Great Preaching Quotes & Sayings

One of my great goals in life is to live long enough to where I am in the pulpit, preaching my heart out, and I die on the spot, my chin hits the pulpit - boom! - and I'm down and out. What a way to die! — Charles R. Swindoll

I used to pursue preaching good sermons and great crowds, and attempt great accomplishments for Him. But I've been ruined. Now I'm a God chaser. Nothing else matters anymore. I tell you that as your brother in Christ, I love you. But I love Him more. I couldn't care less about what other people or ministers think about me. I'm going after God. That's not a pride thing; it's a hunger thing. When you pursue God with all your heart, soul, and body, He will turn to meet you and you will come out of it ruined for the world. — Tommy Tenney

Preachers are not sermon makers, but men makers and saint makers, and he only is well-trained for this business who has made himself a man and a saint. It is not great talents nor great learning nor great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God - men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives out of it. These can mold a generation for God. — Edward McKendree Bounds

Environment affects me a great deal. A lot of the songs were written after the sun went down. And I like storms, I like to stay up during a storm. I get very meditative sometimes, and this one phrase was going through my head: 'Work while the day lasts, because the night of death cometh when no man can work.' I don't recall where I heard it. I like preaching, I hear a lot of preaching, and I probably just heard it somewhere. Maybe it's in Psalms, it beats me. But it wouldn't let me go. I was, like, what does that phrase mean? But it was at the forefront of my mind, for a long period of time... — Bob Dylan

Even if she could have got so far without a quarrel, still there would have been a great hue and cry about the marriage itself. First, it never happened. Secondly, how could there be a marriage between a princess of the Warrior Caste and a boy of the priestly Brahman Caste? Her readers would have imagined at once that the writer was preaching against our social customs in an underhand way. And they would write letters to the papers. — Rabindranath Tagore

Theodore Beza was a younger colleague and successor of John Calvin, the founder of the Reformed branch of Protestantism during the Reformation. In his biography of Calvin, Beza recalled the three great preachers in Geneva during those years - Calvin himself, Guillaume Farel, and Pierre Viret. Farel, said Beza, was the most fiery, passionate, and forceful in his sermonic delivery. Viret was the most eloquent, and audiences hung on his skillful and beautiful words. The time flew by fastest when sitting under his preaching. Calvin was the most profound, his sermons packed full of "the weightiest of insights." Calvin had the most substance, Viret the most eloquence, and Farel the most vehemence. Beza concluded "that a preacher who was a composite of these three men would have been absolutely perfect. — Timothy Keller

This is a day in which one of our great perils is that of doing a thousand little things to the neglect of the one thing, which is preaching.6 — John F. MacArthur Jr.

The great discovery of the nineteenth century, that we are of one blood with the lower animals, has created new ethical obligations which have not yet penetrated the public conscience. The clerical profession has been lamentably remiss in preaching this obvious duty. — William Ralph Inge

The fact is, the great intellectuals of the western religious tradition from Augustine to Aquinas and Peter Abelard became philosophically dominant. The intellectual tradition was preserved. The great intellectuals of the Islamic tradition like Averroes and Avicenna became heretics whose influence disappeared under the weight of rote preaching and practice. Islam as a result has a moral code, a legalistic system of right and wrong, but no evolved ethical tradition. — R. Joseph Hoffmann

The Great Commission is a devotion to study of Scriptures, preaching and teaching of the gospel of salvation. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Preaching is God's great institution for the planting and maturing of spiritual life. When properly executed, its benefits are untold; when wrongly executed, no evil can exceed its damaging results. — Edward McKendree Bounds

We can no longer assume that our preaching takes place within a more or less 'Christian culture,' " Craig Loscalzo says. "The great narratives of Judeo-Christian belief, the pivotal stories of the Bible's characters, the epoch of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, either are not known or do not carry the meaning-making significance they did to previous generations. — Graham M. Johnston

While the difference between a bad sermon and a good sermon is mainly the responsibility of the preacher, the difference between good preaching and great preaching lies mainly in the work of the Holy Spirit ... We should do the work it takes to make our communication good and leave it up to God how and how often he makes it great for the listener. — Timothy Keller

The great reason why we have so little good preaching is that we have so little piety. To be eloquent one must be in earnest; he must not only act as if he were in earnest, or try to be in earnest, but be in earnest. — Charles Spurgeon

Comedy is a great tool. We [comics] are trying to find ways to use humor to enlighten people without preaching to them. — Trevor Noah

The devil makes many disciples by preaching against sin. He convinces them that the great evil of sin, induces a crisis of guilt by which "God is satisfied," and after that he lets them spend the rest of their lives meditating on the intense sinfulness and evident reprobation of other men. — Thomas Merton

Great preaching always depends upon great themes. — D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

