Preparing to preach

Preface

This volume is not intended as a comprehensive treatment of the subject of homiletics, and much is necessarily omitted which should be considered by those who are "preparing to preach." I have endeavored, however, to cover the ground which is traversed in the preparation and delivery of the ordinary sermon — the staple of the preacher's pulpit work.

I have profited by certain criticisms which intelligent Christian laymen sometimes pass upon the methods and manners of certain preachers and have included some suggestions which are generally omitted from similar publications, such as those which will be found under "The Attack Upon the Text," "Pulpit Manners," and elsewhere.

It is my sincere prayer that the book may be helpful to my brethren in the ministry, especially to those for whose sake it has been more particularly prepared, as indicated in the title.

David R. Br^^d.

INTRODUCTORY: THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENT

INTRODUCTORY: THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENT.

The essential element is the prophetic. The nature of phophecy.

The true sermon defined.

The exact form changes with the age.

I. The message.

Derived from the Word of God.

Spiritual interpretation.

Study indispensable.

Fidelity the paramount condition.

II. The man.

Possessed by the message.

Dangers of mere professionalism.

The true preacher a "Seer."

Read Behrend's " Philosophy of Preaching," I and II; Shedd's "Homiletic and Pastoral Theology," Chap. I; Horton's "Verbum Dei," I<ect. I; Jefferson's " The Minister as Prophet."

INTRODUCTORY: THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENT.

The essential element in preaching is the prophetic "^ element. Within the Scriptural meaning of these terms the preacher is a prophet. He bears a message from the Most High God. He speaks with divine authority.

In this respect the fundamental principles of homiletics are abiding and unalterable. They were the same in New Testament times as in Old Testament times. They have not been changed since.

The true sermon is a prophecy. It is derived from revelation; it is the product of spiritual illumination; it is prepared in humble prayer and delivered in conscious reliance on the Holy Spirit. It is the result of a supernatural process ; devoted to a supernatural work ; made effective by a supernatural influence.

But the exact form of preaching, like all prophecy, changes with the changing age. Argument, exhortation, illustration and application become superannuated and are superseded. Others are introduced born of the new needs and new aspirations. So there comes to be a new homiletics. The prophet is a prophet still ; but he is a prophet of his own age to his own age. If it be not so the age will disown him. If it be so the age will welcome him, listen to him, and follow him.

Such are the principles upon which we proceed in this volume. We exalt preaching as a form of prophecy. We exclude, of course, from these terms all those features of prophecy which are derived from direct inspiration— such as the predictive factor. But there is much remaining. So long as Christianity is regarded as a supernatural religion the essential elements of prophecy will remain, namely, these : a veritable message from God, received under supernatural conditions, delivered in the name of its Divine Author by one who is wholly given to its sincere proclamation.

It appears then that the prophetic element is com- ^ posed of two integral parts. The preacher is a man with a message. The man without the message is in no true sense a preacher. The message without the man is not, in the largest sense, preaching. We consider each in order.

I. The Message. The preacher's message is derived from the Word of God as contained in the Holy Scriptures. It is nothing more nor less nor other than a portion of these Scriptures explained, illustrated, and applied.

The words of the Scriptures possess for every believer a certain force and meaning which they do not possess for the unbeliever — a spiritual "savour." They are "quick and powerful" as the Authorized Version puts it, or "living and active," according to the Revision. But if such be the case with the private Christian, what of the preacher? If he has diligently followed the Apostolic example and "continued steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the Word" (Acts 6:4), should not his standing be unique and his influence transcendent? Should not his proclamation of the truth evoke such commendation from those who hear him, as one has written concerning the heralds of the "Gospel of Mystery?"

" Their banners blaze and shine

With Jesus Christ's dear name And story, how by God's design He saves us in His love divine

And lifts us from our sin and shame.

"Their music fills the air,

Their songs sing all of heaven; Their ringing trumjiet-peals declare What crowns to souls who fight and dare

And win, shall presently be given.

