Improving Preaching (1) (1.9.1983) — Nigel Lee

Recommended Books on Preaching

There are many, many books on today's topic, a very few of which I have read. I want to simply begin by mentioning one or two that I found helpful by a man called Campbell Morgan. Of course, inevitably most of his books are in English, and I don't know of any of them being translated.

Campbell Morgan wrote a book simply called Preaching. Campbell Morgan was, for two periods of his life, minister at Westminster Chapel in London, one of the most influential large churches in London, and he wrote a book simply called Preaching.

I found that very valuable. Simple, short, it's not as long as some of the others. Then Martin Lloyd-Jones gave some lectures and then wrote them up and produced a book only a couple of years, I think, before he died, not long, anyway, before the Lord took him home, a book called Preaching and Preachers.

Now, Campbell Morgan was originally from a Methodist background, and Martin Lloyd-Jones from a Welsh, Calvinistic background. Both of them had a very high view of the authority and place of the pulpit among God's people.

And then Donald Coggan, a one-time Archbishop of Canterbury, an Anglican scholar, theological college principal, bishop, pastor, leader among the Anglicans around the world, he wrote a book called Stewards of Grace, which is a characteristic title.

His ministry was always marked with flashes of insight and great touches of God's grace. And then, from many years ago, A .P. Gibbs wrote a book, The Preacher and His Preaching. And it's not a book that is tremendously well-known or popular.

It came from a background among Brethren Assemblies, but that too has many good things to say. The Preacher and His Preaching by A .P. Gibbs. John Stott's book, I Believe in Preaching, in this valuable I Believe series that's been going now for the last few years, John Stott includes at the back of this an incredible bibliography.

He claims himself to have read dozens and dozens, I think it's something around 140 books on preaching. And the book is littered with quotations, evidence of the honesty of his claim, and that too is very good.

It's Anglican, it's designed for people who would have a regular pastoral ministry in a particular group of people. Perhaps their situation doesn't exactly fit ours, but for many of them we can glean valuable help and tips from men who've gone before us.

And then there's a book that I suspect may now be out of print, called The Gagging of God by Gavin Reid. And that is a book against preaching altogether, but it's a book written by a very lively evangelist in England, it's called The Gagging of God by Gavin Reid, and he's talking about the way in which modern preaching actually shuts God up, and that we need to find new ways of communicating that buttress the spoken word.

Seminar Plan: The Importance, Practice, and Life of the Preacher

Now my plan is roughly as follows, but I am willing to be guided by you. I was thinking of talking this morning, this first session, on the importance of preaching, and then this afternoon, in the first session after lunch, you are going to work, we are going to pool our ideas on the characteristics of Jesus as a preacher.

And I'm going to write up on the blackboard the things that you suggest, the scriptures that you bring to bear as evidence of the points that you want to make, and then if we have time we might do a little bit of organising, so that if you had to preach on the characteristics of Jesus as a preacher, we would work on our moulding clay together, with me at the chalk.

And then this afternoon, the second session, the after coffee session, we're going to talk about how to prepare a message, that may for some of you be the key thing. And I will share with you the things that I feel important, and then we've got Don Hammond's experience to draw on, I've preached across Western Canada with Bert, his experience, Peter has preached in something like 60 or 80 countries, he may have something to suggest, some of you have been with the Logos, some of you have actually preached in Eastern Europe, there's actually a lot of experience here, and I will kick off, set the ball rolling, but please feel free to interrupt me, to question, to put another point of view, to argue, I like that, don't at all feel that I'm beyond argument, I rise to that, and let's, please understand from the beginning that I'm going to lead a seminar, I'm not simply going to preach, that I hope will be this afternoon, and then tomorrow, we'll kick off in the morning, with considering the life of the preacher.

Because very often, what people remember, is not simply the outline points of the message, but the man himself, it's the impact of the man's spirit, on the hearts and the minds of the people sitting in the congregation, and therefore, if we stray away from considering that, I have not been faithful to the topic, then Friday afternoon, we might think of some of the pitfalls that we should be careful to avoid, I have a number, I'm sure you've got others, and then I have at the end, what I've put down on my little plan sheet, as miscellaneous scraps, I want to talk about the wife that you marry, or the husband, that some of you may, may marry, may want to scrap, and other related topics that I haven't been able to see their way into my scheme, but I feel that they're worth at least thinking about.

