Transcript:

It is a joy to be here. I bring you greetings from Kansas City, Mo., and your sister seminary, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. My wife, Karen, is here with me this morning, and we have five young children. It is a delight to serve the convention and to serve the churches of the convention and to be here today. I’m grateful to Dr. Patterson for having me down to Fort Worth to recruit personnel . . . I mean, to preach in chapel. Just kidding, you can keep your gun holstered, but it is good to be here today.

I was talking to my 10-year-old daughter the other day about preaching in chapel here. She has come to know and to study our domination, which is a real joy to me to see our children awakened to these realities. I tell you, she had your résumé pretty well down. She knew what you had done, where you had been, and she said, “Dr. Patterson is at Southwestern Seminary.” I said, “Yes.” She said, “Before that, he was at Southeastern.” I said “Yes.” She said, “He was part of this Conservation Resurgence.” I said, “Yes, he led that.” She said, “Daddy, how long has he been in denominational leadership?” I answered her earnestly and said, “Not long enough.” I mean that with all my heart. I am grateful to God for your president here and the first lady, Mrs. Patterson, and all that is taking place on this campus.

I want to draw your attention this morning to the book of I Timothy, chapter 6. I want to read two verses this morning, verses 11 and 12. My sermon title is this, “Where have All the Godly Men Gone?” First Timothy, chapter 6, we will be looking at verses 11 and 12 together.

But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

{Prayer}

It is a joy to serve one of your sister seminaries. I was elected this past October and we moved as a family this past November. What called me to Midwestern, I suppose—above anything else—was a love for the local church that exists in my heart. I love the local church, and I love Southern Baptist churches. My wife will tell you that we will take road trips as a family and be driving out in the middle of nowhere, and I will see a little Southern Baptist church. My car will just pull over magnetically into the parking lot just to get out and walk around and look at the church. Of course, the church is more than bricks and mortar. I share that to say, my heart is given to the churches of this convention.

You think about the structure we have: about 46,000 churches, about 16 million Southern Baptists, and the six seminaries they have entrusted to train ministers, pastors, and missionaries for the Church. I believe in the church. I believe Christ will build his church. I believe Christ is building his church. I believe the church is the very center of Christ’s kingdom activity. I have a passion for the local church. With all of that I have, I also have a burden for our churches. That burden is tethered to these two verses because it is a burden that intersects with my desire to see more godly men. A question that presses on me with great frequency is, “Where have all the godly men gone?”

If you think of it, the church exists in a state of irony these days. We have more conferences than ever, but fewer conversions. We have more books than ever, but fewer baptisms. We have more words than ever—we talk about everything, and we talk over everything—but we seem to have less witness. We have more products and paraphernalia perhaps than ever, but little power. We have more and nicer facilities than ever, but no fire. We have more resources than ever, but no revival. Perhaps the antidote to these things, by God’s grace, is that he would raise up godly men to serve our churches. That he would do an awakening and call forth a new generation of godly pastors and godly men who will serve and lead our churches.

I ask the question, “Why so few godly men?” Perhaps we are getting fewer of them because we are expecting and desiring fewer of them. Churches seem not to want them. Churches seem to look on the outward, not the heart. They look for men as pastors with administrative abilities, with speaking gifts, with people skills, with cute families, and all the rest before they look for men who, first and foremost, are men of God. In fact, if you think about it, modern ministry seems not to necessitate godliness.

In the history of the church, pastors have never been more removed from the life of the congregation than now. In the New Testament, we see ministers living with the church throughout the history of the church. We see pastors living by and near and among the church. Now we seem so distant, so aloof. We seek our pastoral engagement through social media more than life-on-life connectivity. We have members who are over-committed in their lives. We have pastors that are over-committed in ministry. Both pull each separate from the other, a together in life-on-life ministry, where that moral accountability would be more present.

Moreover, if you think about it, ministerial peer pressure seems not to encourage godliness. The conversations on your campus are perhaps much like mine. They are often given to more talking about books, blogs, conferences, topics, and things. It is though we have elevated the accouterments of ministry and the garnishes of ministry above and beyond the eternal, the lasting, the true biblical urgencies in ministry. It is as though someone has snuck into the shopping mall of the kingdom and changed all the price tags, upsetting and inverting God’s value system by elevating the ancillary and the mundane aspects of Christian ministry, all the while cheapening the true virtues and true values of ministry.

So, my charge for us this morning, and my plea for this morning is simple, but it is really daunting. My great ambition is that God would do a renewed awakening in our churches—a new work in our churches. A part of that, the very heart of that, I believe will be raising up of men of God. Perhaps we won’t know revival in our pews until we first have revival in our pulpits.

I want to draw your attention to these two verses this morning, and quite simply, just unpack for us what we are presented here about a man of God. You recall what is going on here. This is Timothy, Paul’s son in the faith, one to whom he has entrusted much. He is exhorting him to stand strong in this book and in II Timothy. He is teaching him how to do church, what a healthy church should look like, and how a healthy ministry should function. Timothy is serving the church at Ephesus, which was losing its way. He gives Timothy a designation in verse 11. This title, in verse 11, occurs in the New Testament only in association with Timothy. In referencing him, he says in verse 11, “flee from these things you man of God.”

It’s a unique, a lofty, a noble title. In the Old Testament, it’s bestowed on men like Moses, Samuel, David, Elijah, and Elisha. In the New Testament, it’s given singularly to Timothy. It’s a title of contrast. He says, “But you flee from these things, you man of God.” In the Old Testament, it often contrasted true prophets, true spokesmen of God, with false prophets. Here, it does the same in this passage as in chapter six. It is this great statement of contrast between those who will be false teachers, those who will be carnal in ministry. It is a title of exhortation to be godly. It is a title of encouragement to buck-up. As Paul charges Timothy with this title, Timothy knows exactly what is going on because he knew the sacred writings. It rang a bell in Timothy’s heart, and he knew it as an aspirational title—that which he should long for and seek after.

What strikes me as peculiar about it is that it is associated with so much action here in verses 11–12 especially. When we think of a godly man, we tend to think of one that is contemplative, one that is meditative, one that is reflective. I suppose that is right and true because prayer, biblical intake, and all of the rest do need contemplation, reflection, and meditation. But here this title is given in a context of action. It is a context of action surrounded by these calls to fight for certain things, grasp for certain things, follow after certain things, and flee from certain things. So, it comes as a title of honor, but not an honorific title. It is a title earned by merit, but not an emeritus title, because it is bestowed upon the one who would do the things prescribed here. That is why it shows up situated in this list of commands and admonitions.

