The following message was delivered
on Monday evening, October 19, 1992, at the Trinity Baptist
Church in Montville, New Jersey. Some of you here will no doubt
remember that at our Pastors' Conference in October of 1988,
I brought the first of what has developed into a series of sermons
under the general title of our vision for these days, that series
being preached an increment at a time, a year apart. And the announced subject for
tonight is the restoration of biblical preaching. And it comes
as the fourth in that series of sermons our vision for these
days. And each time I have introduced
each of those sermons, I have made a two-pronged disclaimer. By using the terminology, our
vision for these days, we claim no extraordinary commission with
respect to these concerns. And secondly, we claim no exclusive
concern with reference to this burden. Rather, as we seek to
view the current religious scene in the light of the written Word
of God and our duty as determined by the same Word of God, Our
vision for these days is essentially our understanding of the crucial
concerns which must be addressed if the Church is to know, under
the blessing of God, any true measure of spiritual health and
vigor. In the first of those messages,
we dealt with our concern, our vision, to see a recovery of
the biblical gospel. In the second, our vision to
see a renewal of biblical holiness. In the third, which was two years
ago, our vision to see a return to biblical churchmanship. And now tonight, as I've already
indicated in this fourth dimension of our vision for these days,
we address this vast and weighty subject of our vision for a restoration
of biblical preaching. Now all that I have to say tonight
from the Word of God is based upon a wholehearted agreement
with the sentiments expressed by John A. Broadus in the opening
chapter of his classic work on the preparation and delivery
of sermons in which he writes as follows, the great appointed
means of spreading the good tidings of salvation through Christ is
preaching, words spoken whether to the individual or to the assembly,
and this nothing can supersede. Printing has become a mighty
agency for good as well as for evil, and Christians should employ
it with the utmost diligence and in every possible way for
the spread of truth. But printing can never take the
place of the living spoken word. When a man who is apt in teaching,
whose soul is on fire with the truth which he knows has saved
him and hopes will save others, when such a man speaks to his
fellow men, face to face, eye to eye, and electric sympathies
flash to and fro between him and his hearers till they lift
each other up higher and higher into the intensest thought and
the most impassioned emotion, higher and yet higher, till they
are born as on chariots of fire above the world, there is a power
to move men to influence character, life, and destiny such as no
printed page can ever possess. It follows that preaching must
always be a necessity and good preaching a mighty power. In every age of Christianity
since John the Baptist drew crowds into the desert, There has been
no great religious movement, no restoration of Scripture truth
and reanimation of genuine piety without new power in preaching,
both as cause and as effect. There has been no great religious
movement, no restoration of Scripture truth and reanimation of genuine
piety without new power in preaching, both as cause and effect. Believing that the vast majority
of those of you gathered in this place tonight are already convinced
of the primacy of preaching and the saving purposes of God, I
have chosen to take no time to establish that fundamental tenet
of the things most surely believed among us, but assuming that we
are agreed in that conviction, I pass on directly to the subject
of our vision for a restoration of biblical preaching. And if
we are to pray for such a restoration, If we are to labor for such a
restoration, and if we are to recognize the answer to our prayers
and measure our progress in sanctified endeavor for the restoration
of biblical preaching, we must begin with giving at least the
main concerns which identify such preaching. And so I want
to begin tonight by addressing, first of all, the characteristics
of God-owned, Spirit-anointed preaching. The characteristics
of God-owned, Spirit-anointed preaching. Now, while freely
acknowledging the vast diversity of native ability, the measure
of divine gift, and the diversity of preaching styles, I would
still be bold to assert that there are some common denominators
to all God-owned Spirit-anointed preaching which can be identified
and articulated. I emphasize that in the expression
of these common denominators, there will indeed be a reflection
of a diversity of native ability, a diversity of the measure of
divine gift, and a diversity of preaching style. And yet within
that blessed diversity in all of those areas, there will be
this core of common denominators with reference to God-owned,
Spirit-anointed preaching. And as we pray for and labor
to the end that there would be a restoration of biblical preaching,
what we are doing is praying and laboring to see preaching
that will bear these following marks. First of all, something
with reference to the substance of that preaching. Secondly,
to the form of that preaching. And thirdly, to the ethos of
the delivery of that preaching. First of all, with reference
to its substance. In its substance, God-owned,
Spirit-anointed preaching will almost invariably be marked by
these four characteristics. First of all, it will be pervasively
biblical. It will be pervasively biblical. As Pastor Bavard read to us from
2 Timothy chapter 4, the final charge of the great apostle to
his spiritual son, and his mentor, and the one to whom he was passing
on not the baton of apostleship, for that could not be conferred
by any but the Lord Himself, but passing on the responsibility
of the care of the church at Ephesus. His final admonition
to him, summoning to Timothy's mind the great realities of the
appearing of the Lord Jesus and the day of judgment, his great
charge to Timothy is, preach the Word. Whatever else you do,
Timothy, proclaim the message. You are to be preoccupied with
the substance of a message that is pervasively biblical. And I remind you of those familiar
texts. such as Hebrews 4 and verse 12,
where we are told that it is the Word of God which is living
and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and that pierces
to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, joint and marrow,
and is a discerner of the very thoughts and the intents of the
heart. It is Jeremiah who cries out
in the name of Jehovah in Jeremiah 23, 29, Is not my word like unto
a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? Isaiah declares in
chapter 8 in verse 20, To the law and to the testimony, if
they speak not according to this word, there is no dawning for
them. The same prophet declares in
chapter 55 and verse 11, so shall my word be that goeth forth out
