THERE are about as many ways of preaching as there are preachers. Nevertheless, there are certain excellences and, unfortunately, certain shortcomings that recur and point the way to failure or success as a preacher. For the purpose of this discussion I shall think of preaching in terms of either the pastoral or evangelistic sermon. For the most part the principles involved apply to both.
First of all, in any type of preaching adequate preparation cannot be neglected with any result except failure. Adequate preparation is the work of a lifetime. It means far more than spending a few hours a week in the study, reading haphazardly from the Bible or Spirit of Prophecy writings, although these are basic source materials. There should be systematic reading and study, both intensive and extensive. Concentration on a book of the Bible for enough time to really absorb its meaning, with collateral reading, is a means that will not fail to bear fruit.
My Method
One of my favorite methods of gleaning ideas for sermons is reading a few pages a day from the Spirit of Prophecy books, particularly the Conflict of the Ages Series. I list ideas with accompanying page numbers on a three-by-five card clipped into the back of the book.
Beyond this and outside the study and the hours that can be spent there (all too few for most of us), good preaching grows out of extensive reading. Reading should be a habit, a recreation, an obligation, an obsession, for the minister. Out of such reading will grow preaching that is easy to listen to and hard to forget. If you have heard H. M. S. Richards preach on prophecy (and who hasn't?) you have noticed the almost inexhaustible flow of historical allusion accompanying his exposition. I suppose I have heard Elder Richards preach on Daniel 2 at least a half dozen times, and every time he brings in new material. Every time it is interesting. This is the result of living a life with books and using them intelligently.
This sort of life will save us from the lamentable use of hackneyed, worn-out illustrations that our grandparents grew tired of before we were born. Some of these should have been buried or cremated two generations ago. When a minister launches into one of these relics of the past, he does two things: He reveals that he is either a novice or that he is too mentally lazy to dig up something new, and he instantly loses the attention of all his hearers who have been around long enough to have heard more than a few sermons previously.
That I write about realities is borne out by the fact that less than ten days ago I saw in print in a denominational magazine the story of the man who saved himself from freezing to death by endeavoring to revive a companion. I am glad the men were saved, but I wish someone would freeze the illustration!
Use Fresh Illustrations
I count a book worth the price of its purchase if I get one good idea or illustration from it, particularly if it is fresh. As an example, a sermon on irreversible decisions, preached to young people, led me to use the experience of Scott and his incredible trek out of the Antarctic as recounted in the book Endurance. When after two years he and his advance party reached the crest of the four thousand-foot mountain range on Elephant Island, they could see nothing but a seemingly endless incline of snow and ice leading downward at a terrifying angle to the distant sea. Realizing that he and his men were too far spent with fatigue and hunger ever to climb down the mountain, Scott coiled the rope the group had used for climbing, the little group clasped their arms around each other, sat down on the coiled rope, and pushed themselves over the ridge to hurtle down the mountain. They could have been precipitated over a cliff and been dashed to their deaths, for they had no way to be sure what lay below, but in minutes, shouting with joy, they coasted to a gentle stop at the outskirts of the whaling station where rescue awaited them. Some decisions (marriage for example) should be irreversible, but they may have to be made.
An illustration always gains interest if it is accurately told with sufficient figures and hard facts to identify it. The power of speech is illustrated much more effectively if one mentions that DeGaulle spoke only three minutes when he pulled France back from the brink of revolution, than if one merely states that he "made a speech."
I would not advocate a minister's burning all his sermon notes, but I think if many of his illustrations were irretrievably deleted from them, it could bring a blessing to his hearers.
