Copyright © 2018 Michael A. Brown
‘Preach the word...’ (2 Tim. 4:2)
N.B. It is simply for
the sake of ease of expression that this blog is written grammatically in the male
gender. Even though it is true that the
majority of preachers are men, yet there are many women in the worldwide Body
of Christ whose preaching is a real blessing, and my own wife is a shining
example of this. So the teaching and
exhortations given in this blog are just as true for those women who preach as
they are for men. As you read, please
feel free to replace ‘man’ with ‘woman,’ ‘he’ with ‘she,’ and ‘him’ with ‘her,’
etc. Thanks for your understanding!
THE true preacher is a man (or woman) of
God. He has learned in experience that,
if he is truly to carry a message which will change the hearts and lives of his
hearers, then he must necessarily be a man who spends much time alone with
God. He is a man who has learned to hear
and discern the word of God. He will
stay with God – day and night, if necessary – until he knows he has heard from
him. In this sense, when he speaks from
the pulpit, he is a prophet of God, because he speaks on God’s behalf. To speak the word of God effectively, the preacher
must carry a living word from God within his heart.
Today we need a return to
prophetic preaching. People (both
believers and non-believers) need to leave church knowing deep within in their
hearts that they have heard God speak to them. Only then will they change and allow God to
adjust their lives. The preacher must be
a man who can truly hear and discern the message that God wants him to preach. He must be like the angel Gabriel who said to
Zechariah: ‘I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to
you and to tell you this good news.’ (Luke 1:19). Then he will consistently have fresh bread to
give to his hearers.
This is not a job like any
other job. It is a high and holy calling
for which we must one day give an account (2 Cor. 5:10). To simply look upon ministry as a vocational
way of earning our living is not enough, if people’s lives are to truly change
and the power of God is to work. We need real
spiritual men, men who are mature in Christ and have become true men of God,
men of faith who are willing to carry daily the burden of the work of the
kingdom of God on their shoulders as their primary focus and task in life (2
Cor. 11:28). We need men whose ministry
packs a real and powerful punch to the work of the devil. Then people’s lives will change.
Dry, lifeless preaching which
bores God’s people to death will never suffice for the task in which we are
engaged. Preaching is not simply a
matter of speaking many words. God’s
design for preaching is not that it should put people to sleep in church.
Preaching with a blunt sword in our hands – lifeless, ineffective messages that
are perhaps exegetically correct, but which are quickly forgotten – produces
nothing but sleeping churches and little or no change in people’s lives.
We cannot afford to think
that we can do this job in our own human strength. Preaching is not and was never designed to be
a powerless intellectual exercise that simply shows off our study skills and
our talents in communicating. Preachers
whose messages are born primarily in the study and which consist of so many
quotes from other people’s minds have little of spiritual weight to say.
Messages which are effectively plagiarised from the internet, or simply copied
from a book that the preacher has read recently, may sound impressive to the
unsuspecting, but they are not messages that have come from the presence of
God.
Preachers, learn to get your
own fresh messages from God himself! God
will speak to you, just as he has spoken to others. So learn to get alone with God in his presence
as a matter of regular habit. God wants
to bring life! He wants to bring
blessing! He wants to wake people up
spiritually and for them to grow in him! He wants to fill people’s hearts with his
living word! God’s people need fresh
bread every week. And it is the
preacher’s responsibility to get this fresh bread and to bring it to them. God wants believers to be able to leave church
meetings and take a real blessing home with them, feeling fed, uplifted and encouraged,
and ready spiritually for the challenges of the week ahead.
A man is not ready to preach
until he has soaked himself in the presence of God. He has to carry the presence of God with him
into the pulpit. God cannot use a man to
affect the lives of others, unless his presence can work through that man. The man has to become a channel through whom
the presence and power of God can work. This can only happen when a man is
soaked in his presence. Only a man who
has been in the presence of God can lead others into the presence of God (and
this is as true of worship leaders as it is of preachers). It is only a man who has been affected by God
in his closet who can then affect others for God from the pulpit. This spiritual work demands spiritual preparation.
The power of God will only flow through
a person who has learned to live and walk consistently in the presence of God.
It is true that the man needs
to spend time studying the word of God in order to prepare his message. He will also often need to read around in other books here and there to help him with some of the details to do with the theme
of his message. And he must also learn
to communicate effectively in a public setting, of course. However, preaching is not intended to be an
exercise in which we speak and other people listen, but they are only affected
on a cognitive level. No! God’s design
in preaching is that he uses a man to speak the message of his word, and that
the presence and power of God works through this message to affect and change
the spiritual state of the hearers. What makes preaching the word of God different from any other form of public
communication is that God designed for it to be done with his own power and authority infusing and filling the life of the person preaching. So it is primarily a spiritual exercise
empowered by the Holy Spirit, and which flows through the heart, mind and mouth
of the preacher.
A message that was born
mainly in study can and will only reach the mind of the hearers and it will not
change anyone’s life. Mind reaches only
mind. However, a message that was
birthed in prayer and received in the presence of God, fills the preacher’s
spirit and heart with the living word of God, and the life of this word will
then reach the hearts of the hearers and affect their lives. The word of God becomes like a sharpened sword
in the mouth of the preacher that touches and awakens people’s hearts to either
receive or reject God’s word. Empowered
spirit reaches spirit, and overflowing heart reaches heart. As E.M.Bounds rightly said: ‘The real sermon
is made in the closet.’[1] True preaching is born in the prayer closet,
and it is permeated with the presence of God and carries with it an atmosphere
of prayerfulness, praise and faith. We
all know that the pulpit plays a crucial role in the life of any church, but
the future of the church depends primarily on the prayer closet, not on the
pulpit.