Questions About the Seminar's Scope

Now, do you want to raise anything else that we should, that I've missed out, that don't fall within those, those divisions? Yes, Peter, I'll touch on that right away in this first session, the whole question of who should preach, and the question of gifts, yes, good, anything else that you're really hoping to, to get talk through, because I want to, to try and, and lead you, so that we all together serve one another, although inevitably, I'm going to do quite a bit of the talking, I'm afraid.

Is that the only thing that you want to ask, as we go? Yep, you mean training college, or are you talking about how to prepare a series of messages, and a better preacher? Yes, I hope that, let's leave that question, if you're unsatisfied by the time we are into tomorrow, you don't think that we're covering that, then bring it up again, because I hope that many of the things that we say, we'll, we'll touch on that.

Noel, thank you. The relationship between expository preaching and worship. Well, if you've got some thoughts on that, I shall call on you. By way of introduction, I think one, one should say that everyone who has ever written or talked on this subject, it seems to me, begins by saying that preaching is the most urgent need in the church today.

Preaching as Christianity's Indispensable Word Ministry

They all seem to start out this way. For instance, John Stott says preaching is indispensable to Christianity. Christianity is, in its very essence, a religion of the Word of God. Martin Lloyd-Jones says the most urgent need in the Christian church today is true preaching.

And about a hundred years ago, a man with rather flowery ornate 19th century language describing the preacher, said this, his throne is his pulpit. He stands in Christ's stead. His message is the Word of God.

Around him are immortal souls. The Saviour unseen is beside him. The Holy Spirit broods over the congregation. Angels gaze upon the scene, and heaven and hell await the issue. What associations and what vast responsibility.

I'm going to give up already. But Matthew Simpson, in those remarks, is trying to get us to see how incredibly important it is that preaching be faithful and godly and honouring to God and his Word. I suppose it is the case that whatever is our spiritual gift, we always tend to think that that is the most important thing that's needed.

The man who's got the gift of serving thinks that if only more people were servants. The person who has the gift of prophecy or administration, the problems they see in the Christian church, or in OM, are always in terms of their own gift.

We always think if we're an administrator, that the place is chaos and just needs a touch of our administration. Or if we're preachers, we sit in the meetings thinking, oh this is, this is, this is thin gruel, this is, this is poor stuff, if only there were proper preaching.

Whereas the person who has a gift of serving will very often wander around thinking how dirty the place is, how people ought to start cleaning it up, how other people need so much ministry, it's just the way we are built.

It's one of the key indications to begin to nibble at Peter's subject, that a particular gift is ours. When you arrive in OM, what do you think the major need is? Because that may be a hint as to the nature of your own gift.

Some people feel terribly frustrated at the awfulness of the worship. They only wish that we worshipped God better. Maybe it's because their own gift would tend to lead them that way. The problem with preachers is that they're always preaching and always hogging the microphone and therefore always proclaiming that the main need is for the Word of God to be preached.

So I tend to think that it perhaps is. But if some of you here are not preachers, I would entirely understand if you wanted to disagree with me. But certainly we cannot deny that in our day, with the kind of problems that we face, there is a great need for God's Word to be digested, filtered through the personality of gifted godly men and women, and then proclaimed to his people.

Christ's Example as a Preacher

Let me think with you of four reasons why preaching is so important. And the first is, quite simply, the example of Jesus. The example of Christ. It was the primary purpose of his itinerant ministry. Let me show you that from scripture.

Turn to Mark's gospel, chapter 1 and verse 14. Now after that John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God, and saying that time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent ye and believe in the gospel. He came and immediately exploded on the scene and began to preach. Turn to Luke chapter 4 and verse 18. I'm going to give you quite a lot of scripture during this first session.

The Lord has come to Nazareth where he was brought up. And as was his habit he went into the synagogue and as was the custom among the Jews, he stood to read. There was given unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah.

He opened it and he began to read these words. It was the stunning beginning of his ministry. Six hundred years before these prophecies have been given, Jesus stands up in his home community and says that prophecy those years ago is beginning its fulfillment now.

At this precise moment the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach. To preach good tidings to the poor. He sent me to proclaim release to the captives and to proclaim recovery of sight to the blind and to set at liberty those that are bruised and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and so on.

In Mark's gospel chapter 2, we see an interesting illustration of this. A paralyzed man is brought to Christ. Christ is sitting preaching in the house with the Pharisees. There's a scuffling and a scratching above.

