The essential principles of preparing sermon material, emphasizing the dual processes of gathering and arranging information. It highlights the importance of consistent Bible study and broad reading, coupled with a systematic method for organizing notes and resources, such as using Manila envelopes or a filing system, to ensure accessibility. The message stresses that effective arrangement transforms raw material into a coherent and impactful presentation, likening it to building a house from a blueprint rather than a mere pile of supplies. The sermon concludes by outlining the five key components of a well-structured message: title, text, introduction, body, and conclusion, underscoring that while diligent preparation is crucial, the ultimate power of a sermon comes from the infilling of the Holy Spirit.
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To learn we trust a little more of how to carry on thy work. We thank them for the grace that has saved them, and then has permitted us to serve thee. And because thy work is the greatest work in the world, we'd like to do it in the best possible way. So we ask that thy Holy Spirit may guide and direct us tonight, and that which we discussed. May we be able to put into practice in our individual spheres of service. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, please don't feel reluctant at any time to, if you just raise your hand, I'll be glad to stop and we'll discuss what you have unless it's the weather or something that isn't relevant to the subject, but otherwise I think we'll try and make this just as informal as possible, and yet because we are trying to cover what should be at least 10 or 12 studies, we're trying to cover it in two nights.
You can see how we're going to have to condense it and try and stick to the main point. I hope will condense it and not evaporate it and take all the moisture out of it, so it will be too dry because homiletic is not the most interesting subject in the world. It can be very dry, but as I was telling someone, I studied homiletic, part of the study I did, not under the late 80s, but over him. I had an office at the Toronto Emmaus Bible School, and A.T.
Gibbs is the only man I ever knew that could teach homiletics in an interesting way. He was teaching his class of homiletics in the lower floor, and there was an air vent right up from the classroom to my office. So I studied homiletics over A.T. Gibbs, and that was an experience. The sit in his class was an experience in itself, but the sit over the class was something that the Lord only gives a huge choice individual. Possibly I should begin, the very beginning, in as much as a good brother who isn't here tonight, was not able to pronounce homiletic last night.
Maybe I should just begin with a little word of explanation regarding that. not homilactic. It has nothing to do with milk, except the milk of the Word of God. But some people are so engrossed in their business they have to get a commercial in, even in a gospel meeting. Now, the word homily, not hominy, but homily, was much more familiar to 19th speakers and 20th century the word homily is simply another term for sermon it's a religious discourse and so you can see that which is homiletic has to do with preaching homiletic is to give a very technical definition the art or science of preaching now we're not going to get technical tonight.
And so what we are going to study these two nights, they just how to prepare and to present a message for God. I think that covers them now, but that's simpler and I think more suitable for us tonight than what we're interested in. Because of the wide variety of service represented in the class tonight, some of you are some of you are Some of you preach on the platform, and so on. It'll be best, I think, if I just go ahead and point out some of the basic things, then you take them and apply them.
Now you can see some things that are applicable to the platform are not to your Sunday school class. Some things that are suitable for your Sunday school class would not be right on a Sunday morning or a Sunday night a platform here. So I just leave it to each one of you to take these basic principles and to apply them as you find yourself in need of them. Now we'll just divide it up to be simple. We'll divide tonight and tomorrow night's study into two. Tonight will be the preparation. Tomorrow night will be the presentation.
That seems to me there's a logical order. You prepare your message when you present it. So we'll talk tonight about preparing the message. And before I get into that, let me just say it out of the many, many books that are available on this subject for interest in one. I'm just going to refer to three of them. Other teachers on the subject might refer to others, but I just refer to these three. For Sunday school teachers, and many of you, I believe are, many of you are familiar with this book.
We have used it in the textbook in the past, and every Sunday school teacher should have a copy of this and read it and reread it. You know, it's surprising how often you forget even what you've taught. Going back over lessons such as, I hope to give you tonight and tomorrow, and I have reminded me of just a number of things that I'm going to tell you to do that I have been doing myself. So the seven laws of teaching by Gregory, this is a no standard work. You remember we used this in connection with our classes for Sunday school teachers, and many secured a copy then, and it's a good investment, and these seven laws will help you tremendous in preparing your Sunday school lesson.
Now, for those who are thinking more in the line of preparing what we might call a public message to young people or in the gospel or something like that, the first book that really helped me many, many years ago was this by William Evans, How to Prepare Sermons and gospel addresses, very simply written, but very, very good. William Evans was a great Bible teacher, and he prepared a very helpful book in that. And then, of course, my good friend, late friend, A.P. Gibbs, wouldn't be very happy even in heaven if I didn't mention his book, the preacher and his preaching.
