In anticipation of attending Worship tomorrow I believe the following quotes on preaching by Spurgeon are most timely:Surely if men’s hearts were right, short sermons would be enough.
If you always enjoy sermons, the minister is not a good steward. He is not acting wisely who deals out nothing but sweets.
Faithful preachers are among God’s best gifts. Cherish them, and be obedient to their admonitions. I have known persons become offended when a minister is “too personal;” but wise men always prize a ministry in proportion as it is personal to themselves. He who never tells me of my faults, nor makes me feel uneasy, is not likely to be the means of good to my soul. What is the use of a dog that never barks?
You are listening to a man who professes to speak by God, and for God, and to speak for your good; and his heart yearns over you. Oh, it is solemn work to preach, and it should be solemn work to hear!
And so before tomorrow, let's take some time to contemplate our "solemn work to hear!"
4 comments:
hi Bro,
I am preaching tomorrow evening and understand that it is a solemn (and scary) thing to preach it is worth pondering how solemn an event listening is. What makes you a renegade :-)
Stephen
The "Renegade" comes from the fact that I always seem to be the renegade at the churches I have attended. If the church is more "traditional" I was the renegade because I was trying to drag them into this century. Or, if the church was more "modern" I was trying not to let them forget their true Reformed roots. So wherever I attnded I seemed to be the Renegade. Take a look at some of the posts I've made on John Frame and his writings and you'll see where I'm coming from. Would like your opinion, too.
Thanks for posting this admonition. We ought to prepare ourselves to receive the Word of God preached. There's a ton of books and articles out there about how to preach a sermon; I'm thinking we live in a generation that needs to be taught how to hear one!
Yes, too often, whether we want to admit it or not, we want our ears tickled, myself included. We need to get back to some basics. We need to to be ready to hear, accept and apply some things that we would really rather not.
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