And help me to be a blessing. Help me, Lord, to honor Thee. In Christ Jesus' name I pray. Amen. I'm going to discuss a matter that I love discussing. And of course, I don't know anyone that has the final word on it. It's a matter of preaching. Just concerning preaching. And I know that God has called me to preach. And I'm rejoicing in the fact that God has called me to preach. The ideas I share with you I hope will appear very practical, but I don't want to sacrifice anything that's biblical in the name of practicality. The preacher that's effective is the man that is scriptural. It's impossible to be a spiritual man without being a scriptural man. That's impossible. I don't know of anything in this world I could say to you that would help you more than to say just become as familiar as you can with God's Word. It's my dream to be able to take the Bible and talk my way through every book in the Bible and just explain to people what God's Word says, what the message of each book of the Bible is. It's my dream to be able to take the great Bible stories of the Bible, I've identified around close to 400 of them for our people to read, and to take those great stories of the Bible and explain those stories, to talk about them and the lessons we draw from them, to be familiar with them. Years ago, someone spoke to me about being a Bible preacher. And his comment was, if you're not a Bible preacher, you're not a preacher at all. And I want to be a Bible preacher. The Lord Jesus Christ commands His disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. But He first called them to Himself. And I've talked with you about this. If you'll open your Bible again to the gospel according to Mark, just for a moment, I'd like to share with you this passage from God's Word in Mark chapter 3. Remember the Bible says in verse 13, And he goeth up into a mountain, and called unto him whom he would, and they came unto him. And he ordained them. He ordained twelve. He set them apart. He ordained twelve. And what did He set them apart to do? What did He ordain them to do? That they should be with Him and that He might send them forth to preach. And I hope you can say with conviction, God has sent me forth to preach. But don't forget that what He set us apart to do was to be with Him. And we're going to be the preachers God wants us to be as we are with Him. A friend of mine was asked to preach in a conference, a nationwide conference, in a very controversial time. As a matter of fact, he was the point of controversy. I don't want to share too many details of the story because it would be too obvious as to who I'm talking about. And he called me and asked me to pray for him. We talked maybe two or three times on the phone about it. period of maybe 2 or 3 weeks leading up to the meeting. And I said, the only advice I can give you is if you look to the Lord, truly look to Jesus first. If you just look unto the Lord then don't worry about what you say to that crowd. God is going to lead you. You will say the right thing and you will say it in the right spirit if you are just looking unto the Lord. Now the only way to get into this is just get into it, so let me be as practical as possible and dive right in. If you have your notes before you there concerning preaching. Preparation for sermon delivery begins with prayer and planning. And I think too few preachers actually plan their preaching. The first church I pastored was a little church in Greenback, Tennessee. And there's one of those kinds of churches early on where if I had announced on Sunday morning what I was going to speak on on Sunday night, a group of people in that church would have said to me, how can you be led of the Lord? You know anything about that kind of background? How can you be led of God? Then I came to the conclusion that all the Bible is God's Word. You can just open it up and preach it and you're preaching God's Word. And I know that the Lord does lead us specifically to certain passages, certain books of the Bible. but is extremely helpful in preaching to plan your preaching. I like to even promote the sermon subjects that God's given me to arouse the interest of people to come and hear them. But sit down with a calendar, sit down and think about where you're headed, and bathe your sermon preparation in prayer and planning. Try not to accept invitations late on Saturday night. You're going to go to bed with your message, at least I hope you do. And it'll be sweet dreams, I trust. And you don't want to be absolutely worn out. And you want to guard that Saturday. If it's something you don't really guard, you'll be taking engagements and driving great distances, and somebody, the only time they could ever have you is late Saturday night. Listen, but you know you've got to mount that pulpit Sunday morning, and so you're going to guard Saturday evenings as a preacher. People don't really pay the preacher to preach. They pay the preacher in order that he can give his full time to pastor the church and preach it. So don't lead your people to get the idea that they're paying you to be the preacher. What they're doing