Now, A.P. Gibbs was, well, he's just A.P. Gibbs. The Lord made a mold, poured him into it, and then threw the mold away. And there's just no one else quite like AP Gifts. But anything he did, he did very thoroughly. He and I shared many a conference together, sometimes a summer conference for some week, and we'd share the same room together. And so I got to know AP very well, and he was the most diligent man, and anything he did, he did to the very best of his ability.
So there are some very helpful things in AP's book, The Preacher and His Preaching. Now we'll get down to it. We've already divided our subject of homiletics for this occasion into two, preparing the message and preaching it or presenting it. All right, tonight's study, presenting, preparing the material, we'll divide into this, gathering the material, and then arranging the material. Gathering it and arranging it. And I can say immediately, those are the two things are necessary if we're going to give a message for God.
Let's think a little about gathering gathering the material. Of course, you put, first of all, your continual reading and studying of the Bible. There's nothing that will substitute for that. The more you read and study your Bible, the better you can talk about the things of God. I don't need to labor that point at all. And then there will be not only the reading and studying of your Bible, but there will be the general reading that is read anything that you feel will contain something that you can use for God read out the trash and read history read anything that will inform you in a general way because you can use that for God And as you read both your Bible and these other good books, keep a little notebook beside you.
Jot down in it something you get. Just a thought. I have a habit that I've developed through the years. On the inside of the page of any book that I feel contains anything that's worthwhile that I want. want to refer to, I write it down there and put page six. I'm reading at the present time through the works of Josephus. And in reading The Wars of the Jews, I'm just putting down on the inside of the page of the cover of that volume one, put down whatever it is.
I'm coming across some very interesting things that Josephus has to say that try right in with what I know the Scripture says. and so I put that down and then it's very easy you pick up a large volume now there was something in here that one time I was reading at a year ago I knew I could use that in my Sunday school class but what was it where was it and you spend about an hour of valuable time trying to find it if you knew it was in that book you should have it on the inside of the cupboard, and you can turn right to it, reread it, and you've got it.
And in these days, we just have to save all the time, so we can't, but we only can save nowadays. So that after you have gathered these things, have some system of piling them. Now, I'm a great believer in filing where you can find what you're going to use. What's the use of having a good illustration if you can't find it? You might as well not have it. And many a time in my younger years, I'd spend a Saturday night tearing my hair to try and find that thing.
But if you just have some simple system of filing. I started out, as D.L. Moody did, not that I was trying to imitate him, but it was cheap and simple. He used to carry his filing cabinet in his hip pocket. He's a very plain, practical man, and he had a half a dozen or so of Manila envelopes, and he'd put in each one, he had a title on each one, and he'd put in whatever he came and stick in his hip pocket. Well, crowded. So I didn't try the hip pocket style, but I did get the Manila envelope. And I just put on them any title that I felt I could remember.
And I put in that envelope anything I came across, a clipping, a cartoon, an illustration, a jockeying, a scripture verse, anything I could find on that subject went in the Manila envelope. Very soon the Manila envelopes were bulging, but I had to graduate with something a little larger. So I got a little larger pile, and did the same thing. After a while, that became too small, and I graduated eventually with a Philco system, which is the most complete that I know of, and now we have, I'm sure, tens of thousands, exaggeration of clippings and booklets and whatnot on any practically any subject you can think of and you can put your finger on in a matter of minutes by going to the cabinet filing cabinet pulling it out and putting your finger on that which is indexed there so whatever you need don't let these things get away from them use them use them for God and know where they are, so you can use them for God, so
that you'll have scrap books, you'll have books of illustration, and all of that, and you will find the more you'll have of that, the easier it's going to be for you when the time comes to get your lesson ready or your message, you see. And the less time it takes you to actually prepare the message, the more time you're going have to pray over. You see, that's what's going to give it power. But if you have to spend all your time finding that illustration or that outline you wanted and tearing your head and you're all on edge, you're not in very good condition to pray. But if you've gotten everything together, then you're able to water it with prayer which will give it power when you give it in your class or from the platform.
