Best 146 quotes in «preaching quotes» category

Anything we are preaching to people is what they become

As there are two vocations whereunto it hath pleased God to call every one; one general, by virtue whereof certain common duties which are to be performed of all men, are required, [as knowledge, faith, obedience, repentance, love, mercy, justice, truth, etc.] the other particular, by virtue whereof certain peculiar duties are required of several persons, according to those distinct places wherein the Divine Providence hath set them in Commonwealth, Church or family; so ought God's Ministers to be careful in instructing God's people in both kinds of duties; both those which concern their general, and those also which concern their particular calling.

A speaker should approach his preparation not by what he wants to say, but by what he wants to learn.

As the people came to a desert place to hear John the Baptist proclaim, “Thus saith the Lord,” so [man] in his confusions, frustrations, and bewilderment will come to hear the minister who preaches with authority.

A preacher shouldn't preach just to make you feel good. Then it's about the money not about the teach. He should preach the truth because the truth shall set you free.

Bible teaching about the Second Coming of Christ was thought of as “doomsday” preaching. But not anymore. It is the only ray of hope that shines as an ever brightening beam in a darkening world.

Effective preaching must be biblical preaching, whether it is the exposition of a single word in the Bible, a text, or a chapter. The Word is what the Spirit uses.

Even the preachers get preached by life

But the three hundred and sixty-five authors who try to write new fairy tales are very tiresome. They always begin with a little boy or girl who goes out and meets the fairies of polyanthuses and gardenias and apple blossoms: 'Flowers and fruits, and other winged things.' These fairies try to be funny, and fail; or they try to preach, and succeed.

Building anticipation into one's preaching simply calls for one basic understanding of the task of the pulpit: the goal is not to get something said but to get something heard.

Galatians 3:11-12...a precious text! A person becomes righteous in the sight of God by faith alone. What conclusion can we draw from this? The law cannot make any person righteous because it has nothing to say about justifying and saving faith. That information is found only in the Gospel. In other words, the law has nothing to say about grace..

Even those who know better, such as the King, nurse strange ideas about me as a prophet. They do not understand that I am given to see only those matters that roil the heavens. They expect me to know everything.

God’s strength is made perfect in weakness. The weaker I became, the more powerful became the preaching.

Every living word that gives life was once without form.

Grace is all that God is free to do for you, in you, with you and through you only because of the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Here is where most preachers make their mistake. They are afraid that by preaching the gospel too clearly, it will be their fault if people lapse into sin. They imagine that the gospel is food for the carnal-minded. True enough, to many the gospel does become the smell of death unto death, but that is not the fault of the Gospel. That happens only because men do not accept -do not believe-the Gospel. Faith is not merely thinking, "I believe." Your whole heart must be seized by the gospel and come to rest in it. When that happens, you are transformed and cannot help but love and serve God.

Good preachers...are effective teachers, good thinkers, with rhetorical skills, a good voice, a good memory, and the ability to recognize when to stop. They are diligent in their preparation, throwing heart and soul into their sermons, and they must be ready to take criticism. They should remember that they must patiently bear such criticism and dissatisfaction with their preaching. But above all, preachers must know that the Word of God has taken them captive and that God has called them to serve Him by proclaiming that Word.

Here is where most preachers make their mistake. They are afraid that by preaching the gospel to clearly, it will be their fault if people ask them to send. They imagine that the gospel is food for the Carnel-minded. True enough, too many of the gospel does not become the smell of death and death but that is not the fault of the Gospel. That happens only because men do not except-do not believe-the Gospel. Faith is not merely thinking, "I believe." Your whole heart must be seized by the gospel and come to rest in it. When that happens, you were transformed cannot help but love and serve God.

I am counting totally and completely on the Lord Jesus Christ, and not on Billy Graham. I am not going to heaven because I’ve read the Bible, nor because I’ve preached to a lot of people. I’m going to heaven because of what Christ did.

His faith wavered, but not his speech: it is the lot of every man who has to speak for the satisfaction of the crowd, that he must often speak in virtue of yesterday's faith, hoping it will come back to-morrow.

I don't want a religion that I put away with my Sunday clothes, and don't take out till the day comes around again; I want something to see and feel and live day by day.

if one consults reason alone, one cannot assent to the articles of our faith" it was full of mysteries; "we are fools to try to explain them." This makes preaching Christianity not only a hard task but also dangerous. "Had I know, I should never have been a preacher.