of my mouth It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish
that whereunto I have sent it." Our Lord Jesus, in that great
parable to which reference was made this morning, identifies
the seed of all kingdom workers. The sower soweth the word. And likewise, again and again,
it is the Lord Jesus who says, though heaven and earth pass
away, my word shall never pass away. Sanctify them in the truth. Thy word is truth. And we could go on multiplying
text. And therefore, whenever a man
stands unashamedly convinced in every fiber of his being that
this book is indeed God's infallible revelation, God's changeless,
eternal Word, surely the Spirit who is its author, is most likely
to be powerfully present, authenticating not the notions of the preacher,
but his own infallible mind and will embodied in this blessed
book, and therefore to speak of a restoration of biblical
preaching, to speak of God-owned and Spirit-anointed preaching
is to speak of preaching as to its substance will have this
as its primary characteristic. It will be pervasively biblical. Whether, as we shall see in the
lectures tomorrow morning, the form is that of a verse-by-verse
exposition of a book or a large portion of scripture, the taking
of an individual text and opening it up and applying it, whether
taking a subject and bringing the total witness of Scripture
to bear upon it, whether it is taking an event, a need, a crisis
in the life of the congregation, in the life of the community,
in the life of the nation, whatever the particular sermonic form
may be, God owns Spirit-anointed preaching is, in its substance,
pervasively biblical. The Bible is never simply the
springboard to something else. The Bible is never simply the
framework within which other things fill up the substance. Rather, in its substance, it
will be pervasively biblical. But then, secondly, as to its
substance, It will be unashamedly doctrinal, or as our British
friends would say, doctrinal. Not only pervasively biblical,
but unashamedly doctrinal. That is, it will be preaching
that does not shrink from articulating the time-proven formulations
of the raw materials of the Bible. And in the crucible of controversy
and in fighting against the wiles of error and the propagators
of heresy, the Church has sought to take this witness of God and
to formulate its broad strokes of revelation concerning the
nature and the being of God. And the church has confessed
from her earliest days that the God of this book is the God who
is Trinity in unity, and unity in Trinity. We worship the one
true and living God. But within that God we worship
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father who is not
the Son nor the Spirit. The Son who is neither the Father
nor the Spirit. The Spirit who is neither the
Son nor the Father. We worship the one true living
God. Trinity in unity and unity in
Trinity. And without embarrassment, Our
preaching will be unashamedly doctrinal. People will not have
to listen to us for six months to see whether or not we stand
in the great historic stream of biblical orthodoxy as unashamed
Trinitarian worshippers of the one true and living God. We will recognize that that God
is Creator, that that God is Lawgiver, and that that God is
Judge. With reference to the doctrine
of man, we will be unashamedly doctrinal in our statements about
man, man uniquely created in the image of God. man fallen
through the sin of our first father, Adam. We will unashamedly
make it known that as unpopular as it may be, we do believe that
God sovereignly piggybacked the whole human race on Adam, and
we fell in the first man, Adam. And that fall has brought us
into a state in which all the faculties of the mind and soul
and body are tainted and twisted and perverted by sin, so that
though we may not use the term total depravity, no one could
sit under our ministry for very long without understanding that
we believe that this Bible teaches that man in his present state,
though he has a dignity high above the most cultured of all
of the domestic animals, he is nonetheless, in terms of his
spiritual state, dead in his trespasses and sins. None seeks
after God. No, not one. Our preaching will
be unashamedly doctrinal with reference not only to the great
issues of the being of God and the nature of man as created
and fallen and depraved, but with respect to Jesus Christ,
the utter uniqueness of His person, as much a man as though He were
not God. as much God as though He were
not man. And that in this theanthropic
person, the God and the man are not commingled to become some
third thing. There is the distinct and eternal
distinction of the two natures in the one person. And before
the mystery we bow and we worship. but we unashamedly stand in the
great Christological formulas that have sought to take the
witness of Scripture concerning the uniqueness of the person
of our Savior. And we will be unashamedly doctrinal
with reference to the uniqueness of His work. We will not find
ourselves embarrassed in the presence of the words propitiation,
reconciliation, Redemption. Atonement. We will not find ourselves
embarrassed before the terms, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses
from all sin. We will not be embarrassed before
the concept of an imputed righteousness. Our gospel is unashamedly the
gospel of Romans 1.17 wherein is revealed a righteousness of
God from faith unto faith. There will be an unashamed doctrinal
figure to our preaching with reference to the person and the
work of the Lord Jesus. And so it will be true with reference
to the personal agency of the Holy Spirit in the quickening
of the dead sinner, taking out the heart of stone and giving
a heart of flesh. putting God's meaning upon the
prostituted term, born again, which means in our day nothing
more than somehow a half-nod to Jesus that will incorporate
Jesus into men's hog pens and call themselves born-again Christians
when they live like they knew nothing of the transforming grace
of God. We will be unashamed of the vigor
of the biblical doctrine of conversion and a holy life and the second
coming and heaven and hell. And while we will labor, under
God to express those old and time-proven doctrinal formulas
in fresh and gripping constructions with fresh and vivid illustrations
and relevant and poignant applications, that preaching which is owned
of God is never marked by novelty, never by novelty. but as surely
as it is pervasively biblical, it is unashamedly doctrinal. But then thirdly, as to substance,
it is always marked by this characteristic, it is intensely pastoral. Intensely pastoral. And I have, in using the term
pastoral, two dimensions of thought in mind. thinking of the shepherd
who seeks lost sheep, and of the shepherd who cares and guards
and feeds and guides and protects sheep that are within the fold. And I am saying that God's own
Spirit-anointed preaching is intensely pastoral. It is preaching that reflects
