Sermon Video Introduction: One of the reasons we have trouble dealing realistically with evil in this world is that we have drawn mental cartoons of the evil beforehand. When someone says “tyranny,” ...
Idols and Tyranny
The Spirit is Not Monochrome
“Only I beg you to remember in what different ways sermons may all be messages of the Lord. Let it save you from the monotonous narrowness of one eternally repeated sermon. And, what is far more important, let it keep you from ever daring to say with cruel flippancy of some brother who brings his message to another door of humanity from you, that he ‘does not preach Christ.’”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 107
Heat Lightning
“The preaching which is wholly exposition men are apt to find dull and pointless. It is heat lightning that quivers over many topics but strikes nowhere”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 104
The Prophecy of Micah [4]
Sermon Video Introduction: We have now come to the conclusion of the first cycle of Micah’s prophecy. Here we find a brief word of consolation, which, given what has come before, stands out ...
All the Doctrine You Know
“The truth is, no preaching ever had any strong power that was not the preaching of doctrine. The preachers that have moved and held men have always preached doctrine. No exhortation to a good life that does not put behind it some truth as deep as eternity can seize and hold the conscience. Preach doctrine, preach all the doctrine that you know, and learn forever more and more; but preach it always not that men may believe it; but that men may be saved by believing it.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 103
The Prophecy of Micah [3]
Sermon Video Introduction: Recall that there are three cycles of Micah’s word to the people, and each one of the three contains the elements of warning, judgment, and consolation. We are still ...
And It Is the Work of Reaching Men
“What I plead for is, that in all your desire to create good sermons you should think no sermon good that does not do its work.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 95
Following the Contempt
“There is nothing worse for a preacher than to come to think that, he must preach down to people; that they cannot take the very best he has to give. He grows to despise his own sermons, and the people quickly learn to sympathize with their minister”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 94
A Preacher, Not an Artist
“A sermon exists in and for its purpose. That purpose is the persuading and moving of men’s souls . . . It is always aimed at men”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 92
Preaching and Reading
“Ordinarily, reading sermons is like listening to an echo. The words there, but the personal intonation is gone out of them and there is an unreality about it all . . . In general it is true that the sermon which is good to preach is poor to read and the sermon which is good to read is poor to preach.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 91