By Jason C. Meyer (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) pastor for preaching and vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church and associate professor of New Testament at Bethlehem College and Seminary. Prior to coming to Bethlehem, he served as dean of chapel and assistant professor of Christian Studies at Louisiana College. He is the author of Preaching: A Biblical Theology and a commentary on Philippians in the ESV Expository Commentary.

A Ministry-Shaping Life

I owe more to the ministry of Martyn Lloyd-Jones than I can put into words. In what follows, I try to summarize some of the most life-changing lessons I have learned from his preaching.

1. Preach the Word.

Lloyd-Jones practiced expository preaching in a day when few practiced it. Through his pulpit ministry many rediscovered the biblical beauty and necessity of expository preaching. In expository preaching, we humbly put ourselves under the text so that the people see that “what we are saying comes out of the Bible, and always comes out of it. That is the origin of our message.”¹ The Doctor stressed that all preaching must be expository because an expository sermon honors what he called the golden rule of preaching.

At this point there is one golden rule, one absolute demand–honesty. You have got to be honest with your text. I mean by that, that you do not go to a text just to pick out an idea which interests you and then deal with that idea yourself. That is to be dishonest with the text.²

2. Preach the Word in the power of the Spirit.

Like Elijah on Mt. Carmel, Lloyd-Jones believed that sermon preparation could prepare the sacrifice in an orderly way, but only God could bring down the fire. The sermon must catch fire to be true preaching. Without the Spirit, a preacher is only reading his notes or repeating words in reliance upon human oratory. The Doctor prized the power of the Spirit in preaching.

“The most romantic place on earth is the pulpit. I ascend the pulpit stairs Sunday after Sunday; I never know what is going to happen. I confess that I come expecting nothing; but suddenly the power is given. At other times I think I have a great deal because of my preparation; but, alas, I find there is no power in it. Thank God it is like that. I do my utmost, but he controls the supply and the power, he infuses it.”³

The secret to his success is that he did not separate light and heat, head and heart, word and Spirit. Lloyd-Jones was a student of history and saw this same pattern in history many times.

What was it that turned the world upside down? Was it just theological teaching? Was it mere enunciation of correct doctrine? Over and above that there was this mighty ‘demonstration of the Spirit and of power.’ How did those people turn the world upside down? The answer is that in the Book of Acts we have an account of a great revival, of the Spirit outpoured. What happened could not have happened otherwise. How did all these churches come into being? Was it merely that the apostles taught correct doctrine? Of course not! It was the Spirit’s demonstration and power which accompanied the correct doctrine. Correct doctrine can leave the church dead; you can have dead orthodoxy, you can have a church that is perfectly orthodox but perfectly useless. Over and above, there was this demonstration, this unction, this authority, this outpouring of the Spirit’s power. It is the only explanation of the astonishing things that happened.⁴

Lloyd-Jones never tired of stressing the necessity of the Spirit for the work of ministry. He often reminded pastors of “how much more” we need the Spirit today than the disciples did in their day.

You would have thought these men therefore were now in a perfect position to go out to preach; but according to our Lord’s teaching they were not. They seem to have all the necessary knowledge, but that knowledge is not sufficient, something further is needed, is indeed essential. The knowledge indeed is vital for you cannot be witnesses without it, but to be effective witnesses you need the power and the unction and the demonstration of the Spirit in addition. Now if this was necessary for these men, how much more is it necessary for all others who try to preach these things?⁵

This process of seeking the Spirit’s power does not start when the sermon manuscript is complete; it must be the focus from the first moment of the preacher’s preparations. He urges us to seek, expect, and yield to this power as the “supreme thing” and to “be content with nothing less.”⁶ Without this emphasis, there is “always a very real danger of our putting our faith in our sermon rather than in the Spirit.”⁷ It seems like I need to hear this warning week-by-week.

3. Preach for the salvation of the people in the pew.

A monumental turning point took place in 1923 while Lloyd-Jones was a medical student at St. Bartholomew’s in London. He began listening to the preaching of Dr. John Hutton, the minister at Westminster Chapel. There was a spiritual power in this man’s preaching that arrested his soul and made him aware of the amazing power of God to save and change lives.⁸ He had never experienced this power at any other church he attended (despite the fact that he had attended church his whole life).

Lloyd-Jones later described his conversion in this way:

For many years I thought I was a Christian when in fact I was not. It was only later that I came to see that I had never been a Christian and became one. . . .What I needed was preaching that would convict me of sin. . . .But I never heard this. The preaching we had was always based on the assumption that we were all Christians.⁹

Preachers preach to make Christ’s name known, not our name known.

