Post by Jesse Morrell on Jul 23, 2005 0:03:08 GMT -5
Wisdom in Witnessing
&
Points for Preaching
By Jesse Morrell
1) The art form of preaching
We must first recognize that open-air preaching is an acquired skill, as opposed to being a supernatural gift. Such a notion is in fact a great myth-conception. “He who wins souls is wise” (Pr 11:30) yet some view soul winning as though it said “He who wins souls is gifted”. Public speaking may come more naturally to some and seem quite fearful to others. Open-air preaching will not be easy for everyone who is supposed to do it. Once we view preaching as a skill, we can learn to improve our skills to better present the gospel to the lost. It’s been said that “the worst tragedy of your life would be if you step on the stage of history and can’t remember your lines.” This is our chance and our time to make an eternal impact for the King of Heaven. My prayer is that we all be well equipped for the war that is in front of us. May this help feather your arrows and sharpen your axes.
2) Passionate, fiery preaching
History has shown that people will listen to anybody talk about anything so long as it is said with passion. Even the wicked Hitler had a mass following that believed his lies because he spoke with passion. If you want others to believe you, you must first believe yourself. The Israelites followed “fire by night” (Ex 13:22) and in this dark hour we need our lamps to shine the brightest in order to lead the multitudes out of bondage and into the Promised Land.
C. H. Spurgeon tell us: “If I were asked – What in a Christian minister is the most essential quality for securing success in winning souls for Christ? I should reply, ‘earnestness.’ And if I were asked a second or a third time, I should not vary that answer, for personal observation drives me to the conclusion that, as a rule, real success is proportionate to the preacher’s earnestness. Both great men and little men succeed if they are thoroughly alive unto God, and fail if they are not so…’The God that answers by fire, let him be God’; and the man who has a tongue of fire, let him be God’s minister.” So important and so valued this one characteristic was to this Master Orator that he went on to say “No man who preaches the gospel without zeal is sent from God to preach at all.”
As a general rule, monotone preaching is not very moving preaching. You will sooner see a row boat tugging an ocean liner or a go-cart toeing a Mac truck before you see a monotone preacher persuading those who are dead in their sins towards repentance. Fire begets fire. Passionate preachers will create passionate converts. Preaching that is cold and dry will typically not create hearts that are ablaze for the Lord. "Is not My word like a fire?" says the Lord, "And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?" (Jeremiah 23:29)
If passion and urgency belong anywhere at all, they belong in preaching repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ. If men can be passionate about earthly things, how much more can we be passionate about eternal things?
Michael Brown said “Here is an overwhelming truth. Every human being will experience either eternal life or eternal loss, eternal peace or eternal pain, eternal blessing or eternal burning.”
Oh! That we may preach as though we truly believed this! May the lost see the seriousness in our eyes and hear the urgency in our voices. Jeremiah spoke with tears in his eyes and fire in his words. “His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.” (Jer. 22:9)
Charles G. Finney said “Go to a sinner, and talk to him about his guilt and danger; and if in your manner you make an impression that does not tell correspond, you in effect bear testimony the other way, and tell him he is in no danger. If the sinner believes at all that he is in danger of hell, it is wholly on other grounds than you saying so. If you live in such a way as to show that you do not feel compassion for sinners around you; if you show no tenderness, by your eyes, your features, your voice, if your manner is not solemn and earnest, how can they believe you are sincere?”
A preacher once asked a successful actor how it was that he was able to attract multitudes of people to watch him perform, while he was struggling to get crowds to hear him preach. The actor responded with, “I present made up stories as though they were real, while you present real stories as though they were made up.”
3) Be a story-teller
A good preacher is a good story teller. While people may not remember the words they heard, they will remember the images and pictures that they imagined. We must aim to bring people through an experience of the imagination, rather then having them merely receive information. We want the message to be felt, not merely heard. We do this through using illustrations that will engage their imagination.
A. W. Tozer said “The value of a cleansed imagination in the sphere of religion lies in its power to perceive in natural things shadows of things spiritual. It enables the reverent man to ‘see the world in a grain of sand…and eternity in an hour.”
C. S. Lewis said “all our truth, or all but a few fragments, is won by metaphor.”
The Master of Metaphors, Christ Jesus, taught with what I call “profound simplicity” that both children and theologians would say “I get it”. Christ was profoundly simple and therefore he was simply profound. He spoke about the birds of the air, the grass of the ground, the trees of the woods, the fields of the land, the seeds of the farmers, the vines of vineyards, and pulled out divine truth from ordinary objects.
Oswald Chambers said “Learn to associate ideas worthy of God with all that happens in nature-the sunrises and the sunsets, the sun and the stars, the changing seasons, and your imagination will never be at the mercy of your impulses, but will always be at the service of God.”
