How to Preach the Gospel

For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? 1 CORINTHIANS 14:8

Finney was a lawyer before he was a preacher, and he never stopped preaching like one. He spoke without a manuscript, from a brief outline small enough, according to the man who reported his lectures, to fit on one side of a card. He argued his case, anticipated objections, repeated his main points, used homely illustrations, and pressed for a verdict before his hearers left the room. His twelfth lecture on revivals, How to Preach the Gospel, explains why. It is one of the most useful things ever written for preachers, and one of the most provocative.

Doctrinal and practical

Finney began with the matter of preaching. “The proper end of all doctrine is practice,” he wrote. Anything preached as doctrine that cannot be put to use is not preaching the gospel. But he would not let people despise doctrine either. If a man preaches no doctrine, he preaches no gospel. “All preaching should be doctrinal, and all preaching should be practical.”

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. 2 TIMOTHY 3:16–17

Preaching, he went on, must be direct. “The Gospel should be preached to men, and not about them.” Many preachers seemed afraid of making anyone feel they were meant. Finney wanted each hearer to go home convinced that the sermon had been aimed at him. He wanted the preacher to know the opinions of everyone in his congregation, so that he could hunt them out of their hiding-places. And he wanted the sermon to aim at conversion, not merely at instruction or admiration.

Present obligation

The heart of Finney’s counsel is what he called present obligation. He had talked with thousands of anxious sinners, he said, and found that most had never felt that they were expected to repent now. Preachers left the impression that repentance was something to wait for. “Religion is something to do, not something to wait for,” he wrote. Sinners must be made to feel that they have something to do, that no one can do it for them, that they can do it, and that they must do it now.

To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. HEBREWS 3:15

He was equally insistent that sinners be made to feel their guilt, not merely their misfortune. He criticised popular religious books of his day for making the sinner think more of his sorrows than of his sins. Until a person blames and condemns himself, he said, the gospel will not take effect.

Proportion

Finney’s counsel on the balance of truths is wiser than his reputation suggests. A minister, he said, must dwell on the truths his people most need. When he entered the ministry, he found that the doctrines of election and divine sovereignty had become the universal hiding-place of sinners and churches, so he pressed human ability and responsibility. But he acknowledged that in Edwards’s and Whitefield’s day the churches had been resting in their own strength, and those men were rightly blessed in preaching sovereignty and election. And he warned his fellow revivalists that if they dwelt exclusively on ability they would drive their hearers back into self-reliance. “A right view of both classes of truths, election and free-agency, will do no hurt,” he wrote.

For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. ACTS 20:27

The manner of preaching

Then came manner, and here Finney’s advice is as fresh as ever. Preaching should be conversational, he said. The minister should speak as a lawyer speaks to a jury he wants to convince, not in a lofty pulpit tone. It should be in the language of common life, as Christ’s was; anyone who fills a sermon with Latin and Greek phrases to seem learned is, in Paul’s word, a barbarian to his hearers. It should be full of illustrations drawn from ordinary life — hens and chickens, merchants and farmers — as Christ’s parables were. It should be repetitious; an eminent advocate had told him that in addressing a jury he expected to repeat anything important two or three times, sometimes as often as there were jurymen. It should not be monotonous. It should anticipate and answer objections, as any lawyer does. And the preacher should feel what he says, and then his manner will follow.

And the common people heard him gladly. MARK 12:37

His summary of the preacher’s strategy is worth memorising: “A minister should address the feelings enough to secure attention, and then deal with the conscience, and probe to the quick.” Appeals to feeling alone, he warned, produce waves of excitement and false hopes. Only faithful dealing with the conscience produces sound conversions.

Where care is needed

Finney’s counsel is excellent, but a few emphases need tempering.

He argued that the gospel could never take general effect without a class of extempore preachers, and was scornful of written sermons. Yet Jonathan Edwards read his sermons, and God used them mightily. The issue is not paper but whether the preacher is speaking to real people about their real condition. Many who preach without notes ramble; many who use them preach with fire.

He sometimes spoke as if effective preaching were chiefly a matter of technique, adapting means to ends. But Paul reminds us that the gospel’s power does not depend on persuasiveness.

And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. 1 CORINTHIANS 2:4–5

Finney did not deny this; his lectures on prayer and the Spirit came first for a reason. But his heirs often took his methods without his prayer, and the result was preaching that was skilful, urgent and hollow.

And his insistence that preaching must annihilate every excuse, including the plea of inability, rests on the view of human ability we weighed in chapter ten. The preacher should indeed strip away excuses. But he must also tell sinners that they need grace, and point them to the Christ who gives it.

Understood and felt

In the preface to his lectures, Finney said that he had not aimed at elegance, and that his great and only object was to have them understood and felt. That is a good aim for any preacher. Speak plainly. Speak to people, not about them. Make the truth clear, make it press, and ask for a response. And pray that the Spirit will do what no preacher can.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. If you preach or teach, ask of your last message: whom was it aimed at, and what did it ask them to do?

2. Listen to the next sermon you hear as if it were meant for you alone. Write down one thing it requires of you and do it.

3. Pray for your pastor this week, that he may preach plainly and in the power of the Spirit.

4. Notice whether you favour one class of truths — sovereignty or responsibility, law or grace — and seek the other.

5. If you speak to others about Christ, practise saying the gospel in the plainest words you can, as you would to a child.

A PRAYER

Lord, You spoke so that the common people heard You gladly. Give Your church preachers who speak plainly and to the heart.

Deliver us from lofty words that hide the truth, and from clever words that replace the Spirit.

Make Your Word press on my conscience when I hear it, and let me not wait, but obey.

And let every sermon preached in Your name today be understood and felt, and bear fruit for Your glory. Amen.