42a) Preacher's Emotional Constitution/Activity #2

The Strategic Place and Function of Emotions in Oral Communication

0:02 Seek to plunge right back in at the point that we left off in the previous hour. I attempted to set before you in a rather non-structured way because I just didn't feel it lent itself to 1, 2, 3, 4, a working definition and description of the emotions. And then we considered, secondly, the origin and moral quality of the emotions. Now we come, in the third place, to the strategic place and function of the emotions in oral communication in general.

0:38 It's an indisputable fact that the emotions cause great physiological effects in general. You know from your own experience that fear can make the adrenal glands pump out adrenaline, increase the heart rate, and you are absolutely powerless to change that unless you divert. Divert your mind from the thing that's causing your fear and then your pulse rate will come down again. Physiological effects of fear.

1:05 Anxiety can influence the flow of the digestive juices causing heartburn. And in my old lecture I used to say ulcers, but now we know that ulcers are bacterial in origin and have nothing to do with emotions. At least the latest medical consensus is in that direction. Grief, what does it do?

1:25 It can open up the tear ducts and make the whole frame convulse. So it's an indisputable fact that the emotions cause great physiological effects in general. And furthermore, it's an equally indisputable fact that the emotions exert a powerful influence on all the factors and faculties involved in oral communication in particular. So there's not only a generic physiological effect cause and effect, the relationship between the emotions and the physiology, but more particularly, the factors and faculties involved in oral communication, we see this influence of the emotions. Go back to the voice. Fear can constrict the voice. You ever been so afraid you couldn't scream?

2:17 Especially in your dreams. It seems like most people have that experience in their dreams. You're so afraid and you want to holler, nothing comes out. There's a physiological effect.

2:27 There's a physiological effect on the voice box. The vocabulary is affected by the emotions. Think of the spurned lover entreating the woman that sent him a Dear John letter, trying to get her to reverse what on the surface seemed to be an irrevocable decision. Will it not draw out of that spurned lover a whole corpus of vocabulary that he might not have used in months or years in his ordinary interaction with the ordinary audience?

2:57 There are no ordinary objects of his affection. Think of a loving father warning a son about the dangers he faces on the threshold of manhood entering into a sinful world. The vocabulary will be influenced by the emotion of paternal affection to that son. Not only the voice, the vocabulary, but the physical action.

3:21 Here is a mother, normally a very sedate, quiet, reserved person, She's standing outside the building in which she believes her infant child is trapped. What happens to that woman in terms of physical action? From a very sedate, quiet, reserved woman, she becomes one mass of intense physical energy as she pleads with anyone and anything around her, Help! My child is in that building! My child is in that building!

3:55 How does she stop and think, I must impress people with my physical actions that I really believe my child is in that building? Of course not. Her cognitive faculties say, my child is in that building. Her emotions are so bound to that child that the thought of that child being roasted to a crisp triggers in this woman inevitable physical action.

Grace Does Not Negate Natural Emotional Expression

4:23 Now, brethren, does grace? War with nature? We come back again to one of the fundamental premises in this course on pastoral theology in particular as we're dealing with the subject of preaching. If God has so made us that the emotions affect our physiology generically, and more particularly, God has so made us that our emotions affect the voice and its functions, the vocabulary at our disposal, and physical action, should it surprise us?

4:58 That these things would be sublimated and incorporated into that most noble of all forms of oral communication, namely, the preaching of the Word of God. And I think the answer is self-evident. And here again I quote from one of the old masters showing this relationship between the emotions and the faculty of oral communication, an old writer called Sturtivant, S-T-U-R-T-E-V-A-N-T, in a book entitled The Preacher's Manual. He writes, An ancient story has reached our times of a dumb youth, not stupid, but lacking the faculty of speech, who on a certain occasion, when an assassin lifted up his arm with a sword to slay his father, had his feelings so much excited that with extended arms and a most bitter cry, he for the first time spoke, Oh, save my father! Now imagine with yourselves how the youth spoke these words, and then our meaning is exemplified as to what we mean by the feelings or the emotions. The principles of divine grace, which impart an energy and value to human language infinitely above what it would otherwise possess, neither abrogate nor forbid