That experience marked the rest of his ministry. Lloyd-Jones never assumed that the people in the pews were all Christians. The Lord blessed this approach. The Spirit moved mightily through Lloyd-Jones’s ministry for the salvation of both the most outwardly religious and the most outwardly irreligious. People from every walk of life experienced the life-changing power of the gospel. Like Paul, he resolved to preach “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). That was the text for his first sermon and he never moved away from it as his guiding principle. Others in his day thought that the decline in church attendance in many places meant that modern man needed more modern attractions like drama.

Lloyd-Jones took a radically different approach. He suspended the drama society. Musical evenings were canceled. He simply preached Christ in the power of the Spirit. He said that Christ was the church’s only attraction. His sermon on Psalm 34:8 (June 28, 1931) testifies to this conviction: “The business of preaching is not to entertain, but to lead people to salvation, to teach them how to find God.”

4. Preach to awaken the conscience, not to soothe the conscience.

He believed that the first work of the Holy Spirit in the pulpit would be to convict people of their sin and to humble them in the presence of God. One should not try to soothe the conscience of those who do not fear God and are not seeking his mercy. “Present-day religion far too often soothes the conscience instead of awakening it, and produces a sense of satisfaction and eternal safety rather than a sense of unworthiness and the likelihood of eternal damnation.”¹⁰

He believed that the Spirit of God would not own that kind of preaching. In so doing, Iain Murray emphasized that Lloyd-Jones went back to a preaching principle that Charles Spurgeon had owned for his own ministry.

In the beginning, the preacher’s business is not to convert men, but the very reverse. It is idle to attempt to heal those who are not wounded, to attempt to clothe those who have never been stripped, and to make those rich who have never realized their poverty. As long as the world stands, we shall need the Holy Ghost, not only as the Comforter, but also as the Convincer, who will ‘reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.’¹¹

The church needs to relearn this lesson in every generation. There is nothing new under the sun. The Lord raised up Charles Spurgeon to confront the downward spiral of England into liberalism in the nineteenth century. It became known as the Downgrade controversy. The Lord raised up Lloyd-Jones to deal with the downward liberal slide in the twentieth century. We need more of this kind of preaching in the twenty-first century.

5. Don’t live for preaching.

Lloyd-Jones received a living from preaching, but he did not live for preaching. He testified to this very truth at the end of his life: “I did not live for preaching.”¹² He had a higher love. Being a Christian was the most wonderful thing in the world to him.¹³

He testified powerfully to this truth at the end of his life. Lloyd-Jones became ill and it became very difficult for him to get from his chair to his bed. Friends would come to encourage him and would watch him and become discouraged themselves. They would say, Martyn, you used to be this powerful preacher, a lion in the pulpit, and now you look pitiful–you can hardly make it to your bed. How do you keep from getting discouraged? He would often quote a Bible verse from Luke 10:20:

Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

He would then say, “Why should I be discouraged? I am no less saved today than I was when I was preaching. In fact, salvation is nearer than when I first believed.”

Preachers preach to make Christ’s name known, not our name known. We do not rejoice in ministry successes. Let us rejoice in the Lord’s work today, not our own. Let us rejoice in the lavish mercy of Christ toward us that our names are written in heaven!

Notes:

1. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), 75.
2. Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 199.
3. Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1965), 299–300.
4. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Puritans: Their Origins and Successors (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1987), 13–14.
5. Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 307–308.
6. Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 325.
7. Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 230.
8. Iain H. Murray, The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones 1899–1981 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1982), 46.
9. Iain H. Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, 1899–1939 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1982), 58.
10. Iain H. Murray, The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones 1899–1981, 130.
11. This quote is from Spurgeon speaking in 1883. Quoted in Iain H. Murray, The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones 1899–1981, 129.
12. Interview with Iain Murray, Logic on Fire Documentary.
13. See Iain H. Murray, Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace (Carlisle, PA: 2008), xi. The Doctor says it in his own words: “Is there anything in the world which is comparable to the privilege of being a Christian?” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Darkness and Light (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 312.

Dr. Steve Lawson – source: https://blog.tms.edu/20-tips-on-improving-your-preaching

How do I become a better preacher? There is more to it than eye contact, hand motions, and freedom from manuscript. There is more to it than staring at yourself in the mirror as you rehearse. The following are the twenty things I would tell the man who wants to improve his preaching:

1. Sit under great preaching

I firmly believe that preaching is more caught than taught. Over the years, I have learned so much about how to preach simply by sitting under great preaching. I often have young men ask me how to become a great preacher. I always encourage them with this: before even going to seminary, find someone who knows how to preach, and sit on the front row and glean as much as you can. You can’t just listen to him on a podcast or watch him on YouTube. You need to be in the building. You need to see it and feel it. Feel the pregnant pauses, the emotion of the congregation, the weight of the worship. We learn how to preach by sitting on the front row under powerful preaching.

