Preaching in Relationship to the Congregation, Part 2

Establishing Sensitivity to Congregational Empathy

0:03 Now, I'm seeking to lay before you, brethren, some practical directives for the attaining and maintaining of what we're calling, for lack of more accurate terms, this mutual empathetic involvement between the preacher and his people. And we come now to the third of those directives, and I'm expressing it this way. I seek to establish and maintain conscious sensitivity to the empathetic action of the congregation. Seek to establish and maintain conscious sensitivity to the empathetic activity of the congregation. Sometimes, before you stand to preach, you will be aware of unusual visions. You'll sense that there's an element in their praise. You'll sense that when you or someone else is led in prayer, that there's been an unusual sense of their being active and being drawn out, and you'll just sense the congregation seems to be unusually alive today.

1:25 You're establishing sensitivity to the empathetic activity of the congregation. They're sending out some signals that their own hearts. They're entering in to the worship and the other dimensions of your public gathering.

1:43 Well, the opposite may be true. You may sense a heaviness, the dullness. Well, as discouraging as that is, if that's reality, face that and be praying, Lord, how am I going to deal with that when I stand to preach? On the one hand, you'll be humbled when you sense that expectancy and say, Lord, help me not to betray that.

2:04 If you sense the dullness, you'll be crying to God, Lord. Please overcome this miserable state. Sometimes you may be crying for your own heart. You'll sense the congregation is alive and you're dead.

2:14 You'll sense you're alive and they're dead. And all of those things are very real. Subjective, yes, but real. And because something is subjective doesn't mean it's real.

2:24 It may mean that you're not infallibly interpreting it, but it doesn't mean it isn't real. Subjective states of a congregation are very real. Our ability to make an accurate assessment is another thing. So, what are you going to do in establishing and maintaining this conscious sensitivity to the empathetic state and activity of the congregation?

Opening Your Spirit to the Congregation

2:50 Well, let me give you two very basic sub-directives. And this one, again, this is where we're really going to sound mystical. But I don't know what else to say.

3:01 Open your spirit to the congregation.

3:06 Open your own human spirit to the congregation. And I'm thankful I found something in McElvain where he's trying to say the same thing.

3:20 On page 105, he says, Now, listen to what he says. In fact, the degree of this sensibility is an infallible test of natural genius for public speaking. For he who does not feel the need of the attention and simplicity of the audience, and the sympathy of his audience, who hardly knows whether he has it or not, and who can speak as well with it as without it, for there are such speakers, that man is incapable of eloquence and ought to dismiss all thoughts of becoming an effective preacher. The speaker who has any natural adaptation or genius for this art seems to reflect, as it were, all the states and changes of mind and feeling which take place in those to whom he is speaking. He seems to know by instinct whether he's heard by the whole audience, whether he has their attention, whether they understand what he's saying, whether they are favorably or unfavorably affected by it, and he feels as if it were almost impossible for him to proceed in his discourse until he has succeeded in fixing their attention and in gaining their sympathy. Spurgeon said he could not go on preaching if he did not have the eye of a blind man upon him. And I think it illustrates

4:50 that the native genius God gave Spurgeon in this and many other areas of effective public preaching and speaking, one of those indications. And this, again, remember, is not coming from a novice. This is coming from the professor of bell letters at old Princeton University. The degree of this sensibility, that is, the sensibility of the speaker to the mental state of the congregation he calls an infallible test of natural genius.

5:20 For public speaking. So you must open your spirit to the congregation. Now, though not satisfied with the wording, I hope you understand at least approximately what I'm trying to say. Some men obviously preach with an empathy-proof wall around them.

5:42 They can preach just as well to a dull congregation as to a live congregation. They can have teenagers sitting there writing notes to one another, giggling, talking to one another. They can have all old ladies half asleep. Doesn't bother them.

5:55 They drone on. They say their thing. They do their thing. Have their closing prayer and go home.

6:00 They don't sense and feel restlessness. Have you been in situations who say, why in the world doesn't a man quit? It's obvious he's lost the congregation. They shut him out ten minutes ago.

6:11 He's gone on too long. He's exhausted his congregation. You're sitting there. You're conscious that you and others all around you have ceased to listen with any attraction.