While ministering on a beach you may say “living in sin is like swimming in the ocean. It certainly is fun, but it wears on you through time. You can’t swim forever! If you try you will certainly die. You need to get onto dry land and be restored in strength. True repentance is just that. Turning away from sin and to the solid rock of Jesus Christ because you know that if continue to swim in sin you will die.” Or you can say something like “God’s grace is not simply sun-tan lotion to keep you from getting burned when you play under the sun of sin. God’s grace is like a full grown tree providing shadow for those weary of being beaten by the scourging rays of sin.” When preaching on a college campus you may say “God will not ‘grade on the curve’ and there is no way that you can skip the Final Exam that He gives.” When you are arrested for preaching and are brought before the courts, ask the judge if he is ready to stand in The Court Room of the Judge of Judges. If ministering to those waiting outside a court house to get in, put it in terms they will understand. “One day you will have to answer in God’s courthouse for the crimes you’ve committed against Him. In that Day your conscience will be the witnessing, the Law will be the merciless prosecutor, God will sit as Judge, but Christ can be your advocate if you’d have Him.” Take something that people know in order to teach them something that they don’t know.
Warren W. Wiersbe said “It’s by using metaphorical language that you turn people’s ears into eyes and help them see the truth.”
Use your words to take sinners on a tour of hell. Let them see the souls in tormenting flames crying out in continual pain and eternal agony. Let them smell the burning flesh and the burning sulfur. Let them feel the great and terrible horror of God’s true and righteous judgments. Then take them on a tour of Heaven to see all the wonders and glory of God. Let them hear the praises of the heavenly hosts. Let them see the glorious and victorious Lamb that was slain; to see the precious red blood that was spilt for them. Let them feel the peace of God’s prepared resting place for all His Saints.
God is an artist. We are his brushes. Words are His paint. Hearts and minds are His canvases. And His desire is to paint a master-piece!
4) Preach life from your own life
A testimony is a powerful weapon in the hands of a witness. As the famous saying goes “a man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an argument.” Who can argue with your personal testimony? Who can tell you what you did or did not experience? What is a witness if he is not someone who testifies to that which he has seen and heard? It is of such high important that we use our testimonies when testifying that the bible mentions it multiple times, and God is typically not one to repeat himself! “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” Ac 4:20). “For thou shall be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard”( Ac 22:15), “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”(1Jo 1:3). “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” (Re 12:11).
I would recommend telling the crowd your testimony, even if it is brief, as soon as possible. This can lay the firm foundation of rapport for the rest of your message and will also serve by shattering any “holier then thou” misconceptions that they might have. Give people water to drink out of the wells of personal experience. Certainly some will have deeper wells to draw from then others, but both have water that can be pulled from them just the same.
&
Points for Preaching
By Jesse Morrell
1) The art form of preaching
We must first recognize that open-air preaching is an acquired skill, as opposed to being a supernatural gift. Such a notion is in fact a great myth-conception. “He who wins souls is wise” (Pr 11:30) yet some view soul winning as though it said “He who wins souls is gifted”. Public speaking may come more naturally to some and seem quite fearful to others. Open-air preaching will not be easy for everyone who is supposed to do it. Once we view preaching as a skill, we can learn to improve our skills to better present the gospel to the lost. It’s been said that “the worst tragedy of your life would be if you step on the stage of history and can’t remember your lines.” This is our chance and our time to make an eternal impact for the King of Heaven. My prayer is that we all be well equipped for the war that is in front of us. May this help feather your arrows and sharpen your axes.
2) Passionate, fiery preaching
History has shown that people will listen to anybody talk about anything so long as it is said with passion. Even the wicked Hitler had a mass following that believed his lies because he spoke with passion. If you want others to believe you, you must first believe yourself. The Israelites followed “fire by night” (Ex 13:22) and in this dark hour we need our lamps to shine the brightest in order to lead the multitudes out of bondage and into the Promised Land.
C. H. Spurgeon tell us: “If I were asked – What in a Christian minister is the most essential quality for securing success in winning souls for Christ? I should reply, ‘earnestness.’ And if I were asked a second or a third time, I should not vary that answer, for personal observation drives me to the conclusion that, as a rule, real success is proportionate to the preacher’s earnestness. Both great men and little men succeed if they are thoroughly alive unto God, and fail if they are not so…’The God that answers by fire, let him be God’; and the man who has a tongue of fire, let him be God’s minister.” So important and so valued this one characteristic was to this Master Orator that he went on to say “No man who preaches the gospel without zeal is sent from God to preach at all.”
As a general rule, monotone preaching is not very moving preaching. You will sooner see a row boat tugging an ocean liner or a go-cart toeing a Mac truck before you see a monotone preacher persuading those who are dead in their sins towards repentance. Fire begets fire. Passionate preachers will create passionate converts. Preaching that is cold and dry will typically not create hearts that are ablaze for the Lord. "Is not My word like a fire?" says the Lord, "And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?" (Jeremiah 23:29)
If passion and urgency belong anywhere at all, they belong in preaching repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ. If men can be passionate about earthly things, how much more can we be passionate about eternal things?