is giving you freedom by providing for you, your income, so that you can serve the Lord and do the things that you're called on to do as a pastor, especially as we think about preaching God's Word. When you read 1 Peter chapter 5, you find the pastor has two responsibilities. Number one, to feed the flock, and they need to be fed God's Word. And we can't feed them God's Word if we don't know God's Word. Do you know the Bible? Do you know the Bible? Can you walk your way through the Bible? Can you walk your way through the Old Testament? What do you know about the books of history? How do you figure God's plan for the ages? The other day I was seated on an airplane beside a young lady. As a matter of fact, my wife was in the center seat and the young lady was at the window and I was at the aisle. And we were trying to witness to her, and she told us that she was a Jew, but not really a religious Jew. And I felt led of God to take this approach in witnessing to her, to start with Abraham and his call from the ear of the Chaldees, and to deal with Abraham and his wife Sarah, and their promise of a son, and Isaac, and from Isaac to Jacob, and from Jacob to the chosen line of Jacob, and we talked about how God brought His people down to Egyptian bondage and delivered them and brought them to the wilderness and the period of Judges and naming the Judges, the Jewish Judges for her. And then getting to Joshua and crossing the Jordan into Canaan and what they had to do. You know, all that kind of business. Right on down the line historically with all these kind of things. And setting the whole thing up to the promise of the Messiah. And just to give a Bible overview. I love doing that and I think it's good for the pastor just to keep adding scripture knowledge so that you get that well deeper and deeper and deeper and you can draw from it. You'll use lots of illustrations you're preaching but no illustrations as great as the illustrations from God's Word. And you pull up those illustrations. And of course the Bible teaches us to take the oversight thereof. And as many times as I've said this, let me say it again. We fuss a lot about people who won't submit, but I think the greater sin is the fact that pastors will not lead. God says you're to take the oversight. The preacher's preaching must be his priority. Every pastor's scripture has one correct interpretation. Once we determine the correct interpretation of scripture, historical context, we may make a hundred applications of that passage. The Charismatics have done great harm, great harm by saying, well, this is what the Bible means to me. No, the Bible doesn't mean one thing to one person and one thing to another. This is what the Scripture means in its interpretation. Its application can be applied in many different ways, but get the interpretation of Scripture right. The important ingredients of preaching are content and delivery. Content happens to be the science of preaching. Delivery, the art. And there are many preachers who are great artists, but don't have much content, you know. And there are some preachers who have great content, but aren't too beautiful to behold or listen to. But there is content and delivery. There is science and art to preaching. Of course, the science of preaching is the Bible and knowing the Bible and God's Word, and the art is the way of presenting the Bible, moving from the known to the unknown, bringing the people along with you, learning how to speak to people about God's Word. If possible, and a literature of outline can be very convenient for a congregation in trying to remember the message. Keep it simple. I know that there are men who actually love outlining. As a matter of fact, when they get through, they're just so thrilled with their outline. We've got to get over the idea of trying to preach good sermons. We have to get to the idea of preaching sermons that do good. Our goal is not to impress people, it's to help people. And I always like to keep it simple. I'll say more about that. And don't stretch this business of alliteration in an outline. Let the thing happen naturally. If your messages are ever translated into other languages, you're going to find out that alliterative outline doesn't mean a whole lot anyway. We should preach the Bible and make frequent references to the text in the Bible. This helps people to keep their Bible open throughout the sermon. This is my style. I like people to have to use the Bible. If people can come hear me preach and not bring a Bible, then I don't think I'm preaching. If you've got a church full of folks who never bring the Bible, never open the Bible, never look at a Bible, don't have their own Bible, consider it a Bible-preaching church, you're considering the wrong thing. It's not a Bible-preaching church. I like for somebody to be able to look down the row while I'm preaching, and everybody sitting in that pew has got a Bible and got it open, and they're interested in what the preacher's going to say about this passage of the Word of God, then turn to another, what's going to be said about this passage of the Word of