how his spirit went immediately into the presence of God and into the presence of the God whom he knew and he loved and what that must have meant for him and continues to mean for him brethren this is what I'm talking about I hope I'm giving you some concrete expression of what I mean by exercising the imagination and the empathetic faculties

39:48 we had an expression of this last night we had the joy of having the Nichols and the Youngs over to our home for the evening meal and we put on various forms of music afterward and one of the things I put off was the fact that someone with an excellent bass baritone voice singing very movingly from Mendelssohn's Elijah the prayer of Elijah Lord God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob let it be known this day that I am thy servant I've done these things according to thy word and both of the brethren spontaneously expressed how it enabled them to enter in more fully to the whole spirit of that passage hearing his prayer in a musical form but you see that was not that would not happen if there was not an opening up of the whole faculty of imagination and empathy so exercise these faculties in your reading of the word of God and then thirdly engage in regular biblical meditation exercise the imagination and empathetic faculties thirdly give vent to the appropriate emotional expressions in the midst of these activities give vent to the appropriate emotional expressions in these activities as you are meditating say next Lord's Day on the glories of heaven brother if you feel like shouting if your kids are taking a nap put a pillow over your mouth to muffle it but shout

41:18 in other words let there be an appropriate expression of that inward emotion you find this again and again in the Psalms in the morning O Lord thou shalt hear my voice in the morning I will hear you I will lift up my voice I cried to the Lord in my distress and you have those words that describe an appropriate verbal expression of the inward state of the soul why go I mourning all the day long we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened and I refuse I know some take the position since the Bible comes out of the Semitic culture and the Semitic culture is more marked by emotion by emotional liberty we must take that into consideration I will not bind my Bible to the culture in which God chose to have his word come to us we must recognize there are cultural peculiarities but surely we're not going to say that our Lord is only the perfect man for Semitic Christians you see that's where that thing doesn't cut any mustard because in our blessed Lord we find emotions cutting an appropriate expression when he's angry it shows in his eyes and in the tone of his voice and when he's moved with compassion it shows in the tears that come down from his eyes and in the tenderness of his entreaties and our Lord was a Jew but he's also

42:47 the perfect model of his people and he is so no less in his emotional constitution and in the emotional expressions so seek to give vent then to the appropriate emotional expressions particularly as you engage in these disciplines in secret what we say and how we conduct ourselves alone with God ought to be matters too sacred for the most part even to discuss with others and then fourthly read out loud seeking to let the appropriate emotional impact be felt as you read and expressed in the manner in which you read it read out loud seeking to let the appropriate emotional impact be felt as you read and expressed in the manner in which you read do this with your own reading of the scriptures where you can and certainly with the reading if not of whole sermons certain passages of sermons this is that general conditioning of the emotions and their appropriate expressions and the person who has learned how to have this constant general emotional cultivation is the man

Emotional Cultivation in Sermon Preparation

44:15 who will be much more likely to have the proper control and expression of his emotions in the act of preaching alright now let's move then from that first category of general emotional cultivation and its appropriate expression and I gave you those four suggestions to specific emotional cultivation and control in preaching itself specific emotional cultivation and control in preaching itself and here I have two subheadings our formal preparation and in our actual delivery of the sermon now the axiom for our preparation is seek a real but restrained emotional engagement in the process of preparation seek a real but restrained emotional engagement in the process of preparation perhaps I can put it this way in preparation the whole man is engaged and if we divide him up for the sake of discussion into head or the activity of the intellect and heart or the conscious activity of the emotions in preparation

45:45 there is a need there is by the very nature of what we're doing a legitimate predominance of the head the work of exegesis the work of structuring the work of analyzing whether the point will be made clear the necessity of an illustration there is not the living interaction with the people of God there is not the peculiar unction that comes up from the man of God in the act of preaching so we should not again put ourselves in a posture where we have a false sense of guilt if we do not feel an equal impact of head and heart in the process of preparation however the preparation should not be utterly devoid of the activity of conscious emotion and so I've expressed the axiom this way seek a real but restrained emotional engagement in the process of preparation and here of course the place of maintaining a prayerful attitude is so vital because often we have it's when the emotions become engaged at the level of preparation that the mind becomes most fruitful you see so that the person who says well the activity of emotions is for preaching and the activity of the study is purely intellectual he will be robbed of some of his richest thoughts if his emotions are not engaged but if his emotions become too much engaged the things

