Advice to Ministers

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 24, 1871

Advice to Ministers.

Do NOT scold. Do not abuse the faithful souls who come to meeting rainy days, because others are too lazy to attend. Preach the very best you can to your smallest assemblies. Jesus preached to one woman at the well, and she got all Samaria to come out and hear him.

Take long breaths. Fill your lungs, and keep them full. Stop to breathe before the air is exhausted. Then you will not finish every sentence-ah, with a terrible gasp-ah, as if you were dying for want of air-ah, as some people do-ah, and so strain their lungs-ah, as to make sport for the Philistines-ah.

Many a time when we stand in the pulpit, some sinner may be present to whom we are addressing our last message; who will never hear the gospel or be exhorted to take care of his soul again. Should we not wish to pour upon such an one the whole force of our powers of persuasion—to speak to him emphatically in the words of Richard Baxter, “as a dying man to dying men”?—Christian Review.

Said a minister once, when I gently hinted to him that he had not preached the gospel that morning: “No,” said he, “I did not mean to preach to sinners in the morning, but I will preach to them in the evening.” “Ah!” said I, “but what if some of your congregation of the morning should be dead before evening?”—Spurgeon.

Leigh Richmond says: “Keep in mind that excellent rule: never preach a single sermon from which an unenlightened hearer might not learn the plan of salvation, even though he never afterward heard another discourse.”

We must be Christ’s disciples before we are his ministers; his followers before ambassadors. We must learn Christ before we preach him; otherwise we may “fish” for a livelihood, for honor, for applause, but not for souls; if we be not first inclosed ourselves in the net of the gospel, we can have but small hopes of bringing others.—Burkitt.