Those of you who were with us
for the ministry of the Word of God last evening will remember
that the 66th chapter of Isaiah, the opening verses, were brought
to our attention. And in that passage we were told
that one of the marks of true and vital religion is that those
who possess it tremble at the Word of God. and that God has
promised to look with favor and with blessing to those who take
that posture of trembling before his holy word. Let us then seek
his face that by the Spirit we may know in this place tonight
what it is to tremble with holy awe before the God of the word
and before that word that he will bring to us out of the scriptures. Let us then seek his face together. Our Father, we have celebrated
in song the great truth that the Church of Jesus Christ is
one through all the ages. And we thank you for those who
through the ages have trembled before your law who have known
what it is to tremble in fear and dread of your wrath, and
then, having heard the good news of your mercy in the Lord Jesus,
have trembled with hope and joy in the knowledge of sins forgiven
in the Lord Jesus and in the perfection of his works. And
we this night, by your grace, would take that posture of trembling
before your holy word. May the spirit who gave this
word so attend it with power that we may find our hearts bowed
in the posture of reverence, of faith and submission to you,
the living God, as you speak to us in your word. Hear our
plea and answer our cry through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Now, as the participants in this
conference are well aware, the theme of this year's conference
is the office and work of the Holy Spirit. And those of us
involved in the conference have already received some very penetrating
and helpful insights with reference to the work and office of the
Holy Spirit, insights both exegetical, historical, and, in the truest
sense of the word, theological. Now tonight, in keeping with
that conference theme, I have been asked to address you on
the subject of preaching in the Spirit. Preaching in the Spirit. And I think it would be very
interesting if we had the time to hook up a portable mic and
go through this congregation and ask what thoughts come to
the minds of those of you sitting here tonight when you hear the
title, Preaching in the Spirit. And I'm sure for some the thoughts
would move in the direction of matters that would bring us into
the orbit of what is considered by many to be something very
mystical, something very subjective. For others, like the poor, deluded
man that I met at a conference many years ago, preaching in
the Spirit to him had something to do with certain external,
physical actions on the part of the preacher. He happened
to notice that when a certain preacher preached that he moved
his feet and he came in great seriousness and whispered in
his ear, Ah, brother, I know you were preaching in the Holy
Ghost tonight. And when the preacher asked him
how he knew that, he said, I watched your feet. And he was dead in
earnest. To him, you see, a man who preached
with a shuffling of the feet was preaching in the spirit. And for others, preaching in
the spirit is nothing short of a fanatical notion. And for others
on the other end of the spectrum, preaching in the Spirit is to
be considered nothing more or less than some general fidelity
to the text of Holy Scripture laid out in some measure of discernible
structure and clarity. And the Spirit so automatically
attends the proclamation of the Word that to preach the Word
is identified with preaching in the Spirit. I wonder which,
if any, of those perspectives have come to your mind at the
announced subject, Preaching in the Spirit. Well, as we approach
the subject, by way of introduction, I want to establish, first of
all, that the notion of preaching in the Spirit is not a fanatical
or mystical idea. Nor is it an idea that has come
from the charismatic or Pentecostal wing of Christendom, nor is it
a notion that allows us the luxury of assuming that the mere exposition
of the words of Scripture automatically means that there is preaching
in the Spirit. And the way in which I propose
to do this is simply to direct your attention to one or two
passages in which the dominant emphasis of the announcement
of the coming of the Spirit point in the direction of preaching
in the Spirit as one of the indispensable accompaniments of the coming
of the Spirit as the crowning blessing of the new covenant.
And then we shall look at three texts in which that very terminology
or parallel terminology is used, preaching in the spirit. So by
way of introduction, all I'm attempting to do is to establish
the fact that preaching in the spirit is indeed a biblical concept. First of all, then, to see this
dominant emphasis with respect to the promise of the Spirit
in general. In the 24th chapter of Luke's
Gospel, Luke chapter 24, our Lord, in his post-resurrection
ministry to the disciples, instructs them concerning the
message they are to preach, the source of that message. And then
he says something about the power in which that message will be
proclaimed. And I take up the reading in
Luke 24 and verse 44. And he said unto them, these
are the words which I spoken to you while I was yet with you,
that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in
the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me. Then opened he their mind that
they might understand the scriptures and he said unto them thus it
is written that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the
dead the third day and that repentance and remission of sin should be
preached in his name unto all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things
and behold. I send forth the promise of my
Father upon you, but tarry in the city until you be clothed
with power from on high." In this passage, our Lord gives
a summary of the content of the message they are to preach as
they go out to all the nations. It is a message which has its
taproots in the Old Testament revelation. It is a message which
has found its focal points in those unique redemptive activities
of Jesus Christ accomplished for his people in space and time. And after giving them a summary
of their message and telling them that it is these things
to which they are to bear witness, he then makes a prohibition.
