Quote 4858

We must not talk to our congregations as if we were half asleep. Our preaching must not be articulate snoring. There must be power, life, energy, vigour. We must throw our whole selves into it, and show that the zeal of God's house has eaten us up.

Lectures to my Students

No man preaches a sermon well to others who does not first preach it to his own heart.

John Owen

You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true.

Chosen by God, p. 12

R.C. Sproul

Let us beware of despising preaching. In every age of the Church, it has been God's principal instrument for the awakening of sinners and the edifying of saints. The days when there has been little or no preaching have been days when there has been little or no good done in the Church. Let us hear sermons in a prayerful and reverent frame of mind, and remember that they are the principal engines which Christ Himself employed when He was upon earth. Not least, let us pray daily for a continual supply of faithful preachers of God's Word. According to the state of the pulpit will always be the state of a congregation and of a Church.

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke volume 1, (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1986) 128, 129

J.C. Ryle

Preachers should not give sinners what they desire; but give them True Food until, by the Spirit, they taste and see that the Lord is good!

Paul Washer

A sheep may fall into a ditch, but it is the swine that wallows in it.

Sin

In order to get attention, the first golden rule is, always say something worth hearing.

Lectures to my Students

Saying, 'Preach the gospel daily, use words if necessary', is like saying, 'Feed the hungry, use food if necessary.'

Ligon Duncan

He who is his own teacher, is sure to have a fool for his master!

Pride Self-Reliance

it is common for modern preachers to use the proverbial "we" in an effort to place themselves, humbly it is thought, within the mass of those needing the same message. Although there is a nugget of truth to this modern approach, it nevertheless undermines the basic essence of preaching--the prophetic.

Deep Discipleship, 24

Paul Dirks

Ministers must not flatter, preach pleasing things, sow pillows under people's elbows, or throw sugar on them, when salt is necessary.

John Jackson

https://twitter.com/Brian_Sauve/status/1744192523592196597

I am very glad to see pastors wake up to the antinomian overcorrections of the "gospel-centered" movement. Every sermon had to be: The Bible says to do X. You can't do X. Jesus did X for you. End of sermon. But you don't believe the Gospel rightly until you obey Jesus.

Brian Sauve

for the Jerusalem dialect has this one distinguishing mark, that it is a man's own mode of speech, and it is the same out of the pulpit as it is in it.

Lectures to My Students, 113

I wonder how long we might beat our brains before we could plainly put into words what is meant by preaching with unction; yet he who preaches knows its presence, and he who hears soon detects its absence;

Lectures to My Students (p. 50).

Abhor, dear brethren, the thought of being clockwork ministers who are not alive by abiding grace within, but are wound up by temporary influences; men who are only ministers for the time being, under the stress of the hour of ministering, but cease to be ministers when they descend the pulpit stairs. True ministers are always ministers.

Lectures to My Students (Kindle Locations 256-259). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

He is your friend who pushes you nearer to God.

Abraham Kuyper

I'll tell you a story. The Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1675 was acquainted with Mr. Butterton the [actor]. One day the Archbishop . . . said to Butterton . . . 'pray inform me Mr. Butterton, what is the reason you actors on stage can affect your congregations with speaking of things imaginary, as if they were real, while we in church speak of things real, which our congregations only receive as if they were imaginary?' 'Why my Lord,' says Butterton, 'the reason is very plain. We actors on stage speak of things imaginary, as if they were real and you in the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imaginary.'

Stout, Divine Dramatist (239-240)

George Whitefield

the crucial way to fight against false teaching is to preach the gospel of Christ well.

Good News for Anxious Christians (190)

Phillip Cary

The Christian must always be at war. If he has peace with sin, he is at war with God.

Sin

Temptation is never stronger than when relief seems to dress itself in the very sin that Satan is suggesting.

Christian in Complete Armour, 1:84

Temptation Sin

What lust is so valuable that it is worth burning in hell for?

Lust Hell

If you allow your love of creature comforts — or even your pleasure in family and loved ones — to outrun your love for the Lord, you cannot be a victorious soldier for Christ.

The Christian in Complete Armour, 1:72

Worldliness Comfort

The layman has a large field in which he may minister to his fellow man, even if he is not called to full time ministry.

Christian in Complete Armour 1:300

Lay Ministry

To be burning at the lip and freezing at the soul is a mark of reprobation. God deliver us from being superfine and superficial: may we never be the butterflies of the garden of God.

Lectures to my Students