"But all the banners bear

Some words we can not read, And mystic echoes in the air, Which borrow from the song no share, In sweetness all the songs exceed."

{Saxe Holm.)

But "mystery" though it be, there is no mysticism about it. Illumination does not add to the Word nor alter it. It does no violence either to the laws of speech or the laws of the understanding. It simply quickens the spiritual perceptions so that the meaning which was before hidden becomes clear. It does for the preacher what Jesus did for His disciples when He "opened their minds that they might understand the Scriptures." (Luke

24:45-)

But still further. In order to this deeper understanding of the Scriptures and the proclamation of their message there is need not of less study, but of more. Illumination is indeed supernatural ; but it is neither unnatural or miraculous. It creates no new faculties; it supplies no lack of learning. Hence the need of diligent study upon the part of the preacher, and of constant painstaking care. He must devote himself to all branches of learning which may contribute to his usefulness, and the very art of sermonizing must be mastered. The message is the product of illumination; but the more consecrated learning it conveys the more instructive and influential it will be. God never chose men for His special service because they were ignorant or stupid, and to put any sort of premium on illiteracy is to reflect upon the two greatest religious teachers of all mere men in the Old Testament and the New respectively — Moses and Paul. We do well to emphasize the advice given long ago by Cowper, and

" Lay not careless hands On skulls that can not teach and will not learn."

The best preaching then is done by the preacher who has gathered the best materials, provided he has disposed them in due subserviency to the governing principle. Dr. Robertson Nicoll well sums up the matter in these words :

"What is supremely important to a minister is that he should have a message. Other things are by no means to be despised. Nearly all wise Christians are of the opinion that the education of preachers, so far from being lowered, ought to be made much more thorough than it is. I do not need to dwell on this, but rather to insist upon the other side, that the preacher without a definite message, no matter how well furnished otherwise, is necessarily impotent." "Further," he continues, "this message is always a secret given by the Holy Ghost and blessed by the Holy Ghost. No book, no earthly teacher, can ever impart that hidden wisdom without which a minister must be a thing of nought."

The author of "Verbum Dei" well expressed the truth in announcing his theme for the Yale lectures of 1893. "Every living preacher must receive his communication direct from God, and the constant purpose of his life must be to receive it uncorrupted and to deliver it without addition or subtraction."

The musician who is an expert performer upon the cornet sometimes suffers a serious misfortune in what is called "losing his lip." The cause can not be fully explained ; but the fact remains that for some strange reason the lips refuse to take the shape which is necessary to the control of the instrument. In this condition the musician can make a great variety of sounds, but he finds himself absolutely incapable of producing a single musical tone, much less of evolving a melody.

The preacher may suflfer a similar but much more serious misfortune. Then there will be "words, words, words," but none of the melody of the gospel. And the sermon will fail — not as a piece of rhetoric perhaps, but as a message from God to dying men.

But how different, how very different, when the preacher is true to his prophetic commission. His God does not desert him. Again and again the truth is flashed upon his mind in startling beauty and overwhelming power', and as he presents it to his people the same Divine Spirit which brought it home to his own heart and conscience brings it home to the hearts and consciences of his hearers. He is clothed with that peculiar "authority" of which Dr. Shedd speaks so forcibly in his lecture on "Eloquence and Exegesis" — "the first and indispensable requisite" in sermonizing. He manifests a "high celestial dogmatism" and "human weakness becomes immortal strength." His hearers recognize the unusual elevation of his thought, the purity of his motive, and the validity of his appeals. They feel that in some very strange but very real way there is divine import and almighty urgency behind it all. The preacher has become to them far more than a teacher or lecturer; more than a mere scribe or doctor of the law. He is a prophet ; he speaks for his God!

