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We must not talk to our congregations as if we were half asleep. Our preaching must not be articulate snoring. There must be power, life, energy, vigour. We must throw our whole selves into it, and show that the zeal of God's house has eaten us up.Lectures to my Students
Hard words, if they be true, are better than soft words, if they be false. 63 Volume Sermon Set - 1940.34
No man preaches a sermon well to others who does not first preach it to his own heart.
You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true. Chosen by God, p. 12
Let us beware of despising preaching. In every age of the Church, it has been God's principal instrument for the awakening of sinners and the edifying of saints. The days when there has been little or no preaching have been days when there has been little or no good done in the Church. Let us hear sermons in a prayerful and reverent frame of mind, and remember that they are the principal engines which Christ Himself employed when He was upon earth. Not least, let us pray daily for a continual supply of faithful preachers of God's Word. According to the state of the pulpit will always be the state of a congregation and of a Church.Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke volume 1, (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1986) 128, 129
In order to get attention, the first golden rule is, always say something worth hearing.Lectures to my Students
Preachers should not give sinners what they desire; but give them True Food until, by the Spirit, they taste and see that the Lord is good!
Saying, 'Preach the gospel daily, use words if necessary', is like saying, 'Feed the hungry, use food if necessary.'
it is common for modern preachers to use the proverbial "we" in an effort to place themselves, humbly it is thought, within the mass of those needing the same message. Although there is a nugget of truth to this modern approach, it nevertheless undermines the basic essence of preaching--the prophetic.Deep Discipleship, 24
Ministers must not flatter, preach pleasing things, sow pillows under people's elbows, or throw sugar on them, when salt is necessary.
for antinomianism and legalism are not so much antithetical to each other as they are both antithetical to grace.The Whole Christ (pp. 156). Crossway
The benefits of the gospel (justification, reconciliation, redemption, adoption) were being separated from Christ, who is himself the gospel. The benefits of the gospel are in Christ. They do not exist apart from him. They are ours only in him. They cannot be abstracted from him as if we ourselves could possess them independently of him.The Whole Christ (p. 44). Crossway
for the Jerusalem dialect has this one distinguishing mark, that it is a man's own mode of speech, and it is the same out of the pulpit as it is in it.Lectures to My Students, 113
I wonder how long we might beat our brains before we could plainly put into words what is meant by preaching with unction; yet he who preaches knows its presence, and he who hears soon detects its absence;Lectures to My Students (p. 50).
Abhor, dear brethren, the thought of being clockwork ministers who are not alive by abiding grace within, but are wound up by temporary influences; men who are only ministers for the time being, under the stress of the hour of ministering, but cease to be ministers when they descend the pulpit stairs. True ministers are always ministers.Lectures to My Students (Kindle Locations 256-259). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
He is your friend who pushes you nearer to God.
I'll tell you a story. The Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1675 was acquainted with Mr. Butterton the [actor]. One day the Archbishop . . . said to Butterton . . . 'pray inform me Mr. Butterton, what is the reason you actors on stage can affect your congregations with speaking of things imaginary, as if they were real, while we in church speak of things real, which our congregations only receive as if they were imaginary?' 'Why my Lord,' says Butterton, 'the reason is very plain. We actors on stage speak of things imaginary, as if they were real and you in the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imaginary.' Stout, Divine Dramatist (239-240)
the crucial way to fight against false teaching is to preach the gospel of Christ well. Good News for Anxious Christians (190)
Sin often thrives in our strengths more than in our weaknesses.
To be burning at the lip and freezing at the soul is a mark of reprobation. God deliver us from being superfine and superficial: may we never be the butterflies of the garden of God.Lectures to my Students
There are preachers who in their sermons seem to take their hearers one by one by the button-hole, and drive the truth right into their souls, while others generalise so much, and are so cold withal, that one would think they were speaking of dwellers in some remote planet, whose affairs did not much concern them. Learn the art of pleading with men.Lectures to my Students
A very useful help in securing attention is a pause. Pull up short every now and then, and the passengers on your coach will wake up. The miller goes to sleep while the mill wheels revolve; but if by some means or other the grinding ceases, the good man starts and cries, "What now?" On a sultry summer's day, if nothing will keep off the drowsy feeling, be very short, sing more than usual, or call on a brother or two to pray. A minister who saw that the people would sleep, sat down and observed, "I saw you were all resting, and I thought I would rest too."Lectures to my Students
He who has ceased to learn has ceased to teach. He who no longer sows in the study will no more reap in the pulpit.
I am very glad to see pastors wake up to the antinomian overcorrections of the "gospel-centered" movement.
Every sermon had to be:
The Bible says to do X.
You can't do X.
Jesus did X for you.
End of sermon.
But you don't believe the Gospel rightly until you obey Jesus.https://twitter.com/Brian_Sauve/status/1744192523592196597
no man preacheth that sermon well that doth not first preach it to his own heart-If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us
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