Now the passage unfolds quite clearly. If you are a note-taker, it just does not take much creativity to comprise this sermon outline because it is so obvious. By the way, the best sermon outlines are the ones that are obvious in the text. Notice what we are presented with first. Who would be the man of God? The first call of the man of God is to flee from all immorality. Notice verse 11, “But you, man of God, you flee from these things.” You keep fleeing from these things. It strikes me as interesting that to be a man of God one must put on his running shoes, figuratively. You run from certain things.

There is a reference to preceding verses here. Back to verse three: run to flee from unsound doctrine, from false doctrine. Notice verse three,

If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions . . .

He challenges Timothy to flee from certain things, and the first thing he calls Timothy to flee from is false doctrine. You may be thinking, “That seems peculiar because doctrine is first and foremost an intellectual endeavor.” We tend to think of godliness as a lifestyle or disposition of the heart, but the two are tethered together here. They are connected. Listen closely. You cannot be a man of God that embraces false doctrine. I was having a conversation a few weeks back with a man who I will leave nameless, but by any estimation is one of the most infamous theological liberals of the 20^th century. When I got done visiting with him, several men that I serve with at Midwestern said, “How was the conversation? How did it go?” I said, “He was very kind.” They said, “Yes, we have heard he is a godly man.” I said, “No, he is not. He is not a godly man. You cannot be a godly man and reject the truth of the faith.” You can be a mild-mannered man. You can be a soft-spoken man. You can be a sheepish man and reject the faith. But you cannot be a godly man and reject the faith.

Notice also what he says here in verses four and five: not only to flee from false doctrine, but flee from divisive personalities. Again, this is tied to false doctrine here. This person is “conceited. They understand nothing. They have a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.” He says, “You run from people that are pugilistic, or argumentative, because they are bitter and envious and angry.”

Notice what he also says in verses 6–10, “Flee from the love of money.” This really is the full gist of Paul’s concern here for Timothy. Godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation, a snare, and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction: “For the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”

Why such concern over money? If you read your New Testament carefully, you see much said about money from Jesus and from the apostles. You also know that repeatedly we see the church called to rightly care for those who would serve the Word of God to them and would labor among them. So, we are presented with a balance, but here the concern is clearly that Timothy, the man of God, would guard his heart from the love of money. Then, Paul ticks through what this corrosive desire can do to ministry, to the Christian life, and how it can fundamentally disorient who we are in Christ and what we are to be doing for Christ in ministry.

I love bi-vocational ministers. They form the backbone of our denomination. I have served as a bi-vocational pastor before. I get what bi-vocational ministry is, and I praise God for bi-vocational ministers. May their tribe increase, and may we do a better job serving them as a denomination. The type of bi-vocational ministry that is supplementing one’s income so that you are not a burden for the church when the church fundamentally does not have enough resources to meet the needs of your family I applaud, I congratulate, I pray for, I cherish, I value. The type of bi-vocational ministry that is not based upon a lack of resources of the church, to not be a burden for the church, or to free up resources within the church, but is driven by a love of money where a person is always seeking to supplement their income, I fear for you. That is a hindrance to the church. It can disorient your call. It can disorient what God has called you to do, and it can lead to material greed that is given to pursuing filthy lucre. It can undermine your credibility and your calling in ministry. If God has called you to bi-vocational ministry, then do nothing else. If he is calling you to serve Christ and the church with all that you are, all that you have, and all of the time he gives you, do not dare take up some secondary pursuit. You fall from these things. You run, you sprint, and you dash mentally, emotionally, sometimes literally. You flee from immorality.

Let me give a personal word of encouragement to the men in the room. Do not think you will outgrow the lust of the flesh. You run from it all of your life and all of your ministry. The great preacher, Vance Abner, as an old man once said, “I pray, Lord, keep me from becoming a dirty old man.” You never cease running as long as you live.

Notice what we are presented with as we move forward in this passage. It is not only to run from something or to flee from something, but to follow after Christ-likeness. Notice verse 11b, “Flee from these things, you man of God and pursue, follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness.” You must follow after and intentionally cultivate these things. When we come to a set of words like this in our Bibles, there is a tendency to conclude that this is sort of a pile up of words and just to gloss over them. It is not a pile up of words. Let’s consider each one.

Paul says first of all, to follow after righteousness, referring to that outward testimony—your relationship with God and man. We especially think of this in light of I Timothy 3:1–7 and the characteristics of the minister. It is this ongoing call to live a life above reproach and in ongoing accountability to God’s Word and to God’s people. You live a life of righteousness, a life of godliness, referring to the inner man—that state of being internally, spiritually vibrant, where there is a life in the soul, God’s Word is fresh, your prayer life is real, and worship is the overflow of your heart. It touches on the motives, thoughts, ambitions, passions, and your inner moral disposition. You pursue this level of godliness.

Matthew Henry once famously said, “There are some men who preach so well, it is a shame they should ever come out of the pulpit, but live so worldly, it is a shame they should ever enter into it.” Let that not be you. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith—this confident trust in God, a dependence on him, not on your gifts, resources, or money. Pursue love, a sacrificial love, and then again, perseverance, knowing in ministry there might well be dark hours of the soul—trying times inflicted on you by ungodly people who will attack you and your ministry. You persevere. I love this caboose word here: gentleness. All of this is with a spirit of humility, meekness.

Why is this so urgent? Listen closely, especially men who would pastor churches. There is a trickle-down effect between you and your ministry. You show me a college minister who is godly, over time, I will show you a college ministry that becomes more godly. You show me a youth minister that is godly, over time, I will show you a youth ministry of godly young people. You show me a pastor who is a godly man, over time, I will show you a church increasing in godliness. You can add many other descriptors there. You should me an evangelistic pastor, I will show you a church over time that becomes evangelistic. You show me a pastor given to prayer, I will show you a church over time that is increasingly given to prayer. There is this trickle-down effect that takes place. As you follow Christ’s likeness, those under your charge will be increasingly Christ-like. Paul would tell Timothy in a sister passage to “Guard your light and your doctrine because as you do, you will ensure salvation for yourself and for those who hear you.” There is a trickle-down effect in ministry, so it is all the more urgent that we pursue, we follow after, Christ-likeness.