Now, that's gathering the material. So much more could be said about, but I hope I'll just be a start for it. Now you're going to arrange it. What do you say? Why bother about arranging it? Well, suppose you were to order a load of wood, and they sent you some very fine wood, and a load of bricks, and they sent you some good-born bricks, and some faxle cement, and they sent those up, and a keg of nails, and so on, and dumped it all down in your front yard.
Isn't that a lovely house? Wouldn't you enjoy living in it? Wouldn't you like going around and saying, now, this is the living room, there's keg of nails here? You see, and this is a dining room over here, all these bricks. But if you have a plan that had been drawn by an architect and your builders took the very same material and followed that plan, you would have a home that would be useful and you'd be proud of. Now, why should we take a whole lot of good material and dump it on our audience just like that? Say, there it is. Well, that's a good way to have them not come back again.
I like to think of our gathering and arranging our material like going out into the garden. You go down into your garden, we'll say, with a basket, and you pick some of the various vegetables growing there, and you put them in the basket. But now, what would you feel like? if after that has been done your wife handed you a knife and fork and spoon so there you are go at it I'm not going to eat that stuff oh those are good carrots that excellent corn even that okra isn't too bad it's fresh at least which is the most you can say about it but now she takes that and she prepares this and puts it in order and doesn't serve it till you're all mixed up together.
Now that was all right. When I was in the Scouts we made what we called goulash and it was everything. You weren't surprised if a shoe came floating up to the top, you know, just about anything was there. But now you and I wouldn't enjoy that every day, would we? Well, then, if we want things prepared in an orderly way, when we sit down to feed our bodies, shouldn't we expect them, haven't we, a right, to have things prepared in an orderly way, when we sit down to have our souls fed? So that, we're going to talk about arranging our material.
Well, what are the advantages of that? Why should we bother to arrange it? First of all, let me say, the advantage to the teacher or the preacher, well, it will help the teacher or preacher to arrange, to recall, shall we say, having arranged it, to recall his main points. When I get an outline of a message I'm going to speak on, I at least memorize the main points. I know what they're going to be. I at least memorize that.
I may do more, but I at least memorize my main points. And if they are in order, it is so much easier to recall what your next point is. And then having that arrangement will help the speaker to keep not get off on side tracks this way and that way if he has or she has an outline there that's going to keep them from straying off you know you could talk for an hour about this matter the next thing and never get to the main point and not only that it will assist the teacher in giving clarity to the message it's so much easier to recall something that is clear in your mind.
Before I give a message, I like to make sure, now, have I grasped this myself? Do I really understand what I'm talking about? Can I sit down and go over it in my mind? And many a time I lie in bed, and this message just comes back to your mind, and I'm really bothered. I feel I haven't made proper preparation if I can't recall the main stream of thought as it were that we're going to take and then it will help your listeners it'll be an advantage to the listeners it will assist them to follow your thread of thought be sure now that thread doesn't get all tangled up try and keep a clear thread of thought and as people listen, they will be able to follow you much more clearly if you're giving up in an orderly way.
And then it will be a real advantage in maintaining their interest. If the tongue, I've often said, if the tongue of the speaker wanders, the thoughts of the listeners will wander too. You know, you hear some speakers and they're wandering away off down there. Well, you try to follow them. Then you say, where in the world are you going? And you give up. And you wait till he comes back again. A little while you see him in the distance and he's coming on back to where he left you. Well, all that time was wasted. You see, both for him and for you. And then it will help the listeners to if you were to take time right now to think back over some messages couldn't you recall better the ones that had some prominent eggs to hang their thoughts on some that had definite points to them and that comes back to you oh yes that was the first one now I remember he said this and that was just all a mess or a mass, then you
have a real job, because very few of us can remember everything all at once. We remember one thing, and then that recalls something else, and then this will be an advantage for the message itself. It'll give form to it, an attractiveness to it. A message for God should have some form to it. God to God of order. God's a God of beauty. And that house that's been built there according to specification is so much more attractive, isn't it, than that pile of lumber and other material? That well-prepared meal laid out there in order, set on the table, the various vegetables, and that each and their own dish, so much more attractive than just a mass of food all poured in together.
Well, that's the advantage of it. Now, how are you going to prepare this? How are you going to prepare your outline? Well, it'll be very simple. You will want to, first of all, read and study your scripture passage. Whatever the lesson is, or whatever you have been exercised to speak about, you'll want to read and study that. Then there'll be some lesson material for you Sunday school teachers, certain reference books you want to refer to, and so you get something from that. And then let me say, in your reading of the scriptures, check any word that's unknown to you.