47:14 that go for the kind of preparation that make clear accurate preaching often will suffer and so we must learn how to find that golden mean of a very real engagement of the emotions but one that is yet restrained due to the peculiar circumstances of preparation now Alexander speaks to this issue when he says on page 20 having stated that passion is eloquence he says no man can be a true preacher without great feeling hence the value of devotional preparation you should cease for writing moments of great feeling record the outflow of these and you will perhaps have some measure of them in delivery that is record the outflow of these great feelings that come in preparation as they cause the mind to become more fruitful in the work of exposition and application and he says you will perhaps he doesn't say you will of necessity you will perhaps have some measure of them in delivery now we're very conscious that what happens in the act of preaching is unpredictable as we preach an unexpected thaw may come and there may be tremendous

48:42 expansion of the emotions totally disproportionate to what we experience in the study there may be an unexpected thaw God may come with a gentle southerly wind and everything is thawing and before long there's a river of holy emotion flowing through our sermon on the other hand there are times when you felt a tremendous thaw in preparation and you expect a torrent in preaching and man is hardly a trickle that's the unpredictableness but brethren we I trust are not fanatics and we do not presume upon God we recognize that though the ways of the spirit and the interaction as we saw last week of our own elusive humanity or such that we cannot predict these things neither do we want to be presumptuous and as a rule the level of felt grip and warmth and holy passion experienced in preparation will be an index of what we will experience in the act of preaching as a rule the level of felt grip and warmth and holy passion experienced in preparation will be an index of what will be known in the act of preaching augmented yes expanded

50:12 we trust but for a man who has known no emotional engagement in the whole process of preaching to expect that somehow this thing will simply ignite in preaching I say is presuming upon God now if he has labored in the period of preparation and prayed and sought to have the engagement of his emotions and due to factors that he can't sort out he's come through the entire time of preparation with his spirit dull and lifeless then he just throws himself upon God and says Lord have mercy upon my poor efforts and please do something that hasn't been done here now those times will come brethren and I'm not in any way seeking to discourage the preacher who goes through those but what I'm saying is we must not accept this as the norm and there may be times when in the midst of preparation where we must simply pause and say Lord this kind of truth ought to have me ecstatic with joy and here I sit here without an ounce of felt conscious emotional engagement Lord have mercy upon my pitiable soul and you cry to God and you stay by that truth until God by the spirit enables you to experience some measure of the engagement of your inner man alright so that's the emotional cultivation that ought to be

Emotional Cultivation in Sermon Delivery

51:39 sought at the level of preparation specific preparation now what about in the actual delivery well the axiom I give you is this seek a free life , but real and controlled flow of the emotions throughout the entire delivery seek a free but real and controlled flow of the emotions throughout the entire delivery the biblical mandate is quench not the spirit don't put out the fire of the spirit but the Bible tells us the fruit of the spirit is self control so while we must not quench the spirit by a control of the holy emotions that he has produced neither do we want to grieve the spirit by a sinful self indulgence in our emotions so there we are on the razor's edge quench not but grieve not in the Holy Spirit who is the spirit of discipline God has not given to us a spirit of fearfulness but we have to but of power and of love and of discipline well the spirit of discipline is grieved when we lose emotional control but he's quenched when we are so fearful of losing control we don't give proper

53:08 vent to our emotions now you talk about being on the razor's edge brethren that's where we are in our preaching quench not grieve not and the scripture gives us both of those mandates and then of course they must be real emotions why? because the bible says lie not one to another and to feign emotions is the highest form of dishonesty to feign excitement where there is none is to lie because in communicating we not only communicate by the substance of our words but by the manner in which we convey them as I was reflecting on this trying to illustrate it I can remember so vividly when Heidi was a little baby we used to laugh at this she could cry like her heart was breaking but there was no grief in her eyes and no tears she would cry with her eyes wide open without any look of grief and it was the most incongruous thing in the development of her little soul the connection between the grief that was making her cry and the look in the eyes and the tear ducts it all hadn't gotten hooked up yet and it was the strangest thing and she would do the same thing when she laughed she had this very deep laugh as a little child but there was no laughter in her eyes and we used to sit and we'd laugh our full heads off at her when we'd see this and it was just again in the development