He tells them that they are not yet to engage in the preaching
of that message until the promise of the Father is fulfilled, a
promise which will result in their being clothed with power
from on high. so that in this passage our Lord
is very explicit in making plain to His disciples that the preaching
which they are to do is not only to have a proper content, it
is to be clothed with a unique dynamic. He had clarified their
minds as to the content of the message, but they are not yet
ready to preach it. They must now be clothed with
power, and then and only then are they ready to proclaim the
message. We have a similar emphasis in
the first chapter of Acts and verse 8. As our Lord Jesus is
about to return to the right hand of the Father, Acts chapter
1 And verse 8, he says to his own, but you shall receive power,
the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you shall be my witnesses
both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the
uttermost part of the earth. Here our Lord is saying that
their bearing witness to Him is dependent upon the receiving
of power in the reception of the outpoured Spirit. Our Lord envisions no witness-bearing
of the message of His grace and salvation to the ends of the
earth that is not witness-bearing in the Holy Spirit. So we see then from these two
passages that a dominant emphasis within the promise of the Spirit
and the actual fulfillment of that promise is this intimate
relationship between preaching and the Holy Spirit. One might
say that one of the major results of the coming of the Spirit on
the day of Pentecost was the initiation of the reality of
preaching in the Spirit as the norm of new covenant witness-bearing
and testimony. Preaching in the Spirit was to
be the norm of new covenant witness-bearing. Now, if this is a valid deduction
from these passages considered, Then is it not an inescapable
conclusion to assert that any new covenant community where
preaching in the Spirit is not the norm is a community living
beneath its privileges and its blood-bought inheritance? Preaching in the Spirit, then,
is not to be an occasionally confronted reality in the Church. It is to be the norm of the ministry
in the New Covenant community. But in establishing the fact
that preaching of the Spirit is indeed a biblical concept,
I rest the case not only on this dominant emphasis of the promise
of the Spirit in general as it relates to preaching, but several
pivotal texts in particular. One of them was read in your
hearing earlier in our time together, 1 Corinthians chapter 2. 1 Corinthians
chapter 2. Paul, reflecting back upon his
missionary and evangelistic endeavors at Corinth, writes, And I, brethren,
when I came unto you, came not with excellency of speech or
of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness
and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching
were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration
of the spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest in
the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. The apostle clearly
indicates that Christ crucified was his comprehensive theme. In being true to the testimony
of God, that is, the testimony of which God is the author, Christ
was the central and fundamental and comprehensive theme of his
preaching. That alone would suit the framework
of Luke 24, as we've already seen. Christ crucified was the
comprehensive theme. felt human weakness was the personal
condition out of which he preached. I was with you in weakness and
in fear and in much trembling. And I don't believe there's anything
in the situation in Corinth as recorded in Acts 18 or in any
other parallel passage to think that Paul is referring here to
some kind of peculiar condition rooted in some physical infirmity. I believe he's speaking of that
condition in which he always preached. It was not the weakness
and fear and trembling of a man who was afraid of his own skin. This is the man who said, I count
not my life as dear unto myself if I may but finish my course
to testify the gospel of the grace of God. But rather, it
was this recognition. No matter how clearly his cognitive
faculties had grasped the content of the message, Unless the Spirit
were to attend that message with power, He knew there would be
no penetration into the prejudice and the pagan mindset of the
Corinthians. He knew before He came that to
say in the face of Greek wisdom that the sum of all wisdom is
bound up in a crucified carpenter out of Palestine was sheer nonsense. He knew that to say to Jews with
their messianic expectation of the superhero Messiah who would
come riding on his white charger and put the forces of Rome beneath
his feet, to say that the power of God is manifested in the weakness
of the immolated Christ upon a Roman gibbet was a stumbling
block. and conscious that no amount
of human persuasion, that no amount of human earnestness,
no amount of the combination of any human faculties could
validate that message and make it the power of God unto salvation
except the ministry of the Spirit. He preached in a condition of
felt human weakness. He did not carry in his pocket
the prerogatives of the fourth putting or the putting forth
of the mighty power of God the Holy Ghost in conjunction with
his preaching. To Paul, preaching in the Spirit
was an experimental reality. He describes it in this very
passage. Likewise, in 1 Thessalonians
chapter 1, In writing to the Thessalonians,
Paul can say in verse four, knowing brethren beloved of God, your
election and how did he discover their election? How that our
gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power. and in the Holy Spirit, and in
much assurance or much conviction, even as you know what manner
of men we showed ourselves among you for your sakes. Paul in this
passage indicates that his conviction with respect to the election
of the Thessalonians was grounded in the fact that the gospel came
to them not in word only. Now, if Paul were preaching that
gospel, it would be an orthodox gospel, of course. This is the
man who says, though we are an angel from heaven, preach any
other gospel unto you than that which has been preached. Let
him be accursed of God. Not very popular words in an
age of ecumenia, but the word of God nonetheless. And the problem
with the Galatian heretics was not that they were negating,
any of the basic indicatives of the gospel. It was their punctuation
that constituted their heresy. Where Paul was putting periods,
they were putting commas and adding something else. And he
says, upon such, let the anathema of God come. So this man, whenever
he preached the gospel, it was orthodox gospel preaching. But
he says, Our gospel, in all of its pure orthodoxy, came not
to you in word only, but it came in power and in the Holy Ghost
and in much assurance or conviction. Now, whatever else may be said
from this text, this much is clear. God's elect are manifested
in space and time only. when they come under preaching
in the Spirit. Do you see it? Knowing, brethren
beloved of God, your election, how that our gospel came to you
in the Spirit, and it was the Spirit attending the gospel,
bringing them into vital union with Christ. that became the
revelation and manifestation of God's secret elective design
and purpose. And then there is a third text
that indicates that preaching in the spirit is indeed a biblical
concept. First Peter, chapter one, verses
12 and 13. First Peter, chapter one, verses
12 and 13. Writing to these suffering saints,
Peter speaks of the salvation that they have received that
