Preaching from the Heart

Bro. Scott Richardson once described preaching like this: “Preaching is getting a message from God’s heart to my heart, and from my heart to your heart.” When I hear a man preach, I want to hear a man preach from his heart. When I preach, I want to preach from my heart; and I want to speak to your heart. Anything less is not preaching, but just filling time with religious exercise.

Let no one mistake my meaning. I do not suggest or imply that doctrine is secondary. It is not. Gospel doctrine is vital. But the Gospel must be preached from the heart, passionately, with fire in the soul. It is written, “He maketh His ministers a flame of fire” (Hebrews 1:7).

Two hundred years ago John Rusk wrote, “I want an experimental preacher, one who, when he has had one meal, is tried how he shall get the next; one who is tormented with devils fit to tear him limb from limb; one who feels hell inside himself and every corruption in his nature stirred up to oppose God’s work; one who feels so weak that every day he gets over he views it as next to a miracle; one who is hated with perfect hatred by the flying troop of hypocrites in our day.”

            I don’t know how to explain what it is to preach under the unction of the Holy Ghost, but I know what that unction is. I know when it is present and when it is absent; and I want never to preach again without it!

Don Fortner

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