The Puritan William Ames has it exactly right: "Next to the evidence of truth, and the will of God drawn out of the scriptures, nothing makes a sermon more to pierce, than when it comes out of the inward affection of the heart without any affectation. To this purpose it is very profitable, if besides the daily practice of piety we use serious meditation and fervent prayer to work those things upon our own hearts, which we would persuade others of."11

Every appropriation of the truth preached will strengthen the preacher for preaching. Every repentance occasioned in his soul by the Word preached will give conviction to his voice. Then it will be said of him: "His sermon was like thunder, because his life was like lightning."12

Theologically, Jonathan Edwards in his Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections has given us the best explanation of what must take place within us. Edwards didn't use the word "affections" as we do to describe a moderate feeling or emotion or a tender attachment. By affections Edwards meant one's heart, one's inclinations, and one's will.13

Edwards said, "For who will deny that true religion consists in a great measure in vigorous and lively actings and the inclination and will of the soul, or the fervent exercises of the heart?"14 Edwards then goes on to demonstrate from a cascade of scriptures that real Christianity so impacts the affections that it shapes one's fears, one's hopes, one's loves, one's hatreds, one's desires, one's joys, one's sorrows, one's gratitude, one's compassing or understanding, and one's zeal.15

This is what I believe needs to routinely happen to the preacher as he prepares God's Word, so that the message comes through his whole intellectual and moral being. When this happens, he is truly ready to preach.

I have said it many times: Sermon preparation is twenty hours of prayer. It is humble, holy, critical thinking. It is repeatedly asking the Holy Spirit for insight. It is the harrowing of your soul. It is ongoing repentance. It is utter dependence. It is a singing heart.

Pathos

When we actually come to the preaching event, these moments must be an exercise in Spirit-directed pathos or God-centered passion, as I am using this word.

Bogus Passion

Here it must be said that there is a lot of bogus passion in today's pulpits. I have known of a preacher who would run in place, swing his arms, and jump up and down in the vestry in order to affect a spiritual passion when he stepped into the pulpit. I heard of another who stood on his head before walking out to the chancel. Hollywood has a word for this: "method acting." But a false passion may have much subtler roots, as D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones observed:

"A man prepares a message and, having prepared it, he may be pleased and satisfied with the arrangement and order of the thoughts and certain forms of expression. If he is of an energetic, fervent nature, he may well be excited and moved by that and especially when he preaches the sermon. But it may be entirely of the flesh and have nothing at all to do with spiritual matters. Every preacher knows exactly what this means .... You can be carried away by your own eloquence and by the very thing you yourself are doing and not by the truth at all."16