has filled them with joy unspeakable and full of glory, a salvation
prophesied by the Old Testament prophets who prophesied beyond
the level of their own comprehension of the very things they prophesied,
verses 10 and 11, now verse 12, to whom it was revealed that
not unto themselves but unto you did they minister these things,
which now have been announced unto you through them that preached
the gospel unto you in the Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven. This great salvation, which in
the midst of your suffering causes you to rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory, a salvation which was prophesied in the Old
Testament, but has now been brought to you in the word of preaching,
He says, is a salvation that became yours when the gospel
came as a gospel preached in the Holy Spirit sent forth from
heaven. So to Peter as well as to Paul,
Preaching in the Spirit is not a fanatical concept. It is not
some exceptional experience. It was the norm of gospel proclamation. Now, I trust that this quick
survey of some of these pivotal texts regarding the relationship
of the Spirit in general to the subject of preaching, and these
three texts in particular will forever settle in your mind that
preaching in the Spirit is not a fanatical notion. It is not
an ethereal, mystical notion. It is a notion embedded in the
very biblical concept of proclamation in the light of the full blessing
of the outpoured Spirit subsequent to the ascension of the Lord
Jesus. So much is this true, that when
Paul is describing the ministry of the New Covenant, he describes
it as a ministry of the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3, verses 4 to
6, embedded in that rich section dealing with the New Covenant
in contrast with the Old, Paul can write, In such confidence
have we threw Christ to Godward, not that we are sufficient of
ourselves to account anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency
is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of a
new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter
kills, but the Spirit gives. Now, in that rather lengthy introduction,
having established that preaching in the Spirit is a biblical concept,
as time permits, I want to collate the remainder of the biblical
materials that I propose to cover under three basic headings. First
of all, preaching in the Spirit as manifested in the content
of preaching. Secondly, preaching in the Spirit
as manifested in the manner of preaching, and then, if time
permits, preaching in the Spirit as manifested in the results
of preaching. So we have the subject treated
with reference to the content of preaching, the manner of preaching,
and the result of preaching. First of all, then, preaching
in the spirit as manifested in the content of preaching. As we consider this division
of our subject, we may begin with the fundamental axiom that
since the spirit of life and power is the spirit of truth,
the Holy Spirit works powerfully by and with the truth which He
has deposited in the Holy Scriptures. Next, to the terminology of the
paraclete. In the upper room discourse,
the Holy Spirit is given this designation next in order of
He is the spirit of truth, John 14, 17, 15, 26, and John 16,
13. Our Lord is leading His disciples
into some of the richest areas of gospel expectation in those
chapters, telling them what they can expect when the Spirit comes. And He is careful in describing
all of the various dimensions of the Spirit's ministry to bring
home in chapter 14, 15, and 16, that is, periodically throughout
the discourse, he says, the comforter, even the spirit of truth. Then he says some more, and then
he says, who is the spirit of truth? And it's interesting,
if we go back to all of the texts that we've already examined,
The coming of the Spirit in conjunction with preaching is the coming
of the Spirit in conjunction with preaching that is a proclamation
of Scripture. Jesus opened their minds to understand
the Scriptures, and He was telling them how they could preach the
Gospel from the Old Testament Scriptures, and how they could,
in the language of the book of Acts, go into the synagogue,
opening and alleging that Jesus was indeed the Christ, and proving
out of the Scriptures that He perfectly fit all of the prophetic
announcements about Him. Furthermore, Paul says that he
came in the power of the Spirit, declaring what? The testimony
of God. And he says, our gospel. And what was that gospel? It
was the gospel of divine revelation, the gospel with its tap roots
in the Old Testament scriptures, and the gospel which in its fullest
expression came by way of the peculiar revelation given to
the apostolic band. What do we learn from this? Well,
we learn from this that the Holy Spirit will never be powerfully
present in preaching where there is an ignoring, despising, contradicting,
or careless handling of the revelation of His mind in this blessed book. mark it down as a fundamental,
inflexible axiom that the Holy Spirit will never do in any situation
of preaching anything to undermine what He did over a period of
1,500 years in giving to us the materialization of His mind in
the very words of Holy Scripture. Now, is it not strange that in
this day, in large denominations, and some of you present are part
of some of those denominations, where large question marks are
being raised over the inspiration, the infallibility, the regulative
authority of Scripture, there is an openness to so-called new
dimensions of experience in the Holy Spirit. And in classic Reformed
denominations, which held the great confessions for centuries
on the infallibility of the Word, and no new revelations with the
emergence Of highfalutin language by which the authority of Scripture
is being undermined on the one hand, there is an emergence of
the claim to new life in the Spirit and tongues and prophecies
and all other kind of nonsense. Mark it down. where there is
a lowering of the historic Protestant confessional acknowledgment of
the nature of Scripture, whatever spirit is supposedly at work,
it is not the Holy Spirit. Preaching in the Spirit with
reference to its content will be preaching that sticks to this
blessed book. Now, let me break that down into
several particulars. If it is such preaching, it will
have these four basic characteristics as to its content. Number one, it will be substantially biblical. And by that, I mean that the
preaching in its overall substance will be Bible preaching. Careful handling of the text
will mark the raw materials of all sermonic exercises. A believing
grasp of the truth will mark the mind and spirit of the preacher
as he seeks to lay out the Word of God. And believing that the
truth of God is one, He will make the Bible its own best interpreter
and its own clearest illustrator. In such preaching, the clear
mandates of the following texts will be implemented. Second Timothy
4.4, preach the word. Second Timothy 2.15, Do your
utmost to show yourself approved unto God, a workman who needs
not to be ashamed, cutting a straight course in the word of truth. There will be a strict adherence
to our Lord's commission to teach them all things whatsoever I
have commanded you. At this point, I want to read
to you what to me is one of the choicest statements on this subject
that I have ever found in any book on preaching. It's found
in Gardiner Springs' book, Power in the Pulpit or the Power of
the Pulpit. And this is what he says on this
very issue. The God of heaven is the God
of truth. Truth is infinitely dear and
precious to his holy mind. He is its greatest searcher and
