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Preaching Conference Part 3 By David Cook

Other Talks on preaching can be found at SMBC bibletalks

Well we begin, that was a nice break, wasn't it?
So we're going to have a lighter afternoon now if you open up your booklets to the page on application and illustration and we'll look at these two areas.
Now this time together we'll be looking at the two major areas of criticism of expository preaching.
The two major areas I've encountered have criticism of expository preaching in my parishes of one, it's too academic, it's rarely earthed, it never deals with real life.
What we need around here, this is the way it presented itself in WeWar, what we need around here is more preaching and less teaching, that's one way criticism of expository preaching presents itself and I think that really is a criticism of unapplied expository preaching so you need to work hard at application.
The second criticism is that it's dull and in order to counter that criticism because it's hard for you if it's dull because it's just very hard knowing that the congregation's already asleep and you've used your best illustration and there's no more to come and so illustration is also very important to us so let's pray as we come to this material.
Thank you Heavenly Father for the day that we've had and we pray now that you'd sustain us as we look at this material in order that we might appropriately apply your Word.
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Now the senior editor of the Life Application Bible, a bloke by the name of David Bierman,
you'd think he would know something about application, says that there are four reasons
why we are weak in application.
First because it's hard work and if we are addicted to commentaries and not thinking
for ourselves then the commentator often will not help you in the area of application.
Sometimes he'll help you but more often than not he may not be a great help to you in the
area of application.
Secondly, he says that we are weak in application because we make wrong assumptions about our
hearers that somehow they will make the link to application for themselves and I think
that it's true that most congregations don't make the mental jump, that you need to underline,
outline the implications of the truth that you're preaching about because they won't
do that themselves.
So I think often I've heard sermons and the preacher will preach a sermon and then he
will say, let him who has ears to hear, hear what the Spirit says to the churches and then
sit down and I think that that's a great cop out really because you haven't done the hard
work of seeking to show me how this might apply.
Now it's true, the Spirit can take the Word in the way he sovereignly chooses but I think
we need to work harder at issue of application.
The third reason Verman gives is fear because life has become so complex and we think, well
it's far too simplistic to think that I can change anybody's life situation with a three
point sermon.
Therapy is much more complex, it takes much longer than that and so we have lost confidence
in the Word of God to do its work so fear is another, the fear of being seen to be simplistic
is another issue and the fourth issue is that we're simply, Verman says, not trained in
most of our theological colleges to apply God's Word and I think it is incredible that
in Australia our major theological colleges do not have members of faculty who are specialists
in preparing preachers when we are turning out preachers all the time but we don't have
any specialist homiletic professors, that's something that belongs to the US and the UK.
Now Verman goes on and says that application is not more information and it's not merely
illustration and it's not merely being relevant so what he has suggested, when he edited the
Life Application Bible he developed what he calls the Dynamic Analogy Grid, it's another
one of these, HDS, except in this case it's a DAG which I think is particularly ironic.
Now so what he's done here, as you'll see there the grid's in front of you there, he
looks at the then, that is the Bible world, the now and then on the personal level, me.
He looks at the human need then, it's equivalent now and it's equivalent in my life, the way
God's salvation expressed it till then, now and in me and the human response in the Bible
now and in me. So let me just run through this for example on the passage we did this
morning on Mark chapter 10 verse 35 to 45, so if you've just got that open let me suggest
a way in which you could fill out a Dynamic Analogy Grid with that section where Jesus
responds to James and John, Mark 10, 35 to 45. Now the human need then, that is expressed
by James and John, could be that they want the dominant, they want the prominent place,
they want to sit at Jesus' right and left hand side. Now God's solution to that, or
God's salvation or solution, is that Jesus shows himself as a redeeming servant, that
is he doesn't push for the prominent place but he shows himself as a redeeming servant
and therefore the appropriate human response then was that the disciples are to aspire
to serve, the great amongst you are those who are servants. Okay so at the then level
dealing with Mark 10 at the first century level we want prominence, human need, God's
solution, I think that is God's solution rather than God's salvation. God's solution
is that his Son comes amongst us as a redeeming servant and the human response is that we
are to serve as well. Now move that down into the 21st century on a general plane and the
human need now becomes the ambitious pride of people for prominence, ambition even within
the church to shine in a way that's obvious to others. I remember when I was going through
theological college and they gave us another old minister and he told us, don't whine,
don't shine, don't recline, that was his advice to us as we were going through college,
don't whine, don't complain, don't shine and don't recline, don't be lazy in well-doing,
don't shine, don't try and show yourself that you do well in a way that's obvious
to others. So the human need is ambitious pride. God's solution in the 21st century
is that our Lord is the way of the servant, Christ comes amongst us again as a servant
and therefore we've got to keep reminding ourselves that he, the Lord, the King serves
and therefore the human response to that is to repent of ambitious pride and to walk in
humility, to repent of ambitious pride and to walk in humility. Now we come to the me
level of the human's grid and the human need at this point is my pride, my aspiration for
the right and the left hand of Jesus, my wanting the larger church, the committee position,
the largest college, the best college, me, my seeking to shine. God's solution is the
call to faithful service to follow the Lord Jesus who gave his life a ransom for many
and therefore the human response from me is to commit myself to put on faithful service,
to put on the attitude of serving others and being productive for the kingdom in ways that
may not be obvious to other people. Now when you've worked that grid through you'll see
that that grid can simply be applied to any text that you're working on. Now let me go
on and just, we've looked at that one text but let me look now at some hints for application
before we come down to the foot of the page where it's just filling out what I do at the
bottom of the pyramid. First, hints for application. I think the first thing we need to recognise
is that indeed God does apply his own truth so that if you're doing a series through Romans
you will eventually come to the therefore of chapter 12 and chapter 12 to 15 of Romans is
really the application of the gospel and the faithfulness of God which Paul has established
in Romans 1 to 11. Similarly when you come to the book of Ephesians Paul establishes the great
truths which he then applies to church life from chapter 4 onwards. So you've got to look at the
bible itself because often the context itself will apply the truth. Now if you've got mark 10
open there you'll notice here what I think is significant here is in verse 36 Jesus says what
do you want me to do for you? And then if you look at the question which he asks in verse 51
of mark 10 what do you want me to do for you? So if you go into a shop and someone comes out
and says what do you want to do for me you think the shop assistant they shouldn't be asking what
do you want me to do for me it's what do I want you to do for me I'm the customer you're the
servant. So if you go into a shop they come and say how can I help you? If they came and said how
can you help me you know there's something wrong. What the Lord Jesus is doing on these two occasions
is what do you want me to do for you? But you are the Lord you are the one who's going to be
exalted at the right hand of the father. You should be saying what do I want you to do for me?
