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I do not hesitate to take anything from any place at any time that will help make the message clear and powerful. I believe in the old saying, "All originality and no plagiarism makes a dull preacher." A colorful word, a turn of expression, a thought or an illustration or a sentence—anything that I can find to enrich the sermon, I seize. To me everything is grist for the preacher's mill.

After I have gathered all this material together, I begin forming an outline of the message, so that I can use the material in introduction, in development, and in consummation. When a man teaches, he seeks to instruct the mind; but when a man preaches, he seeks to move the will. Every time I preach, the message is driving toward some kind of a goal. There is something that God wants these people to do, to believe, to respond to, to work at, to achieve; and every message ought to carry an appeal (and a dynamic one) for the accomplishing of that purpose.

To preach just to be preaching, to preach to be showy, or ostentatious, or brilliant, is a travesty on the name of religion. Preaching is for a holy and heavenly purpose: to win the lost, to edify the saints, and to move a whole community and city and nation God-ward. Every time the preacher stands up to preach, he ought to have before him some definite thing he prays the congregation will do. It may be that he wants the people to tithe, or to read the Bible, or to quit their meanness, or to rear their children right, or to love God, or to witness to the lost, or to know what the Lord says about the end of the world and to prepare for that judgment. But whatever the sermon or the message, it ought to be directed toward the achievement of that holy purpose.

Now let me say a word about the method of the delivery of a sermon. Every man must make a choice that fits his own personality, but to me the only way to preach is without notes. By the time I have prepared the sermon, I do not need any notes. I know the message up and down, back and forth, in the middle and at both ends. I could start any place and preach in any direction, toward the front or toward the back. To get up in the pulpit and not know my message would be unthinkable. If it meant that little to me, how could I expect it to mean any more to others?

Notes are a nuisance and stand in the way. It would be unusual if I used notes in talking to you personally. When I talk to you personally, I do it face to face and heart to heart. When I preach to you, it will be no less personal. It will be eye to eye, mind to mind, soul to soul, with the fervent prayer that God will bless the message I seek to deliver. Do you suppose Peter preached his Pentecostal sermon from notes? Do you suppose Paul used notes for his incomparable message to the Ephesian elders at Miletus? I think they spoke out of the burning of their souls. May God grant that we do no less and no other today.

This article originally appeared in our December 9, 1966, issue. W.A. Criswell was senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas for 47 years. He died January 10, 2002. He was 92.

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January (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46