We spent the afternoon tending the garden (Sandy) and mowing the lawn (me). Now it's time to get my mind ready for tomorrow. I'm preaching on Romans 12:2. I've been reading D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' classic, Preaching and Preachers. It's getting me all fired up!
- He is so moved and thrilled by it himself that he wants everybody else to share in this. He is concerned about them; that is why he is preaching to them. He is anxious about them; anxious to help them, anxious to tell them the truth of God. So he does it with energy, with zeal, and with obvious concern for the people.
- I would say that a 'dull preacher' is a contradiction in terms; if he is dull he is not a preacher. He may stand in a pulpit and talk, but he is certainly not a preacher. With the grand theme and message of the Bible dullness is impossible. This is the most interesting, the most thrilling, the most absorbing subject in the universe;
- If he really believes what he is saying he must be moved by it; it is impossible for him not to be.
- Where is the passion in preaching that has always characterised great preaching in the past? Why are not modern preachers moved and carried away as the great preachers of the past so often were? The truth has not changed. Do we believe it, have we been gripped and humbled by it, and then exalted until we are 'lost in wonder and praise'?
- What is preaching? Logic on fire! Eloquent reason! Are these contradictions? Of course they are not. Reason concerning this Truth ought to be mightily eloquent, as you see it in the case of the Apostle Paul and others. It is theology on fire...Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire. A true understanding and experience of the Truth must lead to this. I say again that a man who can speak about these things dispassionately has no right whatsoever to be in a pulpit; and should never be allowed to enter one.
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