43a) Preacher's Vocal Powers (10/18/1996)

Avoiding Vocal Affectations

0:02 All right, brethren, may I encourage you to button down the hatches and tighten up the mental seatbelts because we need to move at a rapid rate through the remaining material. Having addressed the importance of the vocal powers in preaching and then sought to identify the various dimensions of the vocal powers that ought to be employed in the act of preaching, we now come, thirdly, to practical guidelines for the regulation of the vocal powers in preaching. And I begin with these general guidelines or suggestions. And without embarrassment, much of this, as you will know if you've read Spurgeon's two chapters on The Voice, I'm indebted to Spurgeon as well as to many of the other writers who pick up on many of these themes as well. And the first is, not only first in terms of numerical arrangement, but perhaps in practical importance is the counsel to avoid all vocal affectations. The moment people have reason to suspect that the manner in which you are using your vocal apparatus is forced,

1:21 they're going to suspect you of a weak mind or of questionable motives. So, far better to be rough and in some areas undeveloped in your vocal powers than in any way to get near to being charged with that which could be called affectation. Now, all are conscious that a speaker, if conscious of his words, does not enable us to grasp his thoughts. If you see a man stand up and you sense that he, he, he's so nervous about you're just pitying the poor fellow. You want to be able to get up alongside him and help. You're not giving yourself to that man to be taught by him. You almost wish you could go up and replace him, support him, do something to help him.

2:21 Well, that's an exaggerated way of underscoring what happens whenever there are vocal affectations. And Spurgeon speaks, very powerfully to this matter in his chapter on the voice and he writes, when you do pay attention to the voice, take care not to fall into the habitual and common affectations of the present day. Scarcely one man in a dozen in the pulpit talks like a man. This affectation is not confined to Protestants for the Abbe Milou remarked, everywhere else men speak.

2:59 They speak at the bar and at the tribune and they no longer speak in the pulpit for there. We only meet with a factitious and artificial language and a false tone. This tile of speaking is not, is only tolerated in the church because unfortunately it's so general there elsewhere. It would not be endured.

3:23 What would be thought of the man who should converse in a similar way in a drawing room? He would certainly provoke. Many a smile. Some time ago there was a warder at the Pantheon, a good sort of fellow in his way who, in enumerating the beauties of that monument, adopted precisely the tone of many of our preachers and never failed thereby to excite the hilarity of the visitors who were as much amused with his style of address as with the objects of interest which he pointed out to them.

3:54 A man who has not a natural and true delivery, should not be allowed to occupy the pulpit. From thence at least everything that is false should be summarily banished. In these days of mistrust everything that is false should be set aside and the best way of correcting oneself in that respect as regards to preaching is frequently to listen to certain monotonous and vehement preachers. We shall come away in such disgust and with such a horror of their own, and with such a horror of their own, and with such a horror of their own, and with such a horror of their own, and with such a horror of their own, and with such a horror of their own, and with such a horror of their own, and with such a horror of their own, that we shall prevert condemning ourselves to silence rather than to imitate them." The instant you abandon the natural and the true, you forego the right to be believed as well as the right of being listened to. You may go all around to church and chapel alike and you will find that by far the larger majority of our preachers have a holy tone for Sundays. They have one voice for the parlor and the bedroom, They have one voice for the parlor and the bedroom, and quite another tone for the pulpit. tone for the pulpit, so that if not double-tongued sinfully, they certainly are so literally.

5:05 The moment some men shut the pulpit door, they leave their own personal manhood behind them and become as official as the parish beetle. Now, you don't know what a beetle is. Some of us do know what a beetle is. I remember very distinctly my first introduction to a beetle. I was preaching in a free church up in Scotland, and as I was ushered into the pulpit, this man with very officious look, very officious dress, carried the Bible in. Does he carry it in on the pillow and put the pillow there with the Bible? I tell you, if anything looked officious, it was the beetle carrying in the Bible on his pillow. Well, he says that many men are as official.

5:52 As the parish beetle. There they might almost boast with the Pharisee that they are not as other men are, although it would be blasphemy to thank God for it. No longer are they carnal and speak as men, but a whine, a broken hum-ho, or some other graceless mode of noise-making is adopted to prevent all suspicion of being natural and speaking out of the abundance of the heart. When that gown is once on, how often does it prove that it is not as official as the parish beetle?

