FOR TH E S E R M O N , B I B L E R E A D I N G , GO S P E L A DDRE S S
H o m i l e t i c a l H e l p s
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W I L L I A M E V A N S
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What Is a “Good Sermon?”
rT 'H E answer to this question admits o f a variety o f opinions each o f which is determined by the individual likes and dis likes or preferences o f the preacher and his congregation. Some congregations delight in having preachers whose sermons consist o f “gor geous figures o f speech, glittering cataracts o f musical rhetoric, stars and flowers, meadows and mountains, purling brooks and lordly rivers and sounding seas.” Another congregation prefers a preacher whose sermons diffuse the light o f science, scatter the flowers o f poetry, and roll the thunders o f eloquence. Still other congregations prefer the kind o f a sermon that is deep and profound, and which abounds in philosophical speculation, literary and historical allusion. Once more, some congregations are proud o f what they call “the popular preaching” o f their minister, by which'they mean that he has the power o f presenting truth in a popular style, with the gift of story telling, and a thorough mastery o f the emotions which enables him to make an audience laugh or cry ad libitum. It is hardly possible, therefore, for any one standard o f judgment o f the true worth o f a sermon to be set up. This much, however, ought to be said, that no sermon is a “good sermon” which, while it may contain all the qualities men
tioned above, does not make a plea for a living faith in the finished work o f Jesus Christ, and for a life in conformity to the example o f Jesus Christ. A “good sermon” ought to be, above all else, o f the nature o f a beseeching, a plead ing. It may be “poetic, literary, logical, illustrative, pathetic, crude, or declama tory,” but it ought never to fail in pre senting a plea for the sinner to be recon ciled to God, and for the saint to conform his life to the revealed will o f God in Christ Jesus. A “good sermon” has not achieved its highest end when it has convinced its hearers o f the truth propounded in, the sermon. It is true that the preacher must preach like a lawyer who has before him the task o f convincing a jury, but the preacher must be more than a lawyer, for there is more to preaching than to judicial pleading. The lawyer is satisfied if he can convince the brain o f the ju ror; the preacher must convince not only the brain, but the heart o f his hearer. That sermon, therefore, is a poor sermon which contains no such plea, and produces no such effects in the life o f the hearer. “We are ambassadors therefore on behalf o f Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beseech you on behalf o f Christ, be ye reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20 R. V.)., Outlines ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, - and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and- unto the uttermost part, o f the earth.”—Acts 1 :8.
Sermon
Theme: Spiritual Power. T ext : “ But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon y o u ; and
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