And if you don't know what that word means, don't pin up and use it. Because sure enough, somebody will meet you right after and say, you know, there was a word there that you used that I didn't understand. I saw it in the scripture, and I didn't understand what it was. what does it mean well all you can say is well you tell me and I'll tell you and then we'll both know but you see you're the teacher so you should check on if you don't know what that word means check on and then if you don't know how to pronounce that word find out go to your pronouncing dictionary or maybe you have a pronouncing Bible for proper names at least.
Or ask someone how to pronounce that word, because particularly with children now, if you mispronounce a word that they know you've lost their attention for all that they'd be thinking about as you move on that well-prepared lesson, all the thinking about is that you said, like a teacher did here and squashed. Well, that's all the children could think about. They splashed everything the rest of the hour, and the teachers, all the hard work was gone, you see. And a young preacher up in Canberra knew he got up and expounded for quite some time on nothing bullshit.
Well, about the time he was through, some of his congregations decided he was preaching on Mephibishah, you see. So you... Find out. Don't waste all that time on that by neglecting to learn how to pronounce it. Now it comes to a difficult Bible name. I used to tell the students that I met. If it comes to a difficult Bible name and you can't find out how to pronounce it, your pronouncing Bible doesn't help and the dictionary doesn't help. up look as important as you can assume an air of authority and pronounce it and a lot of people will say after well I often wondered how to pronounce that and now I know well you don't know and they don't know you see the fact is frankly a lot of these Hebrew names as well as the simpler Greek names but particularly Hebrew names in the old times.
There's no one can be absolutely sure how they can be pronounced. I have heard Hebrew scholars pronounce words in the Old Testament. Proper names entirely different and yet they were familiar with the Hebrew. Now even in the Greek I have heard good Greek scholars they pronounce Greek words entirely different. I've heard Dr. Harlow is well grounded in the Greek. I've heard him pronounce Greek words are entirely different than I've heard other Greek people. So you see, if you are forced into a corner, don't let it be known. Just pronounce it, and that's it.
Well, that's another thing that the class has learned, how to pronounce that unpronounceable word. Well, we must move on. In your passage that you're going to speak on, there'll be reference made that maybe to some persons or some places or some customs now take time to acquaint yourself with them because if you don't that's what they'll ask you about and then it will help you so much more if you know a little it now I'm not saying that you have to know all about all these individuals but know a little at least be familiar little with these persons or these places are referred to or these custom, the Passover, whatever it may be, understand at least a little of us.
Now you're going to arrange it. And in five minutes I'll tell you how to arrange it. Because there are only five points. And so that's 60 seconds of points. I think normally, now, as I said, you some school teachers will have to adapt some of this to your teaching. speaking about what we would call a sermon, a message you would give to an audience. Now a good message, I believe, shall we say a good sermon, will have five parts to it. It'll have a title, it'll have a text, it'll have an introduction, it'll have the main body of the message, and then it will have a conclusion, or an application, whichever you want to call it.
Those five points, I believe, should be more or less in every message, certainly in a message we give from the platform to a congregation. A title. Now, we could spend a lot of time talking about a title. But a title has some advantages. It has the advantage, of course, that it can be announced. that such and such a subject is going to be spoken on. And then it also has the advantage of a weightening interest. You hear that a certain subject is going to be spoken on.
You're interested in that. I'd like to hear what the man has to say about that. And so you're there interested already. And then, third, it will give to your audience, small or large, the confidence that you, the speaker, have something to talk about. One of the ways he gives familiar illustrations was he used to claim that a lot of preachers were like Columbus. When he started out, he didn't know where he's going. When he got there, he didn't know where he was. And when he came back, he didn't know where he'd been.
hear a message like that? Well, I have. You wonder, well, where in the world's the speaker going? And then after 30 minutes you say, where in the world is he? Well, he's still up there in the platform. Why is that concerned? And then when he comes back and it's all over, he's saying, well, where was the speaker? And I used to have the least of him in the world where he was. He lost me away down the road. So that it will give confidence if you announced now I'm going to speak on homiletics now you didn't expect to come along tonight and hear me talk about prophecies and if I digress to talk about the Battle of Armageddon you'd be waiting for me to get back on homiletics that's why we're here tonight all right it will keep the speaker then to the subject he's announced you see it kind of puts you on the spot you get up and announce you're going to speak on the subject and you don't think about that you speak about something else well then the you haven't kept faith with your audience but it will keep you as the speaker to the
subject you have announced and keep you from wandering from Dan to Beersheba now what about this title one thing it shouldn't be too long the shorter the better In that sense, usually. We're going to speak tonight about hell. Well, everybody understands what your subject is. We're going to speak tonight about heaven. And people know that's what you're going to speak on. And then it shouldn't be too sensational. I don't think that it would come in too often. You know, they claim that brother...