You see now so there's that subtle play on those two words of Jesus. Now God applies his own truth
so very often you need to look at how does the context apply this truth? So Jesus says for
example in mark 6 don't store up for yourselves treasures in heaven and the question is how can
I store up treasures on earth and it's the context that tells you that. Now the second thing is that
we need to know our hearers. Another old minister on one occasion told me because when I went to
Ashfield there was a retired minister's village in the parish of Ashfield and retired
ministers are full of good advice or some advice anyway they'll either have your head or your feet
young man they can't have both. In other words you'll be a visitor or a preacher but you can't
be both they'll have your head as a preacher or your feet as a visitor but they can't have both.
Well I think that's not good advice that's bad advice you need to know people so you need to be
out there you need to be having lunch with people you need to be talking to people you need to know
what makes them tick. You live in the world of grey well tell me about the world of grey
because I want to be preaching into the world of grey I want to be preaching God's word I want to
know what makes people tick so that when I go to the nursing home in Ashfield we have the big
Pittwood nursing home in the parish and often a young student would go there and preach in the
chapel. Now what would the student preach in the chapel of the nursing home about? Immediately they
think these people are old they're going to die I'll preach them about death but it's not the
thing to preach about is it when you're old I guess you think is it going to be today you don't
want to go to chapel and constantly be reminded about it. Also in the parish we had the PLC the
presbyterian ladies college and I had to go every Wednesday morning and speak to all the girls in
the senior school. I tell you what I checked the flyer a hundred times before I got up on that
platform I continue just to make sure it was done up it was dreadful going standing for 700 girls
you know and having them giggle in the front row and you think oh have I done my fly up have I
it's a terrible feeling anyway you check it but it's certainly in that occasion if you said girls
have you ever worried about having a pimple on your chin you mean oh yes of course that's what
that's what makes life tick a bad week a week when you've got the pimples on the chin so you've got to
know what's making these kids tick and you've somehow got to get beside them and the best way
of doing that is have lots of children yourself and listen to them and ask them questions at the
table but you've got to you've got to be out there knowing what people are concerned about
what is interesting people I always I apart from Saturday I never sit down to read the Sydney
Morning Herald I read it on Saturday the other days of the week it comes to college I stand up
and I flip through it and I always look at the headline on page one and then I look at the
letters column and I think what are people talking about what are the big issues in the letters
column well you know the past week it's Pauline Hanson do you think that when people come to
church they don't think about Pauline Hanson but it's never talked about in the pulpit there might
be some relevance there to talk about Pauline Hanson and justice etc in the pulpit so I want
to read the letters page and I want to read the headline as well I want to check before I get out
of bed what they're talking about to Alan Jones in Sydney 15% of the Sydney radio audience listen to
Alan Jones I just want to know what they're talking about today to Alan Jones and again
they're on about Pauline Hanson today she should have been given bail or whatever so it's good to
keep your finger on the pulse but don't spend too much time there and the third thing I think is
important is apply it to you first how does this apply to me and I always used to try and target
a typical person in the congregation I thought right how does it apply to this person in my case
it was a lady who was who had three children a husband and she worked at the local school
doing administrative work the name was Ann and so when I'm thinking about the sermon I'm always
thinking about how this applies to Ann it's a bad thing to do by the way last week we had a student
do two sermons in chapel and on both occasions he had to take his jumper off because he was getting
too hot and the first occasion his shirt was stuck through his fly and was hanging out here
I thought I'd say and the second occasion he took it off and his shirt lifts up so you see
his belly I thought oh good grief for goodness sake see some funny things okay let's look at
the grid this Sydney Harbour Bridge that Haddon Robinson provides in biblical preaching what he's
saying is here is text here is hearer and first century text 21st century hearer and he's saying
that in some texts like love your neighbour as yourself there's direct application what it meant
in the first century is you love your neighbour as you love yourself what it means in the 21st
century is you love your neighbour as you love yourself however there are some texts that you
cannot go with direct application for example sell all you have and give to the poor or the
holy spirit the promises the holy spirit will tell you about things yet to come that's a particular
promise to the apostles so you have to work harder at that I therefore you ask yourself
what is the the text what is god teaching me about himself and what is god teaching me about
humanity and the human depravity factor then you work at the necessary possible and impossible
levels how must this apply to everybody how does it apply to me and how can it never apply to
anyone now for example let's look at one example of that do not commit adultery
necessary application do not commit adultery adultery is sexual relations with anyone with
whom you are not in a lifelong covenant relationship of marriage necessary application
you are not in thought or deed to commit have sexual relations with anyone with
whom you are not in a lifelong covenant relationship of marriage that's the necessary
application, possible application, what might it mean to me?
Example, Rabi Zecharias, when Rabi Zecharias travels his board make it clear that if he's
going to be away from home for more than two weeks he must travel with his wife and whoever
therefore is inviting him must pay for his wife to travel with him.
If his wife doesn't come a senior male assistant will come with him to keep him accountable.
Now that is a possible application of do not commit adultery.
Now what you need to be careful about, and this is the point Haddon Robinson makes, is
taking a possible application which may be a wise application of the truth and pressing
it to be a necessary application.
That is, oh well I know an evangelist who goes away for more than two weeks and he never
takes his wife therefore he's doing the wrong thing therefore he must be out of relationship
with God.
What you've done is you've pressed the possible application which is wise and you've made
it a legalistically binding rule, a law, and you mustn't do that so therefore the way truth
applies to me I should not lay that on you as though it must apply in your life in exactly
the same way.
So be careful therefore not to be legalistic and make a wise observation into an issue
of obedience, disobedience.
And the third issue, impossible, that as a God honouring man or woman you can play the
field sexually.
You can't.