II. We proceed now to the second factor — The Man. All that may be said in this connection is forecast in a single sentence: The man is not simply to possess the' message; he is rather to be possessed by it. In this respect there is no substantial difference between the inspired prophet of Bible times and the uninspired prophet of all times — the origin and gravity of the message are controlling. Henry Ward Beecher has very justly said: "A preacher is in some degree a reproduction of the truth in personal form. In the preacher the word becomes again as it was when first spoken by prophet, priest, or apostle. It springs up in him as if it were first kindled in his heart and he were moved by the Holy Ghost to give it forth. He is so moved." The preacher says with Paul, "Necessity is laid upon me; for woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel." (I. Cor. 9: i6.) He says with Peter : "Whether it is right in the sight of God to hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge ye. For v/e can not but speak the things which we saw and heard." (Acts 4: 19, 20.) The message is stronger than the man. He is condemned if he conceals it. He is constrained to tell what has been communicated to his soul. The message makes the man, rather than the man the message ; and the man thus made is a preacher.

And yet herein lurks a subtle, sometimes a fatal temptation— the preacher's personality. How often it outgrows its limitations ! How imperious it sometimes becomes ! Forgetting for the time being that the message is not our own, and feeling and acting as though it were our own, we attempt to exercise control over it rather than to permit it to freely control us. The preacher thrusts himself into the first place. He hides the very Savior with his own obtrusive personality. The inspired prophets themselves sometimes succumbed to this temptation and forfeited their inspiration. Moses went down before it at Meribah. Elijah weakened under it when he fled from Jezebel. Peter played the gospel false in its power when he dissembled at Antioch. When we yield to it we, too, "speak unadvisedly with our lips" and the Master is dishonored.

In such a case the preacher may seem to be even more earnest than before — just as Moses was. His earnestness may even degenerate into positive violence ; but it is professional not prophetical earnestness. There is much flame but little heat ; loud thundering but no lightning. And this mere professional earnestness is the bane of the pulpit. Just because it is able to simulate so closely the baptism of fire, it becomes both to pastor and people one of the most serious of delusions. Even the Pharisee — both in pulpit and pew, shrewdly abandons his self-adulation for "God be merciful to me a sinner," and the publican becomes the model after which his pious formulas are constructed. Professional earnestness is devoted to all the externals of Church life. It multiplies machinery ; it labors for congregational aggrandizement; it vehemently urges the evangelical faith and champions the doctrines of orthodoxy. But in it all the preacher's personality is to the fore and, exalting his office rather than his God, he cries with Moses, "Hear now, ye rebels, shall WE bring you forth water out of this rock." (Numb. 20: 10.) Strangely enough the water often flows, even in such a case. The dishonored God will not dishonor the prophet's commission and the prophet's rod ; but the prophet himself has lost a prophet's reward.

There must be upon the man's part, then, a conscious self-surrender. Like John the Baptist, the truth which he is sent to proclaim must take such possession of him that he shall refuse to be identified except by and in his message and become, as it were, only a "Voice" — the voice of something other than himself, intangible, mysterious, and mighty. Let us sum it all up in the eloquent words of Bautain, the great professor of the Sorbonne:

"He should blot himself out in the presence of the truth and make it alone appear. This will happen naturally, spontaneously, whenever he is profoundly impressed by it and identifies himself with it, heart and mind. Then he grows like it, great, mighty, and dazzling. It is no longer he who lives, it is the truth which in him lives and acts. The man vanishes in the virtue of the Almighty, and this is the speaker's noblest, his true glory. Then are wrought the miracles of eloquence which turn men's wills and change their souls, and such is the end at which the Christian orator should aim. Oh, ye who have taken the Lord for your inheritance and who glow with the desire to announce to men the Word of God, ask urgently of Him the grace to forget yourselves and to think of Him — of Him only!"