I'm not a great preacher, and I don't claim to be a great preacher ... I'm an ordinary preacher, just communicating the Gospel in the best way I know how. — Billy Graham

So here I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal and the teaching so much needed if we are to see the whole of life, and to now serve the whole of life, holding no traditions essential to the great TRADITION. Nor cherishing any preconceived form fixing upon us either past, present or future, but-instead-exalting the simple laws of common sense-or of super-sense if you prefer-determining form by way of the nature of materials ... — Frank Lloyd Wright

The three great apostles of practical atheism, that make converts without persecuting, and retain them without preaching, are wealth, health and power. — Charles Caleb Colton

Again, men tell us that our preaching should be positive and not negative, that we can preach the truth without attacking error. But if we follow that advice we shall have to close our Bible and desert its teachings. The New Testament is a polemic book almost from beginning to end ... It is when men have felt compelled to take a stand against error that they have risen to the really great heights in the celebration of the truth — John Gresham Machen

In a journal entry the famed philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once wrote about some tame geese who, week after week, attended church and heard teachings on God's great gift to geese - wings. With wings, the preaching gander reminded them, they could fly and experience the many blessings known only through the utilization of that gift. But, laments Kierkegaard, week after week they waddled home without flapping their way to the flight they were told was their destiny. In a sobering conclusion Kierkegaard reports that these waddling geese were very well liked by the humans of the land. They grew fat and plump and were then butchered, and eaten. And that, says the philosopher, was the end of that. Lesson? God gives us wings — Matt Friedeman

Great sermon helped me to reflect on scape goats, forgiveness, revenge and the messiness of community.. where I referenced this sermon. Thanks! Keep preaching the damn Gospel! — Bill Peterson

[Very rich people] with brains make a great effort to hold on to every penny they have while preaching to the general population that freedom and dignity and patriotism are possible only under their protection; in this way they elicit the support of the very people they hold in subjection. — James A. Michener

A great reformation and revival-it will happen the same way the early Christians conquered Rome. Their program of conquest consisted largely of two elements: gospel preaching and being eaten by lions, a strategy that has not yet captured the imagination of the the contemporary church. — Douglas Wilson

The great Creator to revere
Must sure become the creature;
But still the preaching cant forbear,
And ev'n the rigid feature:
Yet ne'er with wits profane to range
Be complaisance extended;An atheist laugh's a poor exchange
For deity offended. — Robert Burns

May God give us much more grace eagerly devote ourselves for the Great Commission. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The three essentials for great preaching are: truth, clarity, and passion. — G. Campbell Morgan

The point of the resurrection ... is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die ... What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it ... What you do in the present - by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself - will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether (as the hymn so mistakenly puts it ... ). They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom. — N. T. Wright

Preaching the Word is the primary task of the Church, the primary task of the leaders of the Church, the people who are set in this position of authority; and we must not allow anything to deflect us from this, however good the cause, however great the need. — David Lloyd-Jones

Those ministers of God who go about condemning me rather than preaching the Gospel they are sent to preach, are doing themselves a great harm. The more they condemn me, the lesser their anointing become. Go round the country today and see what is happening. Those men of God who used to perform great signs and wonder have lost their anointing because of their blasphemies. — T. B. Joshua

The great difficulty is to get modern audiences to realize that you are preaching Christianity solely and simply because you happen to think it true; they always suppose you are preaching it because you like it or think it good for society or something of that sort. Now a clearly maintained distinction between what the Faith actually says and what you would like it to have said or what you understand or what you personally find helpful or think probable, forces your audience to realize that you are tied to your data just as the scientist is tied by the results of the experiments; that you are not just saying what you like. This immediately helps them realize that what is being discussed is a question about objective fact - not gas about ideals and points of view. — C.S. Lewis

Much of modern preaching is anaemic, with the life-blood of God's nature absent from the message. Evangelists centre their message upon the man. Man has sinned and missed a great blessing. If man wants to retrieve his immense loss he must act thus and so. But the Gospel of Christ is very different. It begins with God and His glory. It tells men that they have offended a holy God, who will by no means pass by sin. It reminds sinners that the only hope of salvation is to be found in the grace and power of this same God. Christ's Gospel sends men to beg pardon of the Holy One. — Walter Chantry

No other style of preaching can so completely guarantee immunity from an indulgence in special crochets and fads. The Bible is an exceedingly broad book in its treatment of life and, he who successfully preaches through, even one small section of it, will find a variety of subjects and principles and lessons
so great a variety that if he is fair with all he will be saved from the error of over-emphasis and of neglecting certain broad tracts of truth. — F.B. Meyer

