Topic : Application

The great 19th century British statesman and prime minister, William Gladstone, once said, “One thing I have against the clergy both of the country and in the towns. I think they are not severe enough on congregations. They do not sufficiently lay upon the souls and consciences of their hearers their moral obligations, and probe their hearts and bring up their whole lives and actions to the bar of conscience.

“The class of sermons which I think are most needed, are of the class which once offended Lord Melbourne. He was seen coming from church in the country in a great fume. Finding a friend, he exclaimed, ‘It is too bad I have always been a supporter of the church, and I have always upheld the clergy, but it is really too bad to have to listen to a sermon like that we have heard this morning. Why, the preacher actually insisted upon applying religion to a man’s personal life!” Gladstone concluded, “That is the kind of preaching I like best, the kind of preaching which men need most, but it is, also, the kind of which they get the least.”

Morning Glory, Sept./Oct., 1997, p. 34

“During the Civil War,” writes author Tim Riter, “President Lincoln attended Wednesday evening services at a church close to the White House. Accompanied by Secret Service agents, Lincoln would sit in the pastor’s study during the message; then they would walk back together. One evening, after the service, an agent asked Lincoln, ‘What did you think of tonight’s sermon?’

Lincoln replied, ‘It was brilliantly conceived, biblical, relevant, and well presented.’

“‘So, it was a great sermon?’

“‘No, it failed. It failed because Dr. Gurley did not ask us to do something great.’”

Today in the Word, May, 1996, p. 30

• Admit God’s Word to be His message to you.
• Submit to the authority of the Book.
• Commit the words of the Scriptures to your memory.
• Transmit the message to someone else.

Source unknown

During the time of slavery, a slave was preaching with great power. His master heard of it, and sent for him, and said: “I understand you are preaching?”

“Yes,” said the slave.

“Well, now,” said the master, “I will give you all the time you need, and I want you to prepare a sermon on the Ten Commandments, and to bear down especially on stealing, because there is a great deal of stealing on the plantation.”

The slave’s countenance fell at once. He said he wouldn’t like to do that; there wasn’t the warmth in that subject there was in others.

I have noticed that people are satisfied when you preach about the sins of the patriarchs, but they don’t like it when you touch upon the sins of today.

Moody’s Anecdotes, Page 91

An English preacher of the last generation used to say that he cared very little what he said the first half hour, but he cared a very great deal what he said the last fifteen minutes. I remember reading many years ago an address published to students by Henry Ward Beecher, in which he gave a very striking account of a sermon by Jonathan Edwards. Beecher says that in the elaborated doctrinal part of Jonathan Edwards’ sermon the great preacher was only getting his guns into position, but that in his applications he opened fire on the enemy.

There are too many of us, I am afraid, who take so much time getting our guns into position that we have to finish without firing a shot. We say that we leave the truth to do its own work. We trust to the hearts and consciences of our hearers to apply it. Depend upon it, gentlemen, this is a great and fatal mistake.

Dr. Dale, quoted in Preaching, G. Campbell Morgan, p. 89

• Unused truth becomes as useless as an unused muscle. - A.W. Tozer, That Incredible Christian
• Booker’s Law: An ounce of application is worth a pound of abstraction. - The Official Rules, p. 16.
• “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the Devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing. - Martin Luther

• It is not what men eat but what they digest that makes them strong;
• not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich;
• not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned;
• not what we preach but what we practice that makes us Christians.

Francis Bacon.

While D.L. Moody was attending a convention in Indianapolis on mass evangelism, he asked his song leader Ira Sankey to meet him at 6 o’clock one evening at a certain street corner. When Sankey arrived, Mr. Moody asked him to stand on a box and sing. Once a crowd had gathered, Moody spoke briefly and then invited the people to follow him to the nearby convention hall. Soon the auditorium was filled with spiritually hungry people, and the great evangelist preached the gospel to them.

Then the convention delegates began to arrive. Moody stopped preaching and said, “Now we must close, as the brethren of the convention wish to come and discuss the topic, ‘How to reach the masses.’”

Moody graphically illustrated the difference between talking about doing something and going out and doing it.

Source unknown

A gray-haired old lady, long a member of her community and church, shook hands with the minister after the service one Sunday morning. “That was a wonderful sermon,” she told him, “just wonderful. Everything you said applies to someone I know.”

Bits and Pieces, November, 1989, p. 19

• The Seven Laws of the Learner, B. Wilkinson, ch 3.
• Application in Biblical Hermeneutics and Exposition, R. Zuck, Walvoord: A Tribute, Donald Campbell, ed., Moody, 1982, p. 15.