Correcting Vocal Distractions

6:22 How often does it prove to be the shroud of a man's true self and the effeminate emblem of officialism? Well, Spurgeon heard a number of affected preachers in his day, and so he said to his students, whatever else you do, avoid all vocal affectations. But then secondly, and the first exhortation really is invalid if detached from the second, correct all vocal distractions where possible. You see, what is natural to you may be naturally distracting, because what is natural to you is a naturalness that is the cumulative product of perhaps some genetic factors, the product of the example of the way your mom and dad communicated to you and in the home, certain emphases or non-emphases in the educational process, so that you're not as natural as you are. Your natural way of speaking may indeed be very distracting, because of the kinks that have come in to the whole complex issue of verbal, vocal communication. And therefore,

7:42 if we are, by the grace of God, to have all of our vocal powers serve the interest of truth, we must not only avoid affectations, which raise questions about ourselves, but not only our sincerity and our good judgment, but all vocal distractions. I was listening in recent weeks to a man giving two lectures on the critical place of rhetoric in the curriculum of the Christian school, and if the man said, ah, ah, ah, ah, if he said it once or twice in the course of a paragraph, he said it a dozen times. And I kept, like saying, my friend, physician, heal thyself. He had somewhere along the line picked up a terrible habit of every pause was interjected with ah, ah, ah, ah. And all of his study in the classic rhetoricians and his preparation to teach rhetoric did not cure him of this very irritating vocal distraction. And we need to be honest and open ourselves to the constructive criticism of others and listen to ourselves. We have a benefit that Spurgeon could not

Cultivating Sufficient Volume

9:00 urge upon his students of listening to ourselves on tape and asking ourselves to listen to ourselves as critically as we would listen to someone else. And see if we can pick up any of those vocal distractions, identify them, and set ourselves to work to rid ourselves of them. Then third, general counsel or guideline, cultivate sufficient volume so as to be heard commandingly and comfortably. Now, when I say sufficient volume to be heard commandingly and comfortably, what am I talking about? Well, let me respond by reading to you some thoughts of Dabney, page 304 in his lectures on sacred rhetoric. Speech is addressed to the ear. Anyone want to disagree with that? Not at all.

9:55 Not addressed to the nose, not addressed to the foot, to the elbow. Speech is addressed to the ear. Its first requisite is therefore audibility. Brilliant insight, isn't it?

10:09 We must so utter it as to be heard. This simple remark will suggest to your good sense the rule as to the gauge of loudness. The voice should always be loud enough to be heard throughout the audience and, except in animation, then we cannot spread it out across the audience. The voice should always be louder enough to be heard throughout the audience and, except in animation, the voice should be loud enough to be heard throughout the audience. So let's passages, it should not be much louder. To secure that result, it is well to direct the eyes generally toward the farthest circle of hearers, for the voice will naturally adjust itself to the distance of those we address. I'm speaking to you men, giving sufficient voice support to be heard by you. If I saw someone out on the sidewalk about to cross the street, and I saw a car was coming and he didn't see it, suddenly, wanting to pierce his ear through those closed windows, I'll clue you my volume would undergo exponential increases. Because I want my voice not to encompass you,

11:09 you're not in danger, he is. I want my voice to go out and grab his ear. Well, as Dabney wisely says, when you stand up to preach, fasten your eye on the farthest reaches, it's the counsel I give to visiting preachers. I say, forget that little finger, Mike. Act as though it were not there, and look out, left, right, center, fix in your eye and in your mind those that are farthest from you, and speak with sufficient voice support as to encompass those that are as far out. I'm not shouting, I'm not bellering, I'm not speaking in an unnatural way, but I'm now speaking in a way that is commanding enough to carry me. Capture and take in those that are out there, whereas if I did that in this classroom, you'd say, my brother, please, my eardrums are beginning to hurt. So I hope just that simple illustration underscores what Dabney is saying, and I'm quoting him to enforce what I mean,

12:13 with sufficient volume so as to be heard commandingly and comfortably. He goes on to say, this rule is useful also in guarding us against the distraction of our attention, and the loss of our thread of thought by noting too closely any individual countenance or trivial event in the audience that is nearest to us. So he says, if you just fasten your eyes on the front row, not only will you probably fail to have sufficient commandingness and force to take in others, but you could be unnecessarily distracted. It's unlikely if the man in the back row just scratches his ear that it'll distract you, but the man in the front row does that, and it can distract.