54:37 of the mystery of the soul and the body and the tear ducts and all those things how can you tell when there's laughter in the eyes I mean you talk about we're fearfully and wonderfully made but you know what I meant when I said that the laughter in the eyes well since then of course all those systems are well hooked up and when she cries now it's very evident that her whole person is crying and when she laughs but we can remember that well that's something of what it's like you see when a preacher knowing that this point in the sermon ought to elicit a certain emotion tries to effect it it's like the laughter of that little undeveloped child it's laughter coming out of the voice box but no laughter in the eyes tear crying coming out of the voice box but no tear in the eye and anyone who has any sensitivity whatsoever will be thoroughly disgusted when that comes in the pulpit so we must seek brethren a free but real and controlled flow of the emotions throughout our preaching and now at this point I want to bring in some of the masters and let them be your instructor alright I want to read some sections first of all from Taylor and then some more extensive sections out of Gardner Spring illustrating this point that I'm making of the free but real and controlled flow of the emotions throughout the act of preaching Taylor in his excellent section on the qualities of an effective sermon

56:05 has been discoursing on the element of earnestness and assumed in that is this whole matter of the emotions in preaching and this is what he says page 138 of Taylor the ministry of the word here then are the twin sources of that earnestness of which so much is said namely the intellectual conviction of the truth of those things which we proclaim and loving realization of the fact that our hearers need to have these things said to them in order to be saved from the evils of time and the perdition of eternity give us these in all the occupants of our pulpits and the world will be constrained to listen to them there is no royal road to earnestness neither can it be successfully counterfeited by any histrionic art and histrionic is of or pertaining to the stage by any stage art we can gain it only through personal conviction and pervasive love but when we do gain it we do not so much possess it as it possesses us and carries us out of ourselves to achievements which are as astonishing to ourselves as they are irresistible to those whom we address

57:34 he says truly believe what you speak and truly feel that what you speak is essential to the well being of your hearers and you will be engaged at the level of your affections and your emotions alright now listen to Gardner Spring his power in the pulpit is page 256 one of the effects of a due interest in the subject matter of the pulpit would be the happy influence it would exert upon the elocution and manner of the preacher he would not utter his discourse carelessly nor would the rapidity with which a school boy recites his lesson he would not become an imitator but utter God's truth in his own way there is no air of pretense about him no craving after effect no swelling accomplishments there is earnestness but there is simplicity and truth the artificial the studied the theatrical has little sympathy with that chastened feeling which flows from deep interest in his subject he may be all action and he will if it is his nature to be so but it is possible he may have very little action and yet be a powerful preacher he would come down upon his hearers sometimes like the wind sometimes like the earthquake sometimes like the fire

59:02 and sometimes like the still small voice the elder Edwards had no action at all yet such was his interest in his subject that crowded assemblies burst into one universal weeping under his discourses such a preacher may not be accomplished but he will be forcible there may be classic there may be classical embellishment where the heart is cold as marble he may even be awkward but if his subject first live in his own heart he will be effective he will not be vain nor ambitious of distinction of any sort save to win souls he will not go out of his path in search of adornment and flowers though he may pick them up when they lie in his way he goes forth weeping bearing precious seed they are the sheaves that he is looking after and he brings them home with rejoicing if his sickle is not tipped with gold it is of well tempered steel it is like a two-edged sword and he uses it manfully and as though he was wielding the sword of the spirit then he goes on to expand on this whole matter and I want to pick up the reading well our time is getting away from us let me just suggest if you can get a copy of this read through to page 260 it's powerful stuff but now