Michael Brown said “Here is an overwhelming truth. Every human being will experience either eternal life or eternal loss, eternal peace or eternal pain, eternal blessing or eternal burning.”
Oh! That we may preach as though we truly believed this! May the lost see the seriousness in our eyes and hear the urgency in our voices. Jeremiah spoke with tears in his eyes and fire in his words. “His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.” (Jer. 22:9)
Charles G. Finney said “Go to a sinner, and talk to him about his guilt and danger; and if in your manner you make an impression that does not tell correspond, you in effect bear testimony the other way, and tell him he is in no danger. If the sinner believes at all that he is in danger of hell, it is wholly on other grounds than you saying so. If you live in such a way as to show that you do not feel compassion for sinners around you; if you show no tenderness, by your eyes, your features, your voice, if your manner is not solemn and earnest, how can they believe you are sincere?”
A preacher once asked a successful actor how it was that he was able to attract multitudes of people to watch him perform, while he was struggling to get crowds to hear him preach. The actor responded with, “I present made up stories as though they were real, while you present real stories as though they were made up.”
3) Be a story-teller
A good preacher is a good story teller. While people may not remember the words they heard, they will remember the images and pictures that they imagined. We must aim to bring people through an experience of the imagination, rather then having them merely receive information. We want the message to be felt, not merely heard. We do this through using illustrations that will engage their imagination.
A. W. Tozer said “The value of a cleansed imagination in the sphere of religion lies in its power to perceive in natural things shadows of things spiritual. It enables the reverent man to ‘see the world in a grain of sand…and eternity in an hour.”
C. S. Lewis said “all our truth, or all but a few fragments, is won by metaphor.”
The Master of Metaphors, Christ Jesus, taught with what I call “profound simplicity” that both children and theologians would say “I get it”. Christ was profoundly simple and therefore he was simply profound. He spoke about the birds of the air, the grass of the ground, the trees of the woods, the fields of the land, the seeds of the farmers, the vines of vineyards, and pulled out divine truth from ordinary objects.
Oswald Chambers said “Learn to associate ideas worthy of God with all that happens in nature-the sunrises and the sunsets, the sun and the stars, the changing seasons, and your imagination will never be at the mercy of your impulses, but will always be at the service of God.”
While ministering on a beach you may say “living in sin is like swimming in the ocean. It certainly is fun, but it wears on you through time. You can’t swim forever! If you try you will certainly die. You need to get onto dry land and be restored in strength. True repentance is just that. Turning away from sin and to the solid rock of Jesus Christ because you know that if continue to swim in sin you will die.” Or you can say something like “God’s grace is not simply sun-tan lotion to keep you from getting burned when you play under the sun of sin. God’s grace is like a full grown tree providing shadow for those weary of being beaten by the scourging rays of sin.” When preaching on a college campus you may say “God will not ‘grade on the curve’ and there is no way that you can skip the Final Exam that He gives.” When you are arrested for preaching and are brought before the courts, ask the judge if he is ready to stand in The Court Room of the Judge of Judges. If ministering to those waiting outside a court house to get in, put it in terms they will understand. “One day you will have to answer in God’s courthouse for the crimes you’ve committed against Him. In that Day your conscience will be the witnessing, the Law will be the merciless prosecutor, God will sit as Judge, but Christ can be your advocate if you’d have Him.” Take something that people know in order to teach them something that they don’t know.
Warren W. Wiersbe said “It’s by using metaphorical language that you turn people’s ears into eyes and help them see the truth.”
Use your words to take sinners on a tour of hell. Let them see the souls in tormenting flames crying out in continual pain and eternal agony. Let them smell the burning flesh and the burning sulfur. Let them feel the great and terrible horror of God’s true and righteous judgments. Then take them on a tour of Heaven to see all the wonders and glory of God. Let them hear the praises of the heavenly hosts. Let them see the glorious and victorious Lamb that was slain; to see the precious red blood that was spilt for them. Let them feel the peace of God’s prepared resting place for all His Saints.
God is an artist. We are his brushes. Words are His paint. Hearts and minds are His canvases. And His desire is to paint a master-piece!
4) Preach life from your own life
A testimony is a powerful weapon in the hands of a witness. As the famous saying goes “a man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an argument.” Who can argue with your personal testimony? Who can tell you what you did or did not experience? What is a witness if he is not someone who testifies to that which he has seen and heard? It is of such high important that we use our testimonies when testifying that the bible mentions it multiple times, and God is typically not one to repeat himself! “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” Ac 4:20). “For thou shall be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard”( Ac 22:15), “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”(1Jo 1:3). “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” (Re 12:11).
I would recommend telling the crowd your testimony, even if it is brief, as soon as possible. This can lay the firm foundation of rapport for the rest of your message and will also serve by shattering any “holier then thou” misconceptions that they might have. Give people water to drink out of the wells of personal experience. Certainly some will have deeper wells to draw from then others, but both have water that can be pulled from them just the same.