12:55 So cultivate sufficient volume so as to be heard commandingly and comfortably. Remember what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14, unless you utter words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? Well, if words are to be understood, there must not only be the separation of the words and the distinct enunciation of the various syllables so we know what the words are, but there must be sufficient volume so that enough vibration enters the inner ear in that complex process of hearing to send a signal to the auditory nerve that will register on the brain. And a man may have the richest, most devout, Christ-centered, potentially edifying thoughts uttered in beautiful diction, in elegant syntax and grammar and all the rest, but if it can't be heard, it can do no good. He may as well be speaking in an unknown tongue. And by the word commandingness, I'm trying to neutralize the idea of drift in many circles today, and you'll find it in some of the writers on this subject, that anything that is different

14:16 from table conversation or parlor conversation is artificial. Well, that's sheer nonsense.

14:22 I am not speaking to you men in this classroom the way I speak to my wife, at the table. I wouldn't have a happy marriage after 40 years. Now, I don't speak with an entirely different voice and say, sweetie, how are you? No, no, no. I don't become some castrated wimp who speaks with a little feminine whine. No, I speak like a man to my wife, but she's my wife. And there's only 18 inches to 24 inches between her ears and my voice when we're talking at the table. And that influences the...

14:57 The volume? Yes. So when you come into a public speaking situation, it is not unnatural. It is not indulging in the rhetorical arts, or some would say non-arts and prostitution of communication, to speak with more of a stentorian tone. The commandingness that encompasses that group and the size of the group, the size of the auditorium, and that's what I'm trying to convey by the term speaking with sufficient volume so as to be heard commandingly and comfortably. Now, not only does that mean sufficient volume, but just sufficient volume and not too much. Spurgeon writes, always speak so as to be heard. I know a man who weighs 16 stone. That's

15:49 approximately 225 pounds. A stone is 14 pounds in the English measurement. And he ought to be able to be heard. He ought to be able to be heard. He ought to be able to be heard. He ought to be heard half a mile. But he's so gracelessly indolent that in his small place of worship, you can scarcely hear him in front of the balcony. What's the use of a preacher whom men cannot hear? Modesty should lead a voiceless man to give place to others more fitted for the work of proclaiming the messages of the king. Some men are loud enough, but they are not distinct. Their words overlap each other, play at leapfrog, or trip each other up. Distinct utterance is far more important than wind power. Do give a word a fair chance. Do not

16:37 break its back in your vehemence or run it off its legs in your haste, as only Spurgeon could express these things. Now, I've said cultivate sufficient volume. Some of you are naturally soft-spoken. Some of you had as the image of manhood a soft-spoken father. But God has given you the power to speak. You can speak the truth. You can speak the truth. You can speak the truth.

16:59 You can speak the truth. You can speak the truth. You can speak the truth. You can speak the truth.

Cultivating Variety and Distinctness

16:59 physical capacity to develop greater ability to crank up the volume, and so I give you this counsel to cultivate sufficient volume. Then, fourth counsel, cultivate a variety of tone, pace, intensity, and volume. And here I quote again from Spurgeon, Do not start at the highest pitch as a rule, for then you'll not be able to rise when you warm with the work, but still be outspoken from the first. Lower the voice when suitable, even to a whisper, for soft, deliberate, solemn utterances are not only a relief to the ear, but have a great aptitude to reach the heart. Do not be afraid of the low keys, for if you throw force into them, they are as well heard as the shouts. You need not speak in a loud voice to be heard well. Macaulay says of William Pitt, his voice, even when it's silent, it's a voice of the heart. He says,