guardian. Nor will he be respected, loved,
and obeyed till the earth is filled with his and the earth
filled with his glory until it is flooded with his truth. The
scriptures instruct us that truth is the great instrumentality
by which his purposes of mercy are accomplished. Truth is the
wisely selected means by which he operates, a means well adapted
to the end. Nay, the necessary and indispensable
means, because truth alone presents the only objects of all that
variety of right thoughts and holy affections and emotions
which constitute true religion. The pulpit has no other instrumentality. It has accomplished its calling
when it has fully, clearly, and with a right spirit exhibited
the claims of truth. In another place, he gives this
striking definition and description of true religion. There is no
better definition of spiritual and practical Christianity than
that it is the counterpart of truth. in the heart and in the
life of the believer. It is the fruit of God's Spirit
operating by His truth and producing in the once alienated heart that
delightful reconciliation to its nature and claims which constitutes
the life of God in the soul of man. And that's exactly how Paul
described the conversion of the Romans. In Romans 6, 17, he says,
But God be thanked that whereas you were the slaves of sin, you
were cast into the mold of that truth unto which you were delivered. And he views their conversion
as their being cast into the mold of apostolic truth and doctrine. And once this becomes a burning
conviction to us who sit in the pews that the salvation of our
souls depends upon hearing God's word of truth fairly, honestly,
carefully opened up and applied, then loyalties that may go back
for generations will mean nothing if the price of loyalty to church
or to denomination is stripping my soul of the life-giving power
of this blessed book. And my dear preacher friends,
whatever it costs, and it does cost, to produce week after week
sermons that are honest with the text of Scripture, that seek
to follow the track of God's mind in scripture and the painful,
arduous labor at times of seeking to collate and organize and somehow
put it out in such a way that the person sitting before you
can grasp it, if you're convinced that the Holy Spirit has no other
instrumentality for the conversion and sanctification of men. Then
you will be prepared for that arduous labor, that your sermons
will be marked as those that are substantially biblical, because
preaching in the Spirit is Bible preaching. But then also it will
be unashamedly doctrinal. It will be unashamedly doctrinal. A careful and honest handling
of the Spirit-inspired pages of the Bible will bring us again
and again to those grand mountain peaks of God's truth, those doctrines
which constitute the backbone of revealed religion. Preaching
in the Spirit, then, will be preaching in which there is no
embarrassment before the grand and glorious realities of these
doctrines. When we see in Scripture that
great and profound mystery of the being of God, the great one
in three and the three in one, we will not be embarrassed to
proclaim it. When we see in Scripture that
that God is enthroned and says that He does according to His
will among the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
men, and that He throws out the challenge, Who is there that
can stay my hand? We will with unembarrassed zeal
and joy proclaim His unfettered sovereignty. The truth of the
incarnate God, that great mystery of The One who is as much God
as though He were never man, and as much man as though He
were never God, we will proclaim it in all the figure of its mind-boggling
mystery, because it's a revealed truth, the truth of the vicarious
curse-bearing As being the very essence of the work of Christ
upon the cross, we will not seek to satisfy conscience-smitten
people with just some vague declaration that somehow or another, in a
way that we're not quite sure about, what Jesus did on the
cross in some way or another relates to your problem of a
guilty conscience. That will never satisfy anyone
who's felt the arrows of the Almighty in his breast. It's
only when you point them to a cross and are unashamed to use the
vigorous language of 2 Corinthians 5, God made him who knew no sin
to be. Sin for us, the language of Galatians
3. He has redeemed us from the curse
of the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written, curse
is everyone that hangeth upon a tree. Our preaching will be
unashamedly doctrinal. The fact and the implications
of His bodily resurrection, the glorious reality of the gift
of the Spirit, the nature of imputed righteousness that brings
us into the justified state. And beyond that, the wonder of
adoption and the hope of the bodily resurrection and the horrible
end of the impenitent and the unbelieving in the lake of fire. Surely, if our preaching is substantially
biblical, it of necessity will be unashamedly doctrinal. For
everywhere we turn in the pages of this Bible, those doctrines
come before us as the grand mountain peaks of God's revealed mind.
And the spirit delights to attend with power vigorous doctrinal
preaching. The notion that doctrinal preaching
empties churches is sheer nonsense. Doctrinal preaching delivered
as dry as dust academic notions, yes, but how can a man who himself
has been smitten in conscience and found refuge in a clear spirit-wrought
grasp upon the fact that He vicariously bore the curse for me? How can
He speak of vicarious, substitutionary, curse-bearing, in a lifeless,
dull, dry, pedantic manner? In God's name, how can He? He's looked into the pit and
He smelled, as it were, the sulfur and the brimstone He knows that
that's where He belongs. He knows that sovereign grace
has arrested Him. How can He be embarrassed to
open up the texts that speak of grace, that lays hold of hell-deserving
sinners and makes them the very heirs of heaven? Preaching that
is Bible preaching Substantially biblical, vigorously doctrinal,
but it will also be pervasively evangelical. Pervasively evangelical. And what do I mean by that? Simply
this. That we'll take First Corinthians
2.2 seriously. That we will determine to know
nothing save Jesus Christ and Him as crucified. Revelation
19.10 tells us that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Now, this does not mean that
preaching Christ must be an exercise in which some aspect of the person
and work of Christ is the explicit dominant subject of every sermon. If that is so, then Paul didn't
preach Christ. But what it does mean, that in
traversing the whole field of biblical revelation, Since all
of God's truth ultimately leads to Christ and flows out of Christ,
the overarching flavor of our ministry will be pervasively
evangelical. And when we teach Christian duty,
we will show that that duty derives not only from God's general claims
over us as Creator and Lawgiver, but the peculiar claims He has
over us in virtue of redemption. Isn't that what Paul does when
he's dealing with the problem of sexual purity in 1 Corinthians
6? He plants the cross right in
the middle of the problem of the immorality at Corinth. When
he's giving practical instruction about marriage, detailed instruction
about fixed roles in marriage, none of this egalitarian marriage
nonsense. Fixed roles in marriage, husbands
exercising a nurturing, cherishing, loving, sacrificial headship
over their wives, wives rendering a loving, trustful, submission
servanthood. to their husbands. The apostle
brings the threads of the cross all the way through it. When
teaching duty, there is a place for Christ in him crucified.