6:28 the understanding, or the operation of our feelings, but on the contrary, improve and regulate them. And if feelings, affections, or passions have any existence in our hearts, they will naturally find the way to our lips, will pervade our countenance, our head, our arms, will catch the fire, and emotions as well as ideas will thus be communicated to our hearts, to our hearers. Critical statement. Emotions as well as ideas will be communicated, and we might even say, will be caught by our hearers. It seems then a necessary inference that if the thing felt be a matter of pure nature, then it is not a matter of art, and the existence of that which constitutes the fact of powerful feeling is necessary before art, before art, can be summoned to our aid. See, what he's saying is that we do not learn the symbols of emotion as they come to expression in oral communication. We must learn to feel as we ought to feel, that those feelings may clothe themselves with the appropriate expressions.

7:50 Then we can refine and direct them. So he's seeking to steer away his students from any thought that we are going to analyze what a man does when he feels deeply, the emotion of grief, and then imitate the expressions. He says, no, we must seek to absorb and experience the internal disposition of the soul that clothes itself with those external symbols in the act of communication. The following has been ascribed to the celebrated Mr. Garrick as conveying his sentiments on the subject. A student, it appears, had requested to know Mr. Garrick's sentiments on public speaking, and his reply, was nearly as follows. This is the famous actor in the days of Whitefield, who said that he'd give a thousand guineas, that's a pound plus a shilling.

8:39 He said, if I could say the word, oh, as Whitefield says it. This was the man who was the consummate actor of his day. When some uninstructed people went to see a Shakespearean play and saw Hamlet, someone asked what he thought about Mr. Garrick, and he made comments about all the other actors, and they said, no, no, no, what about the, oh, he says, you mean the man who thus, and thus, and he described all of the things as though they had actually happened.

9:04 To his mind, he was such a consummate actor, he thought that was reality in the case of Garrick's playing the role of Hamlet. Now, this is what a man who had such a grasp on the theater and communication, et cetera, said. My dear pupil, you know how you would feel and speak in the parlor to a dear friend who was in imminent danger of his life, and with what energetic pathos and diction and countenance you would enforce the observance of that which you really thought would result in his preservation. You see his point?

9:38 You've got a friend. You're sitting down in an intimate situation. You love this man. You're convinced that he's in imminent danger.

9:45 You are now seeking to persuade him to do what he must do to avoid the danger that would take his life. You would not think of playing the orator, of studying your emphasis, your cadence, or your gesture. You'd be yourself. And the interesting nature of your subject impressing your heart would furnish you with the most natural tone of voice, the most proper language, the most engaging features, and the most suitable and graceful gestures.

10:14 What you would be in the parlor, be in the pulpit, and you will not fail to please, to affect, and to profit. Now, that's from a pagan who recognized these principles that are not negated. They are negated in the scheme of God's grace. You see, this is where you find the fundamental difference in a human being and a computerized voice.

The Computerized Voice vs. Living Soul: The Necessity of Emotion in Preaching

10:39 Have you all been in the situation? If you've gone through the Atlanta airport, they have these shuttles between the various terminals. No human being in there operating them. They're all operated from a central computer.

10:52 And the computerized voice will say, you are now in terminal number three. Take this to such and such a place. And again, exit for terminals one and two. The computerized voice can tell you the directions for getting around Atlanta's terminal.

11:08 And in the same voice could say, your wife has just died. Please turn around, cancel your travel plans, and go home. What's the essence of the computerized voice?

11:18 You'd say there must be cognition behind that. There must be an understanding of words and grammar, all conveyed accurately as to syntax. What does it lack? It lacks the dimension of the living soul with its emotional overtones.

11:37 And God have mercy when the most orthodox, reformed, Calvinistic preaching is more akin to the computerized voice than to a living human being made in the image of God.

11:52 You see, if we can say in the same tones directions to the right terminal as we can give men directions how to avoid the everlasting judgment of God, then we are not rightly representing God as His image. We are not rightly representing the God in whose name we speak and whose truth we seek to convey. Now, can God overrule that? Yes.