I have been preaching repentance for seventy years; there are thousands of ministers of the Gospel all over this planet preaching repentance this very hour . . . and most of the time the world has laughed in the face of the King of kings.

I’m not a great preacher, and I don’t claim to be a great preacher . . . I’m an ordinary preacher, just communicating the Gospel in the best way I know how.

I must ask myself, “Billy Graham, are you prepared to meet the Master at any moment?” Yes, I am—but not because I have preached or tried to help people, but solely because I am trusting Christ as my Lord and Savior. Stop right now and ask yourself that question.

I preach a Gospel not of despair but of hope for the individual, hope for society, and hope for the world.

I seldom come out of the pulpit but my conscience smiteth me that I have been no more serious and fervent. It accuseth me not so much for want of ornaments and elegancy, nor for letting fall an unhandsome word; but it asketh me, 'How couldst thou speak of life and death with such a heart? How couldst thou preach of heaven and hell in such a careless, sleepy manner? Dost thou believe what thou sayest? Art thou in earnest, or in jest? How canst thou tell people that sin is such a thing, and that so much misery is upon them and before them, and be no more affected with it? Shouldst thou not weep over such a people, and should not thy tears interrupt thy words? Shouldst thou not cry aloud, and show them their transgressions; and entreat and beseech them as for life and death? Truly this is the peal that conscience doth ring in my ears, and yet my drowsy soul will not be awakened. Oh, what a thing is an insensible, hardened heart! O Lord, save us from the plague of infidelity and hardheartedness ourselves, or else how shall we be fit instruments of saving others from it? Oh, do that on our souls which thou wouldst use us to do on the souls of others!

It does not answer the aim which God had in this institution, merely for men to have good commentaries and expositions on the Scripture, and other good books of divinity; because, although these may tend, as well as preaching, to give a good doctrinal or speculative understanding of the word of God, yet they have not an equal tendency to impress them on men's hearts and affections. God hath appointed a particular and lively application of his word, in the preaching of it, as a fit means to affect sinners with the importance of religion, their own misery, the necessity of a remedy, and the glory and sufficiency of a remedy provided; to stir up the pure minds of the saints, quicken their affections by often bringing the great things of religion in their remembrance, and setting them in their proper colours, though they know them, and have been fully instructed in them already.

God created everyone to love and to be loved; If you will not take care of people, just leave them as they came...DON'T SCRATCH THEM with your actions.

I don't like to hear cut and dried sermons. No—when I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.

I have had the privilege of preaching the Gospel on every continent in most of the countries of the world, and I have found that when I present the simple message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, with authority, quoting from the very Word of God—He takes that message and drives it supernaturally into the human heart.

I know that many of the things I have said from the Scriptures have offended some, but I cannot afford to tone down the message. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:17, “I have a stewardship entrusted to me” (nasb), and that is to preach the pure and simple Gospel in whatever culture I am in.

I'm surprisingly unconcerned with what people in my church believe. Belief is going to be influenced by all sorts of things that I have nothing to do with, so I don't feel responsible for that. I'm responsible for what they hear — and hearing the gospel, the good news about who God is, slowly forms us over time.

I repeat: the pressure to apply is a modernist pressure, not a biblical pressure. William Willimon observes that most congregations love hearing preaching with this application emphasis. The only problem, he says, is that such preaching is not biblical preaching. The 'subtext' of so much of this must-apply preaching is, 'You are gods unto yourselves. Through this insight, this set of principles, this well applied idea, you can save yourselves by yourselves'.

Martin Luther called the church building the “Mundhaus” (lit. “mouth house” or "speech house”) because he believed that the Graeco-Roman “pagan lecture” of the sophist entertainers who took over the Catholic church should be the focus of “the service”. Sermons might have been helpful in the later Middle Ages when even many Catholic priests couldn't read. However, modern research has repeatedly proven that lecturing is the worst possible way to educate others because it’s so boring. Might traditional, so-called-inspired preaching still be the best way to communicate God’s Word?” ~ © gfp '42™

Many pastors think their greatest impact comes from preaching to many. Not true. Our greatest impact is in discipling a few. Jesus did life with the disciples in close proximity. You won’t create radical disciples from a pulpit; you’ll only create an audience. You must walk closely with people.

It has to be the desire of your heart to let the whole world know about the love of God, about His sacrifice and our salvation.

May God give us much more grace eagerly devote ourselves for the Great Commission.

May God give us much more grace to eagerly devote ourselves for the Great Commission.