I am still a relatively young man, as Dr. Smith noted. I have been serving in ministry for about 15 years in one role or another. I have been able to get to know many different people in ministry over those years. I have been in ministry long enough to see the track records of some of the other young men pursuing ministry the same time as me. Tragically, regretfully, there are a couple of those who have flamed out in spectacular ways and, given some scandalous activity, brought reproach on the name of Christ, tarnished them, and disrupted their families in significant and tragic ways. There are more who are not in ministry anymore, not because of some scandalous sin, but because day-by-day, little-by-little, they just quit following after Christ-likeness. Their call to ministry withered over the years, and their love for Christ withered over the years. There was never a single event where some tragic activity occurred that dispelled them from ministry. Rather, they woke up one day and in place of that love for Christ, the church, and the gospel that once compelled them to ministry was nothing but ashes.

I grew up as a boy on the Gulf Coast in Mobile, Ala. My folks lived on the water and they still do. I grew up with boats, and most summer afternoons we would be out boating and fishing or skiing and doing things that boys do on the water in boats. There was an old man who lived down the river from us, a man who was dear to our family. He is still alive. He is in his 90s now, and his name is Mr. Denmark. I would drive our little boat to his house and would visit with him there. If we ever needed a tool to borrow, we went to his house. He had a surplus of tools. He and his wife had gone to yard sales their whole lives and had accumulated anything that could be accumulated. You know folks like that. So, whenever we needed a tool, we would go to his house. I wanted a fishing lure, and he had 80 of the kind I wanted. I needed to borrow a rod and reel, and he had 300 rods and reels to borrow. He had all of this stuff. He was a kind old man, and he had lived in his house for more than 50 years. He built it as a young man to live in. He had several hundred feet of shoreline and a huge yard there on the water. I would drive my boat up, tie up to his yard, and get out and visit him once or twice a week. He was the neatest guy to know.

Everyone else had these sea walls that they had built that clearly walled-in their property, and it was very clear whose property was where, but he did not have a sea wall. One day I was talking to him, and there was a pylon out in the water about 3–4 feet out from the shore. I said, “Mr. Denmark, what is that pylon there?” He said, “That is where my property was when I bought the house. My shoreline went all the way out there when I bought this property many decades ago, and I drove a pylon there because I was going to build a sea wall, but I never quite got around to it.” I said, “Why not?” He said, “When I was a young man, I had the time and energy, but not the money. Now that I am an old man, I have the money but not the time nor energy.” I said, “You mean to tell me that when you bought this property your bank went all the way out to there?” He said, “Yes. Over the years, as boats go by and the tide flows and waves lap, it has washed away much of what is mine.”

I fear for brothers and sisters in ministry who are not following after Christ-likeness. Subtly, unbeknownst, you wake up one day, and that once-clear call and once-clear standards of ministry have eroded away. You wake up one day and realize that pylon used to be me, but now this is all that is left.

Ministry is not a passive action, and the man of God is not a passive man. He runs from certain things, and he follows after certain things. Notice, thirdly, what we see in verse 12. He not only flees from immorality and follows after Christ-likeness, he fights for biblical truth. He fights the good fight of faith. He fights the good fight of the faith—a better rendering here. It is a reference to the truth of Scripture. As Jude would say, “To contend earnestly for the faith once and for all, delivered to the saints.” It is this phrase that draws comparisons to the military world or the athletic world. It is to concentrate, to focus, to discipline yourself for something. Not only to fight for the truth, not in contradiction to being a godly man, it is precisely a part of being a godly man. It is here in this passage plain as day, “Timothy, you man of God.” With that title and charge comes a certain responsibility—fight for biblical truth.

You have a pattern here you know well. Your president has given his life contending for biblical truth here. Listen closely: there will always be your fights, and there will always be your challenges. Do not spend your energy over the petty, but give your life to the things that matter—especially the truth of Scripture. We are all inheritors. We are all stewards of this Word that we have been given. Each one of us takes the baton in our own generation to fight for biblical truth. There is a New Testament preoccupation with truth, isn’t there now? Look, for instance, in verses 3–4—I alluded to them already:

If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with a doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions.

Look over in II Timothy 1:13–14: “Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.” Second Timothy 2:25: “Be diligent to present yourself a workman, approved to God who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” Of course, Titus 2:15 famously reminds us, “These things, speak and exhort and approve with all authority. Let no one disregard you.”

Throughout your Bibles, especially throughout your New Testament, you see this persistent call to be men and women of the truth. Why is that? It is because from the Garden of Eden, when Satan’s, “Hath God said,” became the common question throughout history and has been this ongoing undermining of the Word of Truth. The man of God is the one who will have none of that. He is the one who will fight for truth.

Interestingly enough, I told you a half-truth earlier in the sermon. This passage is the only New Testament designation where a man of God is tied specifically to a person—Timothy. The phrase does show up one other place. It is in II Timothy 3:16–17, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” The direct connection of the truth of Scripture to the man of God, in such a way that he who would be a man of God, is the one whose life is given to Scripture.

Notice with me in verse 12, this fourth charge to be faithful to your call. “Take hold of the eternal life to which you are called and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” I love this phrase. Of course, it does not mean to cling to something because if you do not, you will lose it. It is a reminder to hold tightly in a way that means to cherish your call. If you are in ministry, you have a double call. It is a call to Christ and a call to ministry. You cling to that and hold it closely. As a footnote here, we see a harmony of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. “You take hold of the eternal life to which you were called,” and by the way, “that to which you made a good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” You take hold of that, you cling to that. That is the mark of the man of God.

I am not nearly as adventurous as your president. I bruise way too easily. His office is marked by animals that he has slain. If my office were to display slain animals, it would consist largely of framed insects and the like. I did have some adventure a couple of weeks ago. I was on a little plane flying back to Kansas City from Oklahoma. It was one of these really little planes that had one propeller. It was an old plane, and I was flying with one gentleman, another up front with him, and another in the back with me.