Bits of plaster start to fall. Daylight suddenly comes through the ceiling. Tiles are ripped up. There's a hole big enough for a man to be lowered through and he's a paralyzed man. He's been brought by his friends.

As people sat around the group, what was it they would have felt was the man's obvious need. The reason why he'd been brought to Jesus. Well obviously his paralysis. Jesus didn't deal with his paralysis first.

Can you imagine the man centuries later in heaven so grateful that Jesus didn't heal him first. But he dealt with his sin first. Because if that man had been healed first he might well have stood up and been grateful and looked around the group and then darted outside to test his newfound legs and gone home and he'd have spent the rest of eternity in hell.

Because his sin was not forgiven. Jesus went to the root of his heart need which was his sin. And preaching does that. Jesus gave the disciples around a demonstration that his priority was preaching. And his healing ministry was because of the compassion of his heart.

It was because he wanted to buttress what he was going to say and illustrate what he was saying. He was responding as the creator to the fall in man. But his primary purpose was to destroy the works of the devil.

To preach. Turn to Mark 1 38 39. Mark 1 38 and 39. Jesus said unto them let us go on elsewhere into the next towns. He's got an enormous following already. But he's going on. Let us go into the next towns that I may preach there also.

For to this end came I forth. And he went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee preaching and casting out devils. They were bringing him from all over the area. The poor and the blind and the lame.

And Jesus said I'm going to leave them. I'm going on to preach. The son of God at work. In Luke's gospel chapter 4 and verse 43. Jesus said unto them I must preach the good tidings of the kingdom of God to the other cities also.

For therefore was I sent the father and the son in communion within the trinity. There had been an agreement and Christ had placed himself willingly under the authority of the father as the son. That he was going to go under orders to preach.

The example of Christ is quite clear. And Christ in his own testimony standing before Pilate in John 18 and verse 37. Pilate has said unto him are you then a king? Jesus answered you say that I'm a king.

You said it. To this end have I been born. And to this end am I coming to the world that I should bear witness unto the truth. And everyone that is of the truth hears my voice. So with a world to regain.

With men and women to see redeemed. With the father's will to be done. Christ has come to preach. Day after day to preach the word of his father. That's the first thing to notice. If we are to follow in the footsteps of Christ we must have a high view of preaching.

The Apostles' Priority of Preaching

Secondly Christ produced a race of preachers. The people that followed him became preachers. They had that same sense of priority from the very beginning. Think of the apostles. In Acts chapter 6 the church is expanding.

That there are now hundreds of people. Little cell groups springing up all over the place. They're trying to teach the kids. They're coping with the economic upheavals that it's meaning. There are now widows and poor people in the church.

They've got social problems. And you know the way it is at a conference. The person who appears in public very often is the person that you think you can go to with your problems. The man who appears behind the microphone is the person you think immediately can deal with your problems.

So if you've got problems of broken shoelaces or problems of lost kids or problems of the washing up not getting done in time or problems of your wife having got stuck in the lift between the third and the fourth floor and she's been no there too and nothing seems to be happening about it.

You immediately go to the person who seems to be the public preacher teacher and you think that they can solve the thing. This is why here in the conference we've set up the apple desk you see to deal with wives stuck in lifts and dirty plates and so on like that.

So that others amongst us can be free for the ministry of the word and of prayer. Turn to act 6 and just see how the apostles put it because they've got Christ's sense of priorities. There's a multiplying of the disciples.

There's a grumbling in the church. There's a racial tension. Some widows are feeling neglected in the daily allotment of of whatever was needed and the 12 called the crowd together and said look it's not right that we should forsake the word of God to serve tables.

Verse 4 we will continue steadfastly in prayer and in the service of the word of God. That's what it means in the original. I'm called either to serve tables or to serve the word of God. I cannot serve both and they said no we're going to serve the word of God.

It was in fact what Christ had called them to in Mark chapter 3 and verse 14. He had called some disciples one to be with him two that they should be sent out to preach and three to have authority to cast out devils demons.

An order of priority. It's quite clear from beginning to be with Christ to go and preach to have authority over evil spirits. You remember when the apostles have been preaching in Acts chapter 4 and there was trouble and the leaders have been called in they've been threatened and you must not carry on doing this and they'd stood and said look what are we going to do we must obey God rather than men.

Evangelism was going on it was meeting opposition they gathered the church together what did they pray. They've already been beaten they've already been threatened with imprisonment there's a distinct possibility that the wrath of the whole nation will fall upon them and it will lead to death.

