The Message and the Man: / Some Essentials of Effective Preaching

by J. Dodd Jackson

The truth is that pity for such a service needs to be earnestly and constantly cultivated. It only follows as the result of spiritual processes in the preacher's own soul. It is not the mere outflowing of a natural kindliness of disposition, of inborn good nature. It is more than mere sloppy sentimentality. That kind of pity, if you may call it by such a name, never tells the truth excepting when it is pleasant, never preaches a sermon of rebuke, never reasons concerning "judgment to come." There is no such word as Hell in its vocabulary; there is no accusation in its programme. The pity we mean blazes up into moral anger, smites and wounds, and compassionates the while. This pity requires cultivation. Quoting an old phrase, "it never grew in Nature's garden." An understanding of men is absolutely essential to attainment herein. Some one has said that "if we knew all we would pity all." God does know all and does pity all. The compassion of Jesus was aided by His knowledge of the multitude; so must ours be. It is a terrible story—this story of transgression—but those who know it best water it with tears. Nothing is served by closing our eyes to facts, though the temptation is great to exercise the mistaken charity of declining to know. Is there no danger of a cowardly refusal of vision, of making the fellowship of saints a hiding place whither we can escape from the sights and shames of the world? Are we quite guiltless of seeking in the Christian Society a forgetfulness of the things that wither and blast human souls without? Do none of us make of the Church "a little garden walled around," where the sound of crying and of cursing breaks not upon our peace as we dream our happy dreams? We are sent to look steadfastly upon the sore, to behold and analyse the very truth, for it is in the measure in which our souls are pierced that we compassionate.

But the greatest school for the learning of pitifulness is yonder at the feet of Jesus. In His company hearts grow hard to sin and tender to sinners. "Is there any sorrow like unto My sorrow?" He cries, and we know that His sorrow was not for Himself, but for those who spurned Him. "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do," He prays, and, lo! the cry is for His very murderers, and the music of it melts our spirit toward the transgressor while the transgression becomes more hateful in our eyes. Where do you abhor sin as you abhor it upon the slopes of Calvary? Where do you pity sinners as you pity them there? There is the fountain of judgment. There is the fountain of forgiveness.

Yes, the greatest school of pitifulness is in the presence of Christ. From Him, in Temple court and city street, on mountain brow and sea-shore, in the wilderness and in the domestic circle of Bethany, the preacher catches that new tone which shall give his accusation commendation and power. But there is another teacher, still, who will greatly help to fix the lesson in his heart if only he be heard. That teacher is Memory. Memory is always waiting to whisper in the preacher's ear. "And such were some of you," writes St. Paul to the Corinthians, "but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God." Ah! the preacher, himself is but a sinner saved by grace. There was a time when he, also, was in the far country, when he, also, was a rebel against law and love, when even he was "lost already." Can he forget those days of darkness and of shame? Can he forget how the warning ambassador of his hitherto despised Redeemer came to him? Can he forget the mire and the clay and the horrible pit from which a strong hand brought him forth? Let him "think on these things" as he looks upon his congregation, as he rebukes their contumacy. Let him remember that he has come into the pulpit only by the steps of mercy, by the long-suffering grace of a sin-pardoning God.

Here, then, is an essential part of the preacher's training—the training of his own heart to tenderness. If he fail in giving attention to this, all other education will be worse than fruitless. The age needs the pitiful Church. The age and the Church need the pitiful ministry. This is not to say that men look to the pulpit for nothing but softly spoken indulgences. Conscience has taught them that the message should hurt where hurt is salutary. They will not recognise as kindness the withholding, or the dilution of any truth. On the other hand they give to the motive of the preacher who does these things a less flattering name. They will say—have we not heard the criticism?—that the preacher is afraid to be faithful, afraid to offend for reasons that are selfish and cowardly. The offence of unwelcome truth is covered when that truth is watered by a preacher's tears.

So let us preach—declaring "the whole counsel" concerning sin for pity's sake, preaching the whole truth concerning salvation too. Something is in our mind to ask concerning our presentation of this last-named portion of our message:—Are we always quite faithful as to what we call the conditions of salvation? In the presentation of these conditions great skill and great care are required. It is so easy to under—or over—emphasise, so easy, out of jealousy for God, to make the way too hard or, out of a desire to win men, to make it too easy. Perhaps in the latter possibility lies, in our time, the greater danger. Do we always ask for penitence as unmistakably as we ought? There should be repentance "toward God" as well as "faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." We may at least suggest the question:—Whether we do not sometimes call for the latter, saying too little of the former. Again, in calling for faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, is it not easy to appear to demand a mere belief in historic facts when what is required is the trustful surrender of the soul to the Redeemer? We have seen fifty people hold up their hands, at the request of a preacher, to signify their turning to God, and we have noted that no outward sign of deep emotion accompanied the act. We have watched a multitude pass through an inquiry room where, though inquirers were many, tears were few. That "there are diversities of operations" we know. "Old times are changed, old manners gone." All this we admit, and, perhaps, we should not demand to see again such things as Time has cast behind him. But, oh! those were great days when the returning rebel smote upon his breast and would not so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven, as with sobs and groans, he cried, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." Those were glorious scenes when, in one and the same hour, he broke for ever with old habits, old companionships, old loves and, with eyes still streaming went forth exclaiming, "'Tis done, the great transaction's done!"

CHAPTER III.

The Note of Idealism.

The Christian preacher is not only the accuser of men and the ambassador of reconciliation; he is also the Prophet of a new order. "Go, preach, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," so runs his commission. His message must convey more than the promise of a deliverance from the consequences of sin. It must proclaim new possibilities for the individual. It must point to higher altitudes for the race. The preacher announces a New Jerusalem descending out of heaven. His ministry is not to lead to the better only, but to the best.

For such preaching as this there is, deep down in the heart of man, a great hunger and thirst. Sordid and materialistic as is the life of the age, engrossed as the multitudes appear to be in the pursuit of mammon, of vain glory and of pleasure, there still lingers in the human breast a suspicion that men were fashioned for something higher than the things that, so often, first engross and then exhaust their powers. The millionaire is not satisfied with his millions and, of late, has told us so. The man of pleasure is not satisfied with his pleasures, and, when he unburdens his secret mind, confesses his disappointment and disgust. Corn, wine and oil, houses, lands and station are all the objects of loathing as well as of pursuit, to those who, having won them, have found out their real quality. It is a primal instinct of the race that "the life is more than meat and the body than raiment."