We were flying back from Oklahoma City through ice. I thought, “These guys know what they are doing. We will be fine.” We were trying to fly around the ice, but the closer we got to Kansas City, the more intense it got and the engine began sputtering like it is trying to deal with condensation. I was ignoring it thinking, “If they are not worried, I’m not worried.” I was in the back reading and minding my own business. We were 2,500 feet above downtown Kansas City as we were coming in, and we went from a sputtering engine to a stopped engine. It was a graveyard dead engine, as Jerry Clower would say.

It was shut down, and I learned something in that moment. Big planes with big wings coast. Little planes with little wings drop. We were seated there, and that plane began to descend so rapidly it nearly scared me to death. I’ve learned that in these situations you watch the pilot, and if they are not too worried, you are not worried. They were worried. They were frantic up there, turning gauges and switching things around. They finally switched to another fuel tank and flushed the moisture out. It reignited and we were able to land, but it scared the begeebers out of me and it should have.

I do not want to over-torch the story. I do not have some glorious scene that took place there, but I tell you, I thought about that a lot afterward. I thought about that a lot with this passage and with what the Lord has entrusted to me. Whenever I meet him, that day or many days forward, I will tell you how I want to be known. I could care less if anyone remembers I did a Ph.D. I could really care less if anyone knows that I was a seminary president. Preacher is a nice title, pastor is a nice title, and brother is a nice title. I want to be known as a man of God, and I want you to be known as men of God. The church needs you, and our convention needs you. I dare say, the Lord needs you. Where will they come? How will we find them?

Let me conclude with this charge: how to have a man of God. Fling him to his office, tear the office sign from the door, and nail on the sign, “STUDY.” Take him off the mailing list, lock him up with his books and his Bible, slam him down on his knees before texts and broken hearts and the flock of lives—of a superficial flock—and a holy God.

Force him to be the one man in our shallow communities who knows about God. Throw him into the ring to box with God until he learns how short his arms really are. Engage him to wrestle with God all the night through, and let him come out only when he is bruised and beaten into a blessing. Shut his mouth forever of spouting remarks, and stop his tongue forever, tripping lightly over every non-essential.

Require him to have something today before he dares break the silence. Bend his knees in the lonesome valley. Burn his eyes with weary study. Wreck his emotional poise with worry for God, and make him exchange his pious stance for a humble walk with God and man. Make him spend and be spent for the glory of God. Rip out his telephone, burn up his ecclesiastical success sheets. Put water in his gas tank. Give him a Bible and tie him to the pulpit and make him preach the Word of the living God.

Test him, quiz him, examine him, and humiliate him for his ignorance of things divine. Shame him for his good comprehension of finances, batting averages, and political infighting. Laugh at his frustrated effort to play psychiatrist. Form a choir and raise a chant and haunt him with it night and day. Sir, we would see Jesus.

When at long last, he dares enter the pulpit, ask him if he has a Word from God. If he does not, then dismiss him. Tell him, you can read the morning paper, digest the television commentaries, think through the day’s superficial problems, manage the community’s weary drives, and bless the sorted baked potatoes and green beans ad infinitum better than he can. Command him not to come back until he has read and re-read, written and re-written, prayed and re-prayed, until he can stand up worn and forlorn, but rightly say, “Thus sayeth the Lord.”

Break him across the board of his ill-gotten popularity, smack him hard with his own prestige, corner him with questions about God, cover him with demands for celestial wisdom, and give him no escape until he is backed against the wall of Scripture. Sit down before him and listen to the only word he has left—God’s Word. Let him be totally ignorant of the down-street gossip, but give him a chapter and order him to walk around in it, to camp on it, to sup with it, and come at last to speak it backward and forward, until all he says about it rings with the truth of eternity.

When he is burned out by the flaming word, when he is consumed at last by the fiery grace blazing through him, and when he is privileged to translate the truth of God to man, finally transferred from earth to heaven, then bear him away gently, blow a muted trumpet, and lay him down softly. Place a two-edged sword in his coffin and raise the tomb triumphant. For he was a brave soldier of Scripture, and ere he died. He had become a man of God.

{Prayer}

Audio: A Conversation with John MacArthur about Preaching

Transcript:

Dr. Allen:

Dr. MacArthur, it is a joy to host you here in the Spurgeon Room on the campus of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. We are in the Spurgeon Room, surrounded by Spurgeon’s library, desk, and books on preaching. So, it is so fitting and appropriate to talk to you, who in my estimation and in the estimation of many others have proven to be our generation’s Spurgeon—a man with a massive ministry that impacts so many people in so many different conduits, but at the very center of that, like Spurgeon, is the pulpit ministry.

I want to talk preaching with you today. Let me begin by asking you, as you think of yourself—your fundamental identity beyond husband and father—is it safe to assume that you think of yourself first and foremost as a preacher or pastor?

Dr. MacArthur:

Oh, absolutely. Even as I think of myself as a pastor, I think of myself as a preacher. All that I really have to offer as a pastor is my preaching. Anybody else can offer anything else. Anybody else can come alongside, sympathize, care for, come up with good ideas, and offer some leadership. Lay people can do that. In fact, hopefully we are training people to do that so that we can multiply ministry.

I am, above all things, a preacher. I could give up everything tomorrow. I could walk away from radio. I really do not care. If the Lord wants me to do that, that’s fine. I do not need to write another book. I do not need to be a president of an institution. I do not need any of that, but I cannot live if I do not preach.

It is not that I am driven by the crowd to do that. It is not external. I am driven internally to do that. This is a calling upon my life. It is almost an inexplicable drive within me. It is work to preach, as you well know. It is work to prepare, but I do it, and I do it with a certain joy. Sometimes I stand up, even now, after all these years, and I walk around because I am overwhelmed by what I have just discovered or seen. It is an internal drive that is the heart of a calling. It is not because I can do it. It is not because I can communicate, have skill at communication, or because people like to listen to me. It is internal.

Sometimes people say, “Well, you came to our church, and we just have a little church and it is so nice of you to come.” That is irrelevant to me. It is not about them. It is about me. It is about this passion internally to deliver the Word of God. That is what drives me. That is who I am. Every book I have ever written started as a sermon. Every commentary I have ever written started as a sermon. In fact, I have other jobs, and what I do is meet with people and preach at them.

Dr. Allen:

That is good, and of course, it is so Pauline: “If any man aspires to the office of the overseer.” It is the burden of the prophet, the fire in their bones, overflowing into the heart, and you cannot envision yourself doing anything else, nor can a generation of ministers, pastors, and church members who have been affected by your ministry.