18:01 To a whisper was heard to the remotest benches of the house of commons. It has been well said that the most noisy gun is not the one which carries the bullet the farthest. The crack of a rifle is anything but noisy. It is not the loudness of your voice, it is the force which you put into it that is effective. I am certain I could whisper so as to be heard throughout every corner of our great tabernacle, and I am equally certain that I could holler and shout so that nobody could understand me. The thing could be done here, but perhaps the example is needless, and I fear some of you performed the business with remarkable success. There he was lecturing there in the college and saying, I could illustrate it here, but some of you are already doing it well enough, so I won't repeat it. Waves of air may dash upon the ear in such rapid succession that they create no translatable impression on the auditory nerve. God has mercy upon us and arranges all things to meet our cravings for

19:08 variety. Let us have mercy upon our fellow creatures and not persecute them with the tedium of sameness. Be like God. He's a God of variety. Imagine if all the birds had a song like the crows, and only like the crows. No one would want to wake up in the morning and hear the singing of the birds. But if everything were the sweet song of the nightingale and of the canary, where would that unusual piercing crow sound be that is so plaintive and so moving in the open fields, and you hear it off at a distance? Well, God's the God of variety. Well, let's reflect his likeness in proclaiming the substance of special revelation. Cultivate, and for many of us, we must work at cultivating this variety of tones, of sounds, of sounds, of sounds, of sounds, of tone, of pace, of intensity, and of volume. And then, fifthly, cultivate distinctness of enunciation and correctness of pronunciation. Enunciation has to do with the separation of the syllables. Pronunciation has to do with the proper sound and accent. And here again,

20:31 in a day that treats language with such disdain, in which we've reared, a generation of people who grunt and say, well, it's like man, you know, it's like man, man, you know, it's like, and that's the beginning, middle, and end of the working vocabulary, we need, by the grace of God, to reflect the dignity of our message and the nobility of this faculty of speech given to us by God, sound speech that cannot be condemned. Let us cultivate distinctness of enunciation and correctness of pronunciation. Now, again, not a stilted artificiality so concerned that we enunciate, and people say, what's wrong with that guy? But still, there is a way of speaking distinctly, enunciating clearly, pronouncing words correctly. Your dictionary ought to be at your hand continually, especially in the day where we have so many tools that we've got spell right and everything else, but it's not going to show you where the right accent, and we need constantly to be men who, by the grace of God, set the highest standard attainable by prayer and pains in these practical areas. Now, it's interesting when you read some of the writers, both the classical rhetoricians as well as those who read them and sought to teach

21:56 preaching, how some will say, for example, Spurgeon, he was very strong in emphasizing to the students that in this matter of enunciation and pronunciation, that you must give the consonants their due. Practice indefatigably till you give every one of the consonants its due. The vowels have a voice of their own, and therefore they can speak for themselves. In all other matters, exercise a rigid discipline until you've mastered your voice and have it in hand like a well-trained steed. So Spurgeon says the consonants are critical.

22:33 And then you read Dabney on page 305 of his work on preaching, and he says, the vowels are critical. Give the vowels their full sound, and the consonants will take care of themselves. Well, I take Dabney in one hand and Spurgeon in the other and say, God bless them both, and let's give our vowels their full worth and the consonants their full worth. And let's cultivate distinctness of enunciation and correctness of pronunciation. And then, coming to some specific suggestions, moving on to the next slide. Moving from the general to specific. Number one, and I've been harping on this with some of you men, try to give at least 15 minutes a day to specific voice culture. Next to your heart and to your brain, your voice is your most useful instrument in the work of the ministry. And as

Specific Suggestions for Voice Culture and Physical Health

23:30 surely as you would not leave your heart uncultivated and your brain uncultivated, don't leave your vocal apparatus uncultivated. Now, here again, I go back to the old masters, and without exception, the ones that I have read, emphasize the necessity of this matter of voice cultivation. You remember the comments of McElvain in this regard. And then Ebenezer Porter, who taught homiletics and pastoral theology at Andover Newton back when they believed something. And this large volume, along with his volume on pastoral theology, and the third volume I've come across, dealing with more technical matters of style. He has a whole chapter on this matter of the strength of the voice, directions for strengthening the voice. And he writes, the strength of the voice depends on the proper exercise of these organs. And then he goes on to give very concrete, directives to his students on how to strengthen the voice by exercise. For example, on common