God. There are occasions when I'm speaking to an absolutely biblically illiterate audience where I may take a phrase or a verse and just stay right with that thing because I know they're not interested. Or I may take an entire story from the Bible and then give the whole summary and then just pull one phrase out of the story so they don't have to keep up because they don't know how to use the Bible anyway or I'm in an audience where people don't have a Bible. But I'm talking about week after week Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening, preaching to our folks and teaching God's Word, I like for them to have to use the Bible. When we consider what we are going to preach, remember we are preaching the Bible. What is God saying in that passage? What is God saying in that passage? Always have some great direction and purpose for your message. Make the appeal and give the invitation which should be driving home that purpose and direction. For me, the invitation is a perfectly natural part of the message. It's not an add-on. In other words, when I'm finished preaching, it's not like, now you've heard the message, let's stop that, let me give the invitation. I want to be able to invite people to do, in response to what I've been saying, what they ought to do as God by His Spirit prods them and speaks to them. It's a natural part of the message, not something you add on to it. Preach what you find in the Word of God, not what you find in other sources. The Lord said, my word shall not return to me void. I know that we could all improve, and I certainly could improve in my preaching. And one of the ways I know I could improve is by making better use of illustrations. But at the same time I have such a conviction that it's not my illustrations that won't return void, it's God's Word. If all people ever remember about what you've said are your stories, then they're not remembering what they should remember. They should be remembering they could take the Bible and look at that same passage and they know something you've said about that passage that is applicable to their life. Now, when you're preaching, place the emphasis where God places the emphasis. That's a simple rule to follow, but what a profound thing it is to do. What is the Lord emphasizing here? How much emphasis does God give to this? If you and I could examine our ministries and put everything we say down in a column, and by emphasis, number 1 to 10, meaning 10 the most emphasis, and God giving great emphasis to that particular matter, sometimes we've got things numbered 10 that God has numbered 1, and some things we've got numbered 1 that God has numbered 10. I know many men have gotten off on a particular matter that the Lord has very little to say about, but they've made it the major focus of their ministry. When you're preaching, we are delivering God's message. I have no message. I have no message. You have no message. We are messengers. We are newsboys. We are bringing God's message to people. So there's nothing to be applauded about having our message. What we want to do is be the best messengers for God we can be and place the emphasis where the Lord places the emphasis. The preacher must always lift up the Lord Jesus. If Christ is not in the message, don't preach it. If Christ is in the message, don't preach it. We'd all shout and say, Amen. If I said, you know, you can't cut this book anywhere that doesn't bleed. It's all about the Lord Jesus. It's the story of redemption. God's unfolding drama of redemption. Then how can we talk about certain things without bringing Christ in? I think you ought to give the clear Gospel. Lift up the Lord. Folks will be drawn to Him, the Bible says, as He's lifted up. In one sense, the preacher is sort of a biblical detective. He searches the Scriptures to see what God is saying. And as he searches the Scriptures, he sees how God speaks. How does the Lord speak to you? As I've said, the sermon must be born twice. It's born once in our study. As we study the message, the sermon is born. There's birth given. It burns in our hearts. But then when you get up to preach it, it has to live again. And sometimes it dies between the study and the pulpit, and doesn't get that second birth in the pulpit. But when you are into God's Word, and God's Word is into you, and God is speaking to you, and dealing with you, and it's burning in your heart, and you have a message from God, not just a speech you prepared to deliver, then it's much more likely to live as you speak it. Someone has said that the acid test of a preacher's delivery is whether he reflects the way he talks when he's out of the pulpit, but with more energy and force. Now this may not agree with some of you, but for me, I believe that my preaching should be extended conversation, but yet with more energy and force. I don't want to develop a separate preacher's voice and seem like something hypocritical when I'm up to preach. And when I open the Bible and start reading, I don't want to change my voice and sound like someone different. You know? It ought to be something perfectly natural. As far as