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This article originally appeared in our December 9, 1966, issue.

For eighteen years I preached through the Bible. I began at the first verse in Genesis and continued through the last verse in the Revelation. Where I left off in the morning, I picked up in the evening, and thus every Sunday, morning and evening, I followed the message of the Holy Scriptures. God blessed the procedure more than I could ever have hoped.

The response of the people was amazing to me. When I began the series, some of the most discerning church members said I would empty the house of the Lord. Nobody, they said, would continue to come to the services and listen to messages that waded through all those so-called dreary and empty chapters of the Bible. But God had placed it on my heart to begin preaching through the Bible.

The result is a finished story. So many people began coming to God's house that after a while they could not be packed in, although the auditorium is one of the most spacious in America. We finally had to begin holding two morning services. Now, at both hours the auditorium is filled. Our people began bringing their Bibles, reading their Bibles, studying their Bibles. They began witnessing to others as never before. More and more souls were saved. The spirit of revival and refreshment became the daily order in the house of the Lord. It was the greatest experience of my life.

Often I have seen preachers pace up and down the floors of their studies, trying to figure out what they would preach about the next Sunday. I have also found myself pacing up and down, perplexed over the sermon for the following Sunday. But our problems were different. Theirs was what to preach about, where to find a text, what to say. Mine was how to say all I wanted to about the blessed and Holy Scriptures. I found myself like a diver who brings up pearls from the bottom of the sea. For every gem that I brought to the surface and exposed to the congregation, there were ten thousand more lying on the floor of the ocean. It was a new and a marvelous day for me.

After completing the eighteen years of preaching through the Bible, I turned to some of the themes and subjects that greatly interested me along the way. I prepared a series of messages on the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures and another series on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. My preaching through the Bible those many years brought these subjects to the forefront of my mind. I now plan to turn back to some of the books of the Bible and for more extensive study. These messages on some of the key books will, I pray, be doubly meaningful to the congregation and me because of the years of background study we have shared together.

In preparation for these sermons, I always remember that I must have a message to deliver. I am not to preach just because it is 11:00 or 7:30. The Word must burn like a fire in my bones. This is something that God will do for a preacher. As I study the Holy Word, the message I want to deliver is born in my soul. It is a part of the miracle of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. The Word is living and immediately relates itself to our present day and our present problems.

After selecting the Scripture message I am to present (it may be from a word, a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter, a whole book), I immediately begin gathering from every possible source all the information, discussion, and exposition I can find on the passage. I go through volumes of secular history and literature and every other known avenue of information and illustration. I work alone in my library every morning and write out all this material by hand. By the time I have gathered this extensive material to enrich my sermon, I have so thought about it and digested it that it has become a part of my own soul.

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January (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46