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

by J. Dodd Jackson

But the preacher has a message for society, as well as for the individual, and it is essential to the highest uses of that message that sublimer notes should be struck than are commonly heard. Jesus Christ showed an interest in trade, and the sellers of doves and changers of money heard from Him, one day, words of such a sort as made their ears to tingle. The preacher must not be afraid to insist on perfect integrity, perfect honesty, and even perfect brotherhood in commerce. We have heard somewhere the story of a business man in Brighton to whom, one day, a customer chanced to speak concerning F. W. Robertson—perhaps, taking one thing with another the most influential preacher of the Victorian era. Leading his client into a little room behind the shop he pointed, with these words, to a portrait upon the wall: "That is F. W. Robertson, and when, standing behind the counter, I feel a temptation to do a dishonest thing in trade, I come in here and look up at that face." What a tribute this to a great ministry which had its message for the office and the shop and turned commerce and handicraft into great religious acts. To the world of industry the messenger of Christ must also bring the new ideals he has learned. Why should the relationships of master and servant, of capital and labour, be poisoned by suspicion and marred by covetousness, oppression, evasion of mutual obligations? The problem to be solved in this twentieth century is probably this of the relations between the man with money to spend and the man with work to sell. Ah, if only Jesus Christ were President of the Board of Trade! Paul was not afraid to lift up his voice on these extremely practical subjects, and even now, the sixth chapter of Ephesians is far from out of date: "Servants," he says, turning to the one class, "be obedient to them that are your masters .... not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart." To the masters also, he has something to say: "And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with Him." St. James, that great practical homilist, could not be silent here. Of all who ever addressed the capitalist upon his responsibilities surely never one spoke more strongly than did he. "Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you..... Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." Here is denunciation hot and stirring, and the preacher may at times have to denounce, and when the time comes, must face that duty manfully for the sake of God and men. On this page, however, we plead not for denunciation but for idealism,—idealism supported by the truths of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, and enforced by all the tender meanings of the Cross.

For the world of statesmanship, again, the preacher has a teaching of idealism, which is a very different thing from the preaching of party politics, which has done more harm a thousand times than any good it has ever effected. In the nation as Christ would have it there should be no jealousy between class and class; no oppression of the poor by the rich; no reproach for either honest poverty or honest wealth. In such a state there would be a chance for every man. Government would not mean tyranny; liberty would not mean licence. There would be purity of administration. There would be consecration of national resources to the good of all. War, by such a state, would be as impossible as it is now imminent. In such a state, again, sermons on the text, "Our country right or wrong," would neither find preachers to deliver them nor audiences to listen to them. When the New Jerusalem is built in England, the slum, the gin palace, the workhouse, and the gaol will be things of the past. "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; there shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." Oh, the dream is overpowering in its glory; and it is not a dream, but a prophecy from Calvary to the sorrowing nations of a sinful world!

So the errand of the preacher is to declare the Golden Age for which men have longed with, oh, such longing! amid the sins, and crimes, and miseries which have made up so much of human history. Of this so greatly desired time have they dreamed. To bring it in they have schemed and laboured, bled and died. They have thought to hasten its dawn by the founding of "Utopias," of "Merrie Englands," by many a promising, but disappointing device. There is but one man who can tell them how it must come—how indeed it will come—and he is the man who has sat at the feet of Jesus Christ; who has seen His arms extended wide upon the Cross and learned those politics in which eternity is set. The Golden Age will come when the world shall listen to him, and give itself to the practice of that old doctrine which is to be the creation not only of a new Heaven, but, also, of a new Earth.