12:17 If God can open the mouth of a dumbass and make that dumbass an effectual prophet to the mad prophet Balaam,

12:28 then God can take the neutered, emotionally stilted pronouncements of His truth, but it's not. It's not a question of what God can do or may do or has sovereignly done. It is a question of what we ought to do as the conveyors of His truth and what has God most frequently owned to bring about the greatest good in the history of His working in the sons of men.

The Profound Influence of Emotions on the Listener: Emotional Contagion

12:56 And when we take that approach, then the answer is clear. Not only do the emotions powerfully influence the speaker in oral communication, they also have a profound influence upon the listener. Brethren, it is a fact that for good or evil,

13:16 by the truth or by means of error, he who moves men's affections moves men.

13:26 You say, it shouldn't be that way. Well, it is that way. That's reality. He who moves men's affections moves men.

13:34 We choose the thing that at the level of the affections we believe is in our good. Now, we may have been totally deceived in choosing something that will harm us, but we choose it because we believe it's for our good. The affections must be stirred to a given object. And as we've emphasized again and again, the Holy Spirit does not negate or bypass this aspect of created reality, this emotional contagion between the one who speaks and the one who listens and this horizontal contagion that exists between listeners attending upon the same speaker.

14:17 There is an occurrence that not only goes out from the speaker to the people and from the people back to the speaker, but between the people who sit before that speaker. And again, the old writers understood this and were very careful to articulate this in his essay on the necessity of earnestness by Ebenezer Porter, in his book on homiletics. He quotes from one of the old writers, Wright, W-R-I-G-H-T, in his philosophy of elocution, in urging upon the Christian student of eloquence, earnestness of manner, and energy of expression, relates the following, quote, A citizen of Athens came to Demosthenes and besought him to plead his cause against one by whom he had been treated with great cruelty. Now, the person, having made his complaint with an air and style of perfect coldness and indifference, the orator was not inclined to believe him. This affair cannot be as you represent it. You've not suffered hard usage.

15:25 Here merely the lack of earnestness and expression, the veracity of the person was disputed, and that too by Demosthenes. A pathetic address with finely interwoven phrases was not essential to convince the orator of the fact. He only required, perhaps a probable picture of the mind of the sufferer or an earnest recital of the transaction. When the orator intimated his disbelief of the fact, Plutarch informs us that the citizen immediately expressed himself with the utmost emotion, I, not harshly used, I, not ill-treated.

16:05 Now, says Demosthenes, I begin to believe you. That's the form, that's the language of an injured man. That's the language of an injured man. I acknowledge the justice of your cause and I will be your advocate.

16:22 We shall find the object of this illustration, continues the author, shown more at length by the Roman orator. I perfectly remember, says Cicero, that when Claudius prosecuted Galleus for an attempt to poison him and pretended he had the plainest proofs of it, could produce many letters, witnesses, information and other evidences to put the orator in prison. I remember the truth of his charge beyond a doubt, interspersing many sensible and ingenious remarks on the nature of the crime. I remember that when it came my turn to reply to him, after urging every argument with the case which the case suggested, I insisted upon it as a material circumstance in favor of my client, that the prosecutor, while he charged him with a design against his life, and assured us that he had the most indubitable proofs of it then in his hands, related his story with as much ease and as much calmness and indifference as if nothing had happened. Would it have been possible, exclaimed Cicero, addressing himself to Claudius, that you should speak with this air of unconcern unless the charge was purely an invention of your own, and above all, that you whose eloquence has often vindicated the wrongs of other people with so much spirit should speak so coolly, of a crime which threatened your own life.

17:50 Now, what was his rejoinder? It was this.

17:55 I'm not disputing the content of anything you say, but the manner in which you say it gives lie to that content. Now, brethren, you see the application, don't you? Consistent with all of our own individual concreted differences. To use some of the old categories of, seminal psychology, and maybe it should have been buried at that stage, but some of us more phlegmatic, some of us more sanguine, etc.

18:27 We don't doubt the difference of con-created diversity, of emotional constitution, of physical constitution, and physical energy.

