Jeff Ling

The year was 1768. A twenty-eight year old preacher by the name of Augustus Toplady, who wrote many of our best hymns, including “Rock of Ages”, spent the afternoon in London with Mr. Brewer–an older, veteran Gospel preacher, whom he greatly admired and from whom he learned much. This is what Mr. Brewer said to the young Toplady, as Toplady later recorded in his diary:

I cannot conclude without reminding you, my young brother, of some things that may be of use to you in the course of your ministry:

1. Preach Christ crucified, and dwell chiefly on the blessings resulting from His righteousness, atonement, and intercession.

2. Avoid all needless controversies in the pulpit; except it be when your subject necessarily requires it; or when the truths of God are likely to suffer by your silence.

3. When you ascend the pulpit, leave your learning behind you. Endeavor to preach more to the hearts of your people–than to their heads.

4. Do not affect too much oratory. Seek rather to profit your hearers–than to be admired by them.
N.B. Christian ministers would do well to print out these four simple principles, tuck them in their Bibles, are refer to them every time they preach!

 
Grateful to Grace Gems for bringing this to my attention.

Spurgeon in the Piulpit

Why Expositional Preaching Is Particularly Glorifying to God

“It is difficult to imagine the world in the year A.D. 2000, by which time versatile micro-processors are likely to be as common as simple calculators are today. We should certainly welcome the fact that the silicon chip will transcend human brain-power, as the machine has transcended human muscle-power. Much less welcome will be the probable reduction of human contact as the new electronic network renders personal relationships ever less necessary. In such a dehumanized society the fellowship of the local church will become increasingly important, whose members meet one another, and talk and listen to one another in person rather than on screen. In this human context of mutual love the speaking and hearing of the Word of God is also likely to become more necessary for the preservation of our humanness, not less.”

John Stott, I Believe in Preaching (1982), page 69:

Peter Cockrell offered up the following on his Already Not Yet blog which I highly recommend:

In his message at the Desiring God National Conference, Francis Chan highlighted the importance of loving the people to whom he preaches. He mentioned seven questions that he asks himself in preparing to preach. Here are the seven questions:

1. Am I worried about what people think of my message or what God thinks? (Teach with fear)
2. Do I genuinely love these people? (Teach with love)
3. Am I accurately presenting this passage? (Teach with accuracy)
4. Am I depending on the Holy Spirit’s power or my own cleverness? (Teach with power)
5. Have I applied this message to my own life? (Teach with integrity)
6. Will this message draw attention to me or to God? (Teach with humility)
7. Do the people really need this message? (Teach with urgency)

“If a teacher fascinates with his doctrine, his teaching never came from God. The teacher sent from God is the one who clears the way to Jesus and keeps it clear; souls forget altogether about him because the vision of Jesus is the only abiding result. When people are attracted to Jesus Christ through you, see always that you stay on God all the time, and their hearts and affections will never stop at you.

[What] has crippled many a church, many a Sunday School class and Bible class, is that the pastor or teacher has won people to himself, and the result when they leave is enervating sentimentality. The true man or woman of God never leaves that behind, every remembrance of them makes you want to serve God all the more.

So beware of stealing the hearts of the people of God in your mind. (2 Samuel 15:6) If once you get the thought, ‘It is my winsome way of putting it, my presentation of the truth that attracts’—the only name for that is the ugly name of thief, stealing the hearts of the sheep of God who do not know why they stop at you. Keep the mind stayed on God, and I defy anyone’s heart to stop at you, it will always go on to God. The peril comes when we forget that our duty is to present Jesus Christ and never get in the way in thought.”

Oswald Chambers
1874-1917

Take heed to yourselves, lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, and lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn. (Ro 2:1) Will you make it your work to magnify God, and, when you have done, dishonor him as much as others? Will you proclaim Christ’s governing power, and yet condemn it, and rebel yourselves? Will you preach his laws, and willfully break them? If sin be evil, why do you live in it? If it be not, why do you dissuade men from it? If it be dangerous, how dare you venture on it? If it be not, why do you tell men so? If God’s threatenings be true, why do you not fear them? If they be false, why do you needlessly trouble men with them, and put them into such frights without a cause? Do you “know the judgment of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of death;” and yet will you do them? “Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?  Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, or be drunk, or covetous, art thou such thyself?  Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God?” (Ro 1:32; Ro 2:17; Ro 2:21, Ro 2:22, Ro 2:23, Ro 2:24) What! shall the same tongue speak evil that speakest against evil? Shall those lips censure, and slander, and backbite your neighbor, that cry down these and the like things in others? Take heed to yourselves, lest you cry down sin, and yet do not overcome it; lest, while you seek to bring it down in others, you bow to it, and become its slaves yourselves: “For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage.” “To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.” O brethren! it is easier to chide at sin, than to overcome it. (2Pe 2:19; Ro 6:19)
- Richard Baxter,The Reformed Pastor