“Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire.”Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Preaching
Came across a great article linked from Monergism about Dr. Lloyd-Jones on the authority of preaching, written by Iain H. Murray. The quotes are from Dr. Murray, but they really capture what Dr. Lloyd-Jones believed about how preaching should be done.
Sermons will not be marked by authority and power unless they are marked by truth that the Holy Spirit can honour. The word of God is to be exegeted and explained. That has to be the heart of the sermon. There is a real danger that we become over concerned about such things as delivery, while the New Testament is insistent on the content: "let him speak as the oracles of God." The authority of the preaching comes from the text of Scripture. It is God- given power which honours his own word.
I especially like one definition from Dr. Murray. This is such a great definition of what preaching, true Bible preaching not the theatrics we see so often today, really is: “Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire.” What better definition can there be! Standing up and delivering a moralistic or self-help message is not preaching. A lecture on the fine points of theology is valuable, but it is not preaching. Being full of "fahr" and hollerin' and thumpin’ your Bible with a message devoid of content, all heat and no light, is not preaching. Preaching is the declaration of the oracles of God, God Himself revealing Himself to man, through His Word, accompanied by His Holy Spirit by a man who is on fire for God. A man of God is one who, like the words of Jeremiah describe, “If I say, "I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name," there is in my heart as it were a burning shut up in my, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. ” (Jer 20:9)
More from Murray...
“The men most used of God in their pulpits are those who know they had fallen far short of the wonder that should characterise the preaching.”
Humility is a precious commodity for the preacher, and yet is a hard one. In a society that embraces the culture of celebrity, far too often it is easy to get caught up in the office and forget the purpose. It is easy, believe me, to start to crave adulation and congratulations and post-sermon praise. Despite talk to the contrary, it is far too easy to start to attribute a powerful sermon to one's own education or intellect or natural speaking prowess and forget that any good sermon is a product of the Word and the Holy Spirit. That is not to diminish the role of preparation and prayer leading up to the sermon, but all the prep work in the world will not make a sermon devoid of the Word contain any power to impact lives.
That does not mean that preaching should include false humility or a forced attitude of being soft. Paul was not some nancy boy who whined and simpered for people to let Christ save them. Paul was self deprecating about himself, humbled by his own sin and humbled by his own inability but he was bold as a lion about the God who saved him, the God he served. Most preachers are defeated before they stand in the pulpit by their own lack of resolve and their own lack of recognition of the authority of the Word of God. One final quote...
“DMLJ's faith came out in what he preached, that man was under the wrath of God, depraved and lost. He preached this with absolute conviction, and he followed it up with the cross, week by week. ”
That is what it really comes down to. Any sermon that preaches salvation without preaching sin, that preaches the empty tomb without also preaching the expulsion from Eden, any sermon that proclaims garments as white as snow without also telling of rivers of blood in the temple, is not God honoring preaching. The total depravity of man and the ultimate grace of the cross. Those are the bookends of Bible preaching. If you lack those two factors, any and every sermon will fall down.
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