Perhaps believers in churches
should lock their preachers in their closet and keep the key themselves, and
not let them out until they are filled with the radiating presence of God (Ex.
34:29-35) and only then allow them in the pulpit?! What a difference that would make! Actually, that’s exactly what A.A.Allen did on
one occasion. He was desperate to meet
with God and needed to hear from him, but he knew that he lacked
self-discipline. So he told his wife to
lock him in his prayer closet and not to open the door, until he knew that God
had spoken to him. And not only did God
meet with him that day, but that particular meeting with God transformed his
ministry.[2]
God’s word is like a fire, so
this fire needs to burn in the heart of the preacher (Jer. 20:9, 23:29). When his heart is truly filled with the word
of God, he will be on fire for God. People will recognize and feel its warmth when
they hear him preach. Believers will
love it and will always want to come back to hear him again. What’s more, their own hearts will be touched
by this fire and they will be filled with faith themselves. They do not come to church to hear
cold-hearted preaching.
In reference to his own
messages, John Wesley said that he would first set himself on fire and then
invite people to come to hear and watch him burn! Another old preacher once said that his method
of preparing himself for preaching was very simple: he would get himself alone,
he would confess himself clean, he would read himself up, he would pray himself
hot, and then he would let himself go! John
Hyde often said that the preparation of the messenger was just as important as
the preparation of the message,[3] and, when asked once about
how he prepared his preaching, Samuel Brengle similarly summed up his own
method in the following words:
‘My lifetime has been a preparation for
preaching. I prepare my sermons for
others by preparing my own heart. In
this, prayer and Bible study are the chief factors. When I read books other than the Bible, they
are read not that parts of them might be included in my address, but to enrich
my own thought and to quicken and inspire my own faith. Thus I spend a great deal of time preparing
myself for preaching. Many make the
mistake of giving more time to the preparation of their addresses than to the
preparation of their own hearts, affections, emotions, and faith; the result
often is beautiful, brilliant words that have the same effect as holding up
glittering icicles before a freezing man.
To warm others – and is not that your purpose in preaching? – a man must
keep the fire burning hot in his own soul.’[4]
God’s word is also like a
hammer that breaks a rock in pieces (Jer. 23:29), so the word of God in the
preacher’s mouth must be living and powerful enough to break through the hard
rock of people’s hearts (Ezek. 36:26). God’s presence is like living water (John
7:38-39), so this living water needs to be flowing out of the preacher onto the
people while he is speaking, reviving their hearts and bringing life wherever
it flows. When a man is soaked with the
presence of God, he can also lay hands on people in need and see the power of
God touch them and minister to them (Mark 5:27-30). Believers need and want the
presence of God, and they need the fresh word of God; that’s why they come to
church. They need to be able to leave
church spiritually refreshed by having been in the presence and having received
the living word.
When a preacher has learned
that he must of necessity have the presence of God with him when he ministers,
then he will spend many hours alone with God during the day and/or the night
and will soak himself in the presence of God. He will not let himself get into the pulpit
until he knows subjectively that he has the presence of God with him. He will be ashamed of the many powerless words
he has spoken on too many occasions that changed nothing and nobody. When he
has learned to pray and fast regularly to prepare himself for ministry, then he
is ready to preach, because he knows that his success and fruitfulness depend
on God working with him (John 15:5).
To affect people’s lives, he
must preach the word of God, of course, but his own words themselves must be
permeated with the anointing and presence of the Spirit of truth. The word of God must become a sharp,
double-edged sword in his mouth (Heb. 4:12). Then God will speak effectively through him
when he ministers. His words will be
filled with the warmth of grace, love and faith, and there will be conviction
of truth among his hearers. The work of
45 minutes or so in a pulpit during a Sunday meeting, must be prepared for by
many hours spent soaking himself in both the word and presence of God during
the previous week. Or else he is simply
a man who does not yet know or understand this calling and how to prepare
properly for it.
Being too busy with other
things is not an acceptable excuse before God. Any working man must learn his trade and know
how to practise it, and how to prepare himself properly for it. The work of preaching is no different. Leonard Ravenhill once commented that any
pastor who did not spend at least two hours a day in the presence of God was
not worth employing. One vital and
irreplaceable aspect of preparing properly for this spiritual work is this
matter of being often and regularly in the presence of God. It is an essential part of the preacher’s job
description. And when a preacher has
learned in experience the powerful effects that dwelling regularly in God’s
presence has on his public ministry, then he becomes dissatisfied with anything
less than this.
[1]
Bounds, E.M. Power through Prayer,
Springdale: Whitaker House, 1982, p.13.
[2]
Liardon, R. God’s Generals, Tulsa: Albury Publishing, 1996, pp.389-391.
[3] Carré, E.G. Praying Hyde, South Plainfield: Bridge Publishing, 1982, p.77.
[4] Quoted in Clinton, J.R. Focused Lives, Chapter 4, Altadena:
Barnabas Publishers, 1995, p.152.
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