One of my favorites is an exposition of Genesis 22 where Abraham takes Isaac to Mt. Mariah to offer him as a burnt sacrifice. In the New Testament he is called his only begotten son. That’s how Isaac is introduced; he was Abraham’s only begotten son, the very language arrests us. To picture the old man bent with his years and then Isaac staggering along now, the servants have gone, just he and his father together. Together, he says, together. They came to a place. That place had been in the heart and mind of God from before time began. And milestones along the way — you can picture the Son of God saying to His Father: “There it is Father,” as He raised up those mountains of Judah, and shaped out the place called Calvary. He said, “There it is Father, that’s the place.”

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You have to learn to use your imagination in preaching. That’s one big lesson I’ve learned about preaching. Make it interesting. So you see him making his way to the place called Mt. Moriah. The name means “foreseen of Jehovah.” So, it’s all foreseen. And as he said to the two witnesses — the young men that carried the wood — the burden was to be taken off of them and put on to him. He said, “I and the lad will go yonder and worship and return to you again.” Abraham by that time had said: well I’m going to have to kill him. But there’s no problem, God will raise him. That’s why he could do it.

In that whole chapter God was saying to Abraham: I want you as a human father to take your son, your only beloved, and offer him up so that in the ages to come people will be able to understand in some measure what it meant to God to take His only begotten son to the place called Calvary to offer Him up as a burnt offering. It is a marvelous chapter to preach from.

There are many other chapters of a like nature. There’s a verse in Jeremiah’s book of Lamentations that says, “Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow likened unto my sorrow of which God has afflicted me.” You can take the words right out of the lips of Jeremiah and put them right on the lips of Jesus. It was tailor made for him to say that. A lot of preachers don’t use any visual aids at all. All my visual aids are spoken ones. I’ve learned how to tell a story and how to make a passage come to life. My days are coming to an end, but they’ve been great.

Preaching: As you think about the preaching of the cross, are there particular challenges of which preachers should be aware?

Phillips: There are theological implications to what I’ve already said. The Lamb “slain from the creation of the world” occurs a number of times. The Holy Spirit is emphasizing the fact that here is a mystery. When the mystery of iniquity raised its head in the old world, before the foundation of the world — something happened before the foundation of the world. That goes back beyond Genesis 1 verse 2; goes back beyond that. The book opens in a chaotic condition in Genesis 1. So it’s a mystery why God should have chosen this particular way; it was the only way, obviously, to deal with the mystery of iniquity which raised its head in the universe.