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THE PREACHER'S STUDY life and character of Wesley, "Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep!"

Now before proceeding to discuss the practical questions of sermon construction, there are three pleas I wish to make. The first is a plea for expository preaching. This is one of the greatest needs of the hour. There are rich rewards of human gratitude waiting for the man who can make the Bible come alive. Congregations are sick of dissertations on problems, and essays on aspects of the religious situation: such sermons are indeed no true preaching at all. Men are not wanting to be told our poor views and arguments and ideals. They are emphatically wanting to be told what God has said, and is saying, in His Word. There is no durable satisfaction in anything less than that. Therefore we do wrong when we take a text and read our message into it. Let the Bible speak its own message. Incidentally, this will deliver us from the peril of monotony. The preacher who expounds his own limited stock of ideas becomes deadly wearisome at last. The preacher who expounds the Bible has endless variety at his disposal. For no two texts say exactly the same thing. Every passage has a quite distinctive meaning. It is not the Holy Spirit's way to repeat Himself. If you can write a sermon, and then attach it to any one of half a dozen texts indiscriminately, you would do well 109