ELLEN G. WHITE made one of her most perceptive and meaningful comments on preaching when she observed:
There may be conversions without the instrumentality of a sermon. Where persons are so situated that they are deprived of every means of grace, they are wrought upon by the Spirit of God and convinced of the truth through reading the word; but God's appointed means of saving souls is through "the foolishness of preaching." Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 300. (Italics supplied.)
This exalted concept of preaching appears to have a hollow ring about it today owing to the lamentable fact that the Christian pulpit and preaching are at a very low ebb in the contemporary world.
Nowadays it is difficult to attract a congregation and even more difficult to hold it, not to mention saving souls through the foolishness, of preaching. Television and various other forms of entertainment at tract and compete for the attention and mind of the men and women the preacher is after. Preaching today is largely confined to a "gospel herald" preaching the gospel to those who still attend church regularly. It appears, however much we would wish it otherwise, that the preacher is preaching to the wrong people this is not to deny the place preaching has in the life of the saved.
The outcome of the decline in church congregations has unfortunately resulted in a loss of faith in preaching by preachers. It has also seen preachers seeking for ways other than preaching to communicate the gospel. However, all methods substituted in the place of preaching do not appear to have either successfully replaced preaching or to have won significantly more men and women to Christ. Replacing preaching by substitutes and secondary activities has not provided a solution to the present problem nor indeed could it. Whatever may be the condition of preaching in the contemporary world, and despite the loss of faith in preaching by large numbers of preachers, preaching is still the divinely instituted method of proclaiming the gospel. Nothing, nothing whatever be it apostasy, loss of faith, secularism, or secondary activities can invalidate the divine commission given by Christ to His church.
Preach the gospel to the whole creation.
The answer to the decline in preaching lies not in attempts to replace it with secondary activities, but to recover faith in it as God's way to save sinful man from his sin. Note again the strong dogmatism born of certainty in Mrs. White's affirmation that "God's appointed means of saving souls is through 'the foolishness of preaching.'" Preaching can never be abandoned by the church of Christ no matter what the circumstances under which it has to labor. What is desperately needed today is for the church of Christ to recover its faith in preaching, to lay hold as never before upon the truth that preaching is divinely ordained. The way to this recovery lies in preachers dedicating themselves to work for that combination of mental discipline, personal purity, and the Spirit's presence that makes preaching what God intends it to be ---His appointed means of saving souls.
Dr. W. E. Sangster, who did more for preaching and preachers in the postwar period than any other person, makes this telling observation:
No pulpit has power if it lacks deep faith in the message itself or in preaching as God's supreme method in making His message known.
Men who retain faith in the message, though little in preaching, tend to put the major stress of their work on other aspects of the Church's activity, and sometimes openly disparage the service of the pulpit. Preaching, they argue, does little or nothing. The few people who come to worship have heard it all already. Pastoral work is infinitely more important, they say. Or clubs, or drama. Whether the preaching is good or bad, the people have for gotten it by the time they get home. Oh yes! the services must still be held. It is expected. But nothing else appears to be expected. No voice from Sinai. No tryst with heaven. Power has gone out of preaching when those whose task it is to preach have come to doubt the worth of it themselves. ---GREVILLE P. LEWIS (Ed.), Preacher's Handbook, No. 3, p. 37.
The way to revival for the pulpit is not to abandon preaching, but to recover it.
The Call to Preach
Tragically, we hear little about the call to preaching today. It is assumed in a sophisticated age like ours that the qualification for preaching is academic, a B.A., a B.D., an M.A., a D.D., or a Ph.D. Nothing could give a more distorted view of preaching. No degree on earth is sufficient of it self to qualify a man to preach. This does not mean education plays no part in preaching; its place is manifestly obvious. However, of itself it is totally deficient. Preachers are divinely called to their office. Prof. Herrick Johnson has accurately described the preacher's call when he wrote:
We are His ambassadors, not by infallible sacerdotal selection, not by the market law of demand and supply, but by immediate, internal, and effectual call of God. The Ideal Ministry, p. 17.
It is vital that we remember preachers do not choose their office, they do not take it upon themselves to preach. Preachers are called of God to their task and without the call a man is not a preacher but a usurper. One recognizes that when we talk about the call to be a preacher some preachers experience a certain amount of difficulty. They feel a need to be able to authenticate their call to preach. There is much that could be said about this, but two sure indications of the call to preach are:
1. That the preacher first be gripped by the gospel.
2. That he see souls converted through his preaching.
No one is or can be a preacher without a message. One becomes a preacher because one has a message, a divine message, the gospel of salvation. It was Paul, the prince of preachers, who indicated the relationship between the gospel and the call to preach when he declared: "For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a re ward; but if not of my own will, I am en trusted with a commission" (1 Cor. 9:16, 17, R.S.V.).
The same idea is expressed by the psalmist. Gripped by his message he declared: "My heart overflows with a goodly theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe" (Ps. 45:1, R.S.V.).
