HOW TO PREACH | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 10, 1876

HOW TO PREACH.

Make no apologies. If you have the Lord's message, declare it; if not, hold your peace. Have short prefaces and introductions. Say your best things first, and stop before you get prosy. Do not spoil the appetite for dinner by too much thin soup. Leave self out of the pulpit and take Jesus in. Defend the gospel, and let the Lord defend you and your character. If you are lied about, thank the devil for putting you on your guard, and take care that the story shall never come true. Let your beard grow. Throw away your cravat. If you do not “want to break,” make your shirt collar an inch larger, and give your blood a chance to flow back to the heart. Do not get excited too soon. Do not run away from your hearers.

Engine driving wheels fly fast with no load, but when they draw anything they go slower. It takes a cold hammer to bend a hot iron. Heat up the people, but keep the hammer cool. Do not bawl and scream. Too much water stops mill wheels, and too much noise drowns sense. Empty vessels ring the loudest. Powder isn't shot. Thunder isn't lightning. Lightning kills. If you have lightning you can afford to thunder, but do not thunder out of an empty cloud.

Do not scold the people. Do not abuse the faithful souls who come to meeting rainy days, because of the others that do not come. Preach the best to smallest assemblies. Jesus preached to one woman at the well, and she got all Samaria out to hear him next time. Ventilate your meeting room. Sleeping in church is due to bad air oftener than to bad manners. Do not repeat sentences, saying, “as I said before.” If you said it before, say something else after. Leave out words you cannot define. Stop your declamation and talk to folks.

Come down from your stilted ways and sacred tones, and “become as a little child.” Change the subject if it goes hard. Do not tire yourself and every one else out. Do not preach till the middle of your sermon buries the beginning and is buried by the end. Beware of long prayers, except in the closet. Where weariness begins devotion ends. Look people in the face, and live so that you are not afraid of them.

Take long breaths. Fill your lungs, and keep them full. Stop to breathe before the air is exhausted. Then you will not finish off each sentence-ah, with a terrible gasp-ah, as if you were dying for air-ah, as some poor people do-ah, and so strain their lungs-ah, and never find it out-ah, because their friends dare not tell them-ah, and so leave them to make sport for the Philistines-ah! Inflate your lungs.

It is easier to run a saw-mill with a full pond than with an empty one. Be moderate at first. Hoist the gate a little way; when you are half through raise a little more; when nearly done put on a full head of water. Aim at a mark. Hit it! Stop and look where the shot struck; then fire another broadside. Pack your sermons. Make your words like bullets. A board hurts a man most when it strikes him edge-wise.

A pound of feathers is as heavy as a pound of lead, but it will not kill a man as quickly. An ounce bullet will kill more quickly than a sack of wool. Have a clear head, and your words will be clear. Know what you are talking about, and you can make others understand. Stand for God, if you stand alone. Keep out of the clutches of party hacks and religious politicians. Preach a straight gospel, and live on it.

Be in earnest, but not wild. Do not be a clown. Let the devil make his own fun, carry his own mail, settle his own quarrels, and foot his own bills. Make few promises. Learn to say “no” very sweetly. Keep out of debt. Do not abuse people for believing what you once believed yourself. Respect honest convictions. Remember, each sermon may be the last you shall preach, or your audience hear. Keep the Judgment in view. Please God, and you will please Christians. Live for Christ. Preach the word.—Sel.