Awaken The Dawn

Discovery of an Amazing Treasure tell us first what you’re going to say, we would then know what you talked about after you finished!” It is hard to preach a good sermon, and we preachers are the biggest critics of other people’s sermons. Sometimes, when I go to a convention and big name speakers get elo- quent, my wife has to keep nudging me to keep me awake! For me, the ultimate umbrage came from a man who used to visit our church from time to time. The poor fellow was hard of hearing, so he wore a hearing aid. But the appara- tus served himwell in church; he simply turned it off when he got tired of listening! He didn’t fool me, though, because a certain glazed look came across his eyeballs. The most dreaded words that a pastor can hear are those from a member of the flock who has decided to leave the church: “I have decided to leave the church, pastor, because you no longer feed me.” My wife told me the other day (after listening to me for forty years) that I now preach the way she has always wished I would preach. My grown, married children and their children say the same thing, and they still listen to me, so I guess things are better! What has made the difference? Have I changed? Do I use some new approach? I feel two things are essential for a good message: find what God wants to say to a given audience, and say it in a reverential, understandable, enthusiastic way. Morning prayer supplies me with both. One reason I can write this chapter with such fervor is that I have experienced to a small degree what Jesus experienced as He fulfilled the Isaiah 50 Servant Song. It is in prayer that the message is birthed, and it is through prayer that heavenly unction enables one to bring the flaming words of God with impact.

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