6:21 You've lost your contentedness. You just exist. But the guy just goes on and on and on and on. You say, he is not opening his spirit to the empathetic involvement, to the current that is coming from the people to him.

6:35 The signals are coming loud and clear to any man whose antenna are out to get them. So I had in the margin here under the exhortation, open your spirit to the congregation illustration. Pull out the antenna. Don't jam them in and cut the wires.

6:51 Pull them out so that if you get the sense that you've lost the people, far better to quit after having to and say it's obvious that for some reason or other you're not taken anymore. I hope what I've given you will be a profit. Let's pray. Far better to just drop on the deck from 30,000 and bust your landing gear than, you know, get in a holding pattern that just gets everybody irritated and sleepy and at least they'll respect you for your honesty.

7:22 And feel at least you have some human sympathy and you're not just a preaching machine. You were getting the signals they were sending out. So that means you've got to open your spirit to the congregation. You've got to learn what the signals are.

7:36 You've got to pray that God will give you the ability to lock in to where they are and to sense accurately. And again, these are skills. It's a kind of spiritual art. It's mixed in with native ability.

7:53 That's why McElvain said it was the infallible test of the measure of a man's native genius for effective public speaking. And I don't know how to sort out the natural from the spiritual, but all I know, brethren, is you will not be an effective preacher week in, week out, unless you learn what it is to open your spirit to the congregation. Now it means you're going to be vulnerable. It means that if they are particularly dull on a given Lord's Day, you're going to feel the pain of their dullness.

8:21 It means if you have some hostile faces, you're going to have to look at them. God alone knows the trauma I went through for two whole years with a man in our congregation, and I'm talking about something that goes back for 50 years, who sat week after week with his jaw set, his lower lip out, his arms folded, and closed his eyes as if to say, just try to get something in. I tell you, it was distressing. And I didn't have the strength or the spiritual strength at times to even look at it.

9:01 It so grieved me. It so grieved me, so pained me. I just couldn't do it. In fact, I got into some bad habits during that period of time that I'm still trying to break.

9:13 I got into bad habit of preaching more to people's foreheads than their eyeballs, because I felt so battered whenever I really saw that situation, and I let the signals from it get to me. It so crushed me that I felt I wouldn't be able to preach. So, brethren, you're vulnerable when you do this, and I'm convinced that's why some men have learned how to preach to the side wall or to the back wall or to people's foreheads and not to their eyeballs, because you're going to get the good with the bad. But if you really are going to communicate effectively, you must do it.

Engaging with Real Eye Contact

9:49 If you're going to establish and maintain conscious sensitivity to the empathetic activity of the congregation, open your spirit to the congregation, and then secondly, under this heading, how do you establish and maintain sensitivity? Open your spirit. Secondly, engage them with real eye contact at the outset and maintain that contact throughout the sermon. Engage them with real eye contact at the outset and maintain that contact throughout the sermon.

10:33 In a real sense, the eye and the face are the windows and mirror of the soul. And if you think of your own experience, for the most part, unless you're at such a great distance that it makes it impossible, when someone stands to address you in a group situation, your attention is focused from the neck up, and you only take in generally into your peripheral vision. Like right now, you're taking into your peripheral vision the activity of my hands, but your attention is from the neck up. And it's the look of the eye, it's the set of the jaw, it is those things that are the primary focal point in public speaking. Blakey understood this, and he writes on page 161 of his book on the work of the ministry, Why should the preacher be ashamed to speak by his countenance the very thing he is uttering by his tongue? It is more likely that he will be believed when one of the organs of his...

11:43 Is it more likely he'll be believed when one of the organs of expression is silent? A preacher ought to feel that he's bound to preach with his face as well as with his voice. And the people expect it. Why do they always prefer a seat where they can have a full view of the preacher?

12:04 Because they know that if he be what he ought to be, it will be an advantage for them to see his face as well as hear his voice. They at least know that nature has adapted the eye and the other features for preaching purposes. Sometimes those who hear but indifferently are able to gather a good deal from watching the speaker's face. There's something quite remarkable in the way in which some of the features express the soul.

12:36 The eye, for example. What a variety of emotions can appropriately be represented by the eye. It sparkles with intelligence, flashes with indignation, melts with grief, trembles with pity, languishes with love, twinkles with humor, starts with amazement, or shrinks with horror, according to the impulse given to it by the soul within. A dog knows from his master's eye whether he's about to be petted or kicked.