Jews stirred up in anger are like a hornet's nest. So they pray to God not for a quiet time not for a sort of way around the problem but that they may have boldness to preach because that's what God has called them to.

Acts chapter 4 verses 29 to 31. So it was the heartbeat of these men. The apostle Paul has the same thing. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 17 says I didn't come to baptize. I'm thankful that I baptized none of you save perhaps Crispus, Gaius, Stephanus one or two people of you I can't hardly remember because it wasn't my ministry.

I came to preach men and women are transformed through the foolishness of the preaching of the cross. And when we come to the last words that we believe Paul penned scribble down when he knew that sentence of death was already passed upon him.

Paul was executed we believe sometime in the late 60s it was around about 68 maybe that Nero died. He died in the June of 68 I believe. Perhaps he wrote the second epistle to Timothy from the prison the closing autumn.

He's asking for extra clothes you see because he's cold in that jail in Rome and he's writing passing on the charge that Paul that that he's been given by Christ passing it on to young Timothy. Now look he says time is coming when people don't want to hear good teaching.

They're not interested in sound doctrine they get bored in meetings where the doctrine of the scriptures of God are being proclaimed. They they won't endure it they have itching ears they want new things.

What are you to do Timothy? I'm I'll be gone within maybe weeks now. To Timothy chapter 4 preach God's word. Preach the word be instant in season and out of season. Reprove that's one ministry of the word.

Rebuke that's another. Exhort that's another. With long suffering and teaching that's your own character growth. For the time will come when they won't endure the sound doctrine but having itching ears will heap to themselves teachers after their own what are you going to do?

You just carry on preaching and teaching the word of God. You know it is a it is a fact that in many churches around the world people have become gradually and increasingly disinterested in scripture.

And I have had the experience I remember a very clear case of it in a meeting I was in Nigeria. I don't know Don whether you ever remember something the same in Nigeria. We I was there speaking in this Pax church and it was a wild meeting.

They got worked up and there was dancing and there was drums and there was a dance leader and his job was to sway and gyrate in front of the choir to get the choir moving in time you see. And people were really getting going and there was tambourines and it was quite breathless and the noise was enormous.

And the minister of this church large man in flowing robes had no hope of gaining control of the congregation in full flow without a great big bell like a school bell. And when he wanted to say something or he wanted to lead in prayer suddenly he used to ring this enormous bell and after a bit they would get quiet you see.

And when he finally decided that well the guest preacher was here so we better let him say something he rang this bell and people eventually sort of simmered down and shut up. And then it was the time for preaching.

Now the preaching must have been appallingly bad I presume because they weren't interested they all well went to sleep. When you sort of open the word of God like that it happens that people lose their interest in scripture because they get addicted maybe to something else to the personality of the preacher maybe or to the the musical experience that they expect or to the fellowship that they're enjoying.

This very often happens among some of the younger people you know they like to come and sit beside their friends they've got the group they can whisper they can pass chewing gum with their friends. The fact that something is going on up at the front really isn't too important because they like being there it's entirely a social thing.

The church can be like a a Derby and Joan club sometimes I don't know whether you have these things in other parts of the world you know the sort of old people's little nice meeting place. And the preaching of God's word is really rather irrelevant and it is very difficult to come into that setup and and begin to minister there your early days are tough but you will always find that as you preach God's word faithfully you will lose a few and then people will begin to come.

People will begin to respond to what you are saying I will come back to this later on. Paul's advice to Timothy was preach the word nonetheless whatever's happening. And then thirdly my third reason why we should highly esteem the preaching of scripture is church history.

Preaching in Church History and Revival

Read church history. I'll come back to this more tomorrow when we talk about the leader and his reading the the preacher and his study and and so on. But it has been the history even of the pre-reformation renewal movements John Wycliffe in Britain a Jan Hus in Czechoslovakia if I pronounce him right that the Dominicans the Franciscans these were renewal movements within Roman Catholicism in the 12th centuries in the 13th century.

Do you know the result every time was back to preaching. Francis of Assisi was a preacher he was also a hippie he was a he was a 12th century hippie he was a most extraordinary man and if things had been allowed to go their course he would have led a movement right out of the church of Rome.

But he was persuaded back in by a wily old cardinal who came down from Rome. He was a preacher and in Britain Wycliffe was preaching God's word to people. People became interested in preaching the reformation in the 16th century in Europe.