gestures and those kinds of things, there ought to be things that come naturally for you to do. Not something that you're trying to make up, that seems phony and put on. I don't believe a man should be taught those kinds of things. I think it ought to come out of his life. God is not interested in, like a cookie stamper, making preachers like that. The individuality of each man should be left with each man. In our work of helping young people here who believe God's called them to preach here at Crown College, we're not making preachers. God makes preachers. And there's two kinds of preparation that goes into a preacher's life. There's the deliberate preparation that he does. You might want to make a note of this. The deliberate preparation he does. But there's the divine providential preparation that only God can do. And God prepares us. We make choices and God makes choices for us. There's the deliberate preparation we do. There's the divine preparation that God does. And in those things God divinely arranges for us in our preparation as preachers, things come out of that. Now people have helped me by saying, you know, you ought to dress a certain way, and I don't want to dress in any way that is not appropriate as a preacher. I don't want to look disheveled or that kind of thing in the pulpit. I want to represent the Lord well, but I don't want to depend on anything like that to do God's work. And some things that come natural for you and are not offensive, so be it. But if you're just trying to mimic everybody else, and nothing but a copycat in the pulpit, you're not going to be very effective. You can't help but come under somebody's influence. Now, as I said, you ought to choose men of integrity to influence your life. It's a compliment, I think, when someone says, you remind me of, if it's somebody that I have deliberately chosen to put my life under the influence of. For instance, if there's something about my life that reminds people of Lee Robertson, I say, praise God. I'm not necessarily trying to do that, but I have no reason not to try to do it, but he's a man I've said, Lord, please use this man to influence me. If somebody says your ministry or pulpit manner reminds me somewhat of Curtis Hudson, then that's wonderful because he's a man who helped mentor me and I placed myself under his influence. And you ought to find men with, not only men of integrity, but with a certain biblical preaching style that you want to mentor you, to help you, to encourage you. And you won't help, you can't help but become a little bit like them. That's alright. That's alright. No problem with that. We live in a biblically illiterate age. I want you to know that it helps people if the preacher turns to his related text and supports scriptures rather than quoting them. When I first started out preaching, I was trying to memorize all the scripture I used in every message. I would say to people, open the Bible to a certain passage, and I would not read it. I would hold it and quote the entire passage, word for word. than any reference I made, I would quote the references. And I found out what I was really trying to do was impress people with what I knew. And I think that kept me from really having God's anointing and power on my preaching. Full of myself. I wanted to be the greatest thing they'd ever heard. And that did not please the Lord. Now we ought to memorize God's Word, but teach people how to handle the Bible. How to open the Bible. How to turn to passages in the Bible. I have places marked in my Bible. There's a certain way I mark my Bible and a certain type of clip I use to mark my Bible. And if I'm moving in a certain direction, how that page will open from right to left. Or from left to right. And connecting passages. Occasionally I'll write another proof text beside that text. If I'm going through a list of things in my Bible, and I'm going to use from one text to the other, I can write before that particular text, the one that preceded it, after that text, the one that follows it, and find my way all the way through Scripture like that. I can open my Bible and it's actually noted in certain places where I've done that kind of thing. take your Bible and turn. And I like to explain to folks what they're going to find when they get there so there's not just death-like silence when they're turning from one passage to another. So it's like a guide who's guiding you through a certain area. Before you ever get there, he'll explain what you're going to see. And when you see it, you can appreciate it more. And I think as you're turning from one passage of Scripture to the other, a man who's familiar with the Bible can tell them, while we're turning to this particular passage, this is, you know, an explanation of what we're going to find there and then we read it and it works together more smoothly and I think it's better for the hearer to get hold of. The first sentence out of the mouth of a preacher concerning his sermon should be a statement that interests the people and points them to the need of this message. Don't get up to the pulpit and stumble around when