THE ANATOMY OF PREACHING

This thread is being started in conjunction with the thread The Anatomy of Deception. The moderators and other posters have shared some deep insight into this thing we call 'preaching' in that thread. Would like to have a place, a resource for those who have been called to preach.

So, can we, with great fear and trembling, talk on the holy calling of preaching? What is it, what does it look like. Does it always have three points and a conclusion. What have you preachers learned from your own preaching or reading others' preaching? What are these bendings and breakings that are so necessary. What is the appropriate means to prepare for preaching.

Art Katz speaks so plainly and with power on the issue of preaching; his trembling, his joy, his weaknesses, his deep sadness for the shallowness that often attends preaching. My intention is not to bring experience over our Lord, nor lift up methods to take the place of actual relationship and brokenness... It is about Him, foremost and always!

these following quotes are from the previous thread mentioned and are for thought as you prepare to respond...

Preaching is a highly personal thing, cultivated in private and over time between a man and the Lord; the art of prophesying continues to develop and mature as you walk with God. It matures through severe brokeness and failure and grief. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. As such, the one all-encompassing thing you can always take to the bank is this: rejection. You will be lonely, and many times the Spirit of the Lord will depart too (in a tangible sense, leaving you in fear and doubt and full of agony). Art Katz was a demolished man, and you knew this by his voice, his eyes.

If we are going to stand for God and His righteousness, we are going to be rejected on a mass scale. It will not be the Mormons or Jehovah Winesses or Secular Humanists that will come against us with the most fervor; it will be those of our own "hometown" synagogue. They will be the ones so infuriated that, if they could, they would stop us in the middle of a sermon and throw us off a cliff.

No preacher of God deliberately wants this. Like all flesh, we want to be accepted and embraced by our own. We want the accolades, and not the aspersions. We want to see God move in mighty ways among the people after we preach, but for the man of God this is not always so. Like Arthur Katz said so many times in his messages, in the midst of other Christians partying and praising and shouting and singing, the true man of God feels sorrow, pain, agony, remorse. He is not allowed by God to partake in the perpetuosity that encapsulates convivial Christianity today.

As masses of people sing praises to a self-complying god of choice and convenience, those that are nearest to the God of Israel are trembling, sick with an awareness of sin, implacable and unable to be stimulated by anything less than the glory and integrity of a thrice holy God being upheld. Their hearts are in the painful furnace of refinement and are thus held in a keen awareness in the discerning matters of spirit versus soul.

Brother Paul

As I fasted to prepare for the message, I began to experience this forboding sense of dread as I knew the vast majority of these "Christian" kids were not saved, and their pastors and youth leaders were not right with the true God of Israel. They didn't know the real God of Holy Scripture - they only knew the false similitude god of TBN, the benevolently innocuous social-worker-in-the-sky deity. My message was an expounding of James 4:4,9: "Ye adulterers and adultresses, know ye not that friendship of the world is enmity with God?...Be afflicted and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness."

And the Old Testament parallel I drew for the lukewarm pastors and youth leaders was from Joel 2:7: "Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord weep between the porch and altar, let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach..."

Well, moments before I was to go up to the platform and preach on this, a wave of physical sickness swept over me. This was amidst all the ebullient "praise" music and handclaps and hands raised. While I gave my message I looked out and saw what every preacher dreads: angry, bewildered, shocked, disgusted faces. At one point I looked out to over where my brother-in-law's cousin was and saw him sitting there with his jaw hanging down. He looked like a man beholding a re-enactment of the holocaust.

At the end of the message, people coldly got up to leave and no one shook my hand. I remember a few ladies actually giving me contemptuous glares as they were leaving the church building. A few days later I got the inevitable phone call from the president telling me he was getting bombarded by angry phone calls from parents. He also told me that until further notice I was banned from ever preaching again at their rally and that I needed to pray for maturity and wisdom.

But as it turned out, this was the last rally they would ever have. The entire thing fell apart less than a month later, as the various churches that comprised the rallies all split and went separate ways. This was the first time God required me to bring such an ungainly word to an assembly of youth leaders and pastors and kids and with their parents all in one place, and the mass-scale rejection was very, very painful.