13:09 Gamblers are said to be able to judge of the hand of their opponents from their eye and their countenance. Wild animals like the lion are said to quail before the steady gaze of a fearless man. And God himself uses the eye as the symbol of his influence. I will guide thee with my eye.

13:31 Why should such an organ not be pressed into the service of the pulpit? Or why should it be thought that God's effectual power goes solely with the voice and not with the other organ? And I find those rhetorical questions are questions that I would not want to answer in the negative. So brethren, if you're going to engage and maintain this openness to the people, to the empathetic energy and activity of those to whom you preach, engage them with real eye contact at the outset and maintain this through the sermon.

14:16 This will engage your people with those things that are expressed through your eye and you then will be able to discern in looking into their eyes what's going on with them. Whether there's that glassy look of, I love you, Pastor, but I don't know where in the world you are. Or whether there's that look of, well, wait a minute now, you're not quite carrying my judgment. I'm not convinced yet.

14:41 Or that look of saying that's glorious, give me more. And all of that is conveyed. And you need that. You need that as you're preaching.

14:48 If your preaching is to be a true expression of bringing the Word of God to them where they are and in terms of what they are thinking and what they are emoting at any given point. And it's vital to establish it at the outset. When you stand up to preach, if there are half a dozen people still folding their hymn books, getting out their notebooks, don't start. I hope you notice and learn by example that I will not speak, I won't read the Scriptures while people are still flipping.

15:20 I'll say, let us turn to, and I wait long enough for 99% of the people to be turned, so that from the outset I'm establishing I'm in control and I expect a hearing. You see, if you start right in with Bibles rustling and people not looking, what they're saying is you're willing to speak without universal attention. So if you're willing to, I'll let you. You're saying something, you see, so from the outset engage your people with real eye contact.

15:48 Engage them with real eye contact at the outset and maintain that contact throughout the sermon. Now that doesn't mean never break it. Once you have their attention, then as you're caught up in the truth, and you may be giving an illustration, you may afford the luxury of turning away from them, but you sense that their eyes are on you. I can sense right now that the four guys at the table are looking at me and not a one of them is looking out in the hallway.

16:13 I can sense that. Because once you've got people's attention, there's...

16:18 you open your spirit to those things, then you're conscious when you've lost that attention. So when people then are being carried along with you, and you're being carried along with the truth, then there can be periodic, as it were, relinquishments of the immediate eye-to-eye contact. And sometimes, especially if you're being intense, such relief is wholesome. Just like in personal counseling.

16:41 I've made it a policy never to sit there during a whole counseling session just looking in someone's eyes. That can be very intimidating. So I've learned how to just look off at my window to the left and how to lean back in my chair. Otherwise, people can feel intimidated.

16:56 Someone just sits there and look at them all during the counseling session and never turn away, you know. And they're wondering, what's he see? What's he know? You know, the psychic and the...

17:03 And people begin to get like, well, the same thing would be true in preaching. If you just bear down too much and don't give some relief from it, it's just like two intense periods volume-wise. Well, if the eye is speaking, don't allow an intense burning eye to be upon your people for too long a period of time. It's too much.

17:23 So in saying all of that, I'm not giving a full theology of eye contact, but what is vital is that right up front you establish you're coming to speak directly to them and there's no way you can establish that without looking into their eyes. And if you don't have eyes, you wait for them. This is where I had to do it again just some weeks ago down in Carolina. I had to say, one night I waited for about five minutes, two young men sitting on the back, they just would not look at me.

17:51 They're looking at one another, talking. I finally just said, I looked down at the pulpit. I said, there are two young men. I will not embarrass you yet.

17:58 I'm looking straight at the pulpit, so no one's eyes will be drawn to where you are, but you know who you are, you know where you are. I expect from here on in your eyes upon me. If I don't have them, I will rebuke you and the next time it will be looking straight at you, pointing my finger at you. You know who you are.

18:16 That's what I did. I looked right down. Well, needless to say, I had their attention for the rest of that sermon. Not only their attention, I saw those boys broken afterwards and came confessing the sin of inattention and God seemed to have real deep dealings with one of them.

