More About Sermon-Growing

As every orchard contains a variety of fruit-trees, so you should aim at variety in the growth of your discourses. Some preachers run into an excess of doctrinal sermons; others, into the controversial; and others, into the hortatory. Dr. Charles Hodge used to select his texts from the epistles, and he preached theology — and very sound theology, too; Dr. Talmage is apt to find his texts in the narrative portions of the Old Testament, and his sermons are vivid pictures. The Bible is a miracle of variety; every note of the gamut is struck in its pages, and every chord in the human heart is made to vibrate by its truths.

The backbone of your work in the pulpit ought to be doctrinal. Jesus Christ dealt in doctrine; in the third chapter of John, during the course of a single conversation with Nicodemus, he discussed human guilt, the atonement, regeneration, the Trinity, divine love in redemption, the need of faith, and the promise of heaven. These great central truths are all packed into one short, simple, solemn talk. Paul is the great master of divine theology; his Epistle to the Romans was well pronounced by Coleridge to be the profoundest book in existence. And oh, how his mighty soul kindles and burns with holy emotion! My young brother, if you are ever dry or ever dull, do not let it be when you are handling these great central truths. Preach doctrine with passion. Make your arguments red-hot with heavenly fire. A man who cannot get into a holy glow over such themes as the atonement, the new birth, the glories of redemption, the resurrection, and the judgment to come, can never be a great precaher or hold thoughtful minds under the spell of his power. Finney, the king of modern evangelists, bombarded the consciences of sinners with a tremendous broadside -of doctrine; the most acute lawyers and judges were attracted by his logical discourses, and many of them were converted. Yet he could be very rich and tender in dealing with the desponding and the troubled. He used to say that the Bible fared very badly; some Christians gave away all of its precious promises, and sinners threw away all of its threatenings; and so there was not much left of it. In our day Rev. B. Fay Mills exhibits many of the traits of Finney, and his close, pungent, doctrinal preaching to the conscience is the chief element of his power. Solid instruction ought to come before the most persuasive appeals; in other words, you must tell your hearers what to believe and what to do before you urge them to do it. Merely hortatory sermons seldom amount to much.

Your main reliance must be upon the great central, doctrinal truths of God’s Word; these you should preach with all the fresh and vivid illustrations, and all the fervor, that you can command. But the Bible is very rich in history and biography. This is one of the internal evidences of its divine origin; being written for human instruction and guidance, it contains every variety of human character. What a marvelous portrait-gallery is that which begins with Adam, and is followed by such a procession of patriarchs, soldiers, statesmen, singers, prophets, rulers, apostles, mingled with humble maidens, servants, and little children! Some of these characters — such as Enoch, Gaius, Dorcas, Demas, and Tertius — are painted in a single sentence. Out of all this immense gallery you can select subjects for scores, yes, for hundreds, of sermons. I have always found that biographical discourses were not only interesting to almost every class of auditors, but could often be made the most practical and profitable. Robertson of Brighton has a sermon on Eli, and Dr. Guthrie one on Demas, and Dr. McLaren one on Judas (the text being “See thou to that “), which are superb specimens of portraiture, that present pungent truth to every man’s conscience. Rev. John McNeill, who is often styled “the Scottish Spurgeon,” deals very largely with biographical incidents; and his sermons on the sacrifice of Abraham and the expulsion of Hagar are brilliant specimens of word-painting, and at the same time of acute analysis of character and presentation of some central truths of the gospel. When presenting Scripture incidents, be careful to adhere to the inspired narrative, and not to overlay it with any “modern improvements.” Even one of the greatest evangelists of the day, who is a grand practical expounder of Scripture, was tempted to make the servants of Naaman say to him, “Suppose the prophet had told you to take cod-liver oil three times a day for ten years, wouldn’t you have done it?”

There is a third kind of sermons, which our forefathers used to call experimental, because they deal mostly with the inner life and the spiritual experience of God’s people. The seeds of this sort of discourses are found in great abundance in the Psalms and in John’s Gospel. Bunyan’s immortal Pilgrim is the unrivaled masterpiece in the line of Christian experience; after him come Jeremy Taylor’s “Holy Living and Dying,” Rutherford’s “Letters,” and President Edwards on the “Religious Affections “; of all living preachers along this line, none excels Rev. F. B. Meyer, of London, who has attended the Northfield conferences for two summers. This is a sort of preaching that requires close, prayerful study of the Word and of the workings of the Holy Spirit on your own heart. The deeper the soil of godliness in your own soul, the richer will be the crop of experimental sermons sprouting out of it. If you are a faithful pastor, studying the experiences of your own people, you will gather no little material from them also. Preach, my dear brother, to the heart. The head is of but half as much consequence. Your pulpit is, not a professor’s chair, nor your audience a class of university students. They are a company of immortal creatures, who come to your church every Sunday from the toils, the temptations, the trials, the joys, and the sorrows of the week. They want to be fed, and not with whipped syllabub or confectionery. Most of them will need a lift; bruised hearts will need to be bound up; feeble knees to be strengthened; a word in season must be spoken to the weak, the weary, and the woebegone. Tonic sermons are always in order; the stronger, the better. Many of our people are like eight-day clocks; they get terribly run down during the week, and require to be wound up again on Sunday. Try to steep your sermons in God’s Word and in prayer, so that when you preach them they will infuse iron into the blood. Of course you will use all the illustrations you can get hold of; but be careful that they illustrate something. When lugged into a sermon merely for the sake of ornament, they are as absurdly out of place as a bouquet would be if tied fast to a plough-handle. The divine Teacher set us the example of making vital truths intelligible by illustrations when he spake so often in parables. All congregations relish incidents, when they are pat for the purpose. Do not be afraid of an anecdote, if it is serious enough for God’s house, and helps to drive the truth into the hearts of your auditors. During my early ministry I delivered a discourse to young men, at Saratoga, and closed it with a solemn story of a man who died of remorse at the exposure of his crime. The late Hon. John McLean, a judge of the United States Supreme Court, was in the congregation; and the next day I called to pay my respects to him. He said to me, “My young brother, I was much interested in that story you told last evening; it clinched the sermon.

Our ministers at C used to introduce

illustrative anecdotes; but it seems to have gone out of fashion, and I am sorry for it.” I replied to him, “Well, I am glad to have a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in favor of telling an anecdote or personal incident in the pulpit.” There is one principle that covers all cases; it is this: Whatever makes the gospel of Jesus Christ more clear to the understanding, and more effective in awakening sinners, in converting souls, in edifying believers, and in promoting holiness, is never out of place in your pulpit. When you are preaching for souls, use any and every weapon of truth within your reach.