24:45 occasions, whenever you use your voice, use as much voice as propriety will permit. So he says, if you're going to be in a given situation where you can speak, use as much of the vocal powers as is appropriate in that given situation. Second counsel, read aloud. The reason why this exercise strengthens the voice is obvious. As I have intimated above in preparing to utter a long sentence, even with a moderate stress, the lungs are inflated by a full inspiration of breath. And then he goes on to quote a leading physician of his day who said, the evil, the failure of lungs in clergymen, the evil referred to, arises rather from the infrequency and inequality of the air. And he goes on to quote, the failure of lungs in clergymen, the exercise of the lungs, than from its essential bad tendency. It should be a first object with one who engages in the clerical profession, especially if he has any of the marks of weak lungs, if he is constitutionally liable to pulmonary complaints, if he's subject

25:56 to disorder of the digestive organs, or has a tendency to, to accustom himself gradually to that kind of exertion that will be required by the duties of his future profession. This is to be attempted by the constant daily practice of loud speaking or reading. And then he descends to even more concrete counsel, at least ten minutes daily, and occasionally half an hour should be devoted to it. And not only did these older writers give that kind of specific instruction, whole books were written to help people do it. This is an old classic by William Russell on pulpit elocution. Let me just give you a little taste for what's in it. This is one of those I'd like to see reprinted. Hints on the modes of practice in the use of this volume, introductory observations on the study of elocution, and there are several essays, then effects of manner in the elocution of the pulpit, and then he analyzes all of the various dimensions, force, feebleness, vehemence, violence, gentleness, etc. Then there are rhetorical

27:08 exercises in order to cultivate all of these various aspects of our vocal faculties. Exercises in quality of voice, pure tone, pathos, repose, placid emotion, solemnity, repose solemnity, energy and sublimity, joy and sublimity, exercises in force, suppressed force, subdued force, moderate force, declamatory force, impassioned force, shouting, calling, and the rest of the vocal faculties. And then there are exercises in order to cultivate all of And then there are verbal exercises, stuff taken from poetry, from classical literature, in which the student was expected to practice his rhetorical development by the use of his voice. One cannot think of a man trying to excel in the shot put who doesn't pick up the 16-pound ball and tuck it under his chin and go out in the circle and push it out as far as he can in the field and get in the weight room and develop the appropriate muscle groups that are most essential to being effective in that kind of exercise or that kind of athletic attainment. And here again, McElvain emphasizes this so forcefully, Spurgeon does. He even exhorts the men, he said, you of narrower chest, he said, we have the dumbbells in the basement of the college that you might broaden your chests in order to increase your vocal powers. So I would urge you...

28:37 I would urge you men, if you are not doing it, thankfully some of you have begun to do this. I was speaking with one of you earlier, and you are giving this period of time each day to specific voice culture. And I don't have time again to read what these men say of the...

28:53 It's just unsound physiologically for us not to use this apparatus under any measure of stress between Sundays. And men wonder why their vocal powers break down. Now, if you have a place where you can...

29:07 pray out loud and pray with some measure of vocal energy, that will in itself give a great use to the vocal powers. But it will not help in the cultivation of some of these other aspects because surely when you're praying, you're not thinking about your pacing. I hope you're not. And you're not thinking about inflection.

29:28 Your heart is engaged with your God, and these matters are of no concern to you, and rightly so. But if you're going to work on these matters, then there ought to be some specific vocal culture. If nothing else, take some of your assigned reading in the academy. You've got plenty of assigned reading.

29:47 And say, today I'm going to take five minutes and read Voss out loud. You want something that will really help you to work on inflection and how you can hold a subject over here and keep all of the meanderings until you come to the main verb and the rest. Well, in cultivating some of these...

30:09 rhetorical skills. So I would urge you, if nothing more, then your assigned reading. I've urged you in other settings to do this with regard to your own devotional reading. Many a time, a portion of the word of God has been obscure to me until I've read it out loud three or four or five different ways.

30:26 And maybe it was the fifth way that I read it that the force of that and the significance of that passage came home to my own consciousness and to my own understanding. So, I counsel you in the way of specific suggestion, to try to give 15 minutes a day to specific voice culture. Then secondly, I'm back on my old hobby horse, engage in regular cardiovascular exercise. And here I could cite everything from medical authorities to just plain common sense.