18:31 Well, it may come to that, but you make it evident right at the outset by engaging with real eye contact that you expect that locking up between you and the people. Again, McElvain understood this principle well and addressed himself to it on page 98. The mind of the speaker being directed to his audience, his eye naturally follows his mind. He looks at them, not barely as a sea of faces without distinction, but he scans their individual countenances.

19:10 He notes their several expressions and thus becomes conscious of the effect that he is producing upon them. All the gestures are effective. They are affected in a similar manner. And then again on page 113, McElvain says it is indispensable that the speaker should not allow his eye to become fixed upon his manuscript, nor to wander around the walls or up to the ceiling, nor in any way to express abstraction from the business of hand.

19:42 He must bring his eye to bear steadily upon the people before him, scanning their countenances individually and noting every sign of attention or the lack of it. Where he perceives inattention or lack of interest, he should keep looking at the persons in whom it is manifested and seem to direct his words more particularly to them until he makes them feel he is almost calling them by name. And that is an effective way. If you find someone is not looking at you, you just for a while keep looking straight in their way, keep preaching, and when they glance up and find your eyeballs are right on them, they...

20:20 Oh, I have seen that happen many a time, many a time. They say, caught in the act, you know, and there is almost a sense of shame. You can almost feel them blush and feel the heat coming off their cheek. Well, McElvain understood that.

20:36 Just go ahead and lock in on them, keep your eyeballs there, until they are locked back into you. All right? Well, that is counsel number three. Seek to establish and maintain conscious sensitivity to the amphitheater, what an empathetic activity of the congregation.

Establishing Undivided Attention

20:53 And number four, and this flows out of it very naturally, seek to establish and maintain undivided attention. Seek to establish and maintain undivided attention. McElvain writes so perceptively on page 110, the attention of the audience is indispensable to this sympathy between preacher and congregation. In order to such results, it is necessary that the attention of the audience should first be gained and concentrated upon the thoughts and sentiments of the speaker as they are delivered.

21:35 This is indispensable to the free play and greatest effect of the sympathetic action. For even a single person who is inattentive, or whose mind is otherwise occupied, not only fails to contribute his share to the effect, but he presents an obstacle to the propagation and flow of the common feeling, and exerts a positive influence in crossing and confusing the mysterious currents of sympathy and thought. You're in a congregation where something unplanned of a humorous nature is said, and there's a disaffected church member sitting there. One of the ways the disaffected church member will always show it, he'll refuse to laugh. It's his silent protest that I don't go along with these people. And if you're sitting there, you can feel it. Right? If you had that experience, you don't need to look around,

22:31 you just sense that, or you just might catch out of the corner of your eye, everyone else is chuckling very naturally, it shows their sympathies have been following the preacher, but that person will sit there. Sit to say, well, you fools may all be involved in this, but I'm not. I know better. And if you're preaching to people's eyeballs, you'll see that, and you'll note that.

22:52 And it may give you an opportunity to go to the person. See, I've noticed for the past couple of weeks, at the time when people have had a tear coming down the eye, or their eagerness has been so intense that I almost felt their eyeballs were going to pop out of their eyes, I've noticed you've just been glancing down at your hands. Have you not been well?

23:14 Well, now you've put the ball in their court. They've either got to tell you the truth or lie to you. But you're letting them know that you've seen they've been out of step. Or you can say, I've noticed over the past month, there's been unplanned humor and others have had a smile or chuckle or at least a glint of pleasure in their eye.

23:30 You've sat there looking dull and almost hostile. Have I been wrong in picking up that signal? Tell me, have you been conscious of that? So you don't go as accuser.

23:39 You simply go as an observer, telling them what you've observed. And you say, now you give me an explanation. And one of those ways you can, it's amazing, you can monitor things that way in the congregation. Things that otherwise you won't see if you don't establish and maintain undivided attention.

23:59 And one of the things that McElvain is referring to here, he has a whole section on it, that there is not only something coming back from the individual to you, but there is also a reverberation between the people sitting there. This empathy is felt among the people. So that there is a collective empathetic return. This sympathetic return to the preacher.

24:22 And if someone is out of step with it, he's saying they cut that current. And the people sitting there are conscious of that, as well as the preacher being conscious of it. Now if hearers discern you're willing to speak without their attention, some of them will let you. And it's hard work.

