I learn a lot just by the questions you ask afterwards. I learn a lot when I go and preach at conferences, and who comes up to talk to me, and what they say to me, and what they ask of me. I learn a lot about that denomination, or that church, or that region. And I think for us, just going back to something that I said earlier, and it's not original with me. that we're so in the indicative that we have lost a sense of command with the imperative.
And I think one reason, and we were discussing it, that we so do not want to be manipulative, and rightly so, that, you know, church history is just swinging the pendulum from one extreme to the other. we have so rejected and reacted against the Phineism and the manipulation and the false converts and the aisle walking, the hand raising and pronouncing people to be saved, that I feel like in our circles, and it's more than just here, it's in larger parts of the body of Christ as well, that we have swung the pendulum so far in the other direction. that we don't want to manipulate, that we just never ever get around to calling for the verdict. And we're like young men courting a girl and we buy presents and we take to dinner and meet the family, but we just are tongue-tied to say, well, you marry me.
But until you say, will you marry me, she's not going to show up on April the 14th in a white dress and walk down the center aisle. Now, you're going to have to get to that point. It's not enough to think it.
It's not enough to feel it. It's not enough to want it. It's not enough to know it.
You're actually going to have to open your mouth. And remember, God works through means. You're going to have to open your mouth and say, will you marry me? Will you commit your life to Christ?
Will you become the bride of Christ? And clarify the repentance, the lordship, saving faith, the narrow gate, self-denial. But you've got to do more than clarifying.
You must call for the response and then urge the response. So, just as you think about your preaching, your being used by God, how you will stand up in a pulpit one day and preach. How you will present the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you need to think about how you're going to connect truth to their life. In John Stott's book, Between Two Worlds, that's the whole point. You put one arm around the ancient world, and you put one arm around the contemporary.
world of the listener. In essence, you put one arm around the listener, and preaching stands in the middle. Well, we've got a death hold on the ancient world. I mean, we've got that in spades. We've got warehouses of this.
I mean, nobody can touch us on the ancient world, but we're gun-shy about putting our arms around the listener. standing in between and being like a wire for that electricity to flow through and to connect this truth to their life. And God works through means, and God works through men, and God works through the preaching of the Word of God. And that's why we've got to strengthen our grip on the listener.
So, someone respond. Someone ask a question. Someone make a comment.
I mean, do you feel that... I mean, where do you think we are in our preaching of the gospel? I just appreciate your response to the question, like your example of just preaching to souls, like preaching to hearts, and, you know, direct eye contact, and just, you know, you must make a decision. Yeah. I just...
I just appreciated that. Because I come from a traditional Baptist church where it's just emotional. Like, you know, it's the hymns and raise your hand or something like that.
42 verses of Just As I Am. Yeah. It's just helpful just to make appeal directly to our flock.
And just to say, you must do this. Yes. Great preaching must get to the second person pronoun. There is a place for the first person, and there is a place for the third person. Most of Calvin's preaching was first person plural.
This is who we are. This is what our need is. This is what we must do in response.
And God wonderfully used the expository preaching of John Calvin. And God has a way of... of using the presentation of the truth like that. But I would argue for getting beyond the we to the you.
And that's when preaching goes to meddling. And that's when it becomes personal. Daniel Webster said, I want preaching to be The opening quote in John Broadus'chapter on application, make preaching personal. Earlier, using the interrogatives while you're preaching through the text, and like what you said before, you said you've learned how to preach by watching the preachers, and the preachers that I've been influenced by have always...
The Gospels come out through the text they're preaching. Sure. So are you saying that somehow, somewhere in our sermon, we're supposed to give a clear Gospel invitation or call to Christ or something like that? I just want to make sure I'm not... Sure.
I'll just tell you for me on this. I'm not imposing this on the world. I am a minister of the New Covenant, and I am called by 2 Corinthians 5 to not only preach the gospel, but to persuade men.
And I don't think the cross is in every verse of the Bible, so I'm not one of those devotional, Christ-centered preachers. For me, I want the gospel to be in every sermon I preach. I don't want you to step onto my turf and not hear the gospel. So, yes, that will require me bringing it from outside of this text.
I don't think that I violate Scripture by bringing Scripture into my sermon, because that is what I'm doing, is I'm bringing... the full counsel of God into this sermon. I'm bringing the analogy of scripture into this sermon. You know, Paul says, we preach Christ and Him crucified. Now, Paul preached the attributes of God.
He preached ecclesiology. He preached eschatology. He preached, you know, anthropology. I mean, he preached all of the areas of theology, but he could reduce his preaching down.
to this blanket statement, this overarching statement, we preach Christ and Him crucified. I want to be known for that. So I have to think through with this text. Spurgeon said, every road leads to London. and every text leads to Christ.
