Preaching and
Preachers
By: Dr. Martyn
Lloyd-Jones
We want to make special
mention here of this classic work on preaching. Besides
the excerpts, there are a few quotations from it in the
Founder’s article and in the Beeke and Lanning
article.
The Founder cannot begin
to express how he values this book. His first reading of
it some twenty years ago changed his ministry. While he
was always a believer in the importance of preaching, he
did not truly understand its primacy, place, and power
until reading this work. He is convinced that it is the
single most important book to be written on preaching in
the twentieth century and that it should be required
reading of all who would call themselves preachers.
Published by Zondervan, follow this link to
Amazon.com to acquire your
copy.
Here are a few
excerpts.
".
. . The work of preaching is the highest and the
greatest and the most glorious calling to which
anyone can ever be called . . . If
you want something in addition to that I would say
without any hesitation that the most urgent need in the
Christian Church today is true preaching; it is the
greatest and most urgent need in the Church, it is
obviously the greatest need of the world also. I
would say without hesitation that the most urgent
need in the Christian Church today is true preaching. .
.preaching must always
come first, and it must not be replaced by anything
else." (pp. 9,
37)
"The most
urgent need in the Christian Church today is true
preaching; and as it is the greatest and most urgent
need in the Church it is obviously the greatest need of
the world also."
(p.9)
"There is a man standing in a pulpit
and speaking, and there are
people sitting in pews or seats listening.
What is happening? What is this?
What is his object? Why does the church
put him there to do this? . . . Any
true definition of preaching must say that
that man is there to deliver
the message of God, a
message from God to those people. If you prefer
the language of Paul,
he is an ambassador for Christ. That is what he is.
He has been sent, he
is a commissioned person. In other words he is not
there merely to talk to
them, he is not there to entertain them. He is there—and
I want to emphasis
this—to do something to those people; he is there
to produce results
of various kinds; he is there to influence people. He is
not merely to
influence a part of them; he is not only to influence
their minds, or only their
emotions, or merely to bring pressure to bear on their
wills and to induce
them to some kind of activity. He is there to deal with
the whole person; and
his preaching is meant to affect the whole person at
the
very centre of life.
Preaching should make such a difference to a man
who is listening that
he is never the same again. Preaching, in other words,
is a transaction
between the preacher and the listener. It does something
for the
soul of man, for the
whole of the person, the entire man; it deals with
him in a vital and
radical manner (p. 53).
“[Today's
new strategy is] Not preaching, not the old method, but
getting among the people, showing an interest, showing
your sympathy, being one of them, sitting down among
them, and discussing their affairs and problems.
This is being advocated a great deal in many countries
at the present time, either as a means of bringing
people to places of worship to listen to the Gospel, or
else as not only a substitute for that, but as a very
much better method of propagating the Christian faith. .
. .Well
now the great question is - what is our answer to all
this?… all this is at best secondary… and that the
primary task of the Church and of the Christian minister
is the preaching of the Word of God (p.
19).”
"What then are we
to do about this? There is only one obvious conclusion.
Seek Him! Seek Him! What can we do without Him? Seek
Him! Seek Him always. But go beyond seeking Him; expect
Him. Do you expect anything to happen, when you get up
to preach in a pulpit? Or do you just say to yourself,
'Well, I have prepared my address, I am going to give
them this address; some of them will appreciate it and
some will not.?' Are you expecting it to be the turning
point in someone's life? Are you expecting someone to
have a climactic experience? That is what preaching is
meant to do. That is what you find in the Bible and
subsequent history of the Church. Seek this power,
expect this power, yearn for this power; and when the
power comes, yield to Him. Do not resist. Forget all
about your sermon in necessary. Let Him loose you, let
Him manifest His power in you and through you. I am
certain, as I have said several times before, that
nothing but a return of this power of the Spirit on our
preaching is going to avail us anything. This makes true
preaching, and it is the greatest need of all today -
never more so. Nothing can substitute for this. But,
given this, you will have a people who will be anxious
and ready to be taught and instructed, and led further
and more deeply into 'the Truth as it is in Jesus'. This
'unction', this 'anointing', is the supreme thing. Seek
it until you have it; be content with nothing less. Go
on until you can say, 'And my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and power.' He is still able
to do 'exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask
or think.'" (p. 325)
“You remember what was
said of the saintly Robert Murray McCheyne of Scotland
in the last century. It is said that
when he appeared in the pulpit, even before he had
uttered a single word, people would begin to weep
silently.
Why?
Because of this very element of seriousness. The very sight
of the man gave the impression that he had come from the
presence of God and the he was to deliver a message from
God to them.
That is what had such an effect upon people even
before he had opened his mouth. We forget this
at our peril, and at great cost to our listeners.” (p.
86)
“Preaching
is the most amazing, and the most thrilling activity
that one can ever be engaged in, because of all that it
holds out for all of us in the present, and because of
the glorious endless possibilities in an eternal future”
(98).