No language about God will ever be fully adequate to the burning mystery which it signifies.

Oh God, if You want me to preach, I will do it.

Nowhere in Mark 16:15—“Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” [KJV] — nor in any similar Scripture did Christ command us to go only into the Western or capitalist world. Nowhere did He say to exclude the Communist world.

One," said the recording secretary. "Jesus wept," answered Leon promptly. There was not a sound in the church. You could almost hear the butterflies pass. Father looked down and laid his lower lip in folds with his fingers, like he did sometimes when it wouldn't behave to suit him. "Two," said the secretary after just a breath of pause. Leon looked over the congregation easily and then fastened his eyes on Abram Saunders, the father of Absalom, and said reprovingly: "Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eyelids." Abram straightened up suddenly and blinked in astonishment, while father held fast to his lip. "Three," called the secretary hurriedly. Leon shifted his gaze to Betsy Alton, who hadn't spoken to her next door neighbour in five years. "Hatred stirreth up strife," he told her softly, "but love covereth all sins." Things were so quiet it seemed as if the air would snap. "Four." The mild blue eyes travelled back to the men's side and settled on Isaac Thomas, a man too lazy to plow and sow land his father had left him. They were not so mild, and the voice was touched with command: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise." Still that silence. "Five," said the secretary hurriedly, as if he wished it were over. Back came the eyes to the women's side and past all question looked straight at Hannah Dover. "As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman without discretion." "Six," said the secretary and looked appealingly at father, whose face was filled with dismay. Again Leon's eyes crossed the aisle and he looked directly at the man whom everybody in the community called "Stiff-necked Johnny." I think he was rather proud of it, he worked so hard to keep them doing it. "Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck," Leon commanded him. Toward the door some one tittered. "Seven," called the secretary hastily. Leon glanced around the room. "But how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity," he announced in delighted tones as if he had found it out by himself. "Eight," called the secretary with something like a breath of relief. Our angel boy never had looked so angelic, and he was beaming on the Princess. "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee," he told her. Laddie would thrash him for that. Instantly after, "Nine," he recited straight at Laddie: "I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?" More than one giggled that time. "Ten!" came almost sharply. Leon looked scared for the first time. He actually seemed to shiver. Maybe he realized at last that it was a pretty serious thing he was doing. When he spoke he said these words in the most surprised voice you ever heard: "I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly." "Eleven." Perhaps these words are in the Bible. They are not there to read the way Leon repeated them, for he put a short pause after the first name, and he glanced toward our father: "Jesus Christ, the SAME, yesterday, and to-day, and forever!" Sure as you live my mother's shoulders shook. "Twelve." Suddenly Leon seemed to be forsaken. He surely shrank in size and appeared abused. "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up," he announced, and looked as happy over the ending as he had seemed forlorn at the beginning. "Thirteen." "The Lord is on my side; I will not fear; what can man do unto me?" inquired Leon of every one in the church. Then he soberly made a bow and walked to his seat.

No one could preach if he seriously looked at his own sins.

One should preach not from one's rational mind but rather from the heart. Only that which is from the heart can touch another heart. One must never attack or oppose anyone. If he who preaches must tell people to keep away from a certain kind of evil, he must do so meekly and humbly, with fear of God.

Preaching is asking people to do what you yourself failed to do and expect they fail so that you can come back and preach at them the next day

Our sacred duty is to proclaim and preach the gospel of salvation to all people from every nation.

Preaching is an art, and in this, as in all other arts, the bad performers far outnumber the good.

Preach Christ ! Preach the gospel Preach Christ; preach His message! A soul is dying; a spirit is slumbering Many are yearning for caring All they need is the gospel of salvation Preach Christ; act like Christ Preach Christ! Preach the gospel Preach Christ! Preach His message Alluring message I envisage The flocks yearn to see action for salvage The real gospel of Christ ’s becoming an adage Who will lead the wandering from his bondage? Preach Christ; act like Christ Preach Christ! Preach the gospel. Preach Christ ! Preach His coming! The master of harvest is coming Jesus Christ is coming For they that thought of His coming And took steps to prepare for His coming Preach Christ; act like Christ Preach Christ ! Preach His coming! Preach Christ ! Preach His redemption Prompt someone’s attention to His redemption They ponder and wander in want Call they that wander and tell them the real matter Show them the Master who can deliver Preach Christ; act like Christ Preach Christ ! Preach His redemption

Preachers are not salesmen, for they have nothing to sell. They are bearers of Good News.