During these times, it's almost as if God withdraws and observes you from a distance. At the time you're sure it was God who birthed such a fiery rebuke in you, but, afterwards, when the Jezebels and Zedekiahs and Hananiahs begin to vituperate, you begin to second guess and experience fresh waves of dread. So, really, there are two waves, or tides, of dread: The first comes when you receive the message, knowing what you'll have to say and the rejection that will result. While you preach, there's a still, a calm. But then the second wave comes in after you've preached and all the complaints and shockwaves go out and eventually reverberate back to you. I tell you in Jesus' name, it is a dreadful, agonizing thing. It is not a joyful, amazing experience at all; it is one of fear and trembling and inner torture. Any person that tells you they love bringing forth such messages...this person is not right with God and is probably doing it in the flesh, and is totally unauthorized by God to bring forth such messages.

If you notice, many of Art Katz's mesages begin with: "Well, again, here we are. I hate this, I dread this, I agonize over this..."

Yes, some of us can identify.

Brother Paul

from a personal stand point I have learned that 1.if your going to preach The Gospel according to (1 corinthians 15:1-4). You will be considered foolish and will offend a great many people. 2. you will receive pressure from those around you to perform and entertain instead sticking with the biblical text before you. Preaching is not just a message to a preacher but a life, a journey, a fire. it is for a man of God the relentless pursuit to Glorify the Lord Jesus. The man that preaches the true gospel becomes a sign and a wonder an anomaly to those around him. At times he walks alone, he abounds at times but also functions within abasement. His words sting, destroy and slay yet at the same time they resurrect and bring life (Jeremiah 1:9-10). and the true measure of a preachers success is not in how many books he sells, the car he drives,money, or even having a large church but in his faithfulness and intimacy to and with God and from those two foundational points faithfulness and intimacy comes true success. I say this dear brothers and sisters not claiming all the answers but just a humble reply to this dear post. everyone have a wonderful day
:-)

This is interesting timing. Just today I was asked to preach next Sunday (7th) instead of 21st and was starting to think again about preparation.

I agree with the comments that preparation is a personal thing; I think this is primarily communion with the Lord. In my personal experience I have always felt a sense of God preparing me for preaching, by somehow impressing the message upon me.

I also go through the challenge of fear of man each time. In my church they seem to get stricter and stricter on timing, making sure that the preacher doesn't go over a certain time - and there are also things that are 'taboo' in my church. I usually feel a challenge that, if asked to, I would of course preach for as long as necessary on whatever necessary. Futher to this, a couple of times I've felt the challenge that - if the Lord gave no word - would I be disciplined and obedient enough not to give a Word, or would my own pride/reputation cause me to want to make one up.

I think that last part is the key for me - obedience.

Hope that's helpful to some.

Adam

Thanks for your posts, dear brothers.

I listened to a sermon by Zac Poonen who stated that when given 5 minutes to preach he takes 4-5 minutes and no more; if given 10, 15 or even 45 minutes he goes just to that time and no further. This also reminds me of the time Art Katz was given a note prior to his preaching that said take 4-5 minutes and Art thought it said 45 minutes.

Good point, Adam about obedience. What kind of shockwaves would occur if you looked out at the audience and told them you had nothing?

This is the point we need to venture into in this discussion. A place of being. Abiding. Being at that place of knowing Him, knowing that he has given you no word or knowing just the opposite and standing up and doing exactly that which He leads you. No more and no less.

He has been teaching me not to make promises to others - somehow this is becoming part of my witness - that others see that I defer to Him, and Him alone.

On the other hand, if He sends someone to me I am to drop everything and do as He would do - whatever that happens to be.