24:41 And the larger the group is, the more difficult it is to carry them with undivided attention. And in a sense it is really part of the hand-to-hand combat of spiritual warfare. Ephesians 6. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers.

25:01 And let me ask you this question. If you knew that the grand instrument for the destruction of your kingdom was the preaching of the word of God, and you were the devil, where would you do your most vicious work to destroy people's attention to the word? When it's being preached. So the devil is very active.

25:24 You must be just as active. Because God works by means. And if he's determined to distract people, you make it known you are equally and more determined not to tolerate distractions. Because a distracted mind is the devil's open season on the souls of your people.

Speaking in a Simple, Masculine Manner

25:45 So if you're going to establish and maintain undivided attention, be convinced of the necessity of it, and then let me give you four very practical suggestions as to how to establish and maintain that undivided attention. Number one. Speak in a simple, unaffected, frank, masculine manner. Speak in a simple, unaffected, frank, masculine manner.

26:30 We live in the age of the clerical wimp. And God has so made us that by and large a man that speaks like a man with something of the assertiveness and authority of manhood will have a hearing. That's another thing about Jesse Jackson. He exudes masculinity.

26:58 And that's what makes him attractive to people. Attractive for wrong reasons. Attractive for wrong ends. But nonetheless, there is a vigorous masculinity about him that makes him attractive.

27:10 So brethren, speak in a simple, artless, frank, masculine manner if you would have people attend to what you are saying. Again, McElvain on page 112. His manner and tones must be simple, earnest, and respectful. A simple, frank, and artless manner free from pretentiousness and affectation, and one at the same time earnest, respectful, and affectionate, has great power to engage attention and to awaken sympathy.

27:49 These are the principal elements in what is called an engaging manner. Nothing is more engaging than childlike simplicity. An affected, pretentious, or pompous manner forewarns the audience that the speaker is a fool. Also, the tones of the speaker's voice should express sincere respect for the audience, an affectionate interest in them, and an earnest desire for their attentive and favorable consideration of what he has to say, as if he felt what he ought always to feel, that it were almost impossible for him to proceed without their attention.

28:27 I have found, for example, in funerals and weddings, that just standing up and talking like an ordinary human being instead of a clergyman, in Elizabethan English with a prayer book, or a minister's manual in front of me, absolutely blows people away. I have seen it time after time after time. I come into the funeral parlor, some of you have been at funerals I've conducted, and I just stand behind the little desk and say simply and honestly and straightforwardly, I am not here to go through some prescribed ritual, to simply read some prayers and some scripture and to go through a forum, but in the midst of the reality of death, I am here to speak the word of God. To seek the face of the God who hears and answers prayer. I urge you to give attention to these matters over these next twenty minutes. And after about the second or third sentence, people begin to thaw on people. He's not come out and said, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, let us pray, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

29:30 End of performance. They expect a clerical performance. That's all they expect. That's all they see.

29:37 God have mercy. On professional clerics. What an opportunity. And when you just stand up there and speak in an artless, straightforward, manly way, addressing them eyeball to eyeball with serious but tender earnestness, almost invariably you'll have their attention.

29:57 And there are times I've wished I could add a hidden video tape to just, as I read the reaction of people's minds. The same thing at our weddings. People are sitting there and you stand up and you just welcome them. Tell them you're delighted they're there.

30:12 That is the dearly beloved. We are gathered here today in the sight of God and these many witnesses, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's what they're used to. And you have a marvelous opportunity to cut across the grain of all that clerical falderall and speak in a simple, artless, frank, masculine manner.

Using Pauses and Rhetorical Devices

30:30 Secondly, if you want to establish and maintain attentions, make judicious use of the pause and other arresting rhetorical devices. Make judicious use of the pause and other arresting rhetorical devices. There may be times when you've come through a period where you've been unusually impassioned and you've spoken rather quickly over a period of several minutes. Just stop and pause as you're collecting your thoughts and look at your people. Don't lose the attention of some because the words have just been coming so many so fast for so long. The silence will do more to get their attention than a gunshot. Just the silence.

31:29 You've been pouring out these torrents of verbiage and suddenly the dam is put there and there's no verbiage and the silence will arrest their attention. Make judicious use of the pause and other arresting rhetorical devices. What are they? Well, they are manifold.

