Preaching and Preachers

Preaching andPreacherscomment on the sermon and the preacher was, that he had praised theGospel. He had been saying wonderful things about it, or showinghow wonderful it was. I suggest that that is wrong. The Gospel iswonderful, the Gospel is to be praised, but that is not the preacher'sprimary task. He is to 'present', to declare the Gospel.Or let me put it like this. The business of the preacher is not topresent the Gospel academically. This again is done frequently. Thepreacher can analyse it and show its parts and portions, and show howexcellent it is; but still he is saying things about the Gospel, whereaswe are called to preach the Gospel, to convey it, and to bring itdirectly to the individuals who are listening to us, and to bring it tothe whole man. So let us be clear that we are not to talk about theGospel as if it were something outside us. We are involved in it; weare not to look at it just,as a subject, and to say things about it; it itselfis being directly presented and conveyed to the congregation throughus.Hen, it is important for us to emphasise once more that we mustpresent the total Gospel. There is a personal side to it; we must dealwith that, and we must start with that. But we do not stop with that;there is a social side, indeed a cosmic side as well. We must presentthe whole plan of salvation as it is revealed in the Scriptures. We mustshow that the ultimate object, as the Apostle Paul puts it in EphesiansI :10, is to head up in Christ all things, 'both which are in heaven, andwhich are on earth; even in Him'. That is what we have to do, andthat is why I advocate that we should divide our preaching and ourministering of the Word into the three divisions I have suggested. Itis, of course, in that third type of preaching, which I said should bemore instructional, that this element comes out. There, you are notpreaching evangelistically, nor are you dealing with the problems ofthe people, but you want them to see that they are part of this greaterwhole. You are emphasising that salvation is not merely somethingsubjective, a nice feeling,or peace, or whatever it is they are seeking.Allthat is very important, and is a part of it; but there is something muchmore important, namely that the whole universe is involved. We must68