18:39 And grace does not go back and re-scramble us in our mother's wombs. But laying hold of us in terms of all of that difference, surely, brethren, we cannot traffic in the things in which we traffic that touch the highest concerns of the honor and glory of God and the salvation and the eternal well-being of the souls of men and give lie to what we say by the manner in which we say it, especially in terms of the real, genuine, emotional energy attendant upon and throbbing through what we say.

Dabney on Sympathy and the Proper Use of Emotional Contagion

19:16 And here again, remember our Lord's words, the sons of this generation are wiser than the sons of light. And if men recognize this vital principle of the strategic place and function of the emotions in oral communication, then surely, as the servants of God, we ought to recognize it. Again, Dabney, on this aspect of the emotional contagion, thinking of it now, not so much from the speaker to the people, but in terms of its horizontal, dimensional dimensions, writes in that masterful article on the exposition of 1 Corinthians 3 on page 559, let us avert to the principle of sympathy in the human soul. We so habitually limit the operations of this in our thoughts to the sorrowful emotions that we almost forget its universality. The Creator has formed man with this law of feeling that the mere witnessing of any human emotion colors the soul of the spectator with a similar emotion in a less degree. In the object of the sympathy, the emotion was propagated according to the laws of the understanding, which presents to the heart some view of facts rationally adapted to be the motive or occasion of the feeling. You see what he's saying?

20:41 In the original person, there was something that they recognized at the cognitive level that produced a given emotion. However, those around him who know nothing of that which filtered through at the cognitive level are nonetheless susceptible to the contagion of that emotion. Now, he said that's a fact of the way God has made us. And then he goes on to demonstrate it.

21:09 The sympathetic emotion is wholly unintelligent, is superinduced by the mere sight of the feeling in another, and usually vanishes. When that is removed. In proof, we point to the facts that we are saddened when we see a person weep, although we don't know the cause of his grief. And if we see persons angry or fighting, we partake of their excitement, though we know and care nothing of them or their quarrels.

21:36 Someone was mentioning to me in their recent reading that incident of the mob scene in the Book of Acts. They're all stirred up, and it says they didn't know what in the world they were even stirred up about. But everybody was upset and angry and in a frenzy, and they were carried, along with it. What are you guys upset?

21:51 I don't know, but there's a fight going on, there's a war about to happen, and I feel I want to be a part of it. What's the cause? Don't have a clue. Don't have a clue.

21:59 You see that so clearly in that incident. In a word, our sympathetic feeling is provoked not by the rational cause of the feeling we behold, but by the mere beholding of the feeling. Again, it should be remarked that sympathy is involuntary and immediate. The senseless passions of mobs where men are suddenly led to clamor or fight with vehemence for objects of which they are utterly ignorant and careless are familiar and trite illustrations of this power.

22:32 In volume one, or not enough, no, having read those two almost simultaneously, I sometimes switch in my mind which is which, but in Ian Murray's Revival and Revivalism, he has some very helpful source material data relative to this phenomenon in the, or these phenomenon, this phenomenon, singular, in the Kentucky revivals where you had people who were not within the sound of the preaching. They were out of the earshot of the preaching, yet they'd come upon a group of people who had been under preaching and under conviction in great distress, and lo and behold, they'd come under great distress with no truth having impacted the mind. And this is one of the great dangers, even in the best of so-called revivals, is this element, if not carefully watched and discreetly channeled by those in leadership, often causes what has begun in the spirit to end up in the flesh. Because God has so made us that that contagion is there. There is that reality of involuntary contagion. There can be a wretched abuse of it.