the Bible's own self-revealed purpose. And nowhere is that
purpose more beautifully summarized than in 2 Timothy 3, 14-17, where
Paul says to Timothy that from a brephos, from a nursing babe,
you have known the sacred writings which are able to make thee wise
unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. There is the first great purpose
of the Scriptures, that through their proclamation the Lord Jesus
might fulfill His own word of John 10, 16. Other sheep I have
which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall
hear my voice, and there shall be one fold, one shepherd. All of the sheep for whom He
lays down His life, He personally brings. And He brings them by
His voice. And His voice is heard through
preaching. Through preaching, how shall
they call upon Him whom they have not heard? And how shall
they hear without a preacher? And it is when the preacher goes
forth to herald the message that Christ goes forth in him, and
with him, and through him, so that Paul can say to the Ephesians,
who never, never had a visit from Christ before or after the
days of His flesh, And yet he can say in chapter 2, he came
and preached peace to you who were afar off and peace to those
who were nigh. He says the Christ who died to
reconcile Jew and Gentile into one new man, that very Christ
came and preached his own redemption at Ephesus. And when did he preach
it? He preached it when His servants
came and proclaimed the gospel. Proclaimed it not without any
intention or hope or goal or conscious desire to see men saved,
but preached it with intensely pastoral yearning and concern. Then not only that intensely
pastoral element with reference to the gathering in of the lost
sheep, but the caring for the found sheep. Do you love me,
Peter? Feed my sheep. Shepherd my sheep. Feed my lambs. Peter, show your
love for me. by being committed not to a professional,
detached ministry that merely traffics in truth that floats
by the mental faculties of those for whom you are responsible,
but brings it down to where they can masticate it and swallow
it and regurgitate and chew it and assimilate it, feed my sheep. The mark of God-owned, Spirit-anointed
preaching is always that it is intensely pastoral. Those whose ministries are owned
of God are so owned because they are handling a word in a way
that parallels the purpose of God in giving the word. And if
the purpose is, in its first sense, according to 2 Timothy
3.14, to make us wise to salvation, and secondly, according to verses
16 and 17, also profitable for teaching, reproof, correction,
training, and righteousness, that the man of God may be complete,
then where a man is handling the Word according to its own
professed intention, there you will most likely have most of
the blessing of God the Holy Ghost. But then the fourth mark
as to the substance of God-owned, Spirit-anointed preaching is
this. It will not only be pervasively
biblical, unashamedly doctrinal, intensely pastoral, but decidedly
evangelical, Or if you want the more formal word, I didn't like
it, but I'll throw it in, Christological. Decidedly evangelical or Christological. I use the word evangelical in the
sense that our Lord Jesus is the heart and soul of God's good
news to men. Not only to those that are without
the fold, but he is also the life of those within the fold. Not only does he bid sinners
to come to him and drink with the promise, whosoever drinks
of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, not only
does he bid men to come and eat initially of him as the bread
of life, But there in John 6 he says, He who eats, present tense,
my flesh, and drinks my blood, present tense, lives by me. In other words, we are not only
given life initially in a crucified Savior, but that life is sustained
as it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who what? Made the
worlds? No, that would have been true.
The Son of God who upholds all things by the Word of His power?
That's true, but that isn't what Paul said. In Galatians 2.20
he says, The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by
faith in the Son of God, contemplated uniquely in this identity, who
loved me and gave Himself up for me. He could say to the Colossians,
when Christ, who is our life, and as our life I say it reverently,
though every attribute of Christ and every office of Christ and
every function and ministry of Christ is part of the way in
which He is our life, the main conduit of His life to us is
the contemplation of the virtue of His death. and the power of
His resurrection, the efficacy of His advocacy and intercession
at the right hand of the Father, and the burning anticipation
that the hour is coming when He will break through the clouds
and take us home to be with Himself. You see, the Holy Ghost delights
to own with power that preaching that confluences with His most
delightful ministry. He is the Spirit who brooded
upon the waters, and if you've never read John Owen, Volume
3, that most comprehensive treatment on the ministry of the Spirit,
I urge you to read it. But of all of His works, from
the initial brooding upon the original creation, to His work
in consummating the new creation at the end of the age, His most
delightful work, even within the more limited scope of the
conversion and sanctification of sinners, is not to convict
them of their sin. It is to testify of the Lord
Jesus. He shall not bear witness of
Himself. He shall bear witness of Me. The spirit of prophecy is the
testimony of Jesus. And while you have heard me in
this place, take my stand against that view of preaching that says
every sermon to be a Christian sermon must have some facet of
the person or work of Christ as its ultimate Destination,
I repudiate that view of preaching. It will not stand the test of
Scripture. It will not stand the test of
the kind of preaching the Spirit of God has owned in the history
of the Church. Nonetheless, I say, that preaching
which God has most powerfully owned and to which his spirit
has most delightfully attended with his own presence is that
which is decidedly evangelical. So that we can, by the grace
of God, say with the Apostle another text that was referred
to even today in the reading Colossians chapter 1, where Paul's
vision is the maturation of the saints yet in seeking to bring
them to maturation, how does he do it? Verse 28, Whom we preach,
Colossians 1.28, admonishing every man and teaching every
man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in
Christ, whereunto I labor also, striving according to his working
which worketh in me mightily, Christ was preached not merely
to see men brought into the narrow gate and set upon the narrow
way, but all along the way, Christ is preached by admonition, by
exhortation. Christ is preached in the full
spectrum of divinely revealed wisdom that men may be brought
mature in Christ, but Christ is proclaimed. And I say, brethren,
I say to you, dear people who are not in the ministry, whose
hearts yearn that God would glorify His Son in our day, and you with
