A Sense of God
Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 5:00AM 
The Doctor (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones) in Preaching & Preachers
What is the chief end of preaching? I like to think it is this. It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence...I can forgive a man for a bad sermon, I can forgive the preacher almost anything if he gives me a sense of God, if he gives me something for my soul, if he gives me the sense that, though he is inadequate himself, he is handling something which is very great and very glorious, if he gives me some dim glimpse of the majesty and glory of God, the love of Christ my Savior, and the magnificence of the Gospel. If he does that I am his debtor, and I am profoundly grateful to him. Preaching is the most amazing, and the most thrilling activity that one can ever be engaged in, because of all that it holds out for all of us in the present, and because of the glorious endless possibilities in an eternal future.
Reader Comments (3)
I like that. And it affirms something I have been thinking about.Interestingly, this goes counter to Haddon Robinson's idea in Biblical Preaching, which is that every sermon "should secure some moral action".
Mark:He did say that, but I think his understanding of "moral action" is very broad and includes a change in understanding or attitude.It was only when I read Haddon's book the third time that I really caught his concern to find the vision of God in each passage (pages 94-95 in the current edition). I wish I had caught that earlier.
That's true. He *did* say that. His material is presented in such a way as to suggest (at least, as you say, on first reading) contradiction.I took what Haddon had to say and took "awe" and "worship" as moral actions.