Short Sermons | AdventAI

The Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · December 4, 1879

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 54, No. 23

Short Sermons.

“‘VETERAN LAYMAN,’ through the Advocate, has been amusing me in several articles to theological students and ministers, but religious humor has its bounds; so I found when reading his article in the Advocate of Sept. 10. He appears like some other laymen I have met, who know all about preaching, but cannot do it. I fear the pew may sometimes meddle too freely with the pulpit. Veteran Layman cannot control the time unless he controls the thoughts and the composition of a sermon. Least of all is a preacher similar to a race-horse, whose genuine qualities are definable by a watch. Politicians, lawyers, doctors, are not bound by arbitrary limitations of time. The ministerial craft is the most oppressed and persecuted of any. A faithful minister, if he takes more than a half hour out of one hundred and sixty-eight, or thirty minutes out of 10,080 minutes of a whole week, is criticised in the nursery, dining-room, and lyceum, till the children and the old almost despise him. ‘He is too tedious.’”

Brevity is not the most essential quality in a sermon; it is hardly one of the essential qualities. It is an error to lay so much stress upon it as many hearers and even some ministers do. Certainly a large proportion of the sermons that are preached are too long; but the fault most often is less in the length of time occupied than in the matter and structure of the discourse. It is not a good fit to the time. The shortest sermon may be too long if it has no thoughts; a comparatively long one may be too short, if, while it is well constructed, it does not sufficiently develop its central thought. It is by the rule implied in these words, not by the clock, that sermons should be measured. Rather than ask that they all be short, we should desire that they be compact and complete.

A sermon, like every other good work, is made for a purpose. Every one has, or should have, some definite object in view. It may be to enforce or illustrate some truth, to test some article of faith, to instruct, to cheer, to rebuke, to exhort, to awaken. Whatever the object, the discourse ought to be constructed with especial reference to it. Whatever bears upon the object, whatever will help to make the fundamental truth more plain, should be contained in it. Whatever does not conduce to these ends should be left out. It should be long enough to present all the thoughts and illustrations necessary to make its object clear, and impress itself with force upon the hearer; if it is not, the whole purpose of the discourse will be sacrificed to brevity, and it might as well have never been delivered. When the object has been presented with the desirable clearness, it is then time to stop preaching. All elaboration, repetition, exhortation, after that, is worse than useless. It neutralizes the effect of what has been said, and sends the hearers away with vague impressions and confused recollections of high-sounding words, rather than the strong convictions or distinct apprehensions which it ought to give them. A preacher may profitably shorten his sermon by pruning it of trivial thoughts, superfluous words, repetitions, and figures which carry no force of illustration; but he ruins it if he leaves out any important thought in the chain, or if he fails to bring it to its logical conclusion. Hence we are led to pronounce the law to be that the length of the sermon must be determined by its substance.

Dean Swift’s celebrated charity sermon: ‘He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord. My hearers, here you have the terms of the loan. If you like the security, down with the dust’—was long enough. Other sermons have been preached, and are preached still, in numbers, in which two hours are occupied with profit and delight to minister and hearers. Often after such a discourse those who are attentive may go away feeling that they could have sat still longer under the preacher’s words, and not been tired. In the face of these instances, every one may recall occasions on which he has found himself wearied before even the normal half hour has expired.

A sermon is very apt to be too long if a minister does not thoroughly understand his subject. In that case, it is impossible for him to present it clearly. Speaking without aim, ever striving to reach some point which keeps in advance of him, he is almost certain to continue till he and his hearers are quite tired. A very good discourse is often stretched out unreasonably because the preacher does not have his thoughts well arranged, or because he lacks felicity of expression. Dissatisfied with what he has said, or with the way in which he has said it, he will exhaust himself, the congregation, and the hour, with repetitions and explanations, with new efforts to resolve the confusion into which he must fall, under such circumstances, with the effect of only making matters worse. Another man prides himself upon being an extemporaneous preacher. He relies upon the impulse of the moment. He goes into the pulpit and expresses his thoughts as they occur to him, without definite object or arrangement. He never knows when he is done, because he really has nothing in hand to finish, and is certain to be too long, by the watch and by every other criterion. The remedy for the fault of these classes of preachers is in study; study of the subject of the discourse; of the thoughts to be presented, and their logical order, and of the language in which they are to be uttered.

Another class of preachers are full of their subject; they know well what they are to say; but they are fond of presenting their thoughts each in several lights; or they are gifted with a dazzling richness of illustration and imagery. Much may be said in favor of these qualities when they are employed in moderation. It is the excess of them that is objectionable; but even those who have them in excess are not always tedious. They are too often so, however. The remedy for their fault is restraint.

The minister who goes into a pulpit with a clear idea of what he is to say, and of the object he is to attain, or the effect he is to produce by saying it; who has carefully arranged his thoughts so that they shall bear with most force upon each other, and in such a way as to develop the central idea most distinctly; who clothes them in appropriate language and avoids unnecessary phrases, will seldom be found too long if he keeps within any reasonable limits. In no case ought he to be forced or tempted to cut short the discussion of a topic before he has finished it, as though it could be measured like cloth, or to omit anything necessary to round it off completely, as though it could be made a thing of lattice work. Sometimes a theme is presented which cannot be properly disposed of in the extreme time allowed for a sermon. It may be treated in two or more discourses, each of which should be a whole, yet in a certain sense connected with the others.—Advocate.