me and these men are convinced that preaching has a unique place
in the plan and purpose of God. As we pray for a restoration
of biblical preaching, what are we praying for? How will we recognize
it? When we find more and more preaching
that in its substance is Pervasively biblical. From beginning to end,
you're never far from either an allusion, or a quotation,
or a reference, or an illustration that has its tap roots patently
in this blessed book. Pervasively biblical. It is unashamedly
doctrinal. It makes theologians out of its
regular hearers. It is intensely pastoral. People don't go out week after
week, saved and lost, saying, so what? They go out feeling
that word has shut me up to where I must have dealings with God. And then it is decidedly evangelical. Rarely can a person leave without
realizing that whatever my duty is, say they're lost. It cannot be fulfilled apart
from hard dealings with the Son of God. That's the preaching
we long to see restored to our land. The kind of preaching we
long to see heralded to the ends of the earth. But what about
its form? If it has that substance, should
we be indifferent to its form? I answer no, because there is
a genius, there is a rational explanation for the uniqueness
of preaching in the purposes of God, and one day I hope the
thoughts on this mature enough that I'll dare to preach upon
them. But form does indeed have something
to do with the preaching owned of God and anointed by the Spirit
of God. And I want to say three things
about its form and say them quite briefly. As to its form, it will
be deliberately simple. It will be deliberately simple. Now, I did not say simplistic,
but I said simple as opposed to intricate and complex, so
that one has to have a trained theological mind or a trained
mind in academia in order to sort out that substance that
is biblical, theological, pastoral, and evangelical. 1 Corinthians
14 and verse 9 is a text, my brethren, if anyone in your congregation
does calligraphy, have them do a nice big sign in calligraphy
and set it over your desk. And when you think the sermon
is ready to be preached, ask yourself, does it meet this standard? 1 Corinthians 14, 9, So also
ye, unless ye utter by the tongue speech easy to be understood,
how shall it be known what is spoken? For ye will be speaking
into the air. And alas, the air is laden with
the incomprehensible and with the complex and the convoluted,
because in form we have not deliberately labeled to be simple. He who is the embodiment of all
wisdom, the very infinite mind of God is His. Of Him it is said
the common people heard Him gladly. He scratches where we itch. He takes the loftiest of the
high eternal truths and roots them into travailing mothers
and into chirping birds and into opening flowers and into crooked
stewards. Need I go on? The kingdom of
heaven is like The kingdom of heaven is like blind guides. He used the grotesque. He didn't
care if it got the message across. He said, you're like silly people
that when you open up the leg of the fresh skin of the goat
into which your new wine has been poured, knowing some gnats
dropped in and died while it was being trampled out in the
hollowed-out stone where you pressed your wine. You put your
piece of muslin over your cup, you're sure to do that, and strain
out the gnats. And while all your gnats are
strained out and you remove your muslin, you turn to say greetings
to someone passing by, and your camel gets loose from the tent
post. and he puts his rump inside the
glass and you don't even see him and you swallow down your
wine with the camel. That's what Jesus said, ye strain
at a gnat and you swallow a camel. You say that's grotesque illustration. Jesus used it. He said you're
like people scrubbing and buffing the outside of the cup and the
platter and there it sits glistening in its beauty Pick your nose
up over the rib and look in. Full of crud. The accumulated
crud of a thousand meals. Rancid. Vermin infested. He says you cleanse the outside
of the cup and platter but within are full of extortion and excess. What's he doing? He's being deliberately
simple, speaking in words easy to be understood by simile, illustration,
analogy, metaphor, parable, even the grotesque, and at times even
borderline coarse. Deliberately simple. In form,
that preaching which the Holy Ghost most often owns with power
is that which in form is deliberately simple, in which all pride of
appearing learned has been nailed to a cross, and all desire to appear elegant
has been nailed on top of it. And you're willing to have people
go out and say, oh, I've heard things about that preacher. He
was a good preacher. It was so simple. You can't have
a higher compliment from an unhumbled sinner than that. But then it must be unmistakably
intelligible. Unmistakably intelligible. In
other words, in form it must be presented in such a way that
not only will most people get it if they try hard enough, but
that no one will miss it unless they're out of their tree or
deliberately perverse. Now that's all the difference
in the world. Unmistakably intelligible with reference to structure,
illustrative material, imagery, all of these factors, so to speak,
not that the vast majority will most likely get it if they try
hard enough, but that none can miss our meaning
unless they lack their rational faculties or are willfully perverse
in their hearts. That's the kind of preaching
that the Holy Ghost deliberately simple, unmistakably intelligible,
and thirdly, in its form, unashamedly personal. Not saying good and
true and biblical and right things about God and heaven and hell
and sin and Christ and repentance and faith and holiness, not saying
these things in the hearing of men, but saying these things to the
hearts of men, not dumping a load of truth out
before them, but endeavoring with every legitimate faculty
of form and structure and personal address to bring it into the
deepest chambers of their hearts. Not afraid to say, you, and you,
and you, and you, and you, and you, be done with this innocuous
pulpit we. You, Peter said, by wicked hands,
took him, and crucified, and slew him, and God raised him
up. No wonder they were cut to the
heart. Nobody looked around saying, who is this innocuous weeb? Somebody
somewhere at some time apparently killed the Messiah. Let's try
to find out the critters and deal with them. He said, no. This Jesus, this Jesus approved
of God among you with every messianic credential required in your Bibles. You, by wicked hands, took Him
and killed Him. You hung Him on a tree. unashamedly personal, but not
only in conviction, but in consolation. Oh, what a difference when a
preacher says, you, my preacher brother, struggling with trying
to be consistent in your devotions, struggling with trying to juggle
your responsibilities as a husband, as a grandfather, as a counselor,
as a confidant of other preachers. You preacher, struggling with
maintaining your regular... When he says you and gets...