30:59 That if when we go to speak in public, we are bringing to that exercise the whole of our redeemed humanity, if we are bringing to that exercise the whole of our redeemed humanity, if we are bringing to that exercise the whole of our redeemed humanity, if we are bringing to that exercise the whole of our redeemed humanity, if we are bringing a heart that is imbued with the felt impress of truth, and that felt impress would draw out intensity in the volume, would draw out passion in the manner in which we preach, then the instrument, the entire physiology of the preacher comes to play. And if in the providence of God, God has afflicted you with a paralyzed limb, then obviously that limb will never be brought into the service of truth. But if he has not, and God has given you normal physical health, then the cardiovascular exercise is critical, so that when you do come to those more passionate passages, where there is more volume and the expenditure of more air coming out over the larynx, you don't end up wheezing in the pulpit like an old pack mule ready to go to the glue factory. I've heard men that if they get on a passionate pitch that's very moving, almost all of the good of it is gone. It is undone, panting afterwards, and immediately you feel pity for them, and you wonder if the poor guy is going to drop dead. And part of this is indifference to overall cardiovascular conditioning.

32:24 And then thirdly, practice increasing your lung capacity. Left to ourselves, most of us don't use our lung capacity to the full. And I can prove it to you right now. If I tell each of you to consciously, we all to stand, take as full a breath as possible, put your shoulders back until your sternum pops, and then I were to ask you to start reading something and not stop until you ran out of breath, you'd be amazed.

32:52 All of us, most of the time, are breathing as it were off the top half of our lungs, and we're not using them to their full capacity. Well, you need to get that feeling of what it's like to have the lungs completely filled, and have all of that from one breath, and see how much it can fill. How much it can be expended. Practice increasing your lung capacity.

33:13 Broadus gives some very helpful counsel along this very line. On page 486 of his classic work, whatever improves the general health will improve the voice, especially muscular exercise, and particularly such as develops the chest and promotes an easy erectness of position. Singing cultivates the voice in almost every respect, probably to a greater extent than anything else except actual speaking. It is on many other accounts also very desirable that a minister should be able to sing, and sing by note, and young ministers and those preparing for the ministry should take much pains to learn to sing.

33:56 Reading aloud is also of good service in cultivating the voice. It is, however, more laborious than speaking, and should be promptly suspended when it becomes decidedly fatiguing. And then he goes on again to give some of the practical counsel that the others have given. And then, counsel number four, if you minister to small groups in a small building, do not use a microphone, do not deafen the people, and do not stint your development.

34:28 I believe an awful lot of bad vocal habits are established because of these things called microphones and amplifying systems in small buildings. And people get accustomed to reacting to this microphone, and they don't learn how to speak softly and still project their voice. And they're fearful to let a holy tear come out for fear they're going to split up the speakers and blow the speakers, because they don't have a compressor that will cut down that intensity. And my counsel is that wherever possible, when you go into a place you're going to preach, and it's a smaller building, and you know that your voice could, encompass the people in that building, just graciously go to whoever's in charge and say, I would really appreciate it if you just cut the mic way down. I'd like to be able to have the freedom to have the full use of my voice. And certainly, if God settles you in a pastoral situation, that's one of the things you want to settle with. Whoever you have to settle that with, whatever the structure is, don't start a brouhaha on a Donnybrook over that matter.

Concluding Exhortations: Labor and Competent Criticism

35:36 Be tactful, be wise as a serpent, but seek to explain the fact that you don't want to get into bad vocal habits in that situation. And in that situation, have as your goal that you will not deafen your people and stint your development, but that you will seek under God to develop your vocal powers and the full range of their use in the preaching of the word of God. Now, I have several concluding exhortations. The first is do not spare yourself the real labor, of fully engaging all of the faculties connected with an effective use of your vocal powers.

36:17 I'm amazed how many people think that speaking is an exercise that starts just here and ends here. But it doesn't. Public speaking involves where you plant your feet. It involves the full column of your stomach muscles, your central abs and your obliques.

36:37 It involves the diaphragm. It involves all of those God-created faculties. It involves your tongue, your teeth, your lips. And all of these things have got to be brought into play if you're going to speak distinctly, if you're going to enunciate clearly, if you're going to be able to project effectively and settle it in your own mind that you don't saunter up into the pulpit and just talk.