In defining the term, "the prophetic element," we were careful to exclude the predictive factor, as it appears in the prophets of the Scriptures. But after all that has been said we perceive that something very akin to it is the true preacher's most signal characteristic. It bears the same relation to predictive prophecy which illumination bears to inspiration ; it is the product of illumination in connection with the predictive portions and general predictive character of the Word of God. The preacher has no such vision as the inspired prophet. The future does not rise before him in distinct detail and elaborate reality. Nevertheless he often manifests an unusual foresight, indulges hopes which others deem chimerical, and anticipates events of which others never dreamed. He becomes a seer. He meditates so long upon the methods of the Divine Providence, he is brought into such loving sympathy with the development of the Redeemer's plans that he is able to forecast the trend of Providence, at least in its general features, and to organize for the oncoming of the Kingdom. He counts upon agencies that men of the world despise ; he rehes upon the promises ; he takes God into the account.

This is the crown of the prophetic element in preaching. It is the same divine rriessage which we have discussed, looking to the great future. It is the same selfsurrendered man projecting himself into the coming years. O, what wonders it accomplishes for God and humanity! It sails a "Mayflower" across the untried ocean — sweet pledge and promise of the season that shall be when the May flowers are succeeded by the summer harvest. It sends a "Morning Star" far, far away to lands that sit in darkness, bright harbinger of rising day and of the Sun of Righteousness. The log college, the missionary hay-stack, the "Ride that saved a continent" — what are these but meager illustrations of the many times and many ways in which prophetic saints have

" Viewed the triumph from afar And seized it with their eye "

Surely Peter put no limitations on the language of the Prophet Joel, when he quoted him upon the Day of Pentecost: "And it shall be in the last days, saith God, I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams." (Acts 2: 17,) In view of such an inspiring deliverance we conclude by reiterating the words of Moses, when it was told him that Eldad and Medad did prophesy in the camp: "Would that all Jehovah's people were prophets that Jehovah would put His Spirit upon them." (Numbers 11 :29.)*

•The quotations from the Scripturei in this Tolume are aU from the American Standard Revision, except those employed by others and takeu from the Authorized Version.

Contents

PREFACE, m

INTRODUCTORY : THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENT, - - tU PART I— THE STUDY

I. The Text: Advantages; Acquisition, - - - 21

Part Ii— The Pulpit

I. Pulpit Manners, 305

II. Extemporaneous Preaching : Advantages ; Fundamental Principles, 317

III. Extemporaneous Preaching; Material, - 331

IV. Attention, Preliminaries, . - - - 351 V. Securing and Holding Attention, - - - - 361

PART III— VARIOUS KINDS OF SERMONS TaE Narrative Sermon, 375

Vll. The Expository Sermon,' - - - .-^ . . 387

III. The Evangelistic Sermon, 401

IV. The Special Sermon, 417

V. The Doctrinal Sermon, 427

VI. The Illustrated Sermon, 437

VII. Sermons in Courses, 449 y/i.

Part I. The Study

THE TEXT: ADVANTAGES ; ACQUISITION.

Sermons classified.

Topical ; textual ; expository.

I. Advantages of preaching from a text.

Divergent views.

The special advantages.

Failure of "Lectureships."

II. Acquisition of texts.

False methods.

The homiletical temptation.

Suggestion the fruitful source, as promoted by:

1. Devotional reading of the Bible.

2. Other sermons and religious literature.

3. Providential circumstances.

Keep a text-book.

Kead Watson's "Cure of Souls;" Pattison's "Making of the Sermon, Chap. II; Horton's "Verbum Dei," Lect. I.

THE TEXT: ADVANTAGES; ACQUISITION

The usual classification of sermons with reference to the text and the one which we shall employ is the following: topical, textual, and expository.

Topical sermons are those in which the subject alone is derived from the text. Textual sermons are those in which the subject and main divisions are derived from the text. Expository sermons are those in which the subject, main divisions and most of the details are derived from the text.

