Preaching! - Oswald Chambers

[Jim Watt]

“*TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE” MINISTRIES*

*Jim & Marie Watt*

*Tel: 253-517-9195 - Email: jmbetter at gmail.com*

*Web: www.2rbetter.org*

November 13, 2011


 “*PREACHING” – From “Disciples Indeed” – Oswald Chambers - March 15, 2007 *


 These lectures were given to students in the sermon class at the Bible
Training College, in London, between 1911 and 1915

Because of the give and take nature of the class, Oswald’s lectures were
short and practical. Rather than giving a detailed process to follow in
sermon preparation, he sought to motivate students to think, study, and
prepare. He often stressed that the behavior and words of the person who
preaches are inseparable.

*FOREWORD – *Oswald Chambers was above all else a teacher of spiritual
truth. Our Ascended Lord’s promise was to give His Church “some to be …
teachers; for the perfecting of the saints” (Ephesians 4:11 RV). This book
contains messages spoken by such a teacher, full of wisdom and instruction
in righteousness. Teachers call for learners. Some of us who heard the
spoken word became humble and eager learners. Many who never saw or heard
the speaker are learning from him now. In a recent letter the writer said,
“It is not generally known how these books came into being, and the time
seems favorable for revealing God’s providence in it all.” Oswald Chambers
received his Home-call in 1917 when working with the Y.M.C.A. among the
Troops in Egypt. It seemed like the end of a fruitful ministry. Then it was
that Mrs. Chambers realized that her custom of taking down in shorthand her
husband’s lectures and addresses for her own profit had left her with a
great store of spiritual wisdom which could be shared with the wider world
by the printed page. So began a remarkable ministry of spreading in book
form the original spoken words. As the writer of the above-mentioned letter
says, “The whole matter is a sheer miracle, especially as the only planning
has been God’s.”

DISCIPLES INDEED, the latest book to be issued, speaks for itself. Other
volumes show by the outlines and headings given what careful preparation
was made for every spoken message. But often the spontaneous word of a
Spirit-filled man, whether the subject was Christian Doctrine, Psychology,
Biblical Ethics or Homiletics, would be added, and appear in the shorthand
notes. Many of these not included in the earlier publications are printed
here. They touch a wide range of subjects, and take us to the heart of
Oswald Chambers’ message. They make this book a kind of VADE MECUM of
sainthood. – David Lambert


 *PREACHING – *A personal testimony feeds you from hand to mouth; you must
have more equipment that that if you are to preach the Gospel.

The preacher must be part of his message; he must be incorporated in it.
That is what the baptism of the Holy Spirit did for the disciples. When the
Holy Spirit came at Pentecost He made these men living epistles of the
teaching of Jesus, not human gramophones recording the facts of His life.

If you stand true as a disciple of Jesus He will make your preaching the
kind of message that is incarnate as well as oral.

To preach the Gospel makes YOU a sacrament; but if the Word of God has not
become incorporated into you, your preaching is “a clanging cymbal” (RV);
it has never cost you anything, never taken you through repentance and
heartbreak.

We have not to explain how a man comes to God, instead of bringing men to
God, that hinders; an explanation of the Atonement never drew anyone to
God; the exalting of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified does draw men to God
(see John 12:32).


 *REMEMBER, YOU GO AMONG MEN*

*AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF JESUS CHRIST.*


 The preacher’s duty is not to convict men of sin, or to make them realize
how bad they are, but to bring them into contact with God until it is easy
for them to believe in Him.

No man is ever the same after listening to the truth; he may say he pays no
attention to it; he may appear to forget all about it; but at any moment
the truth may spring up into his consciousness and destroy all his peace of
mind.

The great snare in Christian work is this – “Do remember the people you are
talking to.” We have to remain true to God and His message, not to a
knowledge of the people; and as we rely on the Holy Spirit we will find God
works His marvels in His own way.


 *LIVE IN THE REALITY OF THE TRUTH*

*WHILE YOU PREACH IT.*


 Most of us prefer to live in a particular phase of the Truth, and that is
where we get intolerant and pigheaded, religiously determined that everyone
who does not agree with us must be wrong. We preach in the Name of God what
He won’t own.

God’s denunciation will fall on us if in our preaching we tell people they
must be holy and we ourselves are not holy. If we are not working out in
our private life the messages we are handing out, we will deepen the
condemnation of our own souls as messengers of God.


 *OUR MESSAGE ACTS LIKE A BOOMERANG;*

*IT IS DANGEROUS IF IT DOES NOT.*


 A good clear emotional expression contains within it the peril of
satisfactory expression while the life is miles away from the preaching.
The life of a preacher speaks louder than his words.

There is no use condemning sensuality or worldly-mindedness and compromise
in other people if there is the slightest inclination for these in our own
soul.

It is all very well to preach, the easiest thing in the world to give
people a vision of what God wants; it is another matter to come into the
sordid conditions of ordinary life and make the vision real there.

Beware of hypocrisy with God, especially if you are in no danger of
hypocrisy among men.

Penetration attracts hearers to God, ingenuity attracts to the preacher.
Dexterity is always an indication of shallowness.

A clever exposition is never right because the Spirit of God is not clever.
Beware of cleverness; it is the great cause of hypocrisy in a preacher.

Don’t be impatient with yourself, because the longer you are in satisfying
yourself with an expression of the Truth the better will you satisfy God.

Impressive preaching is rarely Gospel-preaching: Gospel-preaching is based
on the great mystery of belief in the Atonement, which belief is created in
others, not by my impressiveness, but by the insistent conviction of the
Holy Spirit.


