Someone has said, "Poets are born, not made." Talmage said in one of his sermons, "Church sextons are born, not made." There is truth perhaps in both statements, but we KNOW sermons "grow, they are not made." The man who is called to preach has a message, and he knows it. His message the theologians call a sermon. It must be of God and founded upon the Word of God; in other words, it must be Scriptural. The Apostles were not only preachers, they were witnesses. "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you." The tongue's holiest mission is to proclaim the Christ of whom we have an experimental knowledge. "We KNOW whom we have believed"; "we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord." To be an ambassador for the Lord Jesus Christ is the noblest vocation to which angels or men ever have been called. An ambassador bears the King's message, the counsels of God once delivered to the saints. As a student of the Word of God, he will constantly be receiving inspiration from the Word. Texts, messages, will flash before him, his mind will seize upon them, measure them, investigate them, enlarge upon them. Some precious truth from Calvary will be as tender as a mother's caressing speech, or if from Sinai, it will trumpet in thunder tones; again, it will glow with the glory akin to that on Tabor's summit, or manifest itself in tears and sobs over a perishing world. As God's man, with a message to the people for whom He gave His Son, thinks upon themes for eternity, they will be marvelously magnified by the Holy Spirit, and be as fire in his bones until he delivers them, for he is to preach "the things angels desired to look into." The preacher who is God's man will have a sermon, not a lecture, if he studies the Word, and a careful study of the Word will make him a doctrinal preacher. He who "spake as a man never spake," to whom was given the tongue of the learned, who could say, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach," dealt in doctrine. Meeting Nicodemus, He preached to him of human guilt, the Atonement, regeneration, divine love in redemption, the need of faith and the promise of Heaven. Paul reveled in great doctrinal themes, giving us in one book, the Epistle to the Romans, what Coleridge pronounced the profoundest book in existence. Finney, a prince among evangelists, "bombarded the consciences of sinners with a tremendous broadside of doctrine." Cuyler says, "Merely hortatory sermons seldom amount to much. You must tell your hearers what to believe and what to do, before you urge them to do it."
God in His Word gave law, then repentance, threatens vengeance for sin, casts man down in his own sight, and lets him look even into Hell, with fear of conscience for his disobedience, but afterward He comforts him, raises him up and heals him. Men need law and Gospel today, but law first. Sinai came before Calvary, and both precede Pentecost. Let them stay where God placed them and let us follow always the divine order.
Sermons grow? Surely Law proclaims the need of the Gospel; Sinai demonstrates there must be another mountain -- a Calvary, and living witnesses to the power of the Blood must be energized by Pentecost. Genesis foreshadows all the doctrines that followed after, and without Revelation the Book would be incomplete. The one book grew to sixty-six. It heartens us who experienced "Paradise Lost," to know of "Paradise Regained"; no angel barring the way to the Tree of life, but an invitation from the heart of God: "Whosoever will, let him come" -- He who lost the right to the tree, may do His commandments, and have a right to the tree again, and enter in through the gates into the city.
Sermons will grow with experience. "If any man will do his will, he shall know (experience) the doctrine." Prove it true in his own heart and life, and as his experience widens and deepens, his sermons will take on breadth and depth. It had the force of a sneer when the wits of the days of early Methodism said of the preachers, "Having nothing else to preach, they inevitably fell back on their experience," but what a blessing to have an experience, an experimental knowledge of God's power and willingness to forgive sins, of the power of the Blood to cleanse from all sin, to be able to say in the Holy Ghost, "the Comforter has come." "Jesus sanctifies me NOW." Thank God where there is corn in the hopper you will surely get meal. When there is a treasury, the good man will have no trouble getting out things new and old. Where sermons do not grow, there is either shallowness, or laziness. The man who boasts he has not produced a new sermon for years is backslidden already and needs to go to the altar. If God calls men to preach, HE CAN ALSO RECALL THE CALL, and I can readily believe a lazy preacher has lost his call.
Soil that grows sermons will keep it up if well fertilized. What do I mean? simply this. One who keeps in touch with Heaven will have the vernacular of Heaven; keep in touch with Jesus and travail of soul for the lost will obtain; have the Spirit abiding within, and there will be an outgush of soul speech that will reach souls. Be conscious that you are God's man, called to tell His message to His men who need to hear more than they need all else beside, and that very consciousness will cause one to see "sermons in stones, books in rolling brooks and God in everything." Chalmers, riding with the driver on a stage coach one day, observed the Jehu use his long lash on the leader, and said to him, "What did you do that for?" -- and the answer was, "See that big stone ahead by the road side? That leader always shies when he gets there, so I gave him something else to think of." Chalmers went home with that thought, and out of it GREW that great sermon, "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection." Bunyan's "Pilgrm's Progress" grew. The author said so, and thus poetically expresses it:
"And thus it was, I writing of the way And race of saints in this our glorious day, Fell suddenly into an allegory About their journey and the way to glory, In more than twenty things which I set down. This done, I twenty more had in my crown, And they again began to multiply Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly."
"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," and where the heart is full there will be no trouble about the delivery. Do not be alarmed if you cannot memorize as some do. Find out God's method for you and follow that. Better a thousand times, "notes" and "outlines" than labored memorizing of an entire sermon, word by word. The example of many of our most useful ministers will be helpful if you study their methods. The admirers of Dr. Seiss would do to remember that this natural-born orator took the manuscript of his entire sermon into the pulpit with him, and Dr. James M. Buckley, of the "Christian Advocate," in an editorial after Dr. Seiss departed, said he was one of the most polished speakers he ever listened to, holding his audience during a long pastorate in Philadelphia. No one can deny his spirituality, ability, judgment or usefulness. John Fletcher, the sainted vicar of Madeley, of whom Wesley said, "He was the holiest man I ever knew," has left behind his notes upon many sermons. Charles Spurgeon, whose usefulness and ability were undoubted, left behind a wealth of "sermon notes" which his publishers and executors have issued. Charles Pitman, that prince of pulpit orators, used carefully written notes in his ministry and won thousands for Christ. Repetition of sentences laboriously acquired in memorizing hour after hour is not the manner of the true orator, is death to spontaneity, and checks the flow of language prompted by the Holy Spirit. I have seen men take a text, put the Bible to one side at once, and then proceed to deliver their carefully memorized sermon, word for word, and I have seen that which would excite ridicule, were it not so painful-men, just beginning to preach, supposing these brethren were speaking extempore, take a text, put the Bible to one side, and then, open their mouths, and begin. They were called of God, had in them material out of which preachers are made, but foolishly imitating others, they floundered and fell. Ezra stood upon a pulpit of wood, opened the Book in the sight of all the people and blessed the Lord. The book was honored, should be today. We are preachers of the Word; the Book is our authority; let us act what we profess. There is a method best adapted to each one, helpful to one's usefulness, and that God will honor. It will be natural to the speaker, leaving him unembarrassed and receptive, reveling in his privilege as an ambassador of God and speaking as one that has authority.