whileer during the centennial down there in Durham, you know, a few years ago, by Drew Beards? Well, he asked a visiting speaker, the priest John, can a bearded man tell a bare-faced lie? Now, I don't know where he got his scripture, but personally that's a little bit too sensational for me. And then your title shouldn't be too ambitious. By that I mean this, can you handle it? The people believe you can handle it. I might announce that I was going to preach on a certain subject, and people just shake their heads and say, well, man, he doesn't know anything about that subject.
What's he used to me wasting time going to listen to him, display his ignorance? So it's well for us to stick to something that we know we understand. After all, a simple thing can be made very interesting, and that is the vast. Well then you come to text. Why should we have a text? Shall I say first of all to draw attention to the Word of God? You and I are not up there to discourse on the many interesting subjects there are of a secular nature. We are there to preach and teach the Word of God.
So when you give a text, it draws attention to the Word of God. And it gives authority to your message. You are going to preach on what the Bible says. And that will give an authority to your message that nothing else will. And then your text, I think, will help. Not only you to recollect what it was, audience as well. They'll think of the text, and they'll think of the subject that was discussed at that time. And we might say just a word or two, or what about your text?
Should it be short or long? Well, both have an advantage. And it depends a lot on your gift. I'm speaking about platform speakers. I have known some, and I think of a good brother, John Ferguson, Sr. And to hear that man preach the gospel on a short text was a lecture. I preach to them at many conferences, possibly the greatest orator that we have had in our assemblies. He's converted on the Mediterranean Sea as a sailor.
and he was a great orator and when you heard John Ferguson rise and give out a short text just three or four words you kind of settled back you're in for a feast and that man would take that short text and before you knew it you were lost you forgot all about your surroundings and he carried you away right into that message. The disadvantage of a longer passage, that certainly will teach people more. And after all, that should be one of our objectives of teaching the word of God to people.
So that, in that sense, the larger a passage that we cover, the more we are teaching in that sense. Now that brings us to the introduction. Why do we have to have an introduction? Well, to wake an interest, first of all. Someone has called it the crucial five minutes of your message. Both of us who have stood in the platform many times know, if you don't get your people the first five minutes, you might as well pronounce the benediction and go home. But if you catch the interest and attention of your congregation first five minutes you've got it and so it awakens interest and it should certainly introduce the subject and lead very smoothly into the subject well how should you do that how should your introduction be used first of all should be very brief.
It's not the sermon. It's just a brief introduction. Have you heard some introductions that went on and on and on and on? You wish, for goodness sake, a preacher would start preaching. He's introduced everything from Adam to Zechariah, and he hasn't gotten your wondering, well, now, what is this all going to be about? Introduction to B, Mr. you don't say now fellow McKay was this and that and the next thing and was born here and lived there and went there and so and so and so and so and Mrs. Smith she's married to Mr. Smith and so and so and so and so and so you introduce them so when we come to introducing our subject don't preach the subject introduce it well how could you do that?
Well there are different ways it should certainly be interesting and I'd like to say it should be very there's no better way of losing this of your class or your congregation than starting off the same way every time you ever heard that you know exactly what the first three minutes are going to be just exactly but there it is and in that way you've caught their attention and awakened their interest and it should certainly may be connected with the subject. You're introducing two persons, and so you don't introduce someone who's 100 miles away, but the people who are right there, you're going to have me.
So in introducing your subject. Now what can your injection be? Well, it could be, I've heard some good messages introduced by a very interesting incident, maybe in the life of the individual, or in somebody else's life, some interesting incident that is tied in with the subject, or it could be a simple illustration. Now if we had time, we discuss illustrations. But I used to preach to the brother, and when he told an illustration, then he had to tell another one to illustrate the first illustration.
then he had to tell a third one to illustrate the first two. And by that time you were so confused that you were just waiting for him to stop illustrating things and begin to preach. To illustrate is to illustrate. Lustre, as you know, is light. And an illustration is something that throws light on what you're talking about, or should. Sometimes like pulling down the blind. Cuts a light there was. Now you don't want to build your term like a greenhouse. Greenhouses all windows. Some term that you hear is one illustration after no, one story after no, story after no, story after no, story after no.