2. Take Notes from Great Preaching

I used to listen to preaching on cassette tapes. I would hit the play button, listen to ten seconds, and then stop it. I would then write down everything the preacher just said. Then I would hit the play button for another ten seconds. Stop it. Then I would write that down. This would take hours. But through this tedious process, I began to grasp structure, transitional statements, subpoints, illustrations, applications, conclusions—all simply by transcribing great sermons. I saw what an introduction looked like on paper. I saw how carefully transitions are worded. I saw the precisely crafted draws and demands of application.

As soon as I heard great preaching, I knew what it was that I wanted to do. I just didn’t know how to do it. I needed for great preaching somehow to become practical. By taking notes, I learned what great preaching looked like on paper. I learned the movement, flow, and cadence of a sermon. I knew what great preaching looked and felt like before ever stepping foot in a preaching class, simply by taking notes.

3. Listen to Great Preaching

By this, I do mean just listening to preaching. When you listen to preaching over and over, it gets into your bones. Tune your ear to the sound of great preaching.

4. Read Great Preaching

There is much to be learned even from reading great preaching. Like taking notes, this is another way to see preaching. Read Spurgeon. Soak your mind in him. You can feel his passion. You can see the evangelistic pull and appeal of his words. You can almost hear the tone of his voice. Read Whitefield. Let him set you on fire as he did me.  

5. Learn from Many Great Preachers

My encouragement to you is not to listen to just one preacher. Do not become mesmerized with one personality. It will set a low ceiling over your preaching. You will settle into imbalances and imitation. Have multiple voices coming into your preaching. Everybody has weaknesses, blind spots. Surround yourself with a multitude of voices as you learn to find your own. They will complement and round off your edges.

6. Preach Yourself

You can’t learn to ride a bike in a classroom. You have to go outside and do it. The same is true of preaching. You have to go out and preach. Seek out preaching opportunities, even if it is just to a small group. Learn to preach by preaching.

7. Preach Often

Many men never surpass mediocrity in their preaching for the simple reason that they just don’t preach enough. George Whitefield said, “The more I preach, the better I preach.” Just as the more you play golf, the better you play golf; and the more you play piano, the better you play piano—it’s just a reality: the more you preach, the better you preach. That’s just the way it is. So preach often.

8. Preach in Different Settings

There is a certain predictability about preaching in a certain place. You need to continue to expand your horizons and enlarge your gift. Preach in as many different settings as you can, with different site-lines, podiums, faces, and responses—each one pulling something unique out of you. This doesn’t mean you have to go around the country to preach, just find different venues in your own city. Each one will draw something unique from you.

9. Preach Narrative

Our tendency as preachers is to tunnel deep into the epistles. And they are wonderful. But you must expand to other genres of Scripture. Learn to preach narratives. By preaching narratives, a didactive preacher becomes a dynamic preacher. There is a certain energy in a story—a passion that naturally flows from an inspired plot with rising action and conflict and character development. Learn to handle these portions of Scripture. Let them make you into a more dynamic preacher.  

10. Preach the Psalms

I did not fully develop as a preacher until I preached through the entirety of the psalter. That immersion into the songs of Israel ushered me into a different dimension of preaching. If you preach the psalms, they will change you. Your vocabulary will deepen. You will discover a new passion in your preaching. Metaphors and analogies will begin to pour forth from you. You will discover figures of speech in your arsenal. Your preaching will no longer have the tone of a correspondent, but a poet. You will gain a natural command of the language. You will preach to broken hearts—to people on the mountaintops and in the valleys of life. You will better understand emotions. But most of all, your preaching will be immensely God-centered.

11. Improve Your Vocabulary

Preaching is simply putting words into the air. If you have better words from which to draw, you will automatically have more going for you. In the first day of my doctoral program under Dr. Sproul, he made everyone in the class learn three hundred English vocabulary words. We were quizzed the next day. If you are a preacher, your life work is words. Read books to expand your vocabulary. Do whatever it takes to add more words to your arsenal—buy books, flashcards, and thesauruses. Use them. Never repeat yourself in preaching. Find the best word, the right word. Learn to opt for a carefully selected word over a story. If you are a preacher, words are your trade. Master them.  