How can I get to the cross from this text? And in a way that's not just airdropped completely. And that requires some thought.
I mean, preaching 1 Corinthians 13 for 22 sermons, or 23 sermons, whatever I did, 21. I mean, I had to really think that through. Love does not take into account a wrong suffered. Well, that's an easy one to get to the gospel and get to Christ.
And this is how God's love would be demonstrated towards you if you were to commit your life to Christ. He would not take into account a wrong suffered. Think of how long-suffering Christ has, how patient Christ has been with you, how long-suffering, how enduring. Who among us here today received Christ the first time you ever heard the gospel?
Who among us here today has never rejected the gospel before our conversion? And don't tell me you've always believed, because you must be born again. You were born once, lost, you need to be born again to be saved.
99% of us, I think, have rejected Christ, if not 99 point higher. So, I can get to the patience of Christ. Think of Christ even with Jerusalem. Think of Christ with Judas.
So I can get to Christ. And when I get to Christ, I get to the gospel. Because He is the heart of the gospel. He's even the center of the five doctrines of grace. Flanked by two other doctrines on both sides.
He's always preeminent. He's always in the center of our theology. All of the lines of our theology intersect at the highest apex in the glorification of Christ. So, but that's me. But I think it's not just me.
I read the book of Acts. I don't find any sermons that don't have Christ. I can't think of a one.
In fact, it's strong Christ. I read church history. I mean, I just see Christ flowing from the lips.
So, we've got to get to Christ. I just don't want someone to come hear me and not hear Christ. Spurgeon, the most quotable human being who ever walked the earth, weak point, quote Spurgeon.
Spurgeon said, a sermon without Christ? You know, he said, it's the summer without a harvest. It's the brook without water.
It's the sky without a sun. It's the night without the moon. It's the body without a spirit.
It's nothing. A sermon without Christ is an awful thing. We're not Old Testament Jewish rabbis. We are ministers of the New Covenant. So even when I preach the Old Testament, I must preach Christ.
I'm not a hyper-dispensationalist. I'm a dispensationalist. I must preach Christ.
So that would be my urge, but I don't just put it out there. I mean, I do want to persuade you. I do want to urge you to preach Christ.
You know, I don't think... When I get to heaven, God is going to say, you shouldn't have told those men to preach Christ. They should have withheld the gospel.
They should have kept Christ under a bushel. They should have just stuck with simply grammar and syntax. No, preach Christ.
But use our grammar, use our syntax, use our text. And many texts don't have Christ in it. So therefore, I'm going to have to preach like Peter on...
the day of Pentecost. I'm going to have to preach like Peter at the gate. I'm going to have to preach like Peter before the Sanhedrin.
I'm going to have to preach like Stephen before the Sanhedrin. I'm going to have to preach like Paul in Antioch. I'm going to have to preach like Paul in Philippi.
I'm going to have to preach like Paul in Corinth. I'm going to have to get to Christ. How do you keep the line distinct between being persuasive with...
with the gospel and not being given a decisional regeneration influence. You know what I mean? Yeah, sure.
Well, I don't have a tightly worded sentence on that to give you a formal definition. I mean, I'm a card-carrying Calvinist. I'm a card-carrying sovereignty of God man. You probably know that from some of the books that I've read or if you've ever heard me preach.
So, I mean, I believe in sovereign regeneration. I believe in regeneration preceding faith. I believe in regeneration producing faith.
So, I mean, I'm there. I don't think, in order to be guilty of decisional regeneration, to me that is manipulation. Going into a room of six-year-old kids and preaching on hell and turning up the furnace and saying, who doesn't want to go to hell?
All right, repeat this prayer. All right, let me sign your Bible. And here's a certificate, and go home and tell your mom and dad you're to be at baptismal class on Wednesday night. I mean, that's decisional regeneration. I just don't, in the circles I run in, I just don't, I mean, that's just not the danger.
It's almost a straw man in our circles. It's not in a lot of Southern Baptist churches. It's not in a lot of... Pentecostal churches. It's not in a lot of charismatic churches.
I mean, that is a danger in those places, but it's just not in us, I don't think. I could be wrong. I mean, there could be with some child evangelism, but I just, so I think we do want people to make decisions for Christ.
We need to hear ourselves say that. I mean, we reject decisional regeneration, but nevertheless, we are calling upon you to exercise your will. I mean, no one else is going to do that for you. Not even God is going to do that for you.
You're going to have to believe upon Christ. God is preaching to you. And so, I think we get hung up on that, where we don't want... to like come across in a certain way and praise the lord i don't want us to come to go too far it's just i don't see that in in the guys in this class or in churches out there with guys like them in the pulpits who are like in this class i i was preaching in a presbyterian conference not long ago i mean there was some pretty heady guys and some pretty strong theologians in this conference and i was like the token Baptist that was in this.
