The primary task of the Church and of the Christian minister is the preaching of the Word of God.
~Martyn Lloyd-Jones~
Preaching & Preachers (Grand Rapids, MI; Zondervan; 2011) p. 26
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Martyn Lloyd-Jones – The Primary Task of the Church
17 MarMartyn Lloyd-Jones – The Greatest Need of the World
9 Mar
The work of preaching is the highest and the greatest and the most glorious calling to which anyone can ever be called. If you want something in addition to that I would say without any hesitation that the most urgent need in the Christian Church today is true preaching; and as it is the greatest and the most urgent need in the Church, it is obviously the greatest need of the world also.
~Martyn Lloyd-Jones~
Preaching & Preachers (Grand Rapids, MI; Zondervan; 2011) p. 17
Charles Spurgeon: Get Saturated with the Gospel
29 Feb
One thing more, and it is this. Let us, dear brethren, try to get saturated with the gospel. I always find that I can preach best when I can manage to lie a-soak in my text. I like to get a text, and find out its meaning and bearings, and so on; and then, after I have bathed in it, I delight to lie down in it, and let it soak into me. It softens me, or hardens me, or does whatever it ought to do to me, and then I can talk about it. You need not be very particular about the words and phrases if the spirit of the text has filled you; thoughts will leap out, and find raiment for themselves. Become saturated with spices, and you will smell of them; a sweet perfume will distill from you, and spread itself in every direction; — we call it unction. Do you not love to listen to a brother who abides in fellowship with the Lord Jesus? Even a few minutes with such a man is refreshing, for, like his Master, his paths drop fatness. Dwell in the truth, and let the truth dwell in you. Be baptized into its spirit and influence, that you may impart thereof to others. If you do not believe the gospel, do not preach it, for you lack an essential qualification; but even if you do believe it, do not preach it until you have taken it up into yourself as the wick takes up the oil. So only can you be a burning and a shining light.
~Charles Spurgeon~
An All Around Ministry (Edinburgh, Scotland; Banner of Truth Trust; 1960) How to Meet the Evils of the Age. (HT: Challies)
Charles Bridges – Love In the Preaching of the Gospel
11 Feb
Love is the life, power, soul, and spirit of pulpit eloquence; entreating rather than denouncing the character of our office; and it is the delivery of our Master’s message with the looks and language of his own manifested tenderness, that attracts and triumphs over the hearts of a willing people. We wonder not at the Apostle’s success, when we read, that at Ephesus (which doubtless was an instance of his general course of Ministry) he “ceased not for three years to warn every one of them night and day with tears.” The most honoured Ministers have been men, distinguished, not for the brightest talents, but for an humble and affectionate spirit. Some eminent servants of God, from the want of this spirit, alarm rather than persuade; confirm prejudice rather than remove it; and consequently the effectiveness of their labours falls below many of their brethren, of far inferior gifts. ‘ The Christian Pastor, of all men in world, should have an affectionate heart. When he preaches, it is the Shepherd in search of the strayed sheep; the father in pursuit of his lost child.
~Charles Bridges~
The Christian Ministry (Edinburgh, Scotland; The Banner of Truth Trust; 1958) p. 337-338.
Spurgeon: What Does it Mean to Preach Christ Crucified?
7 Feb
[but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. – 1 Cor. 1:23-24]
Let me very briefly tell you what I believe preaching Christ and him crucified is. My friends, I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to give people a batch of philosophy every Sunday morning and evening, and neglect the truths of this Holy Book. I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to leave out the main cardinal doctrines of the Word of God, and preach a religion which is all a mist and a haze, without any definite truths whatever. I take it that man does not preach Christ and him crucified, who can get through a sermon without mentioning Christ’s name once; nor does that man preach Christ and him crucified, who leaves out the Holy Spirit’s work, who never says a word about the Holy Ghost, so that indeed the hearers might say, “We do not so much as know whether there be a Holy Ghost.” And I have my own private opinion, that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is called Calvinism. I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith without works; not unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor, I think, can we preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the peculiar redemption which Christ made for his elect and chosen people; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation, after having believed. Such a gospel I abhor. The gospel of the Bible is not such a gospel as that. We preach Christ and him crucified in a different fashion, and to all gainsayers we reply, “We have not so learned Christ.”
~Charles Spurgeon~
Spurgeon’s Sermons – Vol. 1: Sermon 7
Charles Bridges – The Minister As a Burning and Shining Light
1 Feb
To enlighten the mind and affect the heart are the two main ends of the Christian ministry. The first demands wisdom and plainness, the second fervency, as the spirit of scriptural preaching. This combination exhibits the minister as ‘a burning and a shining light’… ‘imparting the spiritual light of divine truth, as well as the spiritual heat of divine fervour.’ As to fervency–if it be natural to express ourselves with earnestness upon subjects of deep and acknowledged interest–much more in the delivery of our great commission. Nothing, says, Baxter, is more indecent than a dead preacher speaking to dead sinners the living truth of the living God.
~Charles Bridges~
The Christian Ministry (Edinburgh, Scotland; The Banner of Truth Trust; 1958) p. 318.
Charles Spurgeon – Pastors, We Have a Fixed Faith to Preach
6 Jan
We have a fixed faith to preach, my brethren, and we are sent forth with a definite message from God. We are not left to fabricate the message as we go along. We are not sent forth by our Master with a general commission arranged on this fashion — “As you shall think in your heart and invent in your head, so preach. . . .”
Verily, we read not so. There is something definite in the Bible. It is not quite a lump of wax to be shaped at our will, or a roll of cloth to be cut according to the prevailing fashion. . . .
Believing, therefore, that there is such a thing as truth, and such a thing as falsehood, that there are truths in the Bible, and that the gospel consists in something definite which is to be believed by men, it becomes to us decided as to what we teach, and to teach it in a decided manner. We have to deal with men who will be either lost or saved, and they certainly will not be saved by erroneous doctrine. We have to deal with God, whose servants we are, and he will not be honored by our delivering falsehoods. . .
Neither less nor more than God’s Word are we called to state, but that Word we are bound to declare in a spirit which convinces the sons of men that, whatever they may think of it, we believe God, and are not to be shaken in our confidence in him.
~Charles Spurgeon~
Lectures to My Students (Edinburgh, Scotland; The Banner of Truth Trust; 2008) p. 265.
(HT: DG)
Charles Spurgeon – Preaching and Unction
14 Nov
One thing more, and it is this. Let us, dear brethren, try to get saturated with the gospel. I always find that I can preach best when I can manage to lie a-soak in my text. I like to get a text, and find out its meaning and bearings, and so on; and then, after I have bathed in it, I delight to lie down in it, and let it soak into me. It softens me, or hardens me, or does whatever it ought to do to me, and then I can talk about it. You need not be very particular about the words and phrases if the spirit of the text has filled you; thoughts will leap out, and find raiment for themselves. Become saturated with spices, and you will smell of them; a sweet perfume will distill from you, and spread itself in every direction; — we call it unction. Do you not love to listen to a brother who abides in fellowship with the Lord Jesus? Even a few minutes with such a man is refreshing, for, like his Master, his paths drop fatness. Dwell in the truth, and let the truth dwell in you. Be baptized into its spirit and influence, that you may impart thereof to others. If you do not believe the gospel, do not preach it, for you lack an essential qualification; but even if you do believe it, do not preach it until you have taken it up into yourself as the wick takes up the oil. So only can you be a burning and a shining light.
~Charles Spurgeon~
An All Around Ministry (eBook. http://www.grace-ebooks.com) Chapter: How to Meet the Evils of the Age
The Old Guys 