Christ want to point this out and to warn His followers that in the world everyone should live as though he were alone and should consider His Word and preaching as the very greatest thing on earth, thinking this way to himself: I see my neighbor and the whole city, and yes the whole world, living differently. All those who are great or noble or rich, the princes and the lords, are allied with it. Nevertheless I have an ally who is greater than all of them, namely, Christ and His Word. When I am all alone, therefore, I am still not alone. Because I have the Word of God, I have Christ with me, together with all the dear angels and all the saints since the beginning of the world. Actually there is a bigger crowd and a more glorious procession surrounding me than there could be in the whole world now. Only I cannot see it with my eyes, and I have to watch and bear the offense of having so many people forsake me or live and act in opposition to me. — Martin Luther

You cannot preach conviction of sin unless you have suffered it. You cannot preach repentance unless you have practiced it. You cannot preach faith unless you have exercised it. True preaching is artesian; it wells up from the great depths of the soul. If Christ has not made a well within us, there will be no outflow from us. — Charles Spurgeon

When it pleased God ... " (Galatians 1:15). As servants of God, we must learn to make room for Him - to give God "elbow room." We plan and figure and predict that this or that will happen, but we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never expected Him to come? Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way. No matter how well we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that He may break in at any minute. We tend to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. Suddenly - God meets our life - " ... when it pleased God ... " Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides. — Oswald Chambers

The same Spirit who moved in Nineveh and in the Great Awakening still fills the church today. The same power that brought Jesus back from the dead still animates our preaching. People are not "more spiritually dead" today than they were in the days of Jonah or the days of the Great Awakening. There are no degrees of deadness, or any such thing as "mostly dead" (apologies to The Princess Bride). Every conversion to Christ requires the same, glorious miracle of resurrection, and God has not lost his ability to raise the dead. We've simply lost confidence that he will do it on a large scale. — J.D. Greear

The broader problem is that a great deal of popular preaching and teaching uses the bible as a pegboard on which to hang a fair bit of Christianized pop psychology or moralizing encouragement, with very little effort to teach the faithful, from the Bible, the massive doctrines of historic confessional Christianity. — D. A. Carson

We realized that there's a great need in many churches to use the power of the media ... There are a lot of different ways to preach. You can preach by praising. You can preach by preaching sermons. You can preach by just giving someone food when they're hungry. There are people who will never darken a church door but they will come to see a play. — Patricia Mauceri

It does not answer the aim which God had in this institution, merely for men to have good commentaries and expositions on the Scripture, and other good books of divinity; because, although these may tend, as well as preaching, to give a good doctrinal or speculative understanding of the word of God, yet they have not an equal tendency to impress them on men's hearts and affections. God hath appointed a particular and lively application of his word, in the preaching of it, as a fit means to affect sinners with the importance of religion, their own misery, the necessity of a remedy, and the glory and sufficiency of a remedy provided; to stir up the pure minds of the saints, quicken their affections by often bringing the great things of religion in their remembrance, and setting them in their proper colours, though they know them, and have been fully instructed in them already. — Jonathan Edwards

Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty. Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale. Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal. Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness. Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation. Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway. — Herman Melville

He who talks much about virtue in the abstract, begins to be suspected; it is shrewdly guessed that where there is great preaching there will be little almsgiving. — Thomas Carlyle

Make use of your people's parts to the utmost, as your helpers, in an orderly way, under your guidance, or else they will make use of them in a disorderly and dividing way in opposition to you. It hath been a great cause of schism, when ministers would contemptuously cry down private men's preaching, and with desire not to make any use of the gifts that God hath given them for their assistance; but thrust them too far from holy things, as if they were a profane generation. The work is likely to go poorly on if there be no hands employed in it but the ministers. God giveth not any of His gifts to be buried, but for common use. By a prudent improvement of the gifts of the more able Christians, we may receive much help by them, and prevent their abuse, even as lawful marriage preventeth fornication. — Richard Baxter

It takes great faith in Easter, particularly faith in the gift of the Holy Spirit, to be honest with our people that we have not a clue to the meaning of some biblical passage, or that we have no sense of a satisfying ending for a sermon, or that we are unsure of precisely what the congregation ought to do after hearing a given text. The most ethically dangerous time within a sermon is toward the end of the sermon, when we move from proclamation to application and act as if we know more than God. 133 — William H. Willimon

Ministers should be very wary that they do not bring forth fuel to feed the fears and doubts of weak Christians in their preaching and writing, for it is a great part of their work to arm weak Christians against their fears and weaknesses. — Don Kistler

29 And now, O Lord, hear their threats, and give us, your servants, great boldness in preaching your word. 30 Stretch out your hand with healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus. — Anonymous

Preaching is the primary means of growth for the local church. There is a great deal of debate about this in our day, but it is the preaching of the Word that God most uses to build up a church, not only numerically but above all (and far more importantly) in spiritual depth and understanding of the people who make up the congregation. — James Montgomery Boice

Great sermons lead the people to praise the preacher. Good preaching leads the people to praise the Savior. — Charles Grandison Finney