It is when the heart and soul are possessed by the message that the tongue and lips cannot refrain from telling it out. A preacher can authenticate his call to preach if he knows himself gripped by the message of the gospel of Christ. If this grip of the gospel is not upon the heart and soul a man ought to honestly ask himself whether the right place for him to be is in the pulpit. Important as it is for a man to know himself possessed by the gospel there is a higher indication that he is called of God to preach. This is succinctly set forth by Mrs. White:
The conversion of sinners and their sanctification through the truth is the strongest proof a minister can have that God has called him to the ministry. The evidence of his apostleship is written upon the hearts of those converted, and is witnessed to by their renewed lives. Christ is formed within, the hope of glory. A minister is greatly strengthened by these seals of his ministry. --The Acts of the Apostles, p. 328. (Italics supplied.)
Sermon ABC's
Faith in preaching is not enough. The call to preach is not enough. The message is not enough. There still re mains the vital task of communicating the message. Here it is essential that the preacher be wide awake to recognize the relationship of the mechanics of preaching to its effective communication. Every preacher ought to have a simple norm against which he ruthlessly measures his sermons. The following is a very simple rule of thumb, which, if faithfully followed, will be a definite aid to improving the quality and effectiveness of any man's preaching. Every sermon must have content. A preacher must always ask himself regarding his sermon, Does it have content? Is the message of salvation contained in what I am offering to the people? If the answers are not in the affirmative, there will be little fruit and no reward. It may well be that failure to enjoy a successful ministry in many cases can be traced to the sin of feeding the hungry souls of men and women the insubstantial frothings of superficial study. We must make absolutely certain that all our preaching has real con tent. Every sermon no matter what the topic, is a definite opportunity to set forth Christ as man's Saviour. If we are to save souls through our preaching (and what point is there in preaching if we don't?), we must be sure every sermon contains Him.
Form. Content is necessary, but it must be presented in an appetizing manner. Good food is often spoiled by poor cooking, and good content is likewise ruined by being presented as a formless mess.
Only discipline and practice can give the preacher the mastery of form. A simple procedure which demands that every sermon have the following form will enable the veriest novice to ensure he moves forward in an orderly progression. Sermons must have an introduction, sub-headings (three are usual), and a conclusion. Obviously this is elementary, but in preaching this elementary form is never dispensed with. Increasing skill will lead the preacher to vary the form in which he presents his material, but he will always need to introduce his subject, to develop it in orderly fashion, and conclude it.
When a preacher dispenses with form looking for originality, he is in danger of losing himself, his message, and his hearers in chaos. Even the most experienced of preachers need to retain form of some sort, otherwise, as all too frequently happens, they will go on too long, or preach two sermons at once, or substitute talking for preaching.
It is often argued that form works against spontaneity, that it makes preaching mechanical. This is only true when the preacher relies too much on form and neglects the other constituents of the sermon. Form is necessary, but it is not everything.
Delivery. How should the preacher deliver his sermon? Obviously in a manner suited to his personality, but more important, in a manner suited to his congregation. We should give more thought to the nature of our congregation, its background, educational capacity, and needs. A sermon for a group of businessmen would not be delivered in the same way as a sermon to a church composed mostly of young people, nor would its content be necessarily the same.
Inspiration. Every sermon should have inspiration if we want it to move our hearers. The sources of inspiration derive from prayer, faith, discipline, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and a mature grasp of the con tent of what we are preaching. What we know and believe in we can pray about meaningfully and be inspired by it. Inspiration is a difficult constituent of preaching to guarantee, in fact it cannot be guaranteed, yet it is necessary for vital preaching. It cannot be worked up, rather it is derived from those things noted above: knowledge of the message to be preached, faith in its relevance, discipline in its preparation, and prayer for the Spirit's blessing upon it. If a preacher has these qualities, his preaching will never be uninspiring and it will frequently melt human hearts and minister to their need.
Appeal. It may be harsh, even rude, to say that preaching is frequently vitiated because it lacks an appeal. Nevertheless, this is true. Preaching has as its ultimate end the objective of moving the will, and this is impossible without an appeal. This does not mean that we must harangue our hearers every time we preach. That would quickly destroy our effectiveness no matter what we were saying or how well we were saying it. But preaching without an appeal is at best weak and at worst wasteful.
The place and type of appeal in a sermon is an important study in itself. Suffice to note here that the sermon must have an end in view, and the purpose of the appeal is to move the will of man to achieve the desired end. Obviously, the nature of the appeal will depend on the end sought. Great benefit in this aspect of preaching can be derived from a study of the sermons of the apostles in the book of Acts. It is heartening to note that rarely in apostolic preaching is the result wholly negative.
We pointed out earlier that preaching is at a low ebb in the contemporary world. However, prophecy indicates a recovery of powerful authoritative gospel preaching prior to our Lord's return. John the revelator describes this by saying: "I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people" (Rev. 14:6). We believe this to be a description of the Advent people of our selves. This recovery of gospel preaching is long overdue and never more needed. That it will come there is no doubt. Its return will be brought about when preachers called of God in the Advent Church are gripped by their message and constrained by their commission to preach it. The remarkable response of world conditions and developments to Bible prophecy, the great need of sinful men and women in the world today indicate that this recovery cannot be far off. Now is our opportunity to make it a reality. Now is the time for us as preachers to arise and go forth "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners" preaching in the power of the Spirit the gospel of salvation, which is God's appointed means of saving souls.