31:46 And in given situations, you may use some that in other situations would appear ludicrous, would be indecorous, would be unwise. I'm not advocating you do what Spurgeon did when a man fell asleep when he was preaching on judgment. Not Spurgeon Whitfield, but as Spurgeon Whitfield did. He saw the man sleeping.

32:09 He stopped. The man slept on. So he brought his foot down with all of his might upon the platform and just as his foot struck the platform, he clasped his hands. He woke up.

32:21 He looked at him and said, Thou shalt not sleep when thy God summons thee to judgment in the last day. Well, that's an attention arresting rhetorical device. One that I have found, we've already mentioned, a period of silence where you simply look in the direction of the one whose attention has been lost until you gain it again. Sort of a public non-verbal rebuke.

32:48 And that's effective. You find over the years the ones that you feel comfortable with, that are natural to you as a speaker, natural to the station in which you find yourself. As you get older, there's certain things you can do and say to younger people, and the people who get in that category of younger increase the older you get, see? There had been a time when it would have sounded very, very condescending for me to say, you know, you bunch of kids, bunch of young men, bunch of boys, but I can almost say that and get away with that now, see?

33:22 You get into your mid-fifties and you can get away with murder. Well, see, you can't have any fixed list of these things because they vary. They vary in terms of the culture in which you're ministering, the part of the country in which you're found, suburban or rural, all of those things. But you learn to have your eyes peeled to find those legitimate rhetorical devices by which you can arrest people from their inattention and secure it again.

Direct Appeal and Gracious Rebuke

33:51 Then thirdly, indulge the exceptional use of a direct appeal or a gracious rebuke. Indulge the exceptional use of a direct appeal or a gracious rebuke. And what do I mean by a direct appeal? Dear people, I've labored to make this as plain as I know how.

34:14 I've preached with all of my heart. The sweat on my face coming through my shirt is indicative that I've not stood up here and groaned and yet some of you are falling asleep while I speak. I'm grieved. Please, gird up the loins of your mind.

34:30 That's a direct appeal. You're letting people know that you see some of them falling asleep on you and you're grieved. You've done everything to try to get their attention. You still don't have it.

34:41 But you're not going to go on without it. So you make a direct appeal. Now, you don't stand up there and consign them to hell. All right?

34:49 Those very people may be tender-hearted sheep that will come to you afterwards and say, Pastor, I'm so sorry. But I almost didn't come today. We were up all night long with a sick child. But I'd rather than miss the Lord's day.

35:04 And you say, I fully understand. And then you're thankful you don't have to go back and repent that you said something that was totally unwarranted, you see. But at the same time, maybe they're half asleep because they were up watching the boot tube till one o'clock in the morning. And they need to feel a rebuke.

35:24 So you've got to make a direct appeal, but make it gracious. McElvain speaks on this issue and says, In difficult cases, the speaker may exercise authority over the audience, but with special care not to manifest irritation. Whenever the audience proves refractory in an extraordinary degree, which will sometimes be the case, the speaker must not yield to them or he's lost. He must try to rise with the difficulty, and by his voice, countenance, and manner exert a certain authority over them, for which his position and relations to them afford him peculiar advantage.

36:02 But he must be on his guard against irritation, for if he show temper, they will not be slow to perceive. They've gained the mastery, and having discovered his weak point, they will not in any way be reluctant to press it again. Therefore, with unruffled temper and perfectly good nature, by his eye, countenance, tones, and whole manner, he should seem to say, Friends, I'm here to speak to you, and I'm going to do it. You're here to listen, and you have got to do it.

36:30 The sooner you begin, the better it will be for us both. I love that. Everything about you should say to your people, I'm here to speak, and I'm going to do it. You're here to listen, and you've got to do it.

36:43 The sooner you begin, the better it will be for both of us. And I think all of our hearts say amen to that. There's something, again, that is gracious, manly, and befitting to our position as heralds of the living God. Spurgeon, in his own inimitable way, on this matter of the exceptional use of a direct or gracious appeal, writes on page 130, Sometimes the manners of our people are inimical to attention.

