Why Some Sermons Are Half-Baked

“Heart fire is true fire. A housewife, who perseveres in the old method of making her own bread, does not want a great blaze at the mouth of the oven. ‘Oh, no!’ she says, ‘I want to get my faggots far back, and get all the heat into the oven itself, and then it becomes of use to me.’ Sermons are never baked by the fire and flash at the mouth; they must be prepared through the heating of the inmost soul” (Charles Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry, p. 338).