Preaching and Preachers

Preaching and Preachersclearly, this is something first and foremost for the mind. The momentwe depart from this order, and this rule, and make these directapproaches to either of the other elements we are asking for trouble;and we are likely to get it.In the second place I argue that too much pressure on the willthereis inevitably an element of this in all preaching, but I say toomuch pressure -or too direct pressure, is dangerous, because in theend it may produce a condition in which what has determined theresponse of the man who 'comes forward' is not so much the Truthitself as, perhaps, the personality of the evangelist, or some vaguegeneral fear, or some other kind of psychological influence. Thisreminds us once more of the place of music in a preaching service. Wecan become drunk on music-there is no question about that. Musiccan have the effect of creating an emotional state in which the mind isno longer functioning as it should be, and no longer discriminating. Ihave known people to sing themselves into a state of intoxicationwithout realising what they were doing. The important point is thatwe should realise that the effect produced in such a case is not producedby the Truth but by one or other of these various factors.I came across a notable illustration of this very point a few yearsago. I am simply going to repeat something that was reported in thePress, so I am not divulging anything secret or betraying any confidence.A certain evangelist in Britain had been asked to conduct aprogramme of hymn singing on a Sunday night on the radio. Theprogramme was a regular Sunday programme lasting for half an hour.Different churches are asked to do this weekby week. On this particularoccasion this well-known evangelist was taking this programme inthe Albert Hall in London. It had been planned as usual, monthsahead of time. About a week or so before the programme was actuallydue to take place, another evangelist arrived in London; and onhearing this the British evangelist invited him to preach before thehalf-hour broadcast of hymn singing. He did so. This visiting evangelistwas told that he must stop at a given time because at that momentthey would be 'on the air' for the broadcast of the hymn singing. So272