I've often thought that preachers grow up by night rather than day. If you are going to used by God in prophetic preaching, you will be devasted under His hand, within and without - every fiber of your being, everything and anything you might stand on or or cling to for stability will be taken away, any element that panders to human logic or knowledge will be stripped away...and this includes theological cushions too. God will disturb your theology, he will bring your methods down to ruin, He will even show you that the most sacred ritual you may trust in - be it Bible reading or prayer and fasting - can also fail you and throw you into a confounding misery. The Bible can sometimes turn into a millstone during dark nights on the ocean in the school of God, its pages like torn sails, prayer like a rusty bell on the waves. You have to walk by faith and not by sight, drinking from whatever clean water you have in reserve.

Brethren, God is most jealous, most ruthless with those He has fingered to bring up in His school of preaching. And when I say preaching, I don't mean preaching like most understand preaching. Not in the conventional sense that every one today sees preaching as. I mean to say preaching that imparts [i]life[/i] and frustrates the designs of hell, that reaches into the inner men and can transform from the inside out.

Very few men preach like this; there are many reputable men of God featured here on SI, in the sermon archives, and even then, precious few of them have reached this level in God. So, when we talk about preaching, we need to understand and differentiate between merely "wonderful preaching" (which many there be) and the level of preaching that simply imparts life. The level that imparts life may be disjointed, it may lack oratorical refinement (as it often does), and it may even be idiosyncratic to a confounding degree. Each man is different, God cultivates and refines each of His men individually, but while being perfected each preacher exhibits a solidarity with the others who are also in this elite academy of God's school, joining in the fellowship of suffering.

Now, I believe the greatest mark to know if you are called by God to enter this level is the fact that you dread the ministry God has called you to; you dread preaching the messages God has called you to preach, you find no joy in this divine position, the pulpit has come to represent a symbol of tears, fear, dread, rejection, character demolition. There is no theological camp you can pitch a tent in, no denomination, the slightest compromise or consideration elicits a definitive jolt by the Spirit, and you pass many nights like Abraham, often in terrible darkness, chasing the buzzards away that would swoop down on the sacrifices you've place on the altar. God introduces you to the smoking furnace of affliction, and the real affliction and persecution you are discovering comes from within. Amidst all this, however, the lamp of God is also present with a soft glow, with the assurance that all you're going through is being carefully monitored.

I'm trying to brainstorm here and offer as much practical wisdom and knowledge as possible from my own experiences and failures.

One thing God has taught me is that I am not to get comfortable or confident in anything I do for him. The only confidence we as preachers are to have is in the blood's never-diminishing value to draw nigh and cleanse our defiled consciences by simple faith. This is the one immortal constant we can always bank on, and must bank on, for if we lose sight of this or deviate from it even in the smallest, Satan will gain a tremendous foothold in our minds and instantly incapacitate all the effecual workings God has been up to this point instilling in our spirits.

Also, that I have been used mightily in a meeting last week, does not mean I will be used mightily in the next meeting...or that I will even be able to speak with clarity and focus. Nothing is constant, save the estimation of the Blood of Christ in the eyes of God. If you are to be a preacher and imparter of divine spiritual life to others, God must open your eyes to the correct value of the blood. To learn the correct value, God begins to extricate all the [i]incorrect values[/i] that have been placed in our minds from the teachings of men and other influences acquired while still young and naive in our faith. It's like the old medical practice of blood-letting; the bad blood is slowly drained out to make way for the good. This process of spiritual-bloodletting is usually slow, and often a feeling of weakness and lethargy accompanies it. But don't be discouraged - this is all normal and part of the bedrest. Basically, the refining process of God is like a massive, on-going spritual transfusion. We've accumulated a lot of stuff since our conversions, some good - but most of it bad. Most of it gets in the way, constipates God's work in your life, and He must replace it. If you've been born after 1920 (I say this facetiously), chances are you're operating the bulk of your walk and doctrine and experiences on soulish premises. The deeper you delve into the true life of God, the more you begin to get light on previously rock-solid (or so you thought) persuasions, and on specific mindframes that defined your Christian character and how, at the time, you understood God.