When teaching privilege, all of our blessings are stored up
in him. And as Gardner Spring has said,
whatever savors not of the cross of Christ has no place in a Christian
pulpit. The Spirit is come to testify
of Christ, to take of the things of Christ and reveal them. And
may I say it reverently to my preacher friends, the Holy Spirit,
as it were, is in the wings of wherever you preach, holding
his biggest spotlights. And whenever Jesus is most present,
he loves to shine those lights upon him. and to reveal to needy
men the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Preaching that
is biblical, then, will not only be doctrinal and evangelical,
but my fourth point is, under this heading, it will be intensely
practical and ethical. The Holy Spirit has not come
by the word to make great theoreticians on biblical themes. He has come
to effect a moral and ethical renovation. God has purposed
that we should be made into the moral likeness of His Son, and
to that end He has given us His Spirit and His Word. And the
Word is that instrument used by the Spirit in order to produce
that image in us. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God and is profitable for teaching, yes, but for reproof,
correction, for instruction in righteousness. Preaching in the
Spirit, then, will be preaching in which the purpose for which
Scripture was given is patent and unmistakable. Scripture was
given not only to give us teaching, but to reprove, to correct, and
to give us child training in the way of righteousness. Well,
if that's the purpose for which the Scriptures were given, preaching
then is preaching in which that purpose is patent. How can it
be biblical preaching if it's non-applicatory? Is not reprove
applicatory? Correction, instruction in righteousness? And the Holy Spirit is most likely
to attend with power a ministry that does justice to this dimension
of His own revelation. You see, the Paul who could say,
I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. The Paul who could say, God forbid
that I should glory save in the cross. He gave some very practical
instruction to two young preachers about what they were to preach.
And I love the pastoral epistles for many reasons, not the least
of which they knock in the head this notion that unless your
sermon mumbles the name of Jesus 40 times and has justification
by faith and the cross in it 50 times, it's not evangelical
God honoring preaching. That's nonsense. Listen to what
Paul says in Titus. He's telling Titus what he's
to preach. Chapter two, verse one, speak the things that befit
sound doctrine. And what are they? Here is detailed
ethical and moral instruction, the aged men be temperate, brave,
sober minded, sound in the faith, the aged women likewise. Then
he goes on to talk about the young mothers and then he talks
about the younger men. He gives detailed instruction
and says, Titus, these are the things you are to teach. Now,
granted, as the paragraph comes to a close, he shows why such
patterns of life are necessary. And he demonstrates that only
such a lifestyle in all of these dimensions is consistent with
the purpose for which Christ died. The grace of God has appeared,
teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should
live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. And
this is in keeping with the purpose of the death of Christ, who died
to redeem us from all iniquity and purify to himself a peculiar
people zealous of good works. But here's the point. Telling
people that the purpose of grace is to make us holy, and that
Jesus died to make us holy is not enough. There must be detailed,
specific, ethical, moral instruction as to what constitutes holiness
in the concrete. That's the teaching of this passage
and many others. And there are those in our day
who say, just tell people to love Christ. And if you just
hold up Christ enough, they'll so love Him enough they'll know
what to do. That is not the teaching of Holy Scripture, brethren.
And if you would have a ministry anointed of the Spirit, then
it must be a ministry that does full justice to the intensely
practical and ethical portions of the Word of God. But as you
preach them, as a minister of the New Covenant, knowing yourself
that without being drawn to such patterns under the constraint
of the love of Christ, and without being encouraged to hope that
you can conform to such patterns by the strength of Christ, that
your own ethical and moral conformity to Christ comes to a grinding
halt. You will not teach ethical and
moral teaching in a way that is detached from gospel motives
and realities. And in that sense, your most
intensely practical ethical teaching will be pervasively evangelical. Now, what is preaching in the
Spirit as to its content? I submit that preaching in the
Spirit is preaching that fills the mandate. Preach the Word. Now, I must hasten to touch more
briefly on the second head. Preaching in the Spirit is manifested
in the manner of our preaching. Now please listen carefully to
the opening statement that I make. While giving all the latitude
due to diversity of gift, personality, style of delivery, and a vast
array of legitimate variables, I believe we are still able to
assert that preaching in the Spirit will have certain common
denominators with reference to the manner of that preaching. And I suggest to you that as
to its manner, preaching in the Spirit will first of all be earnest
and impassioned preaching. It will be earnest and impassioned
preaching. One has described earnestness
as that quality present when someone has something of weight
and importance to say and is determined to be heard in the
saying of it. That's earnestness. When a man
has something weighty to say and is determined to be heard
in saying it. Passion is defined as any or
all of the emotions such as hate and grief, love, fear, joy, etc. Now, if the preaching is substantially
biblical, then it is preaching which is bringing the preacher
into the most concentrated and direct contact with the most
weighty issues of life. If a man is preaching from his
Bible, then God, the infinite, eternal, exalted, majestic, ineffably
glorious God, is ever before him in the most concentrated
way. God's law, inflexible, just and
holy and right and good. The claims of that God is expressed
in that law over His creatures. He knows from His Bible when
He's preaching, He's preaching into the faces and eyeballs of
those who, having once been conceived and brought into this world,