And we had a Q&A and I didn't say hardly a word. And at the end, they said, we want you to tell us, where do you think we as Presbyterians have missed the boat? They actually said that to me. I said, well, I've come to praise Caesar, not bury him.
I mean, they said, no, we want you to tell us. I said, I really don't. I really want to find common ground and you're my brother in Christ. And I'm happy to be here, and I'm closer to you than a lot of my Baptist friends, and so I didn't come here to define our differences. No, we want you to tell us.
I said, okay. Wish my wife would say this, you know. I said, all right, two things.
Number one. You go to war for justification by faith. I never, ever hear you preach the new birth.
I never hear you preach regeneration. I never hear you say, except you be born again, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. You think the whole gospel is only in justification by faith.
Sola Fide. I'm massive on Sola Fide. I've got a book on Luther. It'll be out for Shepherd's Conference. I mean, we're all in on Sola Fide.
But there's more strings to pluck in this harp than just one string. And we preach the full counsel of God. So I just said, you never preach.
You must be born again. And I think it is in part because of your baptism of infants. And it's just like, what do we do with kids in our church that have been baptized but aren't saved? And we're just scared to say they're lost.
And we just want to say, well, they're in the covenant community, and it's like, what in the world does that mean? I mean, that's no man's land. I mean, you just created our own purgatory. I mean, our own halfway house between saved and lost. I mean, you can't have it both ways.
It's either or. So that's number one. I mean, if I was on your elder board, I would make you preach 12 sermons on John chapter 3, verses 1 through 8. Second thing, you never extend an invitation of the gospel. By that, I do not mean to get up out of your seat and walk anywhere.
I don't mean raise a hand or anything. I just mean direct to the... All you do is direct to the mind. You never direct to the heart, and you never seek to call for the will to do something.
So you're not even playing with the full deck. True expository preaching is the entire man... Mind, emotion, and will directed to the entire listener.
Mind, emotion, and will. You don't get past one mind trying to reach another mind. That's for you as the alpha and the omega and the sum and the substance of preaching. It's for my mind to reach your mind. But it must be my mind and just John Edwards.
I mean, we need some more John Edwards. He said the role of preaching, I want to raise your affections. We don't want to do anything with affections. That's why we don't have a great awakening.
I mean, we're going to have to have giants walk the land again in order to have a great awakening. We just want to renew the mind, but we don't want to raise the affections. And then, call for the will. to do something.
I mean, if you're going to go to hell, I want you to hear me pleading with you to believe upon Christ. I want you to have to walk over me to get to hell. I mean, you know, we just want to put up an overhead. So anyway, that's what I said to the Presbyterians.
And I think in large part is true of independent Bible churches. No group has got the whole thing in their pocket. And we all are cooking one side of the hamburger and it needs to get flipped over to the other side every once in a while.
And so, you know, we need to raise the affections. We need to assault the will. We need to call for the verdict.
and not just inform the mind. But it begins with the mind. As R.C. Sproul has said, you can't get into the sanctuary of the heart except you first go through the vestibule of the mind.
It goes mind, and then the affections, and then the will. And if you just go straight to the will, then you're just a manipulative preacher. Renew the mind, in some way touch the heart, and then urge the will. Yes, sir. You know, I'll give you one interesting response.
The man who wrote the foreword to this book, he was all a fan old. I don't know if you've seen his eight volume on the history of preaching. It's the definitive work on the history of preaching. He was at this conference, and they asked me to give a seminar on what is expository preaching. So I had like 15 minutes to give expository preaching, so I gave, whatever it was, eight marks of expository preaching.
He has gone deaf, virtually. He has to have someone... travel with him and almost interpret.
And so when I finished saying all this, he just yelled out, amen. He didn't know that no one else was saying anything. And I thought, wow, I mean, I'll take that to my grave. So it wasn't awkward and it wasn't bad.
And I said it in love and they had to turn me upside down and shake me to get me to say it. And they knew I was there because I wanted to be there, and I love them dearly, and I find a kinship with them. And the Reformed Baptists and the Presbyterians historically have always stood very strong together because of core doctrines in other areas. And they heard and received, and I think good things have come from it.
Yeah. Well, let's just do this. I see the clock, 20 minutes.
We're going to be out of here a little early so we can see the national championship game. That's manipulation. Which is appealing to a base motive rather than the highest of motives. For selfish gain, for selfish interest. Let me just do a fly-through.
We can do this in three minutes. Literally, chapter three. I mean, if there's anything you've got in spades, it's chapter three.
If you're going to be an expositor, you've got to study. I mean, who can know all this? Historical background, etymology of words, connect the whole Bible together theologically, grammar, syntax.