He's inside me now. There's just God and me and the
preacher. I'm having dealings with God. But these oblique illusions,
there may be some among us who in the work of the ministry occasionally
have problems with their inner life. I say, well, that's an
interesting statement. Floats right by me. There isn't
a hook, there isn't a barb, there isn't an arrow in it. Brethren,
the Holy Ghost has come to do intensely internal personal work
in the hearts of men. He gets them into the kingdom
one by one. He sanctifies them in a most
personal, intimate discipline that is tailor made to everyone
in his own. Therefore, the preaching that
reflects the form of his dealing is most likely to be owned by
his power. But then I must hasten on the
preaching that is owned of God, the preaching which we long to
see restored to our land in abundance is not only marked by these characteristics
with regard to substance, with regard to form, but then also
with the mode of delivery. With the mode of delivery. And
here I want to root what I have to say in this pivotal text in
Acts chapter 14. Because in our day there is a
great suspicion of anything that seems to be first cousin twice
removed to that which could be called rhetoric, mastering the
science of effective delivery. But the Holy Ghost has forever
underscored the significance of this dimension of Spirit-owned
preaching In Acts chapter 14, verse 1, it came to pass in Iconium
that they entered together into the synagogue of the Jews. And
so spake Hutos Hoste. They so spake, and the emphasis
falls upon the manner of their utterance. that a great multitude,
both of Jews and of Greeks, believed. Wait a minute. Has Luke descended
to be a semi-Pelagian or an outright Pelagian? in which every man
is regarded as his own Adam, and by moral suasion he can,
in his moral and ethical neutrality, choose to believe simply because
the manner of speaking has been so compelling from a rhetorical
standpoint? Of course not. This is Luke,
the theologian, who has already said in the previous chapter
these words. Look at chapter 13. And verse
48, And as the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified
the word of God. And as many as were ordained
to eternal life, he lived. Who believed? Those that were
ordained to eternal life. How many? Just as many. Not one
less. Not one more. Oh, how this verse
has caused antsiness in those who flatly reject the doctrine
of God's free, sovereign, unconditional electing decree. I've laughed
as I've read the commentators who will not bow their necks
to this clearly revealed doctrine. Luke the theologian is Luke the
historian And as a little stroke of theological history, he says,
against the backdrop of the recalcitrance of these Jews, these Gentiles
believe not because they had some more inherent capacity to
faith, but because God has set his love upon them before the
foundation of the world. And he's the Luke who later on
says in chapter 16 as Paul is preaching by a riverside to a
woman's prayer meeting concerning Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened. Now language cannot be more clear
than that. Why did she respond in faith,
in gracious compliance with the words of the Apostle? Because
the Lord opened her heart! You say, so-and-so opened his
heart to the Lord. Luke says, the Lord opened her
heart to Himself. But you see, Luke, being the
accurate theologian he was, was not a hyper-Calvinist. And he
both believed and unashamedly recorded the fact that the God
who has ordained the ends has ordained the means thereto. And
O God, to show us all that He's God, will sometimes take a man's
preaching that is the very quintessence of abominable rhetorical production
and save sinners to show that he's God and he uses his word,
that is not his ordinary method. As surely as God can take a dumb
ass and open its mouth to stay the madness of the prophet, there
is no warrant for us to start the first donkey Bible school
of Montville. And then turn the donkeys loose
to go after Sun Yung Moon and every other cult leader and say,
maybe God will use our donkeys to turn away the madness of these
false prophets. What God may do in His sovereignty
is His business, but what God ordinarily does in the ways revealed
in Scripture, it is our business to know and to take seriously.
And this text says, they so speak with the emphasis upon the manner
of their speaking, the actual mode of delivery, They so speak. Now if that isn't referring to
what they did when they were preaching, I don't know how Luke
could find words to describe it. And brethren, as we pray
for a restoration of biblical preaching, we are not only praying
for preaching that is marked by those four characteristics
as to its substance, and those three as to its form, But as
to its mode of delivery, I mention again four things quickly. Number
one, and at the head of the list, as I understand the emphasis
of the New Testament at present, it is unashamedly bold. In its mode of delivery, it is
unashamedly bold. Open, please, to Acts chapter
4. Acts chapter 4. and we'll make
a quick trip through four or five passages and acts. Then
I'll simply quote several references from the epistles. But you remember
the incident Peter and John have been preaching. And as they preach,
Backing up to verse perhaps, let's pick it up at verse 10.