23:45 But is there a proper use of it? Well, Dabney goes on and he asserts, yes, there is a proper use of it. And this is what Dabney has to say about the proper use of this on page 561 and on to 562. He goes on, let me summarize in the interest of time that God does not bypass this in the communication of his truth and the preacher does not, while he aims to produce the sympathetic emotion which, if it remained mere sympathy, would be unintelligent and worthless for ulterior good, he also presents Bible truths to the understanding, gaining for them the warmth and quickened attention of the temporary feelings so that by their truths the hearer's soul may now perchance be profited. But if he merely seeks to excite and harrow the sympathies by touching or dramatic incidents or by fiery displays of passion which contain no perspicuous explication of Bible truths, the man is abusing his power. He is excusing by mere contagious influence a senseless and worthless agitation which can do no good, being accompanied with no light for the understanding and which is likely to do irreparable evil by being mistaken for true religious feeling. Again, the exhibition of genuine religious emotion

25:13 which is the just fruit of right views of the truth held by the understanding may have a valuable sympathetic effect on others as when that exhibition is properly made in the daily duties of a holy life, in the approaches to the throne of grace, in the tender expostulations of the Christian with his impenitent neighbor. The sympathetic softening may make way for the teachings of instructive example or discourse to the mind hitherto inattentive. But when emotions are paraded in publicity and in force, flamed by the artifices of the ecclesiastical quote, manual exercise in order to propagate a passion beyond that begotten by the truth itself, the result is unmingled mischief. And you see how in Dabney there is this constantly recurring motif. It is the truth cognitively perceived that is the mother of true and holy emotions. And if we grasp nothing else, brethren, that connection that is absolutely crucial so that as we begin to try to internalize this and work it out in relationship to our preaching, we will never jump outside the boundaries of that fundamental relationship between holy emotions and the truth which is to produce them.

Preaching Without Passion is Not Preaching At All

26:43 I commend to you along this line Dabney's two chapters on persuasion in his work now entitled Dabney on Preaching Originally Sacred Rhetoric and he has some very, very helpful insights in those two chapters because Dabney is approaching them with his own sphere of reference that we've alluded to in the course of the lectures this morning constantly conditioning his counsel and advice and his teaching on the subject of persuasion and I heartily recommend that. It was his understanding of these very things that caused the doer Highland son of Scotland Professor Murray to say and you'll find this on page 72 in the works of John Murray it's volume 3 that has his little biography by Ian Murray and this is a direct quote of Professor Murray to me preaching without passion is not preaching at all. Now the good professor would say preaching without solid exegesis is not preaching preaching without lucid organization is not preaching Professor Murray was a master homiletician in his preaching most of you have not heard his preaching you've read his theological treatises but when he was preaching in a popular audience you can almost invariably count on three heads and once you heard them you don't forget them

28:12 how can I forget his sermon on Genesis 3.15 enmity injected he said the word injected I will put enmity I can still hear it enmity perpetuated between thee and the woman her seed and thy seed enmity consummated he shall bruise thou shalt bruise never forget it it's obvious how else would you handle the text you see but now to this man with his passion for truth with his passion for meticulous exegesis for a balanced theological presentation of the truth with his own exemplary penchant for clean simple homiletics yet he said to me preaching without passion that is without its appropriate emotional expressions is not preaching and I'm sure he would say preaching with painted emotions is not preaching either knowing the man to the extent that I was privileged to know him I have no question that he would amen that extension of his words now brethren if all of these perspectives on the relationship between the emotions and oral communication are valid and I believe in most of them I've carried your judgment you can no more deny them than you can deny your own existence

29:41 then is it not unthinkable that a man should stand before his fellow mortals with a mind impregnated with clear views of the truth his own affections warmed by the truth and under the peculiar present assistance of the Holy Spirit upon his whole humanity is it not unthinkable that emotional energy should not pulsate through all that he does in his preaching I hope you see it is utterly incongruous a mind impregnated with truth that touches the greatest issues of time and eternity and the glory of God and the good of men a heart warmed in the spirit of God in his own mysterious but real ministry present in the spirit of the preacher even in the mouth of the preacher Paul says pray that utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth as I ought in making known the mystery of the gospel brethren it is unthinkable that emotional energy will not pulsate through that discourse pulsate consistent with a man's concreated individuality diversity yes and I'll emphasize that again and again and again and again but with all due latitude