you're just beginning. Know what you're going to say. at least have some idea. I do not believe in memorizing sermons. And in the second part of our discussion concerning preaching, I will talk to you about preaching without notes, and it certainly does not mean memorizing sermons. But I do want to memorize certain thoughts or ideas that I wish to express, and I want to continually improve my vocabulary so that I can express those things. in an easily understood manner to people. Remember to always preach with purpose. There must be a specific goal in our preaching. Perhaps you've heard the story about the young preacher who came to Spurgeon and said, Mr. Spurgeon, when I preach, no one responds. And Mr. Spurgeon said, well, what do you think will happen when you preach? He said, well, I don't think anybody will respond. He said, that's the reason they don't. You ought to speak, and as you speak, You have a purpose, a specific goal. You want to accomplish something with that particular message. One of the common errors made by a novice in the ministry is to try to preach too much at one time. To carry too broad a subject within the pulpit. I don't think that necessarily has to do with the length of the message, but sometimes messages get lengthy by trying to cover too much. Sometimes messages are brief and they cover too much. For instance, you'll find out early in your ministry you may preach one message on the 51st Psalm, and later in your ministry you may preach 20 sermons from the 51st Psalm, driving each thought home. Each thought home. You may preach one message from Psalm 23, and then later you may preach a series of messages that are meaty and have something to say, maybe 15 or 20 messages from the 23rd Psalm. But the tendency early on is to try to say too much in one outing without really saying anything. I heard an old preacher say one time that too many messages are like old-fashioned petticoats where women wore those dresses with those wire hoops around them and he said they cover everything and touch nothing. You know? And I'm not so sure that's not right. You know? They cover everything but touch nothing. You need to nail it to the wall. Hang it up there, brother. Drive the nail in the thing. Look at it. There it is. Let's deal with it. Be specific. And I think this is a common error. made early on in the ministry. One of the ways we can improve our preaching is to approach the text using the larger context. This has been a tremendous help to me. So often in the message I use as the introduction to the message, I use the context of the passage. Most biblical preaching misses the mark because the preacher errs in not knowing the context of the scripture. Now my sermons are very simple. I would have in a message that I preach. And by the way, you don't have to do it exactly the way I do. I came under the influence of certain men. As I said, I was a Southern Baptist. When I started out, I was saved, baptized, called to preach in the Southern Baptist Church. And the hero of the Southern Baptist Convention was a man by the name of Dr. W.A. Criswell. Dr. Criswell is a great expository preacher and also a man who preaches without notes. I say expository. Some people would say there are people who are much more expository in their preaching. But I would not preach a passage of Scripture without knowing what that passage meant and being able to explain that passage of Scripture. And from that passage, take a subject and a text, giving some introduction. And in the introduction, to begin the message, perhaps using the context of the passage. Luke chapter 5, Peter launching out into the deep for a great draw of the fishes. And I would say Christ is walking along the Galilee. They fished all night. Early in the morning, they're mending their nets, and they see the silhouette of the Son of God coming. And they hear as crowds are following Him. And as He approaches them, He comes and asks to borrow their boat. He wants more than their boat, friends. He wants them. But first, He asks for their boat, and they give Him the boat. Has it launched out a little from the water to separate Him from the people? And from that boat He preaches. And I see the disciples, the would-be disciples, over there mending their nets. They can't help but listen to Him. And when He's finished, He dismisses the people and He speaks to these disciples. And Peter says, after the Lord said, launch out in the deep, Peter responds, we've toiled all the night and taken nothing. Nevertheless, at thy word, we'll let down the net. Singular. Christ said, you better take several. I like to visualize what is happening. And then I would choose from that story, text, and bear down, maybe from henceforth, where Jesus said, follow me, or fear not, or thou shalt catch men, then every point should elaborate and illustrate the subject. One of the fine expository preachers of our day, and by the way, expository preaching is not the only kind of Bible preaching. Topical preaching is Bible preaching if it's dealing with biblical topics supported by text and proof text. And so I'm not just saying you ought