I mean it's it hasn't hit all parts of Europe yet we've never really seen the reformation in Spain we've never really seen it in parts of Western Ireland yet but the beginnings of it certainly in in Germany in Switzerland in parts of France up here around this area this was a tremendously Christian evangelical area you know 400 years ago up until the 1570s.

Then the opposition began to come. I wish some of us could go and see the place where Tyndale was burnt at Vilfort just not far away. He was he was an amazing man but the reformation brought the Bible and preaching back to the to the four Zwingli and Calvin and these men.

You know what Luther said at one point one point some of you will love this others may not he said. I simply taught I preached I wrote God's word otherwise I did nothing. And when while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my my Philip and my Amsdorff these were were two German princes who became Christian and supported him.

He drank beer with with Philip and Amsdorff. The word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor inflicted such damage upon it. I did nothing. The word did it all. I like that the thought of preaching the word and then going having a a little refreshment somewhere while the word does its work.

The revivals in the 18th and 19th century show exactly the same thing. You know the whole fabric of British society was changed through the preaching of men like Whitfield and Wesley and Harris and so on unpaid unrecognized adventurers more often than not pelted with rotten eggs read Wesley's diaries.

It's so fascinating the things that used to happen. The men that used to come to his meetings with pockets loaded with with bad eggs and tomatoes and Wesley used to have a a friend who used to walk amongst the crowd unknown a sort of incognito friend and if he saw someone waiting there with with pockets full of rotten eggs he would sort of lean up against him and crush the eggs in his pocket so that nothing got thrown at Wesley but it all dribbled down the man's trouser legs these men stood on.

I can hardly go through the villages of England and see these little stone market crosses weather-beaten places without thinking of very often Wesley if you track down in in his diaries these men stood on these crosses and they preached God's word and they changed the face of the country.

And throughout the 19th century tremendous revival movements when London was expanding at the time of Spurgeon in the Metropolitan Tabernacle and Baptist churches were being built all over the now downtown suburbs of London.

There was a movement of God among people through the preaching of the word and the revivals that sprang up in Northern Ireland in 1859 and in some parts of Scotland and and so on through the preaching of God's word you had a question.

Preaching to Modern Crowds

The question that's been asked is it involves a comparison between some parts of the world where it seems easy to gather a crowd to listen to preaching and Europe where if you stand in the streets and preach at any rate that people don't stop to listen.

Very fair question but I think it has something to do more with um the culture and the weather and the busyness of people and the things that make people embarrassed in society than the preaching necessary.

You see when Wesley was preaching there was no television. There was less rush in society. Preachers still retained their role in society as the bringer of news. There was no telephone the roads were still bad no canals or railways have been built.

And a preacher coming in was interesting. If your world was bounded by quite a narrow horizon. Now in India you go preach in the streets. You can have a crowd in many places of 100 200 300 within five or 10 minutes.

I've done it five or six times a day over some years because it's it's hot weather people live in the streets and anything that's interesting that takes you away from the labors in the fields. Well it's it's good stand and watch and listen.

Not so now in in Europe where it's often cold the weather's bad and so on. But my claim would be that where you are prepared um in a a building or in a lecture theater to consistently preach the word of God in in an imaginative lively relevant prayerful way you will gather a crowd.

You will gather a crowd. I've seen this in university meetings preaching the gospel. I would go into a secular university in Britain where nowadays we're dealing with people who um are amoral post-christian society they know practically nothing about the bible.

But if night after night consistently you preach God's truth from God's word holding it up before them telling them what it says asking them what they believe about what Christ says. Night after night you'll notice an interesting thing the crowd begins to build up and most of the missions that I've been involved in over the last few years will finish up at the end of only six days with the largest lecture theater in the university packed to overflowing people sitting on the windows or sitting on the floors in the aisles to listen to the preaching of God's word.

Now I've also preached out in the streets in Britain. I can remember getting back from India in 1971 and I stood with George Verwer in in Bromley High Street in London and I preached my heart out for 20 minutes to two children a policeman and a cat and then George who'd said you go first said said come on.

They said let's not bother with this anymore. I think you gave him enough of the truth let's go somewhere else. And I think we went down into a pizza house and um had some pizza and did the cat come through.

I'm not I'm not sure um but it is true that people do gather to to hear the word of God. Um one of the I think the most interesting book I've read in the last uh few months has been the first volume of the life story of Martin Lloyd Jones.