Be it known unto you, Acts 4.10, and to all the people of Israel,
that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified,
whom God raised from the dead, even in him doth this man stand
here before you whole. He is the stone which was set
at naught of you, the builders, which was made head of the corner,
and in none other is there salvation, for there is neither is there
any other name under heaven that is given among men whereby we
must be saved. Now when they beheld the boldness,
when they beheld the boldness, It doesn't say, when they beheld
the brashness, they perceived that they were uncultured and
took knowledge that no one ever taught them manners. It says,
when they beheld the boldness and perceived that they were
unlearned and ignorant men, in other words, they had not gone
to the formal schools that would enable the average man to stand
and say anything with certainty. You see, the unlearned and the
untaught in their schools might have the right to say, Sirs,
may I suggest that perhaps it could be that in the act of crucifying
Jesus you may have crucified the Christ? And because there
is an empty tomb and there are some rumors, one of the possibilities
is it may be that He was perhaps raised from the dead. And has
it ever entered into your minds to consider, at least as a possibility,
that that passage which speaks of the stone which the builders
rejected is made head of the corner, just might possibly be
fulfilled in this Jesus, who just might possibly be the Christ,
who just might possibly have been raised from the dead. I
would not want to impose my views upon you. When they beheld the boldness,
and what was the boldness? The boldness was this unashamed
affirmation of what they knew of God's mighty acts in Jesus
Christ and their life and death implications. There is salvation
in none other. Go on rejecting the one you've
already rejected and crucified, and you're lost in that forever. That's boldness. Well, they thought,
we'll shut them up. We'll get at that boldness and
make them a little timid. So they threaten them. They tell
them, stop this business. So they go back and do what?
Gather the people together and say, our political rights are
being infringed upon. Let's appeal to Rome. Let's draft
a statement and get our signatures and we'll be the organized reconstructionists
of the first century. And we'll impose God's law upon
this Christ-denying, Christ-hating Sanhedrin. No. They go back to
their company and pray. But many of our Reconstructionist
friends would call, they took the pietistic route. Their dualism
drove them to their knees. Bless God it did. And so they
said, now Lord, we're not telling you anything you don't know about.
And they just rehearse it all before the Lord. I love the way
they do that. Can't get sidetracked in the
prayer. Got to stick with what I'm trying to do. And what happens? God's so pleased with their prayer,
that he says, I just can't give an answer in the ordinary way. I want to show I'm so pleased
with this kind of prayer. Verse 31, And when they had prayed,
the place was shaken where they were gathered together, and they
were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And what was the fruit
of that fresh endowment, infilling, empowering of the Spirit? They
spake the Word of God. Boldness? But wait a minute,
what were they doing before? When they beheld the boldness! Now it says they spake with boldness.
I wonder what measure of boldness was now upon them. I don't know
how much more bold you can get than what we read. But it says
they spake the Word of God with boldness, a word that means unfettered,
uninhibited, pouring forth what they knew they spoke as men who
knew it. Unashamedly bold. Acts 14 and
verse 3, in that same chapter, where the emphasis falls upon
the manner of their speaking to which we previously referred.
What was the long-term description of their preaching? Long time,
therefore, they tarried there. And here is Luke's summary of
what they did. Speaking boldly in the Lord, who bore witness
unto the word of His grace. As they preached the Word of
His grace, they did so boldly. They were not intimidated by
philosophers. They were not intimidated by
reprobate Jews. They were not intimidated by
anything but the thought that they might not be true to their
trust of proclaiming the Word of God. And that's what Paul
says he wants the Christians to pray for him above all else
in Ephesians 6, the end of that chapter, with all prayer and
supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto in all for
all the saints and for me that boldness may be given unto me,
that I may speak as I ought to speak." Colossians 4, 1 and 2,
the same emphasis. Of all the things he could ask
them to pray for, he says, pray that I'll speak with boldness. You see, it has nothing to do
with personality. It has nothing to do with temperament.
Now, the manner in which your boldness expresses itself will
be tinged by your temperament. It will be colored by your personality. But it is not a matter that in
its essence has anything to do with native temperament and personality. It is a spiritual endowment. Pray that God may be with my
mouth, that I may open it boldly and speak as I ought to speak,
unashamedly bold in its mode of delivery. Secondly, intensely
earnest. Intensely earnest. Perhaps the
most pathetic expression of that, in the truest sense of the word,
pathetic, is 2 Corinthians chapter 5, where here the apostle moves so naturally from the pastor
into the evangelist, even when writing to a Christian church,
This passage troubled me for years. I said, he addresses the
people as a company of the redeemed. He's assuming gospel motives
and the presence of the spirit. And right in the middle of that
epistle, he starts preaching the gospel like they're all unsaved.
