Dear Sovereign Redeemer and other friends,
At this year’s annual national NCFIC conference, “The Highway of Holiness,” I had the great privilege of giving a message on J.C. Ryle’s classic book, “Holiness.”
If you know me well, you know that this book is on my very short “must read” list. Should you decide to invest the time to listen to my summary, I hope you find it very profitable.
If you are interested in the book, here are two great options:
Happy listening and/or reading!
Dear Sovereign Redeemer and other friends,
The old writers can be difficult to read, but even so they make use of language in ways virtually unknown to the last few centuries. The unusual word choices drive the meaning home in a profound way.
This from “The Life of God in the Soul of Man” by Henry Scougal (1650-1678):
“Amidst all our pursuits and designs, let us stop and ask ourselves, For what end is all this? At what do I aim? Can the gross and muddy pleasures of sense, or a heap of white and yellow earth [silver and gold], or the esteem and affection of silly creatures like myself, satisfy a rational and immortal soul? Have I not tried these things already? Will they have a higher relish, and yield me more contentment tomorrow than yesterday, or the next year than they did the last? There may be some little difference betwixt that which I am now pursuing, and that which I enjoyed before; but sure, my former enjoyments did show as pleasant and promise as fair, before I attained them; like the rainbow, they looked very glorious at a distance, but when I approached I found nothing but emptiness and vapour. O what a poor thing would the life of man be, if it were capable of no higher enjoyments!”
To what extent have you traded the imperishable pleasures of knowing God in Christ for the gross and muddy pleasures of sense?
That, friends, is an awful trade.
Dear Sovereign Redeemer and other friends,
It is just five weeks until the upcoming National Center of Family-Integrated Churches “Highway of Holiness” conference, October 29-31 at Ridgecrest in Asheville, NC, and I am already looking forward to it.
If you haven’t decided to go yet, please consider these invitations:
At this conference I have the privilege of profiling J.C. Ryle’s classic work, “Holiness,” and the preparation for that is pure joy. Here is a description:
J.C. Ryle’s Classic, “Holiness”
In a day where sanctification is the subject of considerable controversy in the church, J.C. Ryle’s classic, “Holiness,” is an enormously helpful treasure. Ryle carefully considers and then refutes the two great errors regarding the doctrine of sanctification: blurring the lines between justification and sanctification, and isolating them from one another. Blurring the lines welcomes legalism and erodes justification by grace alone through faith alone. Isolating one from the other invites false assurance and an environment of compromise. By keeping justification and sanctification rigidly distinct yet unbreakably connected, Ryle gives us the biblical doctrine of holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. Friends, don’t come for a book report. While the book will be profiled and summarized, Ryle puts forth a robust doctrine of holiness, ill suited for a lecture but perfectly suited for earnest preaching.
Join us!
Dear Sovereign Redeemer and other friends,
From Chapter 1 of J.C. Ryle’s “Old Paths,” regarding the danger of neglecting our Bibles:
“You are in danger, because there is not a single reasonable excuse you can allege for neglecting the Bible. You have no time to read it forsooth! But you can make time for eating, drinking, sleeping, getting money and spending money, and perhaps for newspaper reading and smoking. You might easily make time to read the Word. Alas, it is not want of time, but waste of time that ruins souls! – You find it too troublesome to read, forsooth! You had better say at once it is too much trouble to go to heaven, and you are content to go to hell. Truly these excuses are like the rubbish round the walls of Jerusalem in Nehemiah’s days. They would all soon disappear if, like the Jews, you had ‘a mind to work.’ I say for the last time, Will you not repent and read your Bible?”
Who else cuts through our excuses and gets right to the heart of the matter? Precious few. I am thankful for the authors and preachers who can prick my conscience and bring me face to face with my own compromises.
May we take up our Bibles with a renewed vigor to hear from God!
Dear Sovereign Redeemer and other friends,
At the very end of July 2013, I posted “That Will Never Be Marriage” and promised to republish it annually for five years. This is now year three.
That Will Never Be Marriage
The progress made by the proponents of homosexual marriage is nothing short of breathtaking. If momentum means anything at all, it will only be another year or two until same-sex marriage has been so overwhelmingly accepted in the United States that those who oppose it won’t even have a significant platform for articulating objections. The advocates who have so skillfully advanced it will have the luxury of just shrugging and waving us off with disdain. In my lifetime, we will have switched spots.
Almost forgotten is the God who called all things into existence with only the words of His mouth. He is the One that keeps the debate from being over. God should never, ever be left out of any equation, because no matter what mankind says or does, He always speaks last, and what He says goes. In card playing lingo, every card in His hand is an ace of spades. Always the highest card. Always trump. Always.
And so that will never be marriage, no matter how many people say it is or how long they say it. Two men, no matter what they say or what they do, can never be married. Two women, no matter what they say or what they do, can never be married. Because marriage is God’s, and no amount of momentum can ever change that. It is His institution, given in the first chapter of the book of beginnings. “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it…’” (Genesis 1:27-28a). “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24). This is God’s. This is marriage.