to do just expository preaching. One of the fine preachers nowadays say the way to outline is you should have your subject and each point should be a continuation of that subject so that it completes the subject. But I have a subject, a text, an introduction, point, point, point, point four, perhaps Three points most of the time. A conclusion that moves into the introduction. The conclusion summarizes the message and moves us into the invitation and the people are invited to do the things that I've hung my message on during the message. That's a very simple approach, but I found it's a logical approach and helps people to listen and retain the thing. So, just one way of doing it. Throughout the entire process of preparing a message, each step should be bathed in prayer. I think sometimes we get so anxious in our study that we don't pray. We know we ought to pray to preach, but we ought to pray to study, because we bring our hearts in tune with the Lord. Remember, the emphasis is not on having devotions, it's on having a devotional life. We should have devotions, but we should have a devotional life. We should bring ourselves into the place of communing with Christ and being happy in Jesus. That's a thrilling thing when you learn that. To come into His presence and walk with the Lord and commune with Christ and have free fellowship and an open conversation with the Lord and He can speak to you. And during the study time you ought to be praying along each step of the way. Until what we are trying to accomplish in the message can be stated in one sentence, the message is not ready to be preached. If you don't know why you're bringing that message, and you can't make a statement about, this is why I'm bringing this message and what I hope to accomplish it, then don't preach it. Don't preach it. Because if you preach a message without being able to state why you're preaching it in one sentence, then your people are going to say, that's wonderful information. Now what am I supposed to do with it? I remember struggling with a message I knew God wanted me to preach on the life of Herod and the Herodian family. I'd like for all of you to get a copy of that if we could. And the Herodian family. So much emphasis in our political system about the economy, the economy, the economy. Jesus said, I want to warn you about the leaven of the Herodians. And so I did a great deal of study about the Herodian family and Herod the Great and his children and their children and finally how, at the close of the first century, the last of the Herodian line died, leaving no heir, leaving nothing but a line of disgrace. And I thought, this is wonderful information, but that's not what I'm preaching about. I want it to be more than information. I want them to see the folly, the folly of trying to hook their wagon to a political star, just making sure that if Herod's in office, it's going to be better for us, and the folly of all of that when it comes time to meet God. But if you can't put it into a statement, then you're not ready to preach it. Always be a Bible preacher. Begin with a Bible text. Popular preaching today is preaching sometimes done even without a Bible, and in the end, somebody brings maybe some mention of the Bible into it. You know, train your people to begin with the Word of God and to stay with the Word of God. Don't vary from it. There are men who think, I've got to make it more interesting than the Bible. Look, they're following the way of the world. They're marketing the pulpit. I might as well say this, I'm against all this drama and things in church. I'm against it. Because I think it does something to the deity of Christ. I don't want to see somebody playing Jesus, lifted up on a high lift in some Easter pageant. I'm not interested in that. You know? I think all that stuff is short-lived, and it's short-sighted, and it builds Christians into nothing. It's entertaining. Singing Christmas tree, skating down the aisle singing, I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. You know, you may be sitting on a couch watching a snowfall, having that play in your living room, hugging on your wife and kissing around, but there's no place for that in the house of God. You don't start with the world and get to Christ. I don't know where these people come off of this. They say, well, people just flock. Yeah, why? They flopped to a rock concert, too. When are we going to ever learn there's a difference between a crowd and a church? You know? I'm afraid I'm going to get stirred up here if I'm not careful. You fellows are pitiful, aren't you? As far as your preaching is concerned, you cannot separate other parts of the ministry from your preaching. What you learn in dealing with people will help you in the pulpit. But let me give you a warning. Be careful about confidences being shared as illustrations. You not only hurt the person who shared the confidence with you, you'll have the church lose confidence in you, period. Now, I often have to say to people, and they've discussed it with me, now look, the next time I bring up the subject of Homosexuality, I don't want