When we think of preaching specifically—define, in your own words—expository preaching. What is it?

Dr. MacArthur:

Maybe we could just make a contrast. Sometimes you hear people say, “Expose the text.” That is not the verb. The verb is not “expose.” That is one thing. The verb is “exposit.” That is a specific verb, and what it means is to explain. An exposition is an explanation. That is as simple as I can make it. Explain the meaning of Scripture.

Now, having said that, the society in which you live—the culture and whatever is intuitive to you—has no bearing on that explanation. What is going on around you or what is going on inside of you has no bearing on that explanation. The only thing that has bearing on that explanation is the context in which that explanation was founded or grounded. So, we have to talk about authorial intent. What was the intent of the divine author and the human instrument when that was written down? It is so important for people to understand that true biblical exposition must take the listener back to the original context.

So, instead of saying we have to bring the Bible into modern times, that is exactly the opposite of what we need to do. We need to take the modern hearer into Bible times. I think the adventure for us at Grace Church is that we have lived in the Bible. Our people have dirt on their feet from walking the dusty roads with Jesus. They live in the New Testament world. They know the Pharisees. They feel the ethos of Jesus in a crowd in a village because they have lived that, because we have painted that picture for them. They know what Isaiah was going through. They understand what it meant for Jeremiah to be thrown into a pit.

The great excitement of biblical exposition is taking people on a historical journey. I know people today want to go forward into fantasy land, which is counterproductive. What we do is take them back into real biblical history and let the Bible come alive. That is the heart of biblical exposition. You cannot know what it meant unless you recreate the setting: geographically, socially, historically, linguistically, and all of those things.

I have to say that because there are people who read a verse and bounce off of it, and read another verse and bounce off of it, and read another verse and bounce off of it. That is not Bible exposition. You may take a simple truth from Scripture and expound on it or talk about it for a little bit, but exposition works in a unique way.

Let me explain it this way, if I have explained the Bible well enough, and accomplished the setup well enough, I can read the verse and they will understand the meaning. Just creating the context and reading the verse, boom, it comes to life. It is as simple as Jesus saying, “I am the light of the world.” You can take, “I am the light of the world” in John 8 and say, “Yeah, he is the light of the world. The world is dark, and needs his light,” but what was going on there? Well, he was in the part of the temple where the great candelabra had been extinguished because the feast was over. This was the first day that the light was out, and he stands up and says, “I am the light of the world, I never go out.” Wow! Now you have put him there. That is how you really explain the meaning of Scripture. That is what Bible exposition is.

Dr. Allen:

That is so well said. I read an article a number of years ago by a gentleman who was referencing and describing different influential speakers. When he came to John MacArthur, he said the “secret sauce”—that is my phrase, not his—of your preaching was that you preach with unsurpassed confidence. He meant that as more of a clinical assessment, and of course, I know what he missed, and want you to comment on. You are a confident preacher, but your confidence is not something that you conjure up within yourself. You are confident because you preach the Scripture. So, talk about what confidence is in preaching, and how that is derived.

Dr. MacArthur:

I do not have confidence as some mechanism. I have confidence out of a conviction. I know you say there might be some passages you are debating about what the actual interpretation is. You might go two or three ways. It could mean this; it could mean that. Once I make up my mind on what I think the best interpretation is—the best rendering of a given passage—I will preach that with confidence. I will preach that with conviction.

Sometimes that conviction may not be as strong. If I am preaching on the death of Christ as the sufficient sacrifice to God, I can preach that with every ounce of conviction. If I have a certain view of the baptism for the dead in I Corinthians 14, which could have 25 interpretations, the level of my conviction might vary.

When it comes to the decision I make, that this is what I think is the best interpretation, then I preach it and let it go. I can do that, and I think I can do it safely because whatever that conclusion is, even on a difficult passage, it is within the framework of acceptable biblical interpretation and theology. So I do not go out of bounds.

This is why—and you would know this, Dr. Allen, here at the seminary—seminaries have to teach systematic theology, because you can teach Bible exposition, and you must, but you need systematic theology because so much of preaching and so much of ministry is extemporaneous. If you do not know the boundaries of theology, then in those extemporaneous moments—in the freedoms of ministry—you go out of bounds. You are not going to do that if your theology is sound. 

Dr. Allen:

Right. It is the scaffolding that holds it together.

Dr. MacArthur:

Not only that, but it is the borders; it is the fences you do not go beyond. You are not going to have a student say something completely out of bounds because they are contained by that sound, historic theology that has been passed down and tested, tried, and proven.

Dr. Allen:

Take us into the study for a moment, preparing a sermon. Give us an overview of how you did it 40 years ago and how you do it today. I know there are great similarities. Just take us into the study. How do you get from the shop preparing it to the showroom presenting it?

Dr. MacArthur:

First is isolation. I have a place at home, a little desk against the window where I can look out and see the trees and the green grass. I have a chair that goes forward and back; it goes forward so I can read and it goes back so I can think. I get an 8 ½ x 14 legal pad, and I start by reading the passage.

Now remember, I am in a book, so I am in a context. I take that passage—let’s say it is six verses—and I write them down with some space in between on maybe six sheets, and I start thinking about the passage: its construction and its context. I go back to the original Greek and look at that. I go to lexicons and make sure I know what it says. That is the first thing: “What does it say?” Then, I start thinking about what it means, and I start writing that and meditating on that. Then I get cross references because I think the Bible explains itself best and is consistent. Analogia Scriptura was a Reformation conviction: the Bible is analogous to itself. I write all of that down.

Then, I start lining up commentaries. There is a great quote from Spurgeon in which he says he wants those people who think the Holy Spirit is speaking to them to remember that the Holy Spirit has illuminated many, many in the past. I know that I am dependent upon the illumination of faithful men of the past. That is why I read commentaries and I am looking for every possible insight and understanding, every possible expansion of the implication of a concept or a doctrine or whatever, and I just take all kinds of notes on that.

So, I am going back over those same sheets from commentaries. I pick up a theological theme, find books on theology, fill that up. I am never thinking outside of the Bible. I am never thinking about illustrations or anything like that at that point. I am just piling on the things that help me to fully understand the text. I do not think about a sermon. I am not trying to make a sermon. I am just trying to master the text and what it means.