You can see how close you can get to the edge of adultery without falling in.
It is impossible to understand that that command is encouraging you to experiment in that sort
of dangerous way.
Now if you go back to what we looked at this morning, the pyramid on Mark 10, for which
you go forward, I'm sorry, over the page, you'll see there when we looked at application
in this section that we came to certain conclusions.
That is, it is the passage, big idea, is about the kingdom of God's leadership is seen in
terms of service, not oppression, for the king comes amongst us as a redeemer who gives
his life to release those in bondage.
What does this teach us about God?
It teaches us that God's King, Jesus, enters glory via suffering, that God is deemed service,
that God is deemed the humble servant, humility, and God is a redeeming God.
What is the human depravity factor?
That we are ambitious for self-promotion and in our leadership often we are oppressive.
We weigh down on people rather than being liberating in our leadership, we are oppressive
bosses in our leadership.
We are manipulative, we want people to show us what can you do for me rather than what
can I do for you.
Now the necessary therefore application is that we are to resist the human depravity
factor.
We are to resist bossy, oppressive leadership and be like Christ.
Don't be oppressive and self-serving but rather follow the servant king and in our leadership
we should be asking what can I do for you?
That's Richard Baxter's great questions in the Reform Pastor.
So the big questions of Richard Baxter that I've been asking students in the Fellowship
Group is how and when did you become a Christian?
Have you ever had any issues like doubt or lack of assurance in your Christian life?
What do you believe your gifts are in ministry?
Where do you believe that God is leading you in the future and how can I help you?
That's the question of the servant.
How can I help you reach your God-ordained goals?
How can I help you?
And that is the basis that Baxter says is good pastoral oversight and I've been recording
those answers and that's been the basis of my daily praying for my Fellowship Group.
Now so that's the necessary and keep that up so truth doesn't depreciate, it's always
true.
So you've got to keep reminding yourself of that haven't you?
Think one of the things I've learnt this year is I really need to love my wife and you think
great I've learnt that but hey wait on I've got to learn it this week and I've got to
learn it next week and you've got to keep learning that.
So just because you think I've learnt that you can't tick it off and move on to something
else.
Now what is the possible application?
Well the possible application for me as a husband, how do I initiate in service within
the home?
As an employer do I put another worker on even though it's going to cut my profit but
it's going to give someone meaningful employment and after all the profit motive's not everything
and if I can therefore put another employee on and provide meaningful employment for them
then that surely is a good thing if it's not going to break me.
And how does this apply for me in the church?
How can I show the people I lead or I'm involved with in the church that I'm here to help them
achieve their God given goal?
What do you want to do for me?
No what can I do to help you?
And therefore the impossible application would be may I help you?
May you help me?
So I'm always going along into any relationship I'm in in order to suck the marrow out of
the other person.
They are there to be manipulated, they are there to help me.
The great one is the one who's on top, who's being served that you cannot understand that
this passage is teaching that.
Now two other books that I find helpful that I've always at the moment I've got the book
by R.L. Raymond as I mentioned this morning but there is another book by J.E. Adams, not
one of these books I'm preaching but the book called Christian Counsellor's Manual.
That is helpful because it's got a very good index so what Adams actually provides for
you there is an excellent commentary on the Bible and shows you the pastoral implications
of various texts.
So as of this morning if I am preaching on Matthew 5, Love Your Enemies, I'll see if
Robert Raymond makes any reference to that section in any of his systematic theology
and I'll look at the theologies that he draws out of that passage and I'll read about those
and I'll look under Adams to see if he makes any reference to Love Your Enemies and sure
enough he does.
He talks about the case study of the husband and wife who are going to get divorced and
how love follows action, feelings follow action, not the other way around.
So I found those two books are usually close by my desk to help me with application and
the Adams book is particularly helpful as I'm trying to apply to the pastoral situation.
Now does anybody want to make a comment or ask a question about application before we
move on to illustration?
Yes Don.
I've been talking about death, I've been doing it for years talking about death, I've
just had the option to do it, a fear of people and I've seen some come and go over 14 years
because they're there and the next week their faith is taken and most of them are unprepared
for death.
Most of them don't care at all about it.
I guess what I mean is, and I should have been more careful, I don't want to be told
about death by a 25 year old.
I want to be told about death by someone who's up there facing it as well.
Probably the youngest one, I don't know, a couple of others.
Anybody else?
Yes John.
I know a lot of people come to the conclusion with applications and I wonder whether the
application writing from 3 sub points, you know the particular application that you drew
at the sub point, do you drill it there?
Well the Puritans would drill it at the end and they'd give you 25 points.
They talk about the use of the text and if you read the Puritan commentaries you can
get up to 30 or 50 points of application which often are really helpful.
That's enough.
David Brown's commentary for example on the gospel is really helpful like that.
Dudley Ford says that the sermon is like a jumbo jet.
You put plenty of fuel in to get off the ground.
It floats along up there along the way and then plenty of power to get it back down on
the ground.
So he says you put plenty of power into the opening illustration and plenty of power into
the concluding application.
What I reckon, and John Chapman, he takes the model, you state it, you explain it, you
illustrate it, you apply it.
Now I think that's really helpful as long as you don't do it all the time like that
because if you do it all the time it's just variety is the spice of life and if you become
predictable, oh he's stating it now, oh he's explaining it now, here comes the illustration,
here comes the application.
Why don't you catch us by surprise?
And if you've spent time last week say giving us three points of application at the end,
why don't you bring the application this week in as you go?
So I reckon you've just got to strive for variety.
That's what I'd do.
But I guess the weight of my application does come at the end in reality.
Okay, anything else?
Well let's get on to illustration and I just want to read Jay Adams, a chapter which he
talks about sense appeal and storytelling.
Now the illustration page is on the other side of the pyramid.
In Samuel Logan's book which he edits on preaching, each different preacher gives a different
chapter.
Now see if you can relate to this one.
This is how the chapter opens by Jay Adams.
The preacher was droning on about the Amalekites and although he was only seven minutes into
his sermon all over the congregation heads began to nod, eyelids drooped, children began
to squirm, teenagers started passing notes to each other.
Then an amazing thing happened.
