Preaching and Preachers

Preaching andPreachersand used of God in the conversion of sinners and in the upbuildingand edification of the saints.So it comes to this. The preparation of sermons involves sweat andlabour. It can be extremely difficult at times to get all this matter thatyou have found in the Scriptures into this particular form. It is like apotter fashioning something out of the clay, or like a blacksmithmaking shoes for a horse; you have to keep on putting the materialinto the fire and on to the anvil and hit it again and again withthehammer. Each time it is a bit better, but not quite right; so you putit back again and again until you are satisfied with it or can do nobetter. This is the most gruelling part of the preparation of a sermon;but at the same time it is a most fascinating and a most gloriousoccupation. It can be at times most difficult, most exhausting, mosttrying. But at the same time I can assure you that when you havefinally succeeded you will experience one of the most glorious feelingsthat ever comes to a man on the face of this earth. To borrow the titleof a book by Arthur Koestler, you will be conscious of having performedan 'Act of Creation', and you will have some dim understandingof what the Scripture means which tells us that when God lookedat the world He had created He saw that 'it was good'. Very well; thepreacher must always start by preparing a sermon. I have not yetdealt with how he prepares it; I shall come to that. There are variousways of doing so. But he has to prepare a sermon, and it must be atrue entity however he does so. This is where he begins. But let meremind you that this is only the first half, this is only the beginning.There is another side. What is that? Well, that is the actual preachingof this sermon which he has so prepared; and, as I hope to be able toshow, though you may go into the pulpit with what you regard as analmost perfect sermon, you never know what is going to happen to itwhen you start preaching, ifit is preaching worthy of the name180