When I am done with that, I know the point and I know the sub points. I put an outline on top of it, and then I write an introduction and conclusion. Now I have a rough draft. I meditate on that and think on that. I write some more notes, do some crafting of how that might work, and I write it by hand in a final form of, say, eight half-sheets. Now it is in me, and it is on the page. That is what I would take into the pulpit.

That is a process that can take me anywhere from, well, it used to take me 15–20 hours. It is probably more like 8–12 hours now, or 8–10, and it is still the same process. You say, “Well, you have been doing it so long, why does it still take you a long time?” If no other reason, because everything I have ever said they have recorded. So, whatever I need to say, I need to say in a different way. 

Dr. Allen:

Right. That is very helpful. Now, when you think about expository preaching and the length of a passage under consideration—and of course, in your ministry you are typically preaching through larger passages than in the later years—you have ebbed and flowed. You went through Mark more briskly than some of the other Gospels.

Talk about faithfulness to expository preaching through the text, and how you marry that to a specific passage of Scripture. So, you think about a Martyn Lloyd Jones, who was so given to exhausting a verse of its meaning, and you contrast that with a guy like Mark Dever, who is faithful to Scripture, but typically mows through it at a broader length. How do you balance that?

Dr. MacArthur:

This is my own conviction. It took me 43 years to preach through the New Testament. That was too fast. I left too much out. I am not going to pass that way again. I remember an early American preacher who preached for 42 years in his church and died in Isaiah 8. He started in Isaiah 1 and 42 years later died in Isaiah 8. So, that would be the extreme—Barnhouse extreme on Romans, or Lloyd Jones on something.

Now, I think you can go into all of the world and preach everything off of a text if you are not careful, but I think it is so profound and so rich that people need more than an overview. It is not the concepts that are inspired. It is the words that are inspired. You are making that decision every week. How far do I go? How much do I say? Maybe one of the hardest things about preaching is deciding what to leave out.

Here is how that works—after I have gotten all of that material together, then I decide what to make the sermon, and I leave things off those final notes. I get into the pulpit, and they have a way of coming back. I may determine to leave things out that end up being in, and sometimes they are better than what I had planned to be in.

I am going back through the Gospel of John right now, after preaching and writing a commentary, and I looked at my early notes and I cannot use them at all. I looked at my commentary and said, “Ah, I would like to write that again.” I am going through John with completely fresh insight, and it is richer than it has ever been. It is so exhaustive that I lobby for the in-depth approach, particularly if you are in a church. If you are an itinerant guy, and you are not going to have an opportunity to do that, fine, give people overviews. I remember going to Calvary Chapel one Sunday night, and Chuck Smith preached. He was going through Matthew, and he preached from Matthew 24–28. Not verses; chapters. I thought there might be a little in there that got missed. 

Dr. Allen:

Right, and if you are going to do an overview, that is not the easiest passage to overview.

Dr. MacArthur:

I have always felt like there is such profound richness. I go back to Job and the book of Proverbs, where it says, “Like mining, dig down in the earth, go deep, and uncover this truth.” So I may belabor the point a little bit, but I do think, having said that, it is important also to say that you cannot just wander through, mining out loosely connected stuff. I think every sermon has to be an entity in itself, a unit in itself. That is what the genius of Spurgeon was. There was a beginning, and an end, and a middle, and a main point. And it was memorable and captivating. I think you can do that with exposition. You want to avoid a commentary approach. You want to read commentaries, but you want to avoid just commenting on the Bible. You want to pull out of that passage one great, impactful, memorable, convicting, powerful message.

Dr. Allen:

And drive it home. That is good. That is so helpful. So, here we are, John MacArthur, the preacher at Grace Community Church, after all of these years preaching. Obviously, folks know of you and you will be remembered as a preacher. Is there any particular aspect of your preaching or observation about your preaching—if you could choose to be remembered by—that you would like to be remembered?
Dr. MacArthur:

That is a very good question. I do not want to evaluate my preaching, but in answering that question, this is what I hear, “You are very clear, and you are simple to understand.” Maybe one of the most interesting comments I have ever received was from some folks who work in missions. They said, “We find your preaching most accessible to people for whom English is their second language.” How interesting. It is easily translatable into any language. I think simple and clear is really, really important. At the end of the day, this is what we are all trying to do—get it down so that it comes across. That would be in terms of style.

In terms of content, what I hear is that the best of my preaching—the most telling of my preaching—is from the four Gospels. My focus on Christ is the richest work that I have done. That thrills me and that is because he is so compelling. If you give me an opportunity, I would rather preach Christ than anything. I would rather preach out of the Gospels than anywhere.

Dr. Allen:

That is so Spurgeon-esque, as we are here thinking of Spurgeon and celebrating his legacy.

Dr. MacArthur, this has been very insightful, and I trust very helpful. You have the three different components of a truly historic preacher: A) The ability to do it. You do it. B) The ability to teach it and transfer it, but then C) a lifetime, a faithfulness, that buttresses it. Thank you for all three of those things.

Dr. MacArthur:

That is the goodness of the Lord.

Dr. Allen:

Thank you. This has been an enjoyable conversation. Thank you for your ministry to us.

Dr. MacArthur:

Thank you.

This week marks an historic occasion in the life of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. We are privileged to host Dr. John MacArthur for our first Charles Spurgeon Lectures on Biblical Preaching. Dr. MacArthur will deliver lectures on preaching in chapel on Tuesday and Wednesday, as well as preach a special community service on Tuesday evening.

I am grateful for the opportunity to host Dr. MacArthur as our inaugural Spurgeon lecturer, and I am praying the week will prove not only historic for our institution, but truly consequential for Christ’s church. Why is Midwestern Seminary holding the first annual Charles Spurgeon Lectures on Biblical Preaching, and why am I honored to host Dr. MacArthur as our inaugural lecturer?

Why the Charles Spurgeon Lectures?

No name is more synonymous with preaching than Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Providentially raised up by God, Spurgeon pastored the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England, during the Victorian Era, when Great Britain spanned the globe as the world’s leading empire—thus adding to Spurgeon’s global fame and influence. Spurgeon was a gifted pastor, author, apologist, leader, visionary, and school and ministry administrator. Yet, he was first and foremost a preacher. All of Spurgeon’s auxiliary ministries flowed from his pulpit, and his weekly sermons were transcribed and dispensed around the world. Arguably, in the history of the church, there is no name more rightly-associated with preaching in the English-speaking world than Charles Spurgeon.

