I’ve just completed Lloyd-Jones’ excellent book, Preaching & Preachers (40 anniversary edition).  His final chapter is all about the need for preachers to be endowed with special power from the Spirit.  What great exhortation!  L-J asks, “Do you always look for and seek this unction, this anointing before preaching? Has this been your greatest concern? There is no more thorough and revealing test to apply to a preacher” (p. 322).  I was a bit embarrassed to think that often my greatest concern is not whether I have the Spirit’s unction, but whether I have “got it right,” “it” being the sermon and the truth of Scripture.  L-J challenged me again to keep highlight both, not one or the other.  I don’t want to preach the truth by myself (without the Spirit’s power).  I don’t want to preach something that’s biblical, but not biblical enough, with the Spirit’s power (if that is even possible?!).  God help us be both Spirit-empowered and accurate in our preaching.  Then, we can expect God to do miracles in all our lives.  L-J encourages us preachers: “But go beyond seeking Him; expect Him. Do you expect anything to happen when you get up to preach in a pulpit….Are you expecting it to be the turning point in someone’s life?” (p. 340).

This post was originally published on April 4, 2012.