Suddenly his audience snapped to attention, young and old alike strained to hear what
had occurred, what was it that so abruptly transformed this apathetic group of parishioners
into an alert interested body.
They came to life when they heard these words.
Now let me tell you about an experience I had during the last war.
The preacher had begun to tell a story and I think it's a great opening to a very good
chapter in Logan's book.
But the whole issue of illustration I think is working to help us to be interesting.
You know the riddle, why did the Ethiopian unit go on his way rejoicing?
Answer, because Philip had finished preaching to him.
The sermon was over, let's get out of here, it's a relief.
Now I put there why are illustrations helpful, what are the dangers, what are the types
and what are the hints?
Now I know that there are many people who say I never illustrate because you can pervert the Bible.
Well you'd never preach on that basis because once you open your mouth to expound the Bible
you can pervert the Bible.
You can even pervert it by reading it if you give the wrong emphasis to it.
So I think illustrations are particularly important.
Assertions, Clifford Wan used to say, assertions are like feathers, they don't stand up unsupported.
They need to be supported and Spurgeon called illustrations the window of the sermon.
Why are they so helpful?
First, because they add interest and give relief.
They add interest for the congregation, they give relief to the congregation
and they give relief to you the communicator to the congregation.
Secondly, they make the truth memorable.
Now I know there's problems with this, we'll look at those, but don't throw the baby out with a bathwater.
The reality is that a good illustration given makes the truth memorable
if the truth and the illustration are tied tightly together.
Thirdly, illustrations reduce fuzziness in you the preacher.
So I've got a friend, I ring him up and I say, I'm looking for an illustration.
What's he going to ask me? What do you want to illustrate?
And I've got to therefore be able to succinctly communicate to him what I want to illustrate
and then he can help me with the illustration.
Broughton Knox, who was the principal at Moore College when I was there, used to say,
you do not understand a truth until you can put it in another way.
I think it's great insight in that.
You don't understand a truth until you can put it in another way.
And an illustration is putting the truth in another way.
And so it reduces fuzziness in you.
Fourthly, it reveals the human side of you so that you're not a new to person.
You have interests, you have family, you have passions, etc.
Truth comes through personality, as Philip Sprook said.
Now some people shy away from being personal but you're not a talking head.
They want to know how it works out for you.
I was talking to a friend about another friend and he's saying how this fellow went from
being a pastor in the outer western suburbs of Sydney to being a pastor on the North Shore.
And he didn't do so well in the western suburbs of Sydney but he did so well on the North Shore.
And I said, how do you read that?
He said, because on the North Shore all you have to be is a talking head.
But in the western suburbs of Sydney they want to know how it works for you, how real it is for you.
And this bloke was basically a talking head.
And so different people have different expectations.
And I think it is important that we do reveal the human side of us, how it is to raise children, etc.
What your interests are.
I mean up here you've got to know about Andrew Johns, haven't you?
You've got to be able to mention that at least.
The Newcastle Knights.
Dangers. Now here because of the dangers I know many friends who will not illustrate.
The dangers are one, the illustration can be too good so that it dominates.
So that all you remember at the end of the sermon is the illustration.
But you've got no remembrance of what I've illustrated.
So illustrations have got to be like John the Baptist.
Always pointing away from themselves, always self-effacing, always pointing to the truth.
When I was at More College there was a guy who got up, he's now a rector in Sydney,
and he said, this is the way the sermon started.
He said, I'm about to show you something you've never seen before and you will never see again.
He peeled a banana and ate it.
We'd never seen that banana before, we would never see it again.
And then he proceeded preaching. I've got no idea what he was illustrating but it grabbed my attention.
I thought, yeah, that's good. I don't know, that's not a good illustration.
That's too dominant. I can still remember it.
I must ask him next time I see him, what was he illustrating then?
Secondly, you know the problem of too many illustrations.
So that the sermon is just one long list of string of story, story, story, story.
And that's the great problem because we mustn't allow illustration to displace explanation.
I'm always saying that to students because my wife's always saying it to me.
Don't illustrate too much.
Explanation must dominate, not illustration.
So don't give the illustration till you've explained the text well.
So be careful of too many.
Thirdly, be careful of inappropriate illustrations.
You know, the sort of thing that you just throw one in
because I'm on the page two of the manuscript and I haven't got anything interesting
so I'll just throw something in.
And I think you should never tell jokes.
And I don't mean by that, don't be humorous.
But I think a joke is a manipulative means
and I think jokes are just not appropriate.
Now I know Simon Manchester always tells jokes
and he tells it right at the very beginning of a sermon
and they're always good jokes.
And if you want to tell a joke, tell it at the start
but then leave it behind.
Don't go along and then halfway through when you're not doing so
well throw in a joke just to get people on side.
You've got to ask yourself when you give the illustration
is it appropriate, does it serve the truth?
Fourthly, be sure of your facts.
Be sure of your facts.
Now especially when you're talking about medical issues
because there's always going to be a nurse in the congregation
and she'll pick you up or he'll pick you up for sure.
So always check with a doctor
and if you're going to give medical facts say
I've spoken to Dr So-and-so and he tells me this
and then they can argue with him, not you.
One time I was preaching down in Sydney
and early on in the sermon I mentioned the AMWU
the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union.
The sermon went on, the service was over
so some 45 minutes later a bloke came straight out the door
and I was shaking hands and he said
you've got that wrong so he didn't hear anything else
that I'd said after I'd mentioned the AMWU.
He said it's the Amalgamated Metal Workers and Ship Lights Union
you've got that wrong, it's the AMWSU
and I had got it wrong too
and I tell you he didn't hear anything else
so make sure of your facts
and make sure that illustration does not supplant explanation.
Now when to use them, just let me add this
I would use them from the very first word
you've got to grab people's attention from the very beginning.
I was in Angus and Robinson's
I find a book it's called The 100, we're straight into it.
If you go to a Steven Spielberg movie like Jurassic Park
you sit back and just as a communication exercise
notice how he grabs your attention
he grabs it from the outset.
Here's a bloke standing on top of a cage
he's trying to move an animal from one side of the cage to another
all of a sudden you've got the bulldozers pushing the cage together
and something dreadful happens and a man gets sucked in and eaten
and you see giblets and heart and lung being thrown up in the air
you're gripped immediately aren't you?