Is there another view to be had in all of Scripture? No. None. The last prophet of the Old Testament is simply representative: “You cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and crying; so He does not regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with goodwill from your hands. Yet you say, ‘For what reason?’ Because the LORD has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.” (Malachi 2:13b-15). Three profound things are learned from the three questions in the text and their answers. God responds when His institution of marriage is dishonored, it is only God who can make two one, and He does so to increase those who honor Him. All three of these truths stand immovably between God’s creatures and any such thing as gay marriage.
And the New Testament seals this truth with stunning clarity. Having spoken at length about how husbands and wives must relate to one another, Paul says this: “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:32). This is why, just a few verses earlier, he said that husbands must act like Christ and wives must act like the church. Because this institution was created by God to play out the most sacred drama – the gospel drama – before a home and before a world. So Christians can never, ever accept homosexual marriage, because it fundamentally upends the gospel drama. It destroys the gospel picture that God created marriage to be. And so that will never be marriage.
I am setting reminders on my calendar to republish this each year for the next five years, because saying it once won’t be nearly enough. I will need to lay my eyes on these words again and again myself, and I’m guessing you will too. And when we read it, we will remember that God always has the highest card to play, that He always plays trump, and that He will act at just the right moment.
“Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.’ He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: ‘Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion.’… Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.” (Psalm 2:1-6, 10-12).
Brothers and sisters, our duty is to declare the truth of Scripture, never letting the light of that truth be extinguished by even the greatest multitude, and to pray fervently that when our God acts, it will be to grant repentance and faith to those enslaved to sin, and not to send the judgment we so richly deserve. May we be found laboring tirelessly towards those ends!
Dear Sovereign Redeemer and other friends,
Early Sunday mornings, after the sermon is completely written, I print it and go back over it thoroughly, making additional hand-written notes and highlighting certain places to draw my attention to them as I preach.
On an average week, this represents 1 hour of work. For those keeping track, that brings my total time to prepare a sermon to a range of 11-15 hours.
As an example, here is what I carried into the pulpit for a recent sermon:
The entire file is accessible here.
Here are some additional thoughts related to actually delivering the sermon.
If you have the time and inclination, print out the sermon notes and listen to the sermon with those in hand.
I hope you find it to be a sound, expository sermon, and that this series of posts helps you grow in your ability to prepare and deliver the same.
Dear Sovereign Redeemer and other friends,
A daunting task: writing a sound, expository sermon to be delivered to the Lord’s people. That’s why it’s so daunting. They are His people. He bought them with His own blood. It is His word. He gave it as a good gift, without a jot or tittle of imperfection. And yet it is also exhilarating work, where so often the preacher can sense being helped in a unique way.
Without question, the hours I spend writing a sermon are among my favorite hours of the week, usually including Saturday evening and then early Sunday morning. Here are a few thoughts about how I spend these hours:
Most of these have little or no theological importance, and I’m confident there are better preachers who use very different approaches. Again, I offer what I do to stimulate thought.
For this series of posts, I continue to use a recent sermon that I preached on Nehemiah 13:10-14 titled “Forsaking the House of God” as an example. Here is what my sermon file looked like:
If you want to see the whole file, you can access it here.
On an average week, writing the sermon requires 3-4 hours of work.
One post remains: “Thoughts on Preaching”.
Dear Sovereign Redeemer and other friends,
This post assumes you have already read this, this and this. The Bible work is done, the study Bibles perused, the commentaries considered. Now I have an orderly and sometimes hefty study file.
The earlier in the week I can reach this point the better. I like to have a few days in this condition before I start writing. Whether consciously or not – sometimes I am purposefully thinking about it, often not – I am percolating on the information and turning the sermon text over in my mind again and again. Constructing a sound, expository sermon is more than picking out the particularly quotable nuggets from the experts and stringing them together in an organized way. It involves thinking. A lot of thinking.
Either the day I write the sermon, or preferably the day before, I print out my study file and read through it, making notes, highlighting the most significant portions, and starring the parts I want to make sure to use. By the end, that pack of papers is almost always a mess, and that’s how I like it!
Working back through my study file in this way usually requires 1 hour.
Now I am ready to write.
Dear Sovereign Redeemer and other friends,
The first stop on the road to preparing a sound, expository sermon should definitely be the Bible work. Once that has been given lavish attention, there is most certainly a place for consulting a variety of sources about the text. God has given tremendous insight into His word to various ones throughout the centuries, and we are well served to consult them, especially in areas of difficultly or controversy. Exclusively trusting our own insights is the height of arrogance and folly.
Let’s divide our consideration into two categories: study Bibles and commentaries.