It bothered me for years. I still don't fully understand
it, but one thing is clear. The apostle's heart was so set
upon seeing men right with God that in a sense, under the influence
of the Holy Ghost who delights to testify to Christ and peculiarly
to Christ crucified. It's as though he gets carried
out of himself for a paragraph or two in this marvelous section
on the ministry. And he says in verse 20, we are
ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ. And brethren, here's
the language. As though God were entreating
by us We beseech you, on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to
God. We are ambassadors on the behalf
of Christ as though God were entreating by us, as though God
Himself were entreating by our instrumentality We beseech you,
on the behalf of Christ, to be reconciled to God. Paracaleo,
we draw alongside and we call. Deo mai, we ask, we entreat,
we beg. Intensely earnest. How does God entreat sinners? When God says to the prophet
Ezekiel, Turn ye, turn ye. Why will ye die, O house of Israel? I have no pleasure in the death
of the wicked. I don't mean to be irreverent,
but does God say, I've got no pleasure in the death of the
wicked. Turn ye, turn ye. Why will you die, house of Israel? It is borderline blasphemy to
say that that's what God says. None of us, none of us can with
any amount of vocal faculties, born out of lengthy meditation
and reflection until the whole soul is steeped in the pathos
of a pleading God. But surely God does not say,
I've got no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Turn ye, turn
ye, why will ye die? It at least is in the direction
of, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Turn ye! Turn ye! Why will ye die, O house
of Israel? Did Jesus say, looking at those
bent over with the oppressive weight of the burdensome legalistic
system of the Pharisees, finding no escape from the galling, pressing
conviction of an enlightened conscience, intensified by the
galling bondage of all of the Pharisaic trappings, he sees
them in their true state, bent over with such a weight, does
he say, I want to meet all you that labor in heavy labor and
give you rest." What did he say? Every time I
try to quote the words, they stick in my throat. What must
it have been for Christ to say? to those bent over in burden,
lashed in conscience, doubly lashed with pharisaic pressures,
those wicked leaders who bound burdens that they themselves
would not lift a finger to assist in. Come unto me, all ye that
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my
yoke upon you. Get rid of that yoke. Take my
yoke upon you. Learn of me. For unlike the Pharisees,
who strut in all of their religious pompousness and strut their burdens,
I am meek and lowly in heart. You shall find rest to your souls. Paul says we beseech you in the
stead of Christ. brethren, in God's name. How
can we have a view of preaching that says, it's just the Word,
the plain Word, give out the Word, God uses the Word? No! They so speak that a multitude
believe. There is an intimate conjunction
between those whom God has used to call in many of His elect
and to build up His people in their most holy faith in vigorous
Christ-loving piety and the passion and the earnestness with which
they preached. Though none of us in our right
minds would think we had one hundredth of the gift of a Whitefield,
one hundredth of the tenderness of a McShane, one hundredth of
the breadth of heart and mind of a Spurgeon. Brethren, we can
still have our humanity consumed in proportion to what we are
with the same degree of earnestness with which they were consumed.
In a work that I trust will see the light of a reprint, one of
my dear brothers here at this conference sent it to me. James
Angel James, minister, book, an earnest ministry, the want
of the times. Let me just read several paragraphs
on this matter of earnestness. The secret of animation, the
nature of earnestness lie, as we have said, in an intense feeling
of the subject of discourse, in a mind deeply impressed and
a heart warmed with the theme discussed, all men are in earnest
when they feel. All men are in earnest when they
feel. Hence the anecdote of the pleader
who on being applied to by a client to undertake her cause, upon
perceiving the coldness of her manner in stating her case, the
lawyer told the applicant he did not credit her story. Stunned
by this reflection upon her honesty and this disbelief of her grievance,
she rose into strong emotion and affirmed with expressive
vehemence the truth of her story. Now, said the lawyer, I believe
you. James goes on to say, sympathy
is the speaker's most powerful auxiliary. There's nothing so
contagious as strong emotion. And grace and the dynamics of
God's sovereign regenerating work and his sovereign mysterious
work of sanctification do not bypass those things which God
in nature has implanted in us as image bearers of himself. The Holy Ghost seizes them, takes
hold of them, and brethren, if we're willing to pay the price,
we'll make it the conduit of bringing the Word of God to men,
not in icy, cold, calculating accuracy, but in unashamedly
bold and in intensely earnest pathos and intrigue. But then there must also be,
as to the mode of its delivery, that which would be described
as genuinely affectionate here in the light of time. Brethren,
I can only give you the text. 1 Thessalonians 2, 7, we were
gentle among you as a nurse with her own children. 2 Corinthians
6, 11, one again, most pathetic passages. Oh, Corinthians, our
heart is open to you. You are not compressed in our
hearts. We are compressed in Yours, but
though our love is unrequited, our heart is wide toward You,
genuinely affectionate, unashamedly affectionate. He says in chapter
12, verses 14 and 15, I seek not Yours, but You, though the
more I love You, the less I be loved. Brethren, In the mode
of our delivery, men must sense and know, not because we have
wept for them alone or only in secret, but because there throbs
through us in the act of preaching the sense, the perception of
genuine affection. And then the fourth characteristic
in the mode of delivery most frequently. There are a few exceptions,
but until you can prove that you have the thundering voice
of a chalmers and the impressive presence of a few other exceptions,
don't consider yourself the exception to this fourth point. The mode
of delivery that the Spirit of God is most frequently owned
with power is marked by being naturally animated. Not only
unashamedly bold, intensely earnest, genuinely affectionate, but naturally
animated. And you don't know what is natural
animation to you until you get loosed from carnal self-consciousness. until the truth so gets hold
of you in preaching and genuine compassion so grips you in preaching
that for a few minutes you forget yourself. I've seen it take the
most dodgy, stilted, unanimated people and turn them into lions
in the pulpit. You see, some of the things God
did for me, and I give very few anecdotes, some of you have listened
to me for years on tapes and you know that, I rarely give
a personal anecdote, but I want to give this one. Because, like
so many other things, my spiritual birthright has been such a blessing
in many areas. And one of the areas was this.
Shortly after I was converted, one of the first fruits of my
ministry was a young man that, to this day, is in the ministry
out in Western Canada. And this guy, by nature, temperament,
he was shorter. I remember when he came out for
the football team, and he reminded me of this after he was converted,
and I was so ashamed because I don't remember it. I apparently
almost buried him one time. They stuck him at half back and
I was playing linebacker and he came through and I leveled
him and said something nasty to him. I'm glad I don't remember.