What is that thing in there?
Spielberg's got you.
Right, so get them from the start.
Types of illustrations.
First, the best things are the things that happen to you.
Did I say something wrong?
Giblets.
If you don't talk about it and you came back in your talk
you just heard about it, you know there's giblets going on.
Oh giblets, okay.
First of all, things that happen to you.
They're the best things.
Remember old Paul White, the jungle doctor?
He used to teach us that if you want to describe a scene
you tell us what you see, what you smell, what you feel, what you hear
and you can do that if you've been there.
So that's what you want to do, the things that happen to you.
And if you say, well things don't happen to me, make them happen to you.
You can make things happen to you, you can.
Make them happen.
Yeah, you create it yourself.
For example, I think one of the things that's boring in a series
that I find is when you start a new series, say I was doing one on 2Timothy
and you have to give something of the background to the letter
and it's boring, isn't it, that background bit.
So I thought, hmm, I'll ring the post office, GPO in Sydney
and I'll ask them, how long has it been since, because with Timothy
it's a 2,000 year old letter, so from when Paul posted it to me
it's 2,000 years, so it's taken 2,000 years to deliver.
I wonder how long it's taken, is there a record for delivering anything
between posting and delivery from the GPO in Sydney.
So I rang up customer relations.
I said, look I'm about to give a sermon and I want to know
is there a record between posting and delivery of a letter from the GPO in Sydney.
Just a moment please, I'm transferring you through.
And while she's saying that, she's saying, you can hear muffled on the phone,
there's a fella here who wants to know the record and there's a bloke in the background
says, yeah, tell me about the letter from Canberra
and she comes back on and says, I'm transferring you through.
I said, tell me about the letter from Canberra.
So anyway, I get transferred through, I hang up, I ring the same number again.
This time a bloke answers the phone, see I'm creating the story, this is what happened.
I said, look I've just been talking to a girl there about the record between a letter
being posted from the GPO between that point and delivery.
How long it's taken, is there a record?
Oh yes, he said, that was me.
I read it in the last article in the workers union of the GPO.
There was a couple who were getting engaged in Canberra.
They sent out their invitations to friends to come to their engagement party
and one letter came to Sydney and it got stuck in the bottom of a mail bag.
By the time it was delivered, the couple had been engaged, married, had three children
and were now divorced and the letter gets delivered in Sydney inviting people to the engagement party.
Now that's pretty good, isn't it?
So you just think, right I'll ring up someone.
Recently I was preaching on Psalm 119, that verse that says,
to all perfection I see a limit, but your commands are boundless.
That is that when things get old, they depreciate, but your commands don't.
And I thought, now is there any exception to that?
The only exception I could think of was wine.
The older wine gets, the better it gets.
I know nothing about the stuff.
So I rang the wine society and I talked to a bloke there and I said,
listen, and he told me that that's a lot of nonsense.
He said, that's untrue. The older wine gets, it usually does depreciate,
but you're creating your own illustration at that point.
Ringing the wine society, getting the name of the bloke,
telling that you're going to quote him, et cetera, et cetera.
Just makes it more interesting.
So the things that happen to you are the things that are best.
So you make things happen to you.
Secondly, biography and the experience of others.
Whenever I go on holidays, I like to take three or four books on biography with me
because they're full of interesting material.
And there's lots of good biography around.
What about the book by Paul Barry, which someone gave me just last week.
It came to our library, someone wanted to get rid of it.
So, The Rise and Rise of Kerry Packer.
That is full of great stuff.
And Paul Barry begins by describing when Packer falls off his polo pony
having had a heart attack and like a great blubbering white whale
lying on the turf of Warwick Farm, dying.
And there just so happened to be an emergency paramedical ambulance coming by
which jolts him back to life.
And then Packer sits up and he's taken off to St Vincent's Hospital
and then he says to a fella, listen son, they tell me there's a lot on the other side
but I'm here to tell you.
Well, you can read what Paul Barry says.
But it's quite gripping and graphic.
You've got to read it.
A friend of mine went to a dinner with Billy Graham in the United States
and there were only 12 people but Billy Graham was at the other end of the table.
And he thought, I want to get near him, I want to ask him some questions.
So he saw Billy Graham get up and go to the bathroom.
So he said, here's my opportunity.
It was straight after he went to the bathroom
and he stood there while Billy was in the cubicle.
Billy came and said, Dr Graham, I'm from Australia.
I want to ask you a question and have your permission to tell my friends your answer.
Sure, Billy Graham said.
What is it that you've learned after so many years of ministry?
Oh, he said, I can't teach you much young man but I can tell you four things.
I'm not going to tell you because it's too good.
Okay, but it's interesting, isn't it?
No, I'll tell you.
I haven't spent enough time in the Bible.
I haven't spent enough time in prayer.
I haven't spent enough time in preparation
and I haven't spent enough time with my family.
They're the things that I think if I had life to live over, I would give more concentration to.
What about the story where this guy comes into an English village
and he comes to a hotel.
It's nine o'clock at night.
It's about to close.
They're closing down the kitchen and the bloke says, we want a meal.
They say, no, we're closing the kitchen.
You can't have a meal.
We'll take any scrap.
You don't have to give us a menu.
Whatever you've got, leftovers.
They're like, no, no, chef's going home.
We're closing.
You're going to have to move on.
So he moves on, goes through the village.
There's about six of them.
Comes to another hotel at the other end of the village and they're about to close down.
Look, we'll just take anything.
Can we have something from the kitchen?
Sure, look, the chef will stay.
He'll make anything you like.
Here's the menu.
Choose.
Oh, no, we'll just have leftovers.
No, you choose.
We're happy to have you here.
They look after them and at the end of the night, they give them the bill and it was
for about 150 pounds and the bloke pays the bill 150 pounds and he says, and there is
a check for the tip, 10,000 pounds on one condition that you go to that other public
and up the other end of the town and tell him what's happened here tonight.
He turned us away.
You took us in.
There's your tip for 10,000 pounds and it was Kerry Packer's polo group who were going
through that town.
So when you turn someone away from your hotel, you've got to know who you're dealing with
and they were dealing with Kerry Packer, right?
Now, that was in the Australian.