60:32 let the doctor speak to us page 89 at the bottom of the page this whole matter of the free but controlled flow of the emotions in preaching he's speaking in the act of preaching the chapter on the act of preaching and the various elements that need to be present and he calls this one warmth to use a term that is common today the preacher must never be so often the preacher is everything he does is right indeed is almost perfect but it's clinical it's not living it is cold and not moving because the man has not been moved himself but that should never be true of the preacher if he really believes what he's saying he must be moved by it it is impossible for him not to be that leads to warmth of necessity the apostle tells us that he preached with tears he reminds the Ephesian elders of that in Acts chapter 20 and he refers to certain false preachers in Philippians 3 he does so with weeping then he goes on to say that everyone agrees that Paul had a great and massive intellect yet he was a man with tremendous passion and this passion was evidenced at the emotional level in all of his ministry then on page 93 he says he deals with the element of pathos and it's in the same category of the emotional dimensions of preaching

62:01 the element of pathos was a great characteristic of the preaching of Whitefield one of the greatest master preachers of all the ages it was David Garrick the great actor of the 18th century who once said he wished he could even utter the word Mesopotamia as Whitefield lettered it he said he would gladly give a hundred guineas that was a pound plus a shilling back when they had pounds in shillings if he could but utter the word oh with the same pathos as Whitefield did modern sophisticated man may laugh at this but it is only when we begin to know something of this melting quality that we shall be real preachers of course a man who tries to produce an effect becomes an actor and is an abominable imposter but the fact is that when the love of God is shed abroad in a man's heart as it was in Whitefield's pathos is inevitable this element of pathos and of emotion is to me a very vital one it is what has been so seriously lacking in the present century and perhaps especially among reformed people and brethren that to me is one of the most terrible indictments that the doctor had to make upon the school of preaching that emerged at least in the UK before he died at the element of pathos was lacking and I must say

63:30 though I don't think it's true to the same degree here in the states how we long to see men who do have clear minds who are always in control who are not ranters but men who have some degree of genuine passion breathing through their preaching it was said of McShane by one of the women who heard him when he stood and pleaded with sinners he preached as if he was dying to have you converted now when could someone say that of you or of me that we preached as though we were dying to have our hearers converted well surely as truth is the grand instrument in God's hands it is that truth which is so become part and parcel of the spirit of the preacher that in his preaching there is this evidence of a free but real and controlled flow of the emotions throughout the entire delivery well I must hasten on now to touch on the third category we dealt with our duty to labor for the cultivation control and appropriate expression of our emotions secondly some guidelines for the cultivation and control of the emotions the general I'm sorry in our preparation and in our active preaching now some miscellaneous observations

Miscellaneous Observations: Know Your Emotional Constitution

65:00 and cautions now you've heard that heading before when I don't know how to categorize some more things I want to say and don't know where to fit them I stick them under that heading miscellaneous observations and cautions a few remarks about the woman of Samaria alright number one seek to gain an accurate assessment of your basic emotional constitution and deal with yourself accordingly seek to gain an accurate assessment of your basic emotional constitution and deal with yourself accordingly now the few times I've gone horseback riding I always ask the person who's encouraging me to ride such and such a horse is he known to be a placid and a docile horse if so you can give him a very loose rein and you know that you're safe but if they say he's a horse that if he does not feel about twenty to thirty pounds of pressure on the flesh of his mouth watch out if you get enjoying the scenery and loosen up on the reins he's going to take that as an indication that you're giving him his head and he is going to take off like lightning well if somebody tells me that then I'm prepared to have a cramped forearm

66:29 and cramped fingers but I tell you whatever I'm doing I am going to keep a rein on that horse okay now some of you are like the former horse and some of you are like the latter emotionally you're much more naturally placid there is very little danger that you will be guilty of sinful emotional excess in preaching God's just made you very laid back is the in term you're a laid back person you're the kind of person that if your wife has just burnt the roast and your kid comes in and knocks the bowl of vegetables off the table and everything shattered all around you you just stand there and scratch your head and say well looks like we got a mess to clean up doesn't it now I've met people like that and I know some preachers that way very laid back some of you would have to pick you off the ceiling by pieces if the roast got burned you'd say that's seven dollar roast we've been saving up for weeds and that's oh yeah you're ready to go at it it's just the way you're put together all right well know yourself brethren take an honest look at yourself gain an accurate assessment of your basic emotional constitution and deal with yourself accordingly now that does not mean that you try to flatten yourself out to some kind of so-called ideal no