In the topical method there is more opportunity for the display of rhetorical ability and pulpit oratory. There is also an opportunity to discuss certain themes which are not strictly speaking "Scriptural," in that the very subject is brought to notice in the Bible. But this method has this positive disadvantage that the preacher is apt to become decidedly unscriptural, to forget his message, and to discourse upon unsuitable themes.

The textual method is closely allied to the expository and the line of demarkation can not be sharply drawn. In the expository sermon more attention is generally given to special words or expressions, with more particular and extended explanation. The disadvantages of tViese methods is apparent ; they do not afiford the range

the topical method. But they have this great ad- ►'antage, the preacher who employs them deals with distinctively Scriptural themes. It is well to employ all three methods, with the preponderance of the textual.

S3 THE STUDY

I. Advantages of preaching from a text. It is held by some that the use of a text furnishes no positive advantage. Certain writers have claimed that "a slavish adherence to a text cramps the liberty of preaching." Voltaire is quoted by many as saying that for a preacher to speak at length upon a brief quotation and to make his whole discourse bear upon that, "appears to be trifling little worthy the dignity of the ministry. The text becomes a kind of motto, or rather enigma, which the discourse develops." Some have also said that the use of the text, especially of the short text, is often fatal to the most intelligent treatment of the Scripture itself. The Bible is chopped into fragments and sadly abused by the dislocation of its parts. Its real meaning and intent can not be discovered, so it is said, by taking a few isolated words from some consistent book, and using them in whatever way the preacher may himself desire. It is still further urged that the use of texts renders the preacher monotonous and unnatural; that he is not himself. His intellect as well as moral nature is cramped by the process, and upon this very account he becomes somewhat uninteresting, and therefore some authorities would give the preacher considerable liberty in this matter, and not oblige him upon every occasion to speak from a definite passage selected from the Scripture. Prof. Hoyt claims that "preaching must be the unfolding and application of some truth in harmony with Scripture," but it need not necessarily be in the very words of Scripture, because, as he inquires, "Must the sermon always have a text? Does it fail to be God's message without a text? Surely not," and he quotes the words of Vinet, "What gives a Christian character to a sermon is not the text, but the spirit of the preacher. It may be very Biblical without a text, and with a text not

ADVANTAGES ; ACQUISITION 23

Biblical at all." The same author says that the "pulpit may need to speak of some special need or duty of society, and find it difficult to find a single passage of Scripture proper, teaching the exact phase of the truth. Then do not hesitate to unfold and apply what you hold to be the law of Christ, without a text. Far better to do this than to have the only connection between Scripture and sermon that of sound."

We believe, however, that the use of a text has such a manifest advantage that it is not proper at any time to preach without its use. This is the position taken by most thoughtful writers upon this subject. Prof. Dabney, writing in 1870, declares that the preacher's only work is to expound and apply to the people an authoritative message from God. Dr. Slattery declares "the text will never grow obsolete. There is a dignity in its use which belongs to the realm of historical good taste," a taste which is sanctified by the whole history of preaching. And Dr. Horton, in his "Yale Lectures on Preaching," gives great emphasis to the same idea. He tells us that the aim of his lectures "is to show that preaching must be the deliverance of a word of God, received immediately from God." He calls this a "neglected truism," but he recurs to it again and again. He says "the man is set apart to address his fellow-men, sometimes men who are his peers in knowledge and ability. Why should they listen to him ? There is no reason why they should unless he has been in the secret cell of the Oracle and has heard God speak, and practically they will not unless the authentic command is in him, and 'Thus saith the Lord' introduces all he teaches." The chief advantage, therefore, of the use of a text can be no better expressed than in the words of Chas. H. Parkhurst, "There is an Almightiness behind it." Kern expresses the truth in somewhat different language when he says, "The chief advantage of the text is that the preacher's theme is given to him." And Dr. Oswell Dykes expresses it in still another form, but equally emphatic, "A good sermon is not one sought after, but one given."