He said, poor brother, at least put a pillar in between those windows. But our windows are a good thing, but you need some wall too. So it could be no strange. It could be a current event. I read the newspaper every morning see how the devil's getting on and it keeps you current you know and makes you thankful that you're not a part of it although you have to be in it temporarily but every now and then you come across something that's a current event that you can use as an introduction to a lesson body of the message.
Now the body will be where you divide up your main subject into how many parts? Well, that depends. It could be three, it could be five, it could be seven. If he gives, somehow got the idea that nothing was inspired unless it had seven points. And I told them at the first Bristol conference, AP and I were the speakers there. They start the bottom so they could only go up, and we were the speakers, and things were kind of rushed that first morning. He only had five points. So when I got up, I said, folks, we are going to witness apparently at the first Bristol conference the decline and fall of AP Gids, because I'm sure you know he only had five points this morning, so seven.
Well, I should have known better. I knew A.P. well enough to know. I'd never get away with that. So when he rose to speak next meeting, he said, give up his subject, his text. He said, there will be seven points. And if there were any more remarks from a certain brother, there will be fourteen. So that certain brother, he subsided. I'd suffered through too many seven points. sermons without having to endure a 14.1. But now only a man of unusual gift with a rare sense of humor could possibly preach regularly from seven-point messages.
Even though they'd be, it got weird some at times. And there was always a disadvantage. You knew the meeting wasn't supposed to go on more than an hour. He'd announced the seven points, and at half an hour it only got for the first two. So you didn't know whether to take a slight break and have your doze then, or wait until the hour was up and go to sleep then. But you see, it kind of kept you on edge, so that you can't determine how many. Increasingly, I have found, for myself, I like to have three, because every good message should answer three questions.
What? Why and how? What's with all of us? Well, why? Why is it important? Well, then, if it's important, how can it be brought about? Or how can I react to it? So that we prepare along that line. now that is where your outline comes in handy we could spend a long time we haven't time but we could spend a lot of time discussing outlining that but let me just say this when you have outlined it don't let your outline be the most prominent thing you know a skeleton is a very important part of our body body.
You've got a skeleton. In fact, you wouldn't be near as attractive if you were just a skeleton. You see, you've got some flesh on the skeleton. Now, if you didn't have a skeleton, you'd just be a mass of blob. And that's what many a message is. Just a mass of blob. You can't find fault with it. It wasn't unscriptural. It was a lot of facts. was no shape no form to it but you you put it in an order and you take their meat as it were and you put it on the skeleton and it begins to look like something but you don't want a bone sticking out here and sticking out that and you hear some sermons and they're all bones all skeleton all skeleton is good for the speaker maybe has it clearly in mind And a few, again I referred to Brother Gibbs, the only man I ever knew who could say attractively, Roman numeral one, Arabic one,
letter A. Now don't try that because you're not 80 Gibbs. You just destroy our congregation in no time. could do it and get away with it. Yeah, he could take you down to Arabic number seven. And G, and he gave you that point. But now, I never tried to imitate that by any means, for which you should be very thankful. Now he comes to last one, the application or the conclusion. That's why tying the knot, clenching the nail, making the application making the appeal, dependent, of course, upon the nature of your message and your congregation.
But there you ought to conclude it. And don't be like the, they asked the colored janitor how he liked the new preacher. And he said, well, I liked the one before him, better than he. Well, why? Well, he said the other one used to say, conclusion. And he concludes. But he said, this one he said, lastly, and brother, he do last. So you see, make your introduction brief and your conclusion brief. I serve my apprenticeship in preaching, as I've often told you, under my spiritual father.
A big converted weight-thrower and boxer and whatnot. He thought homiletics was something you ate. Half of the day was cream and sugar. But he was a great soul winner. And I've heard many of his good friends say the best part of his sermon was when he stopped preaching and he came over to the edge of the platform and he pointed his finger at people. And brother, he nailed it down. Now he could murder the king's English in the body of the sermon. In fact, he knew words that Webster never heard of. And, but when he got through preaching and came over at the edge of the platform, souls were saved all over the congregation.
