Excerpts from HERALDS OF GOD by James Stewart
copyright 1946, Hodder & Stoughton, London ; reprinted 1972, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids
James S. Stewart began his work in 1924 and soon became known throughout Scotland and England as a preacher of unusual ability. He delivered the Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale in 1952, and served as chaplain to the Queen of Scotland. By 1972 he was professor emeritus of the University of Edinburgh . His words below reflect his conviction of the power of proclaiming Christ .
P.30 "to preach Christ . . . will sting the natural heart."
P.31 " The one question: did they, or did they not, meet God today?"
P.37 "The sermon. . . should be an act of worship, a sacramental showing forth of Christ ."
P.40 "Life and death issues are in your mouth when you preach."
P.47 "Remember that every soul before you has its own story of need.
P.57 "I came into town and offered them Christ ." - John Wesley
P.68 "We preach always Him, the true God and man." - Martin Luther
P.69 "God's deed in Christ touches life at every point. It speaks to every aspect of the human predicament. It stretches all horizons illimitably."
P.72 "The preacher is sent. . . to declare a Word which is not his own. . . the sermon is intended to be one of those high places of the spirit where men and women grow piercingly aware of the eternal.. ."
P.80 “Preaching will never really touch a single heart unless it brings some sure word about sin and its forgiveness."
P.84 "Preach the cross as victory. . . Here the human prospect has been transfigured radically and forever."
P.87 "The Resurrection. . . throbbed thru every word they said."
P.89 "Preach the resurrection. . . the destiny of the race. The human heart cries out for light beyond the grave.
P.90 "The preachers of the Resurrection are not only the heralds of an historic event, but also the mediators of a living presence.
P.92 "How our congregations would worship, with what joy and eagerness and abandon the sacrifice of praise would rise to God,
if all worshipers knew themselves in very truth to be sons and daughters of the Resurrection."
P.101 "When preaching impels the hearers to prayer. . . it is preaching indeed."
P.121 "it ought to be our one consuming ambition to help men and women . . . to meet the living God."
P.135 "Never forget you are working for a verdict. You are hoping and praying to leave your people face to face with God in Christ ."
P.136 "You desire your sermon, under God, to make a difference to human lives. You hope that the result may be some vow secretly ratified, some bondage broken, some cross more resolutely shouldered, some song in the night more bravely sung, some area of life more thoroughly surrendered to the sovereignty of Christ ."
P.150 It is simple directness . . . that moves the hearts of men."
P.162 "Whatever you do, never forsake the custom of preaching week by week from the very words of Scripture."
P.184 ". . . a gospel urgent and glorious and amazing beyond all other tidings in the world."
P.187 " so that in the end the messenger shall be nothing, the message everything."
P.188 "In the last resort, everything depends on the degree in which awareness of self is swallowed up in the vision of God."
P.188 " Among those listening. . . there will be some who. . . beyond the human tones will hear, pleading and commanding, the very voice of Jesus . And long after the sermon is finished, that voice will keep sounding on ."
P.197 "Every sermon is to be preached in the knowledge that for someone present it may be now the fullness of the time
and the day of salvation."
P.209 "Preaching is essentially worship, and in worship, all human glorying is excluded.
“ The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar: it shall never go out.” - Leviticus 6:13
selected 1995, Wayne McDaniel