will never go off into non-existence. He has eternal, never-dying souls
before Him. And in this Bible He knows, and
by faith He sees the hour when they will all be summoned to
stand before this great God. And sheep and goats and no middle
class will be separated. And heaven and hell will hold
all of His hearers as surely as the pews and seats now hold
them. And if he's preaching this Bible,
he is in the most intense, concentrated contact with the great truths
of the pouring out of God's heart in love through a Redeemer and
the gift of the Spirit and the wonderful blessings of forgiveness
and justification and adoption. And he knows something when he's
in the historical sections of the horrible tale of tragedy
that comes in the heels of the disregard of God's law and a
life of unbelief and the glories and the wonders that follow upon
a life of faith and obedience. Now, my friend, let me ask you
something. Can a man believe this book and traffic in such
things in the presence of immortal beings and not be inert? I leave
your conscience to judge. Can he stand and drone out his
homily? Can he stand and do his Sunday
thing to get his check? I say, giving all due allowance
for the manner in which earnestness will express itself in terms
of personality and gift and a host of other variables, earnestness
is not a commodity tied to volume or animation or the absence of
it. It is a quality that oozes from
the pores of a man's soul and spatters itself upon the souls
of those in whose presence He speaks. And if the Holy Spirit is the
Spirit of truth, and He has not given us in this book fables
but truth, then the Spirit of truth, who has embodied His own
mind in the Word of truth, impressing that truth upon the spirit and
mind of a preacher, cannot help but produce in Him earnestness. This is why Paul could say, we
were willing to impart unto you not the gospel of God only, but
our very souls, because you were become dear unto us. When I think of those words and
Paul says, we beseech you in the very stead of Christ, be
reconciled to God. When our blessed Lord said, come
unto me, how did he say it? Come on to me. Take it or leave
it. How did he say come? I've often
meditated long, trying to think of what it must have sounded
like when the Son of God looked out upon men, bent over with
all the burdens laid upon them by scribes and Pharisees, and
the burdens of an accusing conscience, and the burdens of life and hopelessness
and despair. Oh, to have heard him say but
once, come, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. What a majestic winsomeness must
have pulsed through the voice of the Son of God. And now Paul
said, we beseech you in the very stead of Christ, my ministering
brethren, we stand in his stead. Would your people know anything
of the passion and the warmth and the yearning of the heart
of Jesus in the manner of your preaching and in the manner of my preaching? It was none other than the late,
beloved, and highly esteemed Professor Murray who said, and
I quote him, preaching without passion. is not preaching." End
quote. In my view, the professor said,
preaching without passion is not preaching. The spirit of truth impregnating
the heart of a man with that truth, whatever else it will
do to him, it will make him earnest. But as to its manner, preaching
in the Spirit will not only be earnest preaching, it will be
plain and lucid preaching. It will be plain and lucid preaching. We know that the most important
truths of Scripture can only be spiritually discerned by a
direct, personal ministry of God the Holy Spirit, called in
the Bible illumination. We read about it in 1 Corinthians
2. I hope we believe that. The simplest truths of the Bible
cannot be discerned spiritually apart from a direct, personal
ministry of the Holy Spirit, His ministry of illumination. Except a man be born anew, he
cannot see, he cannot perceive, he cannot penetrate the mysteries
of the Kingdom of God. However, while we preach, praying
and pleading and trusting God to do that work, of illumination,
which only He can do. We must not expect Him to add
to that a ministry of interpretation by which He must somehow make
intelligible to our people a set of words which don't communicate
at their level, or with such jumbled ideas that the Holy Spirit
has to perform a miracle of collation and reconstruction of all of
our sentences. This is why Paul said to the
Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 14, 9, in the very chapter dealing
with the subject of spiritual gifts, he says, unless you utter
by the tongue speech easy to be understood, how shall it be
known what is spoken? You will be speaking into the
air. And a sermon marked by vocabulary
and imagery and analogy that does not relate to the people
to whom we are preaching, and methods of expression and sentence
construction that doesn't clearly communicate, brethren, we may
as well be speaking into the air. Where the Holy Spirit is
present, the preaching will be marked by lucidity. It is said
of our Lord, the one in whom all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge are hidden, it is said of him that the common people
heard him gladly. He didn't talk in philosophical
terms. He didn't say, the kingdom is
like, and then launch into the terminology of the experts. He
talked about mustard seed, and he talked about a net bringing
in fish of all kind, and he talked about women in the throes of
labor, and he talked about birds, and he talked about lilies, and
he talked about little kids playing games in the marketplace. And
as our Lord did, so did the prophets. And our Lord was seeking to be
plain and lucid. Oh, yes, I know that the parables
had a judgmental element. I'm fully aware of that. They
veiled as well as revealed. I'm fully aware of that. But
our Lord was a plain and a lucid preacher. And if we have something
of his spirit resting upon us, we will study plainness. We'll forego elegance. We'll
forego any desire to gain a reputation for being polished creatures.
What is polished if there's no pungency? If our sermons have
no grip and no stickability? Maybe smooth as oil. I'd rather
have them all covered with burrs so they stick. The Holy Ghost is present in
very sermons. that fasten themselves upon the
minds of men. But then in the third place,
as to its manner, preaching in the spirit will be controlled
preaching. And in the light of some of the
emphases that were given to us today, I think this note needs
to be sounded. It will be controlled preaching.