It's just sitting there.
It's a great story, isn't it, to introduce a sermon with.
So things don't necessarily have to happen to you but they can happen to someone else.
Look at this article which I found recently about a town in the United States where there
was a significant teenage alcohol problem and teenage pregnancy problem and the town
council met to decide what are we going to do about this.
They were going to spend lots of money on education and then one old grandchild, quote,
wearing cowboy boots, propped up on a chair, got up and said, it seems like when I was
a kid everyone in town knew us, called us by name and sort of hooked into our lives.
People were real back then and these problems weren't very common.
Maybe we should get to know these kids.
And what happened was that the adults in that town were encouraged to learn the name of
at least a dozen teenagers in the town and whenever they saw those kids to address those
kids and within 12 months a teenage pregnancy was cut by 80% and alcohol abuse virtually
vanished because adults were using teenagers' names and interacting with them.
Now the school my son goes to, the previous headmaster used to every morning tea and every
lunchtime he just walked the playground.
That's all he'd do, walk the playground and he'd talk to boys and he'd use their name.
That's vitally important.
Our college has got too big when we have a full-time student and I think, what is their name?
It's too big.
Start another college because it's too big.
The church is too big when I cannot control the door.
When you come through the door and I can't get your name, I can't get your name.
I can't pass to you without a name and so the church is too big once I've lost control of the names.
Now I think names are vitally important.
Okay, that's the experience of others and that just came up in an article really knowing
our children in the excellent ministry magazine that comes to our library.
Quotes, third type, quotes.
I usually take a rule that I won't quote unless I can memorise the quote.
So if you can memorise the quote, use the quote but be careful to quote from Martin Lloyd-Jones.
If you quote too much it's taking away from your own sense of authority.
Unless you're quoting the Bible.
And then fourthly, observations of life.
What are the things that really...
Have you just thought about this lately?
What are the things that really annoy you?
Tell me something that really annoys you.
Yes?
The people that leave their shopping trailer in the way they want to park.
Yes, okay.
That's annoying.
Now I relate to that.
What else annoys you?
Yes, Star?
Reality TV.
Reality TV.
That's Big Brother and all that stuff.
Why does that annoy you?
Irritating you.
What else?
I'll tell you what really annoys Laurie Little who's our college cleaner, who's just a great bloke.
And it annoys me too.
If you walk around our morning tea area at college, what do you see?
You see those little wax stickers from apples and bananas and things.
Why do they put them on those?
Because the students take them off and just drop them and they're stuck on the ground.
Why do they put those little stickers on apples?
We don't want to know where the apple comes from.
I find that annoying.
Okay, just write it down somewhere.
Now here are the hints.
One, get yourself a book, a book like this.
Now in this book it's just broken up alphabetically
and when anything happens to me that's of an interesting nature
I write it according to its alphabetical break up in the book.
So if our house were burning down I'd grab my wife, I'd grab my son
and I'd grab this book and I'd take it with me because it's a precious book.
It's got lots of good illustrative material
and I keep things like that. Do you remember those things?
And do you remember that?
It's always good for a children's talk and do you remember that?
And what about this? Here's a million dollar note from the bank to Zaire.
Boys and girls, would you rather have this?
That's this.
Or would you rather have this?
Look, one or one million, you see?
And of course that's worth about one cent, one one hundredth of that.
But you can tell lots of children's stories using cash like that
and there's lots of stories in there
and whenever I hear a story I just write it down.
I was in Canberra a couple of years ago
and I was preaching in the start of a sermon with a men's dinner
and I was saying how I grew up in Australia in the 1950s.
My parents were strong Liberal Party voters
and if you weren't a Liberal you were a Communist according to my parents
and the Prime Minister was Robert Gordon Menzies
and my parents loved Menzies.
He's Australia's longest serving Prime Minister.
He's a Liberal Party Prime Minister.
And I was going on about this and a guy came up to me after the meeting
and he said, I know exactly what you mean.
I was born in the 50s and my parents gave me his name.
Robert Gordon, that's my name.
But they couldn't control the surname.
My name's Robert Gordon Keating.
LAUGHTER
That's too good. I've got to write it down, eh?
That's really good.
And what about when Gough Whitlam is sitting in St Andrews Cathedral with John Gorton,
not John Gorton, with Malcolm Fraser.
So there's Gough, there's Tammy Fraser and there's Malcolm Fraser
and it's a memorial service for John Gorton and Tom Hughes is giving the eulogy
and Tom Hughes up the front is basically saying what a mongrel Malcolm Fraser was
because he put the knife into John Gorton and they just read before the eulogy,
John 14, one to six, let not your hearts be troubled.
And when the eulogy's over and basically Tom Hughes has said
what a great bloke John Gorton was and what a louse Malcolm Fraser is
and here's Fraser sitting there, Gough leans across and says,
let not your heart be troubled, comrade.
LAUGHTER
That's great, isn't it? You should write that down.
Let not your heart be troubled, comrade.
So when I was in Wee War we had a guy come for a men's dinner called Tony Morford,
I don't know if you remember Country Practice
but Tony Morford wrote the scripts for Country Practice
and I picked him up at 10 o'clock in the morning from Narrabai Airport
and I said to him, what do you want to do for the day?
He said, I'm a writer, my interests are omnivorous
and we went to the sale yards in Narrabai, we went to a cotton gin,
we went out onto a field of wheat
and all the way Tony Morford's got his pencil and his book like this
and he's taking notes, that's all he did, all the time
because he's constantly accumulating
and I put it to you that as preachers that's what we're doing,
all the time I'm listening and I'm thinking here is a potential illustration,
I'm listening all the time because you can use this
provided it's not breaking any confidence you can use it through illustrative material.
Now the second thing, the second hint is the Bible is full of wonderful illustrations itself.
So think about those.
I'll tell you an experience I had in Wiwar, one time we had a regional ladies rally
and in order to identify with the ladies of our church
I went over into the church at about 10 o'clock in the morning
just to sit in the back row foolishly to show that I was there
and I was supportive of their regional rally.
In Wiwar there's this very large American lady called Clara,
she's a very big lady and she's a lovely lady
and when I walked into the church I sat down and I looked up
and there is Clara in her petticoat, everything's hanging out,
she's standing in the front of all these women in her petticoat,
I think what am I doing here, get out of here.