you to think I'm dealing with you. It's something in the Bible I have to deal with from time to time and I'm not just singling you out. And you'll notice when I do deal with it, I'm not going to deal with it in a hateful manner like I'm hating the person, but we do hate that sin and you need to know it's sin, it's abomination and God can deliver you from it. If you don't deal with it as sin, you won't know you need a savior. It's just not a bad habit. It's not something you're born with. Or if I'm dealing with a situation discussing divorce or whatever, I never deal with the matter of divorce without trying to be kind about this. When we have deacons in our church, we do not elect men who are deacons who have been married and divorced. We've gone so far as to say the wife could not have been married and divorced. And you make those choices yourself. You don't have to argue with me about that. Look, you pastor your church, and I'm not trying to be a smart aleck, and I'll pastor the church God's given me. I'm not going to try to pastor your church. I've heard men say to me, I know a man who was in immorality and now he's pastoring a church and I would never join his church. Fine, you don't have to, but leave him alone. Let his church deal with him. Leave him alone. Now that may not sit well with some of you, but if you're a local church person, if the congregation is willing to follow that fella, leave them alone. You don't have to have him come preach for you, but leave him alone. Why stir everything up all over the country? You know, you know, we won't live to make all the mistakes. We need to learn a few from other people. Lord, help us. Do you know? Occasionally. When you have to deal with something that's a delicate thing, for instance, about this deacon business, I'll always say when we're dealing with deacons, I'll always say this. There are good men in this church who would not qualify to be a deacon. But I don't know what in this world I'd do without them. They've been such a blessing and help to me. I thank God that He's brought them into my life. We're going to hold a biblical standard on this other now, and they appreciate it, but I want you to know, it doesn't mean I'm down on these other guys. God bless them. And you may know or may not know who some of them are, but I'm going to tell you right now, I know some men who couldn't qualify as deacons, church, and I don't know what, I don't know if I could face the day thinking that they weren't here to help me. You know, you need to give some people a little help, you know? And still hold up the sanctity of marriage. A man can do that kind of thing. Listen, as long as you have this pulpit, you can preach your way out of things. Hang in there. Our heart needs to burn, and according to the 24th chapter of Luke, the only way our hearts will be on fire is when Jesus Christ speaks to us along the way. Preparing a message is just as spiritual an exercise as preaching a message. And that'll do you some good if you let that get in your heart. Preparing it is just as spiritual as preaching it. We depend upon God as much in preparation of the sermon as we do in the delivery of the sermon. There are a lot of folks who don't get to the place of dependence upon God in preparation, but they say, oh God, I need you to help me mount this pulpit. No, Lord, I need you first in my study to help me, direct me. I wish I could take the time, but I can't in this lecture talk about how I prepare a message, not that I'm the best way or the only way, but in preparation for a message. I'll talk a little bit more about it in the next session. But over the years, you'll notice that you go through a cycle. in your emphasis of your ministry. And you have to watch this and guard against neglecting certain things. For instance, when your children are little, you may talk more about rearing little children and television and those kind of things. But remember that somebody in your congregation always needs those things. I don't search the congregation to find out what I'm to preach on. I don't search the newspapers to find out what I'm to preach on. I search the Scriptures to find what I'm going to preach on. I can illustrate a message from things I see in the congregation or from the things I read in the paper, but I'm not going to let that start my message. I want to start in the book, start with the Lord. We must remember that there is a certain amount of pain in preaching. The preacher learns when he preaches a sermon that it takes something out of him, and you never really get away from this. We'll talk about the matter of free preaching, that's preaching without notes, but I will try to encourage as many of you as possible to try to do that, and I call that free preaching. One of the great secrets of preparation is long-term preparation. If you planned your preaching as you spend your entire life preparing for each sermon, that's what you actually do, but as you plan your preaching, if you've got long-term preparation, you have time for God to speak to you and deal with you about things. We're more apt to allow the Holy Spirit