Study Bibles
I prefer to start by reading through the notes of multiple study Bibles, since the content in a study Bible is by nature limited and more high level. A study Bible helps unpack the meaning of a text without going into extreme detail, and when several are consulted, a number of different perspectives emerge.
Here are the four that I consult on a weekly basis, usually in this order:
At the time of this post, all four of these study Bibles can be acquired for a total of just in excess of $100, so the costs aren’t prohibitive at all.
The genius of these four study Bibles is found in the distinctions. They are different enough to all be indispensable in the grouping. The last thing a studying pastor should want is to sequester himself in an echo chamber with only sources which never contradict his own inclinations. Having a diversity of sources with at least slightly different perspectives is beyond a good idea. It is safe. And beginning with these more limited, summary level sources actually helps me to be ready for what comes next.
Commentaries
After having gotten my feet wet, so speak, with the study Bibles, more comprehensive commentaries then provide greater depth and breadth. They provide more information and more fully treat the difficulties and controversies in the text.
Here are a few of my favorites:
As I read the notes in the study Bibles and the content from the more comprehensive commentaries, I highlight what I find to be the most important, relevant, and insightful sentences and then put them in my study file. Here is what my study file looked like after having done that, using a sermon on Nehemiah 13:10-14 as an example:
If you want to see the whole file, you can access it here.
On an average week, this represents 3-5 hours of work.
At this point in the process, the reading I intended to do is complete. The topic of the next post will be preparation for writing the sermon.
Dear Sovereign Redeemer and other friends,
Does it even need to be said that sermon preparation should start with the Bible work? By “Bible work” I mean the direct study of the sermon text itself, and the related cross-references, as opposed to what others say about the sermon text.
It is a great temptation to just skip to what Matthew Henry says (for instance), but a temptation which must be resisted. What quicker way can we imagine to quench the Spirit than an unhealthy – borderline idolatrous – reliance on men? Sermon preparation should begin with a quiet room and a Bible. The most important work in preparing a sound, expository sermon happens then.
Week in and week out, this describes my Bible work:
– Men’s Bible study. At Sovereign Redeemer, the men and boys who are willing and able meet for an hour on Monday morning to discuss the text that will be preached on the upcoming Sunday. Leading that discussion gets me into the text at the start of the week, and gives me exposure to the thoughts of a variety of men regarding the text. If there are particular interpretive challenges, I become aware of them right away.
– Searching out the best cross-references. The most important principle of Bible interpretation (or hermeneutic) is that Scripture interprets Scripture. Other related texts of Scripture are always the best commentary on the sermon text, and always the best source of explanation for difficulties in the sermon text. Always. So, after reading the sermon text slowly several times, and earnestly seeking the Lord for help, this is where I start. I look up every cross-reference from four sources (three study Bibles and Matthew Poole) one by one, looking at each in context and considering the bearing of each on the sermon text. My guess is that 75% of the finished sermon comes from this exercise. I cannot stress enough how invaluable this step is.
– Comparing translations. Years ago, at an expository preaching conference, Dr. Andy Davis gave a message in which he said that if a preacher hasn’t studied the original languages (Hebrew in the Old Testament, Greek in the New), the next best thing is a comparison of reliable English translations. At points of translational agreement, the English word uniformly selected by the translators is a close equivalent to the word in the original language. At points of translational variation, the underlying Hebrew or Greek word is worth researching. Having never studied Hebrew or Greek, this has been very valuable advice for me. I use Bible Gateway, an online tool which allows for side-by-side comparison of selected translations. Here is the link that I use, which compares NKJV, KJV, NASB, ESV, and NIV.
– Looking at the original language. For very prominent, important words in the text, and for places where significant translational variation exists, I look at the Hebrew or Greek. I use the online tool Blue Letter Bible. By entering the text, then selecting the verse, then selecting the Strong’s number for the word in question, a multitude of information is made available. Not only is information from the Lexicon very valuable, but the other places where the same word is used is displayed. Looking at the other usages of the same word is often pure gold.
– Creating a basic outline. At this point I make a first attempt at creating a high level structure for the sermon. Having done the Bible work, I should have begun forming a view of how the text could or should be preached, and this forces me to begin articulating that. This first outline usually represents no more than fifteen minutes of scribbling on a legal pad, but it moves my thinking from what I am learning to how I might communicate what I am learning, which are vastly different things.
When all of this is complete, I have the beginnings of my study file, which I continue to populate throughout the week. For this series of posts, I am going to use a recent sermon that I preached on Nehemiah 13:10-14 titled “Forsaking the House of God” as an example. Here is what my study file looked like after having completed the Bible work I have been describing:
If you want to see the whole file, you can access it here.
A few things to point out:
In my next post, I will discuss the outside helps – the study Bibles and commentaries – that I utilize to help me better understand the sermon text.
* As a side note, fantastic Bible study tools exist that are not even referenced in this post. I have not invested in these yet, but I have no doubt of their tremendous value. If you are interested, here is a detailed review of two of them.