So I got up, I wept out.
Anyway at morning TIK I said oh Clara look I'm so sorry,
I hope I didn't embarrass you, I shouldn't have been this shit, oh that's alright.
She said I was just about to preach to those ladies on Ephesians chapter 4
and you've got to get off the old and put on the new
and I brought deliberately a dirty old dress and I'd just taken it off
and when you came in I was just about to take out a brand new dress and put that on.
You just came in at the wrong moment.
But of course she had the dynamic perfectly, take off the old life,
put on the new life, do it over and over and over again.
So all she did was get that from Ephesians chapter 4,
that's the dynamic that's been talked about there.
Thirdly think, think and use your senses,
you've got to think, I don't think we think enough, you've got to think.
How people say oh you know before we go to beach mission
you better read the bulletin to see what Australians are thinking, I don't think we think.
Australians don't think, you don't need to read the bulletin, hardly anybody else does.
You go to the movies, I'm like that, I go to the movies sometimes
and someone will say did you notice the subplot, no, I didn't notice,
I was just relaxing, it was just a movie to me.
So we don't think, so think, when it comes to preparing a sermon think about it.
Fourthly when you get a good illustration use it well again and again in the sermon
and refer back to it.
So when you get a good one use it, you can't use it again next week
because they'll say you're losing your marbles if you start repeating your stories.
Sometimes they come and haunt you like the passion fruit,
just meet someone who's heard it before.
But look you just keep writing things down.
I was interviewing a student a couple of years ago
and I said to him, a student who was coming to college, I said is your health good?
And he flipped open this big diary and he's flipping the pages
and as he's flipping the pages there's one of those purple show sashes there.
I said hey wait on, what's that, what's that?
I said I'm looking for a medical certificate.
No, no, I said what was that show sash there?
And he opened it up and he unravelled it.
There was a Sydney Royal Easter Show, 1996, champion duck.
I said the champion duck, did you breed it?
Yeah, I bred the champion duck.
I said what makes a champion duck?
Well you couldn't stop him.
And when he came to college he soon became known as the duck man, that was his name.
He went out eventually to Europe with OM, the duck man.
But see it's a good way into a sermon.
What makes a champion duck?
What makes a champion marriage?
These are the qualities of a champion marriage but the way in is via the champion duck.
What about old Haddon Robinson?
He tells the story of coming into the underground at New York railway station
and the underground there and the train pulls out and he looks up at some graffiti
and it says I love grills, G-R-I-L-S.
The next morning he comes back, the train goes out and someone's marked out grills
and put I love girls, stupid.
And the next morning the train goes out and he looks up again
and someone's crossed out and put in a mark but what about us grills?
Who loves the grills?
And Haddon Robinson said Eddie, you've got this New York question and what about the grills?
Who loves the grills?
They're always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
Always on the outside of the circle, never in the middle.
Who loves the grills?
And you can sit down with Haddon Robinson and say where do you get those great illustrations?
He says before I go on vacation I go down to a second hand book shop
and I ask them for every reader's digest from the 1950s
and I just take them away and I read them.
They're full of good material that no one's up to date on.
I think the spectrum in Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald
is I always get illustrated material from the spectrum in the Herald.
That's great that you've got the learning cartoon
and then you've got all the book reviews and there's always great stuff there.
Things are always happening.
I go to a specialist every year.
I go into him this year, I wait three hours in his waiting room,
I finally get in and when I get in he's a bloke about as old as me
and he's got a big bottle of diet coke half drunk on his desk.
I said I thought that stuff's carcinogenic.
He said only if you're a rat.
Okay I'll write it down, that's good enough for me, only if you're a rat.
I'm watching my son play cricket, he bowls leg spin
and I'm sitting there watching him play cricket
and he bowls the ball and he jumps in the air
and I think boy he's looking angry, he's looking that's dreadful.
He's following Shane Warner, it's terrible.
And I turned to this father next to me and I said
I reckon it's terrible the way these boys are appealing for wickets.
He said yes because they didn't get enough milk at their mother's breasts when they were young.
What do you do for a living? I'm a psychiatrist.
That's his theory of life.
So all men are angry because we didn't get enough time with our mother's breast milk.
Oh well that's good, put that down.
I don't know where I'll use that apart from that.
And then you've got the detective who runs through all the arrangements at Katoomba
and he's fascinating, every time I go to men's convention
I sit and just listen to him tell me about how he solves murders.
Did you know that in 90% of murder cases
if you can link the suspect with the place where the murder took place you've got them.
There's some special relationship between the place where the murder takes place
and the suspect. So he's got this suspect, he's got a murdered body at Dungog.
This bloke lives in the eastern suburbs of Sydney.
They reckon, the police reckon this bloke has done her in, in Dungog.
But how can they link him with Dungog?
So old Mike sits back and he's having a cup of coffee.
He's always the soft one on the interviews.
You know how you've got an aggressive one and a soft one.
Mike's just a lovely bloke.
And he says, look, he says Tim, let's call him Tim, I don't know his name.
Would you like a cup of coffee?
Oh yeah thanks, I'd like a cup of coffee.
So Mike goes out and comes back with a cup of coffee.
Oh yeah, did you grow up in Quirrelly?
Yeah, you grew up in Quirrelly.
Good coffee? Yes, good coffee, percolated coffee, yeah.
Did you have a good relationship with your dad?
Oh yeah, well no, not really.
But a couple of times we went away, Dad and I used to go shooting rabbits at Dungog.
Dungog, he had him.
Because in 90% of the cases, and it just flowed out that he was their man,
but he knew that he was the man once he could link him with Dungog.
Now again, I just put that one, I put under miscellaneous.
I don't know how I'm going to use that.
And this Mike was the one who solved the granny murders.
And that's another story, really interesting stuff.
So write things down, you're always accumulating, you're always listening to things.
And I was at Dubbo a weekend ago.
And I'm sitting there, it was fascinating, this guy gets up to preach on Job.
And I'm sitting there and how did this story go?
There's a country farmer sitting behind me.
No, I can't remember the story.
Anyway, it doesn't matter, I didn't write it down.