And what do I mean by that? Well, when Paul introduces the
whole subject of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, he says,
you Corinthians, in your pagan days you had religious experiences
in which you were led away, you were carried away unto your dumb
idols, howsoever you might be led. And in the religious experience
of paganism, the concept of rising higher and higher in religious
sensitivity until one is caught up and becomes one with the spirit
of the gods or whatever else is being worshipped until his
faculties are in neutral and he's passive, that is the mark
of the heights of ecstasy in pagan religion. He said, now
you remember that in your pagan days, but now in the realm of
the work of the spirit and the Christian faith, that is never,
never, never the way the spirit operates. And maybe I may say
by way of an aside, and I don't say as one who's only read books,
I've had hands laid on me, I've been coached, I've laid on the
floor half the night trying to get to baptism and all the rest.
I've had people coach me. Now let yourself go, Al. Just
let your mind go into neutral. That's right. Now just start
saying, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Just let
yourself go. You're never going to speak in
tongues until you let yourself go. You see, you're fighting.
You've got to get your mind out of the way. My friends, listen
to me. Run from that like you'd run
from hell itself. Demonic powers operate in the
realm of the passivity of your mind and will. The Holy Ghost
doesn't operate that way. So Paul, as he develops the whole
theology of spiritual gifts, it's as though he anticipates
one of these characters at Corinth in his cheekiness, saying to
Paul, but oh, Paul, you're given all these rules in chapter 14.
You say it's got to be one at a time and at the most. Paul,
if you only knew the tremendous athletics of the Holy Ghost that
was on me, I couldn't help it. The Holy Ghost came with such
power, I just had to speak. Paul says, is that so? Listen
to what he says in 1 Corinthians 14. After he gives those directions,
one, two, let this happen and this happen, now he says, and
the spirit of the prophets, verse 32, are subject to the prophets,
for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. Even when God was
giving a more heightened dimension of the ministry of the Spirit
in public utterance, prophecy, a revelatory gift as we saw today. Even in that more heightened,
intensified ministry of the Spirit, the prophet was in control. You see that? The spirit of the
prophets is subject to the prophet. Now, if that's true in the more
direct influence of the Spirit in prophecy, how much more true
in the lesser degree of the Spirit's assistance in preaching that
involves exposition, opening up, explanation, application
of the Scriptures. So that when the Spirit comes
upon a man giving the most vivid inward sight of spiritual reality,
the most enlarged capacities of yearning and longing for the
souls of men, the most intense and fervent running out of his
heart in conscious communion with Christ, the most concentrated
burden to warn and to admonish. There will never be a suspension
of his rational faculties if he's preaching in the spirit.
Preaching in the Spirit is controlled preaching. For the last of the
ninefold fruit of the Spirit is what? Self-control. And it's a mystery that the more
I'm in control, the more I have reason to believe the Spirit
is in control. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control. So for some of you who are more
volatile in temperament, more naturally expressive, you need
to remember that there's a fine line where you may mistake an
abandonment of your spirit for the work of the Holy Spirit.
Remember that preaching of the Spirit as to its manner will
not only be earnest and passionate, it will not only be lucid It
will be controlled. And finally, and I touch upon
it only briefly for our time is gone, it will be powerful
preaching. It will be powerful preaching. Remember the intimate
connection between the spirit and power in the text we looked
at earlier. You shall receive power, the
Holy Spirit coming upon you. You shall be witnesses unto me.
My speech and preaching were not in words of man's wisdom,
but in demonstration of the spirit and of Power. Our gospel came
not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit. Now, again, giving due allowance
for all the variables of temperament and lung capacity and physical
animation and other legitimate diversities in the style of preaching. Let me at least suggest that
powerful preaching involves these three things. Preaching in the
spirit marked as preaching in power, a sense of God is brought
upon a congregation. And I don't know what else to
call it but that. A sense of God is brought upon a congregation. You remember how Paul described
it in 1 Corinthians 14 with reference to prophecy? If all prophesy
the heart of the man who's an unbeliever is laid bare, and
he Falling upon his face will cry out, God is of a truth among
you. Isn't it interesting? Paul says
when the unbeliever discovers that God is in the midst, he
doesn't jump up and click his heels and say, oh, glory, God's
here in that wonderful. He's such a lovely being. I'll
snuggle up to it. That's the climate many churches
try to create. Paul says if the unbeliever comes
in and the God of the Bible draws near in the public utterance
of prophecy, the effect will be to bring that sense of God
that utterly levels and prostrates the unbeliever. He, falling upon
his face, will cry, God is of the truth among men. And preaching
in the Spirit always brings that sense of God upon a congregation.