37:09 You come into the pulpit, prepared under God to engage all of your vocal powers to the fullest extent necessary for the delivery of the Word of God. So don't spare yourself the real labor of the full engagement of those faculties. I come back again to Colossians 3.23.

37:32 Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do with all of your might. Now if that's true in its original context, to the slave who is doing his master's bidding in filling up and carrying to the pig pen the slop bucket, how much more when we are carrying into the presence of the people of God and needy sinners the Word and the truth of our gracious God and of our Savior. But then, secondly, do not cut yourself off from competent critics and practical disciplines. It is essential to continuous progress in vocal efficiency. See, practice does not make perfect, because practice may simply harden you in bad patterns. Practice under judicious eyes and under helpful correction moves toward perfection. That's why the most consummate athletes who are, notice it's athletes, athletes, all right, who've made it to the top ten, say, in the tennis world.

38:47 Each has his own, and it's each has his. Each his, not each their. Singular singular, not singular plural. Each has his own personal coach.

39:00 It never ceases to amaze me if I get to watch a little bit of the U.S. Open or of Wimbledon when they say, this is so-and-so's coach. Coach? This guy's ranked number one in the world.

39:10 What's he need a coach for? Because he can imperceptibly, he can slip into certain habits which need to be corrected, and it takes the objective eye of the coach to point it out to him. Well, again, let's not let the children of this world be wiser in these earthly concerns than we are in these spiritual matters. And here again, listen to McElvain as he gives counsel with respect to this matter of competent coaches and critics.

39:40 The services of a good teacher should be secured. This rule applies to all the exercises which elocution prescribes. Wherever it's possible, the student should have the advice and direction of a good teacher, especially for the purpose of pointing out faults and defects and to exemplify all the good and bad qualities of voice. For we become so accustomed to our own peculiarities, whether of voice or in other respects, that we are, for the most part, insensible of them ourselves.

40:14 However prominent and striking they may be to others. And it is extremely difficult for us to become conscious of them until they are pointed out and exemplified to us by some other person. Where a teacher can be had, a judicious friend, where a teacher cannot be had, a judicious friend should be consulted for this purpose. And may I underscore a judicious friend.

40:42 Judicious friend, judicious friend. Please, don't open the door for your enemies to pick on you about the way you're speaking. You're going to feel like you want to change your name to Job. No.

40:57 Make sure you have a friend. Someone whose heart is full of goodwill to you, towards you. Someone whom you have confidence, really wants you to make progress for the glory of God and the good of His people. And make sure it's a judicious friend.

41:12 Someone who has some measure of ability to make, accurate assessments of defects. Make accurate commendations of areas in your vocal apparatus that are admirable and ought to be strengthened and heightened. And in this, as in so many areas, 1 Timothy 4.15 is our watershed text.

41:35 Timothy, give yourself wholly to these things that your progress may be made manifest unto all. And it ought to be evident to our people that we are not only growing, in our understanding of and belief of the truth, not only growing in our embodiment of the truth, but also growing in our rhetorical skills in the communication of the truth. They ought to see certain bad habits dropping off by degrees. They ought to see certain good habits being cultivated by degrees.

42:11 And if that's to be true, then generally speaking, there need to be competent critics helping us and a constant commitment to the practical disciplines that will help us to grow and increase and to make progress in this very critical area. Let me conclude by just giving you one final quote and this from Broadus. Let me see if I can find it. Now I'm sorry, that's one that I passed over earlier and it doesn't fit at this point, so we'll have to leave that for another occasion.

42:54 Well brethren, unlike last week where we had ample opportunity to root around in numerous portions of the Word of God, much of what we've said today is rooted in general revelation, and yet I do believe, as we emphasize again and again, that general revelation is revelation, and the things that we have considered together, I trust, will, under God, be helpful as we seek to become, by the grace of God, the most effective communicators of God's Word that prayer and pains and good sense and the help of our loving, critical friends may enable us to become. All right, I've completed what I'd hoped to lay before you and we're right on time. Any of you that have to leave immediately, feel free to do so. Those that want to stay and apply me with questions, to see if I have any questions, to see if I have any answers, you're free to do so.