to bring things to our attention that would not normally come to our attention as we have long-term preparation. The preacher needs a good night's rest on Saturday night. A good night's rest. So you're not taking those appointments late, and you're going to think, I need a good night's rest. If you think you don't need it, then think of what you're depriving the Lord Jesus of the glory you should receive by standing at your best in that pulpit. Be prepared. Have your message burning in your heart. Go to bed dreaming and thinking about it. God can deal with you and speak to you and help you. As you read devotionally and study the Bible, be on the lookout for key words and key phrases as you read. It's as though some things leap off the page of the Bible and just almost demand that we speak on those things. Early in the sermon preparation, we should be able to write a conclusion to the message to justify the effort that's going into the preparation of the sermon. How we're going to conclude the message should reveal the purpose of the sermon. And then move, as I say, move naturally into the invitation as a part of the message. Preaching should be a great joy, one of the great joys of the preacher's life. And the preparation, when you do it right, can be as enjoyable as delivering the message. In a very real sense, there's no time in the preacher's life when he's not thinking about preaching. And so you want to keep a means of writing things down, developing it, But don't get so that you jump like a rabbit the first time you get a thought and you had five minutes to think about it and you want to jump in the pulpit with it. Don't do that. Don't do that. Let that thing simmer and cook. Think about it. Develop it. Oh, you may have a great thought, but that great thought could become a great message for the glory of God if you just didn't rush into it in ten minutes. Develop it. A real God-called preacher is serious about his call to preach. That means an earnestness in the study and to learn to use what's been given to him to deliver God's message. I take it all seriously, the books, the study, the Bibles, all of it, because I'm serious about the serious call that God's given me to preach His Word. I have a compassionate concern for people. Preaching is the declaration of truth as has been revealed to men by God. Be bold. Write it down. Be bold. You're speaking the truth. Preaching is a proclamation of the Word, the truth, as the truth has been revealed. God's Word is truth. You're giving people what they absolutely have to have when you're preaching the Word of God to them. Nothing happens in the world today to which the truth of God has not something to say about it. So just stay with the Bible. I remind you. I remind you. Look, please, I remind you. You don't need to go out and investigate what the needs of man are. God's already written a book to meet the need. You don't have to study man, study God. You don't have to know man, know God. You'll be able to help men as you know God. So be a man who follows after the Lord, who seeks after the presence of Christ, who communes with God, who knows God's Word. Be a holy man on fire with God and God's Word. A sermon should also be characterized by authority. Where do you get it? The authority of God's Word and the knowing that God's anointed us to preach His Word. Jesus spoke with authority. And here's a very important thing to consider. The preacher's message should be so clear Hear it. It should be so clear that when the congregation is dismissed, they should be able to speak to one another and say, this is what the preacher said today. Very important. This is what the preacher said today. If it's not clear and they can't say when they're leaving, this is what the preacher said today, then something's wrong. I don't want people to say, three months ago, our preacher preached a sermon, man, it's the greatest sermon I've ever heard him preach. I want them to say, the last sermon they heard touched their heart. The last message he brought. I mean, man, when can we hear him preach? Listen, you come. He's loaded every time. You come on. Just come. Be here Sunday morning. Be here Sunday night. Be here Wednesday night. Every once in a while, you're gonna feel like you fired a blank. And then you'll find out in your weakness God used something great. He's a wonderful Savior. And don't forget this. Jesus said there's one message to take to the whole world. It's the Gospel. And don't get so involved in preaching everything else. Though we must declare the whole counsel of God, I pity these poor preachers who are going to have to meet God with picking what they're going to preach. and dodging things they know they should speak on. But with all of our doing and all of our preaching, let's not forget that we need to make the gospel message clear to people. Clear to people. Clear to people. Just some thoughts concerning preaching. Let's take a little break. And maybe about ten minutes and then we'll talk to you about preaching without notes. And if you're in for it, fine. If you're not, just stay with what you've got. Alright?