37:16 They're not in the habit of attending. They attend the chapel, but they do not attend to the preacher. They're accustomed to look around, at everyone who enters the place, and they come in at all times, sometimes with much stamping, squeaking of boots, banging of doors. I was preaching to a people who continually looked around, and I adopted the expedient of saying, Now, friends, it is so very interesting to you to know who comes in, and it disturbs me so very much for you to look around.

37:44 I will, if you like, describe each one as he comes in, so that you may sit and look at me, and keep up at least a show of decency." I described one gentleman who came in, who happened to be a friend, whom I could depict without offense as a very respectable gentleman who had just taken his hat off, and so on. And after that one attempt, I found it was not necessary to describe any more, because they felt shocked at what I was doing. And I assured them that I was much more shocked that they should render it necessary for me to reduce their conduct to such an absurdity.

38:22 It cured them for the time being, and I hope forever, much to their pastor's joy. Well, there again, you see, there was a man determined that he was going to have attention. And when people didn't have a sense of common decency to give it to him, he made a direct appeal. He showed himself to be wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove.

38:43 He gives an instance here of how you can use a pause. And then he gives an incident from the life of Andrew Fuller, where Andrew Fuller had barely commenced a sermon when he saw the people going to sleep. He said, Friends, friends, this won't do. I have thought sometimes when you were asleep it was my fault.

39:06 But now you're asleep before I begin, so it must be your fault. Pray wake up and give me an opportunity of doing you some good.

39:16 There was direct appeal. Direct appeal. Godly old Andrew Fuller. And then where he shows how the pause works.

Prayerfully Depending on the Holy Spirit

39:24 Know how to pause. Make a point of interjecting, arousing parentheses of quietude. Speech is silver, but silence is golden where hearers are inattentive. Keep on and on and on and on with one commonplace matter in monotonous tone and you're rocking the cradle and deeper slumbers will result.

39:44 Give the cradle a jerk and sleep will flee. So he says the pause is a kind of verbal jerk to the cradle of what may be otherwise putting people to sleep. And then I would say finally by way of a practical means of establishing and maintaining undivided attention, brethren, and I don't say this as a pious cliché, maintain throughout the act of preaching a prayerful dependence upon the Holy Spirit. He is the spirit not only of truth who illuminates the mind, concerning the truth, but he is the spirit of life and of power, the spirit who testifies to and reveals the things of Christ. He is the spirit of all holy emotions of love, joy, excitement about the truth. And if he is present in our ministries, he by his present almighty operations will be the one creating in our people those dimensions of felt reality and their ability to express it through their eyes, through the set of their faces in preaching that will make our preaching both sheer spiritual delight to us as well as to our people, and in that context a mighty means of grace

41:14 for their benefit and for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. And so in the midst of preaching, I'm sure some of you have already experienced this, at least on occasions, you say if I could only bring to my desk all of the processes that are going on all at once in the act of preaching. You're delivering the thought of the immediate sentence and you're feeling the burden of the overall thrust of the message, you're noticing that you're beginning to lose the attention of the teenager over there, and at the same time you're pleading with God that the Lord would open the heart. There's about ten different things all going on at once, and you come out of the pulpit and you say, I know that at one point in the middle of the sermon there were all of these various signals going through and into and coming out, and if you tried to do that, you just had a loss to it. Well, that's some of the mystical but real energy and power and enablement given by the Holy Spirit. It is a precious, precious commodity in our preaching, brethren, and the Holy Spirit generally, just honors those who honor Him. So maintain a prayerful dependence upon the Holy Spirit in this matter of attention, and there are times when you may sense a general inattention, a general lack of any kind of empathetic response from your people.

42:41 You've used every legitimate device to gain and secure their attention, and you seem to be plodding on knee-deep in mud. Well, you just have to lift up your heart to God and plod on and trust that before the sermon is over, God will be gracious to break through and to bring you both out of that present state of conscious dullness. And this is where, again, because it is subjective, we must not be at the mercy of our own subjective frames and states of feeling, but over the long haul, a man tells me that he doesn't know what in the world I'm talking about when we address this subject, and I say that man doesn't know anything about biblical preaching, because this is a very real factor in all oral communication, and as we've seen again and again, grace does not fight against nature, but grace sublimates what is natural and what is human, and makes it the very conduit of the supernatural and of that which God does, and God alone does, in accompanying His Word by the power of the Spirit.