That ability to pictorialize truth through vivid description is demonstrated when he spoke of Christ as the centrality of the revelation of God's love in the Bible saying,

It seems to me as if Jesus in the Bible were standing on a platform in a great amphitheater, as if the prophets were behind Him throwing light forward on His sacred person, and as if the apostles and evangelists stood before Him, like footlights throwing up their light into His blessed countenance, and then as if all earth and heaven were the applauding auditory. (Talmage, 1956: Vol.4, 140-1)

Broad Popularity

Despite his many duties Talmage remained accessible to his huge congregation and spent many hours in counseling them in his home. He captured the ears and hearts of multitudes weighed down by everyday problems and difficulties. He was able -- through a spiritual optimism reinforced by biblical convictions -- to lift the worn and weary close to Christ and help them feel they were within sight and sound of heaven.

If not America's greatest preacher he certainly became one of our most popular ones. Enormous crowds packed services whenever he preached. Calvary Presbyterian is one of largest churches in San Francisco but when he arrived there to be a pulpit guest the crowds so packed around that police needed to clear a way for his entrance.

Barely had he begun to preach when those who could not gain admittance began to break the doors down and were only dissuaded upon his promise to speak in Union Square one block away after the service at 9 p.m. Seizing the circumstance to advantage he chose as his open-air subject There Is Plenty Of Room In Heaven based on John 14: 2. He graced the popular public lecture platform on an average of once every week for 45 years, and was considered the most applauded public attraction of his time, during the course of his career visiting virtually every significant city and town in the United States.

A Dramatized Delivery

During a fruitful ministry at the Second Reformed Church of Philadelphia he developed the ability to employ dramatic physical theatrics in his sermons, thus providing ample opportunity for his growing number of critics who felt such sensational methods were out of place in the Christian pulpit.

Many times Talmage's sermons began with some descriptive narration of the historical events surrounding his text. With eyes closed he would pace the platform like a lion in his cage, sweeping his hearers onto the biblical landscape, and into the arena of its action with an ardor and fervency born from the most exhaustive research in preparation. He spoke from the Old Testament three times more than the New, lacing each sermon with evangelical passion, and often forged conversation among the biblical characters about whom he was speaking to bring home the truths he shared with extra power.

Talmage was a large man, who stood erect and projected a masterful manner. Possessed of a powerful voice and a warmth of manner, his persona impacted hearers with the feeling that his directness was a clean blow from his shoulder to every listening heart. He threw himself completely into every word of the sermon delivery with eagle eyes fastened hard on the audience wrestling for a hold on each individual in order to pin home his cherished convictions. He preached with every inch of his body, every facet of his mind, and every element of language and emotion he could muster for his purpose, vivid in adjective, keen in analysis, tender in appeal.