Mastering Sermon Preparation: Balance and Delivery Essentials

The danger very often that arises, especially with a man who up to a point has written his sermons and then for various reasons decides that he'll no longer do so but that he'll be an extemporary preacher, the greatest danger confronting him I think he will find is this: that he will be content with an inadequate preparation. [00:02:16]

Work out your points, these main headings, work these out in subordinate headings, subsidiary headings. In other words, make sure that you've got matter and material. This main heading can be shown and worked out in various ways. Well, make notes of that, and as I've advised you with the skeleton, here again, I say put it down on paper. [00:03:44]

Many a man has sort of relied upon the inspiration that's come to him when a text has come to him in the way I've described, and then he's known what it is to have this kind of inspiration in the pulpit while he's actually preaching. And many a man has fallen to this temptation of feeling, therefore, that preparation is not necessary. [00:05:00]

During a time of revival, people are given an unusual ease and facility in speech, in prayer, and in preaching, teaching, and the testimony of the ministers at that time was that they had to do very little preparation. Everything seemed to be given to them; they were full of matter, and out of the fullness of their hearts and their Christian joy and their love to the Lord, they spoke with no difficulty. [00:05:50]

When a period like that comes to an end and the revival subsides and passes away, many of these men fail to realize that it was an exceptional time and that now back in ordinary times in the life of the church, they have got to do much more than they did during the time of revival in this preparation. [00:06:40]

Stories and illustrations are only meant to illustrate truth and not to call attention to themselves. This whole business of illustrations and storytelling, I feel, has been a particular curse during the last 100 years, not so much now as it was. I believe it's again one of the factors that accounts for the decline in preaching. [00:26:22]

The rule is always the truth must be preeminent and have great prominence, and illustrations must be used sparingly and carefully. Our business is not to entertain people. People like stories; they like illustrations. I never understood why, but people seem to like ministers who are always talking about their own families. [00:27:33]

Imagination in preaching is a very good thing; it's a most helpful thing. I'm going to point out to you that it can be dangerous, but imagination, let's not forget, is a gift of God. You wouldn't have many poets but for the gift of imagination, and if you do believe in winning all forms of culture to the Lord Jesus Christ, don't you despise the imagination. [00:32:39]

What moves us all, I'm saying, is this: that your business and mine is to make sure that what moves the people is the truth and not our imagination. Of course, this imagination can really become quite ridiculous when you've got a man who's not perhaps over-gifted with intelligence but has a good imagination. [00:41:24]

The preacher should be an orator rather than a rhetorician. There's something almost even in this memorizing and reciting and declaiming the sermon. So another thing that men often do, and I think there's a lot to be said for this, is make notes of the fully written sermon instead of memorizing it. [00:16:26]

The length of the sermon should be determined by the content and the needs of the congregation, not arbitrary time constraints. The preacher's responsibility is to deliver the truth effectively, allowing the message to guide the duration. [00:49:33]

Let the truth, the message, dictate the amount of time, and I think if you adhere to that rule, you can't go very far wrong. Well, the hour has struck, as you've heard, and we leave it at that for this afternoon. [00:52:34]