Quotes about Preaching

What clear doctrine characterized John the Baptist's preaching. He exalted Christ — "After me One is coming who is mightier than I." He spoke plainly of the Holy Spirit — "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christians.

There is a very real danger of our putting our faith in our sermon rather than in the Spirit. Our faith should not be in the sermon, it should be in the Holy Spirit Himself.

I do not preach doubtingly, for I do not live doubtingly.

I think that my preaching style and many of my ideas and ideals about faith are based in both Pentecostal and Baptist background.

And if a minister be obliged to consider the ways, light, knowledge, and walking of his flock, in his preaching unto them, that what he teacheth may be suited unto their edification, he is no less bound unto the same consideration in his prayers also with them and for them, if he intend to pray unto their use and profit.

testify by what means he would subdue the souls and consciences of men unto the obedience of Christ and the gospel, and by what means he would maintain his kingdom in the world. Now, this was not by force and might, by external power or armies, but by the preaching of the word, whereof the tongue is the only instrument. And the outward sign of this gift, in tongues of fire, evidenced the light and efficacy wherewith the Holy Ghost designed to accompany the dispensation of the gospel.

And we may see that the severest comminations are not only useful in the preaching of the gospel, but exceeding necessary, towards persons that are observed to be slothful in their profession.

Still, he never felt that the sermons he wrote at the cottage were good. By the time he got back to Washington to preach them, they no longer excited him. They seemed cold, lifeless. This was probably because Peter's best sermons rose out of the soil of emotion in his own heart. That emotion had to be a present, valid reality. He could not conjure it up.

Reformation of the world begins with reformation of self. We cannot hope to influence others in the direction of moral virtue unless we live lives of virtue. The example of our virtuous living will carry a greater influence than will all the preaching, postulating, and theorizing in which we might indulge. We cannot expect to lift others unless we are standing on higher ground.

What is the chief end of preaching? I like to think it is this: It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence.

One of my great goals in life is to live long enough to where I am in the pulpit, preaching my heart out, and I die on the spot, my chin hits the pulpit - boom! - and I'm down and out. What a way to die!