Anyway, go on.
What did he say?
Anyway, don't worry about it.
I'll have to remember that, that's one of the things you think, I'm starting to lose it.
Anyway, it was a great story, I'll have to remember that.
Excuse me, I was there.
No, no, but he said this under his breath to his wife who was sitting next to him.
And the speaker said something about Job.
They had a huge fear coming.
Yeah, no, no, no, but he was really good because what the bloke had said,
he put it in, he sort of wrapped it right up and I thought, oh Stripe, he summed it up.
Anyway, it doesn't matter, forget it, I shouldn't have said it.
Okay, I'll try and remember it for the morning and tell you the story, it's quite a good story.
Okay, so why are they helpful, what are the dangers, what are the types, what are the hints?
And you've got to keep working at it and I think I just like to keep adding to this book
and when I come to the end, like miscellaneous is a big section under M
and I just continue on under XYZ putting more miscellaneous in.
And the other thing, once you've got this material in the book, you've got to keep rereading it.
Now I reckon that you should be able, when you get a sermon illustration,
you should be able to use it fairly soon.
So today you're talking to each other about all sorts of things.
So take down issues that you've been talking to one another about
because it's potentially illustrative.
What's the most interesting thing that's happened to you this week?
What is the most interesting thing that has happened to you this week so far?
Has anything interesting happened to anybody?
Don?
Yeah, I went for a three hour course ride with my wife for the first day of the class.
The first time I was sitting on a horse, she was going to kick me out of a tent when I was four years old.
So it was a big thing to go there.
Yeah.
The first time I was on a horse, I rode three owls, you didn't go so don't bother.
Bigger?
Yeah.
And did anything, was it okay?
Yeah, trouble going down the gully, so I forgot to kick my feet forward and my heels down
and they seem to be jumping up and down and I was bobbing up and down.
Is there a key to riding a horse?
What's the secret to riding a horse?
Well, you never face them straight up and pat them on the head.
But anyway, if you've got horses here, that one's not so bad.
So what's the secret of riding a horse?
Just be confident.
Oh no, there's a whole lot of things.
You don't approach a horse straight up, that's all.
You pat him on the head and pat him on the neck and talk to him.
You know that you're here and you're going to work together, I'm the boss.
You get your hand down in his face and over his eyes and you get to know him, you feel him.
And then how to get on the horse is quite another thing too.
And how to sit with you and have your heels down.
He doesn't know anything about horse riding, does he?
It's all good stuff.
So you approach from the side, you talk to it and you tell it,
I'm going to be in charge here pal.
So things happen all the time.
All I'm saying is write them down.
Read the paper, write things down.
In the front of my Bible, I put things in that I want to remember
and I can remember the time I read, this is my favourite letter written to the Sydney Morning Herald
and I put that in, I put in my favourite hymn, I put in a favourite saying that I want to live life by,
I put in a photo of the family.
But anything else that's interesting that I happen to pick up along the way, I'll add that in as well.
So I've got something in there already.
And as I go along, I always go when I'm at a church like this,
I'll go into the front section and see what they're doing in this church.
Is there anything here, some idea I can pick up, is there some bit of literature
that's going to be interesting for me, that's going to be helpful to me?
And you're constantly adding to your bank of potential interest.
Okay, anything else, anybody wants to add?
Any comment or question?
Yes, well no, any question or comment?
Tell us an interesting thing.
We taught that dog one trick after four years this week. Is that interesting?
I reckon that's interesting.
Look I'm interested in what you had for tea last night, that's interesting.
Well what did you teach the dog to do?
I like to call roundy roundy, roundy roundy.
Okay, good on you.
That's good, I'm interested that you find that interesting.
That's great, that's four years.
Oh well, so you never give up do you?
Never give up on a dog, never give up on people.
Now on Sunday if you're doing a children's talk you could bring the dog into church
and show everybody what it's worth.
I don't know, it causes a few complications.
Okay, anything else?
What do you think about funny as any other?
Melton's are one of those in books, I mean I support one and they never seem to be relevant.
No, not you either.
I've got this, I went to a site, an internet site the other day, my son-in-law put me onto it
and it's got the alphabetical break up so if you're talking about motivation you press M
then you go to motivation and it gives you hundreds of stories on motivation
and yet none of them are me, none of them have happened to me.
They might spark something off but when you get up and preach them they just sound like an internet story.
It's great on my website if I can't see the other eye.
Yes, your life.
I've got a question, do you have illustrations, do you have the least people hanging?
You know like many conventions, is the elephant going to run you down?
Yeah, you've got to be careful, you don't want them thinking about that.
What about that elephant, did it get you?
I think you've got to answer the question at some point.
You could answer it at the end, maybe.
James Stewart who is a great preacher who wrote the book A Man in Christ
said volumes of illustrations are the last refuge of a bankrupt intelligence.
How about that?
And what I think he's doing is he's saying you've got to strive for personal discovery
and underneath that I've got, I remember flying into Kuala Lumpur
and you come off the airport through the airline in Kuala Lumpur
and they've got this great time, if you've ever been to Malaysia you know the thing that stands out
and they've got this great big photo right across the international arrivals area
and it says our food welcomes you.
And I think that's great, that's exactly Malaysia, it's all about food, our food welcomes you.
Now that's a personal experience, what would you put up for people who are entering Australia?
What would you put up for people who are coming into heaven?
What's a great sign going to be? Something like that.
So what James Stewart is saying, you cannot beat the freshness of personal discovery.
So look for things, they're happening all the time.
Okay, anything else?
How do you say coming from a book that you can find in the book of the Lord?
That's a good question, you've got to get your filing index
and so what I've done is I've just got a six page category index
so I know what comes and I've got a category for every book of the Bible,
I've got a category for the major doctrines like the doctrine of God, the doctrine of Christ,
the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of the Spirit
and I've got major issues like family, discipling, gospel, those sorts of things
so that I know when I've got a story that I can relate directly I can file it under that.
And so therefore when I'm preaching say a series on hope or heaven
I can go to that file and it's all there.
So I've got an old four-draw filing cabinet and it's all filed in there.
And you've just got to keep accumulating things all the time.
Okay, anybody else?
Okay, thanks everyone. Thanks David.