He's a blunt man, and it was a great privilege for me to serve my apprenticeship under him. And I can well remember him saying to me, now Harold, that was good tonight. But he said, that's what you gave us last time. He said, your introduction tonight was just a re-preaching of what you gave us last night. Well, you see the mistake I was making? I was going over too much in my introduction. It's all right to tie it in. But very few of us preach sermons that people can enjoy two nights in a row, if the second time it does come under a new title, and even with a new text.
It's like a friend of mine went to hear the great John McNeil over in Scotland, and he walked quite a number of miles to Sule Village, and he heard John McNeil preach on the man with a withered hand. And he said, my was good. I walked home at a young fellow, five or six miles, just enjoying the thought of the Lord healing the man with a withered hand. Well, John had announced he'd gone preaching village in another direction so he walked over there that night and he got the withered hand now he said it was a little bit withered the second time but anyway he announced he's going to preach another village so he went over there the next night and he said I got the withered hand again and brother it was withered so we make our introduction and our conclusion rather brief let me just sum it all up by this I would suggest after we've done all this to our best maybe we've got a good head to the message got a good body to it got a good conclusion to it but you remember that even when God formed man out of the dust of the ground and I'm
sure that body was perfectly formed it was still dead then what the Lord did he breathed into it the breath of life a man became a living soul after you and I have done our very best in preparation after we have arranged things the best we possibly can we need the breath of the Holy Spirit of God to give it life and power so prepare and pray all water it well see that it's not just a skeleton See, that's not just a skeleton with a lot of good meat on it, meat from the Word of God, but see that it's got the life of God in it.
And so, I sum up by saying, a good message will be characterized by six things, relevancy. It should be suitable. It would be quite out of keeping to go to certain places and preach on certain subjects. It wouldn't be suitable. Your message should be relevant to your audience. You wouldn't speak to the children. I have been young and now I'm old. Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken or seed-baking bread. It would be like the primary class getting up and singing of the Christmas program, years I spent in vanity and pride.
So there should be relevancy to it. Secondly, there should be accuracy. It should not only be suitable, it should be scriptural. We must be accurate in our preaching and teaching no matter how much we have to work to get that accuracy. Thirdly, it should have simplicity. should be a simple message. Now that may take a lot of work. It's quite easy to get up and deliver a message that people say, the most profound thing I ever heard.
So deep I couldn't follow. But what's the use of it then? Some preachers go so deep they bring up mud. But what's the use of that? What we want to do is take something that's difficult and make that's what a teacher's for that's what a preacher's for so it should have simplicity and should have sincerity your children in your class or the adults who listen to you they know if you're sincere and sincerity goes a long way in getting a message across they asked the noted impetus of why he went to hear D.O.
Moody. They said to him, well, you don't believe what he breaches. He said, no, but he does. You see? He recognized the sincerity of that man of God. So there must be sincerity. And there should be fervent say. We've got a message that is dealing with men and women's immortal souls and heaven and hell and we dare put it out like cold ham on a plate. There's got to be some fervency about it. Now I'm not advocating, as you well know, a whole lot of nonsensical emotionalism. But fervency and emotionalism are two different things.
If we are going to speak for God, we ought to be fervent about it. And so it will not only be suitable, it'll be scriptural, it'll be simple, it'll be will be stirring. The fervency with which we give it will stir men and women. And last of all, it should be characterized by spirituality. It should be a spirit-empowered message. As I say, we can prepare perfectly, accurately, but if the breath of God isn't in the message, You and I all know it.
We have sat and listened to a message and has gripped our hearts. You couldn't explain it, but God was just moved. I have sat in some meetings and I don't think I'm an emotional person, but I sat in some meetings and listened to some messages and I reached up to see what that was and I was a tear. I didn't know that I was weeping. The Spirit of God was working. That's what we need, brothers and sisters. Prepare as though everything depended on us. And pray as though everything depended on God. We will...
We'll just close in prayer. And if any would like to stay for any questions, very happy to spend time but i know that your time is full i know you have home obligations and the hour is gone i regret we haven't had uh time before this but i thought we should at least cover these few things that we have so we'll just close a prayer father in heaven we ask that what we have discussed together now may be to the glory of thy name are we long to serve our lord jesus in a more fruitful way, and we ask that each one of the ones present, whether in our Sunday school class, with a group of young people, or in general services, wherever it may be that we open our mouths for thee, we ask that we may do so under the guidance of the Spirit of God, with blessing to men and women.
Bless us, we pray, as we separate. Thank you for the interest there is in serving thee, Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.