31:11 we should know unless we are so totally out of touch with reality or so totally grieving the spirit we should not be five minutes into a man's discourse but that we are convinced by the emotional energy attending that discourse that he is not merely saying true things in our hearing good things in our hearing but he is saying vital things that touch our highest self interest and therefore engage us in the realization that what he is saying it is vital for me to grasp and for me to receive and is it not the height of an unsound theology of the constitution of man as created and redeemed by the spiritual and spiritual system that would suggest let alone assert that even the most intense emotional energy in preaching is unwarranted indiscreet or unnecessary I have had people tell me that and I have simply turned to them and said look before God saved me I never did anything half hearted if I was not on the ball field engaged in the game slouching and turned inward upon myself I was wholly engaged I was always stepping over the sideline and having to coach to get back if I wasn't there I was there

Thornwell: The Union of Rigorous Logic and Strong Emotion in Preaching

32:40 empathetically with my fellow players on the field when God was pleased to lay hold of an 18 year old dirty mouth kid and save him and give him a passion in his bones to preach I never thought how shall I preach my thought was what shall I preach and as the truth gripped me and the whole of my young redeemed humanity I preached the way I play football it would be unthinkable that I'd do less wouldn't it and become something wholly other than what God had made me I commend you brethren as we close the wonderful sections in Gardner Springs Power in the Pulpit let me give you the page numbers Power in the Pulpit page 126 and 7 128 and 9 138 and 9 138 and 131 and 132 oh I've given you those references I didn't even remember what I had dictated to go into your notes you don't need to write that down it's already in your notes you already got it but let me let me conclude this morning by what I hope is an expression of the principle one example is worth a thousand words let me whet your appetite for the outworking of these things in your own life in ministry in the days to come bypassing some very helpful quotes from some other sources I want to give you

34:09 two quotes found in the life of James Henley Thornwell by D.M. Palmer one of them is Thornwell the theologian and in this particular section Palmer is describing Thornwell in the classroom teaching theology and his favorite theologian was John Calvin and after Palmer tells why there was such a resonance of spirit and mind between Thornwell and Calvin one of the students is then the account of one of the students of what it was like to sit in the class when Thornwell was teaching theology seeking to give these students an appreciation for Calvin listen to a former student as he recalls what it was like to learn theology at the feet of James Henley Thornwell I remember well the account he gave of his visit to Calvin's grave and of his musings upon the molding influence of the mighty reformer upon theological thought in general and the statement of his conviction that the emergencies of the conflict with rationalistic infidelity were now forcing the whole church more and more to occupy Calvin's ground his face his pale face alternated with flushes of red and white as he was speaking and his eye dilated until it seemed almost supernaturally large and luminous deeply moved myself

35:38 and fired with an enthusiasm for Calvin which I hope never to lose I turned a moment's glance to find the class spellbound by the burst of eloquence and feeling see what the student remembered he said there the whole class was gripped by this burst of eloquence the cognitive faculties articulating with appropriate vocabulary conceptualized truth but he said and feeling what caused his eye to dilate until it seemed almost supernaturally large and luminous what made his face grow pale and then flushed with red the involuntary responses of the physiology to deeply felt emotions and what was producing the emotions Calvin's institutes and Calvin as a theologian standing in his times speaking to the issues of the times and forwarding his thoughts Thornwell's burden for the state of the Presbyterian church in the south all of these things were cognitive realities that pumped their emotional energy into the soul of this man and suffused themselves through the entirety of his discourse that's the theological lecture now when I read this and I can't read it too often because it would discourage me from ever preaching again here's Thornwell the preacher

37:08 and this is our closing quote this morning the feature most remarkable in this prince of pulpit orators was the rare union of rigorous logic with strong emotion he reasoned always but never coldly he did not present truth in what Bacon calls the quote dry light of the understanding end quote clear indeed but without heat which warms and fructifies Dr. Thornwell wove his argument in fire his mind warmed with the friction of its own thoughts and glowed with the rapidity of its own motion and the speaker was born along in what seemed to others a chariot of fire one must have listened to him to form an adequate conception of what we mean filled with the sublimity of his theme see the emphasis again the mind grasping the truth the cognitive faculty fully engaged filled with the sublimity of his theme and feeling in the depths of his soul its transcendent importance he could not preach the gospel of the grace of God with the coldness of a philosopher as the flood of his discourse set in one could perceive the groundswell from beneath the heaving tide of passionate emotion which rolled it on kindling with a secret

