What They Said

“We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.”

A.W. Tozer

“A sermon full of mere words, how neatly so ever it is composed, while it wants the light of evidence, and the life of zeal, is but an image or a well-dressed carcass.”

Richard Baxter

"Any man who disturbs the false peace of sinners, must expect to be ill-treated, and reproached and defamed.”

Thomas Wilson

(From:  Maxims of Piety, and of Christianity)  

"We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.'

A.W. Tozer

“Expound the Law truly, and open the veil of Moses, to condemn all flesh, and prove all men sinners, and all deeds under the Law, before mercy has taken away the condemnation thereof, to be sin, and damnable; and then as a faithful minister, set abroach the mercy of our Lord Jesus, and let the wounded consciences drink of the water of Him. And then shall your preaching be with power, and not as the hypocrites. And the Spirit of God shall work with you; and all consciences shall bear record unto you, and feel that it is so. And all doctrine that casts a mist on these two to shadow and hide them, I mean the Law of God and mercy of Christ, that resist you with all your power."

William Tyndale

"My argument is, therefore, that a man who feels he is competent, and that he can do this easily, and so rushes to preach without any sense of fear or trembling, or any hesitation whatsoever, is a man who is proclaiming that he has never been "called" to be a preacher.  The man who is called by God is a man who realizes what he is called to do, and he so realizes the awfulness of the task that he shrinks from it.  Noting but this overwhelming sense of being called, and of compulsion, should ever lead anyone to preach."

Martyn-Lloyd Jones

"The preaching of the law does not make us more sinful, but reveals those sins unto us which before we discerned not; as the sun shining upon some filthy place does not make it so filthy, but only makes it manifest which was not seen in the dark."

George Downame

(1560-1634)

"A sermon is not made with an eye upon the sermon, but with both eyes upon the people and all the heart upon God."

John Owen

"Be earnest to procure ministers, who preach the uncorrupted doctrines of the gospel, in all your towns: let none of your parishes continue vacant thro’ indifference, negligence, or covetousness; and never withhold from faithful ministers a comfortable support. When we look round and see so many churches destitute of teachers, contenting themselves in the total neglect of all divine institutions, have we not reason to fear that God is departing from us? And if our religion is given up, all the liberty we boast of will soon be gone; a profane and wicked people cannot hope for divine blessings, but it may be easily foretold that “evil will befall them in the latter days.”

Samuel Langdon

(1723 –  1797)

"The power that is in the Gospel does not lie in the eloquence of the preacher, otherwise men would be the converters of souls, nor does it lie in the preacher's learning, otherwise it would consist in the wisdom of men. We might preach until our tongues rotted, till we would exhaust our lungs and die, but never a soul would be converted unless the Holy Spirit be with the Word of God to give it the power to convert the soul."

 Charles H. Spurgeon