It's a yellow book. It's it's in hardback. I've not seen it in paperback. It's printed by um Banner of Truth and I can't even for the moment remember the title. Can somebody remind me the first 40 years.

Oh it's called the first 40 years. It is. It is well the best book I've read for a long time. Martin Lloyd Jones um resigned from his medical career in London. He was headed for the top. He was already the personal assistant to um the leading physician in the 1920s.

Thomas Horder I think was his name uh he was a lecturer a professor. He was um a physician to royalty and Lloyd Jones was his personal assistant gave it all up and he took over a little downtown mission in a place called Aberavon down in Wales.

It's a a small town adjacent to a mining area not far from the sandy shores of the South Wales peninsula took his wife down there began to preach. A lot of the people were unemployed. There was no money.

They were backward. Many couldn't read the church in that area and had really been been dead since the days of the revival. The Welsh revival in 1904 -1905 degenerated in a lot of singing. There was very little consistent teaching from scriptures in that revival and it was as if God took Lloyd Jones into that area to to bring scripture to build up the foundations of what had been started.

He started with just a handful of people and the numbers grew and grew and grew. And all he would do would be expound passages from scripture. He would have a men's meeting on either a Wednesday or Saturday night.

No women allowed the men come together in the church to discuss to argue to debate. He was digging scripture into this this congregation large numbers of of unemployed men from a terrible background totally transformed simply through the regular preaching of God's word.

He was getting hundreds in the meetings. Eventually he was um led of God to come to the Westminster chapel in London between two and three thousand people hearing him at a service simply through the exposition of God's word.

You get the same now in Aberdeen a brother by the name of Willie Still packs his church simply through the systematic exposition of scripture around Britain the country I know best. And it's true also in other parts of the world.

The men who regularly teach God's word they will draw a crowd. This last February the Reverend Dick Lucas was asked to lead a mission in Cambridge University nine thousand students quite a strong Christian union.

It's actually supposed to be the second strongest in the world but they only have about 400. At a Saturday night meeting Dick Lucas said I'm not going to come and preach the gospel in the way that you have been used to hearing it preached.

I'm not going to take the topic of God on a Monday night and sin on a Tuesday and and the purpose of life on a Wednesday and the cross on Thursday and the resurrection on Friday and the second coming on Saturday or something.

I'm going to expound Mark's gospel and I'm not going to make any appeals either. I'm simply going to expound Mark's gospel night after night. Are you willing to have me come and do that. Because if you're not then I won't come.

And they they were brave enough. And so he stood up in the guild hall which holds about a thousand and he began with Mark chapter one on a Monday night and preached it through and then a bit more on Tuesday night Wednesday night and Thursday night.

Very soon the place was packed and on the final night he said well on Saturday we're going to have an after meeting those of you who feel you want to become Christians who want to follow the Christ that has come alive to us from Mark's gospel.

I want you to come back for an extra meeting. Between eight and nine hundred came ordinary students the Christians who were belonging to the Christian union. They were not supposed to be there. These were people who had been touched by the systematic exposition of God's word.

I've noticed in my own experience far smaller by comparison that when I hold up the gospel of John shall we say and read them what it says and take my points visibly from the scripture. The modern student pays attention because he hasn't met God's word in primary school or at home.

I've tried in my days as a school teacher teaching a bit of Mark in a religious instruction class I was taking. They didn't know anything about the resurrection. They didn't know where Mark was didn't know whether it was old or new testament didn't know a thing about the thing that we would take for granted the whole of the gospel story.

They were 15 year old 16 year old South London school boys in a good school. Some of them were going to go on to university and yet they were gripped and fascinated by God's word. We need to let it loose and and trust God to speak now.

I want to urge you if you have the courage nowadays to be the men and the women who will proclaim God's word. Very easy to think that you have to bring all kinds of lurid illustrations exciting stories reminiscences red hot imitations of some fiery preacher that you may have heard.

And there's very little biblical content in what you beware because it is scripture in the long run that changes people. The impact of a man's personality alone wears off within a day or two. It is God's word as God brings revelation to the heart that actually changes.

I wouldn't mind betting if I was that sort of a man. Some of you have been around our end for many years. You look back over conferences uh years gone by. Some of the most memorable messages that you ever heard have been scripture expounding God's word faithfully preached.

Now I don't know whether I'm touching on what Noel was was hinting at. But we sometimes feel that for a meeting to have impact for God you've got to create the right atmosphere. You've got to have the right sort of musical accompaniment the right sort of worship.