This week’s ‘The Preacher and….Prayer’ extract comes from ‘Preaching Pure and Simple’ by Stuart Olyott, the author of several books and a well known preacher and conference speaker. He identifies 10 steps of sermon preparation, the first 2 of which are relevant to our subject. Next time I’ll quote steps 7 and 10.
1. Reflect on your task
- Stop!
- Be absolutely silent in the presence of the Lord.
- Take time to call to mind what your task is. You are to glorify God by changing unbelievers into believers, and weak Christians into strong ones.
- It is true that this is done by the exposition and application of the Word of God. You are, however, not primarily a maker of sermons, but a maker of saints.
- It is essential that you do not lose sight of this throughout your preparation.
2. Meditate on your text
- By the word ‘text’ we mean the part of Scripture on which you are to preach, be it a verse, several verses, a paragraph, a chapter, a book, a biblical theme.
- On your knees (literally!) Now read your text.
- Take it sentence by sentence, word by word, using every part as fuel for prayer.
- Yes - concentrate on the text to the exclusion of everything else; avoid all (all!) interruptions; brood on the text in the Lord’s presence.
- Worship him for every truth and lesson that you see.
- If there is any part of your text that you do not understand, pray, brood and meditate until you do. If light still does not come, consult your commentaries and other aids - but only to find out what this phrase or sentence means means, and nothing more.
- As you wait upon God, thoughts will begin to come, perhaps slowly at first. But one thought will suggest another, and this in turn will lead to another.
- Stay on your knees until the passage inflames your soul - until the fire burns, making you impatient to preach the truths which you have now made your own, and especially the ‘big idea’, that is, the dominant thought which sums up what the text is about.
- You have not asked for a message. But the Word of God is now enthusing you and the direction of your message is clear.
A Prayer of George Whitefield:
““Yea…that we shall see the great Head of the Church once more . . . raise up unto Himself certain young men whom He may use in this glorious employ. And what manner of men will they be? Men mighty in the Scriptures, their lives dominated by a sense of the greatness, the majesty and holiness of God, and their minds and hearts aglow with the great truths of the doctrines of grace. They will be men who have learned what it is to die to self, to human aims and personal ambitions; men who are willing to be ‘fools for Christ’s sake’, who will bear reproach and falsehood, who will labor and suffer, and whose supreme desire will be, not to gain earth’s accolades, but to win the Master’s approbation when they appear before His awesome judgment seat. They will be men who will preach with broken hearts and tear-filled eyes, and upon whose ministries God will grant an extraordinary effusion of the Holy Spirit, and who will witness ‘signs and wonders following’ in the transformation of multitudes of human lives.”