Spurgeon’s global influence, famed preaching ministry, pastoral legacy, and contemporary relevance all intersect in a singular way at Midwestern Seminary. We are privileged to own Spurgeon’s library, which includes more than 7,000 of his books, artifacts, pictures, letters, paintings, accouterments, and even his desk. Midwestern Seminary is an inheritor and a steward of Spurgeon’s legacy. This is a legacy we steward not only for ourselves, but for the Southern Baptist Convention and the church at large. Central to this stewardship will be an annual preaching lectureship dedicated to Spurgeon’s legacy and to strengthening pulpits around the world.

Why Biblical Preaching?

The health of a church rarely rises above the health of its pulpit, and the strength of a church’s witness rarely surpasses the strength of its pulpit. The church—and the world—needs convictional, Christ-centered, biblical preaching. Thus, though it would be appropriate to host lectures on many facets of Spurgeon’s ministry, given the urgent needs of the church—and the world—it is especially appropriate to host lectures on preaching.

Tragically, not all are convinced of the necessity of biblical preaching. Yet, the church that forsakes the pulpit will find itself forsaken of God, and the seminary that forsakes the pulpit will be so forsaken as well. Midwestern Seminary exists for the Church. At the very heart of this mission is to strengthen the church by training preachers and teachers of God’s Word. We rightly-honor Spurgeon and best serve the church by holding the Charles Spurgeon Lectures on Biblical Preaching.

Why John MacArthur?

When it comes to biblical exposition, John MacArthur might well be this generation’s gold standard. Since 1969, Dr. MacArthur has served as pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, Calif. For nearly 45 years, he has preached verse-by-verse through the Bible, most especially the New Testament. Enter the study of any evangelical pastor and you will most likely find Dr. MacArthur’s commentaries on the shelf. Like few others, Dr. MacArthur has championed biblical exposition from his own pulpit, and through his many books and commentaries, Grace to You radio ministry, and the Master’s Seminary & College.

Throughout his ministry, Dr. MacArthur has borne the mantle of the prophet. Over the decades, he has proven a prophetic witness—calling the church to hold high biblical exposition, sound ecclesiology, the Lordship of Christ, biblical complementarity, and, once again in recent days, Dr. MacArthur has called attention to the many liabilities and dangers associated with the Charismatic movement. In a very real sense, Dr. MacArthur is an Ephesians 4:15 minister, faithful to speak the truth in love.

In fact, faithful might be the best word to describe Dr. MacArthur. Throughout nearly 50 years of public ministry, he has proven himself faithful as a preacher, pastor, evangelist, husband, father, and college and seminary president. Dr. MacArthur has served for nearly a half-century in public ministry—and more than 44 of them pastoring the same church—without even a whiff of moral turpitude or ministry scandal. Faithfulness seems in short supply these days, and Dr. MacArthur is a model of faithful biblical ministry to which a young generation of ministers can look.

Conclusion

So, I invite you to celebrate a bit of history with us in Kansas City this week. While the evening service on Tuesday is already over capacity, you are welcome to attend chapel on Tuesday or Wednesday at 10 a.m. Additionally, all services will be live-streamed and available for free and simultaneous viewing at mbts.edu.

Yet, more importantly than celebrating this historic occasion at Midwestern Seminary, I beg of you to join us in celebrating the preaching of God’s Word, to renew ourselves once more to the centrality of the pulpit, and to join me in praying that God will raise up a generation of convictional, biblical preachers and teachers of God’s Word who will thunder the truth and awaken his church in revival and spiritual renewal.

On March 13, 1859, the preeminent preacher of Victorian England, Charles Spurgeon, delivered one of his most memorable sermons, “Christ Precious to Believers,” to a congregation of over 10,000. The congregation, having long since proven too large for Spurgeon’s New Park Street Church now filled London’s largest indoor auditorium, the Music Hall of the Royal Surrey Gardens.

Impressing upon his hearers the centrality of Jesus and the imperative to preach Christ from all of the Bible, Spurgeon paraphrased a recent exchange between a sage, elderly pastor and minister in training. “Don’t you know, young man, that from every town and every village and every hamlet in England, wherever it may be, there is a road to London? So from every text in Scripture there is a road toward the great metropolis, Christ. And my dear brother, your business is, when you get to a text, to say, ‘Now what is the road to Christ?’ I have never found a text that had not got a road to Christ in it, and if ever I find one . . . I will go over hedge and ditch but I would get my Master, for the sermon cannot do any good unless there is a saviour of Christ in it.”[1]

The apostolic mandate to “preach Christ and him crucified” that Spurgeon exemplified with force and animation in Victorian England is all the more urgent for the 21^st-century church. Moreover, Spurgeon’s call echoes forward to this day in homiletical classrooms across America. This call is not merely a nudge toward a more polished homiletical delivery; rather it comes with the weighty knowledge that the message of a crucified and risen Christ alone saves. Thus, it is indeed “Him we proclaim.”

Our culture finds itself at the intersection of geopolitical tumult abroad, encroaching secularism at home, and a general sense of the decay of so many markers of Christian civilization that generations past  held constant and sure. This backdrop accentuates the need and the promise of preaching. Not just any preaching will do, however. We must settle for nothing less than preaching that is muscular in biblical content, courageous in delivery, and Christ-centered in focus. Moreover, we must be about the business of producing preachers who are submissive to the authority of Scripture, under compulsion to declare the whole counsel of God, and who exult in proclaiming the riches of Christ every time they fill the pulpit.

Spurgeon’s preaching legacy lives on through the massive 63-volume collection of his pulpit ministry at both New Park Street and the Metropolitan Tabernacle. It has been noted that you can turn to the last page of any of Spurgeon’s preserved 3,563 sermons and you will find him pointing his hearers to Christ. As president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, which owns Spurgeon’s 7,000-volume library and various other memorabilia from his ministry, including his writing desk, I am reminded again and again of his relentless desire to preach Jesus.

