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
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
Works? Works? A man get to heaven by works? I would as soon think of climbing to the moon on a rope of sand! Sep 29, 1770 Newburyport, Massachusetts. From the sermon: "How willingly would I live forever to preach Christ, but I die to be with him."
If you could be brought once to love secret prayer, and to converse feelingly with God in his word, your heaven will begin on earth; you will enjoy more pleasure than in all manner of riches.
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
I desire to cast my crown at the feet of Jesus, and to cry grace! grace! Dear Sir, what a charming word is that? I am sure I can freely own, that all my salvation is of grace, unmerited, distinguishing, electing grace!
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
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.
the greatest problem that any man who preaches the gospel ever has to face is that while he is preaching he is in danger of looking at himself and watching himself and always being conscious of himself.Spiritual Depression (125)
All the simplicity in the world can do no good, unless you preach the simple gospel of Jesus Christ so fully and clearly that everybody can understand it. If 'Christ crucified' has not His rightful place in your sermons, and sin is not exposed as it should be, and your people are not plainly told what they ought to believe, and be, and do - your preaching is of no use! Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke volume 1, (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1986), 128, 129