Who can know ancient culture? I mean, heaping coals on someone's head. I mean, just on and on and on, turning the other cheek, carrying, you know, a soldier's stuff, a second mile. I mean, we've got to access information, etymology of words, historical background. I mean, if you're preaching the death of Christ, and I mean, who is Caesar?
Who are all these rulers? What is this province? I mean, you preach the Psalms? There are so many regions and nations and flowers and animals and hunting techniques and on and on.
You couldn't even begin to explain this without tools and resources. And so the person who says, well, I'm just going to study the Bible and not use a commentary. Commentaries are a crutch. Fine, then just go be shallow.
or who says, I'm going to preach, but I'm not going to use books. The Spirit will give me this. You're just going to be a deceiver, and you're not going to be able to represent the truth. So we have to access these resources and these books, and there's a lifetime of learning them. And I recall when I was in seminary, I started off buying the wrong books, and it took me a while before I figured out which books.
I would actually use again and again and again, and that would be helpful to me. And so there's a process over time of even knowing which bullets fit in your gun to fire and to shoot and to help you with that. But there's really not a need to go through this entire...
In my notes, I've got all of them listed, and I think in my Preaching the Psalms book, I have many of them listed. But you just need a representation from each of these areas and to try to be as well-rounded as you can be even in your library and in parts that you feel are very strategic for what will be at the tip of the sword for your ministry and for your preaching. But books are your friend and books are a servant to help you. Who among us can, I mean, we're separated by 2,000 years, 3,000 years, we're separated by an ocean and a sea.
I mean, we're separated many times over by culture. How can we get into the mindset of the ancient world? And we've got to have these tools and these resources. One of the strengths of MacArthur's preaching is, I mean, you feel like you're with Paul in that prison cell.
I mean, you feel like you're with Christ on that mount. You feel like you're in that boat. I mean, he's just, and it helps you create the scene. And there is a sense that you were there when that happened. And so it becomes very close to home.
The more you can frame that picture, and books provide that for us. And you go from black and white to full color. in your preaching as you give explanation.
So, but you're in the citadel of books and bookstores and library and professors, brilliant professors, and now with computers and what you can access there and what you can research. So, I mean, you've... I'm sure I have a very good handle on this. Any questions that you want to ask? Yes, sir.
As many sermons as you are preaching now, are you generally studying for more than one sermon at a time? That's a great question. I have no capacity to multitask.
My strength is my weakness. I can take one thing and be so absorbed with it that I'm like stepping over dead bodies while I'm... absorbed with that. So I can do a very good job focusing on one thing, but to be juggling multiple balls at a particular point in time, I don't do that well.
It's not a strength of mine. I'm so locked in to the one thing, to what I'm doing, that I can't think past it. So I have to really think that through. Even like Sunday morning, Sunday night, get on an airplane, go preach. Monday, I mean, you do have to get out ahead of this.
You have to know yourself. You have to know, how can I get the gold out of the mountains as fast as I can into market? So, I have to know my books. I have to know my study patterns. I have to know what I already know.
I have to have a little bit of an idea of what I don't know. And I have to know where I can find it. And sometimes I'll have to cut some corners as I walk through this whole list with you. Sometimes I'll have to go from 12 to 17 and just get out ahead of this.
Because I know I can, I know where it is and I know how to find it. And I just need to go ahead and get there. So to answer that, when I study for a sermon, I Xerox everything that I need to prepare that sermon.
I study it and carry it around in a manila folder. And so I Xerox all my commentaries, I Xerox all my study bibles, I Xerox language tools, I Xerox other expository sermons, everything that I need to study for this. I carry around in a manila folder and I've got it with me all week.
I've got it in airplanes, I've got it in hotel rooms, I've got it at the dinner table, I've got it wherever I am. And I can mark it up because I'm coming back to it and I'm going to harvest everything that I need out of it. I think one advantage of this method is with a computer I'm limited to one screen. or I understand you can pull up two screens, maybe three screens.
I've got eight commentaries out in front of me at one time, and I'm able to pull from it all at one time, and I'm marking it up, and I'm interacting with it so I can begin to get it onto the page that will become my sermon manuscript. I can't do it one at a time. Now, in that sense, I can multitask.
And I have my desk, and I have certain things. up on my desk where I can, there are tiers and layers where I can prop things up and where I can, it's almost like, you know, Peyton Manning going to the line and you can just read the entire defense at one time. I can see all 11 of them. I can't call this play if I can only see one defender or two.
I need to see the whole lineup. So that's just me. So I carry around these little manila folders and I know I've got writing deadlines and so I've got to have those and get out ahead on that, but at the end of the day, I can only do one thing at a time.