Other advantages might be mentioned, but they are not of great value as compared with this. The preacher, as we have seen, is a prophet ; he conveys a message to men which he has himself received through diligent study of the Word of God and the illumination of the Holy Spirit; and as a matter of fact, that preaching has not long endured which has proceeded upon any other plan. Religious "lectureships," as they are sometimes called, have usually been dismal failures. They might have succeeded for a while in enlisting the interest of a number of people, but they were unable to hold a congregation for any great length of time. Dr. Horton says : "The lecturer has a sphere of his own, but it is not the preacher's. The lecturer may under inspiration become a preacher, but woe to the preacher if under some supposed influence he becomes merely a lecturer. He will not have staying power. An encyclopedia is exhausted in time. Long before it is exhausted the hearers are exhausted with receiving it. The world rightly declines to hear two lectures a week from the same man throughout the year." The preacher holds his place in the community, and holds the audiences that wait upon his preaching, because he is supposed to expound the inspired Word of Almighty God, and those preachers who do it the most carefully and the most faithfully have the largest and most permanent influence. Such is the advantage of a text.

H. How are texts to be acquired? This question might be very easily answered if all that the preacher desired were simply some small section of the Bible con-

ADVANTAGES; ACQUISITION 35

cerning which he could say something of some character to a certain set of people; but if that is involved in the text which has been applied above, then the acquisition of texts means very much more than this. Dr. Watson (Ian Maclaren) in his "Cure of Souls" has a very amusing but very just description of the preacher whose notion of acquiring texts is of this inferior sort. He says : "As it is the duty of this artisan to furnish two sermons for next Sunday, he goes out, say on Tuesday, into the Bible as into a woodyard, and selects with due deliberation suitable material, and then bit by bit he constructs the discourse, measuring, sawing, planing, and joining in a very deft manner, and finishing with a polish composed of one part spirit, crude and fiery, and three parts thick, sweet oil." He then goes on to show that this artisan has a set of very simple designs which answer all his purposes— conventional designs upon which he can construct a sermon on almost any text.

The very expression "the acquisition of texts" possesses then a peculiar meaning. Texts are never acquired by a homiletical search-warrant. Of course, passages of Scripture may be easily found, as we have intimated ; but texts that are texts indeed are not found by simply hunting for them. To treat the Bible as a mere compendium of texts is foolish and wrong ; it yields no worthy fruits. It has a bad effect upon the hearer, to begin with. Campbell Morgan says, "There are thousands of people who have been brought up in somewhat close relationship to the Christian Church who nevertheless think only of the Bible as a book of texts from which sermons are preached, or which are quoted in proof of some theological position." This is very true. But whose fault is it? How has it come about?

We are dealing, however, with the preacher, and Dr.

Morgan says of him, "To think out a sermon which seems religious arid then to hunt for some Bibhcal text upon which to hang it, is little short of profane." Dr. M. B. Riddle says : "The most pernicious habit is that of studying passages of Scripture mainly, if not exclusively, for homiletical purposes. To treat the Word of God as a collection of texts for sermons is putting dishonor upon it. To use it as if this were its character is to get away from its full and true meaning. He who seeks to find in it little save sermon material will soon find himself short of good sermon material. What he thinks he finds will prove to be inadequate, and very often incorrect."

One of the most specious temptations to which the preacher is exposed is this very homiletical temptation. Just because it is so closely associated with his work and with his own devotion to his great calling he is the more liable to fall before it. Where then lies the danger, and how is it to be avoided? The danger lies in this — that he reads the Word of God only that he may apply it to others. He avoids it by reading first of all for his own soul's sake. The preacher who seldom reads his Bible except for some sort of a homiletical purpose, may quite unconsciously excuse himself from his own private study upon the ground that he is professionally engaged with the Bible much of his time ; but such a preacher is not likely either to feed his own soul or to feed the souls of others. The texts upon which he discourses will not be chosen in the right spirit, nor handled in the most profitable manner. His work will be professional and perfunctory, not warm, personal, practical, and spiritual.