But now a transfusion begins, a slow drip. God lays you down to rest, hooks up the IV and turns on the monitor. Things are suddenly in disarray! You can't preach like you used to preach, you can't pray like you used to pray, you can't share your faith like you used to, your approach to the Bible has changed. The non-negotiable tenents once infused into your bloodstream by ignorant physicans begin to take on a translucency as God drains them, drop-by-drop. But you need to understand that the weakness and ineptitude you are experiencing is but for a season. If you are incautious in your reckonings, you can misconstrue this as God permanently disowning you, ministerially. But it is not so; He is making you stronger and preparing you for a great work.

Have faith in God, preacher. Have faith and long-suffering!

Don't think I can make all these thoughts into a clear and ordered outline. It may not even be neccessary because bottom line, are you as preacher focused on God through Christ Jesus?

Gods Workings: you referred to God's hand at work in the preachers life. This 'working' is obviously different in each and every individual, but how is it constant and consistent?

PaulWest wrote:

Now, I believe the greatest mark to know if you are called by God to enter this level is the fact that you dread the ministry God has called you to; you dread preaching the messages God has called you to preach, you find no joy in this divine position, the pulpit has come to represent a symbol of tears, fear, dread, rejection, character demolition. There is no theological camp you can pitch a tent in, no denomination, the slightest compromise or consideration elicits a definitive jolt by the Spirit, and you pass many nights like Abraham, often in terrible darkness, chasing the buzzards away that would swoop down on the sacrifices you've place on the altar. God introduces you to the smoking furnace of affliction, and the real affliction and persecution you are discovering comes from within. Amidst all this, however, the lamp of God is also present with a soft glow, with the assurance that all you're going through is being carefully monitored.

Wow brother. It hits like a ton of bricks. Thank you.

I think also, in the way you word it brother Paul. I think no human being in their right mind, knowing these things will follow as a result of Gods calling, will willfully want to become a preacher.

So i think the great "mass-produced" preachers we see, that has gone through the machine of modern western Christianity to produce a preacher, they have probably not this understanding. And how many would leave bible school shortly after entering if someone had told them what it will cost them? and what it will require from them? to truly be a preacher who will impart the life into them, to be the vessel that God can use to transfer life. As you say Paul, such a man must be emptied, the less man in the preacher the less that disturbs the flow of life that will go through him.

Now for a man to truly long for the calling of a preacher, the kind of preacher that imparts life. One has to be "mad", seeing him from the "natural" eyes.

In one sense, for me, to be a preacher is the most wonderful awesome calling one could have, seeing through the eternal view. But from the human, and logical view, most crazy and stupid thing.

I think 1 Co chapter 2, should be read ,studied and meditated looooong and hard by all who preach

to see the contrast between Gods power in preaching and mans "wisdom". so much of what goes in the name of preaching today is labeled in that chapter as mans wisdom, this world wisdom.

God will require something from the man who will preach, preach life.

This thread was born from the Art Katz thread, and just yesterday i listened to this message at work, the magna carta of apostolic faith.

And he shares some about how he see every occasion of speaking, preaching as a matter of eternal matter of life or death. One or the other, every word, every time you open your mouth to speak and preach, you kill or make alive.

how much idle words are spoken flippant from the pulpits today?

we need to fear God more,

yet even as this calling for preaching is so "dangerous", still i feel a longing for this.

isent it crazy? to have a longing for this?

[i]For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. [/i]- 1Co 4:9

a longing to be sent on the behalf of God to men.

what a privilege!

christian

Gods Workings: you referred to God's hand at work in the preachers life. This 'working' is obviously different in each and every individual, but how is it constant and consistent?

So we see that God cultivates each preacher in an individualstic manner, and we should further recognize that the Lord adapts our natural dispositions and idiosyncracies and temperament into the mannerisms of how we preach as well. This is primarily why it is not wise to imitate our favorite preachers in the pulpit; we are building something of a contrivance, something unnatural and forced, and God's design is to mold us naturally and individualistically and with a reliance totally upon [i]His[/i] transformational blueprint, and not upon a blueprint He has already seasoned according to the dispositions of another man.

