Page 10 - Homiletics Student Textbook

II. Authority from the Lord

A. You believe the message is from God.

The claim of Scripture and the premise of expository preaching is that God has spoken.
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Our task is to communicate what he has committed to Scripture.

1. You believe that the Bible is the Word of God.

All Scripture is breathed out by God… (2 Timothy 3:16a)

2. You believe that you have found the message from God in your text that He wants you to
deliver to your audience.

B. You believe the message is from God for you.

1. For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, but
just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak,
not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. (1 Thessalonians 2:3-4)

2. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show
integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent
may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. (Titus 2:7-8)

3. If our people see any appreciable gap between our preaching and our conduct, we
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will forfeit their respect in direct proportion to the width of that gap.

4. The Bible itself is the absolute truth, the Word of God, and it is enough of a reason all
by itself for pulpit passion. But when our experience confirms what we have studied,
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then so much the more can we preach with urgency.

5. To sum it up, when a preacher gets a fresh burden from God and conveys it by
expounding Scripture in the power of the Holy Spirit, he is exercising the gift of
prophecy.
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C. You believe the message is from God with the power to change people’s lives.

1. Because hearts are transformed when people are confronted with the word of God,
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expository preachers are committed to saying what God says.

2. Through the preaching of Scriptures, God encounters men and women to bring them
to salvation (II Tim. 3:16-17). Something awesome happens when God confronts an
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individual through preaching and seizes him by the soul.

8 Chapell, Bryan, Christ-Centered Preaching, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002), 23.
9 Delnay, Robert G., Fire in Your Pulpit, (Schaumburg: Regular Baptist Church, 1990), 20.
10 Delnay, 20.
11 Delnay, 18.
12 Chapell, 22.
13 Robinson, Haddon, Biblical Preaching, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981), 18.
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