The Lord blotted it out of my mind. And he had this great prejudice
to me after I got converted. And he watched me like a hawk
and he saw I was a different man and he listened and he was
converted. One of the first fruits, if not the first fruits of my
ministry. And this guy was so shy always
went around with his hands in his pocket, his head down, kind
of mumbled into his, if he had a beard, he would have mumbled
into his beard. But when some wise old men put
us out in the street corner to channel some of our zeal, and
we began to preach on the street corner, I saw this quiet, timid,
reserved, shy guy, to whom God had revealed Christ in a saving
way, take his little New Testament, four by six, Onion skin New Testament,
that's what we used to carry out in the streets so we could
rip without throwing our Bibles away. And I saw God turn that
timid guy into a lion. And it wasn't forced! It wasn't
artificial! The truth gripped him! And when
it gripped him, it liberated his hands, his feet, his eyes,
his whole humanity! And the moment he was done preaching,
hands back in his pocket. And so when I went for two years
to finish my formal education to a Bible college that had a
view of preaching that said, God never alters your personality
in preaching. So if you're a hands-in-the-pocket,
mumble-in-your-beard kind of guy, then that's what people
will be stuck with for the rest of their days. I said, I don't
buy it because I cannot deny what I've seen and heard. The problem with some of you
men is you can get plenty animated when it's your favorite football
team playing and it's the last two minutes and they're going
for a touchdown and with 12 seconds left A guy hits a flanker in
the back of the end zone, and for a few seconds, you forget
who you are! And what happens? Right in your
own living room, you become alive! Yay, he got it! Look at that! Boom, boom, boom, you whack the
guy! What happens? In the moment of the passionate
preoccupation with the football game, you became naturally animated. and some of you will never become
effective preachers till you ask the Holy Ghost to liberate
you in the area that you need to get liberated to become naturally
animated. Now I am not saying your natural
animation will be like this man's or that man's or set any standard,
but don't cut your shelf short When in other areas your animation
is natural, no one grabbed you and sat you down and said, oh,
that's histrionic. You put that all on. You practiced
that for four hours in the bedroom last night. Shame on you. You introduced into my living
room play acting. Shame on you. You see, you've
got to get liberated from this stupid notion in our day that
anyone who is animated and energetic in preaching is a fake, is somehow
histrionic, putting on an act. Die to that wretched accusation. And the Holy Ghost will bear
witness to your liberated humanity and bring the Word of God with
through you in a manner of grippingness and power that you've never known
before. For the Holy Ghost does not batter
nature, but liberates it. He batters grace. With the fire
of His presence consumes, batters sin, I'm sorry, and with the
fire of His grace consumes sin and evil, but He liberates humanity. It's a wonderful thing to be
a free man. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed. Free to
be all God made me to be as a distinct image bearer of God when He knit
me together in my mother's womb. Well, brethren, you're listening
too well, and I've better stop. May I just give you the heads
of point two? We just looked at the characteristics.
The characteristics of God-owned Spirit-anointed preaching. Now,
what are the sources of this? There are the factors of sovereign
endowment, the factors of human acquisition. and the factors
of spiritual and rhetorical acquisition by the use of means. Maybe that'll
be our sermon next year. I've kept you long enough. May
God help us. May we cry to God that as some
of us have heard some of you men even here preach and we felt
like Simeon. I sat in this place a few weeks
ago It's been a long time since I've wept through Sunday school,
Sunday morning, Sunday night preaching. Not all the way through,
but intermittently. I felt like old Simeon saying,
Lord, let thy servant depart in peace. Mine eyes have seen
thy salvation. Because three preachers stood
in this pulpit, in whom those marks were manifested. But dear brethren, we haven't
begun to make a dent and we need to cry to God to augment in all
of us whatever measure of these things he's begun to impart and
pray that he will raise up an army of men whose preaching is
God-owned and Spirit-anointed. This is our vision for preachers,
for preachers. for the kinds of preachers we've
sought to describe from the Word of God. May the Lord grant them
for His glory, for the gathering in of His elect, and for the
blessing of His people. Let's pray. Our Father, what thanks can we
give to You this night for Your Holy Word, that Word which is
indeed a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway, that
Word which teaches us what this mysterious thing called preaching
is. And we confess our ignorance
of so much of what Your Word teaches. But, O Lord, the little
bit You've taught us has made us hungry and thirsty that You
would work in us every grace and every gift and enable us
to cultivate and stir up through legitimate means every faculty
that we may, with your servant Timothy, stir into flame the
gift that is in us. We pray, Lord, that by your Holy
Spirit you will make us, first of all, the men that we ought
to be before your eye. and then mold us into the preachers
that this generation so desperately needs. Thank you for your presence
with us. Thank you for one another. Thank
you for the way you've ministered to our hearts through our brethren. Thank you for this fellowship
of love, of open-faced communion, for this fellowship of goodwill
and desire to be helpers of each other's faith. Oh God, we are
a blessed people. We thank you. We praise you.
We ask that you would take each man safely to his home. Bless
us all with a good night of rest. Thank you for the things you've
given us today. Thank you for the labors of your
servant, Pastor Seton, all of the practical help received.
Thank you for helping us in our discussion period. Oh Lord, We
acknowledge that if a bunch of sinners like us could have such
a day unmarred by any outburst of carnal speech and ambitious
expressions of men, surely our Father, this is all of your grace. And we come with praise and thanksgiving
and pray that the benediction of your presence will rest upon
us as we leave this place. through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.