67:58 if you are more naturally volatile and excitable know that and then recognize that with it there come peculiar dangers when you stand to preach and you don't want what can be a virtue to drift over into the realm of becoming a vice and so you must recognize this and for some of you who are more laid back less emotionally volatile recognize that you may have more work to do in this whole area of knowing how to let what you do feel in the realm of God's truth manifest itself so you don't appear as being laid back about the issues of heaven and hell and sin and judgment and the world to come what may be a real virtue when the roast is burning and the vegetables are on the floor will be a vice when you're dealing with weighty issues now you've got to know that so have seek to gain an accurate assessment of your general emotional constitution and deal with yourself accordingly alright miscellaneous observation and caution number two consciously work at mending any broken circuits consciously work at mending any broken circuits between proper emotions and their appropriate expression consciously work at mending any broken

Miscellaneous Observations: Mend Broken Emotional Circuits

69:27 circuits between proper emotions and their appropriate expression in most of us Indwelling sin, bad examples, external influences have all short-circuited us in certain areas. But now we are seeking to become like our Lord, and as we do, there is a mending process going on, and it ought to be manifested at the level of our emotions, and in particular, our emotions with regard to preaching. Meaning, for instance, there are those in whom passion obscures reason. Now, they need to learn an element of restraint that is, in a sense, is more difficult than even a physical restraint exercised upon a powerful object. If you know, in the light of principle number one, that you would tend to let the proper emotion of a felt, interaction with a given truth, cloud your judgment, if you know that, then you've got to mend that circuit between what you feel and how you think until you can feel as deeply as your redeemed humanity ought to feel without upsetting the balance of your mental activity.

70:56 You see? You've got to get those circuits mended. There are others in whom restraint, for one reason or another, obscures all expression of emotion. I couldn't believe it, and yet I have to believe it, because they both acknowledged it.

71:15 But in a pastoral experience some time ago,

71:19 someone said to me, and I tried not to look shocked and fall off the stairs, or sit on the seat and onto the stairs, that they'd been married for 17 years, and the wife said, in 17 years, I've never seen my husband shed a tear.

71:37 I've never seen him cry.

71:40 17 years of the most intimate relationship, never saw a tear. Now, they seem to have a good relationship. We're not talking about a bad marriage. We're talking about a good marriage.

71:52 But I sensed in what that woman said an element of frustration. It was as though there was a department of her husband's inner emotional life into which he would never let her come. Now, the two shall be one flesh. And I think if I were a wife, I would never let her come.

72:08 I would feel cheated that my husband would not let me in to a department of his inner life, for whatever reason. And I didn't feel it was appropriate to open that up. Well, obviously, if that man were a preacher, he'd have some real problems. He'd have some real problems.

72:24 Feeling, even in less intimate relationships, threatened ever to let a tear show.

72:32 If he somehow feels threatened that he won't even let his wife see his tears, he's certainly not going to let his congregation see his tears. Well, such a person, if he were in the ministry, would have to work at mending these broken circuits between emotions. And the man, I'm convinced, experiences all the normal emotions of any human being. But the circuit between what he feels and his tear ducts is somehow broken.

72:59 Now, some of you have heard me mention one of my dear friends who's a very able preacher who had to work self-consciously at this in his early ministry. He felt things deeply. But the relationship between what he felt and its physiological effect upon the vocal cords and the larynx and the stomach muscles, all of the things that produce levels and tones in preaching, there was a short circuit. And it wasn't until he heard himself on tape and heard himself as a monotone, he was absolutely horrified.

73:31 And the person who was working with him said, well, at this point, did you feel... He said, oh, he said, I thought for sure I was shouting at that point.

73:37 And I felt it so deeply. But it was coming out...

73:40 Almost a perfect monotone. Just like the person who's tone deaf. When he's sitting there singing a hymn, we've got a few dear souls like that in the...

73:50 I don't think there's any here. I haven't heard one here. If you do, you keep yourself down enough so I can't pick it up. But we've got a few of them in the congregation.