 There is far more wrought by the Word of God than we will ever understand,
and if I substitute anything for it, fine thinking, eloquent speech, the
devil’s victory is enormous, but I am of no more use that a puff of wind.

The determination to be a fool if necessary is the golden rule for a
preacher.

We have to preach something which to the wisdom of this world is
foolishness. If the wisdom of the world is right, then God is foolish; if
God is wise, the wisdom of this world is foolishness (see 1 Corinthians
1:18-25). Where we go wrong is when we apologize for God.

If you are standing for the truth of God you are sure to experience
reproach, and if you open your mouth to vindicate yourself you will lose
what you were on the point of gaining. Let the ignominy and the shame come;
be “weak in Him.”

Never assume anything that has not been made yours by faith and the
experience of life; it is presumptuous to do so. On the other hand, be
ready to pay the price of “foolishness” in proclaiming to others what is
really yours.

People only want the kind of preaching which does not declare the demands
of a holy God. “Tell us that God is loving, not that He is holy, and that
He demands we should be holy.” The problem is not with the gross sinners,
but with the intellectual, cultured, religious-to-the-last-degree people.

All the winsome preaching of the Gospel is an insult to the Cross of
Christ. What is needed is the probe of the Spirit of God straight down to a
man’s conscience till his whole nature shouts at him, “That is right, and
YOU are wrong.”

It is the preacher’s contact with Reality that enables the Holy Spirit to
strip off the sophistries of those who listen; and when He does that, you
find it is the best people who go down first under conviction.

A great psychological law too little known is that the line of appeal is
conditioned by the line of attraction. If I seek to attract men, that will
be the line on which my aggressive work will have to be done.

To whom is our appeal? To none but those God sends you to. You can’t get
men to come; nobody could get you to come until you came. “The wind blows
where it lists, … so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”

Many of the theological terms used nowadays have no grip; we talk glibly
about sin, and about salvation; but let the truth be presented along the
line of a man’s deep personal need, and at once it is arresting.

Some of us are rushing on at such a headlong pace in Christian work,
wanting to vindicate God in a great Revival; but if God gave a revival we
would be the first to forget Him and swing off on some false fire.

Don’t exhaust yourself with other things.

Beware of the devil of good taste being your standard in presenting the
truth of God.

“Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh” (2 Corinthians 5:16);
that is the way we do know men – according to our common-sense estimates.
The man who knows God has no right to estimate other men according to his
common-sense judgments; he has to bring in revelation facts which will make
him a great deal more lenient in his judgment. To have a little bit only of
God’s point of view makes us immensely bitter in our judgment.

Beware lest your reserve in public has the effect of God Almighty’s decree
to the sea – “Hitherto shall you come, but no further.” I have no business
in God’s service if I have any personal reserve; I am to be broken bread
and poured-out wine in His hands.

If you are living a life of reckless trust in God, the impression given to
your congregation is that of the reserve power of God; while personal
reserve leaves the impression that you are condescending to them.

We should give instruction unconsciously; if you give instruction
consciously in a dictatorial mood – you simply flatter your own spiritual
conceit.

Have you never met the person whose religious life is so exact that you are
terrified at coming near him? Never have an exercise of religion that blots
God clean out.

Remember two things: be natural yourself, and let God be naturally Himself
through you. Very few of us have got to the place of being worthily
natural; any number of us are un-worthily natural; that is, we reveal the
fact that we have never taken the trouble to discipline ourselves.

Don’t be discouraged if you suffer from physical aphasia; the only cure for
it is to go ahead, remembering that nervousness overcome is power.

Beware of being disappointed with yourself in delivery; ignore the record
of your nerves.

Learn to be vicarious in public prayer. Allow two rivers to come through
you: the river of God, and the river of human interests. Beware of the
danger of preaching in prayer, of being doctrinal.

When you preach, you speak for God, and from God to the people; in prayer,
you talk to God for the people, and your proper place is among the people
as one of them. It is to be a vicarious relation, not the flinging of
theology at their heads from the pulpit.

Always come from God to men; never be so impertinent as to come from the
presence of anyone else.

How do interruptions affect you? If you allot your day and say, “I am going
to give so much time to this, and so much to that,” and God’s Providence
upsets your time-table; what becomes of your spirituality? Why, it flies
out of the window! It is not based on God; there is nothing spiritual about
it; it is purely mechanical. The great secret is to learn how to draw on
God all the time.

Whenever you are discovered as being exhausted, take a good humiliating
dose of John 21:15-17. The whole secret of shepherding is that someone else
reaches the Savior through your heart as a pathway.


 *BEWARE OF MAKING GOD’S TRUTH SIMPLER*

*THAN HE HAS MADE IT HIMSELF.*


 By the preaching of the Gospel God creates what was never there before,
namely, faith in Himself on the ground of the Redemption.

People say, “Do preach the simple Gospel;” if they mean by “the simple
Gospel” the thing we have always heard, the thing that keeps us sound
asleep; then the sooner God sends a thrust through our stagnant minds the
better.

If any man’s preaching does not make me brace myself up and watch my feet
and my ways, one of two things is the reason – either the preacher is
unreal, or I hate being better.

A joyous, humble belief in your message will compel attention.

Sermons may weary – the Gospel never does.


 *NOTE:* Did the thought occur to you as you read the above – “This seems
as if I am reading an extension of the Book of Proverbs?” Good! – Then it
will have the power to grip us, motivate us and shape us. Though it is
directed to those called to preach – yet we can all pray for all preachers.
What a difference answered prayer on this line will make in our churches!

“The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers” was published by Discovery House
Pulishers in 2000 and is available through Christian Book Distributors,
Alibris or Amazon. It contains 50 books, prepared posthumously by his wife
Biddy. Jim Watt



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