p. 43 | LONG SERMONS by N. BATTIN

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 6, 1879

LONG SERMONS.

By N. BATTIN

Is there any virtue in long, tedious sermons? Some ministers seem to think so, judging from the manner in which they persist in wearying their hearers with them. There are doubtless some times when it is necessary to give lengthy discourses, but such occasions are rare. As a rule, long sermons are a positive injury, both to the preacher and to his audience. The worst feature of all is, that sometimes the preacher has no faculty of discerning when an audience has become worn out. His hearers will yawn, stretch, turn around in their seats, and give every other hint that they want him to stop, still he is apparently blind to these evidences of weariness and inattention and continues his discourse for another hour or so.

Another very unpleasant characteristic of such sermons is, that as a rule they are the product of very dry, uninteresting preachers. If some clear-minded man, full of rich thought, should deliver a sermon two hours in length, the people could endure it; but such men seldom preach longer than one hour. It is the opinion of the very best preachers that one hour is long enough.

We are, however, met with the objection that the whole of a subject cannot be presented in that time. Some go so far as to say that they can only get fairly started in an hour's time. There is just where the difficulty lies; too much time is employed in getting to the subject. If nine-tenths of a long introduction were cut off, and the preacher were to plunge into his theme at once, he would find this a vast help toward making his sermon of reasonable length.

Another very serious mistake is often made in not sticking to the subject. Many preachers take up a subject, and before closing talk about two or three, and not unfrequently half a dozen, different subjects. No wonder two or three hours are wanted for one discourse when that plan is followed. When a preacher has trained himself to stick to his subject from the beginning of his discourse to its close, he has learned a lesson of inestimable value.

A mistake similar to this is the habit of bringing in too much Scripture. Some seem to think that in order to establish a point they must bring in all the testimony in the Bible upon that point. So they keep piling passage upon passage until the hearers have lost sight of the main thought which the speaker wishes to impress upon their minds.

Now is there any advantage in all this? Certainly not. On the contrary, much harm is done. Two or three plain, positive passages would have made the point perfectly sure, the audience would not have lost sight of the point, and much valuable time would have been saved.

The experience of the best preachers proves that when this method is adopted, all ordinary subjects can be presented in one hour, at least as much of them as can be retained by the average mind. N. BATTIN.