Likewise, those who are called to preach must point their congregants to Jesus, and those who train preachers must have a similar gospel emphasis. Exegesis and hermeneutics classes must show students how faithfully to interpret Christ. Systematic theology classes must point students to Jesus, the apex of the whole Bible. Evangelism classes must be designed to train students to spread the gospel of Christ most effectively and energetically. And, of course, homiletics classes must equip young preachers with the tools to preach Christ. This continuity of study bespeaks a collective intentionality to see the name of Christ known among the nations.

Declaring Christ from the entire Bible is more than a theological trend or an interpretive approach; it is a biblical mandate, a Great Commission necessity, and the primary aim of biblical preaching. Spurgeon’s goal must be our own—to preach Jesus in every sermon.

When published in 1971, Fred Craddock’s As One without Authority landed like “a bombshell on the playground of preachers.” In it, Craddock called for a new homiletic, for preaching to start with the hearer, not the text, and for preaching to be inductive, not deductive.

Craddock argued preaching was in hopeless decline and the church must reinvent homiletics or forfeit the sermon altogether. At the core of his critique was the issue of authority. According to Craddock, the modern preacher cannot—and perhaps should not—preach with authority. Thus, in the words of Craddock, the preacher exists as one without authority.

In a sense, Craddock’s diagnosis was right. The modern mind may well be adverse to authority and disinclined to trust the “sage on the stage.” Nonetheless, his prescription was dead wrong. Where there is no authority, there is no true preaching.

Authority, Essential to True Preaching

The Bible assumes an authoritative sermon. In biblical terms, it is impossible to conceptualize preaching without authority. The many biblical injunctions associated with preaching—admonish, instruct, warn, exhort, rebuke, reprove, correct, confront—presume and necessitate an authoritative sermon.

As a teacher, Jesus distinguished himself from the religious leaders of the day by speaking with authority.  In the synagogue, he amazed his hearers, because he spoke “teaching as one with authority, and not as their scribes.”[i]

What is more, Paul’s command to Titus is a timeless charge to every preacher, “These things teach, reprove, and rebuke, as one having all authority; let no one disregard you.”[ii] Such authoritative preaching rests on four pillars.

Authority, Established by the Scriptures

John Stott, commenting on the preacher’s authority, rightly argued, “Our formula, if we use one at all, should be in the well-known, oft-repeated and quite proper phrase of Dr. Billy Graham, ‘The Bible says.’”[iii]

Stott was right. The preacher’s authority is the Bible itself. God chose to reveal himself to his people through his Word. His Word is inspired, infallible and inerrant, thus it is authoritative. As the Reformers reasoned, Vox Scriptura Vox Dei, the voice of Scripture is the voice of God. God’s voice is an authoritative voice and his word is an authoritative Word. God meant it to be preached in an authoritative manner

Throughout the Bible, Scripture references its own power and authority. Jeremiah declared God’s Word is “a hammer that breaks the rock,”[iv] and Isaiah testified God’s Word “will not return void.”[v] His prophets of old, like Jonah, heralded his message authoritatively.

The pattern continues in the New Testament. John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter, and Paul all preached with authority. II Timothy 3:16–4:2 unites the authority of the text with the authority of the sermon. All Scripture is “inspired by God” and “profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness.” Since the Bible, as God’s inspired Word, is powerful and authoritative, the minister is called to “Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season reprove, rebuke, and exhort with great patience and instruction.”[vi]

Since the preacher’s authority is the Scripture itself, the preferred form of preaching is biblical exposition. Expository sermons are based upon the text of Scripture, in which the passage is explained and applied to the congregants. Thus, biblical exposition affords the sermon an authentic “Thus sayeth the Lord.”

Authority, Emboldened by the Spirit

The foundation of a preacher’s authority is the Scripture, but it doesn’t end there. The Lord is always pleased to bless his Word preached, but on occasion he chooses especially to bless it.

Peter at Pentecost preached with the power of the Holy Spirit resting on him. Weeks prior, he denied Jesus before a slave girl, but now, under the power of the Holy Spirit, he proclaimed the gospel with authority, indicting the people of Israel with the murder of the Son of God. The difference in Peter was the power of the Holy Spirit.

This, in part, is why we pray for the preacher and the sermon. We pray that the Holy Spirit will embolden the preacher and apply the sermon to the lives of the listeners. There is no greater force this side of Heaven than the Holy Word preached by a Holy man in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Authority, Enhanced by the life

A sermon’s authority is based in the text, not the man himself or his ecclesiastical office. As Luther argued, Popes and Councils have erred; the preacher’s mind should be held captive to Scripture. At the same time, one cannot separate the message from the man preaching it.

The preacher’s authority is enhanced by a life of integrity and ministerial credibility. I Tim 3:1–7 documents the qualifications for ministry and the necessity of being “above reproach.” Moreover, Paul frequently pointed to his life and character to buttress the credibility of his ministry and the authority of his message.

Sterling character takes time to cultivate and it takes even more time to be appreciated by others. A preacher’s credibility with his congregation is slowly accumulated but abruptly forfeited. It enters town on foot, but departs on horseback.

Authority, Enriched by the Delivery

Finally, the preacher’s authority should be enriched by the delivery itself. Church members are not fools. They ask themselves, “Does the preacher believe his own message?” If the preacher does not believe the sermon, why should they?

Perhaps no man more exuded authority in preaching than George Whitefield. His life demonstrated confidence in God’s Word, thus he preached it with boldness. Even unbelievers marveled at his power, including men like Benjamin Franklin and David Hume.

David Hume, one of the 18^th century’s leading skeptics, closely followed Whitefield’s ministry. On one occasion Hume traveled more than 20 miles before dawn to hear Whitefield preach. A fellow attender recognized Hume and inquired as to his attendance. “Where are you going this early hour?” “I am going to hear Whitefield preach” replied Hume. “But you don’t believe a word he preaches,” said the man.” “No,” Hume answered, “but he does.”[vii]

Conclusion

Modern preaching has been described as “A mild-mannered man encouraging mild-mannered people to be more mild-mannered.” The church—and the world—needs the opposite. Bold, authoritative preaching is the urgent need of the hour. Such preaching will hasten revival in the church, and further the Great Commission.

Authority is not something the preacher talks into himself on Sunday mornings. Nor is it granted by title, office, attire, or by brutishly pulling rank.

But, when the sermon is indeed biblical and delivered by a man with a life of integrity, in the power of the Holy Spirit and with full conviction, a supremely authoritative event has taken place—one has preached with authority.