At times it is God in His awesome majesty, at times God in the
wonder and the meltingness of His love, God in the terror of
His law, God in the glory of His gospel. But a sense of God
comes when a man is preaching in the Spirit. Furthermore, there
is a vivid awareness of the unseen world of spiritual reality. I've
been fascinated for years with that text in Hebrews 6. They
have tasted the powers of the world to come, and I'm personally
convinced it has something to do with this. I'm not prepared
to say much more than that, but when a man is preaching in the
spirit and dealing with the great realities of scripture, God,
heaven, hell, Christ, the cross, unseen spiritual realities. There comes a vivid awareness
of that unseen world and men, though they may not taste so
as to drink yet taste of the powers of the world to come. Was it not that that caused Felix
to tremble? As Paul reasoned of righteousness
and of judgment and self-control, he trembled. The powers of the
world to come drew near. And then the third element of
the preaching that is marked by power is that a pressing awareness
of the divine authority of the Word is brought to men. When
a man is preaching in the Spirit, Preaching that is powerful preaching,
there comes a pressing awareness of the divine authority in the
word. It was true of our Lord. He spoke
not as the scribes and Pharisees, but as one having authority. And Paul says to the Thessalonians
in chapter two, God be thanked that when you receive the word
of God from us, You received it not as the word of men, but
as the word of God. Our gospel came in power. You
received it as the word of God. That was the power, that attestation
of the Spirit to his own word. As far as the results of preaching
in the Spirit, you can read 2 Corinthians 2. It was the passage I had intended
to open up, savor of life unto life and death unto death. Stephen,
full of the Spirit, preaches, and they gnash on him with their
teeth, and they stone him while his face glows like that of an
angel. Peter preaches in the Spirit
on the day of Pentecost, and three thousand are cut to the
heart. But here's the common denominator. There was no neutrality. When Stephen preached in the
Spirit, they gnashed with their teeth. Unbelief was brought out
from its hiding place. But I did want to bring a word
of application, and therefore I'll skip that third heading.
And my word of application is, first of all, to you dear friends
who are here with us from churches in the area. What does all of
this say to you? Well, I hope you see what it
says to you. Do you not see, my dear friends,
and I have reason to believe the reason you're here on a non-scheduled
church activity night is because there must be some hunger. For
the word of God, do you not see the thing for which you ought
to be crying to God that he would send his spirit upon his servants
in this city, in this area, upon this nation, that God would raise
up men who preach in the spirit and do whatever he must do to
make such men? God calls most of his servants
from the ranks of the nondescript. You see your calling, brethren,
not many mighty, not many noble, not many wise. Fox called them
God's five-ranked army of descending human weakness. Five-ranked army
of descending human weakness. The nobodies, the weak, the nondescript,
and he says with them he'll conquer the world. because he resists
the proud and gives grace to the humble. Will you not cry
to God to send his spirit upon your pastor? Will you not plead
with God that he will be a man clothed with the spirit? Oh,
dear people, cry to God that he will have dealings with men
and clear out whatever rubbish of misconceptions of their task
and their identity, whatever spirit of unbelief with regard
to scripture is crept into their hearts, that believing in every
fiber of their being that this book is the book of God, they'll
give themselves to proclaiming it in all of its clarity in the
power of the Spirit. And my dear brethren at this
conference, may I plead with you this night to remember to
remember those simple three injunctions regarding the ministry of the
Spirit. You've heard them again and again.
You've heard them earlier today. Grieve not the Holy Spirit. Quench not the Spirit. Be being filled with the Spirit. I know that God sovereignly at
times gives a powerful unction in preaching to an unholy man. If God can take an ass and make
him a vehicle of direct revelation. God can do anything in taking
men and making them instruments of powerful preaching. Some will
say, not a few, did we not prophesy in thy name? But generally speaking,
in the pastoral ministry, where life and ministry are constantly
under scrutiny, generally speaking, here's the rule of thumb, you
will know no more of the unction of the spirit in your preaching
than you know of His sanctifying influence in your life. And unless
your passion to be a holy man keeps pace with your longing
to be an anointed man, you have reason to question your motive. The next time you're tempted
to spend that hour in front of the television that you know
you ought to be spending in doing that word study so that you can
give a really responsible exegesis and exposition of that passage
next Lord's Day. Think of the connection. Am I
prepared to forfeit the endowment of God's spirit in power? For the sake of that hour before
the TV, do I want to rob my people of a ministry in the Spirit at
such a paltry price? Generally speaking, there is
a direct relationship between the two. And don't quench the
Spirit. And in the context that has to
do with prophesying or the exercise of a Spirit-given gift in the
assembly, And could it be that some of you quench the Spirit
when in your very preaching? Because in the act of preaching,
God gives you an enlargement of yearning for your people.
You are so bound to your notes and bound to propriety that you
quench the Spirit, who in the very act of preaching does surprising
things. And when you have felt something
of a baptism of yearning and it was time to just drop your
last point and pour your soul out in impassioned entreaty,
you're afraid to do it. Don't quench the spirit. Pray
for a measure of holy abandonment in preaching. Always under control,
yes, but not quenching the spirit. Oh, may God grant that with his
gracious work of renewed commitment to the truths that have been
mighty in the hands of God for the overturning of the bastions
of hell in generations past, may God grant that with that
return to doctrinal integrity may come copious and fresh measures
of the Spirit of God upon us, that we may know experimentally
what it is to preach in the Spirit. And if someone were to come to
your church and say, could you explain to me what is it to preach
in the spirit? You say, no, for the life of
me, I couldn't do it for a million bucks. But I'll tell you one
thing. Come on Sunday and listen to my pastor and you'll find
out what it is. Oh, may God grant that you give
your people that privilege. May God grant it for his glory
and for the good of his church. Let us pray. Our Father, God and Father of
the Lord Jesus Christ, God of the prophets, God of Elijah and
Elisha, God of the apostles, God of your servants in bygone
days who preached and saw multitudes broken down before your word,
look upon us in our weakness. Look upon us in our feeble efforts. And oh God, if you delight to
take the weak things to confound the mighty, we offer ourselves
up afresh to you. Take us and use us for your glory. May your Holy Spirit attend the
word and bring his own blessed fruit from it according to your
own eternal purpose. For those who sit here tonight,
strangers to the power of truth, may the very thoughts conveyed
tonight haunt them as they leave this place until they know that
they have an interest in your son and are under the canopy
of his grace and within the orbit of his forgiving mercy. Hear
our prayer and may the blessings of your grace and power rest
upon us. through Christ our Lord. Amen.