WHEN asked what his hobby was, Joseph Parker responded, "Preaching." G. Ray Jordan points out in You Can Preach that "if there is blood in a man's preaching he will have to make preaching the great business of his life. Other important matters will not be excluded; rather they will give one's message vitality and life."
More than anything else, a preacher must like to preach. If he doesn't, then he is in the wrong calling. Preaching must course through his veins until he lives and breathes the message. The message will compel him, drive him, even explode within him. So great will be the desire to preach that he will find it difficult to wait for the time to deliver the message of God.
"The pastor," notes G. B. Williamson, must be "primarily a preacher. Any excuse for failure at that point is invalid. God's call is not to be an organizer, promoter, a mixer, or an ecclesiastical mechanic, but a preacher of the Gospel of Christ, which is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. The understanding that preaching is primary will have far-reaching effects." —Overseers of the Flock (Beacon Hill), p. 30.
If the message is to have "far-reaching effects," then the preacher must make that message relevant to the needs of his hearers. And relevance permits no lackadaisical approach toward preaching. There must be discipline, study, and hard work. God will not do for the preacher what he can do for himself. Without discipline the preacher will not accomplish anything worthwhile.
Without study his mind will be empty, and an empty head and heart make empty pews. We have had enough misty-eyed orators delivering book reports and ear-salving messages that stir no one. What is needed is a message direct from God, supported by Scripture and delivered as banner-headline news for this confused age.
Preparing for preaching that is relevant will require the preacher to shut the door of his study and seek his mes sage from God. This is not a plea for monasticism, but sermon preparation calls for sweat, even tears at times, and this can best be done behind the closed door of a study when the preacher is alone with God.
James S. Stewart has asserted: "There is no short cut to escape the burden and the toil. Any evasion of the cost will inevitably rob a man's ministry of power. Any refusal to accept the relent less, implacable discipline will result in diminished spiritual influence. Put into your sermons your unstinting best." —Heralds of God (Scribners, 1946), p. 118. No matter how great the preacher's zeal and enthusiasm, they can never be a suitable substitute for study.
How often the sentiment has been ex pressed by a learned layman: "My preacher is as dry as dead bones." Perhaps one conspicuous reason is because the preacher has failed to make adequate preparation. And thorough preparation cannot be made if the preacher waits until the eleventh hour to seek God's help and message. Thomas Shepard puts it like this: "God will surely curse that minister who lumbers up and down the world all week, and then thinks to prepare for his pulpit by a hurried hour or two on Saturday night."
"In equal condemnation," says G. B. Williamson, "is the man who allows his time for preparation to preach to be lost in idleness, pursuit of pleasure, or preoccupation with secondary considerations. He comes to the pulpit empty in mind and soul, prepared to do nothing better than thresh over old straw—to feed the hungry sheep nothing but chaff and to substitute a little perspiration for inspiration, expecting much heat to make up for a lack of light." —Overseers of the Flock, p. 50.
The sermon that lives, that moves and compels, that draws the net, will be a sermon made up with up-to-date illustrative material, including a trace of humor, and two or three potent, practical points that continually draw attention to the text selected from the Bible. This is to be packaged and kept within a space of time that can command the listener's close attention.
Preparing for this kind of preaching is hard and rigorous work. There is no room for lightly held opinions or shallow notions. Such preaching is the only kind that will repeatedly bear fruit.