12. Improve Your Grammar

When I graduated from seminary, my grammar was awful. English teachers in our church would pull me aside after sermons and correct my grammar. Initially, it bothered me. But I am so thankful those English teachers loved me enough to challenge my grammar. It opened doors. It cleared roadblocks. Those English teachers were God’s way of refining me to gain a hearing with people that I otherwise would not have. Yes, grammar really does matter. We have flies in the ointment when we have bad grammar. Tell your wife, I want you to correct me every time you hear me use incorrect grammar. Stop me. Have her make a list of grammatical mistakes in your preaching. There is no other way to extract bad grammar from you than for someone to love you enough to tell you. Thank her when she corrects you. It is God’s way of refining you.

13. Read Great Literature

If you are going to have a command of the sentence—its cadence, length, lead-in, phraseology, emphasis, word choice—there is no better method than to read great literature. I would urge you to do that. Spend time enjoying how masters of the English language communicate. It will begin to seep into you.

14. Learn to Write and Edit

To learn to preach, you must learn to write a sermon. And to write a sermon, you must learn to write. It may be nothing more than an article in the worship bulletin. Just write. It doesn’t matter who (or if anyone) is reading it. Learn to get your thoughts onto paper. Go through the excruciating practice of editing your own writing. Force yourself to dig into your own sentences, by doing this you will begin to learn to speak. Writing breeds accuracy, and accuracy is the heartbeat of expository preaching.

15. Invite Feedback when Preaching

Every preacher is subject to discouragement when our preaching is criticized by others. But find one or two people who love you and are committed to you, and ask them to give you honest feedback on your preaching. Ask them to show you your blind spots.  

16. Read Books on Preaching

Read Martin Lloyd-Jones’s book Preaching and Preachers. This book is a must read. Read MacArthur’s Preaching: How to Preach Biblically. Read J.W. Alexander’s Thoughts on Preaching. Read R.L. Dabney, Evangelical Eloquence. Read Between Two Worlds by John Stott. Read Spurgeon’s Lectures to my Students.

17. Read Biographies of Great Preachers

I am still trying to recover from reading the two-volume biography of George Whitefield by Arnold Dallimore. This is the only book I have ever read three times. It just makes me want to preach. You need to read books that make you want to preach. Read the autobiography of Charles Spurgeon. That book will do something to your soul. It makes me cry. It makes me want to get up early. It makes me want to study—to pray; to preach; to live a godly life. Read the biography of Martin Lloyd Jones by Iain Murray. This book will be a tipping point in your life. Read books that make you want to do something. Specifically, read books that make you want to preach.

18. Read Church History

Before seminary, I didn’t even know what church history was. I learned of the Reformation and the Great Awakening and the Modern Missions Movement and the Great Victorian Preachers, and these men became etched into me. There was a fellowship that I had with them. I was in their company. I was one of them. Church history taught me that conflict and controversy mark every movement forward. Studying church history forces you to grow up as a man. It matures you.

19. Read of the Martyrs

In one of his resolutions, Jonathan Edwards resolves to remember the martyrs. We must do the same. Read about Tyndale. Read about Cranmer. Read about these men and women being strapped to the stake.

In the front of my Bible, I carry a picture of John Rogers. He was burned at the stake in 1555. He was the first martyr burned by bloody Mary. His crime—helping finish Tyndale’s work of translating the Bible into the English language, repudiating the mass, and preaching the purity of grace. When you read church history, you begin to identify with the martyrs. I’ve never had a bad day, not compared to the martyrs. Any criticism I’ve ever had, any firing I’ve endured, any rejection I’ve suffered—is nothing. When you spend hours considering the lives of the martyrs, it has an effect on you when you step into the pulpit. It is hard to be a goofball in the pulpit when you’ve been drinking from this well.

20. Be More Zealous for God

Don’t let whatever stage of life you are in quench your fire. Let the words of Jesus sink in: “I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first” (Rev. 2:4–5). Remember when you were on fire for God. Remember when you were zealous and passionate. Remember when you were actively witnessing. When you used to cry. When you used to rejoice when you sang. And return to those days. Be more zealous for God. Ask God, by His Spirit, to ignite you—to set you on fire: “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32, italics mine). Ask God to do that in your heart. That is a prayer God will answer.

A Rising Tide

If you were able to incorporate even some of these into your life, the tide would come in, and your preaching would be raised. If you could incorporate a good number of these into your life, your preaching would be lifted even higher. Be on fire for God. And if you are, no one will have to talk to you about gestures, eye contact, or techniques. In some ways, techniques are for men who don’t know how to preach. Get on fire for God, and you will find a way to get it across. I fell in love with my wife, and no one had to teach me about hand motions or eye contact when I told her I loved her. Fall in love with Christ, and you will learn to communicate.

Passage: 2 Timothy 4:1-5

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