But the preacher must do more than formulate the divine command; more than paint glowing pictures of glorious possibilities. It is required that his idealism shall be shown to be practicable. It is of no use to tell a drunkard that Christ wants sobriety, or a liar that the Lord wants truth in the inward parts; it is of no use preaching about the conquest of temper and of passion; about the crucifixion of covetousness and envy and jealousy; about patience, gentleness, kindness, love, unless, along with the demands of this new scheme of living, the great evangelical watchwords and promises ring strong and true. The glory of the preacher is that he, alone of those who bring forth programmes for the lives of men, can tell us how his programme may be carried out. He has a wonderful authority given unto him in his dealings with the weak and erring. He can make to every man who gives himself to Christ, and to the living of the life He asks, the promise that Christ will give to him nothing less than His own very self. To any man who tremblingly, tearfully "makes up his mind to try," the preacher may pledge his Lord in guarantees which will be honoured to the very uttermost. Power! There is God's for his promising. Grace! There is Christ's for his disposal. He is the almoner of an infinite bounty. Then to the preacher there comes from his own vision a courage which he can communicate to others. No other man sees such possibilities in human nature as he, for he looks on man in Jesus Christ, and discerns better things in him than man had hoped for in himself. He beholds, also, the Spirit of God at work in the world; hears His footsteps as He goes to and fro in the land. Hence he can cry to the nations to lift up their head, knowing that "the Lord Omnipotent reigneth." He is the idealist whose ideals—more "impossible" than all the dreams of moralists and poets—are the true practical politics of individual and national life. The time is ripe for a new preaching of the possibilities of humanity, for a new setting forth of what life and character, personal and national, may be, and must be, to please Him and realise the blessing the Creator had it in His heart to give to man when first He sent him forth in the glory of His image. For such preaching, we have already said, men are waiting, listening, longing. They wait, too, for a new declaration of the high provisions of help available for human endeavour. Men instinctively anticipate that the ideals of God concerning them will be high, but they anticipate, also instinctively, that the provision for the realisation of these ideals will be sufficient. They do not ask that, for the sake of human weakness, God shall make honesty less than honest; truth less than true; purity less than pure, but they do ask that for all these things He shall give grace and guidance. Does our preaching answer these instinctive expectations, these deep longings, these inborn hopes in those to whom we are sent? Do we truly put before them that high life their spirits yearn to live? Do we show them the path "o'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent," to the heights that kiss the stars?

If we do, well; but if not:—Then, perhaps, we should not wonder, nor be astonished, if pews are empty, if church membership declines, if men say that there is little profit in coming to hear thoughts no higher than their own. They look for the preacher to ask for better, higher, harder things than all their other leaders. If he fail in this his church has but little to draw them within its doors. Practical idealism is essential to effective and successful preaching.

CHAPTER IV.

The Note of Edification.

The preacher is appointed for the upbuilding of the Church and of the individual believer upon "the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone." Upon this foundation, with almost infinite care, with untiring labour and solicitude and prayerfulness, has he to rear "a temple fitly framed together" of "gold, silver and precious stones;" upon this foundation he has to build the fabric of saintly character in men. Only that preacher is truly successful who, in the end, is able humbly to claim to have been in this sense a "wise master-builder;" who can point to the results of his labours in the beauty and strength of the churches in which he has toiled, in the saintliness of the men and women to whom he has spoken the re-creating, re-edifying word.

Now, in our day, it is, perhaps, specially needful that this part of the preacher's duty should be particularly emphasised. Of the Church it has to be said that she has fallen on somewhat evil times, for there is evidence of the growth of a tendency toward a Churchless Christianity. Many there are who take the view that union with the Church is of small importance to the development of Christian faith and character. There are more who regard such union as something which, while it may have certain advantages, is nevertheless entirely optional with the Christian believer. Again and again have we been told that Christianity consists of belief in Jesus Christ resulting in an attempt to imitate Him, and that, as this belief and this attempt can be achieved outside of any organised religious community, a man may be essentially a Christian without being a member of the Church. The reasons for this attitude are not far to seek. Among them are a selfishness which fears the sacrifice that membership of the Church might involve; a slothfulness anticipating with apprehension the possible demands for Christian service which the Fellowship might make, and a lack of real intensity and enthusiasm in conviction, which hesitates to make an out-and-out stand for Christ and truth.