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| Photo Credit: vineyardmeridian.com |
“The man makes the
preacher. God must make the man. The messenger is, if possible, more than the
message. The preacher is more than the sermon. The preacher makes the sermon.
As the life-giving milk from the mother's bosom is but the mother's life, so
all the preacher says is tinctured, impregnated by what the preacher is. The
treasure is in earthen vessels, and the taste of the vessel impregnates and may
discolor. The man, the whole man, lies behind the sermon. Preaching is not the
performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life. It takes twenty years to
make a sermon, because it takes twenty years to make the man. The true sermon
is a thing of life. The sermon grows because the man grows. The sermon is
forceful because the man is forceful. The sermon is holy because the man is
holy. The sermon is full of the divine unction because the man is full of the divine
unction."
"The preacher's sharpest and strongest preaching should be to himself. His most difficult, delicate, laborious, and thorough work must be with himself. The training of the twelve was the great, difficult, and enduring work of Christ. Preachers are not sermon makers, but men makers and saint makers, and he only is well-trained for this business who has made himself a man and a saint. It is not great talents nor great learning nor great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God--men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives out of it. These can mold a generation for God.”
E.M. Bounds