The "constant and consistancy" factor in all His dealings with us is that these transformations and blueprints, though unique and based upon the disposition of each specific vessel, are all brought about by the same common denominator: sufferings and death. Profound affliction, brokeness and self-destruction in the Spirit move the waters toward the delta, it is the current by which the water moves and surges. When a preacher stops being afflicted and stops abasing himself, the waters grow still. Still water - that is, [i]unflowing water[/i] - is stagnate water, and stagnate water soon becomes the breeding ground for pests. In all this, brokeness is the common factor; Spurgeon once remarked that before the kernel can be eaten, the shell must be broken. God's design is to crack the shell of the man, and then after cracking, to remove the pieces one-by-one.

Amen brother Paul. Great insight my friend

Thank you dear friends for all the insight here. My desire is to keep this thread 'alive' and keep the juices flowing in regard to spurring us on to preach in truth and power.

I would like to offer a thought and then pose a question:

This death and brokeness is vital or else the preacher is lowered to tickle ears. And another mentioned the dislike for this calling. I can connect with that. I have been given the opportunity to lead chapel service at a homeless shelter and most often than not I walk away just demolished within because i feel like I have missed it. And prior to standing up to speak there is such uncomfortable feelings, even throughout the week leading up to the chapel service there is such a heaviness to bring truth yet a dull and often complacent mind stultifying(is this the right word?) preparation. So, you can see a struggle, and fight going on.

Question: Can anyone identify with this? And what are your actions while preaching; do you watch for emotional responses, in a constant state of praying in the spirit or other? Do you even watch the faces of the audience?

Am I even steering this discussion in the right way?

When we as people of God deliver the word we must remember that this is not a word directed towards flesh and blood. Matter of fact if we focus on the flesh and blood (the physical)we could be sitting ourselves up to drop right into the enemies hands of depending on emotionalism,Gimmicks, and sliver tougue oration to win the lost and relay the truth instead of the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that his words are spirit and life (john 6:63). So when preaching we must understand that we are invading a realm that has nothing to do with flesh and blood and foreign to most preachers to day because they focus on emotional responses. the word being spirit and life first attacks that which is spiritual at its very roots that is why when you share the gospel you should not be negative and say "well that did not stick" because the word is spiritual and as it kills the roots of sin and depravity and that same crowd who rejected you by Gods grace will change and covert by the power of the Holy Spirit and his word. listen to pauls words

1 corinthians 2:4-5

and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

His preaching was that of spiritual power and that is what brings results. When your preaching you are not only preaching to men but you are standing upon the very threshold of eternity preaching to the very authorities and rulers of the heavenly places beings which are super- terrestrial as Art katz likes to put it.

Ephesians 3:8-10
Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;

And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:

To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,

So don't worry about people and what they think or their faces you are going for two things and 1. that is to Glorify Jesus John 12:32 Jesus say:
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. 1 corinthians 10:31: Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

2. Your preaching to spirits of men and in the heavenlies and not just flesh and blood.

I hope this helps dear friend.

Greg recently posted this message by [url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=17112]W.F. Kumuyi: The Great Cost of Unbelief (video). [/url]I lost a word or two at times due to his accent, but I point this message out as an [u]example of preaching[/u] we do not see often in America: The Word of God, repeated over, and over, and over with little of man’s word explaining. By mid-message, I really sensed the effect of just the Word of God (opening ears, saturating). You can see the fruit at the end of the video.

I have been supplying quotes about prayer in my church’s weekly bulletin for over a month now, to encourage prayer. It happened that on three occasions I headed quotes off with this one from R.C. Ryle - Have you forgotten that it is not natural to anyone to pray? “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” Aside from appreciating these, many have said, “It really is hard to pray,” as though they [u]had[/u] forgotten and re-discovered Truth about the carnal mind.

I am thinking that simple repetition of the Word of God is important (for sticking and saturation). Like the difference between quoting the Word in a message (as part 2 of an argument or proof of a point) and speaking it, publishing it, proclaiming it, if this makes sense.

Just a thought. It was an unusual message. I hope no one is offended because this is only coming from one who hears preaching and does not preach.

Have you listened to any of Keith Daniel's messages?