38:37 inspiration his manner lost its slight constraint all angularity of gesture and awkwardness of posture suddenly disappeared the spasmodic shaking of the head entirely ceased these were natural features to Thornwell the man apparently had an angularity of posture and a shaking of the head but as the truth gripped him in the act of preaching all of these things ceased his slender form dilated his deep black eye lost its drooping expression the soul came and looked forth lighting it with a strange brilliancy his frail body rocked and trembled as under a divine afflatus as though the impatient spirit would rend that tabernacle and fly forth to God in heaven upon the wings of his impassioned words until his fiery eloquence rising with the greatness of his conceptions you see again the cognitive faculty was not set apart but the impassioned words rising with the greatness of the conceptions burst upon the hearer in some grand climax overwhelming in its majesty and resistless in its effect in all of this there was no empty declamation no histrionic mummery no straining for effect nothing approaching to rant all was

40:06 natural the simple product of thought and feeling wonderfully combined one saw the whirlwind as it rose and gathered up the waters of the sea saw it in its headlong course and in the bursting of its power however vehement his passion it was justified by the thoughts which engendered it and in all the storm of his eloquence the genius of logic could be seen presiding over its element and guiding its course the hearer had just that sense of power which power gives when seen under a measure of restraint the speaker's fullness was not exhausted language only failed to convey what was left behind well brethren there's a standard and God has not endowed any of us at least to my present perception with the mind of a thorn well with many of the native gifts of that mighty man of God who went to his rest before his fiftieth birthday but surely we can seek to know what he know of the truth of God so gripping us that it is carried to men in the white hot passion of sanctified emotion and if you ever get accused of being too enthusiastic just ask your accuser

41:34 do you have any reason to believe that I've abandoned in my most intense passion patches of passion the ruling governing principle of sound judgment I've asked people that have you ever seen me rant have I ever engaged in mindless profuse expressions of words no well then do not fault me my conscience never condemns me that I've been too emotional it often condemns me that I haven't felt nor conveyed one tenth of what the truth warranted so may God deliver us brethren in an age that hates impassioned oratory is suspicious of impassioned speech may God help us to bear the reproach of Christ and into the teeth of this generation seek to bring the word of God with grace and power and with all of the energy of sanctified emotional involvement and that we were able to do so with a good conscience because as best I've been able to do with my limited resources to analyze these things and with the controlling quality control of the masters of the past that we will not be hung up and tentative in finding our true level don't short change yourself

Prayer for Sanctified Emotional Involvement in Preaching

43:03 you may say well I'm just naturally this or that I've seen God take naturally quiet retiring men and when the truth of God impregnates their souls they become like different men under the afflatus of the spirit of God gripping them with the truth of God and enabling them in its utterance I cannot but speak what I've seen and heard and may God be pleased to make us such men by the power of his grace well let's pray our father we confess in your presence our felt sense of being pygmies before a man like Thornwell and yet we thank you that you have not called us to be James Henley Thornwell but you've called each of us to be all that your grace can make us and we pray that in all of the things we've considered today that you would blow upon anything that has had the chaff of mere human thought and what has been true to your word and true to the obvious stamp of general revelation Lord help us to be settled and well grounded and convinced of these things that we may experience an internal adjustment to truth in this matter of how we will preach your word in terms of the emotional energy

44:33 and attendance and the signs and symbols of that emotional engagement Lord help us as we seek to steer through waters upon which many have ended up on the shoals and on the reefs of an unsound theology help us by your grace seal to our hearts these things and enable us by the tutelage of your Holy Spirit to become the preachers that we ought to be hear us receive our thanks and then Lord hear us as we again cry to you for that gathering together of your servants there in Liberty Corners bless the men bless Pastor Dunn may this indeed be a weekend in which deep and long lasting work is done in the hearts of all of us who gather be with the men as they go to their places of work and to their homes bless their wives and children give us we pray a good weekend in your presence we ask with thankful hearts through our Lord Jesus Christ Amen well many of you that want to stay on for a few minutes and