Logic on Fire

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 2 TIMOTHY 4:2

In the spring of 1969, a year after he left Westminster Chapel, Lloyd-Jones gave a series of lectures to students at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. They were published in 1971 as Preaching and Preachers, and the book has shaped more preachers, in more countries, than perhaps any other written in the twentieth century. It is also the book in which he is most personal. He wrote as a man who had given up medicine for the pulpit and had never once regretted it.

The highest calling

He opened with a bold claim. Nothing, he argued, is a higher calling than preaching, and nothing is more urgently needed by the church in any age. He did not say this to exalt preachers. He said it because of what preaching is: God’s appointed means of bringing His Word to bear upon men and women, for their salvation and their building up.

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:21

He was writing against the tide. In the 1960s many were saying that the age of preaching was over. People would no longer sit and listen to a man speak; the church must turn to discussion, drama, counselling, social action, film. Lloyd-Jones would have none of it. He did not deny that these things have their place. But he insisted that nothing can replace preaching, and that a church which relegates it has lost its way. The decline of preaching, he believed, was not the cause of the church’s weakness but a symptom of it — a symptom of lost confidence in the Word of God.

What preaching is

What is preaching? He is remembered for the phrase logic on fire, and the phrase sums up his view. Preaching is not merely a lecture, however learned, nor merely an emotional appeal, however moving. It is sound doctrine set ablaze in the man who delivers it. It must have logic: clear thought, sound doctrine, careful exposition, an argument that the mind can follow. And it must have fire: the preacher must be gripped by the truth he preaches, and it must come from him with urgency, warmth and power.

Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? LUKE 24:32

He insisted on both halves. A preacher who has logic without fire gives lectures; the congregation may be instructed but will not be moved. A preacher who has fire without logic stirs the emotions but leaves nothing solid behind. The true preacher reasons and burns at once.

The preacher and the sermon

He had much practical counsel. The preacher must be called; a man should enter the ministry only when he finds he cannot stay out of it. He must be a man of prayer and a diligent student of Scripture, reading through the whole Bible regularly, not only the passages he means to preach. He must know his people. He must prepare with great care, and yet not be so bound to his notes that the Spirit has no room to move him.

He distinguished between the sermon and preaching. The sermon is the prepared material — the exposition, the argument, the structure. Preaching is the act of delivering it, in which the whole man is involved: mind, heart, voice and body. A man may prepare an excellent sermon and fail to preach it.

And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. 1 CORINTHIANS 2:4

He was sharply critical of certain habits. He disliked preachers who tried to entertain, who relied on humour and anecdote, who sought to impress by eloquence or learning. He disliked the practice of reading sermons word for word from a manuscript. He was wary of appeals and techniques designed to produce an immediate response. And he had no patience with the idea that the preacher should adapt his message to what the modern mind finds acceptable.

Unction

The most important thing of all, he said, is the unction of the Holy Spirit. This is the anointing that comes upon the preacher and his words, making them living and powerful in a way that no human skill can produce. The preacher is conscious of it; so is the congregation. It is not something he can command, but he can seek it, and he must.

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me. ACTS 1:8

He urged preachers to seek this power constantly, to expect it, and to be dissatisfied without it. Without unction, the best preparation and the soundest doctrine fall flat. With it, the simplest words can pierce the heart.

The preacher as physician

Throughout, the physician is visible. The preacher, as he saw it, is dealing with souls, and the stakes are eternal. He must diagnose as well as prescribe. He must not preach over people’s heads, nor pander to them. He must apply the truth to their condition, press it home, and leave them face to face with God.

Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. COLOSSIANS 1:28

Where care is needed

Preaching and Preachers is a strong book, and strong books overstate. Lloyd-Jones could be dismissive of practices that God has used — reading manuscripts, public appeals, forms of worship other than his own — and a preacher need not follow him in every prohibition. His view that the preacher should not engage much in counselling would strike many pastors today as too narrow. And his model of long, consecutive expository series suited his gifts and his setting; not every preacher, or every congregation, is equipped for it. But the heart of the book is beyond dispute. The church needs preachers who reason and burn, who open the Scriptures and are themselves on fire, and who look to the Spirit for power. That is a standard every preacher may measure himself by.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. If you preach or teach, ask whether your preaching has more logic or more fire. What does it lack?

2. Pray this week, by name, for the preachers you sit under, that they may have unction from the Holy Spirit.

3. When you next listen to a sermon, pray before it begins that God will speak, and come expecting Him to.

4. If you are a preacher, read through a book of the Bible this month simply for your own soul, not for sermon preparation.

5. Ask whether you have come to value preaching less than other activities in church life. Why?

A PRAYER

Lord God, it has pleased You by the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. Thank You for everyone who has opened Your Word to me.

Raise up preachers in our day who reason clearly and burn brightly, who fear You and not the opinion of men.

Give them unction from on high. Let their words come in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

And give me a heart that burns as Your Word is opened, and a will that obeys it. Amen.