73:57 And they sit there and they really look at the thing and when they see the hymn... Majestic sweetness sits...

74:05 They see the note... They know the notes are going up and down.

74:10 And in their own mind, their voice is going up and down. But in reality, it's...

74:14 Majestic sweetness isn't drawn upon us. There's a short circuit somewhere between what they see and what they know ought to be in their ear. Well, some people have a short circuit between what they feel and how it comes out. And if so, we've got to work on those short circuits.

74:33 Now, this particular preacher I'm referring to, he worked on this matter. Worked on it in terms of reading things out loud. Worked on it in other ways that we'll go into when we come to the matter of the use of the voice. But we need to work on these matters of our broken circuits.

Miscellaneous Observations: Control Emotional Venting

74:52 And then the third word of miscellaneous counsel is beware of venting emotion. Beware of venting emotion beyond the level appropriate to the emotion...

75:09 To the emotional state of your hearers. Beware of venting emotion beyond the level appropriate to the emotional state of your hearers.

75:29 Now, holy emotions are the fruit of holy thought.

75:34 You may come before God's people in a highly agitated emotional state, and those emotions are the product of your close proximity to God. of your close proximity to God. of your close proximity to God. of your close proximity to God.

75:45 of your close proximity to that truth for many hours, perhaps even days or weeks or years in some sense. So the emotions you feel are the result of your mind's engagement with that truth. But now, if you come upon your people and immediately give vent to an emotion that is proper for you in terms of your mental and spiritual activities, before their minds have been engaged with that truth, they feel threatened, and they draw back. They somehow feel that you're pushing something on them beyond what they're ready to take.

76:25 And this is no little part of the self-controlled essential in preaching, particularly if you're of a more volatile spirit. You remember I made allusion to what happened several weeks ago. I felt in preparation the first point of application in the sermon under the first heading that the thing so gripped me in preparation, and I had reason, to believe it would grip me in preaching. And even when I was doing the more, what we call basic work of just exposition, I could feel the pressure of that thing almost overpowering me.

76:57 And any of you who are sensitive to that could sense that. And some people said to me later, I said, I knew something was troubling me. I couldn't quite figure what it was that they hung in there until the application, and they understood why. And so it's essential for us that we seek to maintain that control.

77:14 And if we don't, then we're going to get in trouble with our hearers. Now, Dabney understood this very well, and he said this,

77:23 quoting now from page 250 and 251. For acting through the law of sympathy upon your audience, certain practical cautions are necessary. The disclosure of your own emotion must not too far outrun the temper of the congregation, lest it should appear to them from their cooler position, extravagance. The effect of such an impression would be that the chasm between them and yourself would be widened instead of being closed by their elevation to your level.

77:58 If, then, the audience is calm at the beginning, the passion of the speaker must be restrained. The disclosure of your emotion may be either a direct display or an involuntary betrayal. The happiest effect is produced in the latter case where the orator is manifestly laboring to keep an ardent tide of passion under restraint, but it bursts somewhat over its barriers in spite of his self-command. This suggests to the hearers at once the sincerity of his feeling and the exceedingly weighty and moving nature of the subject with which he is possessed.

78:38 They are thus powerfully prepared to be moved by it even before they come to a comprehension of its importance. As the apostle declares concerning an impulse more immediately divine, the spirits of the prophets are subject unto the prophets. The preacher should never permit his emotion to overmaster his faculties. It should rather elevate and strengthen them.

79:05 When passion becomes a helpless agitation, destroying the poise and self-command of the memory, understanding and imagination, precipitating, facilitating the preacher into disorder and mental anarchy, the impression of power at once gives place to that of impotency, and his audience, instead of being wielded by him, begin to pity him or to be disgusted by him. And that's true. Isn't that true in your own experience? If you ever sense that a man at his most heightened point of passion in preaching has lost control of his rational faculties and is no longer addressing you as one rational man to another rational man, there is pity, if not downright disgust.

80:00 And we must be sensitive to that, brethren. And that takes, as we shall see, all of these things are tied up, that takes some opening of ourselves to that living sense of communion that occurs in preaching. So that you sense when the people say, this tide of emotion is rising with your own and it's safe to let out a bit more. And what might be appropriate at 12.13 would have been utterly inappropriate at 12.03, just ten minutes earlier. All right? So beware of venting emotion beyond the level appropriate to the emotional state of your ears.

80:40 Now let me say, by way of caution here, that doesn't mean that you wait for every single individual to catch up because you've got people who, because they are blinded, blind to the truth, can never understand your emotional excitement with it. But when you've carried the majority of your people, then you can say, now some of you may sit here and say, what in the world is that crazy preacher getting so excited about? Well, if you could but see and feel the realities in which we've been trafficking, you too would be excited and your lack of excitement is an evidence of your deadness and sin. But now you've earned the right to hurl that into their conscience and to carry the judgmental, judgment of the rest of the congregation will sit there and say, Amen!

81:23 If you're going to call him crazy, call us crazy too because we feel what he's feeling. You see? And that way the congregation becomes the affirmative voice of that word that you hurl into the conscience. All right, then this final word.

Miscellaneous Observations: Post-Preaching Vulnerability

81:38 Beware. Beware of your peculiar vulnerability after the emotional expenditure of preaching. Beware of your peculiar vulnerability after the emotional expenditure of preaching. And the great example of this, of course, is Elijah and his juniper tree.

82:03 After that tremendous expenditure of emotion in that whole dramatic scene upon Mount Carmel, the man who was unafraid to beard, as it were, the entire structure of idol worship single-handedly. That thing amazes me. And then going down there and hacking and hewing, hewing away at those prophets of Baal until he turns the river red with their blood, he gets a message that that old painted witch is after his hide and he runs scared and says, Lord, I'm no better than my father's take-me-home.

82:38 Well, it's interesting. God didn't come in scolding, did he? He recognized that here was a man whose faculties had been spent and he dealt with him accordingly. Now, brethren, this is one of the problems that you'll find when you have to preach twice on a Lord's Day or sometimes three times on a given day.

82:59 Each sermon, I mentioned this in our prayer time, this is what I was dealing with, each sermon demands the engagement of your whole being. And here you've been preparing and praying, your mind and spirit have been given over to the thrust of that passage you're going to expound Sunday morning and then God helps you to know something of that enlargement in preaching that engages your whole spirit and then just, when you would like now, the luxury of going home and basking, as it were, under the gracious influence of that truth for the nurture of your own soul. Now all the labor of preparation and preaching is over. And now you just would love to park, as it were, under the rays of that truth.

83:42 What do you have to do? You have to completely break off all of your mental and emotional raw nerves and attach them to another truth which demands another whole complex of emotional response. And you feel you've got nothing left. You've got nothing left.

84:02 And yet you have to do it.

84:05 And your resilience with the passing of the years will not be as great. Enjoy it when you're younger, brethren. That's one of the areas where I felt the toll of the almost swell. It's 30 years of preaching now.

84:16 It's in that area of not having the same emotional resilience, expending the same amount and I hope perhaps even greater dimensions of emotional energy and preaching. But not having the same resiliency and the same resources to rebound. But understand that and with that you can be very vulnerable to discouragement, to despondency. I've talked with a number of preachers who say it's then that they are most vulnerable to sensuality.

84:43 And they find that after the emotional expenditures of the Lord's days, on a Monday, they have their greatest temptations to impure thoughts. And I've seen a pattern. Preachers have bared their hearts to me on this. Well, recognize your peculiar vulnerability after the emotional expenditure of preaching.

85:02 Recognize it. Be watchful and prayerful so that you don't allow that vulnerability to give birth to sin. But at the same time, don't put yourself on a guilt trip when you find yourself unable to rise to any degree of the emotional response to that truth that you experienced just the day before or a few hours before in preparation and in preaching. He knoweth our faith.

85:26 He remembers that we are dust. And sometimes the ministry he gives us is the ministry he gave to his servant Elijah a good sleep in which the emotional faculties are refurbished and re-strengthened and recharged as God gives us rest. Well, brethren, that